The Birds

arrives Prometheus, who informs Epops of the desperate straits to which the gods are by this time reduced, and advises him to push his claims and demand the hand of Basileia (Dominion), the handmaid of Zeus. Next an embassy from the Olympians appears on the scene, consisting of Heracles, Posidon and a god from the savage regions of the Triballians. After some disputation, it is agreed that all reasonable demands of the birds are to be granted, while Pisthetaerus is to have Basileia as his bride. The comedy winds up with the epithalamium in honour of the nuptials.

Dramatis Personae

• Euelpides

• Pisthetaerus

• Epops (the Hoopoe)

• Trochilus, Servant to Epops

• Phoenicopterus

• Heralds

• A priest

• A poet

• A prophet

• Meton, a Geometrician

• A commissioner

• A dealer in decrees

• Iris

• A parricide

• Cinesias, a Dithyrambic Bard

• An informer

• Prometheus

• Posidon

• Triballus

• Heracles

• Slaves of Pisthetaerus

• Messengers

• Chorus of birds

The Birds

Scene: A wild, desolate tract of open country; broken rocks and brushwood occupy the centre of the stage.

Euelpides	To his jay.1 Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?
Pisthetaerus	To his crow. 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; ’tis labour lost.
Pisthetaerus	To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!
Euelpides	And that I to this jay, which has torn every nail from my fingers!
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 Execestides2 find his.
Euelpides	Oh dear! oh dear!
Pisthetaerus	Aye, aye, my friend, ’tis indeed the road of “oh dears” 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,3 the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharelides,4 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 track 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 birds,5 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 honourable 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. ’Tis not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself; 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.6 That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs7 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 pointing me to something up there for some time now.
Euelpides	And the jay is also opening its 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! 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	Who’s there? Who calls my master?
Pisthetaerus	Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak!8
Trochilus	Good god! they are bird-catchers.
Euelpides	The mere sight of him petrifies me with terror. What a horrible monster.
Trochilus	Woe to you!
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.9
Trochilus	And this other one, what bird is it?
Pisthetaerus	I? I am a Cackling,10 from the land of the pheasants.
Euelpides	But you yourself, in the name of the gods! what animal are you?
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 peewit, he begged me to become a bird too, to follow and to serve him.
Euelpides	Does a bird need a servant, then?
Trochilus	’Tis no doubt because he was a man. At times he wants to eat a dish of loach 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.11 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