The Birds (Latin: Aves, Greek: Ὄρνιθες, translit. Órnithes) is a comedy play by Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia in Athens at the festival of the Lenaea where it won the second prize: it is considered to be one of Aristophanes' masterpieces, the other being Frogs.
Its theme has been considered to be variously an escape to Utopia, a peace play, a political play, or just plain simple fantasy, in particular the wanting to escape from the corruption in and abuse of the Athenian legal system known as Sycophancy.
Dramatis Personae
Euelpides Athenian Citizen (name means "Good Hope")
Peisetaerus (or Peisthetaerus) Athenian Citizen (name means "Persuader of his comrades" or "Trustyfriend" )
Trochilos, Egyptian Plover [or Crocodile Bird (pluvianus aegyptius), see Herodotus Histories II 68] (or sometimes translated as a Wren or Willow Warbler possibly because the Greek word for a wren is όρχίλος, a word that resembles ὄρχις a testicle), principal attendant or aide [therapon/θεράπων] to 'Epops, the Hoopoe.
Epops the Hoopoe [formerly Teraeus, a mythological prince of Athens]
Aulos or Flute Player as Nightingale [formerly Procne, queen and wife to Teraeus]
Chorus Of Birds (24)
Partridge [Chorus Leader]
Crested Lark
Stock Dove
Francolin
Reed Warbler
Firecrest
Mallard
Wheatear
Rail
Halcyon [a mythical sea bird with bright plumage, There was an ancient belief that the bird nested
on the sea, which it calmed in winter in order to lay its eggs on a floating nest.]
Pigeon
Kestrel
Barber-Bird
Merlin
Dabchick
Owl
Sparrowhawk
Waxwing
Jay
Ringdove
Vulture
Turtledove
Cuckoo
Woodpecker
Birds of the Chorus
πέρδιξ Partridge
ἀτταγᾶς Francolin
πηνέλοψ Mallard, Pochard or Widgeon parti-coloured bird. Wild Duck or Goose with coloured neck
κηρύλος A fabulous sea bird, identified with the ἀλκυών [Halcyon]
σποργίλος Sparrow
γλαύκ Owl
ἀείσκωψ Owl
κίττα, τρυγών, κορυδός, ἐλεᾶς, ὑποθυμίς, περιστερά, νέρτος, ἱέραξ, φάττα, κόκκυξ, ἐρυθρόπους, κεβλήπυρις, πορφυρίς, κερχνῄς, κολυμβίς, ἀμπελίς, φήνη, δρύοψ
κίττα Magpie
τρυγών Turtle Dove
κορυδός Lark
ἐλεᾶς Reed-Warbler
ὑποθυμίς [Unknown bird] Wheatear?
περιστερά Pigeon
νέρτος Vulture
ἱέραξ Hawk
φάττα Ringdove or Woodpigeon
κόκκυξ Cuckoo
ἐρυθρόπους Redshank [red-footed]
κεβλήπυρις Firecrest
πορφυρίς Moorhen or Purple Swamphen
κερχνῄς Kestrel
κολυμβίς Grebe? [diving bird]
ἀμπελίς Songbird
φήνη Vulture
δρύοψ Woodpecker
Priest wearing mask as a bird
1st Group of Unwelcome Visitors all seeking employment in CloudCuckooLand
Poet
Oracle-Monger
Meton the famous Astronomer/Geometer [deviser of the Metonic Cycle]
Commissioner/Inspector
Statute or Decree-Seller
2nd Messenger [a guard] announces the capture of a spy for the gods of a minor Olympian goddess, Iris
Iris or Rainbow, minor goddess.
Herald or 3rd Messenger announcing 3rd Group of Unwelcome Visitors seeking emigration to CloudCuckooLand
Father-Beater or Parricide
Cinesias a dithyrambic bard
Sycophant or Informer
Delegations from the Olympian gods
Prometheus Titan god of fire and messenger from Zeus
Poseidon god of the seas, storms, earthquakes and horses
Heracles divine hero ,son of Zeus
Triballus god of the tribe of barbarians called the Triballians
Servant
Silent/Mute parts
Slaves of Peisetaerus
Xanthias (speaks only one line)
Manes or Manodorus
Bird Dancers [non-speaking parts but dance their way across the stage or orchestra]
Phoenicopterus the Flamingo
Cock dressed as a bird from Medea in Persia
2nd Hoopoe
Gobbler
Basileia (Sovereignty) a beauteous maiden, attendant to Zeus and consort of Peisetaerus
Various attendants as needed.
Setting
The skene and stage represent a desolate place far from Athens. In the background there are dense groups of bushes and trees, with rocks. On stage right is a lone tree. The central door on the stage represents initially 'Epops' nest which is a coppice, and which later in the play becomes the door to Peisetaerus' palace.
Structure and Summary
Prologue 1-208
Prologue Part 1 Lines 1-59
Through the parodos on stage left (i.e. as if they were coming from the city) enter two middle-aged Athenians, Euelpides and Peisetaerus. They are closely followed by two slaves carrying their baggage, Xanthias and Manodorus (or Manes) by name. On their wrists the two Athenians are each carrying a bird: Euelpides a jackdaw and Peisetaerus a crow. They have bought these birds in the bird market in Athens. Euelpides paid 1 obol for his Jackdaw, and Peisetaerus paid 3 obols for his Crow. Philocrates, the bird seller, had promised them that the birds would guide them to Tereus, a mythological former prince of Athens who was transformed by the gods into a Hoopoe (and is now called 'Epops).
[Tereus, king of Thrace, had married Procne, the daughter of the king of Athens, Pandion. However, he fell in love with Philomela, Procne's sister and as she resisted him, he had her shut up in a dungeon, and had her tongue cut out. Procne freed Philomela and avenged herself on her husband by killing her own son Itys, whose limbs she had served up at table. The two sisters fled and Tereus pursued them. But the gods took pity on them: Philomela was changed into a swallow, Procne into a nightingale and Tereus into a hoopoe.
For more details of the myth of Tereus see
Tereus - Wikipedia
Tereus - Dictionary of Ancient Greece and Rome
Apollodoros 3.14.8]
The two Athenians are lost, perhaps on the point of turning back to Athens and giving up their quest. Peisetaerus' Crow is telling him to return home and is pecking at him all the time. But Euelpides' Jackdaw is indicating to him to keep on going till they find the lone tree standing in the wilderness that the bird seller spoke of. There he had told them they would find the hoopoe they were seeking. Euelpides thinks that the bird-seller has swindled them, but they decide to trudge on.
Euelpides tells us that they have fled from Athens as the crickets only chirp in the fig-trees for about two months of the year, but the Athenians spend the whole year chanting judgements in their law courts. The two of them have decided to abandon Athens because they are fed up with this. They want to settle in a quiet new home free from law courts and lawsuits. They are hoping that Tereus ('Epops) can tell them of any such place he might have seen from the air during his flights. They have brought with them all the ritual items to found a new city [polis]: myrtle boughs, a basket and a brazier with a stewing-pot for the necessary sacrifice.
[They have fled Athens because of their hatred of lawsuits and the informers [sycophants] who serve then and who can be bribed as witnesses to attend in court to report whatever they have been paid to say. Aristophanes actually satirises this practice in his play, Wasps.]
As Euelpides and Peisetaerus progress through the wilderness. As they do so their two birds get very excited. They move closer to the lone standing tree and stop by the central door on the stage. They believe they have now arrived. Peisetaerus tells Euelpides to make a noise to attract attention. They bang the wall of the skene building with rocks and shout out "'Epops, 'Epops!"
Prologue Part 2 Scene with Trochilos
Enter from the stage door Tereus’ principal attendant and slave, Trochilos, a bird with a large beak, looking rather like a dunlin. Xanthias and Manodorus [Manes] drop the baggage they are carrying and retreat off stage to the side. The two birds which our Athenians have each been carrying, the crow and the jackdaw, fly off.
Trochilos: Who's there? Who's shouting for my master?
Peisetaerus: May Zeus save us. What a beak!
Trochilos: Heavens above, here’s a pair of fowlers hunting for birds!
Peisetaerus: Imagine it! This beast is speaking so harshly to us, and not more politely!
Trochilos: You two will die!
Peisetaerus: But we’re not humans!
Trochilos: Well then, what are you?
Peisetaerus: Me? I’m a yellowbelly panic-stricken bird from Libya.
Trochilos: Rubbish!
Peisetaerus: Really? Then check what's on the back of my legs.
Trochilos: And this other one, what kind of bird is he? Speak up.
Euelpides: I’m a brown bottom pheasant with a yellow tail.
Peisetaerus (to Trochilos): Tell us what kind of creature might you be?
Trochilos: Me, I’m a slavebird.
Euelpides: Vanquished by some game cock in a fight?
Trochilos: No, it’s just that when my master was turned into a hoopoe, he begged that I become a bird too, so that he could still have an attendant looking after his every need and want.
Peisetaerus: Does a bird actually need a personal attendant?
Trochilos: This one does. I reckon it’s because he once was human. He'll get a craving for fried fish fresh from Phalerum, and I grab the pan and run out for the fish. Or he'll want lentil soup for which we need a ladle and tureen, so I fly off to find the tureen.
Peisetaerus: This one’s a gopher. So, slave, you know what you must do: go for your master for us.
Trochilos: Oh no; he’s just started his nap, after a lunch of myrtle berries and fruit flies.
Peisetaerus: Wake him up anyway.
Trochilos: Well, I’m quite sure he'll be angry, but as a favour to you I will wake him up.
Exit Trochilos.
Peisetaerus (calling after him): And off to Hades with you, for scaring us to death!
Prologue Part 3 Lines 60 - 208
Euelpides: Ah! misfortune! My jackdaw has also disappeared... frightened!
Peisetaerus: O you cowardly beast, fear has made you let go or your Jackdaw!
Euelpides: Tell me, that you didn't also let go of your Crow, whilst you were collapsing with fright?
Peisetaerus: Certainly not, by Zeus.
Euelpides: Where is she?
Peisetaerus: Soaring.
Euelpides: Didn't you drop her, then? Oh my gosh! how brave you are!
'Epops(from inside): Throw wide open the wooden door to my nest that I may come forth.
'Epops the Hoopoe comes out through the central door onto the stage, looking very ruffled.
Euelpides: O Heracles, what is this beast? What is this plumage with that triple-crest on his head?
'Epops: Who are they that are looking for me?
Euelpides: The twelve gods seem to have damaged you as well.
'Epops: Would you laugh at me at the sight of my plumage? Is it because I was once a man?
Euelpides: It's not you we're laughing at.
'Epops: At what then?
Euelpides: It's your beak that seems ridiculous to us.
'Epops: But that is precisely how Sophocles disfigured me in one his tragedies. Me, Tereus.
Euelpides: So you are Tereus? Are you bird or peacock"?
'Epops: Yes, and bird I am!
Euelpides: So where are your feathers?
'Epops: They have been shed .
Euelpides: Due to illness?
'Epops: No! In winter all birds shed their feathers; afterwards new ones grow in their place. But, tell me, you two, who are you?
Euelpides: We are mortals, human beings.
'Epops: And your country of origin?
Euelpides: The land of the beautiful triremes.
'Epops: Would you be heliasts?
Euelpides: No, on the contrary we are anti-heliasts.
'Epops: So we sow it over there, this seed?
Euelpides: You would find some, if you look hard enough, in the fields*.
'Epops: And what business then brings you to this place?
Euelpides: We want to talk to you.
'Epops: What about?
Euelpides: First of all because you were once a man like us, that you owed money, like us, that you liked not to have to give it, like us, then, that, in time you became metamorphosed into a bird, you flew around the earth and the sea; that everything that mankind knows and a bird also knows, you know. It is for these reasons that in pleading we came to you could you indicate some very woolly city, to stretch out there as on a skin of soft fur?
'Epops: So you're looking for a city bigger than Old Kranaans [Athens]?
Euelpides: Bigger, by no means, but more suitable for our tastes.
'Epops: It is an aristocratic state, of course, that you seek?
Euelpides: Me? Not at all. Even the son of Skellias disgusts me.
'Epops: Which city would you most enjoy living in?
Euelpides: The one where the worst trouble would be of this kind. At my door early in the morning a friend of mine shows up, who says to me: "In the name of Olympian Zeus, make sure to come to my house, with your children once bathed, early: because I want to give a wedding feast. Do not miss it, or else never come to me when I am in misfortune”.
