The Birds

by Aristophanes

Aristophanes, the Greek comic playwright, wrote this play in the middle of the great war that was then going on between Athens and Sparta, and it’s about how the birds occupied a middle kingdom between earth and heaven and negotiated deals between the two realms. The birds are being used in an allegorical way and it’s not only a very amusing story, it’s the first example of how birds can become symbols for us.