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Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, an exuberant form of festival drama which flourished in Athens during the fifth century BC. One of the most original playwrights in the entire Western tradition, his comedies are remarkable for their brilliant combination of fantasy and satire, their constantly inventive manipulation of language, and their use of absurd characters and plots to expose his society's institutions and values to the bracing challenge of laughter. This is the third and final volume of a new verse translation of the complete plays of Aristophanes. It contains four of his most overtly political plays: Acharnians, in which an Athenian farmer rebels against the city's war policies; Knights, a biting satire of populist demagogues; Wasps, whose main theme is the Athenian system of lawcourts; and Peace, in which escape from war is symbolized in images of rustic fertility and sensuality. The translation combines historical accuracy with a sensitive attempt to capture the rich dramatic and literary qualities of Aristophanic comedy. Each play is presented with a thought-provoking introduction and extensive editorial notes to accompany the vivid translations, balancing performability with faithfulness to the original.

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Commentary (plays not included). Pages: 46. Chapters: The Clouds, The Knights, Assemblywomen, The Wasps, The Birds, Peace, Lysistrata, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae, The Frogs, Plutus. Excerpt: Silent Roles The Wasps (Greek: / Sph kes) is the fourth in chronological order of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes, the master of an ancient genre of drama called 'Old Comedy'. It was produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 BC, a time when Athens was enjoying a brief respite from The Peloponnesian War following a one year truce with Sparta. As in his other early plays, Aristophanes pokes satirical fun at the demagogue Cleon but in The Wasps he also ridicules one of the Athenian institutions that provided Cleon with his power-base: the law courts. The play has been thought to exemplify the conventions of Old Comedy better than any other play and it has been considered to be one of the world's greatest comedies. The play begins with a strange scene - a large net has been spread over a house, the entry is barricaded and two slaves are sleeping in the street outside. A third man is positioned at the top of an exterior wall with a view into the inner courtyard but he too is asleep. The two slaves wake and we learn from their banter that they are keeping guard over a 'monster'. The man asleep above them is their master and the monster is his father - he has an unusual disease. The two slaves challenge the audience to guess the nature of the disease. Addictions to gambling, drink and good times are suggested but they are all wrong - the father is addicted to the law court: he is a phileliastes () or a "trialophile." We are then told that his name is Philocleon (which suggests that he might be addicted to Cleon) and his son's name is the very opposite of this - Bdelycleon. The symptoms of the old man's addiction are described for us and...

A collection of Aristophanes' famous comedy plays. Each play includes notes and an introduction.