The Frogs by Aristophanes. Short summary

5 seconds

Dionysus worries about the fate of the theater and decides to go down to Hades to get Euripides from there. There he sees an argument between two poets, Euripides and Aeschylus. After winning the argument, Aeschylus leaves with Dionysus.

1 minute

One day Dionysus, the patron of theaters, began to worry that no great playwrights had appeared in a long time. He decides to descend into Hades and retrieve Euripides, the great author of tragedies. Dionysus asks Hercules how to get into the underworld. Heracles tells him that Charon can translate him.

Dionysus sets out with the slave. On the way he meets the judge Aeaclus, to whom he presents himself as Hercules, wearing a lion’s skin. But Aeaclus is angry, Dionysus is frightened and throws the skin over the slave. The queen’s maid comes up to them and announces that she has been waiting for Heracles for a long time, and Dionysus changes back.

Aeaclus tries to figure out which of the two is really Hercules, but he fails, and decides to send them to Hades to sort it out. The travelers enter the palace, where a dispute is going on between the poets, Aeschylus and Euripides.

Dionysus becomes their judge. Aeschylus says that Euripides’ plays teach him nothing, and Euripides declares that Aeschylus has a heavy syllable. Dionysus gives victory to Aeschylus, and they both leave Hades.