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Aristophanes — The Eleven Comedies

111.7k words · more by this author

Works in this volume — 11
  1. Acharnians 7.7k words
  2. Knights 9.5k words
  3. Clouds 15.1k words
  4. Wasps 10.4k words
  5. Peace 8.7k words
  6. Birds 16.4k words
  7. Lysistrata 8.8k words
  8. Thesmophoriazusae 7.9k words
  9. Frogs 10.0k words
  10. Ecclesiazusae 8.4k words
  11. Wealth 8.8k words

Acharnians

Aristophanes · 7.7k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Knights

Aristophanes · 9.5k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Clouds

Aristophanes · 15.1k words

Contents — 33 sections
  1. Part 1
  2. Part 2
  3. Part 3
  4. Part 4
  5. Part 5
  6. Part 6
  7. Part 7
  8. Part 8
  9. Part 9
  10. Part 10
  11. Part 11
  12. Part 12
  13. Part 13
  14. Part 14
  15. Part 15
  16. Part 16
  17. Part 17
  18. Part 18
  19. Part 19
  20. Part 20
  21. Part 21
  22. Part 22
  23. Part 23
  24. Part 24
  25. Part 25
  26. Part 26
  27. Part 27
  28. Part 28
  29. Part 29
  30. Part 30
  31. Part 31
  32. Part 32
  33. Part 33

Part 1

STREPSIADES.: Ah me! Ah me! O King Jupiter, of what a terrible length the nights are! Will it never be day? And yet long since I heard the cock. My domestics are snoring; but they would not have done so heretofore! May you perish then, O war! For many reasons; because I may not even punish my domestics. Neither does this excellent youth awake through the night; but takes his ease, wrapped up in five blankets. Well, if it is the fashion, let us snore wrapped up. But I am not able, miserable man, to sleep, being tormented by my expenses, and my stud of horses, and my debts, through this son of mine. He with his long hair, is riding horses and driving curricles, and dreaming of horses; while I am driven to distraction, as I see the moon bringing on the twentieths; for the interest is running on. Boy! Light a lamp, and bring forth my tablets, that I may take them and read to how many I am indebted, and calculate the interest. Enter boy with a light and tablets. Come, let me see; what do I owe? Twelve minae to Pasias. Why twelve minae to Pasias? Why did I borrow them? When I bought the blood-horse. Ah me, unhappy! Would that it had had its eye knocked out with a stone first!

PHIDIPPIDES.: You are acting unfairly, Philo! Drive on your own course.

STREPSIADES.: This is the bane that has destroyed me; for even in his sleep he dreams about horsemanship.

PHIDIPPIDES.: How many courses will the war-chariots run?

STREPSIADES.: Many courses do you drive me, your father. But what debt came upon me after Pasias? Three minae to Amynias for a little chariot and pair of wheels.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Lead the horse home, after having given him a good rolling.

STREPSIADES.: O foolish youth, you have rolled me out of my possessions; since I have been cast in suits, and others say that they will have surety given them for the interest.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Pray, father, why are you peevish, and toss about the whole night?

STREPSIADES.: A bailiff out of the bedclothes is biting me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Suffer me, good sir, to sleep a little.

STREPSIADES.: Then, do you sleep on; but know that all these debts will turn on your head. Phidippides falls asleep again. Alas! Would that the match-maker had perished miserably, who induced me to marry your mother. For a country life used to be most agreeable to me, dirty, untrimmed, reclining at random, abounding in bees, and sheep, and oil-cake. Then I, a rustic, married a niece of Megacles, the son of Megacles, from the city, haughty, luxurious, and Coesyrafied. When I married her, I lay with her redolent of new wine, of the cheese-crate, and abundance of wool; but she, on the contrary, of ointment, saffron, wanton-kisses, extravagance, gluttony, and of Colias and Genetyllis. I will not indeed say that she was idle; but she wove. And I used to show her this cloak by way of a pretext and say Wife, you weave at a great rate.

SERVANT.: We have no oil in the lamp.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me! Why did you light the thirsty lamp? Come hither that you may weep!

SERVANT.: For what, pray, shall I weep?

STREPSIADES.: Because you put in one of the thick wicks. After this, when this son was born to us, to me, forsooth, and to my excellent wife, we squabbled then about the name: for she was for adding hippos to the name, Xanthippus, or Charippus, or Callipides; but I was for giving him the name of his grandfather, Phidonides. For a time therefore we disputed; and then at length we agreed, and called him Phidippides. She used to take this son and fondle him, saying, When you, being grown up, shall drive your chariot to the city, like Megacles, with a xystis. But I used to say, Nay, rather, when dressed in a leathern jerkin, you shall drive goats from Phelleus, like your father. He paid no attention to my words, but poured a horse-fever over my property. Now, therefore, by meditating the whole night, I have discovered one path for my course extraordinarily excellent; to which if I persuade this youth I shall be saved. But first I wish to awake him. How then can I awake him in the most agreeable manner? How? Phidippides, my little Phidippides?

PHIDIPPIDES.: What, father?

STREPSIADES.: Kiss me, and give me your right hand!

PHIDIPPIDES.: There. What’s the matter?

STREPSIADES.: Tell me, do you love me?

PHIDIPPIDES.: Yes, by this Equestrian Neptune.

Part 2

STREPSIADES.: Nay, do not by any means mention this Equestrian to me, for this god is the author of my misfortunes. But, if you really love me from your heart, my son, obey me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: In what then, pray, shall I obey you?

STREPSIADES.: Reform your habits as quickly as possible, and go and learn what I advise.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Tell me now, what do you prescribe?

STREPSIADES.: And will you obey me at all?

PHIDIPPIDES.: By Bacchus, I will obey you.

STREPSIADES.: Look this way then! Do you see this little door and little house?

PHIDIPPIDES.: I see it. What then, pray, is this, father?

STREPSIADES.: This is a thinking-shop of wise spirits. There dwell men who in speaking of the heavens persuade people that it is an oven, and that it encompasses us, and that we are the embers. These men teach, if one give them money, to conquer in speaking, right or wrong.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Who are they?

STREPSIADES.: I do not know the name accurately. They are minute philosophers, noble and excellent.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Bah! They are rogues; I know them. You mean the quacks, the pale-faced wretches, the bare-footed fellows, of whose numbers are the miserable Socrates and Chaerephon.

STREPSIADES.: Hold! Hold! Be silent! Do not say anything foolish. But, if you have any concern for your father’s patrimony, become one of them, having given up your horsemanship.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I would not, by Bacchus, even if you were to give me the pheasants which Leogoras rears!

STREPSIADES.: Go, I entreat you, dearest of men, go and be taught.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Why, what shall I learn?

STREPSIADES.: They say that among them are both the two causes—the better cause, whichever that is, and the worse: they say that the one of these two causes, the worse, prevails, though it speaks on the unjust side. If, therefore you learn for me this unjust cause, I would not pay any one, not even an obolus of these debts, which I owe at present on your account.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I can not comply; for I should not dare to look upon the knights, having lost all my colour.

STREPSIADES.: Then, by Ceres, you shall not eat any of my good! Neither you, nor your blood-horse; but I will drive you out of my house to the crows.

PHIDIPPIDES.: My uncle Megacles will not permit me to be without a horse. But I’ll go in, and pay no heed to you.

Part 3

STREPSIADES.: Though fallen, still I will not lie prostrate: but having prayed to the gods, I will go myself to the thinking-shop and get taught. How, then, being an old man, shall I learn the subtleties of refined disquisitions? I must go. Why thus do I loiter and not knock at the door? Knocks at the door. Boy! Little boy!

DISCIPLE.: Go to the devil! Who it is that knocked at the door?

STREPSIADES.: Strepsiades, the son of Phidon, of Cicynna.

DISCIPLE.: You are a stupid fellow, by Jove! who have kicked against the door so very carelessly, and have caused the miscarriage of an idea which I had conceived.

STREPSIADES.: Pardon me; for I dwell afar in the country. But tell me the thing which has been made to miscarry.

DISCIPLE.: It is not lawful to mention it, except to disciples.

STREPSIADES.: Tell it, then, to me without fear; for I here am come as a disciple to the thinking-shop.

DISCIPLE.: I will tell you; but you must regard these as mysteries. Socrates lately asked Chaerephon about a flea, how many of its own feet it jumped; for after having bit the eyebrow of Chaerephon, it leaped away onto the head of Socrates.

STREPSIADES.: How then did he measure this?

DISCIPLE.: Most cleverly. He melted some wax; and then took the flea and dipped its feet in the wax; and then a pair of Persian slippers stuck to it when cooled. Having gently loosened these, he measured back the distance.

STREPSIADES.: O King Jupiter! What subtlety of thought!

DISCIPLE.: What then would you say if you heard another contrivance of Socrates?

STREPSIADES.: Of what kind? Tell me, I beseech you!

DISCIPLE.: Chaerephon the Sphettian asked him whether he thought gnats buzzed through the mouth or the breech.

STREPSIADES.: What, then, did he say about the gnat?

DISCIPLE.: He said the intestine of the gnat was narrow and that the wind went forcibly through it, being slender, straight to the breech; and then that the rump, being hollow where it is adjacent to the narrow part, resounded through the violence of the wind.

STREPSIADES.: The rump of the gnats then is a trumpet! Oh, thrice happy he for his sharp-sightedness! Surely a defendant might easily get acquitted who understands the intestine of the gnat.

DISCIPLE.: But he was lately deprived of a great idea by a lizard.

STREPSIADES.: In what way? Tell me.

DISCIPLE.: As he was investigating the courses of the moon and her revolutions, then as he was gaping upward a lizard in the darkness dropped upon him from the roof.

Part 4

STREPSIADES.: I am amused at a lizard’s having dropped on Socrates.

DISCIPLE.: Yesterday evening there was no supper for us.

STREPSIADES.: Well. What then did he contrive for provisions?

DISCIPLE.: He sprinkled fine ashes on the table, and bent a little spit, and then took it as a pair of compasses and filched a cloak from the Palaestra.

STREPSIADES.: Why then do we admire Thales? Open open quickly the thinking-shop, and show to me Socrates as quickly as possible. For I desire to be a disciple. Come, open the door. The door of the thinking-shop opens and the pupils of Socrates are seen all with their heads fixed on the ground, while Socrates himself is seen suspended in the air in a basket. O Hercules, from what country are these wild beasts?

DISCIPLE.: What do you wonder at? To what do they seem to you to be like?

STREPSIADES.: To the Spartans who were taken at Pylos. But why in the world do these look upon the ground?

DISCIPLE.: They are in search of the things below the earth.

STREPSIADES.: Then they are searching for roots. Do not, then, trouble yourselves about this; for I know where there are large and fine ones. Why, what are these doing, who are bent down so much?

DISCIPLE.: These are groping about in darkness under Tartarus.

STREPSIADES.: Why then does their rump look toward heaven?

DISCIPLE.: It is getting taught astronomy alone by itself. Turning to the pupils. But go in, lest he meet with us.

STREPSIADES.: Not yet, not yet; but let them remain, that I may communicate to them a little matter of my own.

DISCIPLE.: It is not permitted to them to remain without in the open air for a very long time.

STREPSIADES.: (discovering a variety of mathematical instruments). Why, what is this, in the name of heaven? Tell me.

DISCIPLE.: This is Astronomy.

STREPSIADES.: But what is this?

DISCIPLE.: Geometry.

STREPSIADES.: What then is the use of this?

DISCIPLE.: To measure out the land.

Part 5

STREPSIADES.: What belongs to an allotment?

DISCIPLE.: No, but the whole earth.

STREPSIADES.: You tell me a clever notion; for the contrivance is democratic and useful.

DISCIPLE.: See, here’s a map of the whole earth. Do you see? This is Athens.

STREPSIADES.: What say you? I don’t believe you; for I do not see the Dicasts sitting.

DISCIPLE.: Be assured that this is truly the Attic territory.

STREPSIADES.: Why, where are my fellow-tribesmen of Cicynna?

DISCIPLE.: Here they are. And Euboea here, as you see, is stretched out a long way by the side of it to a great distance.

STREPSIADES.: I know that; for it was stretched by us and Pericles. But where is Lacedaemon?

DISCIPLE.: Where is it? Here it is.

STREPSIADES.: How near it is to us! Pay great attention to this, to remove it very far from us.

DISCIPLE.: By Jupiter, it is not possible.

STREPSIADES.: Then you will weep for it. Looking up and discovering Socrates. Come, who is this man who is in the basket?

DISCIPLE.: Himself.

STREPSIADES.: Who’s Himself?

DISCIPLE.: Socrates.

STREPSIADES.: O Socrates! Come, you sir, call upon him loudly for me.

DISCIPLE.: Nay, rather, call him yourself; for I have no leisure.

STREPSIADES.: Socrates! My little Socrates!

SOCRATES.: Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?

Part 6

STREPSIADES.: First tell me, I beseech you, what are you doing.

SOCRATES.: I am walking in the air, and speculating about the sun.

STREPSIADES.: And so you look down upon the gods from your basket, and not from the earth?

SOCRATES.: For I should not have rightly discovered things celestial if I had not suspended the intellect, and mixed the thought in a subtle form with its kindred air. But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on things above, I should never have discovered them. For the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative moisture. Water-cresses also suffer the very same thing.

STREPSIADES.: What do you say? Does meditation attract the moisture to the water-cresses? Come then, my little Socrates, descend to me, that you may teach me those things, for the sake of which I have come.

SOCRATES.: And for what did you come?

STREPSIADES.: Wishing to learn to speak; for by reason of usury, and most ill-natured creditors, I am pillaged and plundered, and have my goods seized for debt.

SOCRATES.: How did you get in debt without observing it?

STREPSIADES.: A horse-disease consumed me--terrible at eating. But teach me the other one of your two causes, that which pays nothing; and I will swear by the gods, I will pay down to you whatever reward you exact of me.

SOCRATES.: By what gods will you swear? For, in the first place, gods are not a current coin with us.

STREPSIADES.: By what do you swear? By iron money, as in Byzantium?

SOCRATES.: Do you wish to know clearly celestial matters, what they rightly are?

STREPSIADES.: Yes, by Jupiter, if it be possible!

SOCRATES.: And to hold converse with the Clouds, our divinities?

STREPSIADES.: By all means.

SOCRATES.: Seat yourself, then, upon the sacred couch.

STREPSIADES.: Well, I am seated!

SOCRATES.: Take, then, this chaplet.

STREPSIADES.: For what purpose a chaplet? Ah me! Socrates, see that you do not sacrifice me like Athamas!

SOCRATES.: No; we do all these to those who get initiated.

Part 7

STREPSIADES.: Then what shall I gain, pray?

SOCRATES.: You shall become in oratory a tricky knave, a thorough rattle, a subtle speaker. But keep quiet.

STREPSIADES.: By Jupiter! You will not deceive me; for if I am besprinkled, I shall become fine flour.

SOCRATES.: It becomes the old man to speak words of good omen, and to hearken to my prayer. O sovereign King, immeasurable Air, who keepest the earth suspended, and through bright Aether, and ye august goddesses, the Clouds, sending thunder and lightning, arise, appear in the air, O mistresses, to your deep thinker!

STREPSIADES.: Not yet, not yet, till I wrap this around me lest I be wet through. To think of my having come from home without even a cap, unlucky man!

SOCRATES.: Come then, ye highly honoured Clouds, for a display to this man. Whether ye are sitting upon the sacred snow-covered summits of Olympus, or in the gardens of Father Ocean form a sacred dance with the Nymphs, or draw in golden pitchers the streams of the waters of the Nile, or inhabit the Maeotic lake, or the snowy rock of Mimas, hearken to our prayer, and receive the sacrifice, and be propitious to the sacred rites.

CHORUS.: Eternal Clouds! Let us arise to view with our dewy, clear-bright nature, from loud-sounding Father Ocean to the wood-crowned summits of the lofty mountains, in order that we may behold clearly the far-seen watch-towers, and the fruits, and the fostering, sacred earth, and the rushing sounds of the divine rivers, and the roaring, loud-sounding sea; for the unwearied eye of Aether sparkles with glittering rays. Come, let us shake off the watery cloud from our immortal forms and survey the earth with far-seeing eye.

SOCRATES.: O ye greatly venerable Clouds, ye have clearly heard me when I called. Turning to Strepsiades. Did you hear the voice, and the thunder which bellowed at the same time, feared as a god?

STREPSIADES.: I too worship you, O ye highly honoured, and am inclined to reply to the thundering, so much do I tremble at them and am alarmed. And whether it be lawful, or be not lawful, I have a desire just now to ease myself.

SOCRATES.: Don’t scoff, nor do what these poor-devil-poets do, but use words of good omen, for a great swarm of goddesses is in motion with their songs.

CHORUS.: Ye rain-bringing virgins, let us come to the fruitful land of Pallas, to view the much-loved country of Cecrops, abounding in brave men; where is reverence for sacred rites not to be divulged; where the house that receives the initiated is thrown open in holy mystic rites; and gifts to the celestial gods; and high-roofed temples, and statues; and most sacred processions in honour of the blessed gods; and well-crowned sacrifices to the gods, and feasts, at all seasons; and with the approach of spring the Bacchic festivity, and the rousings of melodious choruses, and the loud-sounding music of flutes.

STREPSIADES.: Tell me, O Socrates, I beseech you, by Jupiter, who are these that have uttered this grand song? Are they some heroines?

SOCRATES.: By no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument, and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, and comprehension.

STREPSIADES.: On this account therefore my soul, having heard their voice, flutters, and already seeks to discourse subtilely, and to quibble about smoke, and having pricked a maxim with a little notion, to refute the opposite argument. So that now I eagerly desire, if by any means it be possible, to see them palpably.

SOCRATES.: Look, then, hither, toward Mount Parnes; for now I behold them descending gently.

STREPSIADES.: Pray where? Show me.

SOCRATES.: See! There they come in great numbers through the hollows and thickets; there, obliquely.

STREPSIADES.: What’s the matter? For I can’t see them.

SOCRATES.: By the entrance.

STREPSIADES.: Now at length with difficulty I just see them.

Part 8

SOCRATES.: Now at length you assuredly see them, unless you have your eyes running pumpkins.

STREPSIADES.: Yes, by Jupiter! O highly honoured Clouds, for now they cover all things.

