Comedy and comic discourse in Plato's Laws

ch a p ter 1 3 Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws Lucia Prauscello According to the anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to learn ‘the ways of the Athenians’ public life’ (, r!      ), Plato answered by sending him Aristophanes’ works and advising him to peruse them (  * ( !" ). Anecdotal as this piece of evidence may be, it is not an altogether unfitting reception of some of Plato’s long-standing concerns, in his dialogues, with laughter, and especially comic laughter, as a powerful social and political medium. In particular, Plato’s uneasy relationship with comedy is one of the most intriguing aspects of what Monoson has called his ‘democratic entanglements’. In classical Athens comedy was a festival sponsored by the state and performed by citizens for the citizens themselves: with all its marked distortion of everyday reality, its appeal to ‘free speech’ (  ) and ‘equality’ (.) nevertheless contributed     My sincerest thanks to M. Schofield, G. Lloyd and the anonymous Cambridge referees for improving substantially an earlier version of this chapter. I alone am responsible for any mistakes and/or misunderstandings. Ar. T  ll. – K–A (= Prolegom. de com. i, ia, xxviiii, ll. – Koster). On its possible pro-Athenian origin, see Riginos : . Riginos dates the anecdote as ‘no later than the sixth century ad’ (: ). The bibliography on the subject is endless; I quote here only what I found most relevant for my present argument. Comedy as a form of ritually institutionalized laughter: Halliwell : –, , a and b: –; Rosen : –. On Plato and laughter: McCabe ; Halliwell : – and : –; Rosen : –; Jouët-Pastré  and : –; Rowe ; P. M. Steiner ; Mader  (esp. – on comedy). On Plato’s engagement with comedy as a competing ‘civic’ discourse: Nightingale : –, –; on Plato’s redeployment of comic tropes of speech, see Brock . On the alleged fondness of the historical Plato for Aristophanes, Epicharmus and Sophron, see Riginos : –. Monoson . Plato’s moral interpretation of comedy as a public, if not overtly political, vehicle of communication is, of course, determined by his own philosophical agenda. That is, Plato’s response is only one of the possible audience responses to the complexities of Aristophanes’ self-presentation as a ‘civic voice’ (see Silk a: ). I share here the moderate scepticism expressed by Heath  and now Olson  (esp. –) on the unambiguous seriousness of comic discourse qua political discourse (vs. Jeffrey Henderson  and ).  https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello to the city’s identity as the archetypal democratic polis. Comedy, especially Aristophanic comedy, tends to present itself as a public ‘dispenser of blame and praise – a social critic that claims to speak the unvarnished truth’. My present aim is to explore how comedy and the comic discourse of abuse and ridicule are absorbed, metabolized and redefined within the ‘communicational utopia’ of Magnesia. In doing so, I shall try to show how in the Laws Plato’s revisionist account of comedy and its psychology of emotions, while coherently integrated into his previous reflections on comic laughter and ridicule, draws extensively on rhetorical strategies of self-representation actively advertised by comedy itself. magnesia, the law and its communicative strategies Before treating the passages of the Laws where the Athenian Stranger directly engages with comedy as one of the forms of public utterances allowed in the ‘second best city’ (d–a; c–b), it may be useful to sketch briefly the network of discursive practices mobilized by the divinely inspired lawgiver in order to persuade the citizens of Magnesia that the ‘best’ (V  ) life is also the ‘most pleasant’ (Z  , b). A fundamental premise for the success of this exercise in mass persuasion is the unity and ‘self-likeness’ of Magnesia’s social body. Its citizens must willingly embrace not only shared thoughts and feelings but even shared perceptions (c–d). In order to achieve this result, a ‘correct education’ (+!,   ) must first of all infuse into individuals the experience of a ‘correct’ physiology of pleasure and pain (c–; cf. also a–c). A ‘correct’ way of perceiving pleasure and pain must be activated already through play (   ), before the full development of rational faculties (c– ). The resulting harmony between emotions and reason requires a form of control that must be situated beyond the strictly individual sphere: it         So Carey : ; cf. also Goldhill : . Nightingale : . On Plato’s appropriation of the democratic rhetoric of frank speech beneficial to the whole community, as attested in oratory and comedy, see Monoson : –, and Van Raalte : –. On    (‘bravery’) as ‘a metaphor for comic mockery and satire’ in Aristophanes, see Rosen : ; and Rosen and Sluiter : –. I owe this definition of Plato’s ‘second best’ city to Laks : . For the (prescriptive) notion of ‘comic’ as non coextensive with ‘the laughable’, in both Plato and Aristotle, see Held : – ( on the semantics of   and   ). For convenience’s sake I understand here the Athenian Stranger as Plato’s mouthpiece. On the ‘homogenization of citizenship’ in Plato’s Laws, see recently Sassi : –. On the importance in the Laws of a correct physiology of pleasure for leading a happy life, see Russell : –. On ‘play’ as a mode of existence in the Laws, see Jouët-Pastré , ; for a survey of ‘play’ and ‘childishness’ in Plato, see Morgan : –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  is here that the socializing and educative role of choral performances, a divine gift, becomes an essential tool. Social solidarity and cohesion is grounded in the collective experience of dancing and singing together: rhythmic bodily agreement generates affective bonds, a shared perception of life and its ‘social time’. In Magnesia the performers and recipients of the performance are the same: citizens performing qua citizens by endlessly re-enacting their own self-likeness. In an ideal city where persuasion exercised through public utterances (be they speeches, songs or myths: a–) is the primary form of political communication (c–), the most powerful educative tool, in Plato’s eyes, is to make the discourse of praise and blame, reward and censure, the organizing principle of private and public life. Praise and blame in Magnesia are viewed as exerting equal social power on their intended recipients. They must be ‘correctly bestowed through the laws’ (a, 4"  +!@      ) *@ @  ). The voice of the law in Magnesia is a manifestation of the divine mind (c–): ‘the writings of the lawgiver’ (  (  !" 2 , d) must be the ‘clear touchstone’ (/  . . . -, d–) of all other ‘public discourses’ ( ) of praise and blame (%   4 ) prompted by ‘emulation’ (-   ), be they in verse or prose, written or oral (d–). The discourse of the law will be thus like an ‘antidote to the other speeches’ (!  5 - @ V  , d), helping to ‘correct’ (+! ( ) the good judges and the city itself (d–). Yet, given the limitedness of human nature and its compromising liaison with pleasure, praise and blame are also represented at the same time as a more powerful educational tool than the law itself (and somehow prior to it as well): ‘ . . . (after that) we must say that what makes each more obedient and well-disposed to the laws that will be laid down is not the law itself but praise and blame in their educative function (%    >  4 )’ (b–). It is the fiction of spontaneity that is such an integral element to the discourse of praise and blame that determines their enhanced educative value within Magnesia’s society. Magnesia’s utopianism is thus highly agonistic: public praise and blame (for, among other activities, choral and athletic performances as well) are positively encouraged within      Kowalzig forthcoming. Cf. e.g. Laws bc, d, a–e d–d, c–d, a; see Bertrand : – and also Laks :  and – (on preambles as ‘speeches of praise and blame’). On this passage see Bertrand : –. Cf. e–a. On whether or not this formulation allows for some form of radical psychological hedonism, see Annas : –; for a different view, see Russell : –. On e–a see Laks : –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello certain limits by the law. Of course, collective performances may be competitive without utterly undermining social solidarity: if the prize to be won is a prize in civic excellence and communal ideals, the overall unity of a community may be thus reinforced (a–, -    ' &  6 , -! , ‘let any one of us contend in virtue without envy’). Yet the balance between ‘correct’ forms of blame, civic unity and the latent danger of individual -!  