When was The Birds by Aristophanes first performed?
The Birds was first performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia in Athens. It won second place at the festival.
Questions about The Birds (play)
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the plot of The Birds by Aristophanes?
Two Athenians, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, persuade the birds to build a great city in the sky called Nephelokokkygia, or cloud-cuckoo-land, and to reclaim their status as the original gods. Pisthetaerus eventually outwits a delegation from Zeus and is proclaimed king of the gods.
What is cloud-cuckoo-land in The Birds by Aristophanes?
Cloud-cuckoo-land, or Nephelokokkygia in Greek, is the name Pisthetaerus and Euelpides give to the great city in the sky that the birds build in the play. The term has since entered common usage to describe an absurdly idealistic or impractical scheme.
What historical events does The Birds by Aristophanes reference?
The play was performed in 414 BC, shortly after the Athenian Sicilian Expedition set out under Alcibiades and Nicias. It references the mutilation of the Hermai, the outlawing of the atheist Diagoras of Melos, and the dispatch of the state ship Salaminia to bring Alcibiades back from Sicily for trial.
Why is The Birds the longest of Aristophanes's surviving plays?
The length comes from three separate waves of unwelcome visitors who interrupt Pisthetaerus, a structural repetition not found in Aristophanes's other surviving comedies. Each wave must be confronted and chased away before the plot can advance.
How has The Birds by Aristophanes been interpreted by scholars?
Interpretations range widely. Some scholars read Cloudcuckooland as a satire on the Sicilian Expedition, others as a metaphor for Alcibiades, and others as a vision of an ideal or a cautionary city. Arnold Toynbee argued in his Study of History that the play influenced the New Testament, drawing parallels between Pisthetaerus and Jesus and between Cloudcuckooland and the Kingdom of Heaven. Some scholars argue the play is simply escapist entertainment.