Aristophanes is at the top of his form here, despite what some critics say. His lampooning of several ideas floating around Athens at the time(women's rights, communism, free love, etc, to use modern terms) is hilarious, and this praise is coming from an avid supporter of everything he's satirizing. The raunchy sex jokes are just as entertaining and twice as intelligent as anything coming out of Hollywood these days, and the political humor teaches one a great deal about contemporary events in Athens. The actual political and social order depicted in the play is very reminiscent of Plato's Republic(written later); as the previous reviewer has stated, this play is excellent in conjuction with Plato's writings on the subject. A class dealing with both works was how I came across this play in the first place, and it provided excellent fodder for discussion.
In terms of this specific edition, Mayhew translates every joke with absolute faith to the witty, vulgar original. The footnotes are unobtrusive, but they provide just the right amount of explanation of obscure references and odd figures of speech. They even mention which sections were expurgated by uptight Victorian translators! Accept nothing less than this version. (PS: If you loved this play, Lysistrata is at least as good, if not even better.)
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