is clearly a sensitive issue in Magnesia. The citizens of the second best city must ‘praise and blame unanimously’ (   ) I  4" !) G ) on the basis of their capacity to ‘rejoice and feel pain at the same things’ (d–). How does comedy fit within this network of collective performances oriented to promote and at the same time enact civic virtue? the psychology of comic laughter in the republic and philebus : some observations To laugh at someone/something is at the same time an act that is socially inclusive and exclusive, depending on the expected allegiances between the agent/prompter of laughter, its recipient (audience) and its object (the target of ridicule). In Old Comedy (and especially in Aristophanes) comic ridicule allows for an active form of co-operation and participation, on the part of the audience, in the actual performance. The comic author tends to construct an ‘ideology of exclusiveness’ for his implied audience: ‘[t]he poet addresses the spectators as if they belonged to his friends’ group, he appeals to their complicity’. Thus, for example, in the Acharnians Dicaeopolis, vetriloquizing the poet’s voice, can appeal to ‘the spectators’ (, V   !$ ) as ‘his own philoi’ (, -       ). Like the iambic poet, Aristophanes tends ‘to present the comic performance as if it were addressed to a narrow circle of people’: comedy as public dispenser of blame (and praise) ‘particularly requires that the listeners be mentally close to the poet, that they be his friends’. This      Cf. e.g. d–d, e–a, c–e, a. On public performances of iambi at e, see Rotstein : –. See Halliwell : –, : ; N. W. Slater , Dobrov b (esp. ). According to Ruffell , the self-reflexive stance of comedy helps to bridge (and not to enlarge) the gap, both emotionally and intellectually, between audience and performers. Zanetto : . On this expression, see Olson :  ad loc. The semantic spectrum covered in ancient Greece by the word -  /-   is broader than the modern one, applying to a vast range of human attitudes and relationships. For my purpose let it suffice to point out the well-known fact that -   often refers to kith and kin and political allies rather than individual for whom one might feel affection. Zanetto : , . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  attitude strongly supports the view, advocated by Halliwell, that the comic audience, at least within the ritual frame of the City Dionysia, is ‘an audience psychologically implicated in the shamelessness of the event’. How can a citizen of Magnesia come beneficially to terms, either in his capacity as viewer or performer, with this psychological profile? What about the verbal vilification (  ), mockery ( ), foul language (.#   ) of comedy, in sum what a fifth-/fourth-century bc theatre-goer may be expected to subsume under the label of ‘the comic experience’? Before tackling Plato’s response at Laws d–a, let us survey briefly some passages where the philosopher has already addressed the moral and cognitive value of laughter, comic laughter included: () Republic d– e (cf. also c), and () Philebus a–b. A first observation can be made: in all these passages the notion of ‘comic ridicule’ extends far beyond the world of the stage. Com(ed)ic laughter can be (and is) used as an exemplification of the broader psychological process activated by human response towards ‘the laughable’ (6   ) but is never limited to it. The ‘comic’, like the ‘tragic,’ is for Plato a universal concept, a modality of perceiving and being that is not limited to the dramatic world. Our first passage (Resp. d–e) closely follows Socrates’ exposure of the negative models of behaviour offered by comic mimesis (e–a). This is the text of d–e:  '       R2 (  5 , * !  2   1 R26  #  , . , V  /#>,   #6 , ’ .#2 ! , D ' >   i  (  !  W  > 2, D '  2#  6       .  W @    > 2,  1    ,  ,    # .      Halliwell :  (author’s italics); cf. also Halliwell : . This of course does not exclude but indeed encourages the ‘comic loop whereby the audience is expected to laugh at a gibe against its own “shamefulness” ’ (Halliwell :  with reference to Nub. –). At Resp. e–a verbal abuse (  ( ), reciprocal mockery (   (   2) and use of obscene/foul language ( .#   ( ) ‘stand[s] as a kind of synecdoche for comic drama (Halliwell :  (= : )). For the persistence of invective, personal satire and abusive language well into the fourth century bc, see Halliwell a: –. This selection is necessarily partial and my treatment of it will cover only the points that are more relevant to the present argument. This is routinely observed for the Philebus but, to the best of my knowledge, hardly so for the passages of the Republic; most telling is the second alternative at c–:    '   T  .  > (‘at a comic performance or in private life’); cf. Halliwell :  n. . Halliwell :  rightly qualifies that in e Plato’s argumentation about mimetic ‘imprinting’ does not mean a condemnation of comedy per se. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello When [the decent man] comes [i.e. in the course of his narrative: cf. c– ] to someone who is unworthy of him, he will not be willing to liken himself in earnest to that man who is his inferior, unless perhaps briefly when [the inferior character] is doing something good, but he will be ashamed, both because he is untrained in imitating such characters and because he resents shaping and fitting himself to the moulds of inferior people, despising it in his thoughts unless it is for the sake of play. The focus of the whole section is mainly oriented to the psychology of the actor/performer, yet the scope of reflection is broader. Several commentators have rightly noticed that this passage represents a conditional overture to comedy and have emphasized how the terms of the condition are best summed up in the expression    # (that is, a decent man can imitate someone his inferior as long as it is ‘for play’s sake’). Comedy’s self-consciousness of its ‘fictional status’ (   ) and the self-contained, ‘inconsequential’ dimension of comic mimesis allow for ‘a marginal acknowledgment that role playing can sometimes be separated from psychological internalization’. This is certainly true and is surely part of what Plato meant. But there is also another equally important qualification to the (conditional) propriety of some forms of comic mimesis that has often passed unnoticed. This qualification is   #6  (‘when [the inferior character] is doing something good’) at d. This is as close as Plato ever gets to acknowledging that an inferior/comic character may find itself, after all, doing ‘something good’ (# ). In Old Comedy the adjective # is almost a catchword for Aristophanes’ repeated claim, be it serious or not, that comedy is socially useful. The ‘comic hero’ defines his identity by aligning himself with the # (of which the audience is meant to be part) against the ‘morally bad’ (  ). It is thus difficult to resist the temptation to see in the Platonic   #6  an echo of the slogan so obsessively advertised by Aristophanic comedy: namely that (his) comedy says what        Halliwell :  n.  observes that    at e ‘need not refer exclusively to comedy . . . though comedy seems the most obvious outlet’. Cf. e.g. Rosen : ; P. Murray : . For this rendering of    # , see Halliwell :  with n. . The accountability of comic laughter to legal curbs is a highly controversial subject. I side here with Halliwell in believing that Old Comedy enjoyed licensed performance conditions that removed the consequential effect of comic abuse that would have otherwise applied in everyday reality (see Halliwell : –, –, , a). For a very different reading, see Sommerstein  (with previous bibliography).  