The reading was about to begin, when suddenly there was torch-light—­a burst of comic singing—­and a knocking at the door; Bacchus bade them open; they delayed.  Then a name was uttered, of “authoritative” sound, of “immense significance;” and the door was opened to—­Aristophanes.  He was returning from the performance of his “Thesmophoriazusae,"[34] last year a failure, but this time, thanks to some new and audacious touches, a brilliant success.  His chorus trooped before him—­himself no more sober than was his wont—­crowned, triumphant, and drunk; a group of flute-boys and dancing-girls making up the scene.  All these, however, slunk away before Balaustion’s glance, Aristophanes alone confronting her.  And, as she declares, it was “no ignoble presence.”  For the broad brow, the flushed cheek, the commanding features, the defiant attitude, all betokened a mind, wantoning among the lower passions, but yet master of them.

He addresses Balaustion in a tone of mock deference; banters her on her poetic name, her dignified mien, and the manner in which she has scared his chorus and its followers away; “not indeed that that matters, since the archon’s economy and the world’s squeamishness will soon abolish it altogether."[35] Then struck by a passing thought, he stands grave, silent—­another man in short—­awaiting what she has to say.

In this sober moment, Balaustion welcomes him to her house.  She welcomes him as the Good Genius:  as genius of the kindly, though purifying humour, which, like summer lighting, illumines, but does not destroy.  She knows and implies that he is not only this.  But she greets the light, no matter to what darkness it be allied.  She reverences the god who forms one half of him, so long as the monster which constitutes the other, remains out of sight; a poetic myth is made to illustrate this feeling.  The gravity, however, is short-lived.  The lower self in Aristophanes springs up again, and his “apology” begins.

“Aristophanes’ APOLOGY” is a defence of comedy, as understood and practised by himself:  that is, as a broad expression of the natural life, and a broad satire upon those who directly or indirectly condemn it.  It is addressed to Euripides in the person of his disciple.  It is at the same time an attack upon him; and in either capacity it covers a great deal of ground.  For the dispute does not lie simply between comedy and tragedy—­which latter, with the old tragedians, was often only the naturalism of comedy on a larger scale—­but between naturalism and humanity, as more advanced thinkers understood it; between the old ideas of human and divine conveyed by tragedy and comedy alike, and the new ones which Euripides, the friend of Socrates, had imported into them; and the question at issue involved, therefore, not only art and morals, but the entire philosophy of life.  The “Apology” derives farther interest and significance from the varied emotions by which it is inspired.  The speaker (as is the case in “Fifine at the Fair”) is answering not only his opponent, but his own conscience.  How the conscience of Aristophanes has been aroused he presently tells:  first struggling a little with the false shame which the experience has left behind.  This is the scene which he describes.