'Epops: By Zeus, you really have the passion of adversity. (To Peisetaerus) And you?
Peisetaerus: I have similar tastes.
'Epops: Which are what?
Peisetaerus: I would like to live in a city where, approaching me, the father of a pretty youth reproaches me in this manner: "It's beautiful when you meet my son leaving the public baths, and you don't don't kiss him, you don't even say a word to him, you don't flirt with him, you don't even fondle his private parts, and you a friend of his father!"
'Epops: Ah! poor wretch, what ills you aspire to! Well, there is a wealthy city like the one you are talking about, on the shores of the Eretrian Sea.
Euelpides: Misfortune? Do not speak to us of a home on the sea coast, where a beautiful morning will arise, bringing with it a bailiff. At that time, the main meal took place around noon. One did not present oneself at a banquet without having bathed. That is to say: I would consider you a false friend, and as such, I would exempt you from coming to find me on the day when I would be unhappy, The so-called friends come running to the one who is happy, they turn away from those who fall in adversity. That is to say, in the land of mirage and utopia; Do you have any Greek city to offer us?
'Epops: Why don't you go and live in Leprea, in Elis?
Euelpides: Hey, because, by the gods, without having seen it, I despise Leprea because of Melanthios.
'Epops: But there are still the Opuntians in Locris. There that you can make your residence.
Euelpides: But I wouldn't want to become an Opuntian even for a talent of gold. And in your country, what kind of life do you lead here amongst the birds?
'Epops: Not unpleasant to us. First of all we are required to live without money.
Euelpides: Well that takes care of that source of roguery in life.
'Epops: We graze for free in gardens of white sesame, myrtle, poppy and mint.
Euelpides: You seem to lead the jolly life of a bridegroom.
'Epops: By Dionysus, you do well to criticise these things here. So what else should we do?
Peisetaerus: I see a grand future for the birds, if you trust me. You should found a city state.
'Epops: What kind of city state could we birds found? And how do we trust you?
Peisetaerus: You have just made a stupid comment. Look down.
'Epops: Yes.
Peisetaerus: Now look up.
'Epops: I'm looking.
Peisetaerus: Now spin your head around on your neck.
'Epops: By Zeus, Think of all the money I could make, if I could twist your neck.
Peisetaerus: Did you see anything?
'Epops: Yes, the clouds and the sky.
Peisetaerus: Isn't that it then, I suppose, the domain [dome] of the birds?
'Epops: Domain [dome]? What do you mean?
Peisetaerus: As one would say. As this domain [dome] revolves everything passes through it. Today this dome is described as spherical. Colonize it and equip it with walls and ramparts, and instead of being just a revolving “dome” it will become stationary like a “city”. You will reign over it as men rule over grasshoppers; and as for the gods, you will cause them to perish from hunger through a Melian-style siege.
[Two years earlier, in 416 BC, Athens had laid siege to the city on the Doric island of Melos and through famine had forced her people to capitulate.]
'Epops: How?
Peisetaerus: Between them and the earth, I suppose, there is air. And like us, when we want to make supplication at Delphi, we have to ask for permission from the Boeotians to pass through their territory; thus similarly, when men make sacrifices to the gods, if the gods have not paid you tribute, you can prevent the savoury smoke from the victims of those sacrifices finding its way through your city, which is a foreign domain to them, all the way up to them.
'Epops: O Earth, not by traps, by nets and snares, never before have I heard a more ingenious plan. So I am very willing to found this city together with you, if this is agreed to by the other birds.
Peisetaerus: Who will explain the matter to them?
'Epops: You. Because I took care, barbarians that they were up until then, to teach them to articulate language, having now lived amongst them for a long time.
Peisetaerus: Well then please could you summon them!
'Epops: Easy. I will go straight back into my nest, and will awaken my sweet nightingale. Together we will summon them. And as soon as they hear the sound of our voices, they will come running quickly.
Peisetaerus: O dearest of birds, don't stop! I beg you to go back into your nest as quickly as possible and wake the nightingale up.
'Epops enters his coppice through the central door on the stage.
Parodos 209-351
Invocation 209-266 'Epops' serenade awakening Procne, the nightingale
'Epops: Come, my companion, stop dozing; cause the notes of sacred hymns to spring from your divine throat; lament over |our son, unfortunate Itys, with harmonious twittering coming from your nimble beak. Your pure voice rises through the briars crowned with foliage, to the throne of Zeus where the golden-haired Phoebus responds to your elegies with the sound of his ivory lyre and presides over the dances of the gods; and from their immortal mouths springs the plaintive concert of blessed divinities.
[The sound of an aulos (flute) is heard coming from inside the coppice imitating a nightingale]
Peisetaerus: O Zeus, sovereign of the heavens, what a charming voice for such a small bird! The sweetness of honey is spread over the entire copse!
Euelpides: Hello !
Peisetaerus: Silence! What is it that you want?
Euelpides: Why ?
Peisetaerus: The hoopoe is beginning to sing some new song.
227 - 262 The hoopoe then summons in turn all the land birds from the open fields and gardens, the birds of the mountains, then those of the marshes and meadows, followed by the sea-birds, all to assemble at his coppice.
'Epops (in his coppice): Epopopopopopopopopopoi! Yo, Yo! Come, come, come, come, come hither, O my winged companions with coloured plumage like my own; ye who graze in the fertile furrows of the ploughmen, innumerable tribes of barley grain eaters, families of seed-gatherers. Come with rapid flight and melodious throat; ye who, in the ploughed fields, chirp, around the soil, listen to this song in a light voice: "Tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio;" and ye too, who in the gardens, under the leaves of the ivy, make your accents heard; and ye who, on the mountains, peck the wild olives and wild strawberries, hasten to fly towards my songs. Threesome, threesome, totobrix! - And ye again who, in the marshy valleys, devour the bugs with shrill voice, ye who inhabit the dew-wet lands and the pleasant meadows of the Marathon river: the francolin with plumage iridescent with a thousand colours, and you, a troop of halcyons flying on the swollen waves of the sea, come and hear the news. Here we bring together all the tribes of the long-necked birds. A clever old man has come amongst us with new ideas and new enterprise. Everyone come to this assembly, here, here, here, here. -- Torotorotorotorotix. Kikkabau, Kikkabau. Torotorotorotorolililix.
263 - 266
Peisetaerus: Do you see any birds coming?
Euelpides: Not one, and yet here I am gaping at the sky.
Peisetaerus: It seems hardly worth it. The hoopoe seems to have gone brooding in his coppice like a plover.
The Parodos of the Bird Chorus 267-351
[The four elaborately dressed dancing birds begin to make their entrance into the orchestra]
Enter a Phoenicopteros (Flamingo)
Phoenicopteros: Torotix, torotix.
Peisetaerus: O My Gosh! Nevertheless there is a bird there which is really coming this time.
Euelpides: Really a bird. by Zeus? What kind of bird can it be? Not a peacock, I suppose?
Peisetaerus: (pointing at 'Epops who is now back on stage.) This bird is going to tell us exactly what it is. (To 'Epops) What kind of bird is that?
'Epops: It's not one of those ordinary birds that you would see every day. It is a kind of marsh bird.
Euelpides: Damn, he's handsome and red like a flame.
'Epops: Exactly, that is why it is also called a flamingo.
Euelpides (to Peisetaerus): Hoi there, you!
Peisetaerus: What are you screaming about?
Euelpides: Another bird is coming.
Enter a Cock
Peisetaerus: Yes, by Zeus, another, indeed, “And who shall dwell in a foreign land”. Who could be this diviner of the Muses, this singular bird, climber of the mountains?
'Epops: His name is the Mede [from Media in Persia and descriptive of the costume it is wearing].
Euelpides: The Mede? by Lord Heracles! And how then, if he is a Mede, did he manage to fly here without a camel?
Enter a 2nd Hoopoe
Peisetaerus: Another bird sporting a crest.
Euelpides: What could this miracle be? (to 'Epops) So you're not the only hoopoe here, 'Epops, since here's another one?
'Epops: This one was born of Philocles'; I am his grandfather, as one might say Hipponicos son of Callias, and Callias son of Hipponicos.
Euelpides: So it has to be Callias, that bird. It is so like him to have lost his feathers!
Peisetaerus: It is that, being the son of a family, he is plucked by the sycophants", not to mention that the females which surround him also pluck his feathers.
Enter a Gobbler [a fat pompous and greedy bird like a turkey]
Euelpides: By Poseidon! Another bird with a lively complexion has arrived here. What is this one called?
'Epops: This one is named the Gobbler.
Euelpides: So there is another glutton than just Cleonymos?
Peisetaerus: How is it that being like Cleonymos he has not cast his crest away?
Euelpides: But, let's see, what purpose does this crest that these birds have serve? Is it because they have to run like the devil?
'Epops: It is more for the reason like the Carians who live on the crests of clifftops for their safety.
Peisetaerus: Ah! Poseidon! Can you not you see it? What a distressing flock of birds is coming!
Euelpides: Lord Apollo, what a swarm! O My Gosh their outstretched wings no longer allow the entrance to the coppice to be seen.
Peisetaerus: Here is a partridge coming.
Euelpides: Here, by Zeus, is a francolin.
Peisetaerus: Here, a teal.
Euelpides: And there, a halcyon.
Epops: Look what is following behind Lady halcyon?
Euelpides: Her hair-dresser? Birds don't have hairdessers.
Peisetaerus: Isn't our Sporgilos ("Sparrow") a hairdresser?
Epops: And this next one is an owl.
Euelpides: What are you saying? Who brought an owl [the silver tetradrachm] to Athens?
Epops: Now a magpie, a dove, a lark, a reed-warbler, a wheatear, a pigeon, a griffon, a hawk, a ring dove, a cuckoo, a redshank, a firecrest, a moorhen, a kestrel, a grebe, a songbird, a vulture, and a woodpecker.
Peisetaerus: Wow all the birds! Look at all their peckers! Look at how they are squawking and running around Wait! they seem to be threatening us? O my, they've certainly got their beaks wide open, and they seem to be staring at you and me!
Euelpides: I think so too!
Chorus Leader: Whe-whe-whe-whe-whe-whe-where's the one who summoned us? What perch is he to be found on?
'Epops: Here I am; I have been here for a long time. I do not abandon my friends.
The Chorus-Leader: Tell me using friendly words what you have to say to me.
'Epops: A matter of general interest, safe, fair, pleasant and useful. Two men of fine genius came here to find me.
The Chorus-Leader: Where? How? What are you telling me?
'Epops: I say that from amongst the humans these two old men came here, bringing with them the idea "for a massive plan"
The Chorus-Leader: I say you have perpetrated the greatest treason that has ever been committed since I was a young chick. What do you have to say about this?
EPOPS. Don't be frightened by my words yet.
The Chorus-Leader: What did you say to me?
EPOPS. I welcomed two men in love with our way of life into our community.
The Chorus-Leader: And you have committed this act?
Epops: Yes, I have done this and I rejoice.
The Chorus-Leader: So they may already be amongst us?
Epops: If that is so then I have to say I myself am also here.
The Chorus: Alas! Alas! we have been cheated and betrayed. We are victims of impiety. We have suffered shame and wrong. Our friend and comrade, he who in the same plains sought his food and sustenance amongst us, has violated the ancient laws of the birds, has broken every custom of our clan. He has lured us unawares into a trap and handed us over to an impious race which, ever since it existed, has been at war with us.
The Chorus-Leader: But this one, we will settle our account with him later. As for these two old men, I am of the opinion that they should be punished and torn to pieces by us.
Peisetaerus: So we are lost.
Euelpides: Yet it is you who are the cause of these our misfortune, you alone. Why did you bring me here too?
Peisetaerus: To have you with me.
Euelpides: Say rather to make me cry all my tears.
Peisetaerus: For once you're rambling, absolutely: how will you cry once your eyes have popped out of your head?
The Chorus: Yo! yo! Forward, attack, deliver upon the enemy a murderous assault. Spread your wings all around and surround them. They must both groan and serve our beaks as food. There is neither shady mountain, nor celestial cloud, nor a white sea of foam to conceal them from our pursuit.
The Chorus-Leader: Come on, let's not wait any longer to tear them up and bite them. Where is our taxiarch? Let him advance with our forces on the right flank.
Battle Scene 352-434
Euelpides: For now, here we are. Where to flee, us unfortunate we?