On the value of # , see Giuliano : . Halliwell : . See e.g. Eccl. , Ach. –, Eq. – and Ran. – (cf. also – and  but with reference to tragedy). For the semantics of # vs.  in Aristophanes, see Storey : –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  is # for the citizens and the polis. Even in Kallipolis, where the ethics of mimesis for the guardians has been argued to be stricter than in Magnesia, there is some qualified and cautious concession to comedy. At Philebus a–b the psychology of laughter, on and off the stage (b–), is introduced as an instance of the ‘mixed pleasures’ of the soul, that is, of pleasures inextricably linked to pain (d–). The ‘laughable’ (  ) springs from the sense of ‘childish/playful resentment’ (   6 -! , a) towards our ‘neighbours/friends’ (  ", b–; -  , d, d–e, a–) who exhibit ‘self-ignorance’ (V , c) about the true state of affairs of their inner and outer qualities. In so doing, they are ‘weak and unable to revenge themselves when laughed at’ (b– , !) !    (  >  $  ! ). Halliwell has perceptively observed that ‘the notion of comic characters as “friends” in the Philebus . . . points towards a sense . . . that at some level we are (partly) “on their side”, at least for the duration of the play’. What has not been observed is that the degree of implicit attraction that the spectator is supposed to feel towards comic characters (inasmuch as they are our -  ) finds a fitting comparandum in the projected image of the comic audience as ‘friends’ that we have already found, for instance, at Acharnians . The qualification of the ‘envy’ (-! ) experienced by the agent and beholder of the comic situation as    is also interesting. Its primary meaning may well be ‘playful’ inasmuch as ‘it conveys a form of amusement or pleasure’: this is why 6   is both a pain (> ) for the soul (as an expression of -! ) but also a pleasure (& ). Yet    also conveys the dimension of   , ‘play’, as the ‘proper’, prescribed sphere of 6   . Feelings of envy that prompt laughter, though a mild version of Schadenfreude, are something ‘not taken in earnest’ not even by their own practitioners, so to speak. Once again, in this         On this most famous passage, see Halliwell : –; Delcomminette : –; Frede : –; Cerasuolo .  Halliwell : . V  is Cornarius’ emendation: the reading of the MSS is V . This aspect has often puzzled modern interpreters. In particular the exact sense of -  in the Philebus passage has been highly disputed. For a minimalist reading of -  as ‘someone who is harmless with regard to ourselves’, see Delcomminette : –. See also Frede : . See above, p. . For a subtle analysis of how the agent/prompter of laughter and the receiver of it (the spectator) tend to collapse into a single psychological profile from e onwards (esp. a–), see Cerasuolo : . I am deeply grateful to Malcolm Schofield for an illuminating discussion on this issue. See Delcomminette :  n. . Frede translates it as ‘comic malice’ (Frede : ).  See also Benardete : . Cf. above the expression    # at e. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello passage of the Philebus there seems to be, on Plato’s part, a marginal acknowledgement of the ‘self-contained’ and inconsequential nature of laughter directed towards innocuous friends. That Plato in this way erases a priori the possibility of thoroughly nasty laughter (comic laughter included) directed against ‘friends’ reveals the extent to which he offers here a prescriptive (and not descriptive) notion of 6   (and this even taking into consideration the archaic ethos of ‘helping your friends and harming your enemies’). Comic laughter has often been understood, by ancient and modern interpreters alike, as an outlet for ‘social’ envy (-! ). Plato was doubtless aware of this aspect but in the Philebus he has chosen to ‘introject’ the social dimension of this phenomenon into the individual soul ‘in communion with itself’ (d, *, , 42#, ). And yet this critique of our enjoyment of 6   does not lead to a straightforward condemnation of comedy: as already observed, in the Philebus Plato’s ‘diagnosis leaves open the question whether we can do without them [that is, the mixed pleasures activated by tragedy and comedy] or whether the emotions created by the arts might not on occasion be quite therapeutic’. comedy at magnesia (i): the spectacle of otherness What, then, is the answer of Magnesia’s god-inspired lawgiver to the moralcum-psychological problems raised by comedy? The first passage where the issue is directly tackled is at d–a:  ' @ .#@       @    ( "   "  ,  "5   ,   3#     >     " ,   ' !!    1 A V 2      2   9  @          ! ' * 2  , . "   -   %! ,  ' * I 2 6 -, j   I "   6  !"5 ,  *@ G   >   !  * ,  (    ) V   T "   , ' " ,  >  '   (  5"   !     ! ,  2, '  * L  "  ’ &  ( , "    9 !  *   ! - 6 @ 2!" ,  2   V ,  6 '    * - ! @   .  ' I  "    , ? ,     "  , H      !A .    For a survey of this topic, see Carey : – and –. On the continuity of Plato’s reflections on laughter between Philebus and Republic, allowing for the different contexts and perspectives, see Halliwell : . Frede : liii. See also McCabe : –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  As to what pertains to the shameful bodies and thoughts and those who turn themselves to laughter-provoking comic performances through speech, song, dance and the comic imitations of all these, it is necessary to observe and get to know them. For, if someone is going to be one who understands, it is not possible for him to understand what is serious without what is laughable, nor to get a grasp that way of any of two opposites without the other. But it is not possible for someone to practise both things, if he is going to partake of even a small part of virtue, and indeed it is just for this very reason that he must learn the laughable, so that he may avoid ever doing or saying through ignorance what is laughable, if he does not have to. The imitation of such things must be imposed upon slaves and hired strangers and there should never be any seriousness whatsoever about these things, nor should any free person, either woman or man, be seen learning [i.e. to practise] these things, and something kainon must always be manifest in these imitations. As far as laughter-provoking amusements, which we all call comedy, are concerned, let this be established by law and argument, etc. Before addressing its content in detail, it may be worth noting that this discussion of the function of comedy in Magnesia takes place within a broader section (d–e) specifically devoted to those bodily movements that may be ‘correctly’ (+!@) categorized as ‘dance’ (3# , de). The Athenian Stranger has just acknowledged the existence of two ‘forms’ of dance (j, e). The first consists in the imitation of ‘beautiful bodies’ moving ‘in a solemn way’ (e–), the other in the imitation of ‘shameful bodies engaged in low behaviour’ (e, , ' @ .#    6 -( ). It is as representative of this latter L  of dance that comedy (together with other kinds of comic representations) is introduced at dff. Plato’s aetiology of dance at a– represents the movements of the body as a natural extension of the voice. Its immediate consequence is that bodily figures (#) are never ‘autonomous with reference to the content of the song’. Hence the easy shift of focus the Athenian        I follow Schöpsdau :  (with parallels) in understanding @ . . . "  as masculine participle instead of neuter. I take  >   as objective genitive of  : see again Schöpsdau :  for the text. For  * at e acting as descriptive genitive and closely linked to the ensuing   , see England : ii. ad loc. For their further subdivisions, see Schöpsdau : –. I cannot treat here in any detail the problematic "  of dances labelled as *    ; for the present let it suffice to say that I side with Schöpsdau : – in not identifying them with satyr-play (cf. Morrow : –, ). This inclusive aspect of the phrasing at d– is clearly emphasized by Morrow : –. The ‘moral problem of comic dancing’ is acknowledged en passant by Wiles : . Peponi : . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello Stranger can bring in almost immediately in his digression on comedy by extending his argument to every kind of comic representation ‘with regard to speech, song, and dance, and the comic imitations they all entail’ (d–). What then is the actual content of this digression on laughterprovoking performances? In the reformed world of Magnesia its citizens must observe (!! d) and become intellectually acquainted (  1 ) with them, since the knowledge (e, ! ; e,  9 !  ) of what is ‘serious’ ( 2 ) necessitates also the knowledge, but not the practice (cf.  at e), of what is ‘laughable’ (  ). Slaves ( ( ) and hired strangers (5" % ! ) must then be ordered (   ) to be the performers of the otherness at Magnesia: the purity of the civic body must not be contaminated. And even in this case of performances enacted by slaves and strangers any ‘seriousness’ ( 2) must be avoided: what we call comedy belongs to the dimension of    (e) and its performances ( ) must always reveal something that is   . At least three aspects are most interesting here. First, the idea that comedy (and comic performances:  ' I  ", e) are   . Once again, as in the Republic and Philebus, we have a prescriptive notion of what ‘the laughable’ should be: 6   must be exercised and contained within the realm of what is ‘safely’ playful (and, therefore, not socially divisive) if it has to have any positive social effect on its recipients. Old Comedy constantly exploits its dramatic ‘playful’ dimension by paradoxically exposing it while at the same time claiming (more or less disingenuously) some seriousness of purpose.        The metaphorical sense of the verb !! for ‘theoretical reflection’ is doubtless meant to evoke also the language of the !  as physical spectacle (something we should watch). For the citizens and not the lawgiver as the implied subject of !!    1 at d–, see Morrow :  n. .  !  at e– must refer to ‘learning how to enact’ the laughable, not to mere intellectual comprehension. For the contrast ‘intellectual knowledge’ vs. ‘practice’ of bad behavioural models, cf. e.g. Resp. a– and d–e. The analogies with the conditions of the Spartan helots, obliged to perform humiliating dancing and songs in front of the homoioi have often been noted: see e.g. Schöpsdau : . That the Athenian Stranger is striving here to give us a ‘persuasive definition’ of comic laughter is confirmed by his attempts to make his definition pass as generally and unproblematically shared: cf. a, ? ,     "  . On comedy as ‘play’ in the Laws, see Jouët-Pastré :  and ; : –; : –. This aspect is explicitly restated at c–a (see below). Examples could be multiplied: see e.g. Ran. –, Plut. , Ach. . For a survey of Aristophanic passages where the comic poet is presented as striving to speak out ‘what is just’ (   ) on the behalf of its fellow citizens, see Bakola :  with nn. –. On the purposely elusive and ambiguous nature of Old Comedy’s advertised ‘seriousness’, see Silk a: – (esp. –); Heath  and Halliwell : –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  Plato, on the other hand, has no doubt that the only civically ‘useful’ form of comedy for Magnesia is that which abdicates a priori all ‘seriousness’, at least on the part of its author(s)/performers. What is more interesting is that this impermeable distinction between serious and playful repeatedly advocated in Magnesia when it comes to comedy is potentially at variance with the otherwise pervasive notion, in the Laws, of play (   ) as the most ‘serious’ and divine mode of existence. In the Laws ‘play’ is the most serious activity by means of which human beings can assimilate themselves to the divine (b–c): of ‘true’, ‘blessed seriousness’ only god is worthy (c–, -> ' L  !6 '   2  2 V5 ). ‘Human’ forms of seriousness must be commensurable (b, > ) to our limited mortal nature: the self-absorbed dimension of    is the ‘fitting medium’ (b,       ) through which human seriousness can be expressed. It is ‘by adopting this mode of being (playfulness) that every man and woman must live out his/her life playing the most beautiful plays’ (c–). With the exception of comedy, in the Laws    and  2 are constantly presented by the Athenian Stranger as false alternatives: they are not only compatible and complementary but actually interchangeable modalities of being. Comedy as mirror of the ‘otherness’ with which to confront oneself finds its place in the ‘second best city’ at a very heavy cost: that of opening a breach into Magnesia’s theology of play. A second interesting aspect, strictly linked to the distancing effect (from an audience perspective) implicit in the acknowledgement of    as the ‘proper’ sphere of comedy, is the split identity of performers versus spectators. We have already seen how the stability and cohesion of the social body in Magnesia finds its surest foundation in the identity of performers and spectators. The loop whereby citizens performing qua citizens are at the same time also the recipients of their own performance is temporarily suspended (only to be ultimately reinforced in its validity) by the introduction of slaves and strangers as actors of an otherness that must be rationally but not emotionally processed. This, as we have seen, is perhaps the most marked distortion, in terms of psychology of emotion, of what a comic audience was encouraged and repeatedly invited to experience at the theatre     Comedy as something distinct from other ‘serious’ forms of poetry: apart from the already mentioned c–a, see also e– and c–. Jouët-Pastré :  (with n. ) perceptibly undermines this tension.  See also e–. On this passage see Jouët-Pastré : –. Cf. c, b, a. See Jouët-Pastré :  and –; see also Ardley . This of course is a contextually motivated idiosyncrasy of the Laws. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello in Plato’s time. So what kind of laughter, if any, does Magnesia’s comedy envisage for its spectators? In the Philebus, where the psychological profile of the promoter (author/actor) of laughter and its recipient (spectator) are brought to overlap sensibly and merge into each other, the natural result was the mixed pleasure of a laughter prompted by   6 -! . In the Laws, by severing the psychology of performers (a body external to the city) and audience, Plato is able to purge comic laughter of the ‘playful envy’: the disposition of mind of the beholder towards the actor will be such that he/she will not be able any longer to consider the ridiculed as his/her ‘neighbour’ or ‘friend.’ In the Philebus (d–) we were told by Socrates that ‘to rejoice’ (#  ) at one’s enemies’ misfortunes (if we can call ‘enemies’ the representatives of bad moral behaviour) with laughter is neither ‘unjust’ (V  ) nor ‘resentful’ (-! ) conduct, and as such not a pain for the soul of the good citizen. Slaves and hired strangers are physically and metaphorically considered as neutral vehicles of the ‘enemy within’: a dangerous otherness that can be kept under control only by avoiding contamination. The ‘distancing’ laughter that the citizens of Magnesia will experience watching comic performances will morally absolve them from their potential complicity with the shamefulness of the event itself. Comedy is then the social space in which the citizenship as such can and must become vicariously acquainted, at a rational level, with a form of otherness with respect to its collective identity. In this sense the function of comedy in Magnesia is partially similar to that envisaged for the symposium (wine as a vehicle for personally experiencing otherness with respect to oneself ), with the fundamental difference that citizens at the symposium are also the performers. This relationship, in Magnesia, between symposium and comedy as places, respectively, for experiencing otherness with respect to oneself and otherness with respect to a communal sense of shared identity represents another significant distortion of comic rhetoric, where sympotic and komastic moments, with a varying degree of inclusiveness, tend to be fully integrated into comedy’s triumphal narrative pattern. Thirdly, at e– we are told that ‘something   must always be manifest in comic imitations’. The phrasing of this line has often caused     The same tendency to blur any precise boundary between the psychology of the promoter and enjoyer of laughter can be seen also in Resp. cff.: see esp. Halliwell : –. For the purely ‘instrumental’ role of the slaves in Magnesia’s society, see Panno : –. On the relationship between symposium and comedy in Magnesia, see Jouët-Pastré  and Panno : –. Aristophanic comedies often end with some kind of ‘komastic’ or ‘sympotic’ triumph (be it either wedding komos or epinician); symposium and komos often appear in a combined form in comedy: see Pütz : . For the rhetoric of comic nike in the exodoi, see Calame  and Wilson b. