upon awakening hostile and combative feelings. Personal violence and
threats are with him common stage devices. We have here as much "fist
sauce," and shaking of sticks, and as many pommellings, boxings of ears,
and threats of assault and battery as in any modern harlequinade.

Next in order, we come to consider some of the many instances in
Aristophanes of what may be called optical humour--that in which the
point principally depends upon the eye. Thus he makes Hercules say he
cannot restrain his laughter on seeing Bacchus wearing a lion's skin
over a saffron robe. A Megarian reduced to extremities, determines to
sell his little daughters as pigs, and disguises them accordingly.[12]
In the Thesmophoriazusæ, there is a shaving scene, in which the man
performed upon has his face cut, and runs away, "looking ridiculous with
only one side of his face shaven." In another play where the ladies have
stolen the gentlemen's clothes, the latter come on the stage in the
most ludicrous attire, wearing saffron-coloured robes, kerchiefs, and
Persian slippers. In another, the chorus is composed of men representing
wasps, with waists pinched in, bodies striped with black and yellow, and
long stings behind. The piece ends with three boys disguised as crabs,
dancing a furious breakdown, while the chorus encourages them with,
"Come now, let us all make room for them, that they may twirl themselves
about. Come, oh famous offsprings of your briny father!--skip along the
sandy shore of the barren sea, ye brothers of shrimps. Twirl, whirl
round your foot swiftly, and fling up your heels in the air like
Phrynicus, until the spectators shout aloud! Spin like a top, pass along
in circle, punch yourself in the stomach, and fling your leg to the sky,
for the King himself, who rules the sea, approaches, delighted with his
children!"

The greater the optical element in humour, the lower and more simple it