f(1) Meaning, to be patron-goddess of the city. Athene had a temple of
this name.
EUELPIDES Oh! what a well-ordered town 'twould be to have a female deity
armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes(1) was spinning!
f(1) An Athenian effeminate, frequently ridiculed by Aristophanes.
PISTHETAERUS Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?(1)
f(1) This was the name of the wall surrounding the Acropolis.
EPOPS One of us, a bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed
to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.(1)
f(1) i.e. the fighting cock.
EUELPIDES Oh! noble chick! What a well-chosen god for a rocky home!
PISTHETAERUS Come! into the air with you to help the workers who are
building the wall; carry up rubble, strip yourself to mix the mortar,
take up the hod, tumble down the ladder, an you like, post sentinels,
keep the fire smouldering beneath the ashes, go round the walls, bell in
hand,(1) and go to sleep up there yourself; then d(i)spatch two heralds,
one to the gods above, the other to mankind on earth and come back here.
f(1) To waken the sentinels, who might else have fallen asleep.--There
are several merry contradictions in the various parts of this list of
injunctions.
EUELPIDES As for yourself, remain here, and may the plague take you for
a troublesome fellow!
PISTHETAERUS Go, friend, go where I send you, for without you my orders
cannot be obeyed. For myself, I want to sacrifice to the new god, and I
am going to summon the priest who must preside at the ceremony. Slaves!
slaves! bring forward the basket and the lustral water.
CHORUS I do as you do, and I wish as you wish, and I implore you to
address powerful and solemn prayers to the gods, and in addition to
immolate a sheep as a token of our gratitude. Let us sing the Pythian
chant in honour of the god, and let Chaeris accompany our voices.
PISTHETAERUS (TO THE FLUTE-PLAYER) Enough! but, by Heracles! what is
this? Great gods! I have seen many prodigious things, but I never saw a
muzzled raven.(1)
f(1) In allusion to the leather strap which flute-players wore to
constrict the cheeks and add to the power of the breath. The performer
here no doubt wore a raven's mask.
EPOPS Priest! 'tis high time! Sacrifice to the new gods.
PRIEST I begin, but where is he with the basket? Pray to the Vesta of
the birds, to the kite, who presides over the hearth, and to all the god
and goddess-birds who dwell in Olympus.
CHORUS Oh! Hawk, the sacred guardian of Sunium, oh, god of the storks!
PRIEST Pray to the swan of Delos, to Latona the mother of the quails,
and to Artemis, the goldfinch.
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis no longer Artemis Colaenis, but Artemis the
goldfinch.(1)
f(1) Hellanicus, the Mitylenian historian, tells that this surname of
Artemis is derived from Colaenus, King of Athens before Cecrops and a
descendant of Hermes. In obedience to an oracle he erected a temple to
the goddess, invoking her as Artemis Colaenis (the Artemis of Colaenus).
PRIEST And to Bacchus, the finch and Cybele, the ostrich and mother of
the gods and mankind.
CHORUS Oh! sovereign ostrich, Cybele, The mother of Cleocritus,(1) grant
health and safety to the Nephelococcygians as well as to the dwellers in
Chios...
f(1) This Cleocritus, says the scholiast, was long-necked and strutted
like an ostrich.
PISTHETAERUS The dwellers in Chios! Ah! I am delighted they should be
thus mentioned on all occasions.(1)
f(1) The Chians were the most faithful allies of Athens, and hence their
name was always mentioned in prayers, decrees, etc.
CHORUS ...to the heroes, the birds, to the sons of heroes, to the
porphyrion, the pelican, the spoon-bill, the redbreast, the grouse, the
peacock, the horned-owl, the teal, the bittern, the heron, the stormy
petrel, the fig-pecker, the titmouse...
PISTHETAERUS Stop! stop! you drive me crazy with your endless list.
Why, wretch, to what sacred feast are you inviting the vultures and the
sea-eagles? Don't you see that a single kite could easily carry off the
lot at once? Begone, you and your fillets and all; I shall know how to
complete the sacrifice by myself.
PRIEST It is imperative that I sing another sacred chant for the rite of
the lustral water, and that I invoke the immortals, or at least one of
them, provided always that you have some suitable food to offer him;
from what I see here, in the shape of gifts, there is naught whatever
but horn and hair.
