Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/444

422 422 HISTORY OF THE kktjlioc,) which the Athenian statesmen of the day often employed for the establishment of democracy, even in the Peloponnese. While Agitator undertakes all the solemnities which belonged to the foundation of a Greek city, and drives away the crowd, which is soon collected, of priests, writers of hymns, prophets, land-surveyors, inspectors-general, and legis- lators,^— scenes full of satirical reflexion on the conduct of the Athenians in their colonies and in allied states, — Hopegood superintends the build- ing of this castle-in-the-air, this Clondctickootoivn, (N ecpeXoKOKtcvyia,') and shortly after a messenger makes his appearance with a most amusing description of the way in which the great fabric was constructed by the labours of the different species of birds. Agitator treats this description as a lie;* and the spectators are also sensible that Cloudcuckootown exists only in imagination, since Iris, the messenger of the gods, flies past without having perceived, on her way from heaven to earth, the faintest trace of the great blockading fortress, f The affair creates all the more sensation among men on this account, and a number of swag- gerers come to get their share in the promised distribution of wings, without Agitator being able to make any use of those new citizens for his city. As, however, men leave off sacrificing to the gods, and pay honour to the birds only, the gods themselves are obliged to enter into the imposture, and bear a part in the absurdities which result from it. An agreement is made in which Zeus himself gives up his sovereignty to Agitator ; this is brought about by a contrivance of Agitator ; he has the skill to win over Hercules, who has come as an ambassador from the gods, with the savoury smell of certain birds, whom he has arrested as aristocrats, and is roasting for his dinner. At the end of the comedy Agitator appears with Sovereignty, (Batr/Atm,) splendidly attired as his bride, brandishing the thunder-bolts of Zeus, and in a triumphal hymeneal procession, accompanied by the whole tribe of birds. In this short sketch we have purposely omitted all the subordinate parts, amusing and brilliant as they are, in order to make sure of obtain- ing a correct view of the whole piece. People have often overlooked the general scope of the play, and have sought for a signification in the details, which the plan of the whole would not allow. It is impos- sible that Athens can have been intended under Cloudcuckootown, espe- cially as this city of the birds is treated as a mere imagination :" moreover, the birds are real birds throughout the play, and if Aristophanes had intended to represent his countrymen under these masks, the. character- istics of the Athenians would have been shown in them in a very different f Of course we see nothing of the new city on the stage, which throughout the piece represents a rocky place with trees about it, and with the house of the Epops in the centre, which at the end of the play is converted into the kitchen where the birds are roasted.
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