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.