PISTHETAERUS Let us address our sacrifices and our prayers to the winged
gods.
A POET Oh, Muse! celebrate happy Nephelococcygia in your hymns.
PISTHETAERUS What have we here? Where did you come from, tell me? Who
are you?
POET I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave of
the Muses, as Homer has it.
PISTHETAERUS You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?
POET No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves of the
Muses, according to Homer.
PISTHETAERUS In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal!
But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?
POET I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host of
splendid dithyrambs and parthenians(1) worthy of Simonides himself.
f(1) Verses sung by maidens.
PISTHETAERUS And when did you compose them? How long since?
POET Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this
city.
PISTHETAERUS But I am only celebrating its foundation with this
sacrifice;(1) I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.
f(1) This ceremony took place on the tenth day after birth, and may be
styled the pagan baptism.
POET "Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does the
voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of the town
of Aetna,(1) thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices,(2) make us
such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest."
f(1) Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse.--This passage is borrowed from Pindar.
f(2) (Hiero) in Greek means 'sacrifice.'
PISTHETAERUS He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some
present. Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off
and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me to
be shivering with cold.
POET My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of
Pindar's on your mind.
PISTHETAERUS Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!
POET "Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen
garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic." Do
you conceive my bent?
PISTHETAERUS I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi!
you (TO EUELPIDES), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you,
take it and begone.
POET I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city:
"Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery, freezing city;
I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala!
Tralala!"(1)
f(1) A parody of poetic pathos, not to say bathos.
PISTHETAERUS What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic,
you no longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this
cursed fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come,
priest, take the lustral water and circle the altar.
PRIEST Let all keep silence!
A PROPHET Let not the goat be sacrificed.(1)
f(1) Which the priest was preparing to sacrifice.
PISTHETAERUS Who are you?
PROPHET Who am I? A prophet.
PISTHETAERUS Get you gone.
PROPHET Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle
of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia.
PISTHETAERUS Why did you not reveal it to me before I founded my city?
PROPHET The divine spirit was against it.
PISTHETAERUS Well, 'tis best to know the terms of the oracle.
PROPHET "But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together
between Corinth and Sicyon..."
PISTHETAERUS But how do the Corinthians concern me?
PROPHET 'Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated in this manner.
"They must first sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora, and give the
prophet, who first reveals my words, a good cloak and new sandals."
PISTHETAERUS Are the sandals there?
PROPHET Read. "And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the
entrails of the victim."
PISTHETAERUS Of the entrails--is it so written?
PROPHET Read. "If you do as I command, divine youth, you shall be an
eagle among the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor
eagle, nor woodpecker."
PISTHETAERUS Is all that there?
PROPHET Read.
PISTHETAERUS This oracle in no sort of way resembles the one Apollo
dictated to me: "If an impostor comes without invitation to annoy you
during the sacrifice and to demand a share of the victim, apply a stout
stick to his ribs."
PROPHET You are drivelling.
PISTHETAERUS "And don't spare him, were he an eagle from out of the
clouds, were it Lampon(1) himself or the great Diopithes."(2)
f(1) Noted Athenian diviner, who, when the power was still shared
between Thucydides and Pericles, predicted that it would soon be centred
in the hands of the latter; his ground for this prophecy was the sight
of a ram with a single horn.
f(2) No doubt another Athenian diviner, and possibly the same person
whom Aristophanes names in 'The Knights' and 'The Wasps' as being a
thief.
PROPHET Is all that there?
PISTHETAERUS Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.
PROPHET Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.
PISTHETAERUS Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.
METON(1) I have come to you.
f(1) A celebrated geometrician and astronomer.
PISTHETAERUS Yet another pest! What have you come to do? What's your
plan? What's the purpose of your journey? Why these splendid buskins?
METON I want to survey the plains of the air for you and to parcel them
into lots.
PISTHETAERUS In the name of the gods, who are you?
METON Who am I? Meton, known throughout Greece and at Colonus.(1)
f(1) A deme contiguous to Athens. It is as though he said, "Well known
throughout all England and at Croydon.
PISTHETAERUS What are these things?
METON Tools for measuring the air. In truth, the spaces in the air have
precisely the form of a furnace. With this bent ruler I draw a line
from top to bottom; from one of its points I describe a circle with the
compass. Do you understand?
