Chapter 15
THE BIRDS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
EUELPIDES.
PISTHETAERUS.
EPOPS (the Hoopoe).
TROCHILUS, Servant to Epops.
PHOENICOPTERUS.
HERALDS.
A PRIEST.
A POET.
A PROPHET.
METON, a Geometrician.
A COMMISSIONER.
A DEALER IN DECREES.
IRIS.
A PARRICIDE.
CINESIAS, a Dithyrambic Bard.
AN INFORMER.
PROMETHEUS.
POSIDON.
TRIBALLUS.
HERACLES.
SERVANT of PISTHETAERUS.
MESSENGERS.
CHORUS OF BIRDS.
SCENE: A wild, desolate tract of open country; broken rocks and brushwood occupy the centre of the stage.
THE BIRDS
EUELPIDES (_to his jay_).[175] Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?
PISTHETAERUS (_to his crow_). Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me?... to retrace my steps?
EUELPIDES. Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; 'tis labour lost.
PISTHETAERUS. To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!
EUELPIDES. And I to this jay, who has torn every nail from my fingers!
PISTHETAERUS. If only I knew where we were....
EUELPIDES. Could you find your country again from here?
PISTHETAERUS. No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides[176] find his.
EUELPIDES. Oh dear! oh dear!
PISTHETAERUS. Aye, aye, my friend, 'tis indeed the road of "oh dears" we are following.
EUELPIDES. That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick, when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus,[177] the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharelides,[178] for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch!--What's the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road that way.
PISTHETAERUS. Not even the vestige of a track in any
EUELPIDES. And what does the crow say about the road to follow?
PISTHETAERUS. By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did.
EUELPIDES. And which way does it tell us to go now?
PISTHETAERUS. It says that, by dint of gnawing, it will devour my fingers.
EUELPIDES. What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the birds,[179] do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way!
Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different to that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honourable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. 'Tis not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law courts.[180] That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs[181] and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the Epops, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.
PISTHETAERUS. Here! look!
EUELPIDES. What's the matter?
PISTHETAERUS. Why, the crow has been pointing me to something up there for some time now.
EUELPIDES. And the jay is also opening its beak and craning its neck to show me I know not what. Clearly, there are some birds about here. We shall soon know, if we kick up a noise to start them.
PISTHETAERUS. Do you know what to do? Knock your leg against this rock.
EUELPIDES. And you your head to double the noise.
PISTHETAERUS. Well then use a stone instead; take one and hammer with it.
EUELPIDES. Good idea! Ho there, within! Slave! slave!
PISTHETAERUS. What's that, friend! You say, "slave," to summon Epops!
'Twould be much better to shout, "Epops, Epops!"
EUELPIDES. Well then, Epops! Must I knock again? Epops!
TROCHILUS. Who's there? Who calls my master?
EUELPIDES. Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak![182]
TROCHILUS. Good G.o.d! they are bird-catchers.
EUELPIDES. The mere sight of him petrifies me with terror. What a horrible monster!