SOCRATES.: Did you not, however, know, nor yet consider, these to be goddesses?

STREPSIADES.: No, by Jupiter! But I thought them to be mist, and dew, and smoke.

SOCRATES.: For you do not know, by Jupiter! that these feed very many sophists, Thurian soothsayers, practisers of medicine, lazy-long-haired-onyx-ring-wearers, song-twisters for the cyclic dances, and meteorological quacks. They feed idle people who do nothing, because such men celebrate them in verse.

STREPSIADES.: For this reason, then, they introduced into their verses the dreadful impetuosity of the moist, whirling-bright clouds; and the curls of hundred-headed Typho; and the hard-blowing tempests; and then aerial, moist; crooked-clawed birds, floating in air and the showers of rain from dewy Clouds. And then, in return for these, they swallow slices of great, fine mullets, and bird’s-flesh of thrushes.

SOCRATES.: Is it not just, however, that they should have their reward, on account of these?

STREPSIADES.: Tell me, pray, if they are really clouds, what ails them, that they resemble mortal women? For they are not such.

SOCRATES.: Pray, of what nature are they?

STREPSIADES.: I do not clearly know: at any rate they resemble spread-out fleeces, and not women, by Jupiter! Not a bit; for these have noses.

SOCRATES.: Answer, then, whatever I ask you.

STREPSIADES.: Then say quickly what you wish.

SOCRATES.: Have you ever, when you; looked up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, or a panther, or a wolf, or a bull?

STREPSIADES.: By Jupiter, have I! But what of that?

SOCRATES.: They become all things, whatever they please. And then if they see a person with long hair, a wild one of these hairy fellows, like the son of Xenophantes, in derision of his folly, they liken themselves to centaurs.

STREPSIADES.: Why, what, if they should see Simon, a plunderer of the public property, what do they do?

SOCRATES.: They suddenly become wolves, showing up his disposition.

STREPSIADES.: For this reason, then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they saw this most cowardly fellow.

SOCRATES.: And now too, because they saw Clisthenes, you observe, on this account they became women.

STREPSIADES.: Hail therefore, O mistresses! And now, if ever ye did to any other, to me also utter a voice reaching to heaven, O all-powerful queens.

Part 9

CHORUS.: Hail, O ancient veteran, hunter after learned speeches! And thou, O priest of most subtle trifles! Tell us what you require? For we would not hearken to any other of the recent meteorological sophists, except to Prodicus; to him, on account of his wisdom and intelligence; and to you, because you walk proudly in the streets, and cast your eyes askance, and endure many hardships with bare feet, and in reliance upon us lookest supercilious.

STREPSIADES.: O Earth, what a voice! How holy and dignified and wondrous!

SOCRATES.: For, in fact, these alone are goddesses; and all the rest is nonsense.

STREPSIADES.: But come, by the Earth, is not Jupiter, the Olympian, a god?

SOCRATES.: What Jupiter? Do not trifle. There is no Jupiter.

STREPSIADES.: What do you say? Who rains then? For first of all explain this to me.

SOCRATES.: These to be sure. I will teach you it by powerful evidence. Come, where have you ever seen him raining at any time without Clouds? And yet he ought to rain in fine weather, and these be absent.

STREPSIADES.: By Apollo, of a truth you have rightly confirmed this by your present argument. And yet, before this, I really thought that Jupiter caused the rain. But tell me who is it that thunders. This makes me tremble.

SOCRATES.: These, as they roll, thunder.

STREPSIADES.: In what way? you all-daring man!

SOCRATES.: When they are full of much water, and are compelled to be borne along, being necessarily precipitated when full of rain, then they fall heavily upon each other and burst and clap.

STREPSIADES.: Who is it that compels them to borne along? Is it not Jupiter?

SOCRATES.: By no means, but aethereal Vortex.

STREPSIADES.: Vortex? It had escaped my notice that Jupiter did not exist, and that Vortex now reigned in his stead. But you have taught me nothing as yet concerning the clap and the thunder.

SOCRATES.: Have you not heard me, that I said that the Clouds, when full of moisture, dash against each other and clap by reason of their density?

STREPSIADES.: Come, how am I to believe this?

SOCRATES.: I’ll teach you from your own case. Were you ever, after being stuffed with broth at the Panathenaic festival, then disturbed in your belly, and did a tumult suddenly rumble through it?

STREPSIADES.: Yes, by Apollo! And immediately the little broth plays the mischief with me, and is disturbed and rumbles like thunder, and grumbles dreadfully: at first gently pappax, pappax; and then it adds papa-pappax; and finally, it thunders downright papapappax, as they do.

SOCRATES.: Consider, therefore, how you have trumpeted from a little belly so small; and how is it not probable that this air, being boundless, should thunder so loudly?

STREPSIADES.: For this reason, therefore, the two names also Trump and Thunder, are similar to each other. But teach me this, whence comes the thunderbolt blazing with fire, and burns us to ashes when it smites us, and singes those who survive. For indeed Jupiter evidently hurls this at the perjured.

Part 10

SOCRATES.: Why, how then, you foolish person, and savouring of the dark ages and antediluvian, if his manner is to smite the perjured, does he not blast Simon, and Cleonymus, and Theorus? And yet they are very perjured. But he smites his own temple, and Sunium the promontory of Athens, and the tall oaks. Wherefore, for indeed an oak does not commit perjury.

STREPSIADES.: I do not know; but you seem to speak well. For what, pray, is the thunderbolt?

SOCRATES.: When a dry wind, having been raised aloft, is inclosed in these Clouds, it inflates them within, like a bladder; and then, of necessity, having burst them, it rushes out with vehemence by reason of its density, setting fire to itself through its rushing and impetuosity.

STREPSIADES.: By Jupiter, of a truth I once experienced this exactly at the Diasian festival! I was roasting a haggis for my kinsfolk, and through neglect I did not cut it open; but it became inflated and then suddenly bursting, befouled my eyes and burned my face.

CHORUS.: O mortal, who hast desired great wisdom from us! How happy will you become among the Athenians and among the Greeks, if you be possessed of a good memory, and be a deep thinker, and endurance of labour be implanted in your soul, and you be not wearied either by standing or walking, nor be exceedingly vexed at shivering with cold, nor long to break your fast, and you refrain from wine, and gymnastics, and the other follies, and consider this the highest excellence, as is proper a clever man should, to conquer by action and counsel, and by battling with your tongue.

STREPSIADES.: As far as regards a sturdy spirit, and care that makes one’s bed uneasy, and a frugal spirit and hard-living and savory-eating belly, be of good courage and don’t trouble yourself; I would offer myself to hammer on, for that matter.

SOCRATES.: Will you not, pray, now believe in no god, except what we believe in--this Chaos, and the Clouds, and the Tongue--these three?

STREPSIADES.: Absolutely I would not even converse with the others, not even if I met them; nor would I sacrifice to them, nor make libations, nor offer frankincense.

CHORUS.: Tell us then boldly, what we must do for you? For you shall not fail in getting it, if you honour and admire us, and seek to become clever.

STREPSIADES.: O mistresses, I request of you then this very small favour, that I be the best of the Greeks in speaking by a hundred stadia.

CHORUS.: Well, you shall have this from us, so that hence-forward from this time no one shall get more opinions passed in the public assemblies than you.

STREPSIADES.: Grant me not to deliver important opinions; for I do not desire these, but only to pervert the right for my own advantage, and to evade my creditors.

CHORUS.: Then you shall obtain what you desire; for you do not covet great things. But commit yourself without fear to our ministers.

STREPSIADES.: I will do so in reliance upon you, for necessity oppresses me, on account of the blood-horses, and the marriage that ruined me. Now, therefore, let them use me as they please. I give up this body to them to be beaten, to be hungered, to be troubled with thirst, to be squalid, to shiver with cold, to flay into a leathern bottle, if I shall escape clear from my debts, and appear to men to be bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventive of words, a practiced knave in lawsuits, a law-tablet, a thorough rattle, a fox, a sharper, a slippery knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an impostor, a gallows-bird, a blackguard, a twister, a troublesome fellow, a licker-up of hashes. If they call me this, when they meet me, let them do to me absolutely what they please. And if they like, by Ceres, let them serve up a sausage out of me to the deep thinkers.

CHORUS.: This man has a spirit not void of courage, but prompt. Know, that if you learn these matters from me, you will possess among mortals a glory as high as heaven.

STREPSIADES.: What shall I experience?

CHORUS.: You shall pass with me the most enviable of mortal lives the whole time.

STREPSIADES.: Shall I then ever see this?

CHORUS.: Yea, so that many be always seated at your gates, wishing to communicate with you and come to a conference with you, to consult with you as to actions and affidavits of many talents, as is worthy of your abilities.

CHORUS.: But attempt to teach the old man by degrees whatever you purpose, and scrutinize his intellect, and make trial of his mind.

Part 11

SOCRATES.: Come now, tell me your own turn of mind; in order that, when I know of what sort it is, I may now, after this, apply to you new engines.

STREPSIADES.: What? By the gods, do you purpose to besiege me?

SOCRATES.: No; I wish to briefly learn from you if you are possessed of a good memory.

STREPSIADES.: In two ways, by Jove! If anything be owing to me, I have a very good memory; but if I owe unhappy man, I am very forgetful.

SOCRATES.: Is the power of speaking, pray, implanted in your nature?

STREPSIADES.: Speaking is not in me, but cheating is.

SOCRATES.: How, then, will you be able to learn?

STREPSIADES.: Excellently, of course.

SOCRATES.: Come, then, take care that, whenever I propound any clever dogma about abstruse matters, you catch it up immediately.

STREPSIADES.: What then? Am I to feed upon wisdom like a dog?

SOCRATES.: This man is ignorant and brutish--I fear, old man, lest you will need blows. Come, let me see; what do you do if any one beat you?

STREPSIADES.: I take the beating; and then, when I have waited a little while, I call witnesses to prove it; then again, after a short interval, I go to law.

SOCRATES.: Come, then, lay down your cloak.

STREPSIADES.: Have I done any wrong?

SOCRATES.: No; but it is the rule to enter naked.

STREPSIADES.: But I do not enter to search for stolen goods.

SOCRATES.: Lay it down. Why do you talk nonsense?

STREPSIADES.: Now tell me this, pray. If I be diligent and learn zealously, to which of your disciples shall I become like?

SOCRATES.: You will no way differ from Chaerephon in intellect.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me, unhappy! I shall become half-dead.

Part 12

SOCRATES.: Don’t chatter; but quickly follow me hither with smartness.

STREPSIADES.: Then give me first into my hands a honeyed cake; for I am afraid of descending within, as if into the cave of Trophonius.

SOCRATES.: Proceed; why do you keep poking about the door?

CHORUS.: Well, go in peace, for the sake of this your valour. May prosperity attend the man, because, being advanced into the vale of years, he imbues his intellect with modern subjects, and cultivates wisdom!

CHORUS.: Spectators, I will freely declare to you the truth, by Bacchus, who nurtured me! So may I conquer, and be accounted skillful, as that, deeming you to be clever spectators, and this to be the cleverest of my comedies, I thought proper to let you first taste that comedy, which gave me the greatest labour. And then I retired from the contest defeated by vulgar fellows, though I did not deserve it. These things, therefore, I object to you, a learned audience, for whose sake I was expending this labour. But not even thus will I ever willingly desert the discerning portion of you. For since what time my Modest Man and my Rake were very highly praised here by an audience, with whom it is a pleasure even to hold converse, and I (for I was still a virgin, and it was not lawful for me as yet to have children) exposed my offspring, and another girl took it up, and owned it, and you generously reared and educated it, from this time I have had sure pledges of your good will toward me. Now, therefore, like that well-known Electra, has this comedy come seeking, if haply it meet with an audience so clever, for it will recognize, if it should see, the lock of its brother. But see how modest she is by nature, who, in the first place, has come, having stitched to her no leathern phallus hanging down, red at the top, and thick, to set the boys a laughing; nor yet jeered the bald-headed, nor danced the cordax; nor does the old man who speaks the verses beat the person near him with his staff, keeping out of sight wretched ribaldry; nor has she rushed in with torches, nor does she shout iou, iou; but has come relying on herself and her verses. And I, although so excellent a poet, do not give myself airs, nor do I seek to deceive you by twice and thrice bringing forward the same pieces; but I am always clever at introducing new fashions, not at all resembling each other, and all of them clever; who struck Cleon in the belly when at the height of his power, and could not bear to attack him afterward when he was down. But these scribblers, when once Hyperbolus has given them a handle, keep ever trampling on this wretched man and his mother. Eupolis, indeed, first of all craftily introduced his Maricas, having basely, base fellow, spoiled by altering my play of the Knights, having added to it, for the sake of the cordax, a drunken old woman, whom Phrynichus long ago poetized, whom the whale was for devouring. Then again Hermippus made verses on Hyperbolus; and now all others press hard upon Hyperbolus, imitating my simile of the eels. Whoever, therefore, laughs at these, let him not take pleasure in my attempts; but if you are delighted with me and my inventions, in times to come you will seem to be wise.

CHORUS.: I first invoke, to join our choral band, the mighty Jupiter, ruling on high, the monarch of gods; and the potent master of the trident, the fierce upheaver of earth and briny sea; and our father of great renown, most august Aether, life-supporter of all; and the horse-guider, who fills the plain of the earth with exceeding bright beams, a mighty deity among gods and mortals.

CHORUS.: Most clever spectators, come, give us your attention; for having been injured, we blame you to your faces. For though we benefit the state most of all the gods, to us alone of the deities you do not offer sacrifice nor yet pour libations, who watch over you. For if there should be any expedition without prudence, then we either thunder or drizzle small rain. And then, when you were for choosing as your general the Paphlagonian tanner, hateful to the gods, we contracted our brows and were enraged; and thunder burst through the lightning; and the Moon forsook her usual paths; and the Sun immediately drew in his wick to himself, and declared he would not give you light, if Cleon should be your general. Nevertheless you chose him. For they say that ill counsel is in this city; that the gods, however, turn all these your mismanagements to a prosperous issue. And how this also shall be advantageous, we will easily teach you. If you should convict the cormorant Cleon of bribery and embezzlement, and then make fast his neck in the stocks, the affair will turn out for the state to the ancient form again, if you have mismanaged in any way, and to a prosperous issue.

CHORUS.: Hear me again, King Phoebus, Delian Apollo, who inhabitest the high-peaked Cynthian rock! And thou, blessed goddess, who inhabitest the all-golden house of Ephesus, in which Lydian damsels greatly reverence thee; and thou, our national goddess, swayer of the aegis, Minerva, guardian of the city! And thou, reveler Bacchus, who, inhabiting the Parnassian rock, sparklest with torches, conspicuous among the Delphic Bacchanals!

CHORUS.: When we had got ready to set out hither, the Moon met us, and commanded us first to greet the Athenians and their allies; and then declared that she was angry, for that she had suffered dreadful things, though she benefits you all, not in words, but openly. In the first place, not less than a drachma every month for torches; so that also all, when they went out of an evening, were wont to say, Boy, don’t buy a torch, for the moonlight is beautiful. And she says she confers other benefits on you, but that you do not observe the days at all correctly, but confuse them up and down; so that she says the gods are constantly threatening her, when they are defrauded of their dinner, and depart home, not having met with the regular feast according to the number of the days. And then, when you ought to be sacrificing, you are inflicting tortures and litigating. And often, while we gods are observing a fast, when we mourn for Memnon or Sarpedon, you are pouring libations and laughing. For which reason Hyperbolus, having obtained the lot this year to be Hieromnemon, was afterward deprived by us gods of his crown; for thus he will know better that he ought to spend the days of his life according to the Moon.

SOCRATES.: By Respiration, and Chaos, and Air, I have not seen any man so boorish, nor so impracticable, nor so stupid, nor so forgetful; who, while learning some little petty quibbles, forgets them before he has learned them. Nevertheless I will certainly call him out here to the light. Where is Strepsiades? Come forth with your couch.

STREPSIADES.: (from within). The bugs do not permit me to bring it forth.

SOCRATES.: Make haste and lay it down; and give me your attention.

STREPSIADES.: Very well.

SOCRATES.: Come now; what do you now wish to learn first of those things in none of which you have ever been instructed? Tell me. About measures, or rhythms, or verses?

STREPSIADES.: I should prefer to learn about measures; for it is but lately I was cheated out of two choenices by a meal-huckster.

SOCRATES.: I do not ask you this, but which you account the most beautiful measure; the trimetre or the tetrameter?

STREPSIADES.: I think nothing superior to the semisextarius.

SOCRATES.: You talk nonsense, man.

STREPSIADES.: Make a wager then with me, if the semisextarius be not a tetrameter.

SOCRATES.: Go to the devil! How boorish you are and dull of learning. Perhaps you may be able to learn about rhythms.

Part 13

STREPSIADES.: But what good will rhythms do me for a living?

SOCRATES.: In the first place, to be clever at an entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.

STREPSIADES.: According to the dactyle? By Jove, but I know it!

SOCRATES.: Tell me, pray.

STREPSIADES.: What else but this finger? Formerly, indeed, when I was yet a boy, this here!

SOCRATES.: You are boorish and stupid.

STREPSIADES.: For I do not desire, you wretch, to learn any of these things.

SOCRATES.: What then?

STREPSIADES.: That, that, the most unjust cause.

SOCRATES.: But you must learn other things before these; namely, what quadrupeds are properly masculine.

STREPSIADES.: I know the males, if I am not mad:—κριὸς, τράγος, ταῦρος, κύων, ἀλεκτρυών.

SOCRATES.: Do you see what you are doing? You are calling both the female and the male ἀλεκτρυὼν in the same way.

STREPSIADES.: How, pray? Come, tell me.

SOCRATES.: How? The one with you is ἀλεκτρὺων, and the other is ἀλεκτρὺων also.

STREPSIADES.: Yea, by Neptune! How now ought I to call them?

SOCRATES.: The one ἀλεκτρύαινα and the other ἀλέκτωρ.

STREPSIADES.: Ἀλεκτρύαινα? Capital, by the Air! So that, in return for this lesson alone, I will fill your kardopos full of barley-meal on all sides.

SOCRATES.: See! See! There again is another blunder! You make κάρδοπος, which is feminine, to be masculine.

