uce the birds to build Nephelococcygia or
Cloud-Cuckoo-Burgh in the air between the gods and men, starve out the
gods with a "Melian famine," and rule the world themselves. The gods,
their supplies of incense cut off, are forced to treat, and Peisthetaerus
receives in marriage Basileia (Sovereignty), the daughter of Zeus. The
_mise en scene_, with the gorgeous plumage of the bird-chorus, must have
been very impressive, and many of the choric songs are exceedingly
beautiful. There is an interesting account by Professor Jebb in the
Fortnightly Review (Vol. xli.) of a performance of 'The Birds' at
Cambridge in 1884.

Two plays, B.C. 411: (1) at the Lenaea, 'The Lysistrata,' in which the
women of Athens and Sparta by a secession from bed and board compel
their husbands to end the war; (2) The 'Thesmophoriazusae' or Women's
Festival of Demeter, a licentious but irresistibly funny assault upon
Euripides. The tragedian, learning that the women in council assembled
are debating on the punishment due to his misogyny, implores the
effeminate poet Agathon to intercede for him. That failing, he
dispatches his kinsman Mnesilochus, disguised with singed beard and
woman's robes, a sight to shake the midriff of despair with laughter, to
plead his cause. The advocate's excess of zeal betrays him; he is
arrested: and the remainder of the play is occupied by the ludicrous
devices, borrowed or parodied from well-known Euripidean tragedies, by
which the poet endeavors to rescue his intercessor.

'The Frogs,' B.C. 405, in the brief respite of hope between the victory
of Arginusae and the final overthrow of Athens at AEgospotami. Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides are dead. The minor bards are a puny folk, and
Dionysus is resolved to descend to Hades in quest of a truly creative
poet, one capable of a figure like "my star god's glow-worm," or "His
honor rooted in dishonor stood." After many surprising adventures by the
way, and in the outer precincts of the underworld, accompanied by his
Sancho Panza, Xanthias, he arrives at the court of Pluto just in time to
be chosen arbitrator of the great contest between Aeschylus and
Euripides for the tragic throne in Hades. The comparisons and parodies
of the styles of Aeschylus and Euripides that follow, constitute, in
spite of their comic exaggeration, one of the most entertaining and
discriminating chapters of literary criticism extant, and give us an
exalted idea of the intelligence of the audienc