With you a word is an omen, you call a sneeze an omen, a meeting an omen, an unknown sound an omen, a slave or an ass an omen.Is it not clear that we are a prophetic Apollo to you? (More and more rapidly from here on.) If you recognize us as gods, we shall be your divining Muses, through us you will know the winds and the seasons, summer, winter, and the temperate months.We shall not withdraw ourselves to the highest clouds like Zeus, but shall be among you and shall give to you and to your children and the children of your children, health and wealth, long life, peace, youth, laughter, songs and feasts; in short, you will all be so well off, that you will be weary and cloyed with enjoyment.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS (singing)
Oh, rustic Muse of such varied note, tiotiotiotiotiotinx, I sing with you in the groves and on the mountain tops, tiotiotiotinx.Ipoured forth sacred strains from my golden throat in honour of the god Pan, tiotiotiotinx, from the top of the thickly leaved ash, and my voice mingles with the mighty choirs who extol Cybele on the mountain tops, totototototototototinx.'Tis to our concerts that Phrynichus comes to pillage like a bee the ambrosia of his songs, the sweetness of which so charms the ear, tiotiotiotinx.
LEADER OF FIRST SEMI-CHORUS
If there is one of you spectators who wishes to spend the rest of his life quietly among the birds, let him come to us.All that is disgraceful and forbidden by law on earth is on the contrary honourable among us, the birds.For instance, among you it's a crime to beat your father, but with us it's an estimable deed; it's considered fine to run straight at your father and hit him, saying, "Come, lift your spur if you want to fight." The runaway slave, whom you brand, is only a spotted francolin with us.Are you Phrygian like Spintharus? Among us you would be the Phrygian bird, the goldfinch, of the race of Philemon.Are you a slave and a Carian like Execestides? Among us you can create yourself fore-fathers; you can always find relations.Does the son of Pisias want to betray the gates of the city to the foe? Let him become a partridge, the fitting offspring of his father; among us there is no shame in escaping as cleverly as a partridge.
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS (singing)
So the swans on the banks of the Hebrus, tiotiotiotiotiotinx, mingle their voices to serenade Apollo, tiotiotiotinx, flapping their wings the while, tiotiotiotinx; their notes reach beyond the clouds of heaven; they startle the various tribes of the beasts; a windles sky calms the waves, totototototototototinx; all Olympus resounds, and astonishment seizes its rulers; the Olympian graces and Muses cry aloud the strain, tiotiotiotinx.
LEADER OF SECOND SEMI-CHORUS
There is nothing more useful nor more pleasant than to have wings.
To begin with, just let us suppose a spectator to be dying with hunger and to be weary of the choruses of the tragic poets; if he were winged, he would fly off, go home to dine and come back with his stomach filled.Some Patroclides, needing to take a crap, would not have to spill it out on his cloak, but could fly off, satisfy his requirements, let a few farts and, having recovered his breath, return.If one of you, it matters not who, had adulterous relations and saw the husband of his mistress in the seats of the senators, he might stretch his wings, fly to her, and, having laid her, resume his place.Is it not the most priceless gift of all, to be winged?
Look at Diitrephes! His wings were only wicker-work ones, and yet he got himself chosen Phylarch and then Hipparch; from being nobody, he has risen to be famous; he's now the finest gilded cock of his tribe.
(PITHETAERUS and EUELPIDES return; they now have wings.)PITHETAERUS
Halloa! What's this? By Zeus! I never saw anything so funny in all my life.
EUELPIDES
What makes you laugh?
PITHETAERUS
Your little wings.D'you know what you look like? Like a goose painted by some dauber.
EUELPIDES
And you look like a close-shaven blackbird.
PITHETAERUS
We ourselves asked for this transformation, and, as Aeschylus has it, "These are no borrowed feathers, but truly our own."EPOPS
Come now, what must be done?
PITHETAERUS
First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice to the gods.
EUELPIDES
I think so too.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Let's see.What shall our city be called?
PITHETAERUS
Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call it Sparta?
EUELPIDES
What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my bed, even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.
PITHETAERUS
Well then, what name can you suggest?
EUELPIDES
Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell-in short, some well-known name.
PITHETAERUS
Do you like Nephelococcygia?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Oh! capital! truly that's a brilliant thought!
EUELPIDES
Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes and most of Aeschines' is?
PITHETAERUS
No, it's rather the plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?
EUELPIDES
Why not choose Athene Polias?
PITHETAERUS
Oh! what a well-ordered town it would be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes was spinning!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?
PITHETAERUS
A bird.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
One of us? What kind of bird?
PITHETAERUS
A bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.
EUELPIDES
Oh! noble chick!
PITHETAERUS
