by Aristophanes
POET. Oh! ’tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this city.
PISTHETAERUS. But I am only celebrating its foundation with this sacrifice; I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.
POET. “Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does the voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of the town of Aetna, thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices, make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest.”
PISTHETAERUS. He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some present. Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me to be shivering with cold.
POET. My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of
Pindar’s on your mind.
PISTHETAERUS. Oh! what a pest! ’Tis impossible then to be rid of him.
POET. “Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal’s pelt and no tunic.” Do you conceive my bent?
PISTHETAERUS. I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (to Euelpides), take off yours; we must help the poet…. Come, you, take it and begone.
POET. I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city:
“Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery, freezing city; I
have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala!
Tralala!”
PISTHETAERUS. What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic, you no longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this cursed fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come, priest, take the lustral water and circle the altar.
PRIEST. Let all keep silence!
A PROPHET. Let not the goat be sacrificed.
PISTHETAERUS. Who are you?
PROPHET. Who am I? A prophet.
PISTHETAERUS. Get you gone.
PROPHET. Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia.
PISTHETAERUS. Why did you not reveal it to me before I founded my city?
PROPHET. The divine spirit was against it.
PISTHETAERUS. Well, ’tis best to know the terms of the oracle.
PROPHET. “But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together between Corinth and Sicyon….”
PISTHETAERUS. But how do the Corinthians concern me?
PROPHET. ’Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated in this manner. “They must first sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora, and give the prophet, who first reveals my words, a good cloak and new sandals.”
PISTHETAERUS. Are the sandals there?
PROPHET.
Read. “And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the entrails of the victim.”
PISTHETAERUS. Of the entrails — is it so written?
PROPHET. Read. “If you do as I command, divine youth, you shall be an eagle among the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor eagle, nor woodpecker.”
PISTHETAERUS. Is all that there?
PROPHET. Read.
PISTHETAERUS. This oracle in no sort of way resembles the one Apollo dictated to me: “If an impostor comes without invitation to annoy you during the sacrifice and to demand a share of the victim, apply a stout stick to his ribs.”
PROPHET. You are drivelling.
PISTHETAERUS. “And don’t spare him, were he an eagle from out of the clouds, were it Lampon himself or the great Diopithes.”
PROPHET. Is all that there?
PISTHETAERUS. Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.
PROPHET. Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.
PISTHETAERUS. Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.
METON. I have come to you.
PISTHETAERUS. Yet another pest. What have you come to do? What’s your plan? What’s the purpose of your journey? Why these splendid buskins?
METON. I want to survey the plains of the air for you and to parcel them into lots.
PISTHETAERUS. In the name of the gods, who are you?
METON. Who am I? Meton, known throughout Greece and at Colonus.
PISTHETAERUS. What are these things?
METON. Tools for measuring the air. In truth, the spaces in the air have precisely the form of a furnace. With this bent ruler I draw a line from top to bottom; from one of its points I describe a circle with the compass. Do you understand?
PISTHETAERUS. Not the very least.
METON. With the straight ruler I set to work to inscribe a square within this circle; in its centre will be the marketplace, into which all the straight streets will lead, converging to this centre like a star, which, although only orbicular, sends forth its rays in a straight line from all sides.
PISTHETAERUS. Meton, you new Thales….
METON. What d’you want with me?
PISTHETAERUS. I want to give you a proof of my friendship. Use your legs.
METON. Why, what have I to fear?
PISTHETAERUS. ’Tis the same here as in Sparta. Strangers are driven away, and blows rain down as thick as hail.
METON. Is there sedition in your city?
PISTHETAERUS. No, certainly not.
METON. What’s wrong then?
PISTHETAERUS. We are agreed to sweep all quacks and impostors far from our borders.
METON. Then I’m off.
PISTHETAERUS. I fear me ’tis too late. The thunder growls already. (Beats him.)
METON. Oh, woe! oh, woe!
PISTHETAERUS. I warned you. Now, be off, and do your surveying somewhere else. (Meton takes to his heels.)
AN INSPECTOR. Where are the Proxeni?
PISTHETAERUS. Who is this Sardanapalus?
INSPECTOR. I have been appointed by lot to come to Nephelococcygia as inspector.
PISTHETAERUS. An inspector! and who sends you here, you rascal?
INSPECTOR. A decree of Taleas.
PISTHETAERUS. Will you just pocket your salary, do nothing, and be off?
INSPECTOR. I’ faith! that I will; I am urgently needed to be at Athens to attend the assembly; for I am charged with the interests of Pharnaces.
