The Birds Part 13

f(1) Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose of inaugurating the a.s.semblies of the people or some tribunal.

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.(1)

f(1) So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted.

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,(1) and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants."(2) We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian;(3) 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 gra.s.shopper, 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 Paris(4) received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,(5) 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 G.o.ds, for we shall erect gables(6) 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.(7) But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal covers fas.h.i.+oned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;(8) else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will soil it with their droppings.

f(1) A disciple of Democrites; he pa.s.sed over from superst.i.tion to atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the existence of the G.o.ds, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea.

f(2) By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received by the populace.

f(3) A poulterer.--Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from the name of his 'deme,' is derived from (the Greek for) 'a sparrow.' The birds' foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological surname.

f(4) From Aphrodite (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of beauty, in the contest of the "G.o.ddesses three."

f(5) Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic peninsula containing valuable silver mines, the revenues of which were largely employed in the maintenance of the fleet and payment of the crews. The "owls of Laurium," of course, mean pieces of money; the Athenian coinage was stamped with a representation of an owl, the bird of Athene.

f(6) A pun, impossible to keep in English, on the two meanings of (the Greek) word which signifies both an eagle and the gable of a house or pediment of a temple.

f(7) That is, birds' crops, into which they could stow away plenty of good things.

f(8) The Ancients appear to have placed metal discs over statues standing in the open air, to save them from injury from the weather, etc.

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 pa.s.s 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 stone-mason, 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,(1) 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.

f(1) So as not to be carried away by the wind when crossing the sea, cranes are popularly supposed to ballast themselves with stones, which they carry in their beaks.

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?(1)

f(1) Pisthetaerus modifies the Greek proverbial saying, "To what use cannot hands 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 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 woodwork?

MESSENGER Birds again, and clever carpenters too, the pelicans, for they squared up the gates with their beaks in such a fas.h.i.+on 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.

CHORUS Well! what do you say to it? Are you not astonished at the wall being completed so quickly?

PISTHETAERUS By the G.o.ds, yes, and with good reason. 'Tis 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 Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!

PISTHETAERUS What's the matter?

SECOND MESSENGER A horrible outrage has occurred; a G.o.d sent by Zeus has pa.s.sed 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 'Tis an unworthy and criminal deed. What G.o.d was it?

SECOND MESSENGER We don't know that. All we know is, that he has got wings.

PISTHETAERUS Why were not guards sent against him at once?

SECOND MESSENGER We have d(i)spatched thirty thousand hawks of the legion of Mounted Archers.(1) 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 G.o.d, who cannot be far away; indeed, if I mistake not, he is coming from yonder side.

f(1) A corps of Athenian cavalry was so named.