Lines 1394–1586

PEISTHETAERUS.
Steady, there!

CINESIAS.
(singing) Bounding along on the path to the seas,
Fain would I float on the stream of the breeze.

PEISTHETAERUS.
O by the Powers, I’ll stop your streams and breezes.

CINESIAS.
(singing) First do I stray on a southerly way;
Then to the northward my body I bear,
Cutting a harbourless furrow of air.
A nice trick that, a pleasant trick, old man.

PEISTHETAERUS.
O you don’t like being feathery-whirl-winged, do you?

CINESIAS.
That’s how you treat the Cyclian-chorus-trainer
For whose possession all the tribes compete!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Well, will you stop and train a chorus here
For Leotrophides, all flying birds,
Crake-oppidans?

CINESIAS.
You’re jeering me, that’s plain.
But I won’t stop, be sure of that, until
I get me wings, and peragrate the air.

SYCOPHANT.
(singing) Who be these on varied wing,
birds who have not anything?
O tell me, swallow, tell me, tell me true,
O long-winged bird, O bird of varied hue!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Come, it’s no joke, this plague that’s broken out;
Here comes another, warbling like the rest.

SYCOPHANT.
(singing) Again I ask thee, tell me, tell me true,
O long-winged bird, O bird of varied hue!

PEISTHETAERUS.
At his own cloak his catch appears to point;
More than one swallow that requires, I’m thinking.

SYCOPHANT.
Which is the man that wings the visitors?

PEISTHETAERUS.
He stands before you. What do you please to want?

SYCOPHANT.
Wings, wings I want. You need not ask me twice.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Is it Pellene that you’re going to fly to?

SYCOPHANT.
No, no: but I’m a sompnour for the Isles,
Informer,—

PEISTHETAERUS.
O the jolly trade you’ve got!

SYCOPHANT.
And law-suit-hatcher; so I want the wings
To scare the cities, serving writs all round.

PEISTHETAERUS.
You’ll summon them more cleverly, I suppose,
To the tune of wings?

SYCOPHANT.
No, but to dodge the pirates,
I’ll then come flying homeward with the cranes,
First swallowing down a lot of suits for ballast.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Is this your business? you, a sturdy youngster,
Live by informing on the stranger-folk?

SYCOPHANT.
What can I do? I never learnt to dig.

PEISTHETAERUS.
O, but by Zeus, there’s many an honest calling
Whence men like you can earn a livelihood,
By means more suitable than hatching suits.

SYCOPHANT.
Come, come, no preaching; wing me, wing me, please.

PEISTHETAERUS.
I wing you now by talking.

SYCOPHANT.
What, by talk
Can you wing men?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Undoubtedly. By talk
All men are winged.

SYCOPHANT.
All!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Have you never heard
The way the fathers in the barbers’ shops
Talk to the children, saying things like these,
“Diitrephes has winged my youngster so
By specious talk, he’s all for chariot-driving.”
“Aye,” says another, “and that boy of mine
Flutters his wings at every Tragic Play.”

SYCOPHANT.
So then by talk they are winged.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Exactly so.
Through talk the mind flutters and soars aloft,
And all the man takes wing. And so even now
I wish to turn you, winging you by talk,
To some more honest trade.

SYCOPHANT.
But I DON’T wish.

PEISTHETAERUS.
How then?

SYCOPHANT.
I’ll not disgrace my bringing up.
I’ll ply the trade my father’s fathers plied.
So wing me, please, with light quick-darting wings
Falcon’s or kestrel’s, so I’ll serve my writs
Abroad on strangers; then accuse them here;
Then dart back there again.

PEISTHETAERUS.
I understand.
So when they come, they’ll find the suit decided,
And payment ordered.

SYCOPHANT.
Right! you understand.

PEISTHETAERUS.
And while they’re sailing hither you’ll fly there,
And seize their goods for payment.

SYCOPHANT.
That’s the trick!
Round like a top I’ll whizz.

PEISTHETAERUS.
I understand.
A whipping-top; and here by Zeus I’ve got
Fine Corcyraean wings to set you whizzing.

SYCOPHANT.
O, it’s a whip!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Nay, friend, a pair of wings,
To set you spinning round and round to-day.
[Striking him.]

SYCOPHANT.
O! O! O! O!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Come, wing yourself from hence.
Wobble away, you most confounded rascal!
I’ll make you spin! I’ll law-perverting-trick you!
Now let us gather up the wings and go.

CHORUS.
We’ve been flying, we’ve been flying
Over sea and land, espying
Many a wonder strange and new.
First, a tree of monstrous girth,
Tall and stout, yet nothing worth,
For ’tis rotten through and through;
It has got no heart, and we
Heard it called “Cleonymus-tree.”
In the spring it blooms gigantic,
Fig-traducing, sycophantic,
Yet in falling leaf-time yields
Nothing but a fall of shields.

Next a spot by darkness skirted,
Spot, by every light deserted,
Lone and gloomy, we descried.
There the human and divine,
Men with heroes, mix and dine
Freely, save at even-tide.
’Tis not safe for mortal men
To encounter heroes then.
Then the great Orestes, looming
Vast and awful through the glooming,
On their right a stroke delivering,
Leaves them palsied, stript, and shivering.

