The Birds – Aristophanes | Play

Summary & Analysis | Ancient Greece –

Classical Literature
(Comedy, Greek, 414 BCE, 1,765 lines)

Introduction

“The Birds“ (Gr: “Ornithes“) is a comedy by the ancient Greek

playwright Aristophanes. It was first performed in 414 BCE at the City
Dionysia festival, where it won second prize.

The story follows Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian who persuades

the world’s birds to create a new city in the sky (thereby gaining control
over all communications between men and gods), and is himself eventually
miraculously transformed into a bird-like god figure himself,
and replaces Zeus as the pre-eminent power in the cosmos.
The play begins with two middle-aged men, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides
(roughly translated as Trustyfriend and Goodhope), stumbling across a
hillside wilderness in search of Tereus, the legendary Thracian king who
was once metamorphosed into the hoopoe bird. Disillusioned with life in
Athens and its law courts, politics, false oracles and military antics, they
hope to make a new start in life somewhere else and believe that the
Hoopoe/Tereus can advise them.

A large and threatening-looking bird, who turns out to be the Hoopoe’s

servant, demands to know what they are up to and accuses them of being
bird-catchers. He is persuaded to fetch his master and the Hoopoe himself
appears (a not very convincing bird who attributes his paucity of feathers to
a severe case of molting).

The Hoopoe tells of his life with the birds, and their easy existence of eating
and loving. Pisthetaerus suddenly has the brilliant idea that the birds should
stop flying about like simpletons and instead build themselves a great city
in the sky. This would not only allow them to lord it over men, it would also
enable them to blockade the Olympian gods, starving them into submission
in the same way as the Athenians had recently starved the island of Melos
into surrender.

The Hoopoe likes the idea and he agrees to help them implement it,
provided that the two Athenians can convince all the other birds. He and his
wife, the Nightingale, start to assemble the world’s birds which form into a
Chorus as they arrive. The newly arrived birds are outraged at the
presence of men, for mankind has long been their enemy, but the Hoopoe
persuades them to give his human guests a fair hearing. Pisthetaerus
explains how the birds were the original gods and advises them to reclaim
their lost powers and privileges from the upstart Olympians. The audience
of birds is won over and they urge the Athenians to lead them against the
usurping gods.

While the Chorus delivers a brief account of the genealogy of the birds,
establishing their claim to divinity ahead of the Olympians, and cites some
of the benefits of being a bird, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides go to chew on a
magical root of the Hoopoe that will transform them into birds. When they
return, sporting a rather unconvincing resemblance to a bird, they begin to
organize the construction of their city-in-the-sky, which they name “Cloud
Cuckoo Land”.

Pisthetaerus leads a religious service in honour of birds as the new gods,

during which he is pestered by a variety of unwelcome human visitors
looking for employment in the new city, including a young poet looking to
become the city’s official poet, an oracle-monger with prophecies for sale, a
famous geometer offering a set of town-plans, an imperial inspector from
Athens with an eye for a quick profit and a statute-seller. As these insidious
interlopers try to impose Athenian ways upon his bird kingdom,
Pisthetaerus rudely dispatches them.

The Chorus of birds steps forward to promulgate various laws forbidding

crimes against their kind (such as catching, caging, stuffing or eating them)
and advise the festival judges to award the play first place or risk getting
crapped on.

A messenger reports that the new city walls are already finished thanks to
the collaborative efforts of numerous kinds of birds, but a second
messenger then arrives with news that one of the Olympian gods has
sneaked through the defenses. The goddess Iris is caught and brought
down under guard to face Pisthetaerus’ interrogation and insults, before
being allowed to fly off to her father Zeus to complain about her treatment.
A third messenger then arrives to report that multitudes of unwelcome
visitors are now arriving, including a rebellious youth who believes that here
at last he has permission to beat up his father, the famous poet Cinesias
babbling incoherent verse, and an Athenian sycophant in raptures at the
thought of being able to prosecute victims on the wing, but they are all sent
packing by Pisthetaerus.

Prometheus arrives next, hiding himself from his enemy Zeus, to let

Pisthetaerus know that the Olympians are now starving because men’s
offerings are no longer reaching them. He advises Pisthetaerus, however,
not to negotiate with the gods until Zeus surrenders both his sceptre and
his girl, Basileia (Sovereignty), the real power in Zeus household.
Finally, a delegation from Zeus himself arrives, composed of Zeus’ brother
Poseidon, the oafish Heracles and the even more oafish god of the
barbarian Triballians. Pisthetaerus easily outwits Heracles, who in turn
bullies the barbarian god into submission, and Poseidon is thus outvoted
and Pisthetaerus’ terms accepted. Pisthetaerus is proclaimed king of the
gods and is presented with the lovely Sovereignty as his consort. The
festive gathering departs amid the strains of a wedding march.

Analysis

The longest of Aristophanes‘ surviving plays, “The Birds” is a fairly

conventional example of Old Comedy, and has been acclaimed by some
modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy, remarkable for its mimicry of
birds and for the gaiety of its songs. By the time of this production, in
414 BCE, Aristophanes had become recognized as one of Athens’ leading
comic playwrights.

Unlike the author’s other early plays, it includes no direct mention of the
Peloponnesian War, and there are relatively few references to Athenian
politics, even though 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. At that time, the
Athenians in general were still optimistic about the future of the Sicilian
Expedition, although there was still much ongoing controversy over it and
its leader, Alcibiades.

The play has been extensively analyzed over the years, and a great
number of different allegorical interpretations have been offered, including
identification of the Athenian people with the birds and their enemies with
the Olympian gods; Cloud Cuckoo Land as a metaphor for the over-
ambitious Sicilian Expedition, or alternatively as a comic representation of
an ideal polis; Pisthetaerus as a representation of Alcibiades; etc.

There is, however, another view, that the play is nothing more than
escapist entertainment, a graceful, whimsical theme chosen expressly for
the sake of the opportunities it afforded for bright, amusing dialogue,
pleasing lyrical interludes, and charming displays of brilliant stage effects
and pretty dresses, with no serious political motif underlying the surface
burlesque and buffoonery. Certainly, it is in a lighter vein than is usual
for Aristophanes, and is largely (although not completely) unconnected
with contemporary realities, suggesting that it may just have been an
attempt on the dramatist’s part to relieve the overwrought minds of his
fellow citizens.
Resources

 English translation (Internet Classics

Archive): http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/birds.html
 Greek version with word-by-word translation (Perseus
Project): http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?
doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0025
https://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_aristophanes_birds.html