Poet has no limits, his mission is as wide as human nature. It is to
Athens he addresses himself, to the city as a whole; his criticism
embraces morals no less than politics, poetry no less than philosophy; he
does not hesitate to assail the rites and dogmas of Paganism; whatever
affords subject for laughter or vituperation lies within his province;
there he is in his element, scourge in hand, his heart ablaze with
indignation, pitiless, and utterly careless of all social distinctions.

In Politics Aristophanes belongs to the party of the Aristocracy. He
could not do otherwise, seeing that the democratic principle was then
triumphant; Comedy is never laudatory, it lives upon criticism, it must
bite to the quick to win a hearing; its strength, its vital force is
contradiction. Thus the abuses of democracy and demagogy were the most
favourable element possible for the development of Aristophanes' genius,
just because his merciless satire finds more abundant subject-matter
there than under any other form of civil constitution. Then are we
actually to believe that the necessity of his profession as a comic poet
alone drove him into the faction of the malcontents? This would surely be
to wilfully mistake the dignity of character and consistency of
conviction which are to be found underlying all his productions.
Throughout his long career as a dramatist his predilections always remain
the same, as likewise his antipathies, and in many respects the party he
champions so ardently had claims to be regarded as representing the best
interests of the state. It is but just therefore to proclaim
Aristophanes as having deserved well of his country, and to admit the
genuine courage he displayed in attacking before the people the people's
own favourites, assailing in word those who held the sword. To mock at
the folly of a nation that lets itself be cajoled by vain and empty
flatteries, to preach peace to fellow-citizens enamoured of war, was to
fulfil a dangerous rôle, that would never have appealed, we may feel