PROMETHEUS.
O dear! O dear! Pray Heaven that Zeus won’t see me!
Where’s Peisthetaerus?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Why, whatever is here?
What’s this enwrapment?

PROMETHEUS.
See you any God
Following behind me there?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Not I, by Zeus.
But who are you?

PROMETHEUS.
And what’s the time of day?

PEISTHETAERUS.
The time of day? A little after noon.
(Shouting) BUT WHO ARE YOU?

PROMETHEUS.
Ox-loosing time, or later?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Disgusting idiot!

PROMETHEUS.
What’s Zeus doing now?
The clouds collecting or the clouds dispersing?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Out on you, stupid!

PROMETHEUS.
Now then, I’ll unwrap.

PEISTHETAERUS.
My dear Prometheus!

PROMETHEUS.
Hush! don’t shout like that.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Why, what’s up now?

PROMETHEUS.
Don’t speak my name so loudly.
’Twould be my ruin, if Zeus see me here.
But now I’ll tell you all that’s going on
Up in the sky, if you’ll just take the umbrella,
And hold it over, that no God may see me.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Ha! Ha!
The crafty thought! Prometheus-like all over.
Get under then; make haste: and speak out freely.

PROMETHEUS.
Then listen.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Speak: I’m listening, never fear.

PROMETHEUS.
All’s up with Zeus!

PEISTHETAERUS.
Good gracious me! since when?

PROMETHEUS.
Since first you built your city in the air.
For never from that hour does mortal bring
Burnt-offerings to the Gods, or savoury steam
Ascend to heaven from flesh of victims slain.
So now we fast a Thesmophorian fast,
No altars burning; and the Barbarous Gods
Half-starved, and gibbering like Illyrians, vow
That they’ll come marching down on Zeus, unless
He gets the marts reopened, and the bits
Of savoury inwards introduced once more.

PEISTHETAERUS.
What, are there really other Gods, Barbarians,
Up above you?

PROMETHEUS.
Barbarians? Yes; thence comes
The ancestral God of Execestides.

PEISTHETAERUS.
And what’s the name of these Barbarian Gods?

PROMETHEUS.
The name? Triballians.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Aye, I understand.
’Tis from that quarter Tribulation comes.

PROMETHEUS.
Exactly so. And now I tell you this;
Envoys will soon be here to treat for peace,
Sent down by Zeus and those Triballians there.
But make no peace, mind that, unless king Zeus
Restores the sceptre to the Birds again,
And gives yourself Miss Sovereignty to wife.

PEISTHETAERUS.
And who’s Miss Sovereignty?

PROMETHEUS.
The loveliest girl.
’Tis she who keeps the thunderbolts of Zeus,
And all his stores,—good counsels, happy laws,
Sound common sense, dockyards, abusive speech,
All his three-obols, and the man who pays them.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Then she keeps EVERYTHING!

PROMETHEUS.
Of course she does.
Win her from Zeus, and you’ll have EVERYTHING.
I hastened here that I might tell you this,
You know I am always well-disposed to men.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Aye, but for you we could not fry our fish.

PROMETHEUS.
And I hate every God, you know that, don’t you?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Yes, hatred of the Gods; you always felt it.

PROMETHEUS.
A regular Timon! but ’tis time to go;
Let’s have the umbrella; then, if Zeus perceives me,
He’ll think I’m following the Basket-bearer.

PEISTHETAERUS.
Here, take the chair, and act the Chair-girl too.

CHORUS.
Next we saw a sight appalling,
Socrates, unwashed, was calling
Spirits from the lake below,
(’Twas on that enchanted ground
Where the Shadow-feet are found).
There Peisander came to know
If the spirit cowards lack
Socrates could conjure back;
Then a camel-lamb he slew,
Like Odysseus, but withdrew,
Whilst the camel’s blood upon
Pounced the Vampire, Chaerephon.

POSEIDON.
There, fellow envoys, full in sight, the town
Whereto we are bound, Cloudcuckoobury, stands!
[To the Triballian]
You, what are you at, wearing your cloak left-sided?
Shift it round rightly; so. My goodness, you’re
A born Laispodias! O Democracy,
What will you bring us to at last, I wonder,
If voting Gods elect a clown like this!

TRIBALLIAN.
Hands off there, will yer?

POSEIDON.
Hang you, you’re by far
The uncouthest God I ever came across.
Now, Heracles, what’s to be done?

HERACLES.
You have heard
What I propose; I’d throttle the man off-hand,
Whoever he is, that dares blockade the Gods.

POSEIDON.
My dear good fellow, you forget we are sent
To treat for peace.

HERACLES.
I’d throttle him all the more.

PEISTHETAERUS.
(to servants) Hand me the grater; bring the silphium, you;
Now then, the cheese; blow up the fire a little.

POSEIDON.
We three, immortal Gods, with words of greeting
Salute the Man!

PEISTHETAERUS.
I’m grating silphium now.

HERACLES.
What’s this the flesh of?

PEISTHETAERUS.
Birds! Birds tried and sentenced
For rising up against the popular party
Amongst the birds.

HERACLES.
Then you grate silphium, do you,
Over them first?