PISTHETAERUS Not the very least.
METON With the straight ruler I set to work to inscribe a square within
this circle; in its centre will be the market-place, into which all
the straight streets will lead, converging to this centre like a star,
which, although only orbicular, sends forth its rays in a straight line
from all sides.
PISTHETAERUS Meton, you new Thales...(1)
f(1) Thales was no less famous as a geometrician than he was as a sage.
METON What d'you want with me?
PISTHETAERUS I want to give you a proof of my friendship. Use your legs.
METON Why, what have I to fear?
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis the same here as in Sparta. Strangers are driven away,
and blows rain down as thick as hail.
METON Is there sedition in your city?
PISTHETAERUS No, certainly not.
METON What's wrong then?
PISTHETAERUS We are agreed to sweep all quacks and impostors far from
our borders.
METON Then I'm off.
PISTHETAERUS I fear 'tis too late. The thunder growls already. (BEATS
HIM.)
METON Oh, woe! oh, woe!
PISTHETAERUS I warned you. Now, be off, and do your surveying somewhere
else. (METON TAKES TO HIS HEELS.)
AN INSPECTOR Where are the Proxeni?(1)
f(1) Officers of Athens, whose duty was to protect strangers who came on
political or other business, and see to their interests generally.
PISTHETAERUS Who is this Sardanapalus?(1)
f(1) He addresses the inspector thus because of the royal and
magnificent manners he assumes.
INSPECTOR I have been appointed by lot to come to Nephelococcygia as
inspector.(1)
f(1) Magistrates appointed to inspect the tributary towns.
PISTHETAERUS An inspector! and who sends you here, you rascal?
INSPECTOR A decree of T(e)leas.(1)
f(1) A much-despised citizen, already mentioned. He ironically supposes
him invested with the powers of an Archon, which ordinarily were
entrusted only to men of good repute.
PISTHETAERUS Will you just pocket your salary, do nothing, and be off?
INSPECTOR I' faith! that I will; I am urgently needed to be at Athens
to attend the assembly; for I am charged with the interests of
Pharnaces.(1)
f(1) A Persian satrap.--An allusion to certain orators, who, bribed with
Asiatic gold, had often defended the interests of the foe in the Public
Assembly.
PISTHETAERUS Take it then, and be off. See, here is your salary. (BEATS
HIM.)
INSPECTOR What does this mean?
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis the assembly where you have to defend Pharnaces.
INSPECTOR You shall testify that they dare to strike me, the inspector.
PISTHETAERUS Are you not going to clear out with your urns? 'Tis not
to be believed; they send us inspectors before we have so much as paid
sacrifice to the gods.
A DEALER IN DECREES "If the Nephelococcygian does wrong to the
Athenian..."
PISTHETAERUS Now whatever are these cursed parchments?
DEALER IN DECREES I am a dealer in decrees, and I have come here to sell
you the new laws.
PISTHETAERUS Which?
DEALER IN DECREES "The Nephelococcygians shall adopt the same weights,
measures and decrees as the Olophyxians."(1)
f(1) A Macedonian people in the peninsula of Chalcidice. This name is
chosen because of its similarity to the Greek word (for) 'to groan.' It
is from another verb, meaning the same thing, that Pisthetaerus coins
the name of Ototyxians, i.e. groaners, because he is about to beat the
dealer.--The mother-country had the right to impose any law it chose
upon its colonies.
PISTHETAERUS And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians. (BEATS
HIM.)
DEALER IN DECREES Hullo! what are you doing?
PISTHETAERUS Now will you be off with your decrees? For I am going to
let YOU see some severe ones.
INSPECTOR (RETURNING) I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of
Munychion.(1)
f(1) Corresponding to our month of April.
PISTHETAERUS Ha! my friend! are you still there?
DEALER IN DECREES "Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not
receive them, according to the decree duly posted..."
PISTHETAERUS What! rascal! you are there too?
INSPECTOR Woe to you! I'll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand
drachmae.
PISTHETAERUS And I'll smash your urns.(1)
f(1) Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose of
inaugurating the assemblies of the people or some tribunal.
INSPECTOR Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column
where the decrees are posted?
PISTHETAERUS Here! here! let him be seized. (THE INSPECTOR RUNS OFF.)
Well! don't you want to stop any longer?