STREPSIADES.: In what way do I make κάρδοπος masculine?

SOCRATES.: Most assuredly; just as if you were to say Κλεώνυμος.

Part 14

STREPSIADES.: How pray? Tell me.

SOCRATES.: Κάρδοπος with you is tantamount to Κλεώνυμος.

STREPSIADES.: Good sir, Cleonymus had no kneading-trough, but kneaded his bread in a round mortar. How ought I to call it henceforth?

SOCRATES.: How? Call it καρδόπη, as you call Σωστράτη.

STREPSIADES.: Καρδόπη in the feminine?

SOCRATES.: For so you speak it rightly.

STREPSIADES.: But that would make it καρδόπη, Κλεωνύμη.

SOCRATES.: You must learn one thing more about names, what are masculine and what of them are feminine.

STREPSIADES.: I know what are female.

SOCRATES.: Tell me, pray.

STREPSIADES.: Lysilla, Philinna, Clitagora, Demetria.

SOCRATES.: What names are masculine?

STREPSIADES.: Thousands; Philoxenus, Melesias, Amynias.

SOCRATES.: But, you wretch! These are not masculine.

STREPSIADES.: Are they not males with you?

SOCRATES.: By no means; for how would you call Amynias, if you met him?

STREPSIADES.: How would I call? Thus: Come hither, come hither Amynia!

SOCRATES.: Do you see? You call Amynias a woman.

STREPSIADES.: Is it not then with justice, who does not serve in the army? But why should I learn these things, that we all know?

SOCRATES.: It is no use, by Jupiter! Having reclined yourself down here-

Part 15

STREPSIADES.: What must I do?

SOCRATES.: Think out some of your own affairs.

STREPSIADES.: Not here, pray, I beseech you; but, if I must, suffer me to excogitate these very things on the ground.

SOCRATES.: There is no other way.

STREPSIADES.: Unfortunate man that I am! What a penalty shall I this day pay to the bugs!

CHORUS.: Now meditate and examine closely; and roll yourself about in every way, having wrapped yourself up; and quickly, when you fall into a difficulty, spring to another mental contrivance. But let delightful sleep be absent from your eyes.

STREPSIADES.: Attatai! Attatai!

CHORUS.: What ails you? Why are you distressed?

STREPSIADES.: Wretched man, I am perishing! The Corinthians, coming out from the bed, are biting me, and devouring my sides, and drinking up my life-blood, and tearing away my flesh, and digging through my vitals, and will annihilate me.

CHORUS.: Do not now be very grievously distressed.

STREPSIADES.: Why, how, when my money is gone, my complexion gone, my life gone, and my slipper gone? And furthermore in addition to these evils, with singing the night-watches, I am almost gone myself.

SOCRATES.: Ho you! What are you about? Are you not meditating?

STREPSIADES.: I? Yea, by Neptune!

SOCRATES.: And what, pray, have you thought?

STREPSIADES.: Whether any bit of me will be left by the bugs.

SOCRATES.: You will perish most wretchedly.

STREPSIADES.: But, my good friend, I have already perished.

SOCRATES.: You must not give in, but must wrap yourself up; for you have to discover a device for abstracting, and a means of cheating.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me! Would, pray, some one would throw over me a swindling contrivance from the sheep-skins.

SOCRATES.: Come now; I will first see this fellow, what he is about. Ho you! Are you asleep?

Part 16

STREPSIADES.: No, by Apollo, I am not!

SOCRATES.: Have you got anything?

STREPSIADES.: No; by Jupiter, certainly not!

SOCRATES.: Nothing at all?

STREPSIADES.: Nothing, except what I have in my right hand.

SOCRATES.: Will you not quickly cover yourself up and think of something?

STREPSIADES.: About what? For do you tell me this, O Socrates!

SOCRATES.: Do you, yourself, first find out and state what you wish.

STREPSIADES.: You have heard a thousand times what I wish. About the interest; so that I may pay no one.

SOCRATES.: Come then, wrap yourself up, and having given your mind play with subtilty, revolve your affairs by little and little, rightly distinguishing and examining.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me, unhappy man!

SOCRATES.: Keep quiet; and if you be puzzled in any one of your conceptions, leave it and go; and then set your mind in motion again, and lock it up.

STREPSIADES.: (in great glee). O dearest little Socrates!

SOCRATES.: What, old man?

STREPSIADES.: I have got a device for cheating them of the interest.

SOCRATES.: Exhibit it.

STREPSIADES.: Now tell me this—

SOCRATES.: Pray?

STREPSIADES.: If I were to purchase a Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night, and then shut it up, as if it were a mirror, in a round crest-case, and then carefully keep it—

SOCRATES.: What good, pray, would this do you?

Part 17

STREPSIADES.: What? If the moon were to rise no longer anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

SOCRATES.: Why so, pray?

STREPSIADES.: Because the money is lent out by the month.

SOCRATES.: Capital! But I will again propose to you another clever question. If a suit of five talents should be entered against you, tell me how you would obliterate it.

STREPSIADES.: How? How? I do not know but I must seek.

SOCRATES.: Do not then always revolve your thoughts about yourself; but slack away your mind into the air, like a cock-chafer tied with a thread by the foot.

STREPSIADES.: I have found a very clever method of getting rid of my suit, so that you yourself would acknowledge it.

SOCRATES.: Of what description?

STREPSIADES.: Have you ever seen this stone in the chemist’s shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they kindle fire?

SOCRATES.: Do you mean the burning-glass?

STREPSIADES.: I do. Come what would you say, pray, if I were to take this, when the clerk was entering the suit, and were to stand at a distance, in the direction of the sun, thus, and melt out the letters of my suit?

SOCRATES.: Cleverly done, by the Graces!

STREPSIADES.: Oh! How I am delighted, that a suit of five talents has been cancelled!

SOCRATES.: Come now, quickly seize upon this.

STREPSIADES.: What?

SOCRATES.: How, when engaged in a lawsuit, you could overturn the suit, when you were about to be cast, because you had no witnesses.

STREPSIADES.: Most readily and easily.

SOCRATES.: Tell me, pray.

STREPSIADES.: Well now, I’ll tell you. If, while one suit was still pending, before mine was called on, I were to run away and hang myself.

SOCRATES.: You talk nonsense.

Part 18

STREPSIADES.: By the gods, would I! For no one will bring action against me when I am dead.

SOCRATES.: You talk nonsense. Begone; I can’t teach you any longer.

STREPSIADES.: Why so? Yea, by the gods, O Socrates!

SOCRATES.: You straightaway forget whatever you learn. For what now was the first thing you were taught? Tell me.

STREPSIADES.: Come, let me see: nay, what was the first? What was the fist? Nay, what was the thing in which we knead our flour? Ah me! What was it?

SOCRATES.: Will you not pack off to the devil, you most forgetful and most stupid old man?

STREPSIADES.: Ah me, what then, pray will become of me, wretched man? For I shall be utterly undone, if I do not learn to ply the tongue. Come, O ye Clouds, give me some good advice.

CHORUS.: We, old man, advise you, if you have a son grown up, to send him to learn in your stead.

STREPSIADES.: Well, I have a fine, handsome son, but he is not willing to learn. What must I do?

CHORUS.: But do you permit him?

STREPSIADES.: Yes, for he is robust in body, and in good health, and is come of the high-plumed dames of Coesyra. I will go for him, and if he be not willing, I will certainly drive him from my house. To Socrates. Go in and wait for me a short time.

CHORUS.: Do you perceive that you are soon to obtain the greatest benefits through us alone of the gods? For this man is ready to do everything that you bid him. But you, while the man is astounded and evidently elated, having perceived it, will quickly fleece him to the best of your power. Exit Socrates. For matters of this sort are somehow accustomed to turn the other way.

STREPSIADES.: By Mist, you certainly shall not stay here any longer! But go and gnaw the columns of Megacles.

PHIDIPPIDES.: My good sir, what is the matter with you, O father? You are not in your senses, by Olympian Jupiter!

STREPSIADES.: See, see, Olympian Jupiter! What folly! To think of your believing in Jupiter, as old as you are!

PHIDIPPIDES.: Why, pray, did you laugh at this?

STREPSIADES.: Reflecting that you are a child, and have antiquated notions. Yet, however, approach, that you may know more; and I will tell you a thing, by learning which you will be a man. But see that you do not teach this to any one.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Well, what is it?

STREPSIADES.: You swore now by Jupiter.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I did.

Part 19

STREPSIADES.: Seest thou, then, how good a thing is learning? There is no Jupiter, O Phidippides!

PHIDIPPIDES.: Who then?

STREPSIADES.: Vortex reigns, having expelled Jupiter.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Bah! Why do you talk foolishly?

STREPSIADES.: Be assured that it is so.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Who says this?

STREPSIADES.: Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footmarks of fleas.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Have you arrived at such a pitch of frenzy that you believe madmen?

STREPSIADES.: Speak words of good omen, and say nothing bad of clever men and wise; of whom, through frugality, none ever shaved or anointed himself, or went to a bath to wash himself; while you squander my property in bathing, as if I were already dead. But go as quickly as possible and learn instead of me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: What good could any one learn from them?

STREPSIADES.: What, really? Whatever wisdom there is among men. And you will know yourself, how ignorant and stupid you are. But wait for me here a short time.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Ah me! What shall I do, my father being crazed? Shall I bring him into court and convict him of lunacy, or shall I give information of his madness to the coffin-makers?

STREPSIADES.: Come, let me see; what do you consider this to be? Tell me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Alectryon.

STREPSIADES.: Right. And what this?

PHIDIPPIDES.: Alectryon.

STREPSIADES.: Both the same? You are very ridiculous. Do not do so, then, for the future; but call this ἀλεκτρύαινα, and this one ἀλέκτωρ.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Ἀλεκτρύαινα! Did you learn these clever things by going in just now to the Titans?

STREPSIADES.: And many others too; but whatever I learned on each occasion I used to forget immediately, through length of years.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Is it for this reason, pray, that you have also lost your cloak?

Part 20

STREPSIADES.: I have not lost it; but have studied it away.

PHIDIPPIDES.: What have you made of your slippers, you foolish man?

STREPSIADES.: I have expended them, like Pericles, for needful purposes. Come, move, let us go. And then if you obey your father, go wrong if you like. I also know that I formerly obeyed you, a lisping child of six years old, and bought you a go-cart at the Diasia, with the first obolus I received from the Heliaea.

PHIDIPPIDES.: You will assuredly some time at length be grieved at this.

STREPSIADES.: It is well done of you that you obeyed. Come hither, come hither O Socrates! Come forth, for I bring to you this son of mine, having persuaded him against his will.

SOCRATES.: For he is still childish, and not used to the baskets here.

PHIDIPPIDES.: You would yourself be used to them if you were hanged.

STREPSIADES.: A mischief take you! Do you abuse your teacher?

SOCRATES.: Were hanged quoth’a! How sillily he pronounced it, and with lips wide apart! How can this youth ever learn an acquittal from a trial or a legal summons, or persuasive refutation? And yet Hyperbolus learned this at the cost of a talent.

STREPSIADES.: Never mind; teach him. He is clever by nature. Indeed, from his earliest years, when he was a little fellow only so big, he was wont to form houses and carve ships within-doors, and make little wagons of leather, and make frogs out of pomegranate-rinds, you can’t think how cleverly. But see that he learns those two causes; the better, whatever it may be; and the worse, which, by maintaining what is unjust, overturns the better. If not both, at any rate the unjust one by all means.

SOCRATES.: He shall learn it himself from the two causes in person.

STREPSIADES.: I will take my departure. Remember this now, that he is to be able to reply to all just arguments.

JUST CAUSE.: Come hither! Show yourself to the spectators, although being audacious.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Go whither you please; for I shall far rather do for you, if I speak before a crowd.

JUST CAUSE.: You destroy me? Who are you?

UNJUST CAUSE.: A cause.

JUST CAUSE.: Ay, the worse.

UNJUST CAUSE.: But I conquer you, who say that you are better than I.

JUST CAUSE.: By doing what clever trick?

UNJUST CAUSE.: By discovering new contrivances.

Part 21

JUST CAUSE.: For these innovations flourish by the favour of these silly persons.

UNJUST CAUSE.: No; but wise persons.

JUST CAUSE.: I will destroy you miserably.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Tell me, by doing what?

JUST CAUSE.: By speaking what is just.

UNJUST CAUSE.: But I will overturn them by contradicting them; for I deny that justice even exists at all.

JUST CAUSE.: Do you deny that it exists?

UNJUST CAUSE.: For come, where is it?

JUST CAUSE.: With the gods.

UNJUST CAUSE.: How, then, if justice exists, has Jupiter not perished, who bound his own father?

JUST CAUSE.: Bah! This profanity now is spreading! Give me a basin.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You are a dotard and absurd.

JUST CAUSE.: You are debauched and shameless.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You have spoken roses of me.

JUST CAUSE.: And a dirty lickspittle.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You crown me with lilies.

JUST CAUSE.: And a parricide.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You don’t know that you are sprinkling me with gold.

JUST CAUSE.: Certainly not so formerly, but with lead.

UNJUST CAUSE.: But now this is an ornament to me.

Part 22

JUST CAUSE.: You are very impudent.

UNJUST CAUSE.: And you are antiquated.

JUST CAUSE.: And through you, no one of our youths is willing to go to school; and you will be found out some time or other by the Athenians, what sort of doctrines you teach the simple-minded.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You are shamefully squalid.

JUST CAUSE.: And you are prosperous. And yet formerly you were a beggar saying that you were the Mysian Telephus, and gnawing the maxims of Pandeletus out of your little wallet.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Oh, the wisdom—

JUST CAUSE.: Oh, the madness—

UNJUST CAUSE.: Which you have mentioned.

JUST CAUSE.: And of your city, which supports you who ruin her youths.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You shan’t teach this youth, you old dotard.

JUST CAUSE.: Yes, if he is to be saved, and not merely to practise loquacity.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Come hither, and leave him to rave.

JUST CAUSE.: You shall howl, if you lay your hand on him.

CHORUS.: Cease from contention and railing. But show to us, you, what you used to teach the men of former times, and you, the new system of education; in order that, having heard you disputing, he may decide and go to the school of one or the other.

JUST CAUSE.: I am willing to do so.

UNJUST CAUSE.: I also am willing.

CHORUS.: Come now, which of the two shall speak first?

UNJUST CAUSE.: I will give him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts. And at last, if he mutter, he shall be destroyed, being stung in his whole face and his two eyes by my maxims, as if by bees.

CHORUS.: Now the two, relying on very dexterous arguments and thoughts, and sententious maxims, will show which of them shall appear superior in argument. For now the whole crisis of wisdom is here laid before them; about which my friends have a very great contest.

CHORUS.: But do you, who adorned our elders with many virtuous manners, utter the voice in which you rejoice, and declare your nature.

Part 23

JUST CAUSE.: I will, therefore, describe the ancient system of education, how it was ordered, when I flourished in the advocacy of justice, and temperance was the fashion. In the first place it was incumbent that no one should hear the voice of a boy uttering a syllable; and next, that those from the same quarter of the town should march in good order through the streets to the school of the harp-master, naked, and in a body, even if it were to snow as thick as meal. Then again, their master would teach them, not sitting cross-legged, to learn by rote a song, either Παλλάδα περσέπολιν δεινὰν or τηλέπορόν τι βόαμα raising to a higher pitch the harmony which our fathers transmitted to us. But if any of them were to play the buffoon, or to turn any quavers, like these difficult turns the present artists make after the manner of Phrynis, he used to be thrashed, being beaten with many blows, as banishing the Muses. And it behooved the boys, while sitting in the school of the Gymnastic-master, to cover the thigh, so that they might exhibit nothing indecent to those outside; then again, after rising from the ground, to sweep the sand together, and to take care not to leave an impression of the person for their lovers. And no boy used in those days to anoint himself below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep the legs crossed.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Aye, antiquated and dipolia-like and full of grasshoppers, and of Cecydes, and of the Buphonian festival!

JUST CAUSE.: Yet certainly these are those principles by which my system of education nurtured the men who fought at Marathon. But you teach the men of the present day, so that I am choked, when at the Panathenaia a fellow, holding his shield before his person, neglects Tritogenia, when they ought to dance. Wherefore, O youth, choose with confidence, me, the better cause, and you will learn to hate the Agora, and to refrain from baths, and to be ashamed of what is disgraceful, and to be enraged if any one jeer you, and to rise up from seats before your seniors when they approach, and not to behave ill toward your parents, and to do nothing else that is base, because you are to form in your mind an image of Modesty: and not to dart into the house of a dancing-woman, lest, while gaping after these things, being struck with an apple by a wanton, you should be damaged in your reputation: and not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy.

UNJUST CAUSE.: If you shall believe him in this, O youth, by Bacchus, you will be like the sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you a booby.

JUST CAUSE.: Yet certainly shall you spend your time in the gymnastic schools, sleek and blooming; not chattering in the market-place rude jests, like the youths of the present day; nor dragged into court for a petty suit, greedy, pettifogging, knavish; but you shall descend to the Academy and run races beneath the sacred olives along with some modest compeer, crowned with white reeds, redolent of yew, and careless ease, of leaf-shedding white poplar, rejoicing in the season of spring, when the plane-tree whispers to the elm.

JUST CAUSE.: If you do these things which I say, and apply your mind to these, you will ever have a stout chest, a clear complexion, broad shoulders, a little tongue, large hips, little lewdness. But if you practise what the youths of the present day do, you will have in the first place, a pallid complexion, small shoulders, a narrow chest, a large tongue, little hips, great lewdness, a long psephism; and this deceiver will persuade you to consider everything that is base to be honourable, and what is honourable to be base; and in addition to this, he will fill you with the lewdness of Antimachus.

CHORUS.: O thou that practisest most renowned high-towering wisdom! How sweetly does a modest grace attend your words! Happy, therefore, were they who lived in those days, in the times of former men! In reply, then, to these, O thou that hast a dainty-seeming Muse, it behooveth thee to say something new; since the man has gained renown.

CHORUS.: And it appears you have need of powerful arguments against him, if you are to conquer the man and not incur laughter.

