A是個多產(chǎn)的寫手

前四個里頭的劇都是A寫的

1. 時間：Lenaia 424 劇名 the success of KNIGHTS,

2.時間in 427 劇名very first play BANQUETERS ,

3 時間(the first performance in 423)劇名the Failure of Clouds

4 ?時間(ALL in late 420s )劇名WASPS and ?PEACE

Intro 開頭告知讀者，clouds came third out of three（waspas, peace, clouds）, then A 同學(xué)might have revised the Clouds due to the so-called failure)

順道提醒讀者如果只是因為首演失敗revised clouds解釋不了下面三個問題

5 REVISED 的原因不足以解釋其三部共通的特質(zhì)

a>chorus are supposed to be a NEW Sokartic deities( to be the guardians of traditional morality)

b>central character’s failure

c>most important of all, the curious relationship between this central character and the figure of Sokrates

6緊接著說明Two notorious references to clouds in Plato's ?Aplolgy

First reference:劃重點（此處P和S是有著怎樣的淵源噢！S 你負(fù)責(zé)其the existence of animosity + prosecution）the orthodox view is that Plato represents S ?as making Clouds itself partly to blame for the existence of animosity towards him and for his eventual prosecution

CAN THAT BE RIGHT?

Second reference: P makes S uses Clouds to illustrate the kind of image that many Athenians had of him, he does so in a way which separates comic from the damaging social forces of animus and malice

里面有個背景需要交代下 S’s false reputation

S first mention of Clouds in the Apology occurs(he has had a false reputation for two types of interests:

a>esoteric and perhaps”metaphysical” questions ;

b>making the weaker argument into the stronger )

有意思的是S says its impossible to name those who have spread these slanders unless one of them happens to be a comic poet.

直接指向A同學(xué)的CLOUDS (the UNMISTAKABLE ALLUSION to A and CLOUDS is immediately followed)

總之乞封，S draws a strong contrast “CLOUDS itself is not part of the serious social force of animus and malice”

7 three large problems with P’ perspective on Clouds in the Apology

First, it is questionable whether S’ total denial of interest in speculative forms of philosophical enquiry is the whole truth about him. ?佐證之一在P的PHAEDO書里表面S admits he was interested in when young(in P’s phaedo)

Secondly, the references in the Apology pick out only certain headline themes of Clouds

Thirdly, The apology itself does not explain why the application(corrupting the young / how he has deleterious effect, they fall back on cliches used against ALL philosophers) to S should have led to such an exceptional resentment ,let alone to the prosecution.

第三點在P的apology 不足以解釋其CLICHES如是針對所有哲學(xué)家帖世，為啥單單S獲得如此“殊榮”的prosecution

8所以結(jié)論是如下兩句話梢灭，一沒法斷定P’s apology 二也無法說明CLOUDS取具，他們對于S的 condemnation OR execution 負(fù)責(zé)

it remains highly dubious, therefore, whether P’s apology should be read as ascribing to Clouds a genuinely influential role in arousing hostility towards the historical S.

it is intrinsically implausible that a play was not received by the judges on that occasion, could been a significant causal element in the process that led to the condemnation and execution of S.

9 此處呢价认，插入個編外話缤底，就是這個詞 ambiguous,第一次出現(xiàn)應(yīng)該在第六頁INTRO中布讹，如下

P’s intent does not supply an adequate basis on which to assess the comedy’s ambiguous relationship to the domain represented by S.

大致告訴讀者，P的意圖不完全能解釋出以S為首的intellectual和劇中的ambiguous relationship

插這個是因為后面又提及another layer to that ambiguity在intro最后部分有提

10終于在intro的第7頁開始劇透clouds

Clouds 難懂有其原因：the plot of Clouds begins from the realm of perceptions of “philosophers”. But it does not provide its audience with a fixed relationship to such perceptions.

Clouds 包括了有主角例如：STREP等 （Strepsiades, the na?ve bumpkin, and S, the lofty head of the thinking institute）

這些人物其實在P的書里有提及：Clouds exploits some of the popular stereotypes of “the philosopher” to which Plato’s Apology itself refers.

