The Birds | Page 5

than could
Execestides[1] find his.
f[1] A stranger who wanted to pass as an Athenian, although coming
originally for a far-away barbarian country.
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,[1] the
Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us
this jay, a true son of Tharelides,[2] 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.
f[1] A king of Thrace, a son of Ares, who married Procne, the daughter
of Pandion, King of Athens, whom he had assisted against the
Megarians. He violated his sister-in-law, Philomela, and then cut out
her tongue; she nevertheless managed to convey to her sister how she
had been treated. They both agreed to kill Itys, whom Procne had borne

to Tereus, and dished up the limbs of his own son to the father; at the
end of the meal Philomela appeared and threw the child's head upon the
table. Tereus rushed with drawn sword upon the princesses, but all the
actors in this terrible scene were metamorph[o]sed. Tereus became an
Epops (hoopoe), Procne a swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Itys a
goldfinch. According to Anacreon and Apollodorus it was Procne who
became the nightingale and Philomela the swallow, and this is the
version of the tradition followed by Aristophanes. f[2] An Athenian
who had some resemblance to a jay--so says the scholiast, at any rate.
PISTHETAERUS Not even the vestige of a track in any direction.
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,[1] do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our
way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different from 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.[2] That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot
and some myrtle boughs[3] 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.
f[1] Literally, 'to go to the crows,' a proverbial expression equivalent to
our 'going to the devil.' f[2] They leave Athens because of their hatred
of lawsuits and informers; this is the especial failing of the Athenians
satirized in 'The Wasps.' f[3] Myrtle boughs were used in sacrifices,
and the founding of every colony was started by a sacrifice.
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! It would be much better to shout, "Epops, Epops!"
EUELPIDES Well then, Epops! Must I knock again? Epops!
TROCHILUS Who's there? Who calls my master?
PISTHETAERUS Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak![1]
f[1] The actors wore masks made to resemble the birds they were
supposed to represent.
TROCHILUS Good god! they are bird-catchers.
EUELPIDES The mere sight of him petrifies me with terror. What a
horrible monster.
TROCHILUS Woe to you!
EUELPIDES But we are not men.
TROCHILUS What are