PRIEST Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the
goat inside.(1)
f(1) So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted.
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,(1) and a talent for him who destroys one of the
dead tyrants."(2) We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent
to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian;(3) 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.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter!
Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the
divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning
the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home is beneath the
foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic
with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the
Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.
I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to
award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far
greater than those Paris(4) received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,(5)
which every judge desires above all things, shall never be wanting to
you; you shall see them homing with you, building their nests in your
money-bags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the
gods, for we shall erect gables(6) over your dwellings; if you hold
some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the
sharp claws of a hawk. Are you dining in town, we will provide you with
crops.(7) But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal
covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;(8)
else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will
soil it with their droppings.
f(1) A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to
atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the
existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the
idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and
perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea.
f(2) By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and
that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was
constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received
by the populace.
f(3) A poulterer.--Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from
the name of his 'deme,' is derived from (the Greek for) 'a sparrow.' The
birds' foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological surname.
f(4) From Aphrodite (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of
beauty, in the contest of the "goddesses three."
f(5) Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic
peninsula containing valuable silver mines, the revenues of which were
largely employed in the maintenance of the fleet and payment of the
crews. The "owls of Laurium," of course, mean pieces of money; the
Athenian coinage was stamped with a representation of an owl, the bird
of Athene.
f(6) A pun, impossible to keep in English, on the two meanings of (the
Greek) word which signifies both an eagle and the gable of a house or
pediment of a temple.
f(7) That is, birds' crops, into which they could stow away plenty of
good things.
f(8) The Ancients appear to have placed metal discs over statues
standing in the open air, to save them from injury from the weather,
etc.
PISTHETAERUS Birds! the sacrifice is propitious. But I see no messenger
coming from the wall to tell us what is happening. Ah! here comes one
running himself out of breath as though he were running the Olympic
stadium.
MESSENGER Where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where, where,
where is he? Where is Pisthetaerus, our leader?
PISTHETAERUS Here am I.
MESSENGER The wall is finished.
PISTHETAERUS That's good news.
MESSENGER 'Tis a most beautiful, a most magnificent work of art. The
wall is so broad that Proxenides, the Braggartian, and Theogenes could
pass each other in their chariots, even if they were drawn by steeds as
big as the Trojan horse.
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis wonderful!
MESSENGER Its length is one hundred stadia; I measured it myself.
PISTHETAERUS A decent length, by Posidon! And who built such a wall?
MESSENGER Birds--birds only; they had neither Egyptian brickmaker, nor
stone-mason, nor carpenter; the birds did it all themselves; I could
hardly believe my eyes. Thirty thousand cranes came from Libya with
a supply of stones,(1) intended for the foundations. The water-rails
chiselled them with their beaks. Ten thousand storks were busy making
bricks; plovers and other water fowl carried water into the air.
f(1) So as not to be carried away by the wind when crossing the sea,
cranes are popularly supposed to ballast themselves with stones, which
they carry in their beaks.
PISTHETAERUS And who carried the mortar?
MESSENGER Herons, in hods.
PISTHETAERUS But how could they put the mortar into hods?
MESSENGER Oh! 'twas a truly clever invention; the geese used their feet
like spades; they buried them in the pile of mortar and then emptied
them into the hods.
PISTHETAERUS Ah! to what use cannot feet be put?(1)
f(1) Pisthetaerus modifies the Greek proverbial saying, "To what use
cannot hands be put?"
MESSENGER You should have seen how eagerly the ducks carried bricks.
To complete the tale, the swallows came flying to the work, their beaks
full of mortar and their trowel on their back, just the way little
children are carried.
PISTHETAERUS Who would want paid servants after this? But tell me, who
did the woodwork?
MESSENGER Birds again, and clever carpenters too, the pelicans, for they
squared up the gates with their beaks in such a fashion that one would
have thought they were using axes; the noise was just like a dockyard.
Now the whole wall is tight everywhere, securely bolted and well
guarded; it is patrolled, bell in hand; the sentinels stand everywhere
and beacons burn on the towers. But I must run off to clean myself; the
rest is your business.
CHORUS Well! what do you say to it? Are you not astonished at the wall
being completed so quickly?
PISTHETAERUS By the gods, yes, and with good reason. 'Tis really not to
be believed. But here comes another messenger from the wall to bring us
some further news! What a fighting look he has!
