Chapter 25
PISTHETAERUS. And I'll smash your urns.[303]
INSPECTOR. Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where the decrees are posted?
PISTHETAERUS. Here! here! let him be seized. (_The inspectors run off._) Well! don't you want to stop any longer?
PRIEST. Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.[304]
CHORUS. Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: "A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,[305] and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants."[306] We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Strouthian;[307] four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others."
That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter!
Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the divine gra.s.shopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody, my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.
I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far greater than those Paris[308] received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,[309] which every judge desires above all things, shall never be wanting to you; you shall see them homing with you, building their nests in your money-bags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the G.o.ds, for we shall erect gables[310] over your dwellings; if you hold some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the sharp claws of a hawk. Are
else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will soil it with their droppings.
PISTHETAERUS. Birds! the sacrifice is propitious. But I see no messenger coming from the wall to tell us what is happening. Ah! here comes one running himself out of breath as though he were running the Olympic stadium.
MESSENGER. Where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where, where, where is he? Where is Pisthetaerus, our leader?
PISTHETAERUS. Here am I.
MESSENGER. The wall is finished.
PISTHETAERUS. That's good news.
MESSENGER. 'Tis a most beautiful, a most magnificent work of art. The wall is so broad, that Proxenides, the Braggartian, and Theogenes could pa.s.s each other in their chariots, even if they were drawn by steeds as big as the Trojan horse.
PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis wonderful!
MESSENGER. Its length is one hundred stadia; I measured it myself.
PISTHETAERUS. A decent length, by Posidon! And who built such a wall?
MESSENGER. Birds--birds only; they had neither Egyptian brickmaker, nor stonemason, nor carpenter; the birds did it all themselves, I could hardly believe my eyes. Thirty thousand cranes came from Libya with a supply of stones,[313] intended for the foundations. The water-rails chiselled them with their beaks. Ten thousand storks were busy making bricks; plovers and other water fowl carried water into the air.
PISTHETAERUS. And who carried the mortar?
MESSENGER. Herons, in hods.
PISTHETAERUS. But how could they put the mortar into hods?
MESSENGER. Oh! 'twas a truly clever invention; the geese used their feet like spades; they buried them in the pile of mortar and then emptied them into the hods.
PISTHETAERUS. Ah! to what use cannot feet be put?[314]
MESSENGER. You should have seen how eagerly the ducks carried bricks. To complete the tale, the swallows came flying to the work, their beaks full of mortar and their trowel on their back, just the way little children are carried.
PISTHETAERUS. Who would want paid servants after this? But, tell me, who did the woodwork?
MESSENGER. Birds again, and clever carpenters too, the pelicans, for they squared up the gates with their beaks in such a fas.h.i.+on that one would have thought they were using axes; the noise was just like a dockyard.
Now the whole wall is tight everywhere, securely bolted and well guarded; it is patrolled, bell in hand; the sentinels stand everywhere and beacons burn on the towers. But I must run off to clean myself; the rest is your business.
CHORUS. Well! what do you say to it? Are you not astonished at the wall being completed so quickly?
PISTHETAERUS. By the G.o.ds, yes, and with good reason. 'Tis really not to be believed. But here comes another messenger from the wall to bring us some further news! What a fighting look he has!
SECOND MESSENGER. Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!
PISTHETAERUS. What's the matter?
SECOND MESSENGER. A horrible outrage has occurred; a G.o.d sent by Zeus has pa.s.sed through our gates and has penetrated the realms of the air without the knowledge of the jays, who are on guard in the daytime.
PISTHETAERUS. Tis an unworthy and criminal deed. What G.o.d was it?
SECOND MESSENGER. We don't know that. All we know is, that he has got wings.
PISTHETAERUS. Why were not guards sent against him at once?
SECOND MESSENGER. We have despatched thirty thousand hawks of the legion of mounted archers.[315] All the hook-clawed birds are moving against him, the kestrel, the buzzard, the vulture, the great-horned owl; they cleave the air, so that it resounds with the flapping of their wings; they are looking everywhere for the G.o.d, who cannot be far away; indeed, if I mistake not, he is coming from yonder side.
PISTHETAERUS. All arm themselves with slings and bows! This way, all our soldiers; shoot and strike! Some one give me a sling!
CHORUS. War, a terrible war is breaking out between us and the G.o.ds!
Come, let each one guard the Air, the son of Erebus,[316] in which the clouds float. Take care no immortal enters it without your knowledge.
Scan all sides with your glance. Hark! methinks I can hear the rustle of the swift wings of a G.o.d from heaven.
PISTHETAERUS. Hi! you woman! where are you flying to? Halt, don't stir!
keep motionless! not a beat of your wing!--Who are you and from what country? You must say whence you come.[317]
IRIS. I come from the abode of the Olympian G.o.ds.
PISTHETAERUS. What's your name, s.h.i.+p or cap?[318]
IRIS. I am swift Iris.
PISTHETAERUS. Paralus or Salaminia?[319]
IRIS. What do you mean?
PISTHETAERUS. Let a buzzard rush at her and seize her.[320]
IRIS. Seize me! But what do all these insults betoken?
PISTHETAERUS. Woe to you!
IRIS. 'Tis incomprehensible.
PISTHETAERUS. By which gate did you pa.s.s through the wall, wretched woman?