# The Birds: every role by lines, words, and stage time

> Aristophanes, translated by the Athenian Society. 24 speaking roles, 15,270 words, about 109 minutes of speech.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/the-birds
- Last updated: 2026-10-08

**Pisthetaerus** has the most to say in The Birds: about 690 lines and 5,498 words, 36% of the play. The Birds is Aristophanes’ comedy about two Athenians who persuade the birds to build a city in the sky. Pisthetaerus carries it with over a third of the words, and the Chorus holds more than a fifth, so choral speaking matters here. Euelpides starts as an equal partner but leaves partway through, ending with about 11% of the words.

- Speaking roles: 24
- Scenes: Continuous
- Words: 15,270
- Speech time: 109 min

## Every role, largest first

| Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pisthetaerus | 690 | 5,498 | 36% | 39.3 | 1 |
| Chorus | 352 | 3,260 | 21.3% | 23.3 | 1 |
| Euelpides | 216 | 1,681 | 11% | 12.0 | 1 |
| Epops | 181 | 1,394 | 9.1% | 10.0 | 1 |
| Messenger | 45 | 408 | 2.7% | 2.9 | 1 |
| Prometheus | 45 | 361 | 2.4% | 2.6 | 1 |
| Herald | 31 | 298 | 2% | 2.1 | 1 |
| Heracles | 36 | 278 | 1.8% | 2.0 | 1 |
| Posidon | 31 | 253 | 1.7% | 1.8 | 1 |
| Informer | 34 | 228 | 1.5% | 1.6 | 1 |
| Cinesias | 25 | 216 | 1.4% | 1.5 | 1 |
| Poet | 23 | 205 | 1.3% | 1.5 | 1 |
| Iris | 24 | 172 | 1.1% | 1.2 | 1 |
| Meton | 21 | 157 | 1% | 1.1 | 1 |
| Prophet | 20 | 146 | 1% | 1.0 | 1 |
| Priest | 17 | 144 | 0.9% | 1.0 | 1 |
| Trochilus | 19 | 135 | 0.9% | 1.0 | 1 |
| Parricide | 15 | 133 | 0.9% | 1.0 | 1 |
| Second messenger | 14 | 121 | 0.8% | 0.9 | 1 |
| Inspector | 15 | 101 | 0.7% | 0.7 | 1 |
| Dealer in decrees | 8 | 59 | 0.4% | 0.4 | 1 |
| Triballus | 4 | 13 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 |
| A servant | 1 | 7 | 0% | 0.1 | 1 |
| Phoenicopterus | 1 | 2 | 0% | 0.0 | 1 |

