Although Euripides is probably the most modern of the Greek tragedians, Aristophanes may be the most modern of the extant Greek playwrights. If nothing else, Aristophanes' work still provides some humor for those of us keeping a watch on all the book bannings at libraries. I checked out
Lysistrata from a library where a recent battle began over a young adult book that discusses oral sex. (Please keep in mind I am a native of the state now making national news for trying to ban Harry Potter.) Even if the people who try to ban the YA books are not up to the challenge of trying to interpret and fight the text of
Lysistrata, as they admitted was the case for Shakespeare who is considered innocuous because "no one can understand what he's saying," this copy has the most fascinatingly erotic drawing you could ever hope to find. After finding this book, I equate the book banners' attempt to remove what threatens them to be not unlike Pharaoh's attempt, killing all the male children but Moses.
In researching this article, I read two versions of the play and was glad to find few significant differences between the two translations. Glad, I was, because my experience with seeing Aristophanes' work on stage has been a dismal ping-pong of extremes, which include a stuffy version of
Lysistrata where the director didn't seem to know that Greek comedy is possible, and a version of
The Wasps where the belief was that if Aristophanes is good and Aristophanes is vulgar, then vulgar is good and more vulgar is better. The latter of these experiences included water guns, songs about orgies that would appear at any moment in the play regardless of the happenings on stage, and so much grunting that the plot was difficult to follow, especially since the plot did not seem to follow the one Aristophanes wrote. I was glad to find two similar versions because I enjoyed Douglas Parker's translation but was afraid the translator had simply wanted to defend the ways of Aristophanes to modern man. You will find the complete text to
Lysistrata at the
EAWC Anthology where the text is similar but the translator, for some reason, is unknown. I feel vindicated to discover in the reading of these translations that the real work of Aristophanes is somehow the synthesis of the extreme thesis and antithesis that I saw on stage.