接下來說主角STREP训堆，他原本期望去學(xué)校學(xué)會兩樣事情描验，一是natural philosophy/science 二是（cynically amoral）rhetoric （intro里英文Strepsiades’ expectations of the school comprise two main elements: natural philosophy/science and (cynically amoral) rhetoric (94–9). ）

HOWEVER學(xué)會第二件事情屬于he hopes to harness to his own immoral ends (cheating his creditors)

去了學(xué)校才發(fā)現(xiàn)，他入坑了坑鱼。

Once he is introduced to the thinking institute and to S, Strep is confronted with a new religion, forced to undergo a ritual of self-scrutiny and mental exercises.

所以最終的結(jié)果就是這樣膘流，無論是丈夫（his quasi-morganatic marriage 貴賤通婚）還是父親亦或是去thinking institute 最終STREP turns into a Failed comic protagonist.

一負(fù)債累累二兒子rebounds against Strep’s plan三能力有限 be incapable of learning anything

在INTRO第8頁下描述中

A misfit as both husband and father; reduced to the desperation of a self-deceiving hope of never paying back a single obol of his debts; and repeatedly shown to be incapable of learning anything

在INTRO第10頁上描述中

He is precipitated from his original financial difficulties, via a miserable failure to influence his son’s behaviour (119–25), into gradual humiliation at the hands of the intellectuals in whose special powers he believes. （在PLAY里126，888都有體現(xiàn)）

再此過程中呼股，譯者將STREP與A的其他角色進(jìn)行比較耕魄，原文句子如此描述Strep differs from other protagonists in his ethical character as well as his sociological profile.強(qiáng)調(diào)STREP的a unique protagonist

Strep is a victim, not a controller, of events.

與STREP進(jìn)行比較的A的其他PLAYS人物

Dikaiopolis in Acharnians/Trygaios in Peace/Peisetairos in Birds/Philokleon in Wasps

另外于主角Step’s Strep’s attitude to S school is a paradoxical mixture of ignorance and admiration(from the outset)

所謂IGNORANCE和ADMIRATION

無知體現(xiàn)在一不知RIGHT NAME二無法GRASP sci and tech points,具體如下

a> Srep does not know the right name for the inhabitants of the school

b> later in the play, he will show an even grosser failure to grasp a variety of scientific and technical points.

崇敬體現(xiàn)于Rhetorical expertise的習(xí)得，可以助他his own immoral ends accomplished(cheating his creditors)

His faith in intellectuals will remain undiminished.

People like S also posses a Rhetorical expertise which could guarantee you success.

所以才有了對于S神一般的描述S treats a formula encapsulating the amoral versatility of rhetorical technique (turning the weaker argument into the stronger) as a sure recipe for achieving his own immoral ends(112-18).最愛的其中一句英文在此

在INTRO第10頁有提及On neither occasion, significantly, does Sokrates offer to satisfy Strepsiades’ desires.

His mounting impatience at this experience twice breaks out expressly: first at 655–7, and again at 738–9, On neither occasion, significantly, does Sokrates offer to satisfy Strepsiades’ desires.

至于主角的兒子PHEID , he draws attention to a contradiction within his father’s position between the idea of the philosopher-intellectuals as both pursuing abstruse ideas and as possessors of a key to practical success. But this contradiction is important for the play as a whole

最后關(guān)于為啥吸引主角來SCHOOL的原因以及他錯信了UNINTELLECTUAL MAN

The comic paradox of Strepsiades’ attitudes is that they represent a gullible trust placed in intellectuals by a supremely unintellectual man.

The very clichés picked out by Plato as characterizing popular prejudice against philosophers (p. 6 above) are the basis of Strepsiades’ attraction to Sokrates’ school.

疑問在此：Cliches 是P所PICKED OUT 出來的彭谁，而這些都是針對philosophers 從而吸引了STREP來到 S的 SCHOOL

感覺劇情有點繞吸奴？

還有一句我也沒讀大懂

When Strepsiades voices his expectations of the Thinking Institute at 94–9, therefore, at least some members of the audience are likely to have seen him as ludicrous precisely in virtue of his ignorant reliance on some of the clichés used, as we saw Plato attesting (Apology 23d), against philosophers in general—except that Strepsiades, to reiterate the crucial point, is supposedly pro, not contra, Sokrates’ school.

