Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty 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 are used to define it...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPoet
knows
You can't have anything else to say: you've poured out every drop of what you know.
spring evil suffering
Evil events from evil causes spring, And what you suffer flows from what you've done.
men voice feminism
It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I'm taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.
air essence data
Only by being suspended aloft, by dangling my mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean. Had I pursued my inquiries from down there on the ground, my data would be worthless. The earth, you see, pulls down the delicate essence of thought to its own gross level.
blind guides
Do not take a blind guide.
wine men busy
When men drink wine they are rich, they are busy, they push lawsuits, they are happy, they are friends.
work circles four
Meton (astronomer in 5th century BC): With the straight ruler I set to work To make the circle four-cornered .
laughter laughing cracks
Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, At which the audience never fail to laugh?
spring evil causes
Evil events from evil causes spring.
study
How can I study from below, that which is above?
children childhood age
Old age is but a second childhood.
clouds centaurs bulls
Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a Centaur, a Part, or a Wolf, or a Bull?
children men way
Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.
men slavery half
A slave is but half a man.