The Birds

The walls of Cloudcuckooland are put up with remarkable efficiency. This efficiency is credited to the industry and numerousness of the birds, described with a combination of fantasy and ornithological humor. Thus, it is revealed that 30,000 cranes swallowed the stones for the foundations to bring them to the site, that geese used their webbed feet to shovel mortar, that woodpeckers used their beaks to shape the wooden gates, and so on. In laboring like humans, the birds once again complicate The Relationship Between Humanity and Animals.

The arrival of Iris, the messenger of the gods, marks an important turning point. She would have most likely appeared suspended in mid-air via a stage machine, as gods often did in ancient Greek drama. Iris herself is a rather bird-like goddess, typically described as winged and capable of flight. Peisetairos’s treatment of this goddess, however, is blatantly insolent and impious, openly Challenging the Supremacy of the Gods. Peisetairos intercepts Iris and threatens her with sexual assault and violence if she does not depart from the territory of the birds. Aristophanes thus undermines the authority of the gods, reimagining them as beings that are closer to human beings or, as in the case of the winged Iris, to birds. At one point, Peisetairos even threatens to kill Iris, dismissing the goddess’s perplexed objection of “I’m immortal” (1224) as though it were of no consequence.

The boundaries between bird, human, and god become increasingly blurred in the scenes that follow, illustrating Fantasy and the Transgression of Natural Laws. A Messenger arrives to announce that human beings have “all become bird-crazy / And love to emulate all bird behaviour” (1284-85). These bird-mad humans flock to Cloudcuckooland to apply for wings of their own, and at least one of these new visitors is granted his wish and sent off to fight for the cause of Cloudcuckooland. In wishing to become more like birds, the human characters appear willing to abandon a human-centric hierarchy in nature in favor of acknowledging the birds as their superiors.

The world has changed, transformed by Cloudcuckooland. After this has been established, the action of the play progresses briskly toward the inevitable conclusion. The embassy of the gods is easily manipulated by Peisetairos’s persuasive skill, which by now has been showcased on a few occasions. Peisetairos protests, “It wasn’t us who ever took the step / Of starting war with you” (1596-97)—a rather dubious claim that no doubt would have echoed similar sentiments from contemporary Athenian speeches urging an end to the Peloponnesian War (See: Background). Peisetairos demands the scepter of Zeus, which he maintains originally belonged to the birds (1600-02)—a point that was previously made and that none of the gods, interestingly, ever attempt to contradict. Peisetairos moreover argues that birds’ rule is to the advantage of the gods, as the birds can act as enforcers of gods’ rule, punishing perjurers and so on (1606-25).

Peisetairos’s claims seem to suggest that he wants to share the rule of the cosmos with the gods, but here Peisetairos is perhaps not being entirely honest: After all, the demands he actually makes—and the way the play ends—suggest that he wants all the power for himself, thus bringing his ploy of Challenging the Supremacy of the Gods to its logical conclusion. None of this convinces the dignified and rather pompous Poseidon, but Peisetairos successfully exploits the gluttony of Herakles to convince him and the unintelligible Triballian to vote to accept his terms. The triumph of Cloudcuckooland—and Peisetairos—is assured.

The play ends with a kind of komos or “revel” scene, encountered at the end of many comedies to celebrate triumph of the hero. The wedding of Peisetairos and Basileia combines traditional and poetic elements, such as marriage songs and hymns, elevating the comic diction. Peisetairos is virtually transformed into Zeus, and his entrance with all the attributes of Zeus contains all the elements of an epiphany—that is, a vision of a god. Peisetairos, rather than the birds, is thus the true winner here: It is he who is the new Zeus, and he is even introduced as “triumphant ruler” or tyrannos (1708), the absolute ruler of the cosmos.

In asserting his dominion over both the gods and the birds, Peisetairos subtly reinforces the traditional Relationship Between Humanity and Animals while elevating himself above the Olympian gods, thus simultaneously upholding one hierarchy while undermining the other. At the play’s close, Peisetairos’s newfound might brings the play’s preoccupation with Fantasy and the Transgression of Natural Law back to the fore, with Peisetairos’s initial promises to the birds that they could rule over all giving way to his own naked assertion of power.