PEISTHETAERUS But how shall we furnish the people with wealth? It is wealth that they mostly desire. Choice blessings and rare ye shall give them whene’er they come to your shrine to inquire. To the seer ye shall tell when ’tis lucky and well for a merchant to sail o’er the seas, So that never a skipper again shall be lost.
CHORUS What, “never”? Explain if you please. Are they seeking to know when a voyage to go? The Birds shall give answers to guide them. Now stick to the land, there’s a tempest at hand! Now sail! and good luck shall betide them. A galley for me; I am off to the sea! No longer with you will I stay. The treasures of silver long since in the earth by their forefathers hidden away To men ye shall show, for the secret ye know. How often a man will declare, There is no one who knows where my treasures repose, if it be not a bird of the air. My galley may go; I will buy me a hoe, and dig for the crock and the casket. But Health, I opine, is a blessing divine; can we give it to men if they ask it? If they’ve plenty of wealth, they’ll have plenty of health; ye may rest quite assured that they will. Did you ever hear tell of a man that was well, when faring remarkably ill? Long life ’tis Olympus alone can bestow; so can men live as long as before? Must they die in their youth?
PEISTHETAERUS Die? No! why in truth their lives by three hundred or more
PEISTHETAERUS New years ye will lengthen.
CHORUS Why, whence will they come?
PEISTHETAERUS From your own inexhaustible store. What! dost thou not know that the noisy-tongued crow lives five generations of men O fie! it is plain they are fitter to reign than the Gods; let us have them again. Ay fitter by far! No need for their sakes to erect and adorn Great temples of marble with portals of gold. Enough for the birds on the brake and the thorn And the evergreen oak their receptions to hold. Or if any are noble, and courtly, and fine, The tree of the olive will serve for their shrine. No need, when a blessing we seek, to repair To Delphi or Ammon, and sacrifice there; We will under an olive or arbutus stand With a present of barley and wheat, And piously lifting our heart and our hand The birds for a boon we’ll entreat, And the boon shall be ours, and our suit we shall gain At the cost of a few little handfuls of grain.
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