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
thinking break-off trying
If you strike upon a thought that baffles you, break off from that entanglement and try another, so shall your wits be fresh to start again.
men house homeland
A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.
mind
By words the mind is winged.
god simple expression
The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.
firsts may bluster
First listen, my friend, and then you may shriek and bluster.
lying climbing arses
To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.
book communication beer
High thoughts must have high language.
clever wine successful
When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.
impossible poet
These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can't live with them, or without them!
men grieving hands
This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought Should contrive our fees to pilfer, on who for his native land Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.
men humanity may
A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.
no-friends ending-hunger world-hunger
Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.
comedy sometimes please
Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true.
teacher crabs teach
You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.