No More Learning

[305] A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to
atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the
existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the idols.
The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and perished
soon afterwards in a storm at sea.

[306] By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and
that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was
constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received
by the populace.

[307] A poulterer. --Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from
the name of his 'deme,' is derived from [Greek: strouthos], _a sparrow_.
The birds' foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological
surname.

[308] From Aphrodite (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of
beauty, in the contest of the "goddesses three. "

[309] Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic
peninsula containing valuable silver mines, the revenues of which were
largely employed in the maintenance of the fleet and payment of the
crews. The "owls of Laurium," of course, mean pieces of money; the
Athenian coinage was stamped with a representation of an owl, the bird of
Athene.

[310] A pun impossible to keep in English, on the two meanings of the
word [Greek: aetos], which signifies both an eagle and the gable of a
house or pediment of a temple.

[311] That is, birds' crops, into which they could stow away plenty of
good things.

[312] The Ancients appear to have placed metal discs over statues
standing in the open air, to save them from injury from the weather, etc.

[313] So as not to be carried away by the wind when crossing the sea,
cranes are popularly supposed to ballast themselves with stones, which
they carry in their beaks.

[314] Pisthetaerus modifies the Greek proverbial saying, "To what use
cannot hands be put?
"

[315] A corps of Athenian cavalry was so named.

[316] Chaos, Night, Tartarus, and Erebus alone existed in the beginning;
Eros was born from Night and Erebus, and he wedded Chaos and begot Earth,
Air, and Heaven; so runs the fable.

[317] Iris appears from the top of the stage and arrests her flight in
mid-career.

[318] Ship, because of her wings, which resemble oars; cap, because she
no doubt wore the head-dress (as a messenger of the gods) with which
Hermes is generally depicted.

[319] The names of the two sacred galleys which carried Athenian
officials on State business.

[320] A buzzard is named in order to raise a laugh, the Greek name
[Greek: triorchos] also meaning, etymologically, provided with three
testicles, vigorous in love.

[321] Iris' reply is a parody of the tragic style. --'Lycimnius' is,
according to the Scholiast, the title of a tragedy by Euripides, which is
about a ship that is struck by lightning.

[322] i. e. for a poltroon, like the slaves, most of whom came to Athens
from these countries.

[323] A parody of a passage in the lost tragedy of 'Niobe' of Aeschylus.

[324] Because this bird has a spotted plumage. --Porphyrion is also the
name of one of the Titans who tried to storm heaven.

[325] All these surnames bore some relation to the character or the build
of the individual to whom the poet applies them. --Chaerephon, Socrates'
disciple, was of white and ashen hue.