new laws.
| Pisthetaerus |
Which? |
| Dealer in decrees |
“The Nephelococcygians shall adopt the same weights, measures and decrees as the Olophyxians.”125 |
| Pisthetaerus |
And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians. Beats him. |
| Dealer in decrees |
Hullo! what are you doing? |
| Pisthetaerus |
Now will you be off with your decrees? For I am going to let you see some severe ones. |
| Inspector |
Returning. I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.126 |
| Pisthetaerus |
Ha! my friend! are you still there? |
| Dealer in decrees |
“Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them, according to the decree duly posted …” |
| Pisthetaerus |
What! rascal! you are there too? |
| Inspector |
Woe to you! I’ll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand drachmae. |
| Pisthetaerus |
And I’ll smash your urns.127 |
| Inspector |
Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where the decrees are posted? |
| Pisthetaerus |
Here! here! let him be seized. The Inspector runs off. Well! don’t you want to stop any longer? |
| Priest |
Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.128 |
| Chorus |
Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: “A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,129 and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants.”130 We likewise wish to make our proclamation: “A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian;131 four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others.” That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter! Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.
I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far greater than those Paris132 received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,133 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 moneybags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the gods, for we shall erect gables134 over your dwellings; if you hold some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the sharp claws of a hawk. Are you dining in town, we will provide you with crops.135 But, if your award is against us, don’t fail to have metal covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;136 else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will soil it with their droppings.
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| Pisthetaerus |
Birds! the sacrifice is propitious. But I see no messenger coming from the wall to tell us what is happening. Ah! here comes one running himself out of breath as though he were running the Olympic stadium. |
| Messenger |
Where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where is Pisthetaerus, our leader? |
| Pisthetaerus |
Here am I. |
| Messenger |
The wall is finished. |
| Pisthetaerus |
That’s good news. |
| Messenger |
’Tis a most beautiful, a most magnificent work of art. The wall is so broad that Proxenides, the Braggartian, and Theogenes could pass each other in their chariots, even if they were drawn by steeds as big as the Trojan horse. |
| Pisthetaerus |
’Tis wonderful! |
| Messenger |
Its length is one hundred stadia; I measured it myself. |
| Pisthetaerus |
A decent length, by Posidon! And who built such a wall? |
| Messenger |
Birds—birds only; they had neither Egyptian brickmaker, nor stonemason, nor carpenter; the birds did it all themselves; I could hardly believe my eyes. Thirty thousand cranes came from Libya with a supply of stones,137 intended for the foundations. The water-rails chiselled them with their beaks. Ten thousand storks were busy making bricks; plovers and other water fowl carried water into the air. |
| Pisthetaerus |
And who carried the mortar? |
| Messenger |
Herons, in hods. |
| Pisthetaerus |
But how could they put the mortar into hods? |
| Messenger |
Oh! ’twas a truly clever invention; the geese used their feet like spades; they buried them in the pile of mortar and then emptied them into the hods. |
| Pisthetaerus |
Ah! to what use cannot feet be put?138 |
| Messenger |
You should have seen how eagerly the ducks carried bricks. To complete the tale, the swallows came flying to the work, their beaks full of mortar and their trowel on their back, just the way little children are carried. |
| Pisthetaerus |
Who would want paid servants after this? But tell me, who did the |
