The Birds (play) characters Pisthetaerus
The Birds (Greek: Ὄρνιθες, translit. 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.
On discovering the presence of men, the newly arrived birds fly into a fit of alarm and outrage, for mankind has long been their enemy. A skirmish follows, during which the Athenians defend themselves with kitchen utensils that they find outside the Hoopoe's bower, until the Hoopoe at last manages to persuade the Chorus to give his human guests a fair hearing. The cleverer of the two Athenians, the author of the brilliant idea, then delivers a formal speech, advising the birds that they were the original gods and urging them to regain their lost powers and privileges from the johnny-come-lately Olympians. The birds are completely won over and urge the Athenians to lead them in their war against the usurping gods. The clever one then introduces himself as Pisthetaerus (Trustyfriend), and his companion is introduced as Euelpides (Goodhope). They retire to the Hoopoe's bower to chew on a magical root that will transform them into birds. Meanwhile, the Nightingale emerges from her hiding place and reveals herself as an enchantingly feminine figure. She presides over the Chorus of birds while they address the audience in a conventional parabasis:Hear us, you who are no more than leaves always falling, you mortals benighted by nature,
You enfeebled and powerless creatures of earth always haunting a world of mere shadows,
Entities without wings, insubstantial as dreams, you ephemeral things, you human beings:
Turn your minds to our words, our etherial words, for the words of the birds last forever!The Chorus delivers a brief account of the genealogy of the gods, claiming that the birds are children of Eros and grandchildren of Night and Erebus, thus establishing their claim to divinity ahead of the Olympians. It cites some of the benefits the audience derives from birds (such as early warnings of a change in seasons), and it invites the audience to join them since birds easily manage to do things that mere men are afraid to do (such as beating up their fathers and committing adultery).
Pisthetaerus and Euelpides emerge from the Hoopoe's bower laughing at each other's unconvincing resemblance to a bird. After discussion, they name the city-in-the-sky Nephelokokkygia, or literally "cloud-cuckoo-land" (Νεφελοκοκκυγία), and then Pisthetaerus begins to take charge of things, ordering his friend to oversee the building of the city walls while he organizes and leads a religious service in honour of birds as the new gods. During this service, he is pestered by a variety of unwelcome visitors, including a young versifier out to hire himself to the new city as its official poet, an oracle-monger with prophecies for sale, a famous geometer, Meton, offering a set of town-plans, an imperial inspector from Athens with an eye for a quick profit, and a statute-seller trying to peddle a set of laws originally written for a remote, barely-heard-of town called Olophyx. Pisthetaerus chases off all these intruders and then retires indoors to finish the religious service. The birds of the Chorus step forward for another parabasis. They promulgate laws forbidding crimes against their kind (such as catching, caging, stuffing, or eating them), and they end by advising the festival judges to award them first place or risk getting defecated on.
Pisthetaerus returns to the stage moments before a messenger arrives with a report on the construction of the new walls: they are already finished thanks to the collaborative efforts of numerous kinds of birds. A second messenger then arrives with news that one of the Olympian gods has snuck through the defenses. A hunt is organized. The goddess Iris is detected and cornered, and soon she wafts down under guard. After being interrogated and insulted by Pisthetaerus, she is allowed to fly off to her father Zeus to complain about her treatment. Hardly has she gone when a third messenger arrives, declaring that men in their multitudes are now flocking to join the new city-in-the-sky. 
Another set of unwelcome visitors arrives as advertised, singing due to the inspiration of the new city. One is a rebellious youth who exults in the notion that here at last he has permission to beat up his father. The famous poet, Cinesias, is next, waxing incoherently lyrical as the poetic mood takes hold of him. Third is a sycophant in raptures at the thought of prosecuting victims on the wing. All of them are sent packing by Pisthetaerus. Prometheus arrives next, sheltering under a parasol because he is an enemy of Zeus and he is trying not to be seen from the heavens. He has come with advice for Pisthetaerus: the Olympians are starving because men's offerings no longer reach them; they are desperate for a peace treaty, but Pisthetaerus shouldn't negotiate with them until Zeus surrenders both his sceptre and his girlfriend, Sovereignty—she is the real power in Zeus's household. His mission accomplished, Prometheus departs just moments before a delegation from Zeus arrives. There are only three delegates: the brother of Zeus, Poseidon, the oafish Heracles, and some even more oafish god worshipped by barbarians called Triballus. Pisthetaerus easily outwits Heracles, who in turn bullies the barbarian god into submission, and Poseidon is thus outvoted – the delegation accepts Pisthetaerus's terms. He is proclaimed king by a heavenly herald, and he is presented with Zeus's sceptre by Sovereignty, a vision of loveliness. The festive gathering departs amid the strains of the wedding march: Hymen O Hymenai'O! Hymen O Hymenai'O!Agon: The agon is a debate or formal argument constructed as a 'symmetrical scene', with two declaimed sections and two songs. The protagonist generally defeats the antagonist in the debate and this decides the outcome of the play long before the play actually ends. The agon in The Birds (lines 451–626) is conventional in form but there is no antagonist – the two main speakers are Pisthetaerus and his friend Euelpides, with Pisthetaerus delivering a speech and Euelpides providing supportive comments. The birds provide a willing audience and they are easily won over to the protagonist's point of view. A similarly one-sided agon is found in the next surviving play, Lysistrata.
Parabasis: The parabasis is an address to the audience by the Chorus in the absence of any actors. Generally there is a long parabasis in the middle of the play, including a 'parabasis proper' in which the Chorus speaks as the author's representative on issues relating to his career, and usually there is a shorter parabasis near the end. In this play, the first parabasis (678–800) and the second (1058–1117) are conventional in structure but the Chorus always speaks in character as birds. Instead of speaking about the poet in the 'parabasis proper', the birds speak about themselves, outlining their genealogy, their value to the audience and their effect on the audience's vocabulary – in all these topics however there are amusing echoes of things a Chorus would ordinarily say on behalf of the poet. This 'parabasis proper' is in fact almost a satire on the convention of a parabasis proper.
Unwelcome Visitors: The protagonist's early victory in the agon generally tends to ease dramatic tension early in the play and this is usually offset to some extent by a stream of minor characters or 'unwelcome visitors' that have to be chased off by the triumphant hero. This play is exceptional in that there are three waves of unwelcome visitors – the first wave comes before the walls of Cloudcuckooland have been completed, the second wave comes immediately after and the third wave comes as a delegation from Zeus. This repetition is the reason why The Birds is much longer than the other surviving plays.
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