意思是STREP本應(yīng)該支持而非反對SCHOOL？里面仍然提及到了P的APOLOGY

所以我不懂的地方可能在于 P的作品如何影響到劇情里STREP對于SCHOOL的態(tài)度

11 As the play develops, we are given a picture of the Thinking Institute as housing at least five types of intellectual/philosophical enquiry （五個類型非常有意思缠局，具體請看INTRO的11頁则奥，很豐富的分類）

who are the sophists??請看12頁的注解16

12 此處說明下A希望spectators

1〉能做到不要聯(lián)系至某個特定THINKER身上not to take the comic portrait literal-mindedly as corresponding to any specific thinker or thinkers

First,

Whatever else Aristophanes wishes his audience to infer about Sokrates and his school, he must expect them to have at least a rudimentary awareness of the diversity of ideas and interests associated with the inhabitants of the phrontistêrion at various points in the play, and not to take the comic portrait literal-mindedly as corresponding to any specific thinker or thinkers.18

2〉希望能超越主角理解至他理解不了的the hearer can understand what the protagonist himself misunderstands:

Secondly,

if spectators did not possess some ability to recognize the play’s manipulation and mixing of different intellectual types, they would be in precisely the same position of ignorance as Strepsiades himself, and would accordingly be unable to appreciate the comedy of his ineptitude and mental incompetence.

劇情里頭的例證就是所謂的梗在此：the symbolic nature of maps (206–17); Sokrates’ materialist ‘theory of mind’ (227–36); meteorological causation (369–411); or the nature of poetic metres (638–56).

A完全是寫給能所謂看懂的觀眾看皮迟，可惜第一次公演失旙凹堋制市！證明a希望的觀眾貌似沒有做到后面提及的cleverness

In short, the comic dynamic of Clouds cannot be aligned one-sidedly with the satire or mockery of just one of these extremes: it depends on its audience’s ability to savour the interlocking absurdities of both.

13 Before that, however, I need to say something about the play’s set-piece debate (the first ‘a(chǎn)gon’, 949–1104) between the personified ‘a(chǎn)rguments’ Moral and Immoral, since it is this which, for many critics, forms the climax of the work’s satire of Sokrates’ school as a place which harbours deeply dangerous and subversive ways of thinking.

接下里分析AGON 包括了feature of the agon/ the first agon of clouds

One highly pertinent feature of the AGON of Clouds is the disparity it creates between the persona of Immoral and the general depiction of Sokrates and his pupils.

This disparity highlights an underlying comic contradiction in the play as a whole:

But there is a further, and equally fundamental, observation to be made about the AGON.

It also connects the values at stake less to the thought-world of intellectuals than to the state of Athenian society in general.這句是反映出來當(dāng)下政治譏諷劇情外的雅典社會現(xiàn)狀么伙判？

下面是例子

This is evident near the start, when Immoral happily agrees to show himself to the audience: ‘. . . the bigger the crowd | The more I’ll argue you into the ground,’ he asserts (891–2), thereby pro- claiming himself some sort of populist. When he goes on to claim that his novel arguments will bring him success, Moral retorts by blaming the prevalence of such things on ‘these idiots sitting in front of us here’ (897–8), that is, the audience itself (whom Immoral immediately woos as ‘clever’, 899) as notionally representative of Athenian democratic culture and its supposed susceptibility to corrupt rhetorical techniques. This is underscored by Moral’s later exclamation about the madness of ‘the city | That nurtures you | To drip poison into the minds of the young’ (926–8).

