The Birds Part 11

PISTHETAERUS Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!

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 conceive my bent?

PISTHETAERUS I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi!

you (TO EUELPIDES), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you, take it and begone.

POET I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city: "Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this s.h.i.+very, freezing city; I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala!

Tralala!"(1)

f(1) A parody of poetic pathos, not to say bathos.

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. Come, priest, take the l.u.s.tral water and circle the altar.

PRIEST Let all keep silence!

A PROPHET Let not the goat be sacrificed.(1)

f(1) Which the priest was preparing to sacrifice.

PISTHETAERUS Who are you?

PROPHET Who am I? A prophet.

PISTHETAERUS Get you gone.

PROPHET 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?

PROPHET The divine spirit was against it.

PISTHETAERUS Well, 'tis best to know the terms of the oracle.

PROPHET "But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together between Corinth and Sicyon..."

PISTHETAERUS But how do the Corinthians concern me?

PROPHET 'Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated 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 Are the sandals there?

PROPHET Read. "And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the entrails of the victim."

PISTHETAERUS Of the entrails--is it so written?

PROPHET Read. "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 woodp.e.c.k.e.r."

PISTHETAERUS Is all that there?

PROPHET Read.

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."

PROPHET You are drivelling.

PISTHETAERUS "And don't spare him, were he an eagle from out of the clouds, were it Lampon(1) himself or the great Diopithes."(2)

f(1) Noted Athenian diviner, who, when the power was still shared between Thucydides and Pericles, predicted that it would soon be centred in the hands of the latter; his ground for this prophecy was the sight of a ram with a single horn.

f(2) No doubt another Athenian diviner, and possibly the same person whom Aristophanes names in 'The Knights' and 'The Wasps' as being a thief.

PROPHET Is all that there?

PISTHETAERUS Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.

PROPHET Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.

PISTHETAERUS Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.

METON(1) I have come to you.

f(1) A celebrated geometrician and astronomer.

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 G.o.ds, who are you?

METON Who am I? Meton, known throughout Greece and at Colonus.(1)

f(1) A deme contiguous to Athens. It is as though he said, "Well known throughout all England and at Croydon.

PISTHETAERUS What are these things?

METON Tools for measuring the air. In truth, the s.p.a.ces 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 compa.s.s. Do you understand?

PISTHETAERUS Not the very least.

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

PISTHETAERUS Meton, you new Thales...(1)