UNJUST CAUSE.: And yet I was choking in my heart, and was longing to confound all these with contrary maxims. For I have been called among the deep thinkers the worse cause on this very account, that I first contrived how to speak against both law and justice; and this art is worth more than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious. But mark how I will confute the system of education on which he relies, who says, in the first place, that he will not permit you to be washed with warm water. And yet, on what principle do you blame the warm baths?

JUST CAUSE.: Because it is most vile, and makes a man cowardly.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Stop! For immediately I seize and hold you by the waist without escape. Come, tell me, which of the sons of Jupiter do you deem to have been the bravest in soul, and to have undergone most labours?

JUST CAUSE.: I consider no man superior to Hercules.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Where, pray, did you ever see cold Herculean baths? And yet, who was more valiant than he?

JUST CAUSE.: These are the very things which make the bath full of youths always chattering all day long, but the palaestras empty.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You next find fault with their living in the market-place; but I commend it. For if it had been bad, Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as an orator; nor all the other wise men. I will return, then, from thence to the tongue, which this fellow says our youths ought not to exercise, while I maintain they should. And again, he says they ought to be modest: two very great evils. For tell me to whom you have ever seen any good accrue through modesty and confute me by your words.

JUST CAUSE.: To many. Peleus, at any rate, received his sword on account of it.

UNJUST CAUSE.: A sword? Marry, he got a pretty piece of luck, the poor wretch! While Hyperbolus, he of the lamps, got more than many talents by his villainy, but by Jupiter, no sword!

JUST CAUSE.: And Peleus married Thetis, too, through his modesty.

UNJUST CAUSE.: And then she went off and left him; for he was not lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated. But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides). consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of how many pleasures you are about to be deprived—of women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of drinking-bouts, of giggling. And yet, what is life worth to you if you be deprived of these enjoyments? Well, I will pass from thence to the necessities of our nature. You have gone astray, you have fallen in love, you have been guilty of some adultery, and then have been caught. You are undone, for you are unable to speak. But if you associate with me, indulge your inclination, dance, laugh, and think nothing disgraceful. For if you should happen to be detected as an adulterer, you will make this reply to him, that you have done him no injury: and then refer him to Jupiter, how even he is overcome by love and women . And yet, how could you, who are a mortal, have greater power than a god?

JUST CAUSE.: But what if he should suffer the radish through obeying you, and be depillated with hot ashes? What argument will he be able to state, to prove that he is not a blackguard?

Part 24

UNJUST CAUSE.: And if he be a blackguard, what harm will he suffer?

JUST CAUSE.: Nay, what could he ever suffer still greater than this?

UNJUST CAUSE.: What then will you say if you be conquered by me in this?

JUST CAUSE.: I will be silent: what else can I do?

UNJUST CAUSE.: Come, now, tell me; from what class do the advocates come?

JUST CAUSE.: From the blackguards.

UNJUST CAUSE.: I believe you. What then? From what class do tragedians come?

JUST CAUSE.: From the blackguards.

UNJUST CAUSE.: You say well. But from what class do the public orators come?

JUST CAUSE.: From the blackguards.

UNJUST CAUSE.: Then have you perceived that you say nothing to the purpose? And look which class among the audience is the more numerous.

JUST CAUSE.: Well now, I’m looking.

UNJUST CAUSE.: What, then, do you see?

JUST CAUSE.: By the gods, the blackguards to be far more numerous. This fellow, at any rate, I know; and him yonder; and this fellow with the long hair.

UNJUST CAUSE.: What, then, will you say?

JUST CAUSE.: We are conquered. Ye blackguards, by the gods, receive my cloak, for I desert to you.

SOCRATES.: What then? whether do you wish to take and lead away this your son, or shall I teach him to speak?

STREPSIADES.: Teach him, and chastise him: and remember that you train him properly; on the one side able for petty suits; but train his other jaw able for the more important causes.

SOCRATES.: Make yourself easy; you shall receive him back a clever sophist.

STREPSIADES.: Nay, rather, pale and wretched.

Part 25

CHORUS.: Go ye, then: but I think that you will repent of these proceedings.

CHORUS.: We wish to speak about the judges, what they will gain, if at all they justly assist this Chorus. For in the first place, if you wish to plough up your fields in spring, we will rain for you first; but for the others afterward. And then we will protect the fruits, and the vines, so that neither drought afflict them, nor excessive wet weather. But if any mortal dishonour us who are goddesses, let him consider what evils he will suffer at our hands, obtaining neither wine nor anything else from his farm. For when his olives and vines sprout, they shall be cut down; with such slings will we smite them. And if we see him making brick, we will rain; and we will smash the tiles of his roof with round hailstones. And if he himself, or any one of his kindred or friends, at any time marry, we will rain the whole night; so he will probably wish rather to have been even in Egypt than to have judged badly.

STREPSIADES.: The fifth, the fourth, the third, after this the second; and then, of all the days I most fear, and dread, and abominate, immediately after this there is the Old and New. For every one to whom I happen to be indebted, swears, and says he will ruin and destroy me, having made his deposits against me; though I only ask what is moderate and just—My good sir, one part don’t take just now; the other part put off I pray; and the other part remit; they say that thus they will never get back their money, but abuse me, as I am unjust, and say they will go to law with me. Now therefore let them go to law, for it little concerns me, if Phidippides has learned to speak well. I shall soon know by knocking at the thinking-shop. Boy, I say! Boy, boy!

SOCRATES.: Good morning, Strepsiades.

STREPSIADES.: The same to you. But first accept this present; for one ought to compliment the teacher with a fee. And tell me about my son, if he has learned that cause, which you just now brought forward.

SOCRATES.: He has learned it.

STREPSIADES.: Well done, O Fraud, all-powerful queen!

SOCRATES.: So that you can get clear off from whatever suit you please.

STREPSIADES.: Even if witnesses were present when I borrowed the money?

SOCRATES.: Yea, much more! Even if a thousand be present.

STREPSIADES.: Then I will shout with a very loud shout: Ho! Weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your principals, and your compound interests! For you can no longer do me any harm, because such a son is being reared for me in this house, shining with a double-edged tongue, for my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and summon from within to me.

SOCRATES.: O child! O son! Come forth from the house! Hear your father! Re-enter Socrates leading in Phidippides. Lo, here is the man!

STREPSIADES.: O my dear, my dear!

SOCRATES.: Take your son and depart.

STREPSIADES.: Oh, oh, my child! Huzza! Huzza! How I am delighted at the first sight of your complexion! Now, indeed, you are, in the first place, negative and disputatious to look at, and this fashion native to the place plainly appears, the what do you say? and the seeming to be injured when, I well know, you are injuring and inflicting a wrong; and in your countenance there is the Attic look. Now, therefore, see that you save me, since you have also ruined me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: What, pray, do you fear?

STREPSIADES.: The Old and New.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Why, is any day old and new?

STREPSIADES.: Yes; on which they say that they will make their deposits against me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Then those that have made them will lose them; for it is not possible that two days can be one day.

Part 26

STREPSIADES.: Can not it?

PHIDIPPIDES.: Certainly not; unless the same woman can be both old and young at the same time.

STREPSIADES.: And yet it is the law.

PHIDIPPIDES.: For they do not, I think, rightly understand what the law means.

STREPSIADES.: And what does it mean?

PHIDIPPIDES.: The ancient Solon was by nature the commons’ friend.

STREPSIADES.: This surely is nothing whatever to the Old and New.

PHIDIPPIDES.: He therefore made the summons for two days, for the Old and New, that the deposits might be made on the first of the month.

STREPSIADES.: Why, pray, did he add the old day?

PHIDIPPIDES.: In order, my good sir, that the defendants, being present a day before, might compromise the matter of their own accord; but if not, that they might be worried on the morning of the new moon.

STREPSIADES.: Why, then, do the magistrates not receive the deposits on the new moon, but on the Old and New?

PHIDIPPIDES.: They seem to me to do what the forestallers do: in order that they may appreciate the deposits as soon as possible, on this account they have the first pick by one day.

STREPSIADES.: Bravo! Ye wretches, why do you sit senseless, the gain of us wise men, being blocks, ciphers, mere sheep, jars heaped together, wherefore I must sing an encomium upon myself and this my son, on account of our good fortune.

STREPSIADES.: O happy Strepsiades! How wise you are yourself, and how excellent is the son whom you are rearing!" My friends and fellow-tribesmen will say of me, envying me, when you prove victorious in arguing causes. But first I wish to lead you in and entertain you.

PASIAS.: Then, ought a man to throw away any part of his own property? Never! But it were better then at once to put away blushes, rather than now to have trouble; since I am now dragging you to be a witness, for the sake of my own money; and further, in addition to this, I shall become an enemy to my fellow-tribesman. But never, while I live, will I disgrace my country, but will summon Strepsiades.

STREPSIADES.: Who’s there?

PASIAS.: For the Old and New.

STREPSIADES.: I call you to witness, that he has named it for two days. For what matter do you summon me?

PASIAS.: For the twelve minae, which you received when you were buying the dapple-gray horse.

STREPSIADES.: A horse? Do you not hear? I, whom you all know to hate horsemanship!

Part 27

PASIAS.: And, by Jupiter! You swore by the gods too, that you would repay it.

STREPSIADES.: Ay, by Jove! For then my Phidippides did not yet know the irrefragable argument.

PASIAS.: And do you now intend, on this account, to deny the debt?

STREPSIADES.: Why, what good should I get else from his instruction?

PASIAS.: And will you be willing to deny these upon oath of the gods?

STREPSIADES.: What gods?

PASIAS.: Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune.

STREPSIADES.: Yes, by Jupiter! And would pay down, too, a three-obol piece besides to swear.

PASIAS.: Then may you perish some day for your impudence!

STREPSIADES.: This man would be the better for it if he were cleansed by rubbing with salt.

PASIAS.: Ah me, how you deride me!

STREPSIADES.: He will contain six choae.

PASIAS.: By great Jupiter and the gods, you certainly shall not do this to me with impunity!

STREPSIADES.: I like your gods amazingly; and Jupiter, sworn by, is ridiculous to the knowing ones.

PASIAS.: You will assuredly suffer punishment, some time or other, for this. But answer and dismiss me, whether you are going to repay me my money or not.

STREPSIADES.: Keep quiet now, for I will presently answer you distinctly.

PASIAS.: (to his summons-witness). What do you think he will do?

WITNESS.: I think he will pay you.

STREPSIADES.: Where is this man who asks me for his money? Tell me what is this?

PASIAS.: What is this? A κάρδοπος.

Part 28

STREPSIADES.: And do you then ask me for your money, being such an ignorant person? I would not pay, not even an obolus, to any one who called the καρδόπη κάρδοπος.

PASIAS.: Then won’t you pay me?

STREPSIADES.: Not, as far as I know. Will you not then pack off as fast as possible from my door?

PASIAS.: I will depart; and be assured of this, that I will make deposit against you, or may I live no longer!

STREPSIADES.: Then you will lose it besides, in addition to your twelve minae. And yet I do not wish you to suffer this, because you named the kardopos floolishly.

AMYNIAS.: Ah me! Ah me!

STREPSIADES.: Ha! Whoever is this, who is lamenting? Surely it was not one of Carcinus’ deities that spoke.

AMYNIAS.: But why do you wish to know this, who I am?-A miserable man.

STREPSIADES.: Then follow your own path.

AMYNIAS.: O harsh fortune! O Fates, breaking the wheels of my horses! O Pallas, how you have destroyed me!

STREPSIADES.: What evil, pray, has Tlepolemus ever done you?

AMYNIAS.: Do not jeer me, my friend; but order your son to pay me the money which he received; especially as I have been unfortunate.

STREPSIADES.: What money is this?

AMYNIAS.: That which he borrowed.

STREPSIADES.: Then you were really unlucky, as I think.

AMYNIAS.: By the gods, I fell while driving my horses.

STREPSIADES.: Why, pray, do you talk nonsense, as if you had fallen from an ass?

AMYNIAS.: Do I talk nonsense if I wish to recover my money?

STREPSIADES.: You can’t be in your senses yourself.

AMYNIAS.: Why, pray?

Part 29

STREPSIADES.: You appear to me to have had your brains shaken as it were.

AMYNIAS.: And you appear to me, by Hermes, to be going to be summoned, if you will not pay me the money?

STREPSIADES.: Tell me now, whether you think that Jupiter always rains fresh rain on each occasion, or that the sun draws from below the same water back again?

AMYNIAS.: I know not which; nor do I care.

STREPSIADES.: How then is it just that you should recover your money, if you know nothing of meteorological matters?

AMYNIAS.: Well, if you are in want, pay me the interest of my money.

STREPSIADES.: What sort of animal is this interest?

AMYNIAS.: Most assuredly the money is always becoming more and more every month and every day as the time slips away.

STREPSIADES.: You say well. What then? Is it possible that you consider the sea to be greater now than formerly?

AMYNIAS.: No, by Jupiter, but equal; for it is not fitting that it should be greater.

STREPSIADES.: And how then, you wretch does this become no way greater, though the rivers flow into it, while you seek to increase your money? Will you not take yourself off from my house? Bring me the goad.

AMYNIAS.: I call you to witness these things.

STREPSIADES.: Go! Why do you delay? Won’t you march, Mr. Blood-horse?

AMYNIAS.: Is not this an insult, pray?

STREPSIADES.: Will you move quickly? Pricks him behind with the goad. I’ll lay on you, goading you behind, you outrigger? Do you fly? Amynias runs off. I thought I should stir you, together with your wheels and your two-horse chariots.

CHORUS.: What a thing it is to love evil courses! For this old man, having loved them, wishes to withhold the money that he borrowed. And he will certainly meet with something today, which will perhaps cause this sophist to suddenly receive some misfortune, in return for the knaveries he has begun.

CHORUS.: For I think that he will presently find what has been long boiling up, that his son is skilful to speak opinions opposed to justice, so as to overcome all with whomsoever he holds converse, even if he advance most villainous doctrines; and perhaps, perhaps his father will wish that he were even speechless.

STREPSIADES.: (running out of the house pursued by his son). Hollo! Hollo! O neighbours, and kinsfolk, and fellow-tribesmen, defend me, by all means, who am being beaten! Ah me, unhappy man, for my head and jaw! Wretch! Do you beat your father?

PHIDIPPIDES.: Yes, father.

STREPSIADES.: You see him owning that he beats me.

Part 30

PHIDIPPIDES.: Certainly.

STREPSIADES.: O wretch, and parricide, and house-breaker!

PHIDIPPIDES.: Say the same things of me again, and more. Do you know that I take pleasure in being much abused?

STREPSIADES.: You blackguard!

PHIDIPPIDES.: Sprinkle me with roses in abundance.

STREPSIADES.: Do you beat your father?

PHIDIPPIDES.: And will prove too, by Jupiter! that I beat you with justice.

STREPSIADES.: O thou most rascally! Why, how can it be just to beat a father?

PHIDIPPIDES.: I will demonstrate it, and will overcome you in argument.

STREPSIADES.: Will you overcome me in this?

PHIDIPPIDES.: Yea, by much and easily. But choose which of the two Causes you wish to speak.

STREPSIADES.: Of what two Causes?

PHIDIPPIDES.: The better, or the worse?

STREPSIADES.: Marry, I did get you taught to speak against justice, by Jupiter, my friend, if you are going to persuade me of this, that it is just and honourable for a father to be beaten by his sons!

PHIDIPPIDES.: I think I shall certainly persuade you; so that, when you have heard, not even you yourself will say anything against it.

STREPSIADES.: Well, now, I am willing to hear what you have to say.

CHORUS.: It is your business, old man, to consider in what way you shall conquer the man; for if he were not relying upon something, he would not be so licentious. But he is emboldened by something; the boldness of the man is evident.

CHORUS.: Now you ought to tell to the Chorus from what the contention first arose. And this you must do by all means.

STREPSIADES.: Well, now, I will tell you from what we first began to rail at one another. After we had feasted, as you know, I first bade him take a lyre, and sing a song of Simonides, The Shearing of the Ram. But he immediately said it was old-fashioned to play on the lyre and sing while drinking, like a woman grinding parched barley.

PHIDIPPIDES.: For ought you not then immediately to be beaten and trampled on, bidding me sing, just as if you were entertaining cicadae?

Part 31

STREPSIADES.: He expressed, however, such opinions then too within, as he does now; and he asserted that Simonides was a bad poet. I bore it at first, with difficulty indeed, yet nevertheless I bore it. And then I bade him at least take a myrtle-wreath and recite to me some portion of Aeschylus; and then he immediately said, Shall I consider Aeschylus the first among the poets, full of empty sound, unpolished, bombastic, using rugged words? And hereupon you can’t think how my heart panted. But, nevertheless, I restrained my passion, and said, At least recite some passage of the more modern poets, of whatever kind these clever things be. And he immediately sang a passage of Euripides, how a brother, O averter of ill! Debauched his uterine sister. And I bore it no longer, but immediately assailed him with many abusive reproaches. And then, after that, as was natural, we hurled word upon word. Then he springs upon me; and then he was wounding me, and beating me, and throttling me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Were you not therefore justly beaten, who do not praise Euripides, the wisest of poets?

STREPSIADES.: He the wisest! Oh, what shall I call you? But I shall be beaten again.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Yes, by Jupiter, with justice.

STREPSIADES.: Why, how with justice? Who, O shameless fellow, reared you, understanding all your wishes, when you lisped what you meant? If you said bryn, I, understanding it, used to give you to drink. And when you asked for mamman, I used to come to you with bread. And you used no sooner to say caccan, than I used to take and carry you out of doors, and hold you before me.

STREPSIADES.: But you now, throttling me who was bawling and crying out because I wanted to ease myself, had not the heart to carry me forth out of doors, you wretch; but I did it there while I was being throttled.

CHORUS.: I fancy the hearts of the youths are panting to hear what he will say. For if, after having done such things, he shall persuade him by speaking, I would not take the hide of the old folks, even at the price of a chick-pea.

CHORUS.: It is thy business, thou author and upheaver of new words, to seek some means of persuasion, so that you shall seem to speak justly.

PHIDIPPIDES.: How pleasant it is to be acquainted with new and clever things, and to be able to despise the established laws! For I, when I applied my mind to horsemanship alone, used not to be able to utter three words before I made a mistake; but now, since he himself has made me cease from these pursuits, and I am acquainted with subtle thoughts, and arguments, and speculations, I think I shall demonstrate that it is just to chastise one’s father.

