CHAPTER VI.
THE BIRDS.
'The Birds' of Aristophanes, though one of the longest of his comedies, and one which evidently stood high in the estimation of the author himself, has comparatively little interest for a modern reader. Either the burlesque reads to us, as most modern burlesques assuredly would, comparatively poor and spiritless without the important adjuncts of music, scenery, dresses, and what we call the "spectacle" generally, which we know to have been in this instance on the most magnificent scale; or the points in the satire are so entirely Athenian, and directed to the passing topics of the day, that the wit of the allusions is now lost to us. Probably there is also a deeper political meaning under what appears otherwise a mere fantastical trifling; and this is the opinion of some of the best modern critics. It may be, as Süvern thinks, that the great Sicilian expedition, and the ambitious project of Alcibiades for extending the Athenian empire, form the real point of the play; easily enough apprehended by contemporaries, but become obscure
