Now let us raise in a different strain With other behavior, In measures more sober, submissive, and graver. SEMI-CHORUS Ceres, holy patroness, Both the Chorus and the Bard; Many things to sing and say, Grant them with the present play SEMI-CHORUS Now call again, and with a different measure, The florid, active Bacchus, bright and gay, SEMI-CHORUS O Bacchus, attend! the customary patron of every lively lay; Go forth without delay Thy wonted annual way, To meet the ceremonious holy matron: Thine airy footsteps tracing With unlaborious, light, celestial motion: And here at thy devotion In pitiful attire: All overworn and ragged, To sport throughout the day; With whom we romped and reveled, With their bosoms open,— Bac. -- Disposed to mirth and ease: And I will if you please. A PARODY OF EURIPIDES'S LYRIC VERSE H From The Frogs ALCYONS ye by the flowing sea Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film, Silver notes of the whistling loom, Where the light-footed dolphin skips Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships, Over the course of the racing steed Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night! But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man 11-50 THE PROLOGUES OF EURIPIDES From The Frogs' [The point of the following selection lies in the monotony of both narrative style and metre in Euripides's prologues, and especially his regula: cæsura after the fifth syllable of a line. The burlesque tag used by Aris tophanes to demonstrate this effect could not be applied in the same way to any of the fourteen extant plays of Sophocles and Æschylus.] Eschylus-And by Jove, I'll not stop to cut up your verses word by word, but if the gods are propitious I'll spoï all your prologues with a little flask of smellingsalts. Euripides-With a flask of smelling-salts? Esch. With a single one. For you build your verses so that anything will fit into the metre,-a leathern sack, or eider-down, or smelling-salts. I'll show you. Eur. So, you'll show me, will you? Esch.-I will that. Esch Ægyptus, as broad-bruited fame reports, lost his smelling-salts. Dion.--What the mischief have the smelling-salts got to do with it? Recite another prologue to him and let me see. Eur. Esch Dionysus, thyrsus-armed and faun-skin-clad, -lost his smelling-salts. Dion. Caught out again by the smelling-salts. Eur.- No matter. Here's a prologue that he can't fit 'em to. No lot of mortal man is wholly blest: The high-born youth hath lacked the means of life, Esch -lost his smelling-salts. Dion.- Euripides Eur. Dion. Eur. Well, what? Best take in sail. These smelling-salts, methinks, will blow a gale. Dion.- Well, recite another, and steer clear of the smelling-salts. Esch. Cadmus departing from the town of Tyre, Son of Agenor -lost his smelling-salts. Dion. My dear fellow, buy those smelling-salts, or there won't be a rag left of all your prologues. Eur. What? I buy 'em of him? Dion. If you'll be advised by me. Eur. Not a bit of it. I've lots of prologues where he can't work 'em in. Esch. Pelops the Tantalid to Pisa coming -lost his smelling-salts. Dion. There they are again, you see. Do let him have 'em, my good Æschylus. You can replace 'em for a nickel. Eur.- Never. I've not run out yet. Eneus from broad fields -lost his smelling-salts. Esch. Eur. Let me say the whole verse, won't you? Esch. Eneus from broad fields reaped a mighty crop -lost his smelling-salts. Dion.- While sacrificing? Who filched them? Eur.-Oh, never mind him. Let him try it on this verse: Zeus, as the word of sooth declared of old Dion. It's no use, he'll say Zeus lost his smelling-salts. For those smelling-salts fit your prologues like a kid glove. But go on and turn your attention to his lyrics. 788 ARISTOTLE (B. C. 384-322) BY THOMAS DAVIDSON HE Stagirite," called by Eusebius "Nature's private secretary," and by Dante "the master of those that know,”— the greatest thinker of the ancient world, and the most influential of all time,- was born of Greek parents at Stagira, in the mountains of Macedonia, in B. C. 384. Of his mother, Phæstis, almost nothing is known. His father, Nicomachus, belonged to a medical family, and acted as private physician to Amyntas, grandfather of Alexander the Great; whence it is probable that Aristotle's boyhood was passed at or near the Macedonian court. Losing both his parents while a mere boy, he was taken charge of by a relative, Proxenus Atarneus, and sent, at the age of seventeen, to Athens to study. Here he entered the school of Plato, where he remained twenty years, as pupil and as teacher. During this time he made the acquaintance of the leading contemporary thinkers, read omnivo rously, amassed an amount of knowledge that seems almost fabu lous, schooled himself in systematic thought, and (being well off collected a library, perhaps the first considerable private library in the world. Having toward the end felt obliged to assume an independent attitude in thought, he was not at the death of Plato (347) appointed his successor in the Academy, as might have been expected. Not wishing at that time to set up a rival school, he retired to the court of a former fellow-pupil, Hermias, then king of Assos and Atarneus, whom he greatly respected, and whose adopted daughter, Pythias, he later married. Here he remained, pursuing his studies, for three years; and left only when his patron was treacherously murdered by the Persians. Having retired to Mitylene, he soon afterward received an invitation from Philip of Macedonia to undertake the education of his son Alexander, then thirteen years old. Aristotle willingly obeyed this summons; and retiring with his royal pupil to Mieza, a town southwest of Pella, imparted his instruction in the Nymphæum, which he had arranged in imitation of Plato's garden school. Alex. ander remained with him three years, and was then called by hi father to assume important State duties. Whether Aristotle's instruction continued after that is uncertain; but the two men remained fast friends, and there can be no doubt that much of the nobility, self-control, largeness of purpose, and enthusiasm for culture, which |