The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2. Аристофан
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The ancients considered it a specific against madness.
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Phrynichus, like all the ancient tragic writers, mingled many dances with his pieces.
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Tragic poet. His three sons had also written tragedies and were dancers into the bargain.
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Carcinus, by a mere transposition of the accent ([Greek: karkívos]), means
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Carcinus' sons were small and thin.
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The third son of Carcinus.
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Meaning, the three sons of Carcinus, the dancers, because, as mentioned before, Phrynichus often introduced a chorus of dancers into his Tragedies.
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Carcinus himself.
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The Greek word is [Greek: triorchoi]—possessed of three testicles, of three-testicle power, inordinately lecherous; with the change of a letter ([Greek: triarchoi]) it means 'three rulers,' 'three kinglets.'
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Euelpides is holding a jay and Pisthetaerus a crow; they are the guides who are to lead them to the kingdom of the birds.
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A stranger, who wanted to pass as an Athenian, although coming originally from a far-away barbarian country.
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A king of Thrace, a son of Ares, who married Procné, the daughter of Pandion, King of Athens, whom he had assisted against the Megarians. He violated his sister-in-law, Philomela, and then cut out her tongue; she nevertheless managed to convey to her sister how she had been treated. They both agreed to kill Itys, whom Procné had born to Tereus, and dished up the limbs of his own son to the father; at the end of the meal Philomela appeared and threw the child's head upon the table. Tereus rushed with drawn sword upon the princesses, but all the actors in this terrible scene were metamorphised. Tereus became an Epops (hoopoe), Procné a swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Itys a goldfinch. According to Anacreon and Apollodorus it was Procné who became the nightingale and Philomela the swallow, and this is the version of the tradition followed by Aristophanes.
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An Athenian who had some resemblance to a jay—so says the Scholiast, at any rate.
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Literally,
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They leave Athens because of their hatred of lawsuits and informers; this is the especial failing of the Athenians satirized in 'The Wasps.'
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Myrtle boughs were used in sacrifices, and the founding of every colony was started by a sacrifice.
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The actors wore masks made to resemble the birds they were supposed to represent.
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Fear had had disastrous effects upon Euelpides' internal economy, this his feet evidenced.
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The same mishap had occurred to Pisthetaerus.
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The Greek word for a wren, [Greek: trochilos], is derived from the same root as [Greek: trechein], to run.
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No doubt there was some scenery to represent a forest. Besides, there is a pun intended. The words answering for
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Sophocles had written a tragedy about Tereus, in which, no doubt, the king finally appears as a hoopoe.
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A [Greek: para prosdokian]; one would expect the question to be "bird or man."—Are you a peacock? The hoopoe resembles the peacock inasmuch as both have crests.
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Athens.
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The Athenians were madly addicted to lawsuits. (
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As much as to say,
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His name was Aristocrates; he was a general and commanded a fleet sent in aid of Corcyra.
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The State galley, which carried the officials of the Athenian republic to their several departments and brought back those whose time had expired; it was this galley that was sent to Sicily to fetch back Alcibiades, who was accused of sacrilege.
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A tragic poet, who was a leper; there is a play, of course, on the Lepreum.
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An allusion to Opuntius, who was one-eyed.
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The newly-married ate a sesame cake, decorated with garlands of myrtle, poppies, and mint.
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From [Greek: polein], to turn.
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The Greek words for
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Boeotia separated Attica from Phocis.
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He swears by the powers that are to him dreadful.
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As already stated, according to the legend, accepted by Aristophanes, it was Procné who was turned into the nightingale.
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The son of Tereus and Procné.
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An African bird, that comes to the southern countries of Europe, to Greece, Italy, and Spain; it is even seen in Provence.
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Aristophanes amusingly mixes up real birds with people and individuals, whom he represents in the form of birds; he is personifying the Medians here.
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Philocles, a tragic poet, had written a tragedy on Tereus, which was simply a plagiarism of the play of the same name by Sophocles. Philocles is the son of Epops, because he got his inspiration from Sophocles' Tereus, and at the same time is father to Epops, since he himself produced another Tereus.
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This Hipponicus is probably the orator whose ears Alcibiades boxed to gain a bet; he was a descendant of Callias, who was famous for his hatred of Pisistratus.
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This Callias, who must not be confounded with the foe of Pisistratus, had ruined himself.
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Cleonymus had cast away his shield; he was as great a glutton as he was a coward.
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A race in which the track had to be circled twice.
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A people of Asia Minor; when pursued by the Ionians they took refuge in the mountains.
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An Athenian barber.
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The owl was dedicated to Athené, and being respected at Athens, it had greatly multiplied. Hence the proverb,
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An allusion to the Feast of Pots; it was kept at Athens on the third day of the Anthesteria, when all sorts of vegetables were stewed together and offered for the dead to Bacchus and Athené. This Feast was peculiar to Athens.—Hence Pisthetaerus thinks that the owl will recognize they are Athenians by seeing the stew-pots, and as he is an Athenian bird, he will not attack them.
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Nicias, the famous Athenian general.—The siege of Melos in 417 B.C., or two years previous to the production of 'The Birds,' had especially done him great credit. He was joint commander of the Sicilian expedition.
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Procné, the daughter of Pandion, King of Athens.
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A space beyond the walls of Athens which contained the gardens of the Academy and the graves of citizens who had died for their country.