I read this one straight after Halliwell's more scholarly translation of Clouds, Women of Themosphoria and Frogs. Whereas that focused on the verse and beauty of Artisophanes, Barratt and Somerstein have produced something designed to be performed: the rapid-fire comedy hits in a very modern way, helpful staging is included, and the translations are significantly briefer than Halliwell's. The loss is not insignificant - the plays are bawdy and light, with less gravitas and poetry, but on the other hand, they are very funny, which is somewhat the point.
The historical notes are excellent, and I appreciated the chronological glimpse into the transition from lavish to impoverished and how that connected to the demise of Old Comedy.

Was hoping, but not truly expecting, these would be funny plays. "The Birds" exceeded my hopes. Sitting outside by a swimming pool in Florida, surrounded by young adults on hedonism pilgrimages and even younger Spring Break'ers, I was the one laughing out loud. Oxford Classics editor Stephen Halliwell used different translators' versions of the four plays in this volume; this "Birds" was by Nan Dunbar, from 1995, and it made the play read as though it had been written two weeks ago.

I read "Lysistrata" long, long ago, like any young American schoolboy with a geeky streak, to see what the sex talk would be about. But I do not recall this degree of casual, impish humor. In "The Birds," characters address the audience, the judges, and anyone else Aristophanes feels like bringing into the action. It starts like "Waiting for Godot" -- two older men, sad sacks, who seem to be lost and wondering what to do next. Turns out they are renegades from classical Athens and all its taxation, lawsuit-craziness, and general irritations. They want some relief; a new place where they can live more peacefully. (It was a valuable reminder of some of the flaws of Periclean and post-Periclean Athens.)

"You want a greater city than Athens?" a hoopoe asks them.
One answers:
"A place where in the street I'd be rebuked
By some good-looking boy's indignant father:
'Well, what a spendid way to treat my son!
You saw him as he left the gymnasium,
But didn't kiss, or speak, or try to touch him.
A family friend, and you didn't squeeze his balls!' "

That's the general tone. The comedians had great license during the festivals, and Aristophanes took full advantage of it. Of course, just as they are succeeding in a wonderfully absurd project to make the birds create their paradise, CloudCuckooland, all the priests, oracle-mongers, and other rent-seeking creeps of Athens start to appear -- even (shudder) a poet. Aristophanes mocks them all wonderfully. His fantasies about what one could do if blessed with a pair of wings make for earthy humor, too.

On to the others.... "Lysistrata," "Assembly-Women," and "Wealth."

These plays are brilliant to say the least. The best one in my personal opinion is,"The Birds," by far. Absolutely classical and timeless. Also, this is a great edition. I enjoy Aristophanes' sense of humor in his plays.

Besides The Birds, the plays in this book (also The Knights, The Assemblywomen, Peace, and Wealth) are not Aristophanes' best works.