Peisetaerus: Hey, would you stay?
Euelpides: To be torn to pieces by them?
Peisetaerus: So how do you think you can escape them?
Euelpides: I do not know how.
Peisetaerus: Well, I'm telling you, me, you have to stay and fight. So take up a pot from over there.
Euelpides: What use will a pot be to us?
Peisetaerus: The owl will not attack us [Athenians] I want to suggest.
Euelpides: But what about these birds of prey with their hooked talons?
Peisetaerus: Grab the roasting spit and plant it in the ground in front of you like a spear.
Euelpides: And my eyes?
Peisetaerus: Take up a saucer from in there [in the baggage] to cover them or use a plate.
Euelpides: O clever man! the happy idea you had there, and so worthy of a strategist [general]! Yes, you suddenly outdo Nicias and all his military science.
Nicias - Wikipedia
Strategos - Wikipedia
The Chorus-Leader: Alala [Greek cry of war]! Forward, beaks raised; more behind! Shoot, tear, strike, skin. But first shatter the pot.
'Epops (interposing): Ah, why are you, the worst of all beasts, wanting to kill them without their having done anything to you, You want to tear to pieces two men who are related to my wife and even come from the same tribe as hers?
The Chorus-Leader: We will spare them maybe more than we might do for wolves, but from which others more odious than these could we take revenge?
'Epops: And if, enemies from birth, they are friends. They have only come here to teach us something useful.
The Chorus-Leader: How can these people ever teach us or tell us anything useful, being the enemies of our ancestors?
'Epops: But precisely that, from enemies the wise learn many things. Prudence, indeed, in everything is a safeguard. But it is not with a friend that we learn to use it, an enemy first forces us to do so. Thus cities have risen up because of enemies, not friends. It is they who have taught them to build high walls and to possess long ships. And this teaching safeguards children, homes and goods.
The Chorus-Leader: We can always hear their reasons first, it seems to us, it is useful, because even from our enemies there is something good to learn.
Peisetaerus: (To Euelpides.) Their anger has subsided, or so it seems. Retreat slowly backwards step by step.
'Epops: Yes, it is right and you must be grateful to me for it.
The Chorus-Leader: Moreover, we can always say that we have never opposed any of your plans.
Peisetaerus: Their disposition now seems to be more peaceful. So put down the pot and the spear you have in your hand, I mean the roasting spit, and let's take a walk and skirt around the battle zone and observe the approaches to it. You don't have to run away.
Euelpides: But, tell me, if we really come to die, where will we be buried?
Peisetaerus: The Keramicos cemetry will receive us, because to be buried at state expense we will first have to tell the generals that we died fighting against the enemy at Orneae.
The Chorus-Leader (to the Chorus): Get back in line, in your places, and lay down your anger like hoplites. Let's ask them who they are, where they have come from and for what purpose. Hey, 'Epops, I'm calling you.
Transition Scene 435- 450
'Epops (to two servants): You two take off all this armour from these two men and hang it in the hearth beside the tripod. (To Peisetaerus) Now you tell them why I summoned them, explain to them your scheme. Instruct them.
Peisetaerus: No, by Apollo, I will not; unless they make an concord with me not to bite me, or pull me by my purses, or search me.
Euelpides: Not probably this? [making a rude gesture]
Peisetaerus: No way. No, these are the eyes I mean.
The Chorus-Leader: We agree to this.
Peisetaerus: Swear to me then.
The Chorus-Leader: We swear to these conditions that all judges and spectators in the theatre, that they award us the prize, unanimously.
Peisetaerus: This is understood.
The Chorus-Leader: And if I break my word, that we win by just one vote.
'Epops: Listen, good people, let the hoplites [chorus of birds] now pick up their weapons and go home, and let them wait there for what we will publish on the notice boards.
Agon 451-638The Chorus Leader: Come on, explain whatever plan has brought you to us. We want you to share your idea with us. Tell it to us with confidence, because the truce we have made with you be sure that we won’t be the first to transgress it.
Peisetaerus: I am eager to begin, by Zeus. I have a speech watered down in advance, and nothing prevents me from kneading my dough thoroughly. Boy, bring me a wreathe to put on my head and water to wash my hands with!
Euelpides: Are we going to dinner? Or what mean you?
Peisetaerus: No dinner, by Zeus, but for a long time I've been wanting to make a speech to them, using strong and portly words to batter their spirit. (To the Chorus) So much do I suffer for you, ye who once were sovereigns… .
The Chorus Leader: We were sovereigns? of what?
Peisetaerus: Yes, you were once sovereigns over all that exists, of me first, (pointing at Euelpides) and also of this one; and of Zeus himself, for you are older and have a more remote origin than Kronos, the Titans and even the Earth itself.
The Chorus-Leader: And the Earth?
Peisetaerus: Yes, by Apollo.
The Chorus-Leader: That, by Zeus, is what we did not know.
Peisetaerus: It is because you are ignorant and not curious, and did not consult Aesop, who related it was the lark who was born first in a line of all the birds, before the Earth; then that her father died from an illness; and as the Earth did yet not exist, his corpse remained exposed for five days and she, embarrassed, found nothing better way than to bury her father in her head.
Euelpides:. This means that the lark's father now lies in Cephales.
Peisetaerus: Well then, if they were born before the earth and before the gods, being more old, does not therefore the sceptre belong to them by right of primogeniture?
Euelpides: Yes, by Apollo. I advise you to eat some nourishing food to make you a perfectly strong and healthy beak from now on: Zeus will not be in a hurry to give back his sceptre to the woodpecker pecking at an oak tree.
Peisetaerus: That it was not the gods who once commanded and reigned over men, but the birds, there is plenty of proof of this. Right away and first of all I will cite the cockerel, which was a tyrant and ruling over the Persians above all, even before Darius and Megabazus were heard of, so much so that it is called the bird of Persia because of this ancient sovereignty.
Euelpides: It is therefore for this reason that even now, like the great King, he takes long strides, and on his head, alone of all the birds he bears his tiara erect.
Peisetaerus: He was then so strong, so great, so influential that even today, by an effect of his former power, as soon as he sings at dawn, all jump to their feet from their slumbers to get to work: blacksmiths, tanners, shoemakers, men who work in the baths, bakers, the makers of lyres and shields. Others in the evening immediately put on their shoes, when it is was still dark set off.
Euelpides: You have to ask me this. I unfortunately, lost a Phrygian woollen coat because of him. I had been invited one day to attend the banquet on the tenth day after the birth of a small child. I had drunk a little too much in town and had just fallen asleep when, before the other idiots had sat down to dinner, that cockerel crowed. I, thinking it was dawn, set off for Halimus. No sooner than I had ventured outside the walls when a robber struck me with a club on my back. I'm falling, I wanted to scream, but he had already taken off with my coat
Peisetaerus: Then a kite once commanded and was king of Hellas..
The Chorus-Leader: Hellas?
Peisetaerus: Yes. He even taught them the first, being king, whenever they saw a kite to lay down on the ground and roll in front of it..And to this very day whenever I see a kite I am knocked down and then wallow on my back,
Euelpides: Yes, by Dionysus. So I rolled myself with my mouth open, I swallowed an obol; then I came home dragging my empty bag.
Peisetaerus: In Egypt, on the other hand, and throughout all Phoenicia, a masterful cuckoo was king; and when the cuckoo said "cuckoo", then all the Phoenicians went to the fields to harvest the. wheat and barley.
Euelpides: So in truth that is what is meant by the command “penises out and march up country”.
Peisetaerus: They commanded so well that as masters that if someone else was king in the cities of the Greeks, an Agamemnon or Menelaus, on his sceptre was perched [carved] a bird which shared in the presents they received.
Euelpides: This, really, I did not know. And certainly I was taken with astonishment each time, in the tragedies, a Priam entered the scene with a bird. I understand why this one stood there watching Lysicrates to see what presents he was receiving.
Peisetaerus: But the strongest proof is that Zeus, who reigns today, stands there with an eagle on his head, as symbol of his kingship; his daughter [Athena] has an owl, and Apollo, being a servant, has a falcon.
The Chorus-Leader: By Demeter, that is well said. But why do they have all these birds?
Peisetaerus: So that in the sacrifices, when the entrails of the victims are put into their hands, according to ancient custom, the birds get to eat the entrails before Zeus. And
no one in those days swore by the gods, but always by the birds.
Euelpides: Lampon [the soothsayer] today still swears by the goose when he is about to cheat you.
Peisetaerus: This is how all of you once were looked upon as great and holy. Now you are treated like slaves, fools, manes, and just like at lunatics stones are thrown at you. And at the temples there is no bird-catcher who does not set nooses, nets, slimy twigs, traps primed with to catch you. Once you are caught they will sell youin the market, and buyers will feel you. Again, since it pleases them to do so, they are not content to serve you up roasted, but sprinkle grated cheese, oil, silphium, vinegar on you; then, having whipped up another sweet and creamy sauce. This they pour all over you boiling, like as if you were dead meat..
The Chorus: Ah! how much, oh how painful are the words you have uttered, human! That we deplore the cowardice of our fathers, to whom these honours had been transmitted by their ancestors and who let them be lost to our detriment! But you, thanks to a divinity and a happy conjuncture, you have come to us like a saviour. For it is after having entrusted our little ones and ourselves to you that we will fix our dwellings.
The Chorus-Leader: Tell us what should be done? Let us know, since you're here. Consider that life is priceless for us, if we do not recover our royalty by any means.
Peisetaerus: Well then, in my opinion, first there should be a single city of birds, then that in the whole of the air around it and all the intervening space that it should be surrounded by walls of large baked bricks, just like those at Babylon.
‘Epops: O Cebriones! O Porphyrion! [Giants defeated by Aphrodite and the second is also the name of a bird] what a formidable stronghold!
Peisetaerus: And once this wall is erected, we claim the empire from Zeus: If he says no, if he doesn't want to, if he doesn't immediately reconsider his decision, let us declare a holy war on him.Let the gods be forbidden to pass through your domain with their penises erect, as they did before when they descended to copulate in adultery with an Alcmene, an Alope, or a Semele. If they do come here, let a seal be affixed to their member, so that they can no longer make love to these women. As for the men, I urge you to send them another bird as a herald, so that they may, now that the birds are kings, and from henceforth they are to make their sacrifices to the birds, and only afterwards to the gods. One will add, according to convenience, to each of the gods that a bird is paired to him or her. Se if we sacrifice to Aphrodite? Let barley grains be offered to the bird of Phalaris; when we immolate a sheep to Poseidon it is to the duck that grains of wheat will be devoted; if it is to Heracles that one sacrifices, the seagull will receive some honey cakes; if finally if to Zeus a ram has been sacrificed, the wren, who is the king bird, even before Zeus, then we must cut the throat of a midge with testicles.
Euelpides: I really like the idea of this kind of gnat being slaughtered. Now let it thunder, Great Zan.
‘Epops: And how will men take us for gods, and not for jackdaws, when we who fly and have wings?
Peisetaerus: Don’t be so facetious, by Zeus. Hermes also flies, being a god, and has wings, like many other gods. Nike flies with golden wings, and by Zeus so does Eros too. And Iris does, which Homer described as resembling a trembling dove.
Euelpides: And Zeus, with a clap of thunder, will he not hurl his winged thunderbolts at us?
The Chorus-Leader: If, however, through ignorance, they reckon us to be nothing and only recognize as gods those of Olympus?
Peisetaerus: Then a swarm of sparrows must rise up to peck at the seeds in their fields. After that, let Demeter fill their quota of corn, if she dare. And after which if they are still starving and entreat her to do so.
Euelpides: She will not, by Zeus; with her you make a thousand excuses not to do so.
Peisetaerus: Let the crows on the other hand to the teams of oxen that plough the earth and to their sheep, go and pluck out their eyes proving that the birds are now the new masters and potentates now. And then let Apollo, since he is a healer, cure them. But then they must pay him for that.
Euelpides: No, not until I sold my pair of steers.
Peisetaerus: But when they see in you that you are a god in your life, and in you the Earth, and in you Cronos, and in you Poseidon, all goods will be at your disposal.
The Chorus-Leader: Name me just one of these goods.
Peisetaerus: First the buds of the vines, locusts will not come to devour them. A single company of owls and kestrels will suffice to destroy these insects. Then the mites and gallflies will not always be devouring their fig trees, a single troop of thrushes will suffice to clean up these pests.
