The Birds and Other Plays

Aristophanes, often referred to as “The Father of Comedy”, is an ancient Greek poet and playwright who is credited with helping to create the art of satire and irony. Of the over forty plays Aristophanes wrote during his lifetime only eleven survive to this day of which six are collected together here in this volume. In “The Acharnians”, there is the story of Dikaiopolis, an Athenian who brokers a private peace treaty with the Spartans. “The Knights” satirizes Athenian society and politics during the Peloponnesian War. In “Peace” we find a joyous anticipation by the Athenian people of an end to the Peloponnesian War, staged just days before the actual end to the war. With “The Birds”, Aristophanes relates a fantastical tale of a magical city in the sky. “Lysistrata” concerns the comic account of Athenian women to bring about an end to the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex from their husbands. And finally in “The Ecclesiazusae” there is the tale of Athenian women seizing control of the government and establishing a society of fiscal and sexual equality. This edition follows the prose translations of The Athenian Society and includes a biographical afterword.