STREPSIADES.: Ride, then, by Jupiter! Since it is better for me to keep a team of four horses than to be killed with a beating.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I will pass over to that part of my discourse where you interrupted me; and first I will ask you this: Did you beat me when I was a boy?

STREPSIADES.: I did, through good-will and concern for you.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Pray tell me, is it not just that I also should be well inclined toward you in the same way, and beat you, since this is to be well inclined-to give a beating? For why ought your body to be exempt from blows and mine not? And yet I too was born free. The boys weep, and do you not think it is right that a father should weep? You will say that it is ordained by law that this should be the lot of boys. But I would reply, that old men are boys twice over, and that it is the more reasonable that the old should weep than the young, inasmuch as it is less just that they should err.

STREPSIADES.: It is nowhere ordained by law that a father should suffer this.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Was it not then a man like you and me, who first proposed this law, and by speaking persuaded the ancients? Why then is it less lawful for me also in turn to propose henceforth a new law for the sons, that they should beat their fathers in turn? But as many blows as we received before the law was made, we remit: and we concede to them our having been thrashed without return. Observe the cocks and these other animals, how they punish their fathers; and yet, in what do they differ from us, except that they do not write decrees?

STREPSIADES.: Why then, since you imitate the cocks in all things, do you not both eat dung and sleep on a perch?

PHIDIPPIDES.: It is not the same thing, my friend; nor would it appear so to Socrates.

STREPSIADES.: Therefore do not beat me; otherwise you will one day blame yourself.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Why, how?

STREPSIADES.: Since I am justly entitled to chastise you; and you to chastise your son, if you should have one.

Part 32

PHIDIPPIDES.: But if I should not have one, I shall have wept for nothing, and you will die laughing at me.

STREPSIADES.: To me, indeed, O comrades, he seems to speak justly; and I think we ought to concede to them what is fitting. For it is proper that we should weep, if we do not act justly.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Consider still another maxim.

STREPSIADES.: No; for I shall perish if I do.

PHIDIPPIDES.: And yet perhaps you will not be vexed at suffering what you now suffer.

STREPSIADES.: How, pray? For inform me what good you will do me by this.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I will beat my mother, just as I have you.

STREPSIADES.: What do you say? What do you say? This other, again, is a greater wickedness.

PHIDIPPIDES.: But what if, having the worst Cause,

PHIDIPPIDES.: I shall conquer you in arguing, proving that it is right to beat one’s mother?

STREPSIADES.: Most assuredly, if you do this, nothing will hinder you from casting yourself and your Worse Cause into the pit along with Socrates.

STREPSIADES.: These evils have I suffered through you, O Clouds! Having intrusted all my affairs to you.

CHORUS.: Nay, rather, you are yourself the cause of these things, having turned yourself to wicked courses.

STREPSIADES.: Why, pray, did you not tell me this, then, but excited with hopes a rustic and aged man?

CHORUS.: We always do this to him whom we perceive to be a lover of wicked courses, until we precipitate him into misfortune, so that he may learn to fear the gods.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me ! it is severe, O Clouds! But it is just; for I ought not to have withheld the money which I borrowed. Now, therefore, come with me, my dearest son, that you may destroy the blackguard Chaerephon and Socrates, who deceived you and me.

PHIDIPPIDES.: I will not injure my teachers.

STREPSIADES.: Yes, yes, reverence Paternal Jove.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Paternal Jove quoth’a! How antiquated you are! Why, is there any Jove?

STREPSIADES.: There is.

Part 33

PHIDIPPIDES.: There is not, no; for Vortex reigns having expelled Jupiter.

STREPSIADES.: He has not expelled him; but I fancied this, on account of this Vortex here. Ah me, unhappy man! When I even took you who are of earthenware for a god.

PHIDIPPIDES.: Here rave and babble to yourself.

STREPSIADES.: Ah me, what madness! How mad, then, I was when I ejected the gods on account of Socrates! But O dear Hermes, by no means be wroth with me, nor destroy me; but pardon me, since I have gone crazy through prating. And become my adviser, whether I shall bring an action and prosecute them, or whatever you think. You advise me rightly, not permitting me to get up a lawsuit, but as soon as possible to set fire to the house of the prating fellows. Come hither, come hither, Xanthias! Come forth with a ladder and with a mattock and then mount upon the thinking-shop and dig down the roof, if you love your master, until you tumble the house upon them. But let some one bring me a lighted torch and I’ll make some of them this day suffer punishment, even if they be ever so much impostors.

1ST DISCIPLE.: (from within). Hollo! Hollo!

STREPSIADES.: It is your business, O torch, to send forth abundant flame.

1ST DISCIPLE.: What are you doing, fellow?

STREPSIADES.: What am I doing? Why, what else, than chopping logic with the beams of your house?

2ND DISCIPLE.: (from within). Ah me! Who is setting fire to our house?

STREPSIADES.: The man whose cloak you have taken.

2ND DISCIPLE.: (from within). You will destroy us! You will destroy us!

STREPSIADES.: For I also wish this very thing; unless my mattock deceive my hopes, or I should somehow fall first and break my neck.

SOCRATES.: (from within). Hollo you! What are you doing, pray, you fellow on the roof?

STREPSIADES.: I am walking on air, and speculating about the sun.

SOCRATES.: Ah me, unhappy! I shall be suffocated, wretched man!

CHAEREPHON.: And I, miserable man, shall be burnt to death!

STREPSIADES.: For what has come into your heads that you acted insolently toward the gods, and pried into the seat of the moon?

HERMES: Chase, pelt, smite them, for many reasons, but especially because you know that they offended against the gods!

CHORUS.: Lead the way out; for we have sufficiently acted as chorus for today.

Source: Perseus Digital Library

Wasps

Aristophanes · 10.4k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Peace

Aristophanes · 8.7k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Birds

Aristophanes · 16.4k words

Contents — 38 sections
  1. Part 1
  2. Part 2
  3. Part 3
  4. Part 4
  5. Part 5
  6. Part 6
  7. Part 7
  8. Part 8
  9. Part 9
  10. Part 10
  11. Part 11
  12. Part 12
  13. Part 13
  14. Part 14
  15. Part 15
  16. Part 16
  17. Part 17
  18. Part 18
  19. Part 19
  20. Part 20
  21. Part 21
  22. Part 22
  23. Part 23
  24. Part 24
  25. Part 25
  26. Part 26
  27. Part 27
  28. Part 28
  29. Part 29
  30. Part 30
  31. Part 31
  32. Part 32
  33. Part 33
  34. Part 34
  35. Part 35
  36. Part 36
  37. Part 37
  38. Part 38

Part 1

EUELPIDES: Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?

PISTHETAERUS: Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me? . . . to retrace my steps?

EUELPIDES: Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; we're wasting our time.

PISTHETAERUS: To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!

EUELPIDES: And that I, in obedience to this jay, should have worn my toes down to the nails!

PISTHETAERUS: If only I knew where we were . . .

EUELPIDES: Could you find your country again from here?

PISTHETAERUS: No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides find his.

EUELPIDES: Alas!

PISTHETAERUS: Aye, aye, my friend, it's surely the road of alases we are following.

EUELPIDES: That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick, when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus, the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharrhelides, for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch! What's the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road that way.

PISTHETAERUS: Not even the vestige of a trail in any direction

EUELPIDES: And what does the crow say about the road to follow?

PISTHETAERUS: By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did.

EUELPIDES: And which way does it tell us to go now?

PISTHETAERUS: It says that, by dint of gnawing, it will devour my fingers.

EUELPIDES: What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the crows, do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different from that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honorable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. It's not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself paying taxes; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts. That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the Epops, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.

PISTHETAERUS: Here! look!

EUELPIDES: What's the matter?

PISTHETAERUS: Why, the crow has been directing me to something up there for some time now.

Part 2

EUELPIDES: And the jay is also opening it beak and craning its neck to show me I know not what. Clearly, there are some birds about here. We shall soon know, if we kick up a noise to start them.

PISTHETAERUS: Do you know what to do? Knock your leg against this rock.

EUELPIDES: And you your head to double the noise.

PISTHETAERUS: Well then use a stone instead; take one and hammer with it.

EUELPIDES: Good idea! He does so. Ho there, within! Slave! slave!

PISTHETAERUS: What's that, friend! You say, slave, to summon Epops? It would be much better to shout, Epops, Epops!

EUELPIDES: Well then, Epops! Must I knock again? Epops!

TROCHILUS: Rushing out of a thicket. Who's there? Who calls my master?

PISTHETAERUS: Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak!

TROCHILUS: Good god! they are bird-catchers.

EUELPIDES: But is it so terrible? Wouldn't it be better to explain things?

TROCHILUS: You're done for.

EUELPIDES: But we are not men.

TROCHILUS: What are you, then?

EUELPIDES: I am the Fearling, an African bird.

TROCHILUS: You talk nonsense.

EUELPIDES: Well, then, just ask it of my feet.

TROCHILUS: And this other one, what bird is it? To Pisthetaerus. Speak up!

PISTHETAERUS: I? I am a Crapple, from the land of the pheasants.

EUELPIDES: But you yourself, in the name of the gods! what animal are you?

Part 3

TROCHILUS: Why, I am a slave-bird.

EUELPIDES: Why, have you been conquered by a cock?

TROCHILUS: No, but when my master was turned into a hoopoe, he begged me to become a bird also, to follow and to serve him.

EUELPIDES: Does a bird need a servant, then?

TROCHILUS: That's no doubt because he was once a man. At times he wants to eat a dish of sardines from Phalerum; I seize my dish and fly to fetch him some. Again he wants some pea-soup; I seize a ladle and a pot and run to get it.

EUELPIDES: This is, then, truly a running-bird. Come, Trochilus, do us the kindness to call your master.

TROCHILUS: Why, he has just fallen asleep after a feed of myrtle-berries and a few grubs.

EUELPIDES: Never mind; wake him up.

TROCHILUS: I am certain he will be angry. However, I will wake him to please you.

PISTHETAERUS: You cursed brute! why, I am almost dead with terror!

EUELPIDES: Oh! my god! it was sheer fear that made me lose my jay.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! you big coward! were you so frightened that you let go your jay?

EUELPIDES: And did you not lose your crow, when you fell sprawling on the ground? Tell me that.

PISTHETAERUS: Not at all.

EUELPIDES: Where is it, then?

PISTHETAERUS: It flew away.

EUELPIDES: And you did not let it go? Oh! you brave fellow!

EPOPS: Open the thicket, that I may go out!

EUELPIDES: By Heracles! what a creature! what plumage! What means this triple crest?

EPOPS: Who wants me?

Part 4

EUELPIDES: The twelve great gods have used you ill, it seems.

EPOPS: Are you twitting me about my feathers? I have been a man, strangers.

EUELPIDES: It's not you we are jeering at.

EPOPS: At what, then?

EUELPIDES: Why, it's your beak that looks so ridiculous to us.

EPOPS: This is how Sophocles outrages me in his tragedies. Know, I once was Tereus.

EUELPIDES: You were Tereus, and what are you now? a bird or a peacock?

EPOPS: I am a bird.

EUELPIDES: Then where are your feathers? I don't see any.

EPOPS: They have fallen off.

EUELPIDES: Through illness?

EPOPS: No. All birds moult their feathers, you know, every winter, and others grow in their place. But tell me, who are you?

EUELPIDES: We? We are mortals.

EPOPS: From what country?

EUELPIDES: From the land of the beautiful galleys.

EPOPS: Are you dicasts?

EUELPIDES: No, if anything, we are anti-dicasts.

EPOPS: Is that kind of seed sown among you?

EUELPIDES: You have to look hard to find even a little in our fields.

EPOPS: What brings you here?

Part 5

EUELPIDES: We wish to pay you a visit.

EPOPS: What for?

EUELPIDES: Because you formerly were a man, like we are, formerly you had debts, as we have, formerly you did not want to pay them, like ourselves; furthermore, being turned into a bird, you have when flying seen all lands and seas. Thus you have all human knowledge as well as that of birds. And hence we have come to you to beg you to direct us to some cosy town, in which one can repose as if on thick coverlets.

EPOPS: And are you looking for a greater city than Athens?

EUELPIDES: No, not a greater, but one more pleasant to live in.

EPOPS: Then you are looking for an aristocratic country.

EUELPIDES: I? Not at all! I hold the son of Scellias in horror.

EPOPS: But, after all, what sort of city would please you best?

EUELPIDES: A place where the following would be the most important business transacted. —Some friend would come knocking at the door quite early in the morning saying, By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too. I am giving a nuptial feast, so don't fail, or else don't cross my threshold when I am in distress.

EPOPS: Ah! that's what may be called being fond of hardships! To Pisthetaerus. And what say you?

PISTHETAERUS: My tastes are similar.

EPOPS: And they are?

PISTHETAERUS: I want a town where the father of a handsome lad will stop in the street and say to me reproachfully as if I had failed him, Ah! Is this well done, Stilbonides? You met my son coming from the bath after the gymnasium and you neither spoke to him, nor kissed him, nor took him with you, nor ever once felt his balls. Would anyone call you an old friend of mine?

EPOPS: Ah! wag, I see you are fond of suffering. But there is a city of delights such as you want. It's on the Red Sea.

EUELPIDES: Oh, no. Not a sea-port, where some fine morning the Salaminian galley can appear, bringing a process-server along. Have you no Greek town you can propose to us?

EPOPS: Why not choose Lepreum in Elis for your settlement?

EUELPIDES: By Zeus! I could not look at Lepreum without disgust, because of Melanthius.

EPOPS: Then, again, there is the Opuntian Locris, where you could live.

EUELPIDES: I would not be Opuntian for a talent. But come, what is it like to live with the birds? You should know pretty well.

EPOPS: Why, it's not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no purse.

Part 6

EUELPIDES: That does away with a lot of roguery.

EPOPS: For food the gardens yield us white sesame, myrtle-berries, poppies and mint.

EUELPIDES: Why, 'tis the life of the newly-wed indeed.

PISTHETAERUS: Ha! I am beginning to see a great plan, which will transfer the supreme power to the birds, if you will but take my advice.

EPOPS: Take your advice? In what way?

PISTHETAERUS: In what way? Well, firstly, do not fly in all directions with open beak; it is not dignified. Among us, when we see a thoughtless man, we ask, What sort of bird is this? and Teleas answers, It's a man who has no brain, a bird that has lost his head, a creature you cannot catch, for it never remains in any one place.

EPOPS: By Zeus himself! your jest hits the mark. What then is to be done?

PISTHETAERUS: Found a city.

EPOPS: We birds? But what sort of city should we build?

PISTHETAERUS: Oh, really, really! you talk like such a fool! Look down.

EPOPS: I am looking.

PISTHETAERUS: Now look up.

EPOPS: I am looking.

PISTHETAERUS: Turn your head round.

EPOPS: Ah! it will be pleasant for me if I end in twisting my neck off!

PISTHETAERUS: What have you seen?

EPOPS: The clouds and the sky.

PISTHETAERUS: Very well! is not this the pole of the birds then?

EPOPS: How their pole?

PISTHETAERUS: Or, if you like it, their place. And since it turns and passes through the whole universe, it is called ‘pole.’ If you build and fortify it, you will turn your pole into a city. In this way you will reign over mankind as you do over the grasshoppers and you will cause the gods to die of rabid hunger.

Part 7

EPOPS: How so?

PISTHETAERUS: The air is between earth and heaven. When we want to go to Delphi, we ask the Boeotians for leave of passage; in the same way, when men sacrifice to the gods, unless the latter pay you tribute, you exercise the right of every nation towards strangers and don't allow the smoke of the sacrifices to pass through your city and territory.

EPOPS: By earth! by snares! by network! by cages! I never heard of anything more cleverly conceived; and, if the other birds approve, I am going to build the city along with you.

PISTHETAERUS: Who will explain the matter to them?

EPOPS: You must yourself. Before I came they were quite ignorant, but since I have lived with them I have taught them to speak.

PISTHETAERUS: But how can they be gathered together?

EPOPS: Easily. I will hasten down to the thicket to waken my dear Procne and as soon as they hear our voices, they will come to us hot wing.

PISTHETAERUS: My dear bird, lose no time, please! Fly at once into the thicket and awaken Procne.

EPOPS: Chase off drowsy sleep, dear companion. Let the sacred hymn gush from thy divine throat in melodious strains; roll forth in soft cadence your refreshing melodies to bewail the fate of Itys, which has been the cause of so many tears to us both. Your pure notes rise through the thick leaves of the yew-tree right up to the throne of Zeus, where Phoebus listens to you, Phoebus with his golden hair. And his ivory lyre responds to your plaintive accents; he gathers the choir of the gods and from their immortal lips pours forth a sacred chant of blessed voices.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! by Zeus! what a throat that little bird possesses. He has filled the whole thicket with honey-sweet melody!

EUELPIDES: Hush!

PISTHETAERUS: What's the matter?

EUELPIDES: Be still!

PISTHETAERUS: What for?

EUELPIDES: Epops is going to sing again.

EPOPS: Epopopoi popoi popopopoi popoi, here, here, quick, quick, quick, my comrades in the air; all you who pillage the fertile lands of the husbandmen, the numberless tribes who gather and devour the barley seeds, the swift flying race that sings so sweetly. And you whose gentle twitter resounds through the fields with the little cry of tiotiotiotiotiotiotiotio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive-berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of long-necked birds assemble here; know that a clever old man has come to us, bringing an entirely new idea and proposing great reforms. Let all come to the debate here, here, here, here. Torotorotorotorotix, kikkabau, kikkabau, torotorotorolililix.

PISTHETAERUS: Can you see any bird?

EUELPIDES: By Phoebus, no! and yet I am straining my eyesight to scan the sky.

PISTHETAERUS: It was hardly worth Epops' while to go and bury himself in the thicket like a hatching plover.

A BIRD: Torotix, torotix.

Part 8

PISTHETAERUS: Wait, friend, there's a bird.

EUELPIDES: By Zeus, it is a bird, but what kind? Isn't it a peacock?

PISTHETAERUS: Epops will tell us. What is this bird?

EPOPS: It's not one of those you are used to seeing; it's a bird from the marshes.