The first agon of Clouds, then, puts its contemporary audience in a paradoxical position 這段我沒有全貼（intro的15頁）這里的POINT是不支持無論是哪方班套。误证。蛀醉。IMMORAL’s side OR MORAL’s side

But if that is right, it forms a parallel to the earlier parts of the play, where spectators need to be able to relish from both sides, as it were, the polarized contrast between the abstruse intellectual and the obtuse rustic. Standard interpretations of Clouds as an anti-intellectual critique of ‘new’ thinkers founder on the basic ambiguity of the play’s comic perspective.

the polarized contrast between the abstruse intellectual and the obtuse rustic.終于出現(xiàn)了我讀intro時第二愛的另外一句英文在此著摔。

Abstruse=abstract use

Obtuse= obstacle use

感覺分析時候別忘記了主角的婚姻背景

14 A希望觀眾能做到的是后面INTRO所提及的cleverness &newness

Aristophanes wishes to be thought a clever or skilful poet (520) and Clouds to be thought the ‘cleverest’ of his comedies (522).

用何種方式呢 in what way?

He claims to shun (avoid) the trite(unoriginal) routines of comic vulgarity(inelegance) and offers constant dramatic inventiveness, originality, and sophistication (537–48).

Furthermore, his work appeals to, and calls for, spectators who are themselves sophisticated and clever (521, 526–7, 535, cf. 575).

15 parabasis of clouds

讀完感覺界定了啥是new thinking

It ironically highlights the fact that Clouds itself is a rather intellectualizing comedy, a work which makes intricate, knowing use, for its own purposes, of philosophical, scientific, and other intellectual ideas and motifs, and which is accordingly locked into a comically incestuous relationship with the materials of ‘new’ thinking.

16

In addition A 是在尋找對的觀眾----失敗的原因在這self-evident

In addition, it is a play which, as Aristophanes insists, came looking for—but had trouble finding—a clever audience (535), spectators with the knowledge and sophistication to appreciate how cleverly the poet was manipulating his themes and to laugh at the rustic dimwittedness of Strepsiades himself. Hence, as I have emphasized, the ambiguity which underlies the play’s relationship to the sphere of modern intellectualism from which it extracts its comic materials.

17 the play’s ending

S 和他的followers有沒有被燒死绎谦？ 答案是沒有

STREP甚至去乞求HERMES的庇護(hù)來放火燒管闷，CRITICS大題小做了TORCHES

But there is one remaining problem to address, and that is the play’s ending.

Strepsiades complains to the chorus, but is told by them that the situation is his own fault, the result of his wicked desires (1452–62).

he admits the charge (1462–4)—but decides, nonetheless, on revenge against Sokrates’ school (1464–6).

When Pheidippides refuses to help his father, Strepsiades prays to Hermes(宙斯和邁亞的兒子，12主神之一窃肠，赫爾墨斯) for advice and purports (in what is probably framed as ludicrous self-deception) to receive sanction（approval） for setting fire to the Thinking Institute (1478–85), which he proceeds to do with the help of his slaves.

18

Critics often claim that the end of Clouds shows Sokrates and his disciples (followers)being ‘burned to death’ inside the building. Neither the text nor the conventions of comedy support that reading.

解釋原因為啥CRITICS小題大做了TORCHES

The ‘fire’ will have been a kind of pantomime fiction; it is essentially no different in kind—though critics often conveniently overlook this—from the precipitate and crazy comic aggression of the old men at Lysistrata 269–70 or the similar belligerence of the women at Women at the Thesmophoria 726–7.

In any case, Clouds 1508 clearly suggests that the philosophers escape from the house and are chased off by an angry Strepsiades

Making sense of the end of Clouds is not so straightforward.

In any case, Strepsiades has been an abject failure and a specimen of naive stupidity throughout the play

In terms of its dramatic impact, moreover, it is also important that Strepsiades’ action receives no support from others (his slaves apart). He is a comic loner.

Clouds, by contrast, ends in Strepsiades’ failure, which finds an expressive outlet in, but is not cancelled out by, his wild act of arson.

19A 為啥REVISED的原因猜測再此

If it is true, as the ancient commentators reported, that the ending of Clouds was one of the parts which was changed in the (unfinished) second version, it is reasonable to infer that Aristophanes was trying to rescue some dramatic control for Strepsiades, belatedly converting him from a passive failure into at least a frenetically energetic agent. But by doing so, the playwright arguably exposes the dramatic ‘deficit’ involved in seeking one-sided closure for a work which has depended so heavily on the counterbalancing of opposite comic extremes.