The new appreciation of Aristophanic stagecraft enriches us with many welcome insights. Everyone knows (Molière alleged, with confidence) that plays were intended to be acted, though writers on Aristophanes have sometimes — one admits — appeared not to possess that common knowledge. Yet the effort, stimulating and important in itself, to visualize the comedies in action should not distort our critical perspective — it is possible, in redressing an imbalance, to tilt the scales the other way too sharply. We cannot, whatever our imaginative scholarship, completely recreate a first production: we judge the playwright solely by his words. It is likely that, as readers, we do not greatly differ here from Aristophanes’ spectators; words were the medium of his poetry and wit, and they must have been his audience’s principal criterion in judging among competing playwrights. A different age and culture, of course, make it improbable that their views and ours will chime in detail; however, if their verdict on Knights, Wasps, and Birds surprises us, we cannot but heartily support their nomination, for first prize, of Acharnians and Frogs.