Three Plays by Aristophanes. Staging Women ed. by Jeffrey Henderson (review)

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 175 tion on the death of Polyxena of its (typically Euripidean) gnomic conclusion (see Collard's defence of these verses in his note ad loc.). Except for certain matters of interpretation on which different readers of Euripides often tend to disagree, most of the criticisms ventured in this review concern minor points. Volume 2 of Kovacs' Euripides iso particularly in its clear and readable translations of the four plays involved. a worthy successor of his well-received initial volume. O.J. CONACHER TRINITY COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TORONTO. ON MSS lAI JEFFREY HENDERSON, tr. and ed. Three Plays by Aristaphanes. Staging Warnen. London and New York: Routledge. 1996. Pp. xi + 244. ISBN 0415907438, 0415907446 (pbk). In this volume Henderson presents straightforward and accurate translations of what are now popularly if erroneously called the "women plays" of Aristophanes (although thankfully not by Henderson himself). Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria. and Assemblywomen (Ecc1esiazusad. Line numbers are given for the translations rather than to the original Creek text. This is likely to be something of a disadvantage for Creekless students seeking to refer to specific lines in the original text: the lines translated are referred to only at the head of each page. The translations are prefaced with a general introduction to Aristophanes. the world of Old Comedy. and the role of women in the dramatist's work. Each play is also equipped with a detailed introduction. which sets the play in its historical context and summarises its plot and main dramatic features. At the end of the book there is an appendix of fragments from lost Aristophanic plays dealing with women, notes on points of detail in the plays themselves. and an up-to-date and very useful bibliography (although few non-English works are included) aimed at leading the interested reader into modern work on the plays. their background. and the study of gender issues in the ancient world. Sadly, there is no index, although a book such as this really deserves to have one. Even in his most accessible works such as Birds or Clouds Aristophanes is never an easy author to appreciate. demanding as he does a specialised knowledge of contemporary Athenian culture and politics which is now beyond the reach even of many classicists. The present BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS work is therefore particularly welcome. for it is difficult to think of any English speaking scholar better qualified than Henderson to undertake a translation of this kind. In his doctoral dissertation. published in 1975 as The Maculate Muse (Yale V.P.. 2d edition 1991), he presented for the first time a comprehensive and painstaking philological analysis of the psychosexuallandscape of Old Comedy. a not-solevel playing field for the na·ive and unwary on which. as Henderson demonstrates. every protuberance is a potential phallus. every hoilow and delI a lurking vagina. Subsequently Henderson went on to produce a much admired commentary on Lysistrata (Oxford 1987), situating the drama firmly in its historical context and illuminating many aspects of its language and unusual structure. This is the background on which he has been able to draw in preparing these translations. In his general Introduction Henderson has sections firstlyon what little is known of Aristophanes himself. then H. Old Comedy: Production and Competition (The Dramatic Festivals. The Dramatic Genres. Drama and Democracy. The Dramatic Competition. Formative Traditions . Comic Politics); III. Performance (Theater and Audience. Actors and Chorus. The Formal Structures of Comedy); IV. Women in Aristophanic Comedy (The State of the Evidence. The Normative System. Comic Portrayals. Gender-Specific Characteristics of Comedy); and V. Notes on the Translation. Although one may quibble with points of detail here and there (5 and 15. on the capacity of the Theater of Dionysus: was it really 17.000 in the 4IO'S?; 18. a slightly raised stage, with 2 or 3 doors in the skene building?). there is a wealth of up-todate material here which has been summarised succinctly and competently and is presented to us with a minimum of fuss. Although the temptation to slip into a type of rhyming doggerel has occasionally proved irresistible (e.g. the antistrophe at Lys. 54 I ff.. or the words...