EUELPIDES: Oh! oh! but he is very handsome with his wings as crimson as flame.

EPOPS: Undoubtedly; indeed he is called flamingo.

EUELPIDES: Hi! I say! You!

PISTHETAERUS: What are you shouting for?

EUELPIDES: Why, here's another bird.

PISTHETAERUS: Aye, indeed; this one's a foreign bird too. To Epops. What is this bird from beyond the mountains with a look as solemn as it is stupid?

EPOPS: He is called the Mede.

EUELPIDES: The Mede! But, by Heracles, how, if a Mede, has he flown here without a camel?

PISTHETAERUS: Here's another bird with a crest.

EUELPIDES: Ah! that's curious. I say, Epops, you are not the only one of your kind then?

EPOPS: This bird is the son of Philocles, who is the son of Epops; so that, you see, I am his grandfather; just as one might say, Hipponicus, the son of Callias, who is the son of Hipponicus.

EUELPIDES: Then this bird is Callias! Why, what a lot of his feathers he has lost!

EPOPS: That's because he is honest; so the informers set upon him and the women too pluck out his feathers.

EUELPIDES: By Poseidon, do you see that many-coloured bird? What is his name?

EPOPS: This one? That's the glutton.

EUELPIDES: Is there another glutton besides Cleonymus? But why, if he is Cleonymus, has he not thrown away his crest? But what is the meaning of all these crests? Have these birds come to contend for the double stadium prize?

Part 9

EPOPS: They are like the Carians, who cling to the crests of their mountains for greater safety.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh, Poseidon! look what awful swarms of birds are gathering here!

EUELPIDES: By Phoebus! what a cloud! The entrance to the stage is no longer visible so closely do they fly together.

PISTHETAERUS: Here is the partridge.

EUELPIDES: Why, there is the francolin.

PISTHETAERUS: There is the poachard.

EUELPIDES: Here is the kingfisher. To Epops. What's that bird behind the kingfisher?

EPOPS: That's the barber.

EUELPIDES: What? a bird a barber?

PISTHETAERUS: Why, Sporgilus is one.

EPOPS: Here comes the owl.

EUELPIDES: And who is it brings an owl to Athens?

EPOPS: Here is the magpie, the turtle-dove, the swallow, the horned-owl, the buzzard, the pigeon, the falcon, the ring-dove, the cuckoo, the red-foot, the red-cap, the purple-cap, the kestrel, the diver, the ousel, the osprey, the woodpecker . . .

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! what a lot of birds! Oh! what a lot of blackbirds! How they scold, how they come rushing up! What a noise! what a noise! Can they be bearing us ill-will? Oh! there! there! they are opening their beaks and staring at us.

EUELPIDES: Why, so they are.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Popopopopopo. Where is he who called me? Where am I to find him?

EPOPS: I have been waiting for you a long while! I never fail in my word to my friends.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Tititititititi. What good news have you for me?

EPOPS: Something that concerns our common safety, and that is just as pleasant as it is to the point. Two men, who are subtle reasoners, have come here to seek me.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Where? How? What are you saying?

Part 10

EPOPS: I say, two old men have come from the abode of humans to propose a vast and splendid scheme to us.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Oh! it's a horrible, unheard-of crime! What are you saying?

EPOPS: Never let my words scare you.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: What have you done to me?

EPOPS: I have welcomed two men, who wish to live with us.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And you have dared to do that!

EPOPS: Yes, and I am delighted at having done so.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And are they already with us?

EPOPS: Just as much as I am.

CHORUS: Ah! ah! we are betrayed; 'tis sacrilege! Our friend, he who picked up corn-seeds in the same plains as ourselves, has violated our ancient laws; he has broken the oaths that bind all birds; he has laid a snare for me, he has handed us over to the attacks of that impious race which, throughout all time, has never ceased to war against us.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: As for this traitorous bird, we will decide his case later, but the two old men shall be punished forthwith; we are going to tear them to pieces.

PISTHETAERUS: It's all over with us.

EUELPIDES: You are the sole cause of all our trouble. Why did you bring me from down yonder?

PISTHETAERUS: To have you with me.

EUELPIDES: Say rather to have me melt into tears.

PISTHETAERUS: Go on! you are talking nonsense. How will you weep with your eyes pecked out?

CHORUS: Io! io! forward to the attack, throw yourselves upon the foe, spill his blood; take to your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them. Nothing can save them from our wrath, neither the mountain forests, nor the clouds that float in the sky, nor the foaming deep.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Come, peck, tear to ribbons. Where is the chief of the cohort? Let him engage the right wing.

EUELPIDES: This is the fatal moment. Where shall I fly to, unfortunate wretch that I am?

PISTHETAERUS: Wait! Stay here!

Part 11

EUELPIDES: That they may tear me to pieces?

PISTHETAERUS: And how do you think to escape them?

EUELPIDES: I don't know at all.

PISTHETAERUS: Come, I will tell you. We must stop and fight them. Let us arm ourselves with these stew-pots.

EUELPIDES: Why with the stew-pots?

PISTHETAERUS: The owl will not attack us then.

EUELPIDES: But do you see all those hooked claws?

PISTHETAERUS: Take the spit and pierce the foe on your side.

EUELPIDES: And how about my eyes?

PISTHETAERUS: Protect them with this dish or this vinegar-pot.

EUELPIDES: Oh! what cleverness! what inventive genius! You are a great general, even greater than Nicias, where stratagem is concerned.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Forward, forward, charge with your beaks! Come, no delay. Tear, pluck, strike, flay them, and first of all smash the stew-pot.

EPOPS: Oh, most cruel of all animals, why tear these two men to pieces, why kill them? What have they done to you? They belong to the same tribe, to the same family as my wife.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Are wolves to be spared? Are they not our most mortal foes? So let us punish them.

EPOPS: If they are your foes by nature, they are your friends in heart, and they come here to give you useful advice.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Advice or a useful word from their lips, from them, the enemies of my forebears?

EPOPS: The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. It is just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, it's the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war; and it's this knowledge that protects our children, our slaves and our wealth.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Well then, I agree, let us first hear them, for that is best; one can even learn something in an enemy's school.

PISTHETAERUS: Their wrath seems to cool. Draw back a little.

EPOPS: It's only justice, and you will thank me later.

Part 12

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Never have we opposed your advice up to now.

PISTHETAERUS: They are in a more peaceful mood; put down your stew-pot and your two dishes; spit in hand, doing duty for a spear, let us mount guard inside the camp close to the pot and watch in our arsenal closely; for we must not fly.

EUELPIDES: You are right. But where shall we be buried, if we die?

PISTHETAERUS: In the Ceramicus; for, to get a public funeral, we shall tell the Strategi that we fell at Orneae, fighting the country's foes.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Return to your ranks and lay down your courage beside your wrath as the hoplites do. Then let us ask these men who they are, whence they come, and with what intent. Here, Epops, answer me.

EPOPS: Are you calling me? What do you want of me?

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Who are they? From what country?

EPOPS: Strangers, who have come from Greece, the land of the wise.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And what fate has led them hither to the land of the birds?

EPOPS: Their love for you and their wish to share your kind of life; to dwell and remain with you always.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Indeed, and what are their plans?

EPOPS: They are wonderful, incredible, unheard of.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Why, do they think to see some advantage that determines them to settle here? Are they hoping with our help to triumph over their foes or to be useful to their friends?

EPOPS: They speak of benefits so great it is impossible either to describe or conceive them; all shall be yours, all that we see here, there, above and below us; this they vouch for.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Are they mad?

EPOPS: They are the sanest people in the world.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Clever men?

EPOPS: The slyest of foxes, cleverness its very self, men of the world, cunning, the cream of knowing folk.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Tell them to speak and speak quickly; why, as I listen to you, I am beside myself with delight.

EPOPS: Here, you there, take all these weapons and hang them up inside close to the fire, near the figure of the god who presides there and under his protection; To Pisthetaerus. as for you, address the birds, tell them why I have gathered them together.

Part 13

PISTHETAERUS: Not I, by Apollo, unless they agree with me as the little ape of an armorer agreed with his wife, not to bite me, nor pull me by the balls, nor shove things into my . . .

EUELPIDES: Do you mean this?

PISTHETAERUS: No, I mean my eyes.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Agreed.

PISTHETAERUS: Swear it.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: I swear it and, if I keep my promise, let judges and spectators give me the victory unanimously.

PISTHETAERUS: It is a bargain.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And if I break my word, may I succeed by one vote only.

EPOPS: Hearken, ye people! Hoplites, pick up your weapons and return to your firesides; do not fail to read the decrees of dismissal we have posted.

CHORUS: Man is a truly cunning creature, but nevertheless explain. Perhaps you are going to show me some good way to extend my power, some way that I have not had the wit to find out and which you have discovered. Speak! 'tis to your own interest as well as to mine, for if you secure me some advantage, I will surely share it with you.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: But what object can have induced you to come among us? Speak boldly, for I shall not break the truce, —until you have told us all.

PISTHETAERUS: I am bursting with desire to speak; I have already mixed the dough of my address and nothing prevents me from kneading it.... Slave! bring the chaplet and water, which you must pour over my hands. Be quick!

EUELPIDES: Is it a question of feasting? What does it all mean?

PISTHETAERUS: By Zeus, no! but I am hunting for fine, tasty words to break down the hardness of their hearts. To the Chorus. I grieve so much for you, who at one time were kings...

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: We kings? Over whom?

PISTHETAERUS: ... of all that exists, firstly of me and of this man, even of Zeus himself. Your race is older than Saturn, the Titans and the Earth.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: What, older than the Earth!

PISTHETAERUS: By Phoebus, yes.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: By Zeus, but I never knew that before!

PISTHETAERUS: That's because you are ignorant and heedless, and have never read your Aesop. He is the one who tells us that the lark was born before all other creatures, indeed before the Earth; his father died of sickness, but the Earth did not exist then; he remained unburied for five days, when the bird in its dilemma decided, for want of a better place, to entomb its father in its own head.

Part 14

EUELPIDES: So that the lark's father is buried at Cephalae.

PISTHETAERUS: Hence, if they existed before the Earth, before the gods, the kingship belongs to them by right of priority.

EUELPIDES: Undoubtedly, but sharpen your beak well; Zeus won't be in a hurry to hand over his scepter to the woodpecker.

PISTHETAERUS: It was not the gods, but the birds, who were formerly the masters and kings over men; of this I have a thousand proofs. First of all, I will point you to the cock, who governed the Persians before all other monarchs, before Darius and Megabazus. It's in memory of his reign that he is called the Persian bird.

EUELPIDES: For this reason also, even to-day, he alone of all the birds wears his tiara straight on his head, like the Great King.

PISTHETAERUS: He was so strong, so great, so feared, that even now, on account of his ancient power, everyone jumps out of bed as soon as ever he crows at daybreak. Blacksmiths, potters, tanners, shoemakers, bathmen, corn-dealers, lyre-makers and armorers, all put on their shoes and go to work before it is daylight.

EUELPIDES: I can tell you something about that. It was the cock's fault that I lost a splendid tunic of Phrygian wool. I was at a feast in town, given to celebrate the birth of a child; I had drunk pretty freely and had just fallen asleep, when a cock, I suppose in a greater hurry than the rest, began to crow. I thought it was dawn and set out for Halimus. I had hardly got beyond the walls, when a footpad struck me in the back with his bludgeon; down I went and wanted to shout, but he had already made off with my mantle.

PISTHETAERUS: Formerly also the kite was ruler and king over the Greeks.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: The Greeks?

PISTHETAERUS: And when he was king, he was the one who first taught them to fall on their knees before the kites.

EUELPIDES: By Zeus! that's what I did myself one day on seeing a kite; but at the moment I was on my knees, and leaning backwards with mouth agape, I bolted an obolus and was forced to carry my meal-sack home empty.

PISTHETAERUS: The cuckoo was king of Egypt and of the whole of Phoenicia. When he called out cuckoo, all the Phoenicians hurried to the fields to reap their wheat and their barley.

EUELPIDES: Hence no doubt the proverb, Cuckoo! cuckoo! go to the fields, ye circumcised.

PISTHETAERUS: So powerful were the birds that the kings of Grecian cities, Agamemnon, Menelaus, for instance, carried a bird on the tip of their scepters, who had his share of all presents.

EUELPIDES: That I didn't know and was much astonished when I saw Priam come upon the stage in the tragedies with a bird, which kept watching Lysicrates to see if he got any present.

PISTHETAERUS: But the strongest proof of all is that Zeus, who now reigns, is represented as standing with an eagle on his head as a symbol of his royalty; his daughter has an owl, and Phoebus, as his servant, has a hawk.

EUELPIDES: By Demeter, the point is well taken. But what are all these birds doing in heaven?

PISTHETAERUS: When anyone sacrifices and, according to the rite, offers the entrails to the gods, these birds take their share before Zeus. Formerly men always swore by the birds and never by the gods. And even now Lampon swears by the goose whenever he wishes to deceive someone. Thus it is clear that you were once great and sacred,

PISTHETAERUS: but now you are looked upon as slaves, as fools, as Maneses; stones are thrown at you as at raving madmen, even in holy places. A crowd of bird-catchers sets snares, traps, limed twigs and nets of all sorts for you; you are caught, you are sold in heaps and the buyers finger you over to be certain you are fat. Again, if they would but serve you up simply roasted; but they rasp cheese into a mixture of oil, vinegar and laserwort, to which another sweet and greasy sauce is added, and the whole is poured scalding hot over your back, for all the world as if you were diseased meat.

CHORUS: Man, your words have made my heart bleed; I have groaned over the treachery of our fathers, who knew not how to transmit to us the high rank they held from their forefathers. But 'tis a benevolent Genius, a happy Fate, that sends you to us; you shall be our deliverer and I place the destiny of my little ones and my own in your hands with every confidence.

Part 15

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: But hasten to tell me what must be done; we should not be worthy to live, if we did not seek to regain our royalty by every possible means.

PISTHETAERUS: First I advise that the birds gather together in one city and that they build a wall of great bricks, like that at Babylon, round the plains of the air and the whole region of space that divides earth from heaven.

EPOPS: Oh, Cebriones! oh, Porphyrion! what a terribly strong place!

PISTHETAERUS: Then, when this has been well done and completed, you demand back the empire from Zeus; if he will not agree, if he refuses and does not at once confess himself beaten, you declare a sacred war against him and forbid the gods henceforward to pass through your country with their tools up, as hitherto, for the purpose of laying their Alcmenas, their Alopes, or their Semeles! if they try to pass through, you put rings on their tools so that they can't make love any longer. You send another messenger to mankind, who will proclaim to them that the birds are kings, that for the future they must first of all sacrifice to them, and only afterwards to the gods; that it is fitting to appoint to each deity the bird that has most in common with it. For instance, are they sacrificing to Aphrodite, let them at the same time offer barley to the coot; are they immolating a sheep to Poseidon, let them consecrate wheat in honor of the duck; if a steer is being offered to Heracles, let honey-cakes be dedicated to the gull; if a goat is being slain for King Zeus, there is a King-Bird, the wren, to whom the sacrifice of a male gnat is due before Zeus himself even.

EUELPIDES: This notion of an immolated gnat delights me! And now let the great Zeus thunder!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: But how will mankind recognize us as gods and not as jays? Us, who have wings and fly?

PISTHETAERUS: You talk rubbish! Hermes is a god and has wings and flies, and so do many other gods. First of all, Victory flies with golden wings, Eros is undoubtedly winged too, and Iris is compared by Homer to a timorous dove.

EUELPIDES: But will not Zeus thunder and send his winged bolts against us?

PISTHETAERUS: If men in their blindness do not recognize us as gods and so continue to worship the dwellers in Olympus? Then a cloud of sparrows greedy for corn must descend upon their fields and eat up all their seeds; we shall see then if Demeter will mete them out any wheat.

EUELPIDES: By Zeus, she'll take good care she does not, and you will see her inventing a thousand excuses.

PISTHETAERUS: The crows too will prove your divinity to them by pecking out the eyes of their flocks and of their draught-oxen; and then let Apollo cure them, since he is a physician and is paid for the purpose.

EUELPIDES: Oh! don't do that! Wait first until I have sold my two young bullocks.

PISTHETAERUS: If on the other hand they recognize that you are God, the principle of life, that you are Earth, Kronos, Poseidon, they shall be loaded with benefits.

EPOPS: Name me one of these then.

PISTHETAERUS: Firstly, the locusts shall not eat up their vine-blossoms; a legion of owls and kestrels will devour them. Moreover, the gnats and the gallbugs shall no longer ravage the figs; a flock of thrushes shall swallow the whole host down to the very last.

EPOPS: And how shall we give wealth to mankind? This is their strongest passion.

PISTHETAERUS: When they consult the omens, you will point them to the richest mines, you will reveal the paying ventures to the diviner, and not another shipwreck will happen or sailor perish.

EPOPS: No more shall perish? How is that?

PISTHETAERUS: When the auguries are examined before starting on a voyage, some bird will not fail to say, Don't start! there will be a storm, or else, Go! you will make a most profitable venture.

EUELPIDES: I shall buy a trading-vessel and go to sea. I will not stay with you.

Part 16

PISTHETAERUS: You will discover treasures to them, which were buried in former times, for you know them. Do not all men say, None knows where my treasure lies, unless perchance it be some bird.

EUELPIDES: I shall sell my boat and buy a spade to unearth the vessels.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: And how are we to give them health, which belongs to the gods?

PISTHETAERUS: If they are happy, is not that the chief thing towards health? The miserable man is never well.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Old Age also dwells in Olympus. How will they get at it? Must they die in early youth?

PISTHETAERUS: Why, the birds, by Zeus, will add three hundred years to their life.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: From whom will they take them?

PISTHETAERUS: From whom? Why, from themselves. Don't you know the cawing crow lives five times as long as a man?

EUELPIDES: Ah! ah! these are far better kings for us than Zeus!

PISTHETAERUS: Far better, are they not? And firstly, we shall not have to build them temples of hewn stone, closed with gates of gold; they will dwell amongst the bushes and in the thickets of green oak; the most venerated of birds will have no other temple than the foliage of the olive tree; we shall not go to Delphi or to Ammon to sacrifice; but standing erect in the midst of arbutus and wild olives and holding forth our hands filled with wheat and barley, we shall pray them to admit us to a share of the blessings they enjoy and shall at once obtain them for a few grains of wheat.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Old man, whom I detested, you are now to me the dearest of all; never shall I, if I can help it, fail to follow your advice.

