HOOPOE Trust you in what?
PEISTHETAERUS What? First don’t fly about In all directions, with your mouths wide open. That makes you quite despised. With us, for instance, If you should ask the flighty people there, Who is that fellow? Teleas would reply, The man’s a bird, a flighty feckless bird, Inconsequential, always on the move.
HOOPOE Well blamed, i’faith; but what we ought to do, Tell us.
PEISTHETAERUS Live all together: found one State,
HOOPOE What sort of State are birds to found, I wonder.
PEISTHETAERUS Aye, say you so? You who have made the most Idiotic speech, look down.
HOOPOE I do.
PEISTHETAERUS Look up.
HOOPOE I do.
PEISTHETAERUS Twirl round your head.
HOOPOE Zeus! I shall be A marvellous gainer, if I twist my neck!
PEISTHETAERUS What did you see?
HOOPOE I saw the clouds and sky.
PEISTHETAERUS And is not that the Station of the Birds?
HOOPOE Station?
PEISTHETAERUS As one should say, their habitation. Here while the heavens revolve, and yon great dome Is moving round, ye keep your Station still. Make this your city, fence it round with walls, And from your Station is evolved your State. So ye’ll be lords of men, as now of locusts, And Melian famine shall destroy the Gods.
HOOPOE Eh! how?
PEISTHETAERUS The Air’s betwixt the Earth and Sky. And just as we, if we would go to Pytho, Must crave a grant of passage from Boeotia, Even so, when men slay victims to the Gods, Unless the Gods pay tribute, ye in turn Will grant no passage for the savoury steam To rise through Chaos, and a realm not their’s.
HOOPOE Hurrah! O Earth! O traps, and nets, and gins, and snares,
PEISTHETAERUS This is the nattiest scheme that e’er I heard of!
HOOPOE So with your aid I’m quite resolved to found The city, if the other birds concur.
PEISTHETAERUS And who shall tell them of our plan?
HOOPOE Yourself. O they’re not mere barbarians, as they were Before I came. I’ve taught them language now.
PEISTHETAERUS But how to call them hither?
HOOPOE That’s soon done. I’ve but to step within the coppice here, And wake my sleeping nightingale, and then We’ll call them, both together. Bless the birds, When once they hear our voices, they’ll come running.
PEISTHETAERUS You darling bird, now don’t delay one instant. O I beseech you get at once within Your little copse, and wake the nightingale! (The Hoopoe’s Serenade.)
HOOPOE Awake, my mate! Shake off thy slumbers, and clear and strong Let loose the floods of thy glorious song, The sacred dirge of thy mouth divine For sore-wept Itys, thy child and mine; Thy tender trillings his name prolong With the liquid note of thy tawny throat;
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