OF ARISTOPHANES. WITH NOTES, AND A METRICAL TABLE, BY C. C. FELTON, LL.D., PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, LATE ELIOT PROFESSOR OF GREEK LITERATURE. THIRD EDITION. CAMBRIDGE: PUBLISHED BY JOHN BARTLETT. Ga110.342,50 KD 56046 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Prof. E. A. Sophocles, 22 Jan. 1887. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. PREFACE. THE Birds of Aristophanes has always been regarded as one of his most delightful pieces. Like the Clouds, it is comparatively free from the objectionable license of thought and language, which deforms several of his plays to such a degree that they cannot be used in schools or colleges. It is true there are some passages in this play also too freely executed but it has been decided, on mature reflection, to let them stand, so as to offer the drama entire, on the principles which guided my decision in editing the Clouds. The text of this edition is reprinted from the Poetae Scenici of Dindorf. In the preparation of the notes, I have used Commentaries of Christian Daniel Beck, together with the notes and Scholia edited by Invernizius; the notes of Bothe, to whose valuable edition I am under great obligations; and the brief, but excellent, annotations of Blaydes. Credit is always given for what has been taken from the labors of these distinguished scholars. In addition to the critical apparatus just mentioned, I have endeavored to explain from other sources a branch of the subject to which less attention has heretofore been given; - I mean the natural history of the birds, which are very entertaining figures among the persons of the play. I have carefully examined Aristotle's History of Animals, |