The Chorus-Leader: And how shall provide the people with wealth? where shall we obtain it from?
Peisetaerus: When they consult the birds, these will show to them where mines of a good report are to be found, just as the demagogues do in Athens, promising so much and distributing fine words instead of flour. even that they will reveal to the diviner the lucrative profits, so that not a single shipowner will perish.
The Chorus-Leader: How will he not perish?
Peisetaerus: There will always be a bird to warn whoever consults a diviner on navigation: "Do not sail now, there will be a storm" or "Sail now, the profit is ensured".
Euelpides: I’ll get a boat and become a shipowner. I don't want to stay with you anymore.
Peisetaerus: And they will be shown where buried treasures full of silver coins are to be found. For they know them; for it is commonly said: "Nobody knows where my treasure is, except, no doubt, some bird."
Euelpides: I sell the boat, get myself a pickaxe and dig up the pots.
The Chorus-Leader: And health how will the birds give it to them, when she who provides it dwells amongst the gods?
Peisetaerus: If they're wealthy, then that is sufficient to guarantee they’re healthy.
Euelpides: But simply tell yourself that no man, if his business is bad, can enjoy good health.
The Chorus-Leader: But how can they ever reach old age? For she too lives in Olympus. Or
must they die like little children?
Peisetaerus: No, by Zeus, three hundred years additional life will be given to them by the birds.
The Chorus-Leader: Taken from whom?
Peisetaerus: By themselves. Don't you know that the five ages of man outlives the cawing crow?
Euelpides: A plague on it! Much better than Zeus are the birds to rule over us.
Peisetaerus: It is much better, isn't it? First we don't have to build them temples of marble with gold doors; it is under the bushes and clumps of oaks that they will live. As for the august birds, an olive tree will be their temple. And we will not have to go to Delphi nor to Ammon to sacrifice there, but among the strawberry trees and the wild olive trees, standing' with grains of barley and wheat, we will pray them, raising their hands, to give us our share of goods, and that our wishes at this very moment will be granted, for a few grains of wheat that we would have thrown away..
The Chorus-Leader: O you who have become the dearest of old men to us after having been so odious to us. Never again will I be able knowingly to deviate from your advice.
The Chorus: We are exalted by your words, we make this threat and I swear that if, after having pledged yourself to me with cordial words, as a just, loyal and pious man, you walk against the gods, in heart with me, the the gods will no longer carry the sceptre that belongs to us.
The Chorus-Leader: Well, anything that requires strength and action, we'll take care of it; everything that calls for thought and deliberation, it is upon you alone that all that rests.
Chorus; A deceitful being, always and in any way, such is Man's nature, Nevertheless you must speak to us. Perhaps you will happen to reveal some quality you notice in us or some way to increase our power, in a way that escapes our unwise minds. What you see, you will say it for the common good. For the good that you will find yourself having procured for us will be common to all of us.
Transition Scene or Episode 2 638-675
'Epops: No, by Zeus! this is no longer the time for us to slumber, nor to temporize like Nicias; but we must act as soon as possible. And first enter my nest, on my straw, on these dry leaves, and tell me your name.
Peisetaerus: It's easy. My name is Peisetaerus.
'Epops: And him ?
Euelpides: Euelpides, from the deme of Crios.
'Epops: Good luck to both of you!
Peisetaerus: We accept augury.
'Epops: Come on in.
Peisetaerus: Let's go. Be our guide.
'Epops: Follow me.
Peisetaerus: Hey ! Hey ! Friend! quickly please retrace your steps. Let's see. Let's see, tell us a little. How shall I and my companion live amongst you the winged folk, being both wingless?
'Epops: Easy.
Peisetaerus: Now see how in the Aesop's Fables it is said that a fox once imprudently made company with an eagle.
'Epops: Do not be afraid. You will eat of a certain root that will give you both wings.
Peisetaerus: So let's go in. (To their two slaves) Here, Xanthias and you, Manodoros, take our luggage.
The Chorus of Birds: Whoa, you! I call you, I call you!
'Epops: Why are you calling me ?
The Chorus of Birds: Take these people for a good dinner with you; but the nightingale with sweet songs, whose voice equals that of the Muses, leave it here near us, leaving us, so that we may be charmed by it.
Peisetaerus: Oh ! by Zeus! give in to their wishes. Bring out the lovely bird from behind the umbel rushes.
Euelpides: Bring her out, in the name of the gods, so we can see the songbird.
'Epops: Since it pleases you so, I must do it. Go out, Procnè, and show yourself to our guests.
[Procnè appears]
Peisetaerus: O revered Zeus, what a pretty little winged person! What delicacy, what brilliance!
Euelpides: You do know that I would cuddle her with pleasure?
Peisetaerus: What a rich golden adornment! She looks like a virgin.
Euelpides: I would be in the mood to give her kisses.
Peisetaerus: But, my poor boy, she has a beak two prongs long.
Euelpides: Well, by Zeus! all you have to do is remove the scale that covers her head, and then give her good kisses.
'Epops: Let's move on.
Peisetaerus: Guide us, and onto Good Fortune!
Parabasis I 676-800
Chorus of Birds:
O beloved, O charming, O the most beloved of all the winged people, companion of our songs, is the nightingale, nourished with evil, you came, you came, we see you, you bring us your sweet song. Come on, ye who modulate on the harmonious aulos of spring accents, prelude to our anapaests.
[The sound of an aulos is heard.]
Let us see, humans, blind by nature, beings who like leaves, are creatures of nothing, moulded out of mud, are like shadows, unintelligent, wingless, ephemeral, unfortunate mortals, whom one would take for dreams, lend the ear to us, who are immortal, lasting forever, airy, free from old age, occupied with imperishable thoughts. When you have learned perfectly from us the phenomena from above, the nature of the birds, the genesis of the gods and of the rivers, of Erebus and of Chaos, your perfect science will enable you to bid farewell on our behalf to Prodicus for the rest.
Chaos, Night, black Erebus and vast Tartarus existed in the beginning: there was no earth, no air, no sky. In the infinite breast of Erebus, the black-winged Night first gives birth to a germless egg, from which, after revolutions of years, was born the graceful Eros with the shining back of two golden wings, similar to the whirlwinds rolled by the wind. Eros, united with the winged and tenebrous Chaos, in vast Tartarus, engendered our race, and brought them first to light. Thus, originally, the race of immortals did not yet exist, before Eros united everything. The elements once united with each other, appeared the Sky, the Ocean, the Earth and the blessed gods, eternal race. This is how we are the oldest of all the blessed: that we are sons of Eros, a thousand proofs attest it. We have wings and we are with those who love. Many handsome boys, who had sworn to the contrary, in the decline of their youth, tested our power, and lent themselves to lovers who offered one a quail, another a Porphyrion, this one is a goose, that there is a Persian bird. The mortals, it is from us, birds, that they receive the greatest services. First we tell them of the seasons: Spring, Winter, Autumn, when to sow, when the crane, sounding its trumpet, emigrates towards Libya and warns the driver to suspend the helm and sleep; she advises Orestes to weave himself a cloak, so that he does not go, because he is shivering, to rob others. The kite, in its turn, by its coming, announces another season, that is to say the moment of shearing the spring fleece of the sheep; then the swallow, when it is necessary to sell the coat and buy a linen garment. We are for you Ammon, Delphi, Dodona, Phoebus Apollo. You begin by going to the birds to settle all things, trade, food, choice of a husband; you regard as a bird all that is used for divination: a word is for you a bird; a sneeze, you call it a bird; a meeting, bird; a voice, bird; a slave, bird; a donkey, bird. Is it not obvious that for you we are a prophetic Apollo?
If therefore you believe us to be gods, you can use us as prophetic Muses, breezes, seasons, winter, summer, average heat: we will not sit up there majestically, in the middle of the clouds, like Zeus; but, present, we will give to yourselves, to your children and to your children's children, wealth, happiness, health, peace, youth, laughter, choruses of dances, feasts, and the milk of the birds: so that you you will be crushed under wealth, so rich will you all be. Bocage muse - tio tio tio tio tio tio tiotinx - with varied accords, you with whom, me, in the woods or on the mountain peaks, - tio, tio, tio, tiatinx, - sitting under an ash tree with leafy hair, - tio, tio, tio, tiotinx, - from my flexible throat I draw religious songs in honor of Pan, mingled with dances consecrated to the Mother who reigns over the mountains, - ta to to to to to ta to totinx, - and there, Phrynichos, like a bee, gathers the fruit of his songs perfumed with ambrosia and does not cease to bring their sweet accents, - tio tio tio tiotinx.
If any of you, spectators, wish to lead a pleasant life with the birds from now on, let him come to us. Indeed, what is here shameful or prohibited by law, all this is beautiful among us birds. If the law proclaims it shameful here to beat one's father, it is fine among us, here, to run up to one's father and strike him, saying: "Raise your spurs, if you fight." If there is a fugitive slave branded with a hot iron among you, we will call him a francolin with variegated feathers. If there be a Phrygian among you, such as Spintharos, here it will be a Phrygilos of the race of Philemon. If he is a slave of Caria like Exekestides, let him choose among us his ancestors, and we will see colleagues appear. If the son of Pisias wants to deliver the gates to the infamous, let him become a partridge, his father's birdie: among us there is no shame in fleeing like a partridge.
This is how the swans - tio tio tio tio tio tio tiotinx - mingle their voices together and beat their wings to sing Apollo, - tio tio tio tiotinx, - resting on the bank of the Hebre, - tio tio tio tiotinx; -their voices crossed the ethereal clouds: astonishment seized the various tribes of wild beasts; the waves calm under a breezeless serenity, - totototototototototinx; - all Olympus resounds with it; surprise seizes the sovereign deities; daughters of Olympus, the Charites and the Muses repeat the melody, -- tio tio tio tiotinx.
Nothing is better or more pleasant than having wings. First of all, if any one of you in the audience, our spectators, had wings, and he felt he was tormented by hunger in front of the tragic choruses, he would only have to fly home, dine there, and having satiated himself, fly back to us. If any amongst you, any Patroclides felt in a hurry of need to go, he doesn't need to soil his coat, but he could fly off, and then, after farting and catching his breath, he could resume his flight. If there was a lover amongst us, and he saw that his mistress's husband was sitting on the bench of advisers, he could leave, spreading his wings, and after copulating with the woman could then fly back returning to his place here as if nothing had happened. So isn't having wings one of the most precious things? And, in act, Diitrephes, who only had the wings of a basket-maker, was elected phylarch, then hipparch: coming out from nothing rose up very high, and today he is an hippalectryon with yellow feathers.
Iambic Syzygy 801-902
Pisthetairos and Euelpides return on stage. They are now wearing wings.
Peisetaerus: There you go! Euelpides: By Zeus, for me, I never saw anything more laughable.
Peisetaerus: What are you laughing at?
Euelpides: At your swift wings. Do you know what you look like the most with your wings?
Peisetaerus:. Yes, and you too, you look like a cheap painted goose.
Euelpides: And you look like a blackbird shorn into the shape of a vase...
Peisetaerus: We are making comparisons here which, according to Aeschylus, do not come from others, but from our own pens [feathers].
The Chorus-Leader: Now, what should be done?
Peisetaerus: First we must give the city a name, a great and glorious name, then make a sacrifice to the gods.
Euelpides: I agree with this.
The Chorus-Leader: Let's see, what will her name be, our city?
Peisetaerus: Do you want a important name like the Lacedaemonian city which we call Sparta?
Euelpides: Heracles'! I wouldn’t want to burden our city with the name of Sparta. I wouldn’t even use esparto twine for my rustic bedstead,
Peisetaerus: Then what name shall we give it?
Euelpides: Let us draw a name from the clouds and from the upper regions of the air, some very grandiose name.
Peisetaerus: What do you think of "City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds" [or CloudCuckooLand or Νεφελοκοκκυγία]?
The Chorus-Leader: O what a beautiful name indeed and a great one you have found there!
Euelpides: Is this "City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds" where most of Theogenes' wealth and all that of Aischines is to be found?
Peisetaerus: Rather say the best part of it, the plain of Phlegra [Halkidiki, where the battle between the gods and giants took place], where the gods by their dress boasted they had defeated the sons of the Earth?
The Chorus-Leader: A gleaming city, which god shall be guardian of its citadel? For whom shall we weave the peplos?