The Birds: This play is a work of ancient fictional genius. The summary is that two guys with tongue-twisting names (Peisthetaerus and Euelpides), sick of the litigious atmosphere of Athens, head out to find "a land without lawsuits". They seek out and find Tereus, a man who was transformed into a Hoopoe and is now king of the birds, with the intention of asking him where a good place to settle down would be ("he must do quite a lot of flying around, he may have come across the kind of place we’re looking for"). Tereus lives a relatively modest life in a home hidden in a cliff with his wife Procne, who was transformed into a Nightingale. (The usual version of their myth is extremely bloody and terrible, but in this play they are a happily married and honorable couple).
While chatting with Tereus, Peisthetaerus has a brilliant idea: "My goodness, the possibilities I can see for you birds – and power too, if you’ll let yourselves be guided by me. ... In the first place, give up this habit of flying stupidly around all day; it’s getting you a bad name. Stay in one place and found a city." Where? "The sky: the great vault of heaven. Revolving on its axis – to which only the birds have access. Build a wall around it, turn this vast immensity into a vast, immense city, and then – you’ll rule over man as you now rule over the insects; and as for the gods, they’ll starve to death, like the Melians." (Athens had recently besieged and destroyed Melos).
Tereus thinks that that is a terrific idea, so he calls the birds to assemble by waking up Procne and having her sing for the birds to assemble. Tereus sings along with her. The lyrics are wonderful: "Epo popo popo popo, popo popo poi! Ió, ió, itó, itó, itó, itó! Come along, come along, birds of my own feather, Birds who live in the farmers’ well-sown fields, Eaters of seed and of barley, myriad flocks Of a hundred species, fluttering quickly, Uttering gentle calls, Twittering together on the furrowed soil In a pleased voice, tió, tió, tió! ... Toro toro toro torotix! Kikkabau! Kikkabau! Toro toro toro toro lililix!"
Peisthetaerus marvels at the assembly: "Look at them all! Jay, turtledove, crested lark, reed warbler, wheatear, pigeon, merlin, sparrowhawk, ringdove, cuckoo, stockdove, firecrest, rail, kestrel and – oh look, a dabchick! Waxwing – vulture – woodpecker – and that seems to be the lot." As the introduction mentions, it is notable that Aristophanes knows the names of so many bird species, and that he is familiar with their general habitats and lifestyles.
At first the birds attack the two human "intruders" in their midst, resulting in a ridiculous scene where Peisthetaerus and Euelpides arm themselves with implements from Tereus's kitchen. But soon enough Peisthetaerus has their attention and narrates a remarkable bird-oriented origin story:
"In the beginning there existed only Chaos, Night, Black Erebus and Dreary Tartarus: there was no Earth, no Air, no Sky. It was in the boundless womb of Erebus that the first egg was laid by black–winged Night; and from this egg, in due season, sprang Eros the deeply–desired, Eros the bright, the golden–winged. And it was he, mingling in Tartarus with murky Chaos, who begot our race and hatched us out and led us up to the light. There was no race of immortal gods till Eros brought the elements together in love: only then did the Sky, the Ocean and the Earth come into being, and the deathless race of all the blessed gods. So you see we are much older than any of the gods."

They decide to name their city "Nephelococcygia", which this book translates to "Much Cuckoo in the Clouds", but I prefer the typical translation "Cloud Cuckoo Land."

This play is so sacrilegious that it makes me think that Aristophanes' accusations of Socrates' sacreligiousness in The Clouds must have been a compliment. The scene where the birds dedicate the foundation of their city is pretty amusing:
PRIEST [as they march round the altar]: Pray to the birds’ equivalent of Hestia, to the Stork who guards your hearth, and to all the Olympian cock gods and hen gods –
PEISTHETAERUS: O Stork who stalkest over Sunium, all hail!
PRIEST: – and to the Pythian and Delian Swan, and Leto the Quail–Mother; Artemis and Bunting –
PEISTHETAERUS: I think she’s gone a–hunting.
PRIEST: – and to the Phrygian Finch, and Ostrich the great Mother of gods and men –
PEISTHETAERUS: Ostrich the mother of Cleocritus! [He imitates the walk of a well-known citizen.]
PRIEST: – to grant health and safety to the people of Much Cuckoo in the Clouds, and likewise to their faithful allies in Chios.

The birds seem to construct their city in a matter of hours.
FIRST MESSENGER: Birds, just birds. No outside help. No Egyptian bricklayers, no masons, no carpenters: just the birds, with their own hands. I was amazed. Thirty thousand cranes arrived from Libya, with foundation stones in their crops. The corncrakes shaped the stones with their beaks. Ten thousand storks carried the bricks, and the water was brought up by the plovers, and other river birds.
PEISTHETAERUS: Who carried the mortar for them?
FIRST MESSENGER: The herons brought it, in pans.
PEISTHETAERUS: How did they get the mortar into the pans?
FIRST MESSENGER: Oh, that was most ingenious: the geese put it in for them. They used their feet as shovels.
PEISTHETAERUS: Quite a feat!
FIRST MESSENGER: The ducks had their aprons, of course, so they did the bricklaying; and the swallows fluttered above, with their little trowels behind them, carrying the mud in their beaks.

