Lines 412–569

HOOPOE.
Love of you, Love of your
Life and ways Was the lure.
Here they fain Would remain
Comrades true All their days.

CHORUS.
Hey, hey, what do you say?
What is the tale they tell?

HOOPOE.
In brief,
’Tis something more than past belief.

CHORUS.
But wherefore is he come? What is it
He seeks to compass by his visit?
Think you he’s got some cunning plan
Whereby, allied with us, he can
Assist a friend, or harm a foe?
What brings him here, I’d like to know.

HOOPOE.
Too great, too great, for thought or words,
The bliss he promises the birds.
All things are yours, he says, whate’er
Exists in space, both here and there,
And to and fro, and everywhere.

CHORUS.
Mad a little, eh?

HOOPOE.
More sane than words can say.

CHORUS.
Wide awake?

HOOPOE.
Wide as day.
The subtlest cunningest fox,
All scheme, invention, craft; wit, wisdom, paradox.

CHORUS.
His speech, his speech, bid him begin it.
The things you show excite me so,
I’m fit to fly this very minute.

HOOPOE.
Now you and you, take back this panoply,
And hang it up, God bless it, out of sight
Within the kitchen there, beside the Jack.
But you (to Pei.) the things we summoned them to hear
Expound, declare.

PEISTHETAERUS.
By Apollo no, not I,
Unless they pledge me such a treaty-pledge
As that small jackanapes who makes the swords
Pledged with his wife, to wit that they’ll not bite me
Nor pull me about, nor scratch my—

CHORUS.
Fie, for shame!
Not this? no, no!

PEISTHETAERUS.
My eyes, I was going to say.

CHORUS.
I pledge it.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Swear!

CHORUS.
I swear on these conditions;
So may I win by every judge’s vote,
And the whole Theatre’s.

PEISTHETAERUS.
AND SO YOU SHALL.

CHORUS.
But if I’m false, then by one vote alone.

HOOPOE.
O yes! O yes! Hoplites, take up your arms
And march back homewards; there await the orders
We’re going to publish on the notice-boards.

CHORUS.
Full of wiles, full of guiles, at all times, in all ways,
Are the children of Men; still we’ll hear what he says.
Thou hast haply detected
Something good for the Birds which we never suspected;
Some power of achievement, too high
For my own shallow wit by itself to descry.
But if aught you espy,
Tell it out; for whate’er of advantage shall fall
To ourselves by your aid, shall be common to all.
So expound us the plan you have brought us, my man,
not doubting, it seems, of success.
And don’t be afraid, for the treaty we made
we won’t be the first to transgress.

PEISTHETAERUS.
I am hot to begin, and my spirit within
is fermenting the tale to declare,
And my dough I will knead, for there’s nought to
impede. Boy, bring me a wreath for my hair,
And a wash for my hands.

EUELPIDES.
Why, what mean these commands?
Is a dinner in near contemplation?

PEISTHETAERUS.
No dinner, I ween; ’tis a speech that I mean,
a stalwart and brawny oration,
Their spirit to batter, and shiver and shatter.
(To the Birds) So sorely I grieve for your lot
Who once in the prime and beginning of time
were Sovereigns—

CHORUS.
We Sovereigns! of what?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Of all that you see; of him and of me;
of Zeus up above on his throne;
A lineage older and nobler by far
than the Titans and Cronos ye own,
And than Earth.

CHORUS.
And than Earth!

PEISTHETAERUS.
By Apollo ’tis true.

CHORUS.
And I never had heard it before!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Because you’ve a blind uninquisitive mind,
unaccustomed on Aesop to pore.
The lark had her birth, so he says, before Earth;
then her father fell sick and he died.
She laid out his body with dutiful care,
but a grave she could nowhere provide;
For the Earth was not yet in existence; at last,
by urgent necessity led,
When the fifth day arrived, the poor creature contrived
to bury her sire in her head.

EUELPIDES.
So the sire of the lark, give me leave to remark,
on the crest of a headland lies dead.

PEISTHETAERUS.
If therefore, by birth, ye are older than Earth,
if before all the Gods ye existed,
By the right of the firstborn the sceptre is yours;
your claim cannot well be resisted.

EUELPIDES.
I advise you to nourish and strengthen your beak,
and to keep it in trim for a stroke.
Zeus won’t in a hurry the sceptre restore
to the woodpecker tapping the oak.

PEISTHETAERUS.
In times prehistoric ’tis easily proved,
by evidence weighty and ample,
That Birds, and not Gods, were the Rulers of men,
and the Lords of the world; for example,
Time was that the Persians were ruled by the Cock,
a King autocratic, alone;
The sceptre he wielded or ever the names
“Megabazus,” “Darius” were known;
And the “Persian” he still by the people is called
from the Empire that once was his own.

EUELPIDES.
And thus, to this hour, the symbol of power
on his head you can always detect:
Like the Sovereign of Persia, alone of the Birds,
he stalks with tiara erect.

PEISTHETAERUS.
So mighty and great was his former estate,
so ample he waxed and so strong,
That still the tradition is potent, and still,
when he sings in the morning his song,
At once from their sleep all mortals upleap,
the cobblers, the tanners, the bakers,
The potters, the bathmen, the smiths, and the shield-
and-the-musical-instrument-makers;
And some will at eve take their sandals and leave.