PISTHETAERUS. Take it then, and be off. See, here is your salary. (Beats him.)
INSPECTOR. What does this mean?
PISTHETAERUS. ’Tis the assembly where you have to defend Pharnaces.
INSPECTOR. You shall testify that they dare to strike me, the inspector.
PISTHETAERUS. Are you not going to clear out with your urns. ’Tis not to be believed; they send us inspectors before we have so much as paid sacrifice to the gods.
A DEALER IN DECREES. “If the Nephelococcygian does wrong to the
Athenian….”
PISTHETAERUS. Now whatever are these cursed parchments?
DEALER IN DECREES. I am a dealer in decrees, and I have come here to sell you the new laws.
PISTHETAERUS. Which?
DEALER IN DECREES. “The Nephelococcygians shall adopt the same weights, measures and decrees as the Olophyxians.”
PISTHETAERUS. And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians. (Beats him.)
DEALER IN DECREES. Hullo! what are you doing?
PISTHETAERUS. Now will you be off with your decrees? For I am going to let you see some severe ones.
INSPECTOR (returning). I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.
PISTHETAERUS. Ha! my friend! are you still there?
DEALER IN DECREES. “Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them, according to the decree duly posted…”
PISTHETAERUS. What! rascal! you are there too?
INSPECTOR. Woe to you! I’ll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand drachmae.
PISTHETAERUS. And I’ll smash your urns.
INSPECTOR. Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where the decrees are posted?
PISTHETAERUS. Here! here! l
et him be seized. (The inspectors run off.)
Well! don’t you want to stop any longer?
PRIEST. Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.
CHORUS. Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: “A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos, and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants.” We likewise wish to make our proclamation: “A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Strouthian; four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others.” That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter! Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody, my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.
I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far greater than those Paris received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium, which every judge desires above all things, shall never be wanting to you; you shall see them homing with you, building their nests in your money-bags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the gods, for we shall erect gables over your dwellings; if you hold some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the sharp claws of a hawk. Are you dining in town, we will provide you with crops. But, if your award is against us, don’t fail to have metal covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues; else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will soil it with their droppings.
PISTHETAERUS. Birds! the sacrifice is propitious. But I see no messenger coming from the wall to tell us what is happening. Ah! here comes one running himself out of breath as though he were running the Olympic stadium.
MESSENGER. Where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where is Pisthetaerus, our leader?
PISTHETAERUS. Here am I.
MESSENGER. The wall is finished.
PISTHETAERUS. That’s good news.
MESSENGER. ’Tis a most beautiful, a most magnificent work of art. The wall is so broad, that Proxenides, the Braggartian, and Theogenes could pass each other in their chariots, even if they were drawn by steeds as big as the Trojan horse.
PISTHETAERUS. ’Tis wonderful!
MESSENGER. Its length is one hundred stadia; I measured it myself.
PISTHETAERUS. A decent length, by Posidon! And who built such a wall?
MESSENGER. Birds — birds only; they had neither Egyptian brickmaker, nor stonemason, nor carpenter; the birds did it all themselves, I could hardly believe my eyes. Thirty thousand cranes came from Libya with a supply of stones, intended for the foundations. The water-rails chiselled them with their beaks. Ten thousand storks were busy making bricks; plovers and other water fowl carried water into the air.
PISTHETAERUS. And who carried the mortar?
MESSENGER. Herons, in hods.
PISTHETAERUS. But how could they put the mortar into hods?
MESSENGER. Oh! ’twas a truly clever invention; the geese used their feet like spades; they buried them in the pile of mortar and then emptied them into the hods.
PISTHETAERUS. Ah! to what use cannot feet be put?
MESSENGER. You should have seen how eagerly the ducks carried bricks. To complete the tale, the swallows came flying to the work, their beaks full of mortar and their trowel on their back, just the way little children are carried.
PISTHETAERUS. Who would want paid servants after this? But, tell me, who did the woodwork?
MESSENGER. Birds again, and clever carpenters too, the pelicans, for they squared up the gates with their beaks in such a fashion that one would have thought they were using axes; the noise was just like a dockyard. Now the whole wall is tight everywhere, securely bolted and well guarded; it is patrolled, bell in hand; the sentinels stand everywhere and beacons burn on the towers. But I must run off to clean myself; the rest is your business.
CHORUS. Well! what do you say to it? Are you not astonished at the wall being completed so quickly?
PISTHETAERUS. By the gods, yes, and with good reason. ’Tis really not to be believed. But here comes another messenger from the wall to bring us some further news! What a fighting look he has!
SECOND MESSENGER. Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!
