Wasps

Wasps (Sphēkğs, Lat. Vespae), comedy by Aristophanes, produced in 422 BC at the Lenaea, where it won second prize.

The play is a satire on the system of the jury courts at Athens which at that time provided, through payment for jury service, an important means of support for a sizeable number of poor and elderly men who were Athenian citizens. Philocleon (‘love-Cleon’) is consumed by a passion for serving on juries. His son Bdelycleon (‘loathe-Cleon’) has tried to cure him and has finally imprisoned him in his house. Philocleon's friends, the chorus of old jurymen, dressed as wasps to show their readiness to inflict punishment, come along before dawn to take him with them to the courts, and try to effect his escape. There is a scuffle, and Bdelycleon eventually persuades the chorus to listen while he urges his father to change his ways. A debate follows between father and son, the father dwelling upon the pleasures and benefits of exercising power irresponsibly, the son demonstrating that the jurors' power is an illusion; they are really manipulated by the politicians, who divert the city's revenues for their own ends. The chorus are converted, but Philocleon is reluctant, and as consolation Bdelycleon arranges for him to play the juror at home, the first to be tried being Labēs, the house dog, who has stolen a cheese. Tricked by his son, Philocleon unintentionally acquits the prisoner, the first that he has ever let off. Bdelycleon now takes in hand his father's social life, polishing his manners for the more relaxed pleasures of a dinner party (see SYMPOSIUM). Philocleon takes to this with gusto and returns drunk and in high spirits with a kidnapped slave-girl, and followed by threatening tradespeople whom he has assaulted on the way home. Bdelycleon is dismayed, but the play ends in a riotous dance, cordax, led by Philocleon. Racine imitated the Wasps in Les Plaideurs.