Editing Euripides (section)

===A comic life===
Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals [[Dionysia]] and [[Lenaia]], and Euripides was travestied more than most. [[Aristophanes]] scripted him as a character in at least three plays: ''[[The Acharnians]]'', ''[[Thesmophoriazusae]]'' and ''[[The Frogs]]''. But Aristophanes also borrowed, rather than merely satirized, some of the tragedian's methods; he was himself ridiculed by [[Cratinus]], another comic poet, as: 
{{Verse translation|lang=grc|italicsoff=yes|rtl1=|ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωμιδιώτης,
εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων|a quibbler of words, a maker of maxims, 
a Euripidaristophaniser|attr1=Cratinus F 342<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Cratinus
 |others=Storey, I. C. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2011
 |title=Cratinus F 342, in ''Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume I: Alcaeus to Diocles''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=412
 |isbn=978-0-674-99662-5
}}</ref>|attr2=Storey<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Cratinus
 |others=Storey, I. C. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2011
 |title=Cratinus F 342, in ''Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume I: Alcaeus to Diocles''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=413
 |isbn=978-0-674-99662-5
}}</ref>}}
According to another comic poet, [[Teleclides]], the plays of Euripides were co-authored by the philosopher Socrates:<ref>Duane Reed Stuart, ''Epochs and Greek and Roman Biography'', Biblo and Tannen Booksellers and Publishers' Inc. (1928), p. 174</ref>

{{Verse translation|lang=grc|italicsoff=yes|rtl1=|Μνησίλοχός ἐστ᾿ ἐκεῖνος, <nowiki><</nowiki>ὃς<nowiki>></nowiki> φρύγει τι δρᾶμα καινόν
Εὐριπίδῃ, καὶ Σωκράτης τὰ φρύγαν᾿ ὑποτίθησιν.
[...] Εὐριπίδης σωκρατογόμφους.
|Mnesilochus is the man <nowiki><who></nowiki> is roasting a new play for 
Euripides, and Socrates is laying down the kindling.
[...] Euripides bolted together with Socrates|attr1=Teleclides, F41-42<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Teleclides
 |others=Storey, I. C. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2011
 |title=Teleclides F 41, F 42, in ''Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume III: Philonicus to Xenophon. Adespota''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=304
 |isbn=978-0-674-99677-9
}}</ref>|attr2=Storey<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Teleclides
 |others=Storey, I. C. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2011
 |title=Teleclides F 41, F 42, in ''Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume III: Philonicus to Xenophon. Adespota''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=305
 |isbn=978-0-674-99677-9
}}</ref>}}
Aristophanes alleged that the co-author was a celebrated actor, Cephisophon, who also shared the tragedian's house and his wife,<ref>Alan H. Sommerstein, ''Aristophanes: Lysistrata, The Acharnians, The Clouds'', Penguin Books (1973), note 35, p. 241</ref> while Socrates taught an entire school of quibblers like Euripides:
{{Verse translation|lang=grc|italicsoff=yes|rtl1=|χαρίεν οὖν μὴ Σωκράτει
παρακαθήμενον λαλεῖν
ἀποβαλόντα μουσικὴν
τά τε μέγιστα παραλιπόντα
τῆς τραγῳδικῆς τέχνης.
τὸ δ᾿ ἐπὶ σεμνοῖσιν λόγοισι
καὶ σκαριφησμοῖσι λήρων
διατριβὴν ἀργὸν ποιεῖσθαι,
παραφρονοῦντος ἀνδρός 
|So what's stylish is not to sit
beside Socrates and chatter,
casting the arts aside
and ignoring the best
of the tragedian’s craft.
To hang around killing time
in pretentious conversation
and hairsplitting twaddle
is the mark of a man who's lost his mind
<!--translation-->|attr1=Aristophanes, ''Frogs'' [1490–99]<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Aristophanes
 |others=Henderson, J. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2002
 |title=Frogs, in ''Aristophanes IV''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=230
 |isbn=978-0-674-99596-3
}}</ref>|attr2=Henderson<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Aristophanes
 |others=Henderson, J. (ed. and trans.)
 |date=2002
 |title=Frogs, in ''Aristophanes IV''
 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
 |page=231
 |isbn=978-0-674-99596-3}}</ref>}}
In ''The Frogs'', written when Euripides and Aeschylus were dead, Aristophanes has the god [[Dionysus]] venturing down to [[Hades]] in search of a good poet to bring back to Athens. After a debate between the shades of Aeschylus and Euripides, the god brings Aeschylus back to life, as more useful to Athens, for his wisdom, rejecting Euripides as merely clever. Such comic 'evidence' suggests that Athenians admired Euripides even while they mistrusted his intellectualism, at least during the long war with Sparta. Aeschylus had written his own epitaph commemorating his life as a warrior fighting for Athens against Persia, without any mention of his success as a playwright; and Sophocles was celebrated by his contemporaries for his social gifts, and contributions to public life as a state official; but there are no records of Euripides' public life except as a dramatist—he could well have been "a brooding and bookish recluse".<ref>Moses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. viii</ref> He is presented as such in ''The Acharnians'', where Aristophanes shows him to be living morosely in a precarious house, surrounded by the tattered costumes of his disreputable characters (and yet [[Agathon]], another tragic poet, is discovered in a later play, ''[[Thesmophoriazusae]]'', to be living in circumstances almost as bizarre). Euripides' mother was a humble vendor of vegetables, according to the comic tradition, yet his plays indicate that he had a liberal education and hence a privileged background.<ref name="GJ 252" />