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  trouble to interpreters, and emendations of   have been proposed to correct what may look like an unexpected and unmotivated afterthought. Why should comic representations always exhibit something   ? And what is the exact meaning of   '   . . . - ! ? The adjective   has usually been interpreted in two different ways: either in the sense that ‘there ought always to be felt to be something unfamiliar and strange’ about all comic representations or in the sense that ‘such comic representations should be constantly changed, for fear that familiarity might give them too strong a hold on the public mind.’ The semantics of   allows, of course, for either possibility, and if we look at the spreading of the word in a work so obsessively concerned with stability and negation of change,  -related word formations usually carry a negative moral evaluation. The two possible interpretations mentioned above are not, I believe, mutually exclusive. Something constantly changing in its nature necessarily becomes ‘unfamiliar’, ‘extraneous’ as a result of its precarious relation with us. In particular, with reference to the dominion of the arts, Egypt is repeatedly praised by the Athenian Strangers for having ‘sacred’ and thus unalterable laws that do not allow for innovation (   ). Yet change leading to improvement is not totally banned in Magnesia (see c–d) and there are occasions, isolated though they are, where the positive nature of change is advocated. In particular at c– we are told that ‘the whole city’ (c–,  ,  * ) must ‘never cease to enchant itself’ (c–,    . . .    2 , >! ) with an incessantly changing variety of songs (c–,  /9      #     ), so that they can infuse in the singers an ‘insatiable eagerness and pleasure for singing’ (c–, F    L    @ H  . . .  &  ). In this passage the word   does not appear, yet the ‘variety’ and ‘changing nature’ of songs      See e.g. Post’s conjecture    ‘humiliating’ (Post : ). England : ii.. For the first interpretation, see e.g. Bertrand : ; Jouët-Pastré : ; : –; and : ; for the second, see e.g. Stallbaum –: ii.; Morrow : ; Schöpsdau : ; Panno : . With the exception of those passages where  - words refer to the ‘newly’ founded city of Magnesia (b, d, b, c, c, d). A lexical search on the Irvine TLG E has revealed thirty-eight attestations of   in the corpus Platonicum and ten for   - stem. Nineteen out of these forty-eight occurrences are in the Laws alone.  See Panno : –. e, on which see Nightingale . Variation and diversity (   ) in songs have been explained by Kowalzig :  as mainly referring to the necessity of distinguishing, through dance and song, different types of worship within a polytheistic society, and this may well be part of what is going on. Yet the necessity to generate an ‘inexhaustible eagerness and pleasure for songs’ in the performers (who are also the recipients of the songs themselves) seems more directly linked to the ‘correct’ physiology of pleasure and pain exposed at a–c. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello become a positive medium when linked to fostering a correct physiology of pain and pleasure. My contention is that at e– Plato, by emphasizing that the comic representations must always exhibit some element of ‘novelty’ ( ), is at the same time drawing on his own reflections on the physiology of pleasure and deliberately exploiting (or better exposing) a recognizably ‘comic’ rhetoric of speech. Variously interpreted either as a mere rhetorical exercise pointing to the existence of ‘a common pool or repertoire of comic material’ accessible to everyone or as a vehicle of an ideological avant-guard, the rhetoric of   and its self-reflexive character are one of the most conspicuous features of Old Comedy. Aristophanes in particular ‘regularly claims to be a comic innovator and does his best to shape his audience into one prepared to value comic innovation’. The comic ‘seriousness’, both literary and ethical, of poetics of   is indeed at best elusive and ambiguous: yet it is a brand to which Aristophanes constantly returns, with more or less pronounced irony. The audience’s taste and propensity for innovative ‘originality’ is what Aristophanes constantly seeks to control in his parabases, where the comic poet presents his own persona as endorsing both ‘old’ traditional values and ‘new’ sophistic  . No doubt the self-fashioning of the comic persona around key concepts such as   is deeply indebted to its obsessive relationship with tragic practice. In particular, Aristophanes repeatedly tries ‘to negotiate and relate innovation and satire’, with special emphasis on a satire which purports to be civically beneficial to the community. Yet the poetics of comic   has its own anxieties: it is a double-edged weapon, inasmuch as it might turn out to be a device distancing the audience from the comic poet. Aristophanes is perfectly aware of this but at the same time strives to use the rhetoric of innovation as a further element for drawing the audience to his side. In the Laws Plato exploits the inner ambiguity of the poetics of comic   for his own           See e.g. Bakola : –; Ruffell ; N. W. Slater : –. Heath a: . See Silk a: –; Slater ; Sommerstein ; Bremer . Sommerstein  provides a thorough collection of passages from Old and Middle Comedy. N. W. Slater : . Cf. the caveats of Wright at p.  n.  in this volume and Biles : –, –. Bakola : –. See esp. Thesm. – on which cf. Silk a: –. For self-conscious   as part of Euripides’ self-definition, see McDermott . Cf. Ruffell : . Vesp. – (cf. also –), Nub. –, Eccl. –. See Bremer : –. See Ach. – (the Athenian audience as unstable in its tastes and ‘quick to change its mind’), Eq.  (the audience is prone by nature to change taste every year), Vesp. – (the audience failed the poet by not being able to understand his ‘brand-new ideas’), Eccl. – (Praxagora worries about the tastes of the spectators: they may look down at novelty and prefer what is stale). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  pedagogic goals. The trumpeted ‘comic brand’ of   will be part of Magnesia’s comedy but at the same time will expose itself for what it is to the eye of the philosopher: the only ‘novelty’ possible will be one denouncing its own unsuitability to a true spirit of shared comradeship. comedy at magnesia (part ii): comic mania and bad speech In Kallipolis the manipulation of language and state censure extended to the acts both of speaking and of listening: the speaker of false speeches (specifically about the gods) and his listener were both equally subject to reproach and censure (Resp. b–). This collapsing of the distinction between the two poles of the verbal exchange does not take place in Magnesia: its citizens not only can but must attend comic spectacles in order to acquire a (merely) rational apprehension of morally bad models of behaviour. This brings us close to another interesting feature of Magnesia’s policy towards its own citizens: the necessity to exert control, quite literally, over citizens’ modes of speech. Comedy must provide a negative foil to what has to be avoided not only in terms of experiential and representational mimesis but also in terms of specific speech-acts. The second passage in the Laws where the Athenian Stranger dwells at some length on comedy (c–b) is in fact framed within a broader reflection on the absolute necessity, at Magnesia, of avoiding any form of improper, abusive and foul language. This passage is most interesting for various reasons and has already been the object of a thorough analysis with regard to what, for lack of a better word, I shall call the ‘licensed, fictional’ nature of comedy (that is, its being a form of  1 ‘without animosity’ (V 2 !2 ()) and its role within Magnesia’s society. In Magnesia, even if the status of    is fully acknowledged for comedy, still no form of  1 , either with !2 or without, will be allowed if addressed against its citizens (e–). Those allowed to practise it (that is, the slaves and hired foreigners of d) must do so by limiting the target of ridicule to themselves (a–,      On aischrology as ‘a special kind of speech-act . . . not reducible to the status of its subject-matter’, see Halliwell :  (= : ). For the text and the train of thought of this much-discussed passage, see above all Saunders : –. For a historical contextualization of the legal measures proposed here by the Athenian Stranger, see Halliwell a: – (and : –). For the exact meaning of  in this context, see Rotstein : . For  of a referring to dff. rather than to c (as, for instance, England has), see the detailed arguments of Saunders : . