The Birds

"The Birds" (414 B.C.) was Aristophanes' first Utopian play. In this instance, he has his "comedy team" leave Athens, fed up with frauds and bores of that society, in an effort to found a better society among the birds. To do so, they must first locate Epops, King of the Birds, who was once a man like themselves and who might be expected to know both sides of the problem. How they find him and what they persuade him to do is the body of the play.