The Birds
Aristophanes414 BCEAristophanes imagined two Athenians building a city in the sky to escape the corruption of both human politics and the gods.
Read this if you…
- want one of the most hyped Aristophanes play (even though its overrated)
- like the idea of a utopia called CloudCuckooLand (even though its overrated)
Skip this if you…
- haven't read Clouds or Lysistrata or Frogs to decide if you even like Aristophanes
- don't like having to look at footnotes/online to see why something is funny
Why It Matters
Aristophanes imagined two Athenians building a city in the sky to escape the corruption of both human politics and the gods. It is the earliest utopian fantasy in Western literature and one of the funniest looks at what happens when idealists try to build a perfect society. The absurdist inventiveness still holds up.
The 
Take
Found this one overrated. Kinda a fun fantastical idea, but wasn’t that funny. I liked the vulture joke and everyone dressed as birds. But didn’t find it that good
Where to go next
- Theogony/Works and Days by Hesiod. The Birds built on it. - The *Theogony* is the cosmogony *The Birds* is sending up — Aristophanes lifts Hesiod's primordial lineup (Chaos, Erebus, Night, Eros) and reshuffles it for laughs - In the bird-chorus's parabasis, Hesiod's genealogy of the gods gets inverted so the birds come first and the Olympians arrive late - Read Hesiod's solemn version first and the comic reversal snaps into focus
Depicted in Art
Greek title page reading 'Aristophanous komodiai ennea' — the first printed edition of Aristophanes' nine comedies, with Peace listed among them, in Venetian Greek type.
Aldus Manutius (printer); Markos Mousouros (editor), 1498
The full Cambridge undergraduate cast in elaborate Hellenist bird costumes, posed on the Theatre Royal stage with painted Greek-temple scenery behind them.
Robert Farren, 1883
Stage scene with a winged man and a young boy beside a speaking actor, surrounded by chorus members in full bird costume gathered at the front of the stage.
Henry Gillard Glindoni
Recommended Editions
Peter Meineck
Hackett Publishing · 1998
Meineck translates for the stage, and the Birds is the play that most needs that. You can see the costumes and hear the bird-calls. Cloudcuckooland actually feels like a real place readers want to move to.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Do you like Nephelococcygia?”
“By the gods, I've never seen a more magnificent plan! Let's build our city in the clouds!”
More by Aristophanes
- The Acharnians
425 BCE · Comedy
- The Clouds
423 BCE · Comedy
- Wasps
422 BCE · Comedy
- Peace
421 BCE · Comedy
- Lysistrata
411 BCE · Comedy
- The Frogs
405 BCE · Comedy