鸟

《鸟》（古希腊文：Ὄρνιθες），古希腊剧作家阿里斯托芬的喜剧。

这部喜剧是现存唯一以神话幻想当题材的喜剧。

内容

两个雅典人“珀斯”、“欧厄尔”因为雅典城里的诉讼而厌倦，他们俩决心找个逍遥自在的地方安身立业，和一群鸟（乌鸦和喜鹊）在天空和大地之间建起一个云中之国，鸟国国王“戴胜”原本是道利亚国王特柔斯，因为和妻子的妹妹通奸而被姊妹报复，三人都变成了鸟，这个云中之国“空中鹁鸪国”没有贫富差别，没有剥削，各尽所能各取所需，是一个“理想国”，鸟人的国师“珀斯”最后娶了代表宙斯王权的“巴西勒娅”当妻子。

主题和风格

阿里斯托芬这部喜剧刻画所谓的“乌托邦理想国”主要是讽刺雅典城里的那些寄生虫。

评价

恩格斯说他：“强烈倾向的诗人”。

译著

简体中文版本已经由杨宪益翻译出版。

The Birds (Ancient Greek: Ὄρνιθες, romanized: Órnithes) is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia in Athens where it won second place. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs. Unlike the author's other early plays, it includes no direct mention of the Peloponnesian War and there are few references to Athenian politics, and yet it was staged not long after the commencement of the Sicilian Expedition, an ambitious military campaign that greatly increased Athenian commitment to the war effort. In spite of that, the play has many indirect references to Athenian political and social life. It is the longest of Aristophanes's surviving plays and yet it is a fairly conventional example of Old Comedy.

The plot of the play revolves around Pisthetaerus, an Athenian who convinces the birds to create a great city in the sky, and thus regain their status as the original gods. Pisthetaerus eventually transforms into a bird-like god himself, and replaces Zeus as the king of the gods.

Plot

The play begins with two middle-aged men stumbling across a hillside wilderness, guided by a pet crow and a pet jackdaw. One of them advises the audience that they are fed up with life in Athens, where people do nothing all day but argue over laws, and they are looking for Tereus, a king who was once metamorphosed into the Hoopoe, for they believe he might help them find a better life somewhere else. Just then, a very large and fearsome bird emerges from a camouflaged bower, demanding to know what they are up to and accusing them of being bird-catchers. He turns out to be the Hoopoe's servant. They appease him and he returns indoors to fetch his master. Moments later the Hoopoe himself appears—a not very convincing bird who attributes his lack of feathers to a severe case of moulting. He is happy to discuss their plight with them, and meanwhile one of them has a brilliant idea: the birds, he says, should stop flying about like idiots and instead should build themselves a great city in the sky, since this would both allow them to lord it over men and enable them to blockade the Olympian gods in the same way that the Athenians had recently starved the island of Melos into submission. The Hoopoe likes the idea, and he agrees to help implement it, provided, of course, that the two Athenians can first convince all the other birds. He calls to his wife, the Nightingale, and bids her to begin her celestial music. The notes of an unseen flute swell through the theatre, and meanwhile the Hoopoe provides the lyrics, summoning the birds of the world from their different habitats—birds of the fields, mountain birds and birds of the trees, birds of the waterways, marshes and seas. These soon begin to appear, and each of them is identified by name on arrival. Four of them dance together while the rest form into a Chorus.