Euelpides: Why don't we leave this matter to Athena?
Peisetaerus: And how could a well-ordered city be established where a goddess stands fully armed in armour, and lets Cleisthenes stand only with a spindle?
The Chorus-Leader: Who will occupy the Acropolis’ Pelargic wall?
Peisetaerus: A bird.
The Chorus-Leader: From our homeland? What breed?
Peisetaerus: Of the Persian race, which passes through everything that is very terrible, a chick of Ares.
Euelpides: O master chick!
Peisetaerus: Because that god is well made to live on rocks! Now into the air with you and lend your counsel to the builders: bring rubble, after undressing mix the mortar, carry the hod with it up the ladder and then fall off; post sentries; keep the fire going; and with bell in hand make your round and bed down there. Send heralds: one to the gods above and the other to Mankind below; and after that come back here to me.
Euelpides: And yet can remain here? May you go to the dogs!
Peisetaerus: Go, my good friend, to where I have sent you. Because nothing I say will happen without you. I am going to sacrifice to the new gods and summon a priest who is to lead the procession.
[Euelpides exits.]
Peisetaerus: Boys [the two slaves], bring the basket and the lustral water
Enter Xanthias and Manodorus with the necessaries for the sacrifice and a Piper costumed as a raven.
Priest Scene 859-894
The Chorus: We applaud you; we concur with you. We ask that long and solemn processional hymns be addressed to the gods, and, moreover, to win us over to their favour, some lamb be sacrificed. Up with a Pythian cry - rise rise rise - and let Chaeris play his pipe as we sing.
Peisetaerus (to the Piper disguised as a raven): Hey you, stop blowing it. (Looking at him and laughing out loud.) Great Heracles! What is this? Here, by Zeus, is a sight that I, who have seen many wonders, have never ever seen before, a raven which has been muzzled by a phorbeia!
[Enter a Priest and a Follower leading a goat]
Peisetaerus (To the Priest who has just arrived): Priest, do your duty; sacrifice to the new gods.
The Priest: I will do it, but where is the boy with the basket? Pray to the avian Hestia [the goddess of sacrifices], Peisetaerus: O Hawk of Sunion, all hail, Lord of the Sea.
The Priest: And to the Swan of Pytho and of Delos, to Leto Quail Mother, Artemis Curlew.
Peisetaerus (aside): Note the invocation is no longer for Artemis Kolainis, but for Artemis Curlew..
The Priest: And the Pigeon Sabazios, and the Great Ostrich Mother of gods and men.
Peisetaerus: To Lady Cybele, the Ostrich and Mother of Cleocritus!
The Priest: We beg you to grant the inhabitants of this City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds health and salvation, as well as to the Chians.
Peisetaerus (aside): To the Chians? It’s peculiar how they get invoked just everywhere.
The Priest: To the avian heroes and the descendants of avian heroes;
To the porphyrion rails;
To the white pelicans and the grey pelicans,
To the sea eagles and the vultures;
To the peacocks and the sedgewarblers;
To the teals and to the skuas;
To the herons and to the gannets;
To the black tits and to the blue tits. ...
Peisetaerus (to the Priest): Stop! enough of crows! enough invocations! You wretch, to what sacred feast do you invite sea eagles and vultures! Can't you see that a single kite would be enough to carry off the whole of the sacrificial victim? Leave us, you and your garlands and go away. I will undertaken the ritual all by myself. Alone!
[The Priest exits and a slave brings the lustral bowl to Peisetaerus]
Chorus 895-902[Whilst Peisetaerus is washing his hands in the holy water the Chorus chant the following short ode]
The Chorus: Once more the lustral bowl has been brought so then we must once again proclaim a second chant and holy song, and invoke the blessed ones, but only one of them and no more; for if you want to have enough food to eat, as the present victim of the sacrifice has been reduced to nothing but a small beard and a pair of horns.
Epeisodic Scenes 903-1057 [Scenes with Unwanted Visitors Group I
[persons wanting to emigrate to the new City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds]
Poet Scene 903-957
Peisetaerus: Let us pray, as we offer this victim to our avian gods!
The Poet (advancing and singing): It is Cuckoos in the Clouds, O Muse, the happy city that you must now celebrate in your hymns and odes.
Peisetaerus: Where does this thing come from? Tell me, who the devil are you?
The Poet: Me? I am a warbler of sweet odes, the honey-tongued and eager servant of the Muses.
Peisetaerus: If you are a slave, how is it that you have long hair?
The Poet: No, all we who teach choral odes are the eager and poor slaves of the Muses, quoting Homer.
Peisetaerus: I suppose that is why your robe is so mean. But what ill wind has blown you here?
The Poet: No, but all of us poets are The Muses' eager servants, according to Homer.
Peisetaerus: Undoubtedly it also "served" well the cloth that you wear. But, O poet, what brings you here for your loss?
The Poet: I have composed for your Cuckoos in the Clouds a number of beautiful dithyrambic songs, and parthenaeums and odes in the style of Simonides.
Peisetaerus: All this? So when did you compose them? How long ago?
The Poet: I have been celebrating this city for a long, long time now.
Peisetaerus: But then haven't I just right now made the tenth day sacrifice to give the City a name as if it were a child?
The Poet: The words of the Muses are swift, like the twinkling of horses’ hooves in a horse race. But O father of mine, founder of Etna, you whose name evokes the sacred altar-flames, give me, whatever it is, one of your gifts that your benevolence willingly chooses..
Peisetaerus (aside): This pest will cause us trouble if we don't give him something to escape from it. (To the Priest’s follower) Hey you! You have a fur coat and a tunic. Take the fur coat off and give it to the clever fellow. (To the Poet) Take it and leave! You seem to be cold.
[Exit The Poet]
Oracle-Monger Scene 958-991
[Peisetaerus resumes the ritual for the sacrifice of a goat.]
[Enter an Oracle-Monger (one who sells rituals for sacrifices)].
Peisetaerus: Silence during the ritual!
Oracle-Monger: Don't kill the goat!
Peisetaerus: Who the Hades are you?
Oracle-Monger: A seller of ritual oracles.
Peisetaerus: Go to Hell!
Oracle-Monger: Don't speak so rudely of religion. I have an oracle which has come straight from Bakis himself [Bakis was the stock name for all prophets, possibly named after an ancient Boeotian prophet], and which he has composed specially for CloudCuckooLand.
Peisetaerus: How come you didn't send me this before I founded this City [polis].
Oracle-Monger: For religious scruples reasons.
Peisetaerus: Well then let's hear the verses.
The Oracle-Monger unravels a scroll.
Oracle-Monger [chanting]: Should ever a time arise when wolves and crows set up a homeland together between Corinth and Sicyon.
Peisetaerus: What the Hell has Corinth to do with us?
Oracle-Monger: Bakis means the Air. [Continuing the chant]: First sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora. If a prophet should appear give him a fine cloak and new pair of sandals.
Peisetaerus: New sandals as well?
The Oracle-Monger shows Peisetaerus the scroll.
Oracle-Monger [continuing the chant]: Give him a goblet of wine and a bowl filled with the entrails of the goat.
Peisetaerus: Entrails too? Is it so written?
The Oracle-Monger [reading the scroll]: If you do as I command, you will be as a divine youth, you shall be as an eagle amongst the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor eagle, nor woodpecker.
Peisetaerus: Is all that there?
Oracle-Monger: Read it for yourself
Peisetaerus: This oracle in no 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."
Oracle-Monger: You are drivelling.
Peisetaerus: And don't spare him, even if he were he an eagle from out of the clouds, even it were Lampon himself or the great Diopithes.
Oracle-Monger: Is all that there?
Peisetaerus: Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.
Oracle-Monger: Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.
Peisetaerus: Be off with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.
Scene with Meton 993-1020
Enter Meton bringing with him his land surveying and measuring instruments.
Meton: I have come amongst you.
Peisetaerus: Another annoying person! What are you doing here ? What is your intention? the purpose of your trip? You walk just like a wearer of cothurns [a tragic actor].
Meton: I want to measure the air and share it out with you in the streets.
Peisetaerus: In the name of the gods, what man are you?
Meton: Who I am? I am Meton, well-known thoughout Greece and especially in Colonus.
Peisetaerus: Tell me, what do you have with you?
Meton: Instruments to measure the air. Know, indeed, first of all, that the whole air is absolutely like a dome over an oven. Using this curved ruler, measuring downwards from above, and adjusting the compass to it..., in other words, squaring the circle. You are understanding me? Aren't you?
Peisetaerus: Not a thing.
Meton: I apply a straight rule, so that you have a tetragonal circle; in the centre is the Agora, the streets leading to it are straight and converge on the market in the centre, just like a star, which is round in its nature, but which radiates straight rays which shine in all directions
Peisetaerus: This man is another Thales... Meton you say?
Meton: What is it ?
Peisetaerus: You do realise just how much I admire you? But if you want to believe me, turn back.
Meton: What danger is there?
Peisetaerus: The same as you would find in Sparta, xenelasia [expulsion of all foreigners]; it is raining there with many blows throughout the city.
Meton: Are you in rebellion?
Peisetaerus: No, by Zeus!
Meton: How then ?
Peisetaerus: We have passed a unanimous resolution to do away with all charlatans.
Meton: I'll slip away then.
Peisetaerus: I'm not sure if you're not already too late: the storm is approaching: it's here.
Meton: Woe is me!
Peisetaerus: Didn't I already tell you this a long time ago? Go and take your measurements elsewhere!
Commissioner/Inspector Scene 1021-1033
Enter an Inspector carrying a pair of voting urns [It seems he may have come to set up some kind of democracy in this new kingdom]. He is dressed in finery.
Inspector: Where are the Proxeni [consuls]?
Peisetaerus: Who is this Sardanapalus [a king of Assyria]?
Inspector: I have been appointed by lot to come to CloudCuckooLand as Inspector.
Peisetaerus: By whose authority have you sent here, you rapscallion?
Inspector: By a decree proposed by Teleas [An influential politician in Athens].
Peisetaerus: Will you just take some remuneration and go back home?
Inspector: I will. I wanted to stay behind for some assembly business. I was an agent working on some small jobs for Pharnakes.
Peisetaerus: Well then take your pay [striking the Inspector] and go home!
Inspector: What?
Peisetaerus: Go set up an assembly for Pharnakes!
Exit the Inspector
Peisetaerus: It is beyond belief! They send us inspectors even before the sacrifice has been completed.
Statute/Decree Seller Scene 1034-1057
[A Merchant of Decrees enters and introduces himself]
Merchant of Decrees (reading a scroll): "And if an inhabitant of the City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds does a wrong to an Athenian..."
Peisetaerus: What else will this scroll scourge us with?
The Merchant of Decrees: I am a merchant of decrees and have come here to sell new laws to you.
Peisetaerus: You say?
The Merchant of Decrees (reading from his scroll): “The City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds will use the same weights and measures, and decrees that the Ototyxiens use”.
Peisetaerus: And you? Are you going to use those of the Ototyxiens right now? (Peisetaerus threatens The Merchant of Decrees)
The Merchant of Decrees: Hey! What is the matter with you?
Peisetaerus: Be off together with your laws! I will show you some harsh ones today (Peisetaerus beats The Merchant of Decrees who runs away.)
(The Inspector returns on stage)
The Inspector: I hereby summon Peisetaerus to appear before the magistrates during the month of Mounichion for committing assault.
Peisetaerus: For what? You! So you are still here?
[Mounichion was the following month, April, when trials involving foreigners were usually judged. The play itself was being performed in the month of Elaphebolion, in March, ].
[Treaties and decrees concerning foreign countries were published on stelae, for example, the treatise of Nicias].
(The Merchant of Decrees returns on stage)
The Merchant of Decrees (reading from his scroll): "And if someone drives the magistrates out and does not receive them according to the commandment published on the stele..."
Peisetaerus: O misery me! You too are still here? (He chases him away.)
The Inspector: You will lose your case to me and I will claim ten thousand drachmas from you.
Peisetaerus: And I will pick up your urns and smash them to pieces.
The Inspector: You do remember your having pissed on the stele one evening?
Peisetaerus:- Let us seize him. (The Inspector flees) Ah? so you're not staying? (To his own entourage) Let us all now leave this place as soon as possible and return inside to sacrifice the goat to the gods.