## The longest speeches

| Speech | Words | Lines |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chorus: “Lovable golden bird, whom I cherish above all others, you, whom I associate with all my songs, nightingale, you have come, you have come, to show yourself to me and to charm me with your notes. Come, you, who play spring melodies upon the harmonious flute, lead off our anapaests.” | 1,165 | 117 |
| Chorus: “Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: “A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos, and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants.” We likewise wish to make our proclamation: “A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian; four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others.” That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.” | 496 | 50 |
| Herald: “Oh you, who have founded so illustrious a city in the air, you know not in what esteem men hold you and how many there are who burn with desire to dwell in it. Before your city was built, all men had a mania for Sparta; long hair and fasting were held in honour, men went dirty like Socrates and carried staves. Now all is changed. Firstly, as soon as ’tis dawn, they all spring out of bed together to go and seek their food, the same as you do; then they fly off towards the notices and finally devour the decrees. The bird-madness is so clear, that many actually bear the names of birds. There is a halting victualler, who styles himself the partridge; Menippus calls himself the swallow; Opuntius the one-eyed crow; Philocles the lark; Theogenes the fox-goose; Lycurgus the ibis; Chaerephon the bat; Syracosius the magpie; Midias the quail; indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard over the head. Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, the goose or the pigeon; in each verse you see wings, or at all events a few feathers. This is what is happening down there. Finally, there are more than ten thousand folk who are coming here from earth to ask you for feathers and hooked claws; so, mind you supply yourself with wings for the immigrants.” | 240 | 24 |
| Pisthetaerus: “Then, this being well done and completed, you demand back the empire from Zeus; if he will not agree, if he refuses and does not at once confess himself beaten, you declare a sacred war against him and forbid the gods henceforward to pass through your country with lust, as hitherto, for the purpose of fondling their Alcmenas, their Alopes, or their Semeles! if they try to pass through, you infibulate them with rings so that they can work no longer. You send another messenger to mankind, who will proclaim to them that the birds are kings, that for the future they must first of all sacrifice to them, and only afterwards to the gods; that it is fitting to appoint to each deity the bird that has most in common with it. For instance, are they sacrificing to Aphrodite, let them at the same time offer barley to the coot; are they immolating a sheep to Posidon, let them consecrate wheat in honour of the duck; is a steer being offered to Heracles, let honey-cakes be dedicated to the gull; is a goat being slain for King Zeus, there is a King-Bird, the wren, to whom the sacrifice of a male gnat is due before Zeus himself even.” | 209 | 21 |
| Epops: “Epopoi poi popoi, epopoi, popoi, here, here, quick, quick, quick, my comrades in the air; all you who pillage the fertile lands of the husbandmen, the numberless tribes who gather and devour the barley seeds, the swift flying race who sing so sweetly. And you whose gentle twitter resounds through the fields with the little cry of tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of long-necked birds assemble here; know that a clever old man has come to us, bringing an entirely new idea and proposing great reforms. Let all come to the debate here, here, here, here. Torotorotorotorotix, kikkobau, kikkobau, torotorotorotorolililix.” | 194 | 20 |
| Euelpides: “What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the birds, do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different from that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honourable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. ’Tis not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts. That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the Epops, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.” | 183 | 19 |
| Pisthetaerus: “When anyone sacrifices and, according to the rite, offers the entrails to the gods, these birds take their share before Zeus. Formerly men always swore by the birds and never by the gods; even now Lampon swears by the goose, when he wants to lie. … Thus ’tis clear that you were great and sacred, but now you are looked upon as slaves, as fools, as Helots; stones are thrown at you as at raving madmen, even in holy places. A crowd of bird-catchers sets snares, traps, limed-twigs and nets of all sorts for you; you are caught, you are sold in heaps and the buyers finger you over to be certain you are fat. Again, if they would but serve you up simply roasted; but they rasp cheese into a mixture of oil, vinegar and laserwort, to which another sweet and greasy sauce is added, and the whole is poured scalding hot over your back, for all the world as if you were diseased meat.” | 165 | 17 |
| Pisthetaerus: “Here! that’s enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian and think to frighten me with your big words? Know, that if Zeus worries me again, I shall go at the head of my eagles, who are armed with lightning, and reduce his dwelling and that of Amphion to cinders. I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions clothed in leopards’ skins up to heaven against him; and formerly a single Porphyrion gave him enough to do. As for you, his messenger, if you annoy me, I shall begin by stretching your legs asunder, and so conduct myself, Iris though you be, that despite my age, you will be astonished. I will show you something that will make you three times over.” | 133 | 14 |
| Chorus: “In my ethereal flights I have seen many things new and strange and wondrous beyond belief. There is a tree called Cleonymus belonging to an unknown species; it has no heart, is good for nothing and is as tall as it is cowardly. In springtime it shoots forth calumnies instead of buds and in autumn it strews the ground with bucklers in place of leaves.” | 124 | 13 |
| Chorus: “Fall back! to the right! to the left! advance! Fly around this happy mortal, whom Fortune loads with her blessings. Oh! oh! what grace! what beauty! Oh, marriage so auspicious for our city! All honour to this man! ’tis through him that the birds are called to such glorious destinies. Let your nuptial hymns, your nuptial songs, greet him and his Basileia! ’Twas in the midst of such festivities that the Fates formerly united Olympian Here to the King who governs the gods from the summit of his inaccessible throne. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus! Rosy Eros with the golden wings held the reins and guided the chariot; ’twas he, who presided over the union of Zeus and the fortunate Here. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!” | 124 | 13 |

## Questions actors ask

### Who has the most lines in The Birds?

Pisthetaerus, with about 690 lines and 5,498 words, 36% of everything spoken in the play. Chorus is next, with about 352 lines (21.3%).

### How long is The Birds?

The full text has 15,270 spoken words, about 109 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary.

### How many speaking roles are in The Birds?

24 named roles speak in this edition, in one continuous text with no scene breaks. 17 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled.

## How we count

Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/aristophanes/the-birds/the-athenian-society) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).