Line 516
ἡ δʼ αὖ θυγάτηρ γλαῦχʼ, ὁ δʼ Ἀπόλλων ὥσπερ θεράπων ἱέρακα.
The juxtaposition of the owl (Glaux) as the daughter of the owl-goddess Athena and the hawk as Apollo's attendant reflects the specific comic inversion of religious iconography found in the parabasis of this play. While Athena is traditionally associated with the owl and Apollo with the hawk (or sometimes the swan or raven), Aristophanes compresses the mythological genealogy into a single, absurd household scene to satirize the birds' attempt to usurp the divine order. The hawk as a 'therapon' (attendant) for Apollo is a rare metonymic shift; typically, the hawk is Apollo's sacred bird (as seen in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo), but here it is demoted to a servant role, mirroring the play's broader theme of the birds replacing the gods in the cosmic hierarchy.
Birds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.