It’s All Greek to Me: Cloud-cuckoo-land

In modern days, the term ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’ is used to describe dreams or ideas that would be nothing short of castles in the air. It would be prudent to point out that the full term is more used in Britain, with those in the US often just using the shortened version of ‘cloudland’. Either way, the term has a history that stretches back to well over 2,000 years.

The term ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’ first shows up in the play The Birds by Aristophanes, which was written circa. 414 B.C. In the play, the characters Euelpides (plausible) and Pistetairos (hopeful) have both become rather fed up with the daily hustle and bustle of the city of Athens. As such, they plan to buid a city elsewhere that will be ideal for what they want; they chose to construct it in the sky! It was Pisthetairos who comes up with the name ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’.

Cover of The Birds

“Koryphaios: Now what shall our city be called?
Euelpides: Something after the clouds, from those lofty regions in which we dell – something puffed-up and impressive.
Pisthetairos: How about ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’?”

So why did the term ‘cloud-cuckoo-land’ end up as an epithet for all kinds of ‘castles in the air’? Simply put, in the play itself, rather unsurprisingly, the utopian dream that was a city in the sky failed miserably. Well it would have done, obviously.  

And thus an expression entered into the language that is still used today for any plan, scheme, idea or dream that clearly won’t work; the originator of the idea may well think it will work, but they are just living in cloud-cuckoo-land!