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello   2) and by adopting a tone of mockery which must be V 2 !2 ( and     (a–). I would like to dwell on a different aspect of our passage that has so far been neglected: the larger frame informing the ways in which the comic character and poet are represented with specific reference to the forms of expression. Secondly, I would like to show how the psychological profile of the promoter/agent of comic abuse as described in c–b, while finding significant resonances in Plato’s physiology of psychic vices, is also exploiting a well-identifiable comic trope, that of the ‘comic’ hero and/or poet as ‘madman’. We have already observed that this second extended discussion of comedy and comic representations (comedy, iambi and lyrics: e–) is part of a broader legal section on the necessity, at Magnesia, of avoiding any form of improper, abusive and foul language. In the ‘second best city’ there must be only one law about verbal abuse (e–, ; ,     %  ) and this must apply to everyone (   ): "       (e–, ‘let no one insult anyone’). ‘Irreverent speech’ (/- ), ‘vituperation’ (  ), ‘abuse’ (   ) and ‘ridicule’ ( ) are used throughout almost interchangeably to define the most representative speech-acts of comic representations (comedy included). If we read this passage bearing in mind d–e, we are led to conclude that not only must the content of comic representations be, in itself, something inherently extraneous to the civic body of Magnesia (comic imitations must always exhibit something   ) but also the comic language as language must be something alien to the citizens of the ‘second best city’. Here Plato anticipates Aristotle very literally, so        For not punctuating with a comma after  , see again Saunders :  ad loc. Cf. also a. Morgan : – with n.  traces back this attitude to epinician tradition. The overlapping between the two roles is most explicit at d–.  ,   S   ./ T  2@   , 5" . (‘a poet of comedy or of some of the iamboi or of the Muses’ song must not be allowed . . . ’): I take the phrase as a disjunction between three different literary genres, that is, comedy, iambos and melos: cf. Rotstein : – for a detailed discussion of the passage and its textual difficulties. /- , d–e;   , e–, e;    , c, c, d;  , d, e. It may be interesting to observe the absence of /  #-related formations. /  #  with specific reference to the bad moral effects of ‘ridicule’ is mentioned at Resp. c–: the Laws’ obsession with religious purity (cf. e.g. the criticism against the perverted sacrificial and choral practices of contemporary Greek cities at c–e: a crowd standing not far from the altars, but at times right beside, pours every kind of blasphemy on the sacred offerings (  /-  @ @ #" 2 )) may be part of this linguistic taboo. For the poetics of ‘bad’ language in Aristophanes, see Storey . Cf. Rotstein : – with a perceptive discussion of the whole passage (esp.  ‘[Plato] . . . is not strictly concerned with false allegations as such, but with the use of abusive language for the sake of humour and derision’). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  to speak:    and .#    are de facto reduced to a verbal medium that coincides with a distinct socio-ethical category (slaves; hired strangers). Again, this picture is clearly prescriptive and in no way a faithful reflection of what we know of ancient comedy: at least as far as Aristophanes goes, ‘there is no clear evidence that the language of slaves differs in any systematic way from that of free persons of the same gender’. What I find worthy of further consideration in this systematic alignment of good behaviour/good speech-acts (and, conversely, bad behaviour/bad speechacts) is its visible intersection with the ways in which the Pindaric epinician tradition thematizes the problem of moral badness and blame at the level of expression. As recently put by Morgan, ‘the struggle between good and evil in Pindar plays out most insistently not in the realm of deeds but in the realm of words. His focus is on speech acts . . . In the epinician world virtue often tends towards poetic virtue and vice towards poetic vice . . . all characterize the good citizen as well as the good poet.’ In Magnesia’s world, actions count as much as words (and vice versa). Yet, to borrow once again Morgan’s words, we can see reflected in the background the same idea that ‘a continuum stretches between private, public and poetic speech and these realms enjoy a reciprocal relationship’. Of course, the authorial voice has its own licences: even if the practice of     must be avoided by citizens, at d– we hear the Athenian Stranger directly engaging in his own performance of verbal abuse: ‘this [i.e. form of ridicule] we revile ( (    ( ), when it entails animosity’ (B  !2   9  Nh). This form of performative utterance by the Athenian Stranger is not very different, in terms of rhetorical discourse, from what the chorus, in its authorial mood, states at Knights –:     W  W *" )  -! , |   ,   #  ,   I   1 (‘there is nothing invidious in insulting bad people, but rather honourable for good people, if you think about it carefully’). This paradoxical rhetorical gesture by the Athenian Stranger nicely dovetails with the comic irony of an Aristophanes who constantly accuses his rivals of vulgar jokes while doing just the same himself. But let us go back to my second point, and pay attention to the specific context within which the psychological profile of the promoter/agent of    For .#    as the archetypically servile form of speech, see Arist. Pol. . (= a–b).  Morgan : .  Morgan : . Sommerstein : . For the historical Plato as an ‘iambic’, Archilochean satirist according to his own contemporaries, see the passages quoted by Worman : –. For Plato’s use of figures of speech of the iambic traditions and of the mood associated with iambos, see Worman : ch. . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello comic abuse is introduced at c–b. This section of Book  of the Laws comes immediately after the exposition of the legal measures to be taken in the case of theft or violence ("  T / 1  at e; @      /     at c–) and before those concerning beggars (b–c, # ). The broader frame is thus strictly legal: Book  contains what comes close to what we could call a full exposition of Plato’s ideal penal code. Yet in Magnesia punishment, and especially state-sanctioned punishment, aims to reform the wrongdoer by curing his/her soul’s disease (  ), when it is curable. The criminal’s state of mind, that is, his predisposition to ‘injustice’ (  ), is repeatedly treated as if it were a disease of the soul. In Book  at a–a the Athenian Stranger identified three main causes leading to forms of ‘psychic injustice’: !2 (anger, b–), &  (pleasure, b–) and V  (ignorance, c). What is interesting in this pathography of vice is that crimes are classified according to the psychology of the offender. This is also the case for our passage c–b. We have already seen that the psychology of the promoter/agent of laughter of d–b is subsumed within a broader category: that of a person who verbally abuses others. Yet what has passed entirely unnoticed is that also the portrait of the ‘verbal abuser’ is only a subset, in its turn, of a larger psychological profile, that of the ‘madman’ (c,   ). In fact at c a new kind of psychic offender is introduced: the   . The ritual purity of Magnesia requires that ‘if someone should be mad, he must not appear openly in the