Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria, Frogs

“… [Manages the difficult task of balancing readability (and speakability!) with fidelity to the original. Together with Ian Storey’s extremely useful and approachable Introduction and notes, this is an ideal text for a college class or an individual reader attempting to get at the heart of Aristophanes.”

—Stephanie Nelson, Professor of Classical Studies, Boston University

“… [A] wonderfully readable and performable English rendition of these comedies. The choice to use a variety of English poetic meters to reflect the range of verse forms in the original Greek successfully captures one of the most distinctive but difficult to translate aspects of Greek dramatic poetry. I’m particularly charmed by Arnson Svarlien’s approach to paratragedy: since she has already translated many of the plays of Euripides, including the crucial Helen, she is able to reproduce Aristophanic parodies here by parodying her own renderings of Euripides. With lan Storey’s extensive notes, these translations will become a vital resource to students, teachers, and performers of Aristophanes.”

—Matthew Farmer, Associate Professor of Classics, Haverford College

“The translations are very readable and the tone shifts are spot on—colloquial and dirty (as in the opening of Frogs) or high and magisterial (as when Aeschylus speaks in Frogs). The introduction on comic meters and their connotations is one of the clearest explanations I’ve read and it will certainly help my students better understand Aristophanes’ artistic and poetic choices.”

—Aaron Wenzel, Assistant Professor of English, University of Minnesota, Morris

Diane Arnson Svarlien earned her PhD in Classics at The University of Texas at Austin and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.