Aristophanes: The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  peace.

  PEISETAIRUS: They certainly are, so lower the frying pan As well as that couple of cups. Shoulder the spear—I mean the skewer—485 Conduct a patrol within the camp. Focus your glance from the rim of the pan. We haven’t retreated, so close the ranks.

  EUELPIDES: All very fine, but tell me where,

  If we get killed, we’ll be interred?

  PEISETAIRUS: The potter’s field will take us in,

  We’ll have the stateliest of funerals,

  Because it will be told to the generals

  We died in action against the foe

  At the Battle of Featherstone.

  LEADER: Fall in again and close the ranks. Steady your anger, ground your angst Like soldiers of the infantry, And let us discover who they may be,

  These two men, as well as from where,

  And also exactly what they intend.

  Hey there, Hoopoe, I’m calling you!

  TEREUS: [flying in from the copse]

  Calling, yes, and wishing what?

  LEADER: Who are these men and where are they from?

  TEREUS: Two clever men coming from Greece.

  LEADER: What made them make the journey

  And travel all that way

  Here to the land of birds?

  TEREUS: A burning wish to share

  Your way of life, your home,

  And be with you entire.

  LEADER: What on earth are you saying? What yarn are you spinning?

  TEREUS: Incredible and past believing.

  LEADER: What does he hope to gain by coming here? Does he expect that being with us He’ll overcome his enemies Or do a service to his friends?

  TEREUS: What he promises is happiness, Prosperity beyond belief. There’s nothing that you cannot have, Here, there, and everywhere.

  LEADER: Is he mentally ill?

  TEREUS: Unbelievably sane.

  LEADER: Perhaps he means well.

  TEREUS: He has the wits of a fox:

  Clever, competent, confident, subtle, the lot.

  LEADER: Then let him speak—tell him to speak.

  The more I hear from you

  The more I am agog.

  PEISETAIRUS: No, by Apollo, I’ll do nothing of the sort

  unless you can assure me this isn’t a trick

  but a bargain like the one the monkey made his wife

  (you know the story of the man who made knives)

  not to bite or attack

  my bollocks or punch me in the—

  EUELPIDES: You’re not going to say in the—

  PEISETAIRUS: Of course not. I was going to say: in the . . . eyes.

  LEADER: You have my word.

  PEISETAIRUS: I want your oath.

  LEADER: I swear to the above and so hope to win

  by the unanimous acclaim of audience and judges.

  PEISETAIRUS: And so you shall.

  LEADER: And if I break my oath

  let me win by only one vote.

  PEISETAIRUS: Attention, troops!

  Shoulder arms and go back home,

  but watch the board for further postings.

  CHORUS: [to PEISETAIRUS] The trickiest thing is the nature of man, apparent in everything, Nevertheless, endeavor your best and take up your stand. It’s possible you will uncover in us some hidden resource, Some attribute that our flippity minds fail to discover. So please proceed to unfold to us your imaginative plan, And clearly state the effect it will have on us and our clan.

  LEADER: Go ahead now and describe to us how

  the plan will affect us,

  And don’t be afraid that the treaty we made

  won’t protect us.

  PEISETAIRUS: Zeus be my witness, I’m eager to tell you,

  and whipping up words

  I’ll be kneading the cake—that’s all that it takes.

  Xanthias, get me

  A garland; and, Manes,486 run off and fetch me

  water for washing my hands.

  EUELPIDES: It looks as though dinner is part of your plans.

  PEISETAIRUS: No, it’s just that I’ve been trying for quite a time

  to find the right phrasing for an announcement

  that’s going to be a truly stupendous pronouncement

  that will stir you birds to the core.

  You see, it fills me with sadness to think

  that you birds were once monarchs. What’s more—

  LEADER: Us, monarchs? Of what?

  PEISETAIRUS: Of everything that is: of me,

  even Zeus, with an ancestry

  that stretches back to a time before

  Cronus and the Titans and even Mother Earth.

