«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 80 n Magda El-Nowieemy Victory Of The Defeated, and finally The Real Beginning. The scenes of the play are respectively: Socrates' house, the agora (the very spot where democ- racy was born), the theatre, the court, and finally prison. Etman shows Socrates conversing mainly with his wife, Xanthula, his students, among them Plato, and Democratia, who represents the city of Athens and its political system, besides some other less important characters. Etman figures out the outlines of the character of Socrates of the ancient Greek sources as an altogether unusual peculiar character, marked out for a unique message. The first words of the play prepare the reader for a serio- comic tone that comes. In the first scene of the first act, “ Socrates sits on a piece of stone beside the window of the right wall, in a state of contemplation. His wife Xanthula is sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, with a mirror in her hand, dressed in rich clothes and golden sandals, in contrast to Socrates, who is in tattered clothes and bare-footed ” . In the juxtaposition of Xanthula with Socrates, we can see another com- monplace of the serio-comic. In a following dialogue, Etman reflects the con- trast between the couple (Etman 2008a, p. 5f.). She is making her approaches to him, trying to touch him or hug him; he withdraws, requesting an “esthetic distance” between the two of them, if she wants a fruitful dialogue, so that none of them would affect the other . Here is introduced an opposition between seriousness and play. Socrates' philosophical thought conforms to the reason (cf. Belfiore 1980, p. 135f.), contrasting the anti-rationality of his wife. Etman has also an appreciation of the Socratic irony. He uses dramatic turns with ironic touches, to choose only one example: Socrates' wife is re- minding him of th“e coming of the Dionysus festivities and trying to convince him to receive them in a new look, instead of being in ragged clothes and bare-footed, though “the whole down-town is but shoe-shops everywhere” . He answered her by saying (Etman 2008a, p. 8): Socrates: (Sarcastic) That is true, even book-stores have turned into shoe shops, which mean that people's minds are in shoes. (In a serious tone) It's the ugly deed that disgraces its doer and his folk, as for these simple clothes, they don't disgrace me. Besides I like to free my feet , not to enchain them in soles, that I may walk freely everywhere…(Joking) and don't forget that the prices of shoes have risen to an unbearable point, so I'm sparing you all this (After a while) Ah if only people would all walk bare-footed, nude, then they would know the truth. Here as elsewhere in the play, seriousness and comic seriousness figure largely in the distinctions between the Socratic and the aristocratic behavior of the wife. They have nothing in common with each other. This serves a parodic purpose. Etman does not miss the Socratic method of “mental midwifery”, through question and answer (see Gomme 1962, p. 145). Socrates seeks by his