A Persian satrap.—An allusion to certain orators, who, bribed with Asiatic gold, had often defended the interests of the foe in the Public Assembly. ↩
A Macedonian people in the peninsula of Chalcidice. This name is chosen because of its similarity to the Greek word ὀλοφύρεσθαι, “to groan.” It is from another verb, ὀτοτύζειν, meaning the same thing, that Pisthetaerus coins the name of Ototyxians, i.e. groaners, because he is about to beat the dealer.—The mother-country had the right to impose any law it chose upon its colonies. ↩
Corresponding to our month of April. ↩
Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose of inaugurating the assemblies of the people or some tribunal. ↩
So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted. ↩
A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea. ↩
By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received by the populace. ↩
A poulterer.—Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from the name of his “deme,” is derived from στρουθός, “a sparrow.” The birds’ foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological surname. ↩
From Aphrodite (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of beauty, in the contest of the “goddesses three.” ↩
Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic peninsula containing valuable silver mines, the revenues of which were largely employed in the maintenance of the fleet and payment of the crews. The “owls of Laurium,” of course, mean pieces of money; the Athenian coinage was stamped with a representation of an owl, the bird of Athene. ↩
A pun, impossible to keep in English, on the two meanings of the word ἀετός, which signifies both an eagle and the gable of a house or pediment of a temple. ↩
That is, birds’ crops, into which they could stow away plenty of good things. ↩
The Ancients appear to have placed metal discs over statues standing in the open air, to save them from injury from the weather, etc. ↩
So as not to be carried away by the wind when crossing the sea, cranes are popularly supposed to ballast themselves with stones, which they carry in their beaks. ↩
Pisthetaerus modifies the Greek proverbial saying, “To what use cannot hands be put?” ↩
A corps of Athenian cavalry was so named. ↩
Chaos, Night, Tartarus, and Erebus alone existed in the beginning; Eros was born from Night and Erebus, and he wedded Chaos and begot Earth, Air, and Heaven; so runs the fable. ↩
Iris appears from the top of the stage and arrests her flight in mid-career. ↩
Ship, because of her wings, which resemble oars; cap, because she no doubt wore the headdress (as a messenger of the gods) with which Hermes is generally depicted. ↩
The names of the two sacred galleys which carried Athenian officials on State business. ↩
A buzzard is named in order to raise a laugh, the Greek name τρίορχος also meaning, etymologically, provided with three testicles, vigorous in love. ↩
Iris’ reply is a parody of the tragic style.—Lycimnius is, according to the scholiast, the title of a tragedy by Euripides, which is about a ship that is struck by lightning. ↩
I.e. for a poltroon, like the slaves, most of whom came to Athens from these countries. ↩
A parody of a passage in the lost tragedy of Niobe of Aeschylus. ↩
Because this bird has a spotted plumage.—Porphyrion is also the name of one of the Titans who tried to storm heave. ↩
All these surnames bore some relation to the character or the build of the individual to whom the poet applies them.—Chaerephon, Socrates’ disciple, was of white and ashen hue.—Opuntius was one-eyed.—Syracosius was a braggart.—Midias had a passion for quail-fights, and, besides, resembled that bird physically. ↩
Pisthetaerus’ servant, already mentioned. ↩
From the inspection of which auguries were taken, e.g. the eagles, the vultures, the crows. ↩
Or rather, a young man who contemplated parricide. ↩
A parody of verses in Sophocles Oenomaus. ↩
The Athenians were then besieging Amphipolis in the Thracian Chalcidice. ↩
There was a real Cinesias—a dythyrambic poet born at Thebes. ↩
The scholiast thinks that Cinesias, who was tall and slight of build, wore a kind of corset of lime-wood to support his waist—surely rather a far-fetched interpretation! ↩
The Greek word used here was the word of command employed to stop the rowers. ↩
Cinesias makes a bound each time that Pisthetaerus strikes him. ↩
The tribes of Athens, or rather the rich citizens belonging to them, were wont on feast-days to give representations of dithyrambic choruses as well as of tragedies and comedies. ↩
Another dithyrambic poet, a man of extreme leanness. ↩
A parody of a hemistich from Alcaeus.—The informer is dissatisfied at only seeing birds of sombre plumage and poor appearance. He would have preferred to denounce the