Next, we have a violation of bird airspace that sounds like it could have come from a Madagascar spin-off:
SECOND MESSENGER: Oh, sir, terrible news. One of the gods has just violated our air space: flew in through one of the gates. One of Zeus’s lot. The jackdaws were on guard but he slipped through, sir.
PEISTHETAERUS: The dirty dog! How dare he? Which of the gods was it?
SECOND MESSENGER: We don't know, sir. But he’s got wings, we do know that.
PEISTHETAERUS: You should have sent out a pursuit force straight away.
SECOND MESSENGER: We have, sir: thirty thousand mobile archers of the Hover and Swoop corps: every bird with curved talons is on the wing – kestrels, buzzards, vultures, owls and eagles. Listen, you can hear the whirring of their wings, filling the air with thunder – he must be somewhere quite near.
In no time at all they apprehend the intruder - Iris, the messenger of the gods.
Iris and Peisthetaerus have a heated exchange that ends in a virtual declaration of war:
PEISTHETAERUS: Off with you now! Quickly! shoo! beat it!
IRIS [dissolving into tears]: Just wait till my father [Zeus] hears about this: he’ll soon put a stop to your insults.
PEISTHETAERUS: Oh, for pity’s sake, fly away. Go and incinerate someone a bit younger.

Meanwhile back on earth, Cloud Cuckoo Land has gone viral:
MESSENGER: You see, until you founded Much Cuckoo, Sparta was all the rage. People grew their hair long, they starved themselves, they stopped having baths (like Socrates), they all carried walking sticks. But now there’s been a complete change, they’re all bird-mad.
...
[REBELLIOUS YOUTH enters, singing.]
REBELLIOUS YOUTH [sings]: Gonna fly high!
Gonna fly high!
Gonna spread them wings and sweep, sweep, sweep
Over the waves of the boundless deep,
Gonna fly like an eagle in the sky!
PEISTHETAERUS: Looks as if that messenger was right: there’s someone arriving already and he's singing about eagles.
(the rebellious youth is promptly sent into the war against the gods).

The play ends with basically complete capitulation by the gods, who have been starved of the smells of their earthly offerings. Peisthetaerus demands "Sovereignty" as bride, and a delegation of gods (Poseidon, Heracles, and a "Triballian" god, representing the barbarian gods) agree, basically making Peisthetaerus the sovereign of the world.

It's a silly play, but as Peisthetaerus tells an informer:
PEISTHETAERUS: Words can give everybody wings.
INFORMER: Everybody?
PEISTHETAERUS: Wings to their spirit, their imagination.

I can confirm that the words of this play sent me to Cloud Cuckoo Land while I was reading it.

