![]() Dionysos commands Xanthias to get off the donkey, not in order to carry it, but because they have arrived at the god's first destination, the house of Herakles. The Frogs 237 Dionysos, who at the beginning appears to be concerned with the right kind of comedy, soon proves to be concerned above all with the right kind of tragedy. Laughing presupposes suffering, while the reverse is not true. It is more important for us to realize that in the beginning of the Frogs the complaint is not absent, but as it were subordinated to joking or laughter as the relief for complaint. Dionysos isa better arguer than Xanthias, just as he has a better taste than he he deserves to be the master. It is not necessary for our purpose to follow Dionysos, who wonders how Xanthias can be carrying something since he himself is carried, and, after this difficulty is disposed of, why since Xanthias denies that he derives any help from being carried by the donkey, he does not in his turn carry the donkey. Xanthiascomplains about the soreness of his shoulder. Yet Xanthias is eager to make jokes because he wishes relief from the pain caused by the luggage that he is carrying, although he carries the burden while riding on a donkey, whereas his gentle master walks. The Frogs is surely the only comedy that opens with the question, what should a character in the play do with a view to making the audience laugh? This means that the Frogs is the only comedy that does not simply open with a complaint or with moaning. After all, Aristophanes has been bred by. His prohibition reminds us of the distinction between vulgar and Aristophanean comedy that we know from some of the parabaseis Dionysos states the preference ordinarily stated by Aristophanes himself. dom except that of using expressions that disgust Dionysos.His slave Xanthias asks him whether he should say one of the things at which the spectators customarily laugh. ![]() The master is Dionysos himself, the god of the theater. It differs from all plays hitherto discussed by the fact that it opens with a dialogue between a master and a slave. It is the only Aristophanean comedy the action of which proceeds from the design of a god. The Frogs is the only Aristophanean comedy at the beginning of which we see and hear a god. ![]()
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