frog calling contest

[William Zantzinger]

--- Mark Wright AIA <mwaia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Why did Aristophanes think frogs quack? Was he
> afflicted, as was our P,
> with the urge to show off his ear before he had one?
>  )nudge-wink(

It doesn't translate from the Greek, Mark. Twain the
leaping frog contest and the Huck, is Mildness of
weather there is weather in this book.

Clemency, please. 
Don't murder me. 

I think the chorus of frogs in TSR is not so much an
allusion to Frogs or Aristophanes but an allusion to 
Aeschylus.  Aeschylus is an important character in
Aristophanes' Frogs. The two most dramatically
striking parts of Persians, the lamentations at the
end and Darius's ghostly speech, are mentioned in
Frogs in slightly confused fashion. Of course,
Aristophanes can expect his audience to recognize
slightly confused references. Can Young Tom? 
Can young Tom expect us to understand that he is
alluding to the "Frog Spawn of a Blind Man's Ditch" in
Yeats' famous poem? Can even Heaney expect us to get
this when he alludes to it?  Yeats is alluding to a
parable and a story in the bible. But isn't that a
frog out on a limb, a rat in the drain ditch too? I
can hear the croak of the three frogs in Beckett. Can
you? Watt? Watt was that? Frogs? A Chorus off stage?
No, it's only the wind. The wind whipping past the
cannon ball Leibniz dropped mockingly in the frog
spawn. Leibnizian construction of silent music
croaking in the wandering fog. Jesus! Jesus at the
well asking Henderson the Rain King why Dixon told the
story of the dragon in the well when scripture makes
it clear that it was frogs. Jesus drops a cannon ball
and he blows up not only the frogs but the well too.
Oh Well. All's well that fell in the well while
washing in Ivory thinking how to keep my feet from
I-Ching. (Frogs laughing off stage-"Brekekekéx koáx
koáx" as only EE Cummings can make them sing). Critic!
Critic! Critic! Rib it! Rip It! 

Just another fairy tale, Barthelme's or Hawks's maybe.
Levine an ugly prince. 





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