city’ (c,    ' V   Nh, , - 6 %   ). His relatives must guard the        On Plato’s medical penology in the Laws, see Saunders  (esp. ch. ); Lloyd : –; and Mackenzie  ad loc. Cf. also Stalley  (arguing for a ‘communicative theory’ of punishment in Plato’s Laws). See e.g. c– (about unjust injuries and gains): the cases that are curable (.) we must cure (.! ) as if they were diseases of the soul (: *@  42#  ). On the whole passage, see Saunders : –. Cf. Saunders : . See Saunders : –. For V  denoting moral ignorance and not merely ‘non-moral technical ’ ignorance, cf. Saunders : – (vs. Schöpsdau). Saunders  and Mackenzie  both neglect this aspect. Velardi’s analysis of the language of   in Plato also omits d (Velardi ). In Plato’s works the term   covers a wide range of heterogeneous concepts, from that of vehicle of a higher, god-sent knowledge to that of physical disease: see e.g. Dodds : –; Casertano  (on the link between   and politics); Velardi ; Panno : –. In a wider sense, ‘since “sickness of the soul” is equated with the basic conflictual nature of the human soul, we are all, to one degree or another, mad’ (B. Simon : ). In this passage of the Laws   is narrowly conceived of as a pathological behaviour determined by physiological and ethical-cum-social causes. On this passage see Panno : . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  person in their homes or, otherwise, pay a penalty proportionate to their census (c–d). At this point we are told that there are many forms of madness (d–e). The text is worth quoting in full:   ' I   W  2A ‚ ' ( j  ,  6  , . ' p   !2 ( , -> D   -,  "  , p ,   %#!  " , , - , "  @  2 /- (  " 2 , * "  *     !  (9  *' * *@. ; ,     %      A "      . Now many men are mad in many different ways. Those whom we just mentioned are mad because of diseases, but there are some who are such because of the bad nature of their temper and the bad upbringing [they received]. When there is a minor quarrel they loudly abuse each other with slanders and no such conduct is in any way or on any occasion becoming in a well-governed city. So let there be a single law for all about abusive talk: no one shall abuse anyone. The connection between verbal abuse and madness is explicit: the person who pours abusive language over others with loud cries ( , - , " ) is nothing but a ‘madman’. His madness has a double cause: a bad natural disposition of temper (  !2 ( , -> ) and a defective education (D   -,  "  ). Yielding to anger, he feeds his + with bad food (a,    +, @ R  ). By making the part of his soul that had been tamed by education (a,  6    &$!) savage again (  5 @ ), he becomes a beast living in ill-humour (a–, ! >   2  1@    ). It seems to me hardly coincidental that this portrait of the ‘verbal abuser’ exhibits detailed verbal resonances with the portrait of the democratic populace, the Big Beast (!" "   .#2 ) shouting and indulging its + at Republic a–c. The ‘verbal abuser’, its comic version included, is implicitly cast as the product of democracy: a further consonance with its comic counterpart. This passage of the Laws clearly identifies in the indulgence of the !2 and + the primary cause of this form of madness: the comic abuser is an uneducated, foul-mouthed person who yields to his passions.   On Resp. aff., see Rosen and Sluiter : –. For the mostly negative role played by the !2 within the psychology of the Laws, see now Sassi . On the complex dynamics of !2- and +-related emotions within the reforming punishment system of Plato’s ideal city (both Callipolis and Magnesia), see Allen : – and –. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello This link between verbal abuse, madness and comedy is not, I believe, a chance element in Plato’s thought, nor indeed is Plato’s stance a unique one in this respect. But let us first look at Plato. It seems to me significant that in Republic e–a Socrates, immediately after describing the bad behavioural models proposed by comic mimesis (V   > . . .   (     (   2  .#   ( ), adds that Kallipolis’ guardians must not assimilate themselves to madmen either (a, *'  "  ! " - 9  (  >). The behaviour of mad and bad men/women must be rationally known but must not be the object of experiential mimesis (a–,  " '    " 2   W V    2 , " ' *'  > *'  " ). ‘Tragic’ madness is what commentators have usually thought of in relation to this passage. This may well be, but it is worth noticing that the theme of madness is brought in as an addendum to Socrates’ criticism specifically to comic mimesis (a, L "). It seems thus to me reductive to label madness here as only ‘tragic’ madness: comedy clearly plays an equal role as well. The prohibition to ‘become mad’ ( ! ) or to ‘assimilate themselves to madmen’ ( "  -  (! ) occurs again at b–, with reference to onomatopoeic mimesis and vocal mimicry (b–, horses whinnying, bulls bellowing, rivers/sea flowing noisily, thunders thundering, etc.). On the basis of a linguistic analysis, this passage (b–) has been usually interpreted as referring mainly to tragic and Homeric onomatopoeic diction. Yet this again is disputable. In the wake of Stanford, Murray argues that Iliad . ( ' #" 1 , ‘and [the horses] whinnied loudly’) is ‘the only occurrence of # 1 in Greek poetry before P[lato].’ This is only partly correct; between Homer and Plato we find, if not # 1, the deverbative #  in Aristophanes Knights –: #  b  >  |  #  (‘the din and the whinnying of brazen-hooved horses’: a lyric, sung section: musical mimesis must have played a role here). Imitation of bellowing is found in comedy as well, and, more to the point, is strictly linked to ‘madness’: in      The shift from tragedy to comedy is already perceptible at e, where the banned object of mimesis is ‘female and male slaves doing what is proper of slaves’.  On ‘comic’ madness, see below. See e.g. Adam : i. ad loc. Cf. Stanford  and P. Murray : –. In addition to the Homeric passages quoted by Stanford, Giuliano : – interestingly observes that Plutarch in De audiendis poetis .e–e has in mind as referent not only Homer but also dramatic poetry (tragic and comic poetry: see the mention of Parmenon, a comic actor, at c). P. Murray : . Stanford :  n.  records the Aristophanic occurrence but does not attribute any significance to it. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  Wasps  ( ; 2, 2 , ‘how the snout bellows’) Philocleon’s dance, one of the symptoms of his insanity (cf. ,   # , ‘the onset of madness’), is accompanied by snorting and bellowing. In Frogs  ‘bellowing like a bull’ (2 ) is again a manifest sign of madness (,  !  @ ). The rushing noise of rivers and sea is evoked, for instance, at Clouds – (another lyric part). Furthermore at Knights – one of the hallmarks of Magnes’ comic ars is that of being able to make his characters ‘vocalize[s] all kinds of sounds, strumming, flapping, singing Lydian, buzzing, dyeing himself green as a frog’ (  )  -     4  2 1  2 1  4 1  /   /# ). Comedy, in terms of both onomatopoeic mimesis and vocal mimicry, is as much a part of the play as are tragedy and Homer. A most interesting passage where the nexus  /disease/bad speech/bad political institutions resurfaces is Timaeus b–c. The context is, of course, markedly different: in the Laws the language of medicine and cure is applied to vice only at a figurative level, whereas in the Timaeus ‘vice is an effect of physical disorder; thus, “vice is disease” literally’. In the Timaeus all psychic illnesses as such are due to the condition of the body (b–,  '  42# [that is, ]   $  G5  [that is, 2/  ]). Folly (V ) must be considered a disease of the soul (  ' , 42# 2#" ) and we can distinguish two kinds (" ) of folly: one is madness, the other is ignorance (6 '   , 6 ' !  , b–), both deriving from excesses of pleasures and pains (b–). Differently, at Laws d– we have just seen that only some forms of madness are due to ‘physical’ illnesses ( 6  ), whereas others (for instance verbal abuse) do not have a strictly physiological cause but are ascribable to both a bad natural disposition (  !2 ( , -> ) and a defective education (D   -,  "  ). Yet the position of the Timaeus is not totally incompatible with that of our      Bellowing like a bull is symptomatic of mental derangement in tragedy too: cf. Lyssa’s description of Heracles as a bull about to charge, bellowing frightfully (  2 ) in Eur. HF –. Henderson’s translation. For this reading of the passage, see Sommerstein :  and Imperio : –. For the legitimacy of studying the treatment of a given theme such as psychic illness ( ) across dialogues, see Gill  (with Morgan’s  response) and Gill : ‘localized’ readings (that is highly contextual-specific interpretations) are not incompatible with but complementary to ‘systematic’ readings as long as differences are not levelled. Mackenzie : . For the pathology of vice offered in the Timaeus as not incompatible with certain recurrent lines of Platonic thought, see Gill . For this strong reading of the passage (all the diseases of the soul arise because of the condition of the body), see Gill :  and Mackenzie :  n. . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello passage. At the end of the section concerning the diseases of the soul we find a telling acknowledgement, framed as an afterthought (cf. b–, ( ' I ,   V   , ‘that, however, is another story’), that social and political circumstances can contribute as well to madness and ignorance (a–b): 6 '  > ,  H @ "          .     #!@ , % ' !   > .   "  !  , >        >  2 $   !A m . " '  W -2>   @ -22 "     W "-  @ - "  ,  9 !2"  ,     >  ,     -   )  2 !  -2 '   ,  *   ' R . Furthermore, when men whose natural constitution is badly fixed in this way have bad forms of government and bad civic speeches are uttered, both in public and in private, and when besides they cannot learn from their youth onwards any study that could cure this situation, all of us who become bad, become so most of all against our own will for two reasons. For this the begetters must always be considered responsible far more than the begotten and the educators far more than the educated. And one should try as much as one can to avoid badness and pursue the opposite through both upbringing and pursuits and studies. Bad political institutions (among which no doubt democracy must be implied) and bad speaking habits, both private and public, if not counterbalanced by a proper upbringing and education, also contribute to causing diseases of the soul. This is very close to what we find at Timaeus e–: the ‘mad’ or ‘ignorant’ is such unwillingly and should not be blamed as responsible for being as he is. He becomes bad () ‘because of some faulty condition of the body’ (  '  G5    ( $ ) and ‘an upbringing that does not educate’ (   2  - ). If we allow for the different notion of ‘health’ in the Timaeus (health as proportion between body and soul; illness as the disruption of such structure by the body), this last passage (e–) is very similar to the aetiology    Gill has persuasively demonstrated how the apparently bigger role Plato is willing to concede to the body in the Timaeus does not contradict Plato’s account of psychic illnesses in his other dialogues. What emerges from an integrated reading of the Timaeus ‘is not so much . . . that psychic illness derives from bodily defects, implying that we are, fundamentally, bodies, but rather that we are integrated combinations of psyche and body, and that sickness and health, body and psyche, depend on maintaining a proportionate relationship between them’ (Gill : ). On this passage as ‘compound[ing] the effect of “bad” physical constitutions . . . rather than as being an independent source of psychic disease’, see Gill :  with n. . Cf. also Lloyd : –. On the soul-body interaction in the Timaeus, see Johansen  (esp. –). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws  proposed at Laws d– for the ‘verbal offender’:   !2 ( , -> D   -,  "  . Both in the Laws and in the Timaeus we find a similar aetiology of insanity: it is a form of ‘illness’ (even if not directly a physical one in the Laws) attributable to both physiological and environmental conditions. Plato’s socio-physiology of the ‘verbal offender’ as    in the Laws has thus deep roots in Plato’s thought, as the passage of the Timaeus shows. But this is only one aspect of the question. If the Athenian Stranger’s analysis of comic verbal abuse in the Laws is compatible with and fully integrated within Plato’s broader psychological reflections, it is very difficult not to see in his portrait of the    also a consciously witty resonance of a well-identifiable comic trope, that of the ‘comic’ hero and/or poet as ‘madman’. If we limit ourselves to Aristophanes, we can see that the ‘comic hero’ before, during or after the conception and implementation of the ‘Great Idea’ is often cast as a madman. In the initial scene of Peace one of Trygaeus’ slaves explains to the audience that his master ‘is mad in a new kind of way’ (,    6  ): he wants to go up to heaven to persuade Zeus to stop the war. His madness is of an altogether new type (, *#   , ) G  6  ): it manifests itself in his spending the days looking up at the heaven and verbally reviling Zeus (– ,  ) &"  . 6 * 6 /"  | : # g     ] |  - .). Trygaeus’ delusion (, 6    @  @ ) has been caused by an excess of his # . Madness/verbal abuse/choleric temper is exactly the nexus of associations we find in our passage of the Laws. Similarly, in the Wasps Philocleon too is presented from the prologue onwards as affected by a strange illness (,   B ,   * ( ) which turns out to be a   (–, ; )   ) ). His ‘cure’ from his obsession with lawcourts will be in the end another form of madness as well (cf. ,   #; ,   ). In the prologue of Birds Euelpides and Peisetaerus present themselves to the Athenian audience as ‘ill’ (–, & , X      ,|   ( ). Their illness is their desire to escape from      See Casertano : – (but he misquotes Laws cd inasmuch as he omits !2 ( at d–). See the seminal article by F. D. Harvey . Of course, the ‘madness’ of the comic hero and/or poet is exploited by Aristophanes for its comic potential of laughter and subversion; Plato’s literal re-semantization of the comic trope is part of his own philosophical agenda. Cf. also  :     (‘how deranged you are’) and    *#    ; (‘why are you mad ineffectively?’). Cf. also ll. , , , . See recently Ruffell :  on Philocleon’s madness. See also Sidwell . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press  lucia prauscello Athens (–). Subsequently, when Peisetaerus comes up with his Great Idea, the coryphaeus refers to his plan of unspeakable prosperity as if it were the plan of a madman (,    ;). In Wealth Carion complains about the deranged mental state of his master Chremylus (, - (     2; , # @ ) . . . 6   ), and this already before his master conceives of his utopian plot to cure Wealth of blindness. Doubtless, behind this ‘mania/sickness’ motif there is a blatant, parodic appropriation by Aristophanic comedy of what was perceived as the archetypically ‘tragic’ theme. Comedy has its madmen too. But there is more than that. Cratinus in his Pytine used his trumpeted intoxicated mania ‘as the vehicle for self-defence as a political comedian’ according to a well-established iambic cliché of the satirical poet as a madman. Plato’s psychological assimilation of the comic poet/actor to a madman under the broader category of ‘psychic offender’ is another exposure of the inadequate moral basis of abusive comic ridicule: Aristophanes’ Heraclean + (Vesp. , J}" 2 +  ) %# ) has a dark side too and is taken by Plato for what it really is: the illness of a deranged soul. Magnesia’s citizens will enact ‘the best’, ‘most beautiful’ and ‘truest tragedy’ (b–; b) as a mimesis of ‘the most beautiful and virtuous life’ (b,     (   2    2 / 2). Comedy, though allowed, will always remain an extraneous body within the second best city.      On the equivalence #  =  ! , see Padel : . See already F. D. Harvey ; Sidwell ; Dobrov : . Cf. also Beta b. Ruffell : . On Cratinus’ dionysiac poetics, see Ruffell : –; Bakola : –. Iambic poet as a madman: see Callim. Iamb. .– (Hipponax as Alkmeon). See Beta b on it. On Plato’s careful negotiation of the mimetic status of Magnesia’s choruses and his mediation between dramatic (tragic mimesis) and non-dramatic (lyric mimesis) mode of performance, see Prauscello . https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.021 Published online by Cambridge University Press