EUELPIDES.
I can answer for that, to my cost.
’Twas all through his crowing at eve that my cloak,
the softest of Phrygians, I lost.
I was asked to the Tenth-day feast of a child;
and I drank ere the feast was begun;
Then I take my repose; and anon the cock crows;
so thinking it daybreak I run
To return from the City to Halimus town;
but scarce I emerge from the wall,
When I get such a whack with a stick on my back
from a rascally thief, that I fall,
And he skims off my cloak from my shoulders or e’er
for assistance I’m able to bawl.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Then a Kite was the Sovereign of Hellas of old,
and ruled with an absolute sway.

CHORUS.
The Sovereign of Hellas!

PEISTHETAERUS.
And, taught by his rule,
we wallow on earth to this day
When a Kite we espy.

EUELPIDES.
By Bacchus, ’twas I
saw a Kite in the air; so I wallow
Then raising my eyne from my posture supine,
I give such a gulp that I swallow
O what but an obol I’ve got in my mouth,
and am forced to return empty-handed.

PEISTHETAERUS.
And the whole of Phoenice and Egypt was erst
by a masterful Cuckoo commanded.
When his loud cuckoo-ery was resounding on high,
at once the Phoenicians would leap
All hands to the plain, rich-waving with grain,
their wheat and their barley to reap.

EUELPIDES.
So that’s why we cry to the circumcised Hi!
Cuckoo! To the plain! Cuckoo!

PEISTHETAERUS.
And whene’er in the cities of Hellas a chief
to honour and dignity grew,
Menelaus or King Agamemnon perchance,
your rule was so firm and decided
That a bird on his sceptre would perch, to partake
of the gifts for his Lordship provided.

EUELPIDES.
Now of that I declare I was never aware;
and I oft have been filled with amaze,
When Priam so noble and stately appeared,
with a bird, in the Tragedy-plays.
But the bird was no doubt for the gifts looking out,
to Lysicrates brought on the sly.

PEISTHETAERUS.
But the strongest and clearest of proofs is that Zeus
who at present is Lord of the sky
Stands wearing, as Royalty’s emblem and badge,
an Eagle erect on his head,
Our Lady an owl, and Apollo forsooth,
as a lackey, a falcon instead.

EUELPIDES.
By Demeter, ’tis true; that is just what they do;
but tell me the reason, I pray.

PEISTHETAERUS.
That the bird may be ready and able, whene’er
the sacrificed inwards we lay,
As custom demands, in the deity’s hands,
to seize before Zeus on the fare.
And none by the Gods, but all by the Birds,
were accustomed aforetime to swear:
And Lampon will vow by the Goose even now,
whenever he’s going to cheat you:
So holy and mighty they deemed you of old,
with so deep a respect did they treat you!
Now they treat you as knaves,
and as fools, and as slaves;
Yea they pelt you as though ye were mad.
No safety for you can the Temples ensure,
For the bird-catcher sets his nooses and nets,
And his traps, and his toils, and his bait, and his lure,
And his lime-covered rods in the shrine of the Gods!
Then he takes you, and sets you for sale in the lump;
And the customers, buying, come poking and prying
And twitching and trying,
To feel if your bodies are tender and plump.
And if they decide on your flesh to sup
They don’t just roast you and serve you up,
But over your bodies, as prone ye lie,
They grate their cheese and their silphium too,
And oil and vinegar add,
Then a gravy, luscious and rich, they brew,
And pour it in soft warm streams o’er you,
As though ye were carrion noisome and dry.

CHORUS.
O man, ’tis indeed a most pitiful tale
Thou hast brought to our ears; and I can but bewail
Our fathers’ demerit,
Who born such an Empire as this to inherit
Have lost it, have lost it, for me!
But now thou art come, by good Fortune’s decree,
Our Saviour to be,
And under thy charge, whatsoever befall,
I will place my own self, and my nestlings, and all.
Now therefore do you tell us what we must do;
since life is not worth our retaining,
Unless we be Lords of the world as before,
our ancient dominion regaining.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Then first I propose that the Air ye enclose,
and the space ’twixt the Earth and the sky,
Encircling it all with a brick-builded wall,
like Babylon’s, solid and high;
And there you must place the abode of your race,
and make them one State, and one nation.

EUELPIDES.
O Porphyrion! O Cebriones!
how stupendous the fortification!

PEISTHETAERUS.
When the wall is complete, send a messenger fleet,
the empire from Zeus to reclaim.
And if he deny, or be slow to comply,
nor retreat in confusion and shame,
Proclaim ye against him a Holy War,
and announce that no longer below,
On their lawless amours through these regions of yours,
will the Gods be permitted to go.
No more through the air (to their Alopes fair,
their Alcmenas, their Semeles wending)
May they post in hot love, as of old, from above,
for if ever you catch them descending,
You will clap on their dissolute persons a seal,
their evil designs to prevent!
And then let another ambassador-bird
to men with this message be sent,
That the Birds being Sovereigns, to them must be paid
all honour and worship divine,
And the Gods for the future to them be postponed.
Now therefore assort and combine
Each God with a bird, whichever will best
with his nature and attributes suit;
If to Queen Aphrodite a victim ye slay,
first: sacrifice grain to the coot;
If a sheep to Poseidon ye slay, to the duck
let wheat as a victim be brought;
And a big honey-cake for the cormorant make,
if ye offer to Heracles aught.
Bring a ram for King Zeus! But ye first must produce
for our Kinglet, the gold-crested wren,
A masculine midge, full formed and entire,
to be sacrificed duly by men.