  LEADER: Even Mother Earth?

  PEISETAIRUS: Yes, by Apollo!

  LEADER: Oh! Oh! I never heard of that.

  PEISETAIRUS: That’s because you are incurious

  and illiterate,

  and haven’t read your Aesop,487 who

  in a fable tells us

  how long before any other

  bird, the lark

  existed, even before the Earth,

  but when her father

  sickened and died, there being no earth

  in which to inter

  the body, it lay for four days

  exposed and stark

  and she was at the ends of her tether

  until at last

  she buried him in her own head.

  EUELPIDES: So that’s the reason why to this day

  the lark’s father

  lies buried in Headington.488

  PEISETAIRUS: It follows then

  that if the birds were born before

  Mother Earth

  and before the gods, they are

  heirs of royalty.

  EUELPIDES: In which case it is time for you

  to sprout a beak.

  For Zeus is most unlikely

  to let go your fealty

  in favor of a woodpecker

  all that easily.

  PEISETAIRUS: In the days of yore it wasn’t the deities

  who were the monarchs

  but the birds, and this is proved

  quite easily.

  To begin with, the cock, for example, reigned

  and held sway

  over the Persians long before

  all those Dariuses

  and Megabazuses, and that is the reason

  he came to be called

  the Persian Bird. It was to record

  that history.

  EUELPIDES: That is also the reason why

  like the Great King

  he struts about as cock of the walk,

  the only fowl

  who gets to have a comb for a crown—

  the only one.

  PEISETAIRUS: His authority and his power

  used to be so great

  that even today he has only to let

  his reveille ring

  out in the morning and everyone,

  tinkers and tanners,

  bakers, grocers, instrument makers,

  lyre tuners,

  potters and bathmen, pull on their shoes in the dim

  light of dawn

  and are gone.

  EUELPIDES: Don’t I know it! Because of him

  I lost a cloak

  of Phrygian wool. I’d been invited

  to a christening party,

  and having had a bit of a soak

  I dropped off to sleep

  just before dinner, when up popped that cock

  loud and hearty

  and began to crow. Of course I thought it was morning

  and off I started

  for Halimus,489 but hardly had I got

  outside the town

  when a mugger clubs me to the ground

  and I crumple down.

  Then before I’m even ready to shout,

  he’s off with my cloak and out.

  PEISETAIRUS: But to resume: the monarch of Greece then

  was the kite.
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  EUELPIDES: Really? Of Greece?

  PEISETAIRUS: That’s right. And as monarch

  he started the habit

  of people prostrating themselves before the kite.

  EUELPIDES: Yes, by Dionysus, I know to my cost.

  Once when a kite

  came into sight and I fell on my bum,

  with mouth agape,

  I swallowed an obol490 and had to go home

  with an empty basket.

  PEISETAIRUS: What’s more the cuckoo once was king

  over the whole

  of Egypt and Phoenicia and it became the thing

  when the cuckoo called

  out “Cuckoo” for the inhabitants to begin

  cutting their plots

  of barley and wheat.

  EUELPIDES: So what calling “Cuckoo” really means is

  “Get going, you pricks.”

  PEISETAIRUS: Very impressive was the empire

  of the birds,

  so much so that in a town

  where an Agamemnon

  or a Menelaus491 was the sovereign,

  on his scepter

  would be perched a bird expectantly

  waiting for his snacks.

  EUELPIDES: I never realized that. I always wondered

  what the heck it was

  in a tragedy when someone like Priam492

  appeared with a bird.

  I see now it was perched there

  to pry on

  Lysicrates493 and see how much he had plundered.

  PEISETAIRUS: But the most telling proof of all

  is that Zeus,

  who is the present sovereign always,

  appeared with an eagle

  riding on his head as a

  regal symbol,

  while his daughter Pallas Athena

  has an owl.

  Apollo, as a lackey, has to make do

  with a hawk.

  EUELPIDES: True enough, by Demeter, but what

  is the point of these birds.

  PEISETAIRUS