SECOND MESSENGER Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!
PISTHETAERUS What's the matter?
SECOND MESSENGER A horrible outrage has occurred; a god sent by Zeus
has passed through our gates and has penetrated the realms of the air
without the knowledge of the jays, who are on guard in the daytime.
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis an unworthy and criminal deed. What god was it?
SECOND MESSENGER We don't know that. All we know is, that he has got
wings.
PISTHETAERUS Why were not guards sent against him at once?
SECOND MESSENGER We have d(i)spatched thirty thousand hawks of the
legion of Mounted Archers.(1) All the hook-clawed birds are moving
against him, the kestrel, the buzzard, the vulture, the great-horned
owl; they cleave the air, so that it resounds with the flapping of their
wings; they are looking everywhere for the god, who cannot be far away;
indeed, if I mistake not, he is coming from yonder side.
f(1) A corps of Athenian cavalry was so named.
PISTHETAERUS All arm themselves with slings and bows! This way, all our
soldiers; shoot and strike! Some one give me a sling!
CHORUS War, a terrible war is breaking out between us and the gods!
Come, let each one guard Air, the son of Erebus,(1) in which the clouds
float. Take care no immortal enters it without your knowledge. Scan
all sides with your glance. Hark! methinks I can hear the rustle of the
swift wings of a god from heaven.
f(1) Chaos, Night, Tartarus, and Erebus alone existed in the beginning;
Eros was born from Night and Erebus, and he wedded Chaos and begot
Earth, Air, and Heaven; so runs the fable.
PISTHETAERUS Hi! you woman! where are you flying to? Halt, don't stir!
keep motionless! not a beat of your wing!--Who are you and from what
country? You must say whence you come.(1)
f(1) Iris appears from the top of the stage and arrests her flight in
mid-career.
IRIS I come from the abode of the Olympian gods.
PISTHETAERUS What's your name, ship or cap?(1)
f(1) Ship, because of her wings, which resemble oars; cap, because she
no doubt wore the head-dress (as a messenger of the gods) with which
Hermes is generally depicted.
IRIS I am swift Iris.
PISTHETAERUS Paralus or Salaminia?(1)
f(1) The names of the two sacred galleys which carried Athenian
officials on State business.
IRIS What do you mean?
PISTHETAERUS Let a buzzard rush at her and seize her.(1)
f(1) A buzzard is named in order to raise a laugh, the Greek name also
meaning, etymologically, provided with three testicles, vigorous in
love.
IRIS Seize me! But what do all these insults mean?
PISTHETAERUS Woe to you!
IRIS 'Tis incomprehensible.
PISTHETAERUS By which gate did you pass through the wall, wretched
woman?
IRIS By which gate? Why, great gods, I don't know.
PISTHETAERUS You hear how she holds us in derision. Did you present
yourself to the officers in command of the jays? You don't answer. Have
you a permit, bearing the seal of the storks?
IRIS Am I awake?
PISTHETAERUS Did you get one?
IRIS Are you mad?
PISTHETAERUS No head-bird gave you a safe-conduct?
IRIS A safe-conduct to me, you poor fool!
PISTHETAERUS Ah! and so you slipped into this city on the sly and into
these realms of air-land that don't belong to you.
IRIS And what other roads can the gods travel?
PISTHETAERUS By Zeus! I know nothing about that, not I. But they won't
pass this way. And you still dare to complain! Why, if you were treated
according to your deserts, no Iris would ever have more justly suffered
death.
IRIS I am immortal.
PISTHETAERUS You would have died nevertheless.--Oh! 'twould be truly
intolerable! What! should the universe obey us and the gods alone
continue their insolence and not understand that they must submit to
the law of the strongest in their due turn? But tell me, where are you
flying to?
IRIS I? The messenger of Zeus to mankind, I am going to tell them to
sacrifice sheep and oxen on the altars and to fill their streets with
the rich smoke of burning fat.
PISTHETAERUS Of which gods are you speaking?
IRIS Of which? Why, of ourselves, the gods of heaven.
PISTHETAERUS You, gods?
IRIS Are there others then?
PISTHETAERUS Men now adore the birds as gods, and 'tis to them, by Zeus,
that they must offer sacrifices, and not to Zeus at all!
