territory, and Peithetairus makes the poor girl cry! At last the gods have to propose terms. But a deserter has come to Peithetairus beforehand: it is Prometheus, the enemy of Zeus, hiding from 'Them Above' under a large umbrella—how much further can cheery profanity go?—and bringing information about the weakness of the gods. When the embassy comes, it consists of one wise man, Poseidon; one stupid man, who is seduced by the promise of a good dinner, Heracles; and one absolute fool, Triballos, who cannot talk intelligibly, and does not know what he is voting for. Zeus restores to the Birds the sceptre of the world, and gives to Peithetairus the hand of his beautiful daughter Basileia ('Sovereignty'), and 'Cloudcuckootown' is established for ever. A lesser man would have felt bound to bring it to grief; but the rules of comedy really forbade such an ending, and Aristophanes is never afraid of his own fancies. There is very little political allusion in the play. Aristophanes's party were probably at the time content if they could prevent Athens from sending reinforcements to Sicily and saving the army that was during these very months rotting under the walls of Syracuse. The whole play is a refusal to think about such troublous affairs. It was beaten by Ameipsias's Revellers* but seems to have made some impression, as Archippus soon after wrote his Fishes* in imitation of it.
The next two plays of our tradition are written under the shadow of the oligarchy of 411. Politics are not safe, and Aristophanes tries to make up for them by daring indecency. The Lysistrata might be a very fine play; the heroine is a real character, a kind of female Peithetairus, with more high principle and less sense of
