阿卡奈人

《阿卡奈人》（古希腊文：Ἀχαρνεῖς Akharneîs；阿提卡希腊语：Ἀχαρνῆς），古希腊剧作家阿里斯托芬的喜剧。

公元前425年，该剧上演，得到当时的头奖。

背景

阿里斯托芬写完这部喜剧的时候，伯罗奔尼撒战争已经打了六年。

内容

《阿卡奈人》描写了主人公雅典农民“狄凯奥波利斯”对战争的绝望，他独自一个和斯巴达人签订了一个30年的和约，但是24个阿卡奈人（歌队）反对他的做法。狄凯奥波利斯和歌队在对驳场互相辩论，他最终说服阿卡奈人，开放了和平市场给斯巴达人，使得雅典人过上了幸福而平静的生活。

主题和风格

阿里斯托芬在这部喜剧里表达“反战”和“和平”的强烈愿望。

译著

该剧的简体中文版已经由翻译家罗念生翻译出版。

The Acharnians or Acharnians (Ancient Greek: Ἀχαρνεῖς Akharneîs; Attic: Ἀχαρνῆς) is the third play — and the earliest of the eleven surviving plays — by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was produced in 425 BC on behalf of the young dramatist by an associate, Callistratus, and it won first place at the Lenaia festival.

The Acharnians is about an Athenian citizen, Dikaiopolis, who miraculously obtains a private peace treaty with the Spartans and enjoys the benefits of peace in spite of opposition from some of his fellow Athenians. The play is notable for its absurd humour, its imaginative appeal for an end to the Peloponnesian War, and for the author's spirited response to condemnations of his previous play, The Babylonians, by politicians such as Cleon, who had reviled it as a slander against the Athenian polis. In The Acharnians, Aristophanes reveals his resolve not to yield to attempts at political intimidation.

Along with the other surviving plays of Aristophanes, The Acharnians is one of the few – and oldest – surviving examples of a highly satirical genre of drama known as Old Comedy.

Plot

The play begins with Dikaiopolis sitting all alone on the Pnyx (the hill where the Athenian Assembly or ecclesia regularly meets to discuss matters of state). He is middle-aged, he looks bored and frustrated and soon he begins to vent his thoughts and feelings to the audience. He reveals his weariness with the Peloponnesian War, his longing to go home to his village, his impatience with the ecclesia for its failure to start on time and his resolve to heckle speakers who won't debate an end to the war. Soon some citizens do arrive, all pushing and shoving to get the best seats, and then the day's business begins.

A series of important speakers addresses the assembly but the subject is not peace and, true to his earlier promise, Dikaiopolis comments loudly on their appearance and probable motives. First of all there is the ambassador who has returned from the Persian court after many years, complaining of the lavish hospitality he has had to endure from his Persian hosts; then there is the Persian grandee, The Eye of the Great King, Pseudartabas, sporting a gigantic eye and mumbling gibberish, accompanied by some eunuchs who turn out to be a disreputable pair of effete Athenians in disguise; next is the ambassador recently returned from Thrace, blaming the icy conditions in the north for his long stay there at the public's expense; and lastly there is the rabble of Odomantians who are presented as elite mercenaries willing to fight for Athens but who hungrily steal the protagonist's lunch. Peace is not discussed. It is in the ecclesia, however, that Dikaiopolis meets Amphitheus, a man who claims to be the immortal great-great-grandson of Triptolemus and Demeter and who claims, moreover, that he can obtain peace with the Spartans privately. Dikaiopolis accepts his claims, and he pays him eight drachmas to bring him a private peace, which in fact Amphitheus manages to do.