(They all leave the stage through the central door taking with them the perquisites and instruments of sacrifice.)
Parabasis II 1058-1117
The Chorus: From now on it is to us who are omnipotent and all-seeing and who govern everything, to whom all mortals will make their sacrifice, addressing us with their wishes and prayers. For the whole earth presents itself to our sight; we preserve and enlarge the fruits by destroying the beasts of all kinds which on the ground and in the trees devour with their teeth voraciously feeding on any fruit sprouting from the buds. We will kill all those who in the balmy gardens bring devastation and odious ravages: creepy-crawlers and rats, all as long as they are under our wings. So will they perish, massacred.
The Chorus-Leader: From this day forward and henceforth we proclaim: "Whoever of you who kills Diagoras the Melian will receive a talent, whoever kills one of the dead tyrants will receive a talent”. We therefore also want to publish this decree: "Whoever of you who kills Philocrates the Sparrow will receive one talent, whoever brings him in alive will have four, seeing that he threads the finches and sells them seven for an obol, that it blows up thrushes, spreads them and injures them; that he thrusts their feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds; and that in the same way he catches pigeons and keeps them locked up forcing them to serve as decoys, all tied up in a net." This is what we want to proclaim and if any of you raise birds locked up in your yard, we invite you to release them. If you refuse to obey, you will be seized by the birds and it will be your turn to serve as decoys.
The Chorus: Happy are the winged race of birds! In winter they don't wrap themselves in cloaks, nor in summer does the stifling heat and the rays of the sun shining in the distance burn us. But amongst the flowery meadows and in the folds of foliage we have our dwellings, where the divine crickets make their shrill song heard by the noon heat, and maddened by the sun, and cries. We spend the winter in hollow dens frolicking with the mountain nymphs. In spring we eat the virgin berries of white myrtle and the fruits of the garden of the Graces.
Iambic Syzygy 1118-1266
[Messenger Scene reporting of the completion of the defensive walls of the polis of CloudCuckooLand 1118-1169]
Peisetaerus: Well friends we have succeeded in performing the sacrifice and the omens are good, but we have received no news regarding the city's walls, whether they have been completed. But wait, there is a messenger coming.
[First Messenger enters running]
First Messenger: Where is Archon Peisetaerus?
Peisetaerus: Right here!
First Messenger: Sir, the walls to the city have been completed.
Peisetaerus: That is good news.
First Messenger: It is a work of the greatest beauty and the most magnificent, so much so that along the parapets two chariots each ridden by Proxenides and Theogenes and each harnessed to their horses as large as the wooden horse of Troy could cross paths, so wide is it.Peisetaerus: By Great Herakles!
First Messenger: And as for the height of the wall, for I have personally measured it, it is one hundred fathoms high.
Peisetaerus: Who or what could have built such a high wall?
First Messenger: The Birds of course!
Peisetaerus: How?
First Messenger: There were neither foreigners, nor Egyptian bricklayers, nor masons, nor a charioteer, but they all by themselves did everything, and I was amazed. Yes, from Libya' came some thirty thousand cranes, which had swallowed some stones for the foundations, stones which the stone curlews and stone chatters carved with their beaks. Others made bricks, storks to the number of ten thousand. Water was brought from below into the air by plovers and other river birds.
Peisetaerus: But, who served the masons with mortar? Who did they get to carry it?
First Messenger: By herons, in hods.
Peisetaerus: But this mortar, how did they put it in these?
First Messenger: That, my good lord, was a clever devising of theirs. Geese, sank their feet into the mortar and trampled it with their flat feet, and, when all was ready, and then used them as shovels to put it into the hods.
Peisetaerus: I have to confess that was done well.
Peisetaerus: Well then, there was no point in hiring foreigners to do the work, mere folly and waste, when we've have all the skills amongst our own selves. Well now, tell me! Who did the woodwork?
Who were the carpenters? Answer me that!
First Messenger: Well it was the woodpeckers, of course: and there they were all working hard on the gates, driving and banging, with their hard beaks, and making such a din. They made such a clatter hammering and hacking, and battering away like shipwrights hard at work in a shipyard. Now all their work is complete gates and all, staples and bolts, and bars and everything. Sentries have now been placed at their posts and patrols have been organised. There are watchmen in the barbican and the beacons are ready prepared to be lit, and all of their signals are arranged. As for me I am now off to have a bath. You can settle any other matter.
Exit First Messenger
Guard as Messenger Scene and Scene with Iris, the Rainbow goddess 1170-1270
[Iris has been sent by Zeus to spy on the Birds]
Chorus: Do you marvel that the fortifications have been completed at such speed?
Peisetaerus: I do. They are wondrous, but, in truth, they seem to me to be more like a work of fiction. But wait there is another messenger hurrying towards us.
Enter a Second Messenger.
Peisetaerus: Well, what's the matter?
Second Messenger: One of the gods from Zeus' realm has just flown through the gates into the air. Our day scouts, the jays guarding the fortifications did not see this happening.
Peisetaerus: Which god?
Second Messenger: We know not. All we know is that it had wings,
Peisetaerus: Your duty was then to launch some birds to track it.
Second Messenger: We did; thirty thousand hawks were launched to chase after it, all with their talons poised wide open: falcons and buzzards, vultures, nightjars, eagles all into the air they went to hunt the god down.
Exit Second Messenger
Peisetaerus: Ought we not to have tried to bring this god down using slings or bows and arrows? Someone give me a sling.
Xanthias fetch Peisetaerus a slings with some stones
Chorus: War is imminent, war between us and the gods of Olympus. Everyone stand guard lest one slips behind us unseen.
Chorus-Leader: All be strictly on guard with eyes wide open.
[Iris, the rainbow goddess appears flying across the skene above everyone's heads on the mechane.]
Peisetaerus: Hey Madame, where are you flying? Stop still and halt! Who are you? From whence have you come?
Iris: From the gods of Olympus I hail.
Peisetaerus: What is your name? Paralus or Salaminia?
Iris: Iris the swift.
Peisetaerus: One of you cockerels fly up and grab her.
Iris: What is the meaning of this?
Peisetaerus: You're going to be very sorry.
Iris: This is quite extraordinary!
Peisetaerus: Which gate did you fly through?
Iris: I have no idea which gate I flew through.
Peisetaerus: Listen how she prevaricates. Did you appear before the jays? Answer this? Did you obtain passport from the storks?
Iris: What's all this rubbish about?
Peisetaerus: So you didn't obtain any kind of permission to come here?
Iris: Are you mad?
Peisetaerus: So no one stuck a label on you? And you think that you can just fly secretly through a foreign city which is not yours?
Iris: Where else are gods supposed to fly?
Peisetaerus: I have no idea, but not through here. You have broken our laws. You are guilty. You should have been arrested and put to death.
Iris: But I am immortal.
Peisetaerus: In spite of that you should have been executed. Listen, if you gods continue to behave like this, taking every kind of licence and failing to obey your superiors ... Tell me right now where you were flying to?
Iris: I was directed by my father, Zeus, to bid Men to make sacrifices to the gods on their hearths, to slaughter sheep on their altars and to fill the air with savoury aromas.
Peisetaerus: What are you saying? Make offering to which gods?
Iris: To us Olympian gods, of course!
Peisetaerus: Are you then gods?
Iris: Are there any others?
Peisetaerus: Birds are now the new gods for mankind. It is to them men must now make their sacrifices, and not, by Zeus, to Zeus.
Iris: Fools, do not incite anger in the hearts of the gods, lest in Justice Zeus with his spade utterly wipe out your entire race, and torch your body and domes reducing them to cinders with Likymnian thunderbolts.
Peisetaerus: Stop your blabbing and listen. Do you think it is a Lydian or Phrygian you are trying to scare with talk like that. Don't you realise that if Zeus annoys me anymore I shall send flame-throwing eagles to burn down his palace and send against him more than six hundred porphyrion birds clad in leopard skins. Remember there was a time when one Porphyrion bird caused him some trouble. And if you, the serving girl, annoys me any longer, and returns to give us any further trouble, I will spread your legs and give you three good rammings. You'll be surprised just how long an old goat like me can stay erect.
Iris: May Perdition seize you. Cease your vile language.
Peisetaerus: Buzz off and leave us be.
Iris: I sear that my sire will come to put an end to your insolence.
Peisetaerus: Fly off somewhere else and reduce some other youngster to cinders.
[Iris flies off on the mechane]
The Chorus: We have banned the child gods of Zeus. Henceforth it is forbidden for them to pass
through our city, and also any mortal on earth, to send the slightest smoke of a sacrifice through here to the gods.
Peisetaerus: It's very strange that this herald who I sent amongst the mortals down there has not returned. It was as if he was never going to come back?
Herald who has been sent to Men Scene 1267 - 1335
[Enter a Herald running, holding a golden crown]
The Herald : O Peisetaerus, O blessed one, O most wise, O most glorious one O most wise, O most gracious O thrice happy, pray call silence for what I have to say.
Peisetaerus: What do you have to say?
The Herald: This golden crown, is given to you in consideration of your wisdom. All the people offer it to you and give it to you in tribute.
Peisetaerus: I accept. But why do the people want to pay me homage in this way?
The Herald: O you who founded such a glorious aerial city, you do not know in what esteem you are held amongst men and how many people you have in love with this country. Before you founded this city, they were all possessed by Laconomania; they wore long hair, Until this city was establish'd by you they fasted. They went around dirty like Socrates, and carried clubs.Today, by a contrary return, they have a mania for birds, their pleasure is to do everything like the birds and to imitate them exactly: first of all, in the morning, they all fly away from the nest together, like us, to seek their...food,
then together they swoop down on the...signs and feast on decrees. Their mania for birds is
so obvious that many of them have been given names after birds: partridge is the name of a
lame innkeeper; Menippus is called swallow; Opountius, the one-eyed raven; Philocles, the lark;
Theogenes the sheldrake; Lycurgus, ibis; Cherephon, the bat; Syracosios, the jay; and Meidias is called quail and you know he had received a blow on the head by a large stick. For the love of the birds, they all sing melodies in which they introduce some swallow, or a wild duck, or a goose, or a dove, or simply wings or just a bit of feathers. This is the situation down below on earth. But let me tell you one thing: more than ten thousand of them will be on their way up here wanting wings and the way of life as a hawk. So you are going to have to find an awful lot of wings for them.
Exit The Herald
Peisetaerus: We have no time to stand around here idle. (To Xanthias) Go and fill the baskets with as many wings as you can find. (To Manodorus) And you bring the wings quickly out here and place them before me. I'll meet with the visitors when they arrive.
Peisetaerus: (To Manodorus who brought out a second basket of wings.) How slow you are serving! Faster; and hurry up! (Peisetaerus strikes him and Manodorus exits).
The Chorus: You must first arrange these wings in an order. The musical ones must go together, and the prophetic ones, and the marine ones. Be shrewd when you decide which pair of wings suits when sizing up the visitors,
Peisetaerus: Which laws? We have so many in this city of the birds.
THE PARRICIDE. All. But what suits me above all is that it is considered beautiful among birds to strangle their father and bite him.
Peisetaerus: Yes, by Zeus, and we regard 1350 as quite manly he who, still a chick, struck
his father".
The Parricide: That's why I emigrated here: I want to strangle my father, in order to have all his property.
Peisetaerus: But among us birds there is an ancient law inscribed on the tablets of the storks. When the father stork has taught all his brood of young storks to fly by feeding them, the little ones then in turn must feed the father stork.
The Parricide: A fine profit, by Zeus, I have made by coming here, if I still have to support my father.
Peisetaerus:No you won't. Since, my friend, you came here with good intentions, I will give you the wings of an orphan bird. And I will give you, young man, a word of advice which is not bad and which I myself received when I was a child. Do not beat your father. But take up this wing with one hand (he offers him a shield), and this spur (he gives him a sword) with the other; think you have in this (he puts a helmet on his head) a cockscomb; Stand guard, be a soldier, live off your pay and let your father live. Come, since you are now ready for battle. Now fly off to the land of Thrace and fight there.
The Parricide: By Dionysus, you seem to me to be right. I will obey you.
(The Parricide exits)
Peisetaerus: And you will do wisely, by Zeus.
Iambic Scenes and Lyric interludes 1371-1493
(The dithyrambic poet Kinesias enters)
Kinesias (singing): On my light wings; I rise flying towards Olympus I fly in turn by the various paths Of melodies...
