MESSENGER Where, where,—O where, where, where,—O where, where, where, Where, where’s our leader Peisthetaerus?
PEISTHETAERUS Here.
MESSENGER Your building’s built! The Wall’s complete!
PEISTHETAERUS Well done.
MESSENGER And a most grand, magnificent work it is. So broad, that on its top the Braggadocian Proxenides could pass Theagenes Each driving in his chariot, drawn by horses As bulky as the Trojan.
PEISTHETAERUS Heracles!
MESSENGER And then its height, I measured that, is just Six hundred feet.
PEISTHETAERUS Poseidon, what a height! Who built it up to that enormous size?
MESSENGER The birds, none other; no Egyptian, bearing The bricks, no mason, carpenter was there; Their own hands wrought it, marvellous to see. From Libya came some thirty thousand cranes With great foundation stones they had swallowed down;
MESSENGER And these the corn-crakes fashioned with their beaks. Ten thousand storks were carrying up the bricks; And lapwings helped, and the other water-birds, To bring the water up into the air.
PEISTHETAERUS Who bare aloft the mortar for them?
MESSENGER Herons In hods.
PEISTHETAERUS But how did they get the mortar in?
MESSENGER O that was most ingeniously contrived. The geese struck down their feet, and slid them under, Like shovels, and so heaved it on the hods.
PEISTHETAERUS Then is there anything that FEET can’t
MESSENGER And then the ducks, with girdles round their waists, Carried the bricks: and up the swallows flew,
MESSENGER Like serving-lads, carrying behind them, each His trowel, and the mortar in their mouths.
PEISTHETAERUS Then why should men hire hirelings any more! Well, well, go on; who was it finished off The great wall’s woodwork?
MESSENGER Canny Pelicans, Excellent workmen, hewing with huge beaks Gate-timber; and the uproar as they hewed Was like an arsenal when ships are building. Now every gateway has its gate, fast-barred, And watched the whole way round; and birds are pacing Their beats, and carrying bells, and everywhere The guards are stationed, and the beacons blaze On every tower. But I must hurry off And wash myself. You, manage what remains.
CHORUS O man, what ails you? Do you feel surprised To hear the building has been built so soon?
PEISTHETAERUS By all the Gods I do; and well I may, In very truth it seems to me like—lies. But see! a guard, a messenger from thence Is running towards us with a war-dance look!
GUARD Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!
PEISTHETAERUS Why, what’s up now?
GUARD A terrible thing has happened. One of the Gods, of Zeus’s Gods, has just, Giving our jackdaw sentinels the slip, Shot through the gates and flown into the air.
PEISTHETAERUS A dreadful deed! A wicked scandalous deed! Which of the Gods?
GUARD We know not. Wings he had, So much we know.
PEISTHETAERUS Ye should have sent at once The civic guard in hot pursuit.
GUARD We sent The mounted archers, thirty thousand falcons, All with their talons curved, in fighting trim, Hawk, buzzard, vulture, eagle, eagle-owl. Yea, Ether vibrates with the whizz and whirr Of beating pinions, as they seek the God. Ay, and he’s near methinks; he’s very near; He’s somewhere here.
PEISTHETAERUS A sling, a sling, I say! Arrows and bows! Fall in, my merrymen all! Shoot, smite, be resolute. A sling! a sling!
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