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    The Birds
    The Birds
    The Birds
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    The Birds

    By Aristophanes

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs. Unlike the author's other early plays, it includes no direct mention of the Peloponnesian War and there are few references to Athenian politics, and yet it was staged not long after the commencement of the Sicilian Expedition, an ambitious military campaign that had greatly increased Athenian commitment to the war effort. In spite of that, the play has many indirect references to Athenian political and social life. It is the longest of Aristophanes' surviving plays and yet it is a fairly conventional example of Old Comedy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAristophanes
    Release dateOct 3, 2015
    ISBN9788893157124
    The Birds
    Author

    Aristophanes

    Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete.

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      Book preview

      The Birds - Aristophanes

      The Birds

      by

      Aristophanes

      To the best of our knowledge, the text of this

      work is in the Public Domain.

      HOWEVER, copyright law varies in other countries, and the work may still be under

      copyright in the country from which you are accessing this website. It is your

      responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country before

      downloading this work.

      CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

      Euelpides

      Pithetaerus

      Trochilus, Servant to Epops

      Epops (the Hoopoe)

      A bird

      A herald

      A priest

      A poet

      An oracle-Monger

      Meton, a Geometrician

      An inspector

      A dealer in decrees

      Iris

      A parricide

      Cinesias, a Dithyrambic Poet

      An informer

      Prometheus

      Posidon

      Triballus

      Heracles

      Slaves of pithetaerus

      Messengers

      Chorus of birds

      [Scene:-A wild and desolate region; only thickets, rocks, and a single tree are seen. Euelpides and Pithetaerus enter, each with a bird in his hand.]

      Euelpides [to his jay]

      Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?

      Pithetaerus [to his crow]

      Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me? . . . to retrace my steps?

      Euelpides

      Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; we're wasting our time.

      Pithetaerus

      To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!

      Euelpides

      And that I, in obedience to this jay, should have worn my toes down to the nails!

      Pithetaerus

      If only I knew where we were. . . .

      Euelpides

      Could you find your country again from here?

      Pithetaerus

      No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides find his.

      Euelpides

      Alas!

      Pithetaerus

      Aye, aye, my friend, it's surely the road of alases we are following.

      Euelpides

      That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick, when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus, the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharrhelides, for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch! [To his jay] What's the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road that way.

      Pithetaerus

      Not even the vestige of a trail in any direction

      Euelpides

      And what does the crow say about the road to follow?

      Pithetaerus

      By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did.

      Euelpides

      And which way does it tell us to go now?

      Pithetaerus

      It says that, by dint of gnawing, it will devour my fingers.

      Euelpides

      What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the crows, do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different from that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honourable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. It's not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself paying taxes; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts. That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs! and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the Epops, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.

      Pithetaerus

      Here! look!

      Euelpides

      What's the matter?

      Pithetaerus

      Why, the crow has been directing me to something up there for some time now.

      Euelpides

      And the jay is also opening it beak and craning its neck to show me I know not what. Clearly, there are some birds about here. We shall soon know, if we kick up a noise to start them.

      Pithetaerus

      Do you know what to do? Knock your leg against this rock.

      Euelpides

      And you your head to double the noise.

      Pithetaerus

      Well then use a stone instead; take one and hammer with it.

      Euelpides

      Good idea! [He does so.] Ho there, within! Slave! slave!

      Pithetaerus

      What's that, friend! You say, slave, to summon Epops? It would be much better to shout, "Epops, Epops!

      Euelpides

      Well then, Epops! Must I knock again? Epops!

      Trochilus [rushing out of a thicket]

      Who's there? Who calls my master?

      Pithetaerus [in terror]

      Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak!

      [He defecates. In the confusion both the jay and the crow fly away.]

      Trochilus [equally frightened]

      Good god! they are bird-catchers.

      Euelpides [reassuring himself]

      But is it so terrible? Wouldn't it be better to explain things?

      Trochilus [also reassuring himself]

      You're done for.

      Euelpides

      But we are not men.

      Trochilus

      What

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