Peace: This play was written in 422 BC in the aftermath of the Siege of Amphipolis, in which Brasidas, a Spartan warmonger, and Cleon, an Athenian demagogue and warmonger, were both killed. Aristophanes was clearly anti-war, and this play was a celebration of the death of the warmongers and an advertisement for the benefits that peace would bring.
I love the way the play starts off, in which two slaves are feeding a ravenous... beetle. What I love so much is that I would never in a million years have been able to guess what was going on with the beetle. One of the slaves eventually explains, "yesterday [my master] went out some damn place, I don’t know where, and brought home this beetle, an enormous one bred on Mount Etna, and told me, if you please, to keep it here in the stable. And he, he rubbed the creature down like a thoroughbred colt and he said to it, ‘Well, my little Pegasus, my noble winged steed, soon you’ll be flying up to Zeus with me on your back.’" So basically it's a horse-sized dung beetle that will fly the master, Trygaeus, up to Mount Olympus. "DAUGHTER: But what is in thy heart that thou shouldst ride / Up to the gods upon a beetle, daddy? TRYGAEUS: In Aesop’s fable will you find it writ / ’Tis the sole creature that to heaven has flown." As Trygaeus ascends towards heaven, he shouts down, "Please, everybody – I’m doing all this for your sake – could you possibly abstain from shitting and farting for the next three days? If pegasus here gets a whiff, he’ll chuck me head over heels and swoop down for a meal!"
After a rough ride, Trygaeus reaches Olympus, where he receives and unfriendly welcome: "TRYGAEUS: Whew! Ah, this must be Zeus’s house. [Knocks.] Anyone at home? Here, can’t somebody open the door? HERMES [coming to the door]: Whence comes this mortal’s – [Opens the door and gapes at the beetle.] Heracles save us, what is that monstrosity? TRYGAEUS: Why, a hippobeetle. HERMES: Why, you foul, shameless, desperate, good-for-nothing villain! How dare you come here, you villainest of villains?"
Trygaeus eventually learns from Hermes that the other gods have left Greece for a different part of heaven: "They were fed up with you Greeks. So here where they used to live, they got War to move in, and said he could do as he pleased with you; and then they set up house as high in heaven as they could get, so they couldn’t either see you fighting each other or hear you praying to them... Because they’d tried to make peace over and over again, and still you insisted on carrying on with the war." Moreover, it turns out that War has taken Peace "and thrown her into a deep dark cave" and covered the opening with heavy rocks. War soon comes out with a pestle and mortar that he will use to "pound every city in Greece into a pulp"... and make a salad: "WAR [adding garlic]: Aaaah! Megara, Megara, city of garlic, I shall pound you to pieces and mix you in my salad! TRYGAEUS [tears in his eyes from the garlic]: Megara will weep today all right! [Rubs his eyes.] WAR [adding cheese]: Aaaah! Sicily, Sicily, land of cheese, you will perish too! TRYGAEUS: Poor island, all grated up!" But it turns out that War doesn't have a pestle to grind with - he sends his boy Havoc to Athens to get a pestle, but they don't have one (Cleon had just died) - he then sends Havoc to Sparta, but Sparta also doesn't have one (Brasidas was dead). Thwarted, War leaves to go make his own pestle.
Trygaeus takes the opportunity to somehow summon a bunch of farmers from all over Greece to liberate Peace. Hermes attempts to intervene, but Trygaeus bribes him with meat, some gold, and the promise of lots of festivals and games dedicated to Hermes. They eventually pull off all of the rocks blocking Peace's cave and liberate her, along with Harvest and Festival. While celebrating, the chorus say something intriguing: "What joy to see my vines again, what joy to say hello / To the fig-trees that I planted in my youth so long ago!" The mention of vines and fig trees is intriguing to me because it's very biblical (Micah 4:4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; And none shall make them afraid; For the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken.). Makes me wonder if the vine and fig tree imagery was a pan-eastern-Mediterranean thing.
Hermes gives Harvest to Trygaeus as a bride, and everyone lives happily every after.

The Knights This play was written in 424 BC (2 years earlier than Peace), after Cleon had risen to power by capturing the Spartans trapped at Pylos (in reality, Cleon wasn't responsible at all for capturing the Spartans but came at just the right moment to claim all the credit). As the translator notes, the play is a savage attack on both Cleon and the Athenian political system that produced him. In the play, "Cleon" is represented by "the Paphlagonian", and he meets his match in the form of the "Sausage-Seller", who is even more unscrupulous than he is. The play mostly consists of the Sausage-Seller outdoing Cleon in every form of bribery, demagoguery, and lying.
One of the more memorable scenes is where the two characters exchange insults and threats for a surprisingly long time.
P: When you’re a General, I’ll accuse and try you!
S: I’ll chop yer back in tiny bits and fry you!
P: My lying talk will catch you by the heels.
S: I’ll cut yer footsies up for ’igh-class meals.
P: Just look me in the eye now, if you dare!
S: I’m also a son of Athens’ Market square!
P: Another word and I’ll cut up your hide!
S: Come on, you shit, I gotter chuck you ahtside!
P: What impudence! I’m a real thief ’ are you?
S: Yerss, and if caught, a first-rate liar too!
P [breaking free]: That’s trespassing on my territory!
...
S: I’ll stuff up your arsehole like a sausage-skin!
P: I’ll grab you by the backside and throw you out of town!
D: If you do, you’ll have me to reckon with as well!
P: I’ll shove you in the stocks unless you yield!
S: I’ll charge you with desertion in the field!
P: I’ll stretch your hide, I’ll give you no relief!
S: I’ll make your skin a wallet for a thief!
P: I’ll pin you to the ground with iron pegs!
S: I’ll make bad mincemeat of your arms and legs!
P: I’ll pluck your eyelashes from out each eye!
S: I’ll slit your crop, and like a fowl you’ll die!

