I stumbled upon this as I was browsing the plays section and went into it completely blind. As a result I was caught off guard by the crude and vulgar humour which isnt exactly my taste ( though I will admit some jokes did get a giggle here and there). But I can always appreciate an excellent translation. Sommerstein and Barret did an incredible job translating it with a modern air,making it incredibly easy to understand with common slang,making the characters seem like exaggerated versions of people today(if we had different laws and refernced greek gods) and their introductory note and well as the references notes towards the end were greatly helpful. So the 4 stars essentially are for them and not necessarily Aristophanes.

5 stars for Birds, which is hilariously mock-tragic and gloriously silly.

5 stars for Lysistrata, which is much more ribald, but still is at least mock-serious and quite funny.

3 stars for Assembly-Woman, which is a little too much slapstick and poop jokes. Maybe it's that Praxagora disappears for a while; she starts off as promising as Lysistrata but then sort of fades away.

4 stars for Wealth, which has its good parts (Poverty's arguments, Wealth's overall wimpiness), but also has a little too much low humor without enough higher points.

A political satire on the imperialistic dreams that had led the Athenians to undertake their ill-fated expedition of 415 bce to conquer Syracuse in Sicily. Peisthetaerus is so disgusted with his city’s bureaucracy that he persuades the birds to join him in building a new city that will be suspended in between heaven and earth; it is named Nephelokokkygia, translatable as “Cloud-cuckoo-land.” The city is built, and Peisthetaerus and his bird comrades must then fend off the undesirable humans who want to join them in their new utopia. He and the birds finally even starve the Olympian gods into cooperating with them. Birds is Aristophanes’ most fantastical play, but its escapist mood possibly echoes the dramatist’s sense of Athens’ impending decline.

I laughed out loud when I read the Lysinastrata.

Quite funny...rude...but funny! This was not what I was expecting from Greek comedy!

Only read Peace

(tr. Ian C. Johnston)

This volume contains translations of Birds, Lysistrata, Assembly-women and Wealth, by Stephen Halliwell. Below follows my discussion of one of the four plays, Lysistrata.

Lysistrata is one of the most well-known of the Greek comedies by Aristophanes, written in the spring of 411 BC - in the twentieth year of the Peloponnesian War. In the same year in Athens aristocrats overthrew the radical democratic government in a coup. Lysistrata is the third of Aristophanes' pacifist anti-war pieces, the story of a female sex-strike to force the men to stop running off to yet another war or battleground.

The piece addresses the fact that men are the cause of war and the suffering that goes with it, and the struggle of women against that. Lysistrata is an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual and social responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various Greek city-states that are at war with each other. With support from the Spartan Lampito, Lysistrata persuades the other women to sexually deny their husbands as a means of forcing them to conclude the Peloponnesian War. The women are very reluctant, for obvious reasons, but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath. Soon after that, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis - the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot continue to fund their wars. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt, and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response.

A chorus of old men arrives, carrying heavy timbers, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women do not open up. From the other side, a chorus of old women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. Threats are exchanged, water beats fire, and the old men get a soaking. The magistrate then arrives with Scythian Archers (the Athenian version of police constables), blaming the men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from the state treasury to buy oars for the fleet, but his Scythians are quickly overwhelmed by groups of determined women.

Lysistrata explains the frustrations that women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, without listening to the opinions of their wives. She drapes her headdress over the magistrate, gives him a basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. Outraged at these indignities, he storms off.

Now Lysistrata has to restore discipline among the women, for her comrades are themselves so desperate for sex that they are beginning to desert on the silliest pretexts. But the condition of the husbands is even worse. The women play with them - enticing them and then again pushing them away.

A Spartan herald (in a very bad state) then appears requesting peace talks, and these indeed commence. Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms, but with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. The war is ended!

Over the centuries, Lysistrata has been frequently adapted: as a play (The Woman's Prize by John Fletcher, 1611); as a musical (The Greatest Sex, 1956; The Happiest Girl in the World, 1961); as an opera (by Mark Adamo, 2005); as an operetta (Paul Lincke, 1902); as ballet (1941), and it has inspired (sub-)plots of various films.

Lysistrata is notable for being an early exposé of gender relations in a male-dominated society. It was produced in the same year as Women at the Thesmophoria, another play with a focus on the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition. And in Assembly-women of 391 BCE Aristophanes invented a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and instate reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive. Modern adaptations of Lysistrata are often feminist and/or pacifist in their aim (although dramatic poets in classical Athens were neither unreservedly pacifist not feminist in the modern sense).

Finally a few words about Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386 BCE), who has been dubbed "The Father of Comedy." Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. Like the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, his plays were written for production at the great dramatic festivals of Athens, the Lenaia and City Dionysia, where they were judged and awarded prizes in competition with the works of other comic dramatists. His plays were highly political, addressing topical concerns by mentioning real individuals and local issues - "topicality" and "political theater" are the keywords here. The plays have a significance that goes beyond their artistic function, as historical documents that open the window on life and politics in classical Athens, in which respect they are perhaps as important as the writings of Thucydides. The artistic influence of the plays is immeasurable. They have greatly contributed to the history of European theater.

See more discussions of great plays at my website: https://adblankestijn.blogspot.com/p/...

This comedy ridicules the disastrous Greek expedition to Sicily in 413 BC. More generally, The Birds is a rollicking commentary on man's eternal dissatisfaction with his lot; his habit of ignoring the divinities which shape his ends; is crowded, evil-breading cities; and his tendency to disturb the equilibrium of the universe, Pisthetaerus, with his irresistible rhetoric, is a forebear of the men who sell salvation or the world's goods with equal glibness and ease.

Funny in parts with the toilet humour etc. interesting insight into life in those times. Some of the plays do go on a bit though.

FUNNY. Even after 2000 plus years! Lots of references that require endnotes, but if you can get past that - really enjoyable! Must have been such fun to watch back in the day when all of the references were contemporary.

Read Lysistrata for a Greek civ course but want to read the rest of the plays as well.