The Clouds, The Frogs, Lysistrata

Introduction

This volume gathers Aristophanes' three most famous comedies. The Clouds mocks the new education and the sophists: its Socrates hangs in a basket to study the heavens and runs a 'thinkery' that teaches clever argument, a play Plato believed fed the prejudice against Socrates. In The Frogs the god Dionysus goes down to Hades to bring back a dead tragic poet to save Athens, and presides over a hilarious contest of poetry between Aeschylus and Euripides. In Lysistrata the women of Athens and Sparta unite and refuse their husbands' beds until the men make peace.