CHORUS: Inspirited by your words, I threaten my rivals the gods, and I swear that if you march in alliance with me against the gods and are faithful to our just, loyal and sacred bond, we shall soon have shattered their scepter.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: We shall charge ourselves with the performance of everything that requires force; that which demands thought and deliberation shall be yours to supply.

EPOPS: By Zeus! it's no longer the time to delay and loiter like Nicias; let us act as promptly as possible.... In the first place, come, enter my nest built of brushwood and blades of straw, and tell me your names.

PISTHETAERUS: That is soon done; my name is Pisthetaerus, and his, Euelpides, of the deme Crioa.

EPOPS: Good! and good luck to you.

PISTHETAERUS: We accept the omen.

EPOPS: Come in here.

PISTHETAERUS: Very well, you are the one who must lead us and introduce us.

EPOPS: Come then.

Part 17

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! my god! do come back here. Hi! tell us how we are to follow you. You can fly, but we cannot.

EPOPS: Well, well.

PISTHETAERUS: Remember Aesop's fables. It is told there that the fox fared very badly, because he had made an alliance with the eagle.

EPOPS: Be at ease. You shall eat a certain root and wings will grow on your shoulders.

PISTHETAERUS: Then let us enter. Xanthias and Manodorus, pick up our baggage.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Hi! Epops! do you hear me?

EPOPS: What's the matter?

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Take them off to dine well and call your mate, the melodious Procne, whose songs are worthy of the Muses; she will delight our leisure moments.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! I conjure you, accede to their wish; for this delightful bird will leave her rushes at the sound of your voice; for the sake of the gods, let her come here, so that we may contemplate the nightingale.

EPOPS: Let it be as you desire. Come forth, Procne, show yourself to these strangers.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! great Zeus! what a beautiful little bird! what a dainty form! what brilliant plumage! Do you know how dearly I should like to get between her thighs?

EUELPIDES: She is dazzling all over with gold, like a young girl. Oh! how I should like to kiss her!

PISTHETAERUS: Why, wretched man, she has two little sharp points on her beak!

EUELPIDES: I would treat her like an egg, the shell of which we remove before eating it; I would take off her mask and then kiss her pretty face.

EPOPS: Let us go in.

PISTHETAERUS: Lead the way, and may success attend us. Epops goes into the thicket, followed by Pisthetaerus and Euelpides.

CHORUS: Lovable golden bird, whom I cherish above all others, you, whom I associate with all my songs, nightingale, you have come, you have come, to show yourself to me and to charm me with your notes. Come, you, who play spring melodies upon the harmonious flute, lead off our anapests.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream, hearken to us, who are immortal beings, ethereal, ever young and occupied with eternal thoughts, for we shall teach you about all celestial matters; you shall know thoroughly what is the nature of the birds, what the origin of the gods, of the rivers, of Erebus, and Chaos; thanks to us, even Prodicus will envy you your knowledge. At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. That of the Immortals did not exist until Eros had brought together all the ingredients of the world, and from their marriage Heaven, Ocean, Earth and the imperishable race of blessed gods sprang into being. Thus our origin is very much older than that of the dwellers in Olympus. We are the offspring of Eros; there are a thousand proofs to show it. We have wings and we lend assistance to lovers. How many handsome youths, who had sworn to remain insensible, have opened their thighs because of our power and have yielded themselves to their lovers when almost at the end of their youth, being led away by the gift of a quail, a waterfowl, a goose, or a cock.

CHORUS: And what important services do not the birds render to mortals! First of all, they mark the seasons for them, springtime, winter, and autumn. Does the screaming crane migrate to Libya, —it warns the husbandman to sow, the pilot to take his ease beside his tiller hung up in his dwelling, and Orestes to weave a tunic, so that the rigorous cold may not drive him any more to strip other folk. When the kite reappears, he tells of the return of spring and of the period when the fleece of the sheep must be clipped. Is the swallow in sight? All hasten to sell their warm tunic and to buy some light clothing. We are your Ammon, Delphi, Dodona, your Phoebus Apollo. Before undertaking anything, whether a business transaction, a marriage, or the purchase of food, you consult the birds by reading the omens, and you give this name of omen to all signs that tell of the future. With you a word is an omen, you call a sneeze an omen, a meeting an omen, an unknown sound an omen, a slave or an ass an omen. Is it not clear that we are a prophetic Apollo to you?

CHORUS: If you recognize us as gods, we shall be your divining Muses, through us you will know the winds and the seasons, summer, winter, and the temperate months. We shall not withdraw ourselves to the highest clouds like Zeus, but shall be among you and shall give to you and to your children and the children of your children, health and wealth, long life, peace, youth, laughter, songs and feasts; in short, you will all be so well off, that you will be weary and cloyed with enjoyment.

Part 18

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: Oh, rustic Muse of such varied note, tiotiotiotiotiotinx, I sing with you in the groves and on the mountain tops, tiotiotiotinx. I poured forth sacred strains from my golden throat in honor of the god Pan, tiotiotiotinx, from the top of the thickly leaved ash, and my voice mingles with the mighty choirs who extol Cybele on the mountain tops, totototototototototinx. 'Tis to our concerts that Phrynichus comes to pillage like a bee the ambrosia of his songs, the sweetness of which so charms the ear, tiotiotiotinx.

LEADER OF FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: If there is one of you spectators who wishes to spend the rest of his life quietly among the birds, let him come to us. All that is disgraceful and forbidden by law on earth is on the contrary honorable among us, the birds. For instance, among you it's a crime to beat your father, but with us it's an estimable deed; it's considered fine to run straight at your father and hit him, saying, Come, lift your spur if you want to fight. The runaway slave, whom you brand, is only a spotted francolin with us. Are you Phrygian like Spintharus? Among us you would be the Phrygian bird, the goldfinch, of the race of Philemon. Are you a slave and a Carian like Execestides? Among us you can create yourself forefathers; you can always find relations. Does the son of Pisias want to betray the gates of the city to the foe? Let him become a partridge, the fitting offspring of his father; among us there is no shame in escaping as cleverly as a partridge.

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: So the swans on the banks of the Hebrus, tiotiotiotiotiotinx, mingle their voices to serenade Apollo, tiotiotiotinx, flapping their wings the while, tiotiotiotinx; their notes reach beyond the clouds of heaven; they startle the various tribes of the beasts; a windless sky calms the waves, totototototototototinx; all Olympus resounds, and astonishment seizes its rulers; the Olympian graces and Muses cry aloud the strain, tiotiotiotinx.

LEADER OF SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: There is nothing more useful nor more pleasant than to have wings. To begin with, just let us suppose a spectator to be dying with hunger and to be weary of the choruses of the tragic poets; if he were winged, he would fly off, go home to dine and come back with his stomach filled. Some Patroclides, needing to take a crap, would not have to spill it out on his cloak, but could fly off, satisfy his requirements, let a few farts and, having recovered his breath, return. If one of you, it matters not who, had adulterous relations and saw the husband of his mistress in the seats of the senators, he might stretch his wings, fly to her, and, having laid her, resume his place. Is it not the most priceless gift of all, to be winged? Look at Diitrephes! His wings were only wicker-work ones, and yet he got himself chosen Phylarch and then Hipparch; from being nobody, he has risen to be famous; he's now the finest gilded cock of his tribe.

PISTHETAERUS: Halloa! What's this? By Zeus! I never saw anything so funny in all my life.

EUELPIDES: What makes you laugh?

PISTHETAERUS: Your little wings. D'you know what you look like? Like a goose painted by some dauber.

EUELPIDES: And you look like a close-shaven blackbird.

PISTHETAERUS: We ourselves asked for this transformation, and, as Aeschylus has it, These are no borrowed feathers, but truly our own.

EPOPS: Come now, what must be done?

PISTHETAERUS: First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice to the gods.

EUELPIDES: I think so too.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Let's see. What shall our city be called?

PISTHETAERUS: Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call it Sparta?

EUELPIDES: What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my bed, even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

PISTHETAERUS: Well then, what name can you suggest?

EUELPIDES: Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell —in short, some well-known name.

PISTHETAERUS: Do you like Nephelococcygia?

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Oh! capital! truly that's a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES: Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes and most of Aeschines' is?

Part 19

PISTHETAERUS: No, it's rather the plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?

EUELPIDES: Why not choose Athena Polias?

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! what a well-ordered town it would be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes was spinning!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?

PISTHETAERUS: A bird

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: One of us? What kind of bird?

PISTHETAERUS: A bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.

EUELPIDES: Oh! noble chick!

PISTHETAERUS: Because he is a god well suited to live on the rocks. 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, if you like, post sentinels, keep the fire smouldering beneath the ashes, go round the walls, bell in hand, and go to sleep up there yourself; then despatch two heralds, one to the gods above, the other to mankind on earth and come back here.

EUELPIDES: As for yourself, remain here, and may the plague take you for a troublesome fellow! He departs.

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 honor of the god, and let Chaeris accompany our voices.

PISTHETAERUS: Enough! but, by Heracles! what is this? Great gods! I have seen many prodigious things, but I never saw a muzzled raven. The Priest arrives. Priest! it's high time! Sacrifice to the new gods.

PRIEST: I begin, but where is the man with the basket? Pray to the Hestia of the birds, to the kite, who presides over the hearth, and to all the god and goddess-birds who dwell in Olympus . . .

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! Hawk, the sacred guardian of Sunium, oh, god of the storks!

PRIEST: . . . to the swan of Delos, to Leto the mother of the quails, and to Artemis, the goldfinch . . .

PISTHETAERUS: It's no longer Artemis Colaenis, but Artemis the goldfinch.

PRIEST: . . . to Bacchus, the finch and Cybele, the ostrich and mother of the gods and mankind. . .

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! sovereign ostrich Cybele, mother of Cleocritus!

Part 20

PRIEST: . . . to grant health and safety to the Nephelococcygians as well as to the dwellers in Chios . . .

PISTHETAERUS: The dwellers in Chios! Ah! I am delighted they should be thus mentioned on all occasions.

PRIEST: . . . 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.

CHORUS: 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.

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 honor of your Nephelococcygia, a host of splendid dithyrambs and parthenia worthy of Simonides himself.

PISTHETAERUS: And when did you compose them? How long since?

POET: Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honor of this city.

PISTHETAERUS: But I am only celebrating its foundation with this sacrifice; I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.

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 thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices, make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest. He puts out his hand.

PISTHETAERUS: He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some present. To the Priest's acolyte. 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! It's impossible then to get rid of him!

Part 21

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 get what I mean?

PISTHETAERUS: I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you To the acolyte. take off yours; we must help the poet. . . . Come, you, take it and get out.

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! He departs.

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. To a slave. Come, take the lustral water and circle the altar. Let all keep silence!

ORACLE-MONGER: Let not the goat be sacrificed.

PISTHETAERUS: Who are you?

ORACLE-MONGER: Who am I? An oracle-monger.

PISTHETAERUS: Get out!

ORACLE-MONGER: 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?

ORACLE-MONGER: The divine spirit was against it.

PISTHETAERUS: Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but hear the terms of the oracle.

ORACLE-MONGER: But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together between Corinth and Sicyon ...

PISTHETAERUS: But how do the Corinthians concern me?

ORACLE-MONGER: It is the regions of the air that Bacis indicates 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: Does it say sandals there?

ORACLE-MONGER: Look at the book. And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the entrails of the victim.

PISTHETAERUS: Of the entrails —does it say that?

ORACLE-MONGER: Look at the book. 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: Does it say all that?

Part 22

ORACLE-MONGER: Look at the book.

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.

ORACLE-MONGER: You are drivelling.

PISTHETAERUS: Look at the book. And don't spare him, were he an eagle from out of the clouds, were it Lampon himself or the great Diopithes.

ORACLE-MONGER: Does it say that?

PISTHETAERUS: Look at the book and go and hang yourself.

ORACLE-MONGER: Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am. He departs.

PISTHETAERUS: Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.

METON: I have come to you . . .

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.

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 in the least.

METON: With the straight ruler I set to work to inscribe a square within this circle; in its center will be the market-place, into which all the straight streets will lead, converging to this center like a star, which, although only orbicular, sends forth its rays in a straight line from all sides.

PISTHETAERUS: A regular Thales! Meton . . .

METON: What d'you want with me?

PISTHETAERUS: I want to give you a proof of my friendship. Use your legs.

Part 23

METON: Why, what have I to fear?

PISTHETAERUS: It's 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'll be going.

PISTHETAERUS: I'm afraid it's too late. The thunder growls already.

METON: Oh, woe! oh, woe!

PISTHETAERUS: I warned you. Now, be off, and do your surveying somewhere else.

INSPECTOR: Where are the Proxeni?

PISTHETAERUS: Who is this Sardanapalus?

INSPECTOR: I have been appointed by lot to come to Nephelococcygia as inspector.

PISTHETAERUS: An inspector! and who sends you here, you rascal?

INSPECTOR: A decree of Teleas.

PISTHETAERUS: Will you just pocket your salary, do nothing, and get out?

INSPECTOR: Indeed I will; I am urgently needed to be at Athens to attend the Assembly; for I am charged with the interests of Pharnaces.

PISTHETAERUS: Take it then, and get on your way. This is your salary. He beats him.

INSPECTOR: What does this mean?

PISTHETAERUS: This is the assembly where you have to defend Pharnaces.

Part 24

INSPECTOR: You shall testify that they dare to strike me, the inspector.

PISTHETAERUS: Are you not going to get out with your urns? It's not to be believed; they send us inspectors before we have so much as paid sacrifice to the gods.

DEALER IN DECREES: If the Nephelococcygian does wrong to the Athenian ...

PISTHETAERUS: What trouble now? What book is that?

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.

PISTHETAERUS: And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians.

DEALER IN DECREES: Ow! what are you doing?

PISTHETAERUS: Now will you get out of here with your decrees? For I am going to let you see some severe ones.

INSPECTOR: I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.

PISTHETAERUS: Ha! my friend! are you still here?

DEALER IN DECREES: Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them, according to the decree duly posted ...

PISTHETAERUS: What! rascal! you are back too?

INSPECTOR: Woe to you! I'll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand drachmae.

PISTHETAERUS: And I'll smash your urns.

INSPECTOR: Do you recall that evening when you crapped on the column where the decrees are posted?

PISTHETAERUS: Here! here! let him be seized. The Inspector runs off. Why, don't you want to stay any longer? But let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.

FIRST SEMI-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.

LEADER OF FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: I hear it proclaimed: A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos, and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants. We likewise wish to make our proclamation: A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian; 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.

Part 25

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: 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, as 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.

LEADER OF SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: 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 received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium, 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 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 stomachs as capacious as a bird's crop. But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues; 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 in the Olympic stadium.

MESSENGER: Where, 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: It's 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: That's fine!

MESSENGER: Its length is one hundred stadia; I measured it myself.

PISTHETAERUS: A decent length, by Poseidon! 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, 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 the hods?

MESSENGER: Oh! it was 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?

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 trowels on their backs, 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.

Part 26

LEADER OF THE 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. It's 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: Alas! alas! alas! alas! alas! alas!

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: It's a terrible 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 patrolmen sent against him at once?

SECOND MESSENGER: We have despatched thirty thousand hawks of the legion of Mounted Archers. 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.

PISTHETAERUS: To arms, all, 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, in which the clouds float. Take care no immortal enters it without your knowledge.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS: Scan all sides with your glance. Hark! methinks I can hear the rustle of the swift wings of a god from heaven.

PISTHETAERUS: Hi! you woman! where, where, where are you flying to? Halt, don't stir! keep motionless! not a beat of your wing! She pauses in her flight. Who are you and from what country? You must say whence you come.

IRIS: I come from the abode of the Olympian gods.

PISTHETAERUS: What's your name, ship or head-dress?

IRIS: I am swift Iris.

PISTHETAERUS: Paralus or Salaminia?

IRIS: What do you mean?

PISTHETAERUS: Let a buzzard rush at her and seize her.

IRIS: Seize me? But what do all these insults mean?

Part 27

PISTHETAERUS: Woe to you!

IRIS: I do not understand it.

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 dreaming?

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! that would 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?

Part 28

PISTHETAERUS: Men now adore the birds as gods, and it's 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 it is 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.

PISTHETAERUS: Here! that's enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian 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. I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions clothed in leopards' skins 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 getting between your thighs, and even though you are Iris, you will be surprised at the erection the old man can produce; it's three times as good as the ram on a ship's prow!

IRIS: May you perish, you wretch, you and your infamous words!

PISTHETAERUS: Won't you get out of here 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: It's 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 honor, men went dirty like Socrates and carried staves. Now all is changed. Firstly, as soon as it's 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; indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard on 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.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! by Zeus, there's no time for idling. To some slaves. Go as quick as possible and fill every hamper, every basket you can find with wings. Manes will bring them to me outside the walls, where I will welcome those who present themselves.

CHORUS: This town will soon be inhabited by a crowd of men. Fortune favours us alone and thus they have fallen in love with our city.

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.

Part 29

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 and the aquatic birds; then you must take care to distribute them to the men according to their character.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! by the kestrels! I can keep my hands off you no longer; you are too slow and lazy altogether.

PARRICIDE: Oh! might I but become an eagle, who soars in the skies! Oh! might I fly above the azure waves of the barren sea!

PISTHETAERUS: Ha! it would seem the news was true; I hear someone coming who talks of wings.

PARRICIDE: Nothing is more charming than to fly; 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: Yes, 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.

PISTHETAERUS: But we have also an ancient law written in the code of the storks, which runs thus, When the stork father has reared his young and has taught them to fly, the young must in their turn support the father.

PARRICIDE: It's hardly worth while coming all this distance to be compelled to keep my father!

PISTHETAERUS: No, no, young friend, since you have come to us with such willingness, I am going to give you these black wings, as though you were an orphan bird; furthermore, some good advice, that I received myself in infancy. Don't strike your father, but take these wings in one hand and these spurs in the other; imagine you have a cock's crest on your head and go and mount guard and fight; live on your pay and respect your father's life. You're a gallant fellow! Very well, then! Fly to Thrace and fight.

