Aristophanes Birds 1553

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).)

No corresponding passage available

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.) — 1553 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.) — 1553 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

1553. mvp-tlg0019-tlg006-sanjaya-com-eng1-93

Line 1553

πρὸς δὲ τοῖς Σκιάποσιν λίμνη
The Σκιάποδες (Skyapodes, 'Shadow-feet') are a mythical race described by Herodotus (4.18) and later sources, characterized by their ability to shade themselves from the sun by lying flat and using their oversized feet. While they appear in various geographical lists of the 'ends of the earth' (e.g., in Ctesias or as part of the 'wonderlands' in travel narratives), their specific inclusion here alongside a lake in the bird-kingdom of Cloudcuckooland represents a deliberate conflation of the terrestrial 'monstrous races' with the utopian geography of the play's invention. The phrase 'πρὸς δὲ τοῖς' (besides/near) implies a spatial arrangement within the birds' new domain that incorporates known mythical locales, signaling to the audience that this is a world where the boundaries of the known and the fabulous are collapsed.

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Χαιρεφῶν ἡ νυκτερίς.
The phrase ἡ νυκτερίς (the night-raven/nightjar) is a specific designation for the character Chaerephon, a known associate of Socrates famous for his extreme poverty and asceticism. Aristophanes exploits the etymological ambiguity of the name 'Chaerephon' (which sounds like 'chara' [joy] and 'phonos' [murder/death] or 'phōnē' [voice]) by pairing it with a bird that was often associated with omens of death or madness in Greek folklore. The choice of νυκτερίς specifically, rather than a generic bird, alludes to the character's nocturnal habits and his reputation as a 'night-bird' of the Athenian agora, highlighting his role as a gadfly who operates in the shadows of the city's intellectual life. This is a pointed biographical and literary allusion rather than a simple description.