Source edition
Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.
Source data
Perseus Digital Library · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.
Summary
This comedy begins as Dionysus, the god of drama, embarks on a journey to the Underworld to bring back a great deceased tragic poet to save the declining theater on Earth. Accompanied by his clever slave Xanthias and disguised as Heracles, Dionysus encounters numerous obstacles, including the ferryman Charon, a noisy chorus of frogs, and various farcical mix-ups regarding their disguises. Upon arriving in the Underworld, they find themselves in the middle of a heated dispute between the two great tragedians, Aeschylus and Euripides, over the prestigious throne of tragedy. Dionysus is appointed as the judge and presides over a dramatic debate where the poets criticize each other's style, metrics, and moral influence, even weighing their verses physically on a scale. Finally, after posing questions about how to save the city of Athens, Dionysus follows his heart and chooses Aeschylus as the winner to accompany him back to the land of the living.