Epops

Epops opens his forest to two lost mortals and admits, with some embarrassment, that he was once a man—Tereus, no less, whom Sophocles had already made a spectacle of. He lives between species and between griefs, still calling on his dear Procne, still explaining his fallen feathers. When Pisthetaerus proposes a bird-city, Epops is the one who must translate the scheme to the suspicious, ignorant flock he has taught to speak. His hybrid authority—human memory, avian body—makes the whole premise of the comedy possible.