The Assemblywomen: This play was written in 393-391 BC, about 10 years after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian war. But at this time, Athens was still in a state of war with Sparta, but greatly reduced from its former level of wealth and power. In this play, the women of Athens seize power over the government at the Assembly and pass a series of measures meant to create a society similar to that of Plato's Republic, including things like communal sharing of spouses and children, and communal dwelling and eating areas. The introduction notes that the play is oddly disjointed, with one particular side plot from the first half of the play (a citizen who has found a way to get around the new communal rules) being forgotten about in the second half of the play. One of the more memorable scenes is when Blepyrus, the husband of Praxagora, the ringleader of the women, is constipated:
BLEPYRUS: Well, it’s certainly holding things up. What am I going to do? This is bad enough, but what’s going to happen when I eat another meal? How’s that going to get out, with this big fellow in the way, barring the exit? I need an operation. Question is, who’ll perform it? [To the audience] Hey, anyone out there with any experience of bottoms? My God, dozens of them. Amynon? No, I won’t ask him; he’s choosy these days, he might say no. Fetch Antisthenes, somebody, for goodness’ sake; he’s always grunting and groaning himself, he’ll understand. Oh, Goddess of Childbirth, can you look on unmoved as I crouch here, bulging, but bunged up? It’s just like a scene in some low comedy. [It is now light, CHREMES enters, coming from left.] CHREMES: Hullo, what are you doing? Having a shit? BLEPYRUS: What, me? Just finished, actually.
CHREMES: Is that your wife’s dress you’re wearing?
BLEPYRUS: It was the only thing I could find, in the dark. [Praxagora had taken his cloak to disguise herself as a man in the assembly].
That morning, all of the women of Athens attended the assembly dressed as men and voted to hand over control of the government to the women. Chremes tells Blepyrus, "They voted to hand over control to the women. The general feeling was, that as this was the only method that hadn’t yet been tried, they might as well try it."
Praxagora decides to establish communism: "everyone is to have an equal share in everything and live on that; we won’t have one man rich while another lives in penury, one man farming hundreds of acres while another hasn’t enough land to get buried in; one man with dozens of slaves and another with none at all. There will be one common stock of necessities for everybody, and these will be shared equally... I’m making girls common property too. Any man who wants to can sleep with them and have children by them... The plain unattractive girls will sit with the pretty ones; anyone who wants a pretty girl will have to lay one of the plain ones first... I shall have all the party-walls pulled down between houses: the whole city will be just one big communal residence. You’ll be able to walk in and out where you like... I shall have all the lawcourts and arcades converted into dining-halls." This sets the stage for really interesting consequences, but the play mainly explores it by having a young man attempt to liaise with a younger women only to be thwarted by old crones who drag him to their house to have sex with him.

Wealth: This is the last known play by Aristophanes. The premise is that Wealth is blind, which is why so many bad people become wealthy. Chremylus restores Wealth's sight, causing Poverty and Chremylus to have an interesting debate where Poverty explains:
"Every craftsman feels that he is my slave: that I sit behind him, compelling him by sheer need to seek a way of earning a livelihood... You don’t realize that I give you better men than Wealth ever can, better in body and better in mind. He gives you all sorts of cripples: gout here, pot bellies there, dropsy in the calves, obesity beyond all bounds, while I give you lean, wiry, wasplike men, who are deadly to their enemies." Later Hermes comes and complains that no one is sacrificing anymore, and he accepts a job as a "Divine Servant."

n  Some Favorite Quotes:n
From the introduction to the Project Gutenberg version I read: the play appeals perhaps more than any other of our Author's productions to the modern reader. Sparkling wit, whimsical fancy, poetic charm, are of all ages, and can be appreciated as readily by ourselves as by an Athenian audience of two thousand years ago.

Undoubtedly; words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven.

These plays are hilarious!

