Scenes at the Door in Aristophanic Comedy

Abstract In Brown (2000) I examined doorknocking and related scenes in fifth-century Greek tragedy, and I ended with a brief discussion of three Aristophanic door scenes with tragic colouring (Acharnians 1071–2, 1174–89, Peace 179–84, all discussed again below). It has long been recognized that such scenes (with or without tragic colouring) are particularly at home in comedy, often coming early in the play, and Revermann rightly observes that ‘the motif called for variation’: only thus could it be kept alive as a source of entertainment for the audience. This variation has not been studied in detail (as far as I am aware), and I hope it will be found helpful if I discuss each surviving Aristophanic example in turn. In many cases this will call for discussion of related issues such as what we are to envisage happening on the stage, whether doorknocking in fact takes place, and who answers the door. One element that sometimes contributes to the comedy is the rudeness of the character who answers, but there are other sources of entertainment and surprise as well. For comparison, I shall include discussion of some scenes where a character approaches a door, or summons another character to appear, without knocking; but I shall not discuss every scene that makes use of a door. As far as possible, I shall be scrutinizing the text for evidence of the actions on stage. Oliver Taplin has set us high standards for doing this without indulging in wild flights of fancy, and I hope I shall not fall too far short. Some general points will be made as we go along, but, since my main purpose is to advertise the variety of Aristophanes’ techniques, I shall conclude without a conclusion.