The Birds

Two Athenians, tired of lawsuits and taxes, leave their city in search of a quieter life and persuade the birds to build a great city in the sky, Cloudcuckooland, between heaven and earth. The new city cuts off the smoke of the sacrifices rising to the gods, who begin to starve, while a parade of busybodies from Athens, a poet, a prophet, a surveyor, an inspector and an informer, tries to move in and is chased away.

Aristophanes staged the comedy in 414 BC, and it is often considered his most imaginative play; 'cloud-cuckoo-land' has become an expression for a world of fantasy. Read The Clouds and Lysistrata.