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Birds - Lysistrata - Women at the Thesmophoria

aristophanes jeffrey henderson

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Aristophanes (ca. 446-386 b.c.), one of the world's greatest comic dramatists, has been admired since antiquity for his iridescent wit and beguiling fantasy, exuberant language, and brilliant satire of the social, intellectual, and political life of Athens at its height. In this third volume of a new Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristophanes' plays, Jeffrey Henderson presents a freshly edited Greek text facing a lively, unexpurgated translation with full explanatory notes.

In Birds Aristophanes turns from the pointed political satire characteristic of earlier plays to a fantasy that soars literally into the air in search of a carefree world. Here the enterprising protagonists create a utopian counter-Athens, called Cloudcuckooland, ruled by birds. Lysistrata blends uninhibited comedy and an earnest call for peace. Lysistrata, our first comic heroine, organizes a panhellenic conjugal strike of young wives until their husbands end the war between Athens and Sparta. Athenian women again take center stage in Women at the Thesmophoria, this time to punish Euripides for portraying them as wicked. Parody of Euripides' plots enlivens this witty confrontation of the sexes.

624 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15,2000

This edition

Format
624 pages, Hardcover
Published
November 15, 2000 by Loeb Classical Library/Harvard
ISBN
9780674995871
ASIN
0674995872
Language
English

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aristophanes

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Aristophanes (Greek: Αριστοφάνης; c. 446 – c. 386 BC) was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.
Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher.
Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all."

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Rating(4.3 / 5.0, 11 votes)
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11 reviews All reviews
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Simp4Nero
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Loved all those plays, though I don't have them in this edition. I have them in the original text. The scene with Kynisias and Myrrhine is laugh out loud funny (Lysistrata) Of course having seen them on the stage helps.
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seanmagicalweeb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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BIRDS: i'm into birds so i had high expectations for bird content and bird-related jokes, was not disappointed. exciting to learn origin of "Cloud Cuckoo Land" and see lots of fourth-wall breaking.

LYSISTRATA: the reason i wanted to read this book was this play which came recommended by mum. gender play and sex jokes in the service of pacifist politics, brilliant. haven't read such a great Greek girl hero since Antigone. her strategy was way more organised and radical than just the famous "denying sex to men" bit, which was cool. thinking about it now, the happy ending is undercut by the real ongoing war with Sparta at the time, bittersweet i guess.

THESMOPHORIAZUSAE: since i've only read a few euripides plays, thought reading/appreciating a piss-take of him would be the toughest part of this collection but instead it was my favourite of the three. begins with the queerest theatre i've ever read, and ends with the euripedes character and his dragged-up kinsman desperately acting out famous scenes from tragedies to try and escape an execution. the play-within-a-play boundary-blurring is surprisingly postmodern and great.

all of three of these were super lewd and also weirdly similar to modern-day musicals. more than other greek stuff i've read i felt the music and dancing were essential to these, and that the text was only a tiny part of the show. sometimes hard for me to vibe with, but the mix of slap-stick and satire was perfect.
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Eldyn
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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This review only pertains to Lysistrata. I love it so much I stole it to be my pseudonym, but probably Aristophanes wouldn’t care about copyright infringement, no? I can’t believe that jokes from so long ago (around 2,400 years ago; written in about 410 BC) are still so relatable. I never laughed so much reading a play. And the d*** jokes are hilarious! The play is so good that if I’m ever depressed, this will be my Prozac. I commend the plot. It is genuinely ingenious. I’m forever grateful to Prof. Matthew Landauer who assigned it as a one of the readings in my Athenian Democracy class!!
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justinchoi2002
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Another Lesley present! I MIGHT have screamed out "pre-ciousssssssss" in a Gollum-esque manner when I unwrapped it. Just possibly. It's the NEW (2000) version by Henderson of whom the Bryn Mawr Classical Review said "Henderson has done a very great service in bringing both the text and the antique translations of Rogers up to date" which is -- OK, that sounds pallid, but that's the equivalent of Richard Hamilton also screeching like Gollum, trust me.
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WhiteZet
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 1,2025
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Read the Lysistrata as a candidate for the All-College Seminar.
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