CHORUS And march back homewards; there await the orders We’re going to publish on the notice-boards.
CHORUS Full of wiles, full of guiles, at all times, in all ways, Are the children of Men; still we’ll hear what he says, Thou hast haply detected Something good for the Birds which we never suspected; Some power of achievement, too high For my own shallow wit by itself to descry. But if aught you espy, Tell it out; for whate’er of advantage shall fall To ourselves by your aid, shall be common to all.
CHORUS And a wash for my hands.
EUELPIDES Why, what mean these commands? Is a dinner in near contemplation? No dinner, I ween; ’tis a SPEECH that I mean, a stalwart and brawny oration, Their spirit to batter, and shiver and shatter. (To the Birds.) So sorely I grieve for your lot Who once in the prime and beginning of time were Sovereigns—
CHORUS We Sovereigns! of what? Of all that you see; of him and of me; of Zeus up above on his throne; A lineage older and nobler by far than the Titans and Cronos ye own, And than Earth.
CHORUS And than Earth!
PEISTHETAERUS By Apollo ’tis true.
CHORUS And I never had heard it before!. Because you’ve a blind uninquisitive mind, unaccustomed on Aesop to pore. The lark had her birth, so he says, before Earth; then her father fell sick and he died. She laid out his body with dutiful care, but a grave she could nowhere provide; For the Earth was not yet in existence; at last, by urgent necessity led, When the fifth day arrived, the poor creature contrived to bury her sire in her head.
PEISTHETAERUS So the sire of the lark, give me leave to remark, on the crest of an headland lies dead. If therefore, by birth, ye are older than Earth, if before all the Gods ye existed, By the right of the firstborn the sceptre is yours; your claim cannot well be resisted. I advise you to nourish and strengthen your beak, and to keep it in trim for a stroke. Zeus won’t in a hurry the sceptre restore to the woodpecker tapping the oak. In times prehistoric ’tis easily proved, by evidence weighty and ample, That Birds, and not Gods, were the Rulers of men, and the Lords of the world; for example, Time was that the Persians were ruled by the Cock, a King autocratic, alone; The sceptre he wielded or ever the names “Megabazus,” “Darius” were known; And the “Persian” he still by the people is called from the Empire that once was his own. And thus, to this hour, the symbol of power on his head you can always detect: Like the Sovereign of Persia, alone of the Birds, he stalks with tiara erect,
PEISTHETAERUS So mighty and great was his former estate, so ample he waxed and so strong, That still the tradition is potent, and still, when he sings in the morning his song At once from their sleep all mortals upleap, the cobblers, the tanners, the bakers, The potters, the bathmen, the smiths, and the shield-and-the-musical-instrument-makers; And some will at eve take their sandals and leave.
EUELPIDES I can answer for that, to my cost. ’Twas all through his crowing at eve that my cloke, the softest of Phrygians, I lost. I was asked to the Tenth-day feast of a child; and I drank ere the feast was begun; Then I take my repose; and anon the cock crows; so thinking it daybreak I run To return from the City to Halimus town; but scarce I emerge from the wall, When I get such a whack with a stick on my back from a rascally thief, that I fall, And he skims off my cloke from my shoulders or e’er for assistance I’m able to:
EUELPIDES Then a Kite was the Sovereign of Hellas of old, and ruled with an absolute sway. The Sovereign of Hellas!
PEISTHETAERUS And, taught by his rule, we wallow on earth to this day When a Kite we espy.
EUELPIDES By Bacchus, ’twas I saw a Kite in the air; so I wallow Then raising my eyne from my posture supine, I give such a gulp that I swallow O what but an obol I’ve got in my mouth, and am forced to return empty-handed. And the whole of Phoenice and Egypt was erst by a masterful Cuckoo commanded. When his loud cuckoo-cry was resounding on high, at once the Phoenicians would leap All hands to the plain, rich-waving with grain, their wheat and their barley to reap. So that’s why we cry to the circumcised Hi! Cuckoo! To the plain! Cuckoo! And whene’er in the cities of Hellas a chief to honour and dignity grew, Menelaus or King Agamemnon perchance, your rule was so firm and decided That a bird on his sceptre would perch, to partake of the gifts for his Lordship provided. Now of that I declare I was never aware; and I oft have been filled with amaze, When Priam so noble and stately appeared, with a bird, in the Tragedy-plays. But the bird was no doubt for the gifts looking out, to Lysicrates brought on the sly.
PEISTHETAERUS But the strongest and clearest of proofs is that Zeus who at present is Lord of the sky Stands wearing, as Royalty’s emblem and badge, an Eagle erect on his head, Our Lady an owl, and Apollo forsooth, as a lackey, a falcon instead.
EUELPIDES By Demeter, ’tis true; that is just what they do; but tell me the reason, I pray.
PEISTHETAERUS That the bird may be ready and able, whene’er the sacrificed inwards we lay, As custom demands, in the deity’s hands, to seize before Zeus on the fare. And none by the Gods, but all by the Birds, were accustomed aforetime to swear: And Lampon will vow by the Goose even now, whenever he’s going to cheat you: So holy and mighty they deemed you of old, with so deep a respect did they treat you! Now they treat you as knaves, and as fools, and as slaves; Yea they pelt you as though ye were mad. No safety for you can the Temples ensure, For the bird-catcher sets his nooses and nets, And his traps, and his toils, and his bait, and his lure,
PEISTHETAERUS And his lime-covered rods in the shrine of the Gods! Then he takes you, and sets you for sale in the lump; And the customers, buying, come poking and prying And twitching and trying, To feel if your bodies are tender and plump. And if they decide on your flesh to sup They don’t just roast you and serve you up. But over your bodies, as prone ye lie, They grate their cheese and their silphium too, And oil and vinegar add, Then a gravy, luscious and rich, they brew, And pour it in soft warm streams o’er you, As though ye were carrion noisome and dry.
CHORUS O man, ’tis indeed a most pitiful tale Thou hast brought to our ears; and I can but bewail Our fathers’ demerit, Who born such an Empire as this to inherit
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