Well, that was enlightening. If you're someone who is concerned that Ancient Greece was all Oedipal complexes and gouged out eyeballs and such you'll be very relieved to read the plays of Aristophanes. Aristophanes isn't afraid of a dirty joke or scatological references or employing enormous fake phalluses as stage props. I know more about the personal grooming habits of the Ancient Greek women than I probably *needed* to know. I almost typed WANTED to know but then I realized that if someone had dangled that information just out of my reach I probably would have reached out a hand and made at least a half-hearted snatch (sorry) for it. So, on some level I WANTED to know. But I didn't NEED to.

I understand that the work of Aristophanes represents and important element of Greek life and I'm glad I read this but I don't need to read any of his other plays. I get it.

As regards this particular translation, I would recommend it even though the translator's notes are a bit dense and he does love to use a long, complicated word where a concise one would do the job. I liked that this collection was designed to show the progression from Old Comedy to Middle Comedy. I could have done without the many references to plays and characters outside of this collection but ultimately I didn't feel like I was missing the point by just skimming over those.

A must read

The fact that these plays are likely to offend many if they were staged today, gives me more reason to enjoy and recommend it here!

This is my first time reading Aristophanes in a non-academic setting, and I was really able to engage and enjoy it in a different way. Reading ancient literature can often feel distant, but my biggest takeaway is how pertinent the themes, interactions, and depictions of social life in ancient Athens feel. Aristophanes writes comedy in its purest form — my best description is a 5th century BC version of South Park. Both combine vulgarity, exceptional wit, and silliness to write thematic satire in a way that can resonate with anyone.

Here’s how I would rank the plays in this collection:

1. The Birds
2. Peace
3. The Assemblywomen
4. The Knights
5. Wealth

Fart jokes, philandering, sharp political satire, and the battle of the sexes circa 500 B.C. Aristophanes’ plays are all very witty and even quite brave considering how relentlessly he attacked Athens’ politicians and power players during this time, of which he was liable for slander. The common targets of Aristophanes’ irreverent lampooning are the city leaders, gluttons, soothsayers, priests, and notably the Gods. Some plays are better than others, with The Birds being the crowd favorite. The Knights was agonizing for me and seemed to wander quite a bit in the dialogue and Chorus. Peace and the Assemblywomen were my favorites; through Aristophanes, you can feel the Athenian’s legitimate anxiety over their impending doom as they were losing the war with the Spartans (similar to his other famous work, Lysistrata) and facing destruction of their democracy and untold horrors. Much like gallows humor. Comprehending this backdrop of the internecine Peloponnesian War and pairing it with the heavy dose of Aristophanes’ satiric barbs in these plays, one gains an appreciation for the ancient Athenian’s yearning for good governance, prosperity, peace, and happiness—things most of us can identify with today. That and fart jokes.

What most people notice first about Aristophanes is the lewdness of his humour. After that his courage.
In ‘The Assembly Women’, almost two and a half thousand years before Proudhon, Aristophanes has the women of Athens asserting a stringent proto-communism. ‘The Birds’ is another attack on theocentric government; while the most challenging aspect of ‘Lysistrata’ is, not the famous sex strike, but Aristophanes own obvious opposition to the war with Persia - on, what seem like, unashamedly pacifist grounds. Aristophanes crude slurs against Athenian politicians could hardly have been as damaging as the message of these plays as a whole. He was a dangerous man and lucky to survive as long as he did. Perhaps that is the ultimate accolade both for him and the governors of Athens: that their fledgling constitution could accommodate such treacherous dissent.
Back to lewdness. From an historical point of view this is really useful. Nobody wrote agony columns or sex manuals in 5th century Athens and, even if they did, they wouldn’t be an indication of what most people thought and did. Comedy, on the other hand, demands recognition and familiarity to work. If Aristophanes mentions a couple of interesting positions (which he does) we know that his audience sometimes aspired to adventurous sex lives. Before the clitoris went into hiding for a couple of millennia, the good citizens of Athens, apparently, knew what it was and what it was for! And, by extension, what were the unpopular politics of his era, given that they appear so often in his comedy? Maybe we are inured to the politics of appetite until we see them reflected back to us from antiquity in a play such as Wealth. Maybe Aristophanes can help us today to recognise the appeasement of that appetite in, for example, the double sycophancy of scientific advisors handsomely remunerated for telling their government employers what it believes its supporters want to hear.