The Birds & The Frogs – Aristophanes

S$107.00

The Birds & The Frogs – Aristophanes

S$107.00

Title: The Birds & The Frogs
Author: Aristophanes, Dudley Fitts (intro), Marian Parry (illus)
Publisher: The Easton Press, 1979.
Condition: Hardcover, green leather with gilt all over. In excellent condition except former owner’s barely-visible embossing on flypage.

SKU: birds-frogs-aristophanes-easton Categories: , , Tag:

The Birds (Greek: Ὄρνιθες Ornithes) is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy[3] remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs.

The Frogs (Greek: Βάτραχοι Bátrachoi, “Frogs”) is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in Athens, in 405 BC, and received first place.

This book features:

  • Full top-grade leather binding
  • Genuine 22k gold gilt to all edges, front design, spine, and back
  • Silk moire endsheets
  • Satin bookmark, sewn-in
  • Hubbed spine with raised bands
  • Smyth-sewn binding for durability
  • Premium acid-neutral archival paper that will not yellow

Excerpt:

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

About the author (from wikipedia):

Aristophanes (English pronunciation: /ˌærɨˈstɒfəniːz/; Ancient Greek: [aristopʰánɛːs]; Ἀριστοφάνης, ca. 446 BC – ca. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his 40 plays survive virtually complete. These, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and they are used to define the genre. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy, Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes’ play The Clouds as slander contributing to the trial and execution of Socrates although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher.