The Birds

up. Trochilus I an 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! ’twas sheer fear that made me lose my jay. Pisthetaerus Ah! you great 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? Pray tell me that. Pisthetaerus No, no. Euelpides Where is it, then? Pisthetaerus It has flown away. Euelpides Then you did not let it go? Oh! you brave fellow! Epops Open the forest,12 that I may go out! Euelpides By Heracles! what a creature! what plumage! What means this triple crest? Epops Who wants me? Euelpides The twelve great gods have used you ill, meseems. Epops Are you chaffing me about my feathers? I have been a man, strangers. Euelpides ’Tis not you we are jeering at. Epops At what, then? Euelpides Why, ’tis your beak that looks so odd to us. Epops This is how Sophocles outrages me in his tragedies. Know, I once was Tereus.13 Euelpides You were Tereus, and what are you now? a bird or a peacock?14 Epops I am a bird. Euelpides Then where are your feathers? For I don’t see them. 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.15 Epops Are you dicasts?16 Euelpides No, if anything, we are anti-dicasts. Epops Is that kind of seed sown among you?17 Euelpides You have to look hard to find even a little in our fields. Epops What brings you here? 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 dwell in. Epops Then you are looking for an aristocratic country. Euelpides I? Not at all! I hold the son of Scellias in horror.18 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! 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 embraced him, nor took him with you, nor ever once twitched his parts. 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. ’Tis on the Red Sea. Euelpides Oh, no. Not a seaport, where some fine morning the Salaminian19 galley can appear, bringing a writ-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.20 Epops Then, again, there is the Opuntian, where you could live. Euelpides I would not be Opuntian21 for a talent. But come, what is it like to live with the birds? You should know pretty well. Epops Why, ’tis not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no purse. Euelpides That does away with much roguery. Epops For food the gardens yield us white sesame, myrtle-berries, poppies and mint. Euelpides Why, ’tis the life of the newlywed indeed.22 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, “ ’Tis 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! ’tis spoken like a fool! Look down. Epops I am looking. Pisthetaerus Now look upwards. Epops I am looking. Pisthetaerus Turn your head round. Epops Ah! ’twill be pleasant for me, if I end in twisting my neck! 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, the land. And since it turns and passes through the whole universe, it is called, “pole.”23 If you build and fortify it, you will turn your pole into a fortified city.24 In this way you will reign over mankind as you do over the grasshoppers and cause the gods to die of rabid hunger.