Aristophanes stands all alone. Not even a ribald stand-up peddler today could probably achieve his reeling, rip-roaring, no-holds-barred lampoons of contemporary culture. Like it or not, this is merciless satire at its most unhinged, and its genius stems from its sheer undisciplined nature. The themes reminded me a lot of "Candide" ("we must tend our garden"). Read it and laugh, that's all there is to it. As a side quip, you know how kids can get away with reading Song of Solomon by saying they're reading the Bible? I can easily imagine a Captain Underpants lover doing the same thing by telling his parents he's reading classical literature while snorting at lines like "I'VE GOT TO CRAP!!!"

A quick and snappy read. Fairly funny even without the intimate knowledge of all alluded figures, events, and myths. The stage directions and footnotes really helped in my translation, especially in appreciating some of the puns.

I liked this - a strange and nebulous atmosphere
As two buffoon-clowns organise a biosphere,
An Avian Kingdom high up in the stratosphere.
Apparently this parodies the Sicilian sphere;
I couldn’t see that myself, but if it’s true I fear
That it proved to be prophetic in the coming year.
For the war was lost for Athens in that fateful year,
And the sharp decline of Hellas became über-clear.

Yet another bad Aristophanes play.

As always, with a lot of non-sense, and bad sexual language.

A bird city is built, and they want to challenge the gods, like Peisetairus challenging Iris, assaulting her with sexual language and threats. Many unexpected and random visitors come to Peisetairus, and he dismisses them all. We can see here that Aristophanes threatens the gods so they are starving due to the ceasing of rituals made for them.

The plot ends with Peisetairus convincing three gods to handle him Zeus' Princess.

Probably this play has even less sense than others due to the fact that there was no war at the time of the writing, and Aristophanes can't mock people like Cleon here.

Estimated reading time: 3h

Masterful translation of a witty play. I'm not sure of the meaning of the play, but I can see where elements of low humor today were birthed in ancient times. I appreciated the translator's notes and glossary. They explained many obscure [to us] references--cultural and topical in Aristophanes' day. I read this to compare it with Braunfels' treatment of the story in his opera "Die Vögel" based on the same play.

First attempts are often weak.

The Greek poem The Birds was a strange, carefree comedy. It was very odd. I found myself asking: What am I reading? Where is this going? What is the point? There was no point.

Aristophanes wrote The Birds during a time of worldly peace and ease, with no concern for war or turmoil. The setting was not Athens, though there were historical references to Greece and its surroundings.

The two main human characters, Peisetarius and Euelpides, traveled an unknown road, bellyaching about their dull lives in Athens, while taking pointless directions from their pets, a crow and jackdaw. (Already the poem felt wayward.)

Peisetarius had an idea to seek out the mythological character Tereus (who had transformed into a bird) and convince him to create a city just for birds, where humans (such as themselves), tired of human life (also them), may find sanctuary in the sky.

Once connected with Tereus, the main characters easily persuaded him to build this bird city where birds would live together rather than fly freely everywhere (which seemed like a worse idea to me). However, the conciliation was that birds could concentrate control of all humans below and also besiege power from the Greek gods above. After all, birds were the original gods, he told him. Tereus enthusiastically agreed and called all the birds together and employed the two humans to convince the world's birds of the plan.

As birds appeared, they were fearful at first sight of Peisetarius and Euelpides, until Peisetarius presented his flattering birds-were-the-original-gods speech and assured them to regain their lost powers from the Olympian gods. They ecstatically agreed and prepared to do battle with the gods.

After the city was built, the gods, who were pathetically feeble, puny, and half-witted, visited the city. They did not stand a chance against the birds, obviously, and unsurprisingly capitulated power to Peisetarius, who was naturally crowned the new king of the birds. (He wasn't shrewd for nothing.)

There was a symphony of music, bird song, and colorful plumed costumes throughout the play. And there was a Shakespearean semblance to the play, which tells me the Bard read Aristophanes, no doubt! But there were also extreme sexual overtones towards females and F-bombs, too, that were unfortunate. That is why I could only give it two stars. My final words are that I'm grateful to be done with it, and I'll never read it again.

"Hear us, you who are no more than leaves always falling, you mortals benighted by nature,
You enfeebled and powerless creatures of earth always haunting a world of mere shadows,
Entities without wings, insubstantial as dreams, you ephemeral things, you human beings:
Turn your minds to our words, our etherial words, for the words of the birds last forever!"

Die Vögel hat mich nicht so begeistert. Der Anfang fand ich recht witzig, aber mit der Zeit wurde es immer verwirrender und am Ende kam ich gar nicht mehr wirklich draus. Laut den Bewertungen hier wäre wohl eine Ausgabe mit Fussnoten besser gewesen - mit dem richtigen historischen Kontext soll das Stück sehr satirisch und modern sein.

Ah yes, the Ancient sexy bird play…

Es un libro interesante, une bastantes hechos mitológicos de la antigua Grecia, creo que para entender gran parte del libro hay que tener conocimiento sobre algunos personajes mitológicos y un buen léxico, personalmente necesité buscar el significado de muchas palabras del texto; por otro lado, esperaba un final mucho más interesante, no me gustó el final abierto, lo sentí poco desarrollado.

Two men, sick and tired of city-life stumble across the magical and secret world of birds. They advise the birds to start a coup against the Greek gods, and become humanity's main object of worship instead.

Gaudy, and whimsical. All hail the birds.