f(1) A fanciful name constructed from (the word for) a cloud,
and (the word for) a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and
cuckoos.--'Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German.
Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.
EPOPS Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!
EUELPIDES Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes(1)
and most of Aeschines'(2) is?
f(1) He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised a great
deal and never kept his word.
f(2) Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'
PISTHETAERUS No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,(1) where the gods
withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.
f(1) Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction
of the poets.
EUELPIDES Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron?
for whom shall we weave the peplus?(1)
f(1) A sacred cloth, with which the statue of Athene in the Acropolis
was draped.