The Birds

Scene: A wild, desolate tract of open country; broken rocks and brushwood occupy the centre of the stage.

Euelpides

To his jay.1 Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?

Pisthetaerus

To his crow. Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me?⁠ ⁠… to retrace my steps?

Euelpides

Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; ’tis labour lost.

Pisthetaerus

To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!

Euelpides

And that I to this jay, which has torn every nail from my fingers!

Pisthetaerus

If only I knew where we were.⁠ ⁠…

Euelpides

Could you find your country again from here?

Pisthetaerus

No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides find his.

Euelpides

Oh dear! oh dear!

Pisthetaerus

Aye, aye, my friend, ’tis indeed the road of “oh dears” we are following.

Euelpides

That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick, when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus, the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharelides, for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch!⁠—What’s the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road that way.

Trochilus

Who’s there? Who calls my master?

Pisthetaerus

Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak!

Trochilus

Good god! they are bird-catchers.

Euelpides

The mere sight of him petrifies me with terror. What a horrible monster.

Trochilus

Woe to you!

Euelpides

But we are not men.

Trochilus

What are you, then?

Euelpides

I am the Fearling, an African bird.

Trochilus

You talk nonsense.

Euelpides

Well, then, just ask it of my feet.

Trochilus

And this other one, what bird is it?

Pisthetaerus

I? I am a Cackling, from the land of the pheasants.

Euelpides

But you yourself, in the name of the gods! what animal are you?

Trochilus

Why, I am a slave-bird.

Euelpides

Why, have you been conquered by a cock?

Trochilus

No, but when my master was turned into a peewit, he begged me to become a bird too, to follow and to serve him.

Euelpides

Does a bird need a servant, then?

Trochilus

’Tis no doubt because he was a man. At times he wants to eat a dish of loach from Phalerum; I seize my dish and fly to fetch him some. Again he wants some pea-soup; I seize a ladle and a pot and run to get it.

Euelpides

This is, then, truly a running-bird. Come, Trochilus, do us the kindness to call your master.

Oh! ’tis a horrible, unheard-of crime! What are you saying?

Epops

Nay! never let my words scare you.

Chorus

What have you done then?

Epops

I have welcomed two men, who wish to live with us.

Chorus

And you have dared to do that!

Epops

Aye, and am delighted at having done so.

Chorus

Where are they?

Epops

In your midst, as I am.

Chorus

Ah! ah! we are betrayed; ’tis sacrilege! Our friend, he who picked up corn-seeds in the same plains as ourselves, has violated our ancient laws; he has broken the oaths that bind all birds; he has laid a snare for me, he has handed us over to the attacks of that impious race which, throughout all time, has never ceased to war against us. As for this traitorous bird, we will decide his case later, but the two old men shall be punished forthwith; we are going to tear them to pieces.

Pisthetaerus

’Tis all over with us.

Euelpides

You are the sole cause of all our trouble. Why did you bring me from down yonder?

Pisthetaerus

To have you with me.

Euelpides

Say rather to have me melt into tears.

Pisthetaerus

Go to! you are talking nonsense.

Euelpides

How so?

Pisthetaerus

How will you be able to cry when once your eyes are pecked out?

Chorus

Io! io! forward to the attack, throw yourselves upon the foe, spill his blood; take to your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them.

Speak boldly, for I shall not break the truce⁠—until you have told us all.

Pisthetaerus

I am bursting with desire to speak; I have already mixed the dough of my address and nothing prevents me from kneading it.⁠ ⁠… Slave! bring the chaplet and water, which you must pour over my hands. Be quick!

Euelpides

Is it a question of feasting? What does it all mean?

Pisthetaerus

By Zeus, no! but I am hunting for fine, tasty words to break down the hardness of their hearts.⁠—I grieve so much for you, who at one time were kings⁠ ⁠…

Chorus

We kings! Over whom?

Pisthetaerus

… of all that exists, firstly of me and of this man, even of Zeus himself. Your race is older than Saturn, the Titans and the Earth.

Chorus

What, older than the Earth!

Pisthetaerus

By Phoebus, yes.

Chorus

By Zeus, but I never knew that before!

Pisthetaerus

’Tis because you are ignorant and heedless, and have never read your Aesop. ’Tis he who tells us that the lark was born before all other creatures, indeed before the Earth; his father died of sickness, but the Earth did not exist then; he remained unburied for five days, when the bird in its dilemma decided, for want of a better place, to entomb its father in its own head.

Euelpides

So that the lark’s father is buried at Cephalae.

Epops

Hence, if we existed before the Earth, before the gods, the kingship belongs to us by right of priority.

Euelpides

Undoubtedly, but sharpen your beak well; Zeus won’t be in a hurry to hand over his sceptre to the woodpecker.

Come now, what must be done?

Pisthetaerus

First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice to the gods.

Euelpides

I think so too.

Epops

Let’s see. What shall our city be called?

Pisthetaerus

Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call it Sparta?

Euelpides

What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my bed, even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

Pisthetaerus

Well then, what name can you suggest?

Euelpides

Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell⁠—in short, some well-known name.

Pisthetaerus

Do you like Nephelococcygia?

Epops

Oh! capital! truly ’tis a brilliant thought!

Euelpides

Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes and most of Aeschines’ is?

Pisthetaerus

No, ’tis rather the plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

Euelpides

Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?

Pisthetaerus

Why not choose Athene Polias?

Euelpides

Oh! what a well-ordered town ’twould be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes was spinning!

Pisthetaerus

Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?