Page 9 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS and Euphorias IV

Galiet & Galiet
What wondrous feelings the Thesmophoria must have inspired in the ancient Greek women. A fertility festival held near the magnificent Acropolis in autumn in honor of Demeter and her daughter Persephone between the 11th and 13th of the month of Pyanopsion (our October and November) to celebrate their mysterious rituals outside the hammocks of men. Such rituals perhaps included lamentation, fasting, laughter, feasting and ritual obscenity.
In Aristophanes Thesmophoriasuzae,1 the women of Athens, gathered to celebrate their annual festival of the Thesmophoria, plot against Euripides for having violated the sanctity of female power in the domestic realm by his vile and disturbing misrepresentations of women in his plays. As soon as Euripides finds out about the women’s conspiracy against him, his immediate recourse is to ask Agathon, an effeminate poet, to infiltrate the assembly of women in order to spy on the women’s deliberations. However, Agathon refuses and Euripides resorts to the help of Mnesilochus, his relative, who volunteers to be shaved, dressed up and be transformed into a woman so that he may infiltrate the women’s assembly to find out their secret agenda and defend Euripides from his fateful demise. Although Mnesilochus tries his very best, his behaviour is too bold, too uncouth, too masculine and too eager to expose the truth about women. In the end, the whole plan backfires on him and Euripides. The suspicious women, alerted earlier by Kleisthenes, quickly uncover his guise.
While the women call the Scythian archer to detain Mnesilochus for his crime and transgressions, he tries to unsuccessfully escape with the aid of Euripides. In the end, Euripides negotiates a truce with the women in the assembly: he will no longer abuse them by saying untruthful things about their existence as long as they release Mnesilochus. Although the women agree to these terms, Euripides is compelled to negotiate his relative’s release directly with the Scythian archer since his imprisonment is no longer held in their hands. Euripides resorts to his last trick: he acts as a procuress who uses a dancer-flute-girl to flirt and distract the Scythian archer so that he may release Mnesilochus from his bonds and have him escape. In the end, the Scythian archer, finding out that he has been fooled, in frantic panic, runs from one side of the stage to the other, trying to determine
1 Hadas, Moses. The Complete Plays of Aristophanes. New York, USA: Bantam Books. 1988. 329-366.
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