PISTHETAERUS. What’s the matter?
SECOND MESSENGER. A horrible outrage has occurred; a god sent by Zeus has passed through our gates and has penetrated the realms of the air without the knowledge of the jays, who are on guard in the daytime.
PISTHETAERUS. Tis an unworthy and criminal deed. What god was it?
SECOND MESSENGER. We don’t know that. All we know is, that he has got wings.
PISTHETAERUS. Why were not guards sent against him at once?
SECOND MESSENGER. We have despatched thirty thousand hawks of the legion of mounted archers. All the hook-clawed birds are moving against him, the kestrel, the buzzard, the vulture, the great-horned owl; they cleave the air, so that it resounds with the flapping of their wings; they are looking everywhere for the god, who cannot be far away; indeed, if I mistake not, he is coming from yonder side.
PISTHETAERUS. All arm themselves with slings and bows! This way, all our soldiers; shoot and strike! Some one give me a sling!
CHORUS. War, a terrible war is breaking out between us and the gods! Come, let each one guard the Air, the son of Erebus, in which the clouds float. Take care no immortal enters it without your knowledge. Scan all sides with your glance. Hark! methinks I can hear the rustle of the swift wings of a god from heaven.
PISTHETAERUS. Hi! you woman! where are you flying to? Halt, don’t stir! keep motionless! not a beat of your wing! — Who are you and from what country? You must say whence you come.
IRIS. I come from the abode of the Olympian gods.
PISTHETAERUS. What’s your name, ship or cap?
IRIS. I am swift Iris.
PISTHETAERUS. Paralus or Salaminia?
IRIS. What do you mean?
PISTHETAERUS. Let a buzzard rush at her and seize her.
IRIS. Seize me! But what do all these insults betoken?
PISTHETAERUS. Woe to you!
IRIS. ’Tis incomprehensible.
PISTHETAERUS. By which gate did you pass through the wall, wretched woman?
IRIS. By which gate? Why, great gods, I don’t know.
PISTHETAERUS. You hear how she holds us in derision. Did you present yourself to the officers in command of the jays? You don’t answer. Have you a permit, bearing the seal of the storks?
IRIS. Am I awake?
PISTHETAERUS. Did you get one?
IRIS. Are you mad?
PISTHETAERUS. No head-bird gave you a safe-conduct?
IRIS. A safe-conduct to me, you poor fool!
PISTHETAERUS. Ah! and so you slipped into this city on the sly and into the
se realms of air-land that don’t belong to you.
IRIS. And what other road can the gods travel?
PISTHETAERUS. By Zeus! I know nothing about that, not I. But they won’t pass this way. And you still dare to complain! Iris would ever have more justly suffered death.
IRIS. I am immortal.
PISTHETAERUS. You would have died nevertheless. — Oh! ’twould be truly intolerable! What! should the universe obey us and the gods alone continue their insolence and not understand that they must submit to the law of the strongest in their due turn? But tell me, where are you flying to?
IRIS. I? The messenger of Zeus to mankind, I am going to tell them to sacrifice sheep and oxen on the altars and to fill their streets with the rich smoke of burning fat.
PISTHETAERUS. Of which gods are you speaking?
IRIS. Of which? Why, of ourselves, the gods of heaven.
PISTHETAERUS. You, gods?
IRIS. Are there others then?
PISTHETAERUS. Men now adore the birds as gods, and ’tis to them, by Zeus, that they must offer sacrifices, and not to Zeus at all!
IRIS. Oh! fool! fool! Rouse not the wrath of the gods, for ’tis terrible indeed. Armed with the brand of Zeus, Justice would annihilate your race; the lightning would strike you as it did Lycimnius and consume both your body and the porticos of your palace.
PISTHETAERUS. Here! that’s enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian and think to frighten me with your big words? Know, that if Zeus worries me again, I shall go at the head of my eagles, who are armed with lightning, and reduce his dwelling and that of Amphion to cinders. I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions clothed in leopards’ skins up to heaven against him; and formerly a single Porphyrion gave him enough to do. As for you, his messenger, if you annoy me, I shall begin by stretching your legs asunder and so conduct myself, Iris though you be, that despite my age, you will be astonished. I will show you a fine long tool that will fuck you three times over.
IRIS. May you perish, you wretch, you and your infamous words!
PISTHETAERUS. Won’t you be off quickly? Come, stretch your wings or look out for squalls!
IRIS. If my father does not punish you for your insults….
PISTHETAERUS. Ha!… but just you be off elsewhere to roast younger folk than us with your lightning.