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 inspectors run 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.[304]
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,[305] and a talent for him who destroys one of the
dead tyrants."[306] We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent
to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Strouthian;[307] 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[308] received. Firstly, the owls of
Laurium,[309] 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[310] 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.[311] But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal
covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;[312]
else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will
soil it with their droppings.
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
stonemason, 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,[313] 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.
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.