PARRICIDE: By Bacchus! You're right; I will follow your counsel.

PISTHETAERUS: It's acting wisely, by Zeus..

CINESIAS: On my light pinions I soar off to Olympus; in its capricious flight my Muse flutters along the thousand paths of poetry in turn ...

PISTHETAERUS: This is a fellow will need a whole shipload of wings.

CINESIAS: ... and being fearless and vigorous, it is seeking fresh outlet.

PISTHETAERUS: Welcome, Cinesias, you lime-wood man! Why have you come here twisting your game leg in circles?

CINESIAS: I want to become a bird, a tuneful nightingale.

Part 30

PISTHETAERUS: Enough of that sort of ditty. Tell me what you want.

CINESIAS: Give me wings and I will fly into the topmost airs to gather fresh songs in the clouds, in the midst of the vapors and the fleecy snow.

PISTHETAERUS: Gather songs in the clouds?

CINESIAS: 'Tis on them the whole of our latter-day art depends. The most brilliant dithyrambs are those that flap their wings in empty space and are clothed in mist and dense obscurity. To appreciate this, just listen.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! no, no, no!

CINESIAS: By Hermes! but indeed you shall.

CINESIAS: I shall travel through thine ethereal empire like a winged bird, who cleaveth space with his long neck ...

PISTHETAERUS: Stop! Way enough!

CINESIAS: ... as I soar over the seas, carried by the breath of the winds ...

PISTHETAERUS: By Zeus! I'll cut your breath short. He picks up a pair of wings and begins trying to stop Cinesias' mouth with them.

CINESIAS: ... now rushing along the tracks of Notus, now nearing Boreas across the infinite wastes of the ether. Ah! old man, that's a pretty and clever idea truly!

PISTHETAERUS: What! are you not delighted to be cleaving the air?

CINESIAS: To treat a dithyrambic poet, for whom the tribes dispute with each other, in this style!

PISTHETAERUS: Will you stay with us and form a chorus of winged birds as slender as Leotrophides for the Cecropid tribe?

CINESIAS: You are making game of me, that's clear; but know that I shall never leave you in peace if I do not have wings wherewith to traverse the air.

INFORMER: What are these birds with downy feathers, who look so pitiable to me? Tell me, oh swallow with the long dappled wings.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! it's a regular invasion that threatens us. Here comes another one, humming along.

INFORMER: Swallow with the long dappled wings, once more I summon you.

PISTHETAERUS: It's his cloak I believe he's addressing; it stands in great need of the swallows' return.

INFORMER: Where is he who gives out wings to all comers?

Part 31

PISTHETAERUS: Here I am, but you must tell me for what purpose you want them.

INFORMER: Ask no questions. I want wings, and wings I must have.

PISTHETAERUS: Do you want to fly straight to Pellene?

INFORMER: I? Why, I am an accuser of the islands, an informer ...

PISTHETAERUS: A fine trade, truly!

INFORMER: ... a hatcher of lawsuits. Hence I have great need of wings to prowl round the cities and drag them before justice.

PISTHETAERUS: Would you do this better if you had wings?

INFORMER: No, but I should no longer fear the pirates; I should return with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast.

PISTHETAERUS: So it seems, despite all your youthful vigor, you make it your trade to denounce strangers?

INFORMER: Well, and why not? I don't know how to dig.

PISTHETAERUS: But, by Zeus! there are honest ways of gaining a living at your age without all this infamous trickery.

INFORMER: My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.

PISTHETAERUS: It's just my words that gives you wings.

INFORMER: And how can you give a man wings with your words?

PISTHETAERUS: They all start this way.

INFORMER: How?

PISTHETAERUS: Have you not often heard the father say to young men in the barbers' shops, It's astonishing how Diitrephes' advice has made my son fly to horse-riding. —Mine, says another, has flown towards tragic poetry on the wings of his imagination.

INFORMER: So that words give wings?

PISTHETAERUS: Undoubtedly; words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven. Thus I hope that my wise words will give you wings to fly to some less degrading trade.

INFORMER: But I do not want to.

Part 32

PISTHETAERUS: What do you reckon on doing then?

INFORMER: I won't belie my breeding; from generation to generation we have lived by informing. Quick, therefore, give me quickly some light, swift hawk or kestrel wings, so that I may summon the islanders, sustain the accusation here, and haste back there again on flying pinions.

PISTHETAERUS: I see. In this way the stranger will be condemned even before he appears.

INFORMER: That's just it.

PISTHETAERUS: And while he is on his way here by sea, you will be flying to the islands to despoil him of his property.

INFORMER: You've hit it, precisely; I must whirl hither and thither like a perfect humming-top.

PISTHETAERUS: I catch the idea. Wait, I've got some fine Corcyraean wings. How do you like them?

INFORMER: Oh! woe is me! Why, it's a whip!

PISTHETAERUS: No, no; these are the wings, I tell you, that make the top spin.

INFORMER: Oh! oh! oh!

PISTHETAERUS: Take your flight, clear off, you miserable cur, or you will soon see what comes of quibbling and lying. The Informer flees. To his slaves. Come, let us gather up our wings and withdraw.

CHORUS: In my ethereal flights I have seen many things new and strange and wondrous beyond belief. There is a tree called Cleonymus belonging to an unknown species; it has no heart, is good for nothing and is as tall as it is cowardly. In springtime it shoots forth calumnies instead of buds and in autumn it strews the ground with bucklers in place of leaves.

CHORUS: Far away in the regions of darkness, where no ray of light ever enters, there is a country, where men sit at the table of the heroes and dwell with them always —except in the evening. Should any mortal meet the hero Orestes at night, he would soon be stripped and covered with blows from head to foot.

PROMETHEUS: Ah! by the gods! if only Zeus does not see me! Where is Pisthetaerus?

PISTHETAERUS: Ha! what is this? A masked man!

PROMETHEUS: Can you see any god behind me?

PISTHETAERUS: No, none. But who are you, pray?

PROMETHEUS: What's the time, please?

PISTHETAERUS: The time? Why, it's past noon. Who are you?

PROMETHEUS: Is it the fall of day? Is it no later than that?

Part 33

PISTHETAERUS: This is getting dull!

PROMETHEUS: What is Zeus doing? Is he dispersing the clouds or gathering them?

PISTHETAERUS: Watch out for yourself!

PROMETHEUS: Come, I will raise my mask.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! my dear Prometheus!

PROMETHEUS: Sh! Sh! speak lower!

PISTHETAERUS: Why, what's the matter, Prometheus?

PROMETHEUS: Sh! sh! Don't call me by my name; you will be my ruin, if Zeus should see me here. But, if you want me to tell you how things are going in heaven, take this umbrella and shield me, so that the gods don't see me.

PISTHETAERUS: I can recognize Prometheus in this cunning trick. Come, quick then, and fear nothing; speak on.

PROMETHEUS: Then listen.

PISTHETAERUS: I am listening, proceed!

PROMETHEUS: Zeus is done for.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! and since when, pray?

PROMETHEUS: Since you founded this city in the air. There is not a man who now sacrifices to the gods; the smoke of the victims no longer reaches us. Not the smallest offering comes! We fast as though it were the festival of Demeter. The barbarian gods, who are dying of hunger, are bawling like Illyrians and threaten to make an armed descent upon Zeus, if he does not open markets where joints of the victims are sold.

PISTHETAERUS: What! there are other gods besides you, barbarian gods who dwell above Olympus?

PROMETHEUS: If there were no barbarian gods, who would be the patron of Execestides?

PISTHETAERUS: And what is the name of these gods?

PROMETHEUS: Their name? Why, the Triballi.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah, indeed! 'tis from that no doubt that we derive the word ‘tribulation.'

PROMETHEUS: Most likely. But one thing I can tell you for certain, namely, that Zeus and the celestial Triballi are going to send deputies here to sue for peace. Now don't you treat with them, unless Zeus restores the scepter to the birds and gives you Basileia in marriage.

Part 34

PISTHETAERUS: Who is this Basileia?

PROMETHEUS: A very fine young damsel, who makes the lightning for Zeus; all things come from her, wisdom, good laws, virtue, the fleet, calumnies, the public paymaster and the triobolus.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! then she is a sort of general manageress to the god.

PROMETHEUS: Yes, precisely. If he gives you her for your wife, yours will be the almighty power. That is what I have come to tell you; for you know my constant and habitual goodwill towards men.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh, yes! it's thanks to you that we roast our meat.

PROMETHEUS: I hate the gods, as you know.

PISTHETAERUS: Aye, by Zeus, you have always detested them.

PROMETHEUS: Towards them I am a veritable Timon; but I must return in all haste, so give me the umbrella; if Zeus should see me from up there, he would think I was escorting one of the Canephori.

PISTHETAERUS: Wait, take this stool as well. Prometheus leaves. Pisthetaerus goes into the thicket.

CHORUS: Near by the land of the Sciapodes there is a marsh, from the borders whereof the unwashed Socrates evokes the souls of men. Pisander came one day to see his soul, which he had left there when still alive. He offered a little victim, a camel, slit his throat and, following the example of Odysseus, stepped one pace backwards. Then that bat of a Chaerephon came up from hell to drink the camel's blood.

POSEIDON: This is the city of Nephelococcygia, to which we come as ambassadors. To Triballus. Hi! what are you up to? you are throwing your cloak over the left shoulder. Come, fling it quick over the right! And why, pray, does it draggle in this fashion? Have you ulcers to hide like Lespodias? Oh! democracy! whither, oh! whither are you leading us? Is it possible that the gods have chosen such an envoy? You are undisturbed? Ugh! you cursed savage! you are by far the most barbarous of all the gods. — Tell me, Heracles, what are we going to do?

HERACLES: I have already told you that I want to strangle the fellow who dared to wall us out.

POSEIDON: But, my friend, we are envoys of peace.

HERACLES: All the more reason why I wish to strangle him.

PISTHETAERUS: Hand me the cheese-grater; bring me the silphium for sauce; pass me the cheese and watch the coals.

HERACLES: Mortal! we who greet you are three gods.

PISTHETAERUS: Wait a bit till I have prepared my silphium pickle.

HERACLES: What are these meats?

PISTHETAERUS: These are birds that have been punished with death for attacking the people's friends.

HERACLES: And you are going to season them before answering us?

Part 35

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! Heracles! welcome, welcome! What's the matter?

POSEIDON: The gods have sent us here as ambassadors to treat for peace.

PISTHETAERUS: There's no more oil in the flask.

HERACLES: And yet the birds must be thoroughly basted with it.

POSEIDON: We have no interest to serve in fighting you; as for you, be friends and we promise that you shall always have rain-water in your pools and the warmest of warm weather. So far as these points go we are plenipotentiaries.

PISTHETAERUS: We have never been the aggressors, and even now we are as well disposed for peace as yourselves, provided you agree to one equitable condition, namely, that Zeus yield his scepter to the birds. If only this is agreed to, I invite the ambassadors to dinner.

HERACLES: That's good enough for me. I vote for peace.

POSEIDON: You wretch! you are nothing but a fool and a glutton. Do you want to dethrone your own father?

PISTHETAERUS: What an error. Why, the gods will be much more powerful if the birds govern the earth. At present the mortals are hidden beneath the clouds, escape your observation, and commit perjury in your name; but if you had the birds for your allies, and a man, after having sworn by the crow and Zeus, should fail to keep his oath, the crow would dive down upon him unawares and pluck out his eye.

POSEIDON: Well thought of, by Poseidon!

HERACLES: My notion too.

PISTHETAERUS: And you, what's your opinion?

TRIBALLUS: Nabasatreu.

PISTHETAERUS: D'you see? he also approves. But listen, here is another thing in which we can serve you. If a man vows to offer a sacrifice to some god, and then procrastinates, pretending that the gods can wait, and thus does not keep his word, we shall punish his stinginess.

POSEIDON: Ah! and how?

PISTHETAERUS: While he is counting his money or is in the bath, a kite will relieve him, before he knows it, either in coin or in clothes, of the value of a couple of sheep, and carry it to the god.

HERACLES: I vote for restoring them the scepter.

POSEIDON: Ask Triballus.

HERACLES: Hi! Triballus, do you want a thrashing?

TRIBALLUS: Sure, bashum head withum stick.

Part 36

HERACLES: He says, Right willingly.

POSEIDON: If that be the opinion of both of you, why, I consent too.

HERACLES: Very well! we accord you the scepter.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! I was nearly forgetting another condition. I will leave Here to Zeus, but only if the young Basileia is given me in marriage.

POSEIDON: Then you don't want peace. Let us withdraw.

PISTHETAERUS: It matters mighty little to me. Cook, look to the gravy.

HERACLES: What an odd fellow this Poseidon is! Where are you off to? Are we going to war about a woman?

POSEIDON: What else is there to do?

HERACLES: What else? Why, conclude peace.

POSEIDON: Oh! you blockhead! do you always want to be fooled? Why, you are seeking your own downfall. If Zeus were to die, after having yielded them the sovereignty, you would be ruined, for you are the heir of all the wealth he will leave behind.

PISTHETAERUS: Oh! by the gods! how he is cajoling you. Step aside, that I may have a word with you. Your uncle is getting the better of you, my poor friend. The law will not allow you an obolus of the paternal property, for you are a bastard and not a legitimate child.

HERACLES: I a bastard! What's that you tell me?

PISTHETAERUS: Why, certainly; are you not born of a stranger woman? Besides, is not Athena recognized as Zeus' sole heiress? And no daughter would be that, if she had a legitimate brother.

HERACLES: But what if my father wished to give me his property on his death-bed, even though I be a bastard?

PISTHETAERUS: The law forbids it, and this same Poseidon would be the first to lay claim to his wealth, in virtue of being his legitimate brother. Listen; thus runs Solon's law: A bastard shall not inherit, if there are legitimate children; and if there are no legitimate children, the property shall pass to the nearest kin.

HERACLES: And I get nothing whatever of the paternal property?

PISTHETAERUS: Absolutely nothing. But tell me, has your father had you entered on the registers of his phratry?

HERACLES: No, and I have long been surprised at the omission.

PISTHETAERUS: Why do you shake your fist at heaven? Do you want to fight? Why, be on my side, I will make you a king and will feed you on bird's milk and honey.

HERACLES: Your further condition seems fair to me. I cede you the young damsel.

Part 37

POSEIDON: But I, I vote against this opinion.

PISTHETAERUS: Then it all depends on the Triballus. To the Triballus. What do you say?

TRIBALLUS: Givum bird pretty gel bigum queen.

HERACLES: He says give her.

POSEIDON: Why no, he does not say anything of the sort, or else, like the swallows he does not know how to walk.

PISTHETAERUS: Exactly so. Does he not say she must be given to the swallows?

POSEIDON: All right, you two arrange the matter; make peace, since you wish it so; I'll hold my tongue.

HERACLES: We are of a mind to grant you all that you ask. But come up there with us to receive Basileia and the celestial bounty.

PISTHETAERUS: Here are birds already dressed, and very suitable for a nuptial feast.

HERACLES: You go and, if you like, I will stay here to roast them.

PISTHETAERUS: You to roast them? you are too much the glutton; come along with us.

HERACLES: Ah! how well I would have treated myself!

PISTHETAERUS: Let some one bring me a beautiful and magnificent tunic for the wedding.

CHORUS: At Phanae, near the Clepsydra, there dwells a people who have neither faith nor law, the Englottogastors, who reap, sow, pluck the vines and the figs with their tongues; they belong to a barbaric race, and among them the Philippi and the Gorgiases are to be found; 'tis these Englottogastorian Philippi who introduced the custom all over Attica of cutting out the tongue separately at sacrifices.

MESSENGER: Oh, you, whose unbounded happiness I cannot express in words, thrice happy race of airy birds, receive your king in your fortunate dwellings. More brilliant than the brightest star that illumes the earth, he is approaching his glittering golden palace; the sun itself does not shine with more dazzling glory. He is entering with his bride at his side, whose beauty no human tongue can express; in his hand he brandishes the lightning, the winged shaft of Zeus; perfumes of unspeakable sweetness pervade the ethereal realms. 'Tis a glorious spectacle to see the clouds of incense wafting in light whirlwinds before the breath of the zephyr! But here he is himself. Divine Muse! let thy sacred lips begin with songs of happy omen.

CHORUS: Fall back! to the right! to the left! advance! Fly around this happy mortal, whom Fortune loads with her blessings. Oh! oh! what grace! what beauty! Oh, marriage so auspicious for our city!

CHORUS: All honor to this man! 'tis through him that the birds are called to such glorious destinies. Let your nuptial hymns, your nuptial songs, greet him and his Basileia!

CHORUS: 'Twas that the Fates formerly united Olympian Hera to the King who governs the gods from the summit of his inaccessible throne in the midst of such festivities. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

CHORUS: Rosy Eros with the golden wings held the reins and guided the chariot; 'twas he, who presided over the union of Zeus and the fortunate Hera. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

PISTHETAERUS: I am delighted with your songs, I applaud your verses. Now celebrate the thunder that shakes the earth, the flaming lightning of Zeus and the terrible flashing thunderbolt.

Part 38

CHORUS: Oh, thou golden flash of the lightning! oh, ye divine shafts of flame, that Zeus has hitherto shot forth! Oh, ye rolling thunders, that bring down the rain! 'Tis by the order of our king that ye shall now stagger the earth! Oh, Hymen! 'tis through thee that he commands the universe and that he makes Basileia, whom he has robbed from Zeus, take her seat at his side. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

PISTHETAERUS: Let all the winged tribes of our fellow-citizens follow the bridal couple to the palace of Zeus and to the nuptial couch! Stretch forth your hands, my dear wife! Take hold of me by my wings and let us dance; I am going to lift you up and carry you through the air.

CHORUS: Alalalai ie Paian! Tenella kallinikos! Loftiest art thou of gods!

Source: Perseus Digital Library

Lysistrata

Aristophanes · 8.8k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Thesmophoriazusae

Aristophanes · 7.9k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Frogs

Aristophanes · 10.0k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Ecclesiazusae

Aristophanes · 8.4k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

Wealth

Aristophanes · 8.8k words

Greek text only — English translation not yet available.
Source: Perseus Digital Library

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