IRIS Oh! fool! fool! Rouse not the wrath of the gods, for 'tis terrible
indeed. Armed with the brand of Zeus, Justice would annihilate your
race; the lightning would strike you as it did Licymnius and consume
both your body and the porticos of your palace.(1)
f(1) Iris' reply is a parody of the tragic style.--'Lycimnius' is,
according to the scholiast, the title of a tragedy by Euripides, which
is about a ship that is struck by lightning.
PISTHETAERUS Here! that's enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep
quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian(1) 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.(2) I shall send more
than six hundred porphyrions clothed in leopards' skins(3) 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.
f(1) i.e. for a poltroon, like the slaves, most of whom came to Athens
from these countries.
f(2) A parody of a passage in the lost tragedy of 'Niobe' of Aeschylus.
f(3) Because this bird has a spotted plumage.--Porphyrion is also the
name of one of the Titans who tried to storm heave.
IRIS May you perish, you wretch, you and your infamous words!
PISTHETAERUS Won't you be off quickly? Come, stretch your wings or look
out for squalls!
IRIS If my father does not punish you for your insults...
PISTHETAERUS Ha!... but just you be off elsewhere to roast younger folk
than us with your lightning.
CHORUS We forbid the gods, the sons of Zeus, to pass through our city
and the mortals to send them the smoke of their sacrifices by this road.
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis odd that the messenger we sent to the mortals has
never returned.
HERALD Oh! blessed Pisthetaerus, very wise, very illustrious, very
gracious, thrice happy, very... Come, prompt me, somebody, do.
PISTHETAERUS Get to your story!
HERALD All peoples are filled with admiration for your wisdom, and they
award you this golden crown.
PISTHETAERUS I accept it. But tell me, why do the people admire me?
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;(1) 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.
f(1) All these surnames bore some relation to the character or the build
of the individual to whom the poet applies them.--Chaerephon,
Socrates' disciple, was of white and ashen hue.--Opuntius was
one-eyed.--Syracosius was a braggart.--Midias had a passion for
quail-fights, and, besides, resembled that bird physically.
PISTHETAERUS Ah! by Zeus, 'tis not the time for idling. Go as quick as
possible and fill every hamper, every basket you can find with wings.
Manes(1) will bring them to me outside the walls, where I will welcome
those who present themselves.
f(1) Pisthetaerus' servant, already mentioned.
CHORUS This town will soon be inhabited by a crowd of men.
PISTHETAERUS If fortune favours us.
CHORUS Folk are more and more delighted with it.
PISTHETAERUS Come, hurry up and bring them along.
CHORUS Will not man find here everything that can please him--wisdom,
love, the divine Graces, the sweet face of gentle peace?
PISTHETAERUS Oh! you lazy servant! won't you hurry yourself?
CHORUS Let a basket of wings be brought speedily. Come, beat him as I
do, and put some life into him; he is as lazy as an ass.
PISTHETAERUS Aye, Manes is a great craven.
CHORUS Begin by putting this heap of wings in order; divide them in
three parts according to the birds from whom they came; the singing,
the prophetic(1) and the aquatic birds; then you must take care to
distribute them to the men according to their character.
f(1) From the inspection of which auguries were taken, e.g. the eagles,
the vultures, the crows.
PISTHETAERUS (TO MANES) Oh! by the kestrels! I can keep my hands off you
no longer; you are too slow and lazy altogether.
A PARRICIDE(1) Oh! might I but become an eagle, who soars in the skies!
Oh! might I fly above the azure waves of the barren sea!(2)
f(1) Or rather, a young man who contemplated parricide.
f(2) A parody of verses in Sophocles 'Oenomaus.'
PISTHETAERUS Ha! 'twould seem the news was true; I hear someone coming
who talks of wings.
PARRICIDE Nothing is more charming than to fly; I burn with desire to
live under the same laws as the birds; I am bird-mad and fly towards
you, for I want to live with you and to obey your laws.
PISTHETAERUS Which laws? The birds have many laws.
PARRICIDE All of them; but the one that pleases me most is, that among
the birds it is considered a fine thing to peck and strangle one's
father.
PISTHETAERUS Aye, by Zeus! according to us, he who dares to strike his
father, while still a chick, is a brave fellow.
PARRICIDE And therefore I want to dwell here, for I want to strangle my
father and inherit his wealth. |
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