Peisetaerus (aside): That thing needs a whole load of wings.
Kinesias: Fearless in mind and body, I follow a new way...
Peisetaerus: We greet thee peg-legged Kinesias. What are you doing here pirouetting on your stumped feet?
Kinesias: I want to become a bird, a melodious nightingale.
Peisetaerus: Stop singing and tell me what you have to say.
Kinesias: I want to be provided with wings by you, I want in a sublime flight to take to the clouds new preludes and be tossed about by the air and battered by the snow.
Peisetaerus: So it is to the skies that we must now take preludes?
Kinesias: Better yet, that's what our art depends on. What shines in the dithyrambs is all that is airy and dark, with reflections in the shades and moved by wings. Listen and you will see.
Peisetaerus: I would rather not.
Kinesias: Indeed you must, by Heracles. For I will describe to you the whole empire of air. (He sings) Winged forms, Traversing the ethereal regions, Long-necked birds...
Peisetaerus: Oh hop!
Kinesias:
Leaping in my wandering course
May I be carried by the breath of the winds...
Peisetaerus: By Zeus, I will put an end to your breath. (Using some wings Peisetaerus wants to shut him up.)
Kinesias (Escaping from him): Sometimes going towards Notos, Sometimes approaching Boreas.Tracing a furrow in the ether without port! The lovely game, old man, that you invented! How ingenious!
Peisetaerus: (The pursuer with the wings.) Aren't you happy to be "moved by wings"?
Kinesias: And this is how you treated a cyclical poet whom the tribes always fight over?
Peisetaerus: Will you stay amongst us and give instruction at Leotrophidas' expense to a chorus of flying birds, a Cecropis tribe?
Kinesias: You're making fun of me, that's for sure. But I won't rest, and know this well, until I have received wings to cross the sky.
As Kinesias exits a Sycophant enters from the other parodos.
Scene with The Sycophant 1410 - 1469
The Sycophant (to Peisetaerus who is now costumed in swallow's wings): What are these fast swallows with empty purses and with long variegated feathers?
Peisetaerus: (Still concerned about Kinesias.) It is a scourge, and not a small one, that has arisen there. (Seeing The Sycophant.) Here is another one who approaches, freaking.
The Sycophant: “With long, variegated wings” I repeat.
Peisetaerus: It's for a coat that he sings this song, or so it seems to me; I think I need quite a few swallows.
The Sycophant: Who here is the one who distributes wings to newcomers?
Peisetaerus: It's me over here. Come on speak, what do you need?
The Sycophant: Wings, I need wings. Don't ask me twice.
Peisetaerus: Do you by any chance think of flying straight to Pellene?
The Sycophant: - No, by Zeus. I am summoner for the islands; I am a sycophant, an informer
Peisetaerus: What a jolly business you have!
The Sycophant: I find people for trials. I need wings so that I can make my trips to the islands as fast as possible when I am assigned to a case.
Peisetaerus: With wings will you summon them more skilfully, I presume?
The Sycophant: No, by Zeus. But it's so that I avoid the pirates, and can come back from there with the cranes, after having swallowed up a number of lawsuits as ballast.
Peisetaerus: So that's the job you're doing? Tell me, young as you are, do you make a living by denouncing foreigners?
The Sycophant: So what other job must I pursue? I never learnt how to dig.
Peisetaerus: But by Zeus, there are many other honest jobs, by which a man of your age can earn his living, in a fairer way than by dragging people to court.
The Sycophant: Come now, don't lecture me. Just give me wings!
Peisetaerus: I wing you by talking to you
The Sycophant: And how can you, with words, give a man wings?
Peisetaerus: All, thanks to the words, rise on wings.
The Sycophant: All?
Peisetaerus: Haven't you heard fathers daily talking about their young son in the barbershops like this: "It's amazing how the words of Diitrephes have given my son wings when riding his chariot", “Mine," says another, "uses wings in tragedy." when they say "his spirit took flight”.
The Sycophant: So even lyrics can give one wings?
Peisetaerus: I can affirm it. Through them thought rises up and man is exalted. This is how, after having given you wings, I want, by wise counsel, to turn you towards a more legitimate occupation.
The Sycophant: But I do not want to give up this job.
Peisetaerus: So what will you do?
The Sycophant: I will not disgrace my blood. The profession of sycophancy runs in my family. Come on, just grant me swift and light wings, like those of a falcon or a kestrel so that I may serve writs on strangers, and then accuse them here, and then fly back there again.
Peisetaerus: I understand; so when they come, they'll find the case already decided and the payment ordered.
The Sycophant: Now you understand everything.
Peisetaerus: So while they sail here, you'll be flying off back there and seizing their possessions for payment.
The Sycophant: You know everything. I must be no different from a spinning top.
Peisetaerus: I understand the spinning top. I have here, by Zeus, very beautiful wings of Corcyra just like those you desire.
The Sycophant: Misery me! It's a whip you hold!
Peisetaerus: Rather a pair of wings rather,with which I want to set you spining round and round today.
(Peisetaerus beats The Sycophant with the whip)
The Sycophant: Ow! Unhappy me!
Peisetaerus: Do you want to fly from here with wings? Do you want to scamper off, damned fellow? You will see right now just how much it costs a rascal to pervert justice. I just drive him away spinning him with a whip. (To his slaves) For us, let's pick up the wings and leave.
The Sycophant exits. The Slaves remove the baskets of wings. Peisetaerus and the Slaves exit inside.
Iambic Syzygy 1470-1705
1470-1493 The Cleonymus-Tree Stasimon delivered by the Chorus
The Chorus: We have been flying over sea and land, spying upon many wondrous things strange and new. We came across a tree of monstrous girth, tall and stout, yet worth nothing, for it was completely rotten to the core through and through: it had no heart, and we heard that it was called the "Cleonymus-tree". In Spring it bloomed gigantically, lying that it would produce a harvest of figs ever so sycophantically. But in Autumn it yielded nothing but a fall of shields. Next to it was a spot skirted by darkness, a spot which was deserted by every form of light. Lone and gloomy, there we caught sight of the human and divine, men with heroes mixing with one another and dining freely. Except at eventide it is not safe for mortal men to meet with heroes at that time then for the great Orestes, looming vast and awful in the gloom, might deliver upon them a stroke on their right hand side, leaving them crippled, stripped, and shivering.
Enter Prometheus
Prometheus: Oh what a fix! Zeus mustn't see me! Where's Peisetaerus?
Enter Prometheus, carrying a potty.
Peisetaerus: Yipes, what is this? Why are you muffled?
Prometheus: Do you see any of the gods back there following me?
Peisetaerus: I certainly can't see any. But who are you?
Prometheus: Then what's the time of day?
Peisetaerus: The time? A little after midday. But who are you?
Prometheus: Quitting time, or later?
Peisetaerus: Damn it, I'm getting sick of this!
Prometheus: And what's Zeus doing? Is he clearing the clouds away, or gathering them?
Enter Prometheus
Prometheus: O dear! O dear! Pray to the heavens that Zeus doesn't see me! Where's Peisetaerus?
Enter Peisetaerus
Peisetaerus: What's this enwrapment? Why, whatever is here?
Prometheus: Did you see you any god following behind me there?
Peisetaerus: Not I, by Zeus. But who are you?
Prometheus: And what time of day is it?
Peisetaerus: The time of day? A little after noon. (Shouting) But who the dickins are you?
Prometheus: Disgusting idiot! Ox-loosing time, or later?
Prometheus: What's Zeus up to now? Are the clouds gathering or are they dispersing?
Peisetaerus: Out on you, stupid!
Prometheus: Now then, I'll unwrap.
Peisetaerus: My dear Prometheus!
PR. PEI. Why what's up now?
Prometheus: Hush! don't speak like that. Don't shout out my name so loudly. It would be my ruin, if Zeus were to see me down here. But now I'll tell you everything that's going on up there in the heavens, if you'll just take my parasol, and hold it over me, so that no god may spot me.
Peisetaerus: Ha! Ha! How crafty! Thought out Prometheus-like all over. Get under it then; hurry and speak out freely.
Prometheus: Then listen.
Peisetaerus: I'm listening, never fear.
Prometheus: All's up with Zeus!
Peisetaerus: Since when?
Prometheus: Since from when you first erected your city here in the sky. For never since that time has any mortal human being sent any burnt offerings up to the gods above, nor has any savoury aroma ascended to the heavens from the flesh of slain victims. So now we fast like women during the Feast of Thesmophoria with no altars burning. And the gods of the Barbarians who are half-starved and gibbering like Illyrians are vowing that they will descend marching upon Zeus unless he gets the whole business re-opened and the savoury aromas of cooked innards is restarted once again.
Peisetaerus: What? Are there really yet other gods for the Barbarians up there above you?
Prometheus: For the Barbarians? Why yes! There is the great ancestral god of Execestides [Solon's father].
Peisetaerus: What are the names of these gods of the Barbarians?
Prometheus: Their names? The Triballians.
Peisetaerus: I see, that's why we think the gods send tribulations,
Prometheus: Exactly so! But let me warn you now. You're about to find that envoys are going to be sent to seek peace, from Zeus himself and also from the Triballians. But you mustn't make any kind of treaty until Zeus actually gives back his sceptre of power to all the birds, and gives you the princess Basileia, too, to be your wife.
Peisetaerus: What's this princess like?
Prometheus: A beauteous nubile maiden who looks after Zeus' thunderbolts and everything else he gives away as gifts - intelligence, good government, moderation, shipyards, verbal-abuse, the colacretes [state fiscal judges], and all his three-obols.
Peisetairos: She looks after all these for him?
Prometheus: She does. So if he gives you her, you'll have the lot. That's why I came down here, to let you know all about this. By the way I've always been a good friend to mankind.
Peisetairus: That's right! It's because of you we cook our food!
Prometheus: I loathe all the other gods. You must have heard about that.
Peisetairus: By Zeus, that's true! You always hated the gods. You're quite a Timon [a legendary misanthrope]! Well I must be off.
Prometheus: I'll take the parasol: that way, if Zeus sees me, He'll think I'm in a basket-carriers' train.
Peisetairus: If that's your role, you had better take this stool!
[Peisetairus gives Prometheus a stool, with which he leaves, while Peisetairus himself goes back into the stage building (his palace)]
The Socrates Psychagôgei Stasimon 1555-1564
The Odyssey (Butler ) p.173 - Wikisource Homer Odyssey Book xi. 35-51
Chorus: Next we saw an appalling sight, Socrates psychagôgei, unwashed, was summoning [dead] spirits from the swamp below. ('Twas on that enchanted ground where the shadow-feet are to be found [monopods - mythological dwarf-like creatures with a single, large foot extending from a leg centred in the middle of their bodies so-called because they use this one foot to shade themselves from the sun]). There Peisander (the coward) came to know if the spirit (soul) cowards lacking Socrates could conjure back then a camel-lamb that he slew, like Odysseus, but withdrew, whilst the camel's blood was pounced upon by the vampire bat, Chaerephon [Friend of Socrates].
The embassy of Poseidon,
Heracles, and Triballus the god of a barbarian tribe 1565-1693
Enter Poseidon, Heracles and Triballus
Poseidon: Here we are; we have arrived in the City of Cuckoos amongst the Clouds. It is now here beneath our eyes, the goal of our embassy. (To Triballus who has put his cloak on the wrong way round) Hey! you, what are you doing? Is this how you robe yourself on your left hand side? You need to hang your cloak like this, on your right hand side. What? Are you unhappy about this? Are you made like Lespodias? O democracy, where will you take us, if such a one has been chosen by the gods! Keep quiet and stop your moaning? Woe to you! You are the most barbaric god I have ever seen. (To Heracles). Let's see, what are we going to do now, Heracles?
Heracles: I have already told you; I want to strangle the man, whoever he is, who has blockaded the gods by means of these walls.
Poseidon: But, my good fellow, we have been chosen as ambassadors to make a treaty with them.
Heracles: I'm still more determined as ever to throttle him.
Peisetaerus (exiting his palace via the central door, followed by slaves who are carrying various kitchen utensils and a table on which are birds have been prepared ready to be cooked): Give me the grater. Bring me some silphium. Now pass me the cheese. Keep the embers alight.
Poseidon: Man, we salute you, all three of us who are gods..
Peisetaerus: I am grinding the silphium [an ancient form of seasoning].
