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EPOPS. But, after all, what sort of city would please you best?
EUELPIDES. A place where the following would be the most important business transacted.—Some friend would come knocking at the door quite early in the morning saying, "By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too. I am giving a nuptial feast, so don't fail, or else don't cross my threshold when I am in distress."
EPOPS. Ah! that's what may be called being fond of hardships. And what say you?
PISTHETAERUS. My tastes are similar.
EPOPS. And they are?
PISTHETAERUS. I want a town where the father of a handsome lad will stop in the street and say to me reproachfully as if I had failed him, "Ah! Is this well done, Stilbonides! You met my son coming from the bath after the gymnasium and you neither spoke to him, nor embraced him, nor took him with you, nor ever once twitched his testicles. Would anyone call you an old friend of mine?"
EPOPS. Ah! wag, I see you are fond of suffering. But there is a city of delights, such as you want. 'Tis on the Red Sea.
EUELPIDES. Oh, no. Not a sea-port, where some fine morning the Salaminian193 galley can appear, bringing a writ-server along. Have you no Greek town you can propose to us?
EPOPS. Why not choose Lepreum in Elis for your settlement?
EUELPIDES. By Zeus! I could not look at Lepreum without disgust, because of Melanthius.194
EPOPS. Then, again, there is the Opuntian, where you could live.
EUELPIDES. I would not be Opuntian195 for a talent. But come, what is it like to live with the birds? You should know pretty well.
EPOPS. Why, 'tis not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no purse.
EUELPIDES. That does away with much roguery.
EPOPS. For food the gardens yield us white sesame, myrtle-berries, poppies and mint.
EUELPIDES. Why, 'tis the life of the newly-wed indeed.196
PISTHETAERUS. Ha! I am beginning to see a great plan, which will transfer the supreme power to the birds, if you will but take my advice.
EPOPS. Take your advice? In what way?
PISTHETAERUS. In what way? Well, firstly, do not fly in all directions with open beak; it is not dignified. Among us, when we see a thoughtless man, we ask, "What sort of bird is this?" and Teleas answers, "'Tis a man who has no brain, a bird that has lost his head, a creature you cannot catch, for it never remains in any one place."
EPOPS. By Zeus himself! your jest hits the mark. What then is to be done?
PISTHETAERUS. Found a city.
EPOPS. We birds? But what sort of city should we build?
PISTHETAERUS. Oh, really, really! 'tis spoken like a fool! Look down.
EPOPS. I am looking.
PISTHETAERUS. Now look upwards.
EPOPS. I am looking.
PISTHETAERUS. Turn your head round.
EPOPS. Ah! 'twill be pleasant for me, if I end in twisting my neck!
PISTHETAERUS. What have you seen?
EPOPS. The clouds and the sky.
PISTHETAERUS. Very well! is not this the pole of the birds then?
EPOPS. How their pole?
PISTHETAERUS. Or, if you like it, the land. And since it turns and passes through the whole universe, it is called, 'pole.'197 If you build and fortify it, you will turn your pole into a fortified city.198 In this way you will reign over mankind as you do over the grasshoppers and cause the gods to die of rabid hunger.
EPOPS. How so?
PISTHETAERUS. The air is 'twixt earth and heaven. When we want to go to Delphi, we ask the Boeotians199 for leave of passage; in the same way, when men sacrifice to the gods, unless the latter pay you tribute, you exercise the right of every nation towards strangers and don't allow the smoke of the sacrifices to pass through your city and territory.
EPOPS. By earth! by snares! by network!200 I never heard of anything more cleverly conceived; and, if the other birds approve, I am going to build the city along with you.
PISTHETAERUS. Who will explain the matter to them?
EPOPS. You must yourself. Before I came they were quite ignorant, but since I have lived with them I have taught them to speak.
PISTHETAERUS. But how can they be gathered together?
EPOPS. Easily. I will hasten down to the coppice to waken my dear Procné;201 as soon as they hear our voices, they will come to us hot wing.
PISTHETAERUS. My dear bird, lose no time, I beg. Fly at once into the coppice and awaken Procné.
EPOPS. Chase off drowsy sleep, dear companion. Let the sacred hymn gush from thy divine throat in melodious strains; roll forth in soft cadence your refreshing melodies to bewail the fate of Itys,202 which has been the cause of so many tears to us both. Your pure notes rise through the thick leaves of the yew-tree right up to the throne of Zeus, where Phoebus listens to you, Phoebus with his golden hair. And his ivory lyre responds to your plaintive accents; he gathers the choir of the gods and from their immortal lips rushes a sacred chant of blessed voices. (The flute is played behind the scene.)
PISTHETAERUS. Oh! by Zeus! what a throat that little bird possesses. He has filled the whole coppice with honey-sweet melody!
EUELPIDES. Hush!
PISTHETAERUS. What's the matter?
EUELPIDES. Will you keep silence?
PISTHETAERUS. What for?
EUELPIDES. Epops is going to sing again.
EPOPS (in the coppice). Epopoi, poi, popoi, epopoi, popoi, here, here, quick, quick, quick, my comrades in the air; all you, who pillage the fertile lands of the husbandmen, the numberless tribes who gather and devour the barley seeds, the swift flying race who sing so sweetly. And you whose gentle twitter resounds through the fields with the little cry of tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of long-necked birds assemble here; know that a clever old man has come to us, bringing an entirely new idea and proposing great reforms. Let all come to the debate here, here, here, here. Torotorotorotorotix, kikkobau, kikkobau, torotorotorotorolililix.
PISTHETAERUS. Can you see any bird?
EUELPIDES. By Phoebus, no! and yet I am straining my eyesight to scan the sky.
PISTHETAERUS. 'Twas really not worth Epops' while to go and bury himself in the thicket like a plover when a-hatching.
PHOENICOPTERUS. Torotina, torotina.
PISTHETAERUS. Hold, friend, here is another bird.
EUELPIDES. I' faith, yes! 'tis a bird, but of what kind? Isn't it a peacock?
PISTHETAERUS. Epops will tell us. What is this bird?
EPOPS. 'Tis not one of those you are used to seeing; 'tis a bird from the marshes.
PISTHETAERUS.