Aristophanes Birds 1072

ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart

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Birds. Aristophanes. ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart. Oxford. 1906.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Ὄρνιθες (Greek) (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.)

Translations (3)
Birds Perseus (Aristophanes. The Complete Greek Drama, Vol. 2. Anonymous, translator. O'Neill, Eugene; Oates, Whitney Jennings, editors. New York: Random House, 1938 (printing).) — 1072 focus
Birds (OCR draft) Experimental (Anonymous translation, 1938 compilation; legacy Perseus source migration. Preserved separately from the revised canonical perseus-eng2 at the project owner's request.) — 1072 focus
English (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) Experimental (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) — 1072 focus

Commentary

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) focus

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Line 1075

τῶν τεθνηκότων ἀποκτείνῃ, τάλαντον λαμβάνειν.
The verb ἀποκτείνῃ is in the present subjunctive, yet it follows the preposition τε after the genitive plural τῶν τεθνηκότων, creating a syntactically anomalous construction where a finite verb appears to function as a substantive or in a periphrastic sense without an explicit governing infinitive or participle. This usage is best understood as a deliberate comic distortion of Attic prose syntax, where Aristophanes collapses a complex conditional or relative clause (e.g., 'if he kills the dead') into a noun phrase to mimic the convoluted, bureaucratic language of the sophists and the Athenian courts, specifically parodying the logic of the 'unjust speech' found in the play's broader argumentation about the absurdity of legal fictions.

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ἢν ἀποκτείνῃ τις ὑμῶν Φιλοκράτη τὸν Στρούθιον,
The phrase Φιλοκράτη τὸν Στρούθιον refers to a specific historical figure, Philocles (or Philocrates), a notorious Athenian demagogue and general active during the Peloponnesian War, whose nickname 'Strouthion' (The Sparrow) is attested in other sources (e.g., Plutarch, *Nicias* 10.2) as a derisive reference to his small stature or flighty political nature. While the sentence presents a hypothetical conditional ('if anyone kills...'), the specific naming of this individual in the context of Aristophanes' *Birds* (produced 414 BCE) creates a sharp anachronistic irony: Philocles was not yet a prominent figure at the time of the play's setting (the mythical founding of Nephelococcygia), yet his contemporary notoriety allows the audience to recognize the threat as a direct commentary on the political violence and mob justice characteristic of the late 5th century Athenian democracy, particularly following the Sicilian Expedition disasters.