Heracles: And these meats, what are they?
Peisetaerus: The Democratic Party of Birds, tried for rising up against the Popular Party for Birds, found guilty and sentenced to death.
Heracles: Do you sprinkle them with silphium first?
Peisetaerus: Hello Heracles! What is it ?
Poseidon: We have come as a deputation from the gods to end the war.
Slave (interrupting): There is no more oil left in the vial.
Heracles:. And yet it is important that bird flesh is smooth and shimmering.
Poseidon: Because, by waging war, we have nothing to gain; and you, if you had the gods as friends, you would have rainwater in your ponds and an endless flow of year-round halcyon days. On all these matters we come fully empowered to come to an agreement..
Peisetaerus: But not only is it not us who first started the war against you, but even today we consent, if you see fit, provided that you finally want to act equitably, to make peace. Our pretensions are these: that the sceptre of power comes to us as ours, is restored to us by Zeus. If we reconcile on this basis, I invite the ambassadors to lunch with me.
Heracles: Me, that's enough for me and I vote for the agreement.
Poseidon (to Heracles): What, are you unhappy? How foolish and greedy you are. Would you rob your father of his kingship?
Peisetaerus: Let's go! Won't you gods be more powerful if the birds rule under the heavens? Today, under the clouds that hide them, mortals skulk and do not keep their oaths to you. But if you have birds for allies, when a man has sworn by a raven and by Zeus, the raven, will approach stealthily any perjurer, and will pounce on him, pecking one of his eyes out.
Poseidon: By Poseidon, I grant you my pledge which I say to you in good faith.
Heracles: And mine also.
Peisetaerus (to Triballus): And you, what do you say?
Triballus: Nabaisatreu!
Heracles: Don’t you see? He also agrees.
Peisetaerus: Listen there is another service we can render you. If a man, after vowing to make a sacrifice to some god, seeks to avoid paying for it by saying "the gods can wait" and refuses to pay, out of base greed, it is still we who will force him to comply.
Poseidon: How?
Peisetaerus: One day when this man has counted out whatever little money he has and while he is quietly taking his bath, a kite, will descend and secretly deprive him of the value of two ewes and take it back to the god concerned.
Heracles: Give them back the sceptre, that's my vote.
Peisetaerus: And Triballus, ask him.
Heracles: (threatening Triballus with his club) Triballus, do you want to shout out “Ow!” ?
Triballus (in a barbaric accent and all the words mixed up in a different order) but meaning “Please don't hit me with your club”.
Heracles: He says I speak quite well.
Poseidon: Well, if that's your opinion, it's also mine (To Peisetaerus) Hey you! We accept your terms as far as the sceptre is concerned.
Peisetaerus: (Striking his forehead.) By Zeus, there another matter I remember. Zeus can keep Hera, but princess Basileia [Sovereignty] must be given to me in marriage.
Poseidon: You don't want peace. (To his fellow gods)Let's go back. (He begins to make an exit)
Peisetaerus: I don't care. (To his servants) Cook the sauce making it rich..
Heracles: Hey, you devil, Poseidon, where do think you are going? Are we going to war over one woman?
Poseidon (pausing in his exit): What then must we do?
Heracles: What to do? Conclude peace of course!.
Poseidon: Ah! you make me pity! Can't you see that he has fooled you for a long time? You are harming yourself, you see. Because if Zeus dies after giving them sovereignty, you will be a pauper, for it is to you that Zeus will leave all of his property when he dies.
Peisetaerus: Ah you wretch, can’t you see how your uncle has tricked you with sophisms! Come here, aside, let me tell you something. Your has duped you, poor fellow. Of the paternal goods, not one atom will come to you for according to the law you are a bastard, and not a legitimate son.
Heracles: Me a bastard? What are you saying there?
Peisetaerus: Yes, certainly you are, by Zeus, since you was born to a foreign woman. How do you expect Athene ever to be an inheritor, being a girl, if she has legitimate brothers?
Heracles: And what if my dying father were to leave me all his property even though I am a bastard?
Peisetaerus: The law does not allow it. Poseidon here would first pickings. Yes, he who excites you now, to dispute your paternal property, alleging that he himself is his legitimate brother. Besides, I'm going to quote you Solon's law:
“A bastard has no right of close kinship when there are legitimate children. And if there are no legitimate children, it is to the closest relatives that any property devolves.”
Heracles: So nothing of my father’s goods will come to me?
Peisetaerus: Certainly not, by Zeus. Tell me, did your father ever introduce you to all the members of his phratry [his kinship group]?
Heracles: No, indeed, not me. And to tell the truth, I had been surprised by that for a long time.
Peisetaerus: Why yell at the sky punching it? Come, if you are with us, I will make you powerful, and will feed you every day on pigeon's milk.
Heracles: I’m convinced you are right about the girl, and for my part I will deliver her to you.
Peisetaerus (to Poseidon): And you, what do you say?
Poseidon: I vote against this.
Peisetaerus: Everything now depends on Triballus. (To Triballus) What do you say?
Triballus (in barbaric gobbledegook): Mea gulna charmi grati Sovaranau Birdito stori!
Heracles: He says deliver her up to you..
Poseidon: No, by Zeus, he says to deliver her, yes, but only if she is like the swallows that she cannot walk.
Peisetaerus: So he says to give her up to the swallows?.
Poseidon: You two now make peace and agree. For me, since it pleases you, I will shut up.
Heracles: (To Pisthetairos.) Whatever you demand, we agree to give you. Come on, come yourself with us to heaven to receive "Royalty" and all the rest.
Peisetaerus (showing the birds ready to be cooked): It is very fitting that they were butchered, these here, for the wedding.
Heracles: Do you want me to stay in the meantime here to cook this flesh? You guys go.
Poseidon: Do you cook the meats? You are very stupid to talk like that. Would you like to come with us?
Heracles: For sure, I would have treated myself well.
Peisetaerus (shouting through the central stage door): Come, someone in there fetch me a wedding robe and bring it out here.
[The slaves in attendance all enter Peisetaerus' palace. One slave comes back out with a wedding robe which he gives to Peisetaerus, and then goes back indoors]
[Peisetaerus, Poseidon, Heracles and Triballus all exit in the direction of the heavens]
Choral Stasimon 1694-1705
(Critical of the Sophist Gorgias and his son, Philip)
Gorgias - Wikipedia
An Athenian Clepsydra
Chorus: And there exists at Phanes [main port on the island of Chios] near the clepsydra, a bad race of swallowtails, who reap, sow and harvest with their tongues and who gather grapes and figs in heaps. They are foreigners by birth, Gorgias and Philip. It is from these belly-tongued Philippians whence came the custom, everywhere in Attica, of cutting out the tongues of the victims they slay.
[There was an established custom to cut out the tongue of the victims of sacrifices and to reserve it for Hermes, the god of eloquence]
Exodos 1706-1765
Enter a Messenger
Messenger: O you race of winged birds thrice happy and filled with blessings more than one can say, receive your king in his rich palace. He advances with such brilliance that never before has such a star shone under its roof with golden rays, nor even the Sun itself radiating in the far distance with pure rays had such splendour of its own. He approaches with his bride of unmatched beauty upon his arm, and he is brandishing (in his other hand) a winged thunderbolt of Zeus. A fragrance that cannot be described rises high up into the heavens, a very beautiful sight; and light breeze scatters the smoking spirals of incense. But here he is himself. Now let us listen to the heavenly Muse opening her lips with pure auspicious strains of the divine.
[Enter from above (on the mechané) Peisetaerus with a crown on his head and Basileia (Sovereignty)]
[Peisetaerus is holding in his right hand a thunderbolt, like a sceptre]
Chorus: Step back, step aside, pull over, make way. fly around the happy man of a happy fortune. What freshness! what beauty! O how happy a marriage for our city than yours!
The Chorus- Leader: Great, great prosperity now reigns amongst the birds because of this man. Come with songs of marriage and nuptial odes to welcome him and his bride, Basileia, back.
Chorus: To Hera who was once united to the Olympian, powerful master of the inaccessible throne, by the divine Moirai [goddesses of Destiny (or the Fates)], to the sound of such an ode of marriage was made. Hymen, O Hymen, and to the golden-winged Eros who steered the chariot holding its reins, as witness to the wedding of Zeus and happy Hera. Hymen, O Hymen!
Peisetaerus: Your odes are a delight to me. I delight in your chants. I admire your words. Extend your wings in happiness, take me by mine and dance with me. But also rouse your invention further, and raise it up higher. Describe for me the terrible engine of Zeus and the thunder of earth and the thunder above.
Chorus Leader: Come then, we must also celebrate Zeus' earth-shaking thunders and fiery lightnings, with his terrifying flaming thunderbolts.
Peisetaerus: Birds of the ocean and air all follow the wedding party; all you members of the winged-tribes and fellow songsters come in a troop to the wedding feast. Come revel, dance and sing and let me lead you thither.
Exeunt
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Matthew Amati. (2010). Meton’s Star-City: Geometry and Utopia in Aristophanes’ Birds. The Classical Journal, 105(3), 213–227.
https://doi.org/10.5184/classicalj.105.3.213
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5184/classicalj.105.3.213
Re-eroticizing the Hoopoe: Tereus in Aristophanes' Birds
D Holmes - Syllecta Classica, 2011 The Sycophant in Episodic Scenes of Aristophanic Comedy in: Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought Volume 34 Issue 2 (2017)
Vickers, M. (2021). CHAPTER 10 Pericles at Sparta: Aristophanes' Birds II. In Pericles on Stage: Political Comedy in Aristophanes' Early Plays (pp. 171-189). New York, USA:University of Texas Press.
https://books.google.com/books?uid=114990777646871210611
https://doi.org/10.7560/787278-013.
Moore-Psychagogia.pdf (Birds 1555)
Metousia Blog
metousia: Aristophanes Three - the Median Bird.
metousia: Aristophanes - The Hoopoe Serenade Part One
metousia: Aristophanes - The Hoopoe Serenade Part Two
Tereus (play by Sophocles) - Wikipedia
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Tereus - Wikisource
Apollodorus, Library, book 3, chapter 14, section 8 - Perseus Catalog
Greek Versions
Ἀριστοφανους Ὀρνιθες. The Birds of Aristophanes. From the text of Dindorf. ... - Google Books
Delphi Complete Works Of Aristophanes: English and Greek
Loeb Edition: Aristophanes II edited by B.B. Rogers
The Birds of Aristophanes - Internet Archive
Aristophanes: Birds. Lysistrata. Women at the Thesmophoria BB Rogers - 1998
Aristophane Tome III ed. Victor Coulon - Internet Archive Les Oiseaux, Lysistrata
The Birds of Aristophanes edited by C.C. Felton.
The birds. With introduction and notes by W.W. Merry : Aristophanes - Internet Archive.
Aristophanes: Birds - Aristophanes - Oxford Scholarly Editions
Translations
The Birds, by Aristophanes - Project Gutenberg
Aristophanes (Frere 1909)/Birds - Wikisource
The Birds translated by J.H. Frere
ToposText - Birds by Aristophanes
Serving twa maisters : five classic plays in Scots translation: The Burdies - Internet Archive
The Birds of Aristophanes - Google Books translated by B.H. Kennedy
Aristophane Tome III - Internet Archive
Aristophanes, Birds - Perseus
The Birds of Aristophanes - Google Books
Aristophane : Les oiseaux (traduction)
Aristophanes 1 : Clouds, Wasps, Birds : Aristophanes - Internet Archive
The Birds of Aristophanes translated by B.H. Kennedy
The Birds of Aristophanes by W.C. Green
Birds and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) : Aristophanes - Internet Archive
Aristophanes; tr. Alan H. Sommerstein (1987). Birds. Volume 6 of Comedies of Aristophanes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-85668-288-9.Delphi Complete Works Of Aristophanes: Birds
Aristophanes III LCL 179 - Internet Archive translated by Jeffrey Henderson
Aristophanes 1: Clouds, Wasps, Birds - Peter Meineck
Aristophanes - Birds: Edited by Eugene O'Neill Jr. - Perseus Digital Library
Dover Thrift Edition - Aristophanes Birds ISBN 9780486408866
The Knights; Peace; Wealth; The Birds ; The Assemblywomen [1986]
by Aristophanes; Translated by David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein
ISBN 0140443320 9780140443325
https://archive.org/details/knightspeacewea00aris/mode/1up
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