Introduction
Aristophanes’s absurd play is two and half thousand years old, but its satire is as fresh today as it ever has been.
TWO men from Athens, that cradle of democracy, were fed up with the childish politicking and squabbles about laws.
Imagine, said Pisthetaerus to his friend Euelpides, that we were birds! We could build ourselves a city in the sky, and get away from it all.
A king named Tereus was rumoured to have turned into a bird, so they went to find him.
Tereus, now a rather scruffy Hoopoe, was excited by the plan, and summoned birds from all corners of Greece to help build their city-in-the-sky, Cloudcuckooland, promising the birds that they would reclaim from the Olympians their rightful place as the true gods.
As for men, Tereus’s pretty wife Nightingale assured them that birds would not live on a distant mountain, like Zeus, but among them, showering them with health, wealth, and ease. Moreover, birds have quite different, and much less demanding, standards of morality.
Not surprisingly, news of the city-in-the-sky began to spread like wildfire.
Précis
Two men from Athens have grown weary of all the ‘birthplace of democracy’ stuff, so they decide to become birds (they know of someone who had done just that) and build Cloudcuckooland, a city-in-the-sky. Their idea catches the imagination of thousands of would-be citizens, and that’s when the trouble starts. (50 / 60 words)
Two men from Athens have grown weary of all the ‘birthplace of democracy’ stuff, so they decide to become birds (they know of someone who had done just that) and build Cloudcuckooland, a city-in-the-sky. Their idea catches the imagination of thousands of would-be citizens, and that’s when the trouble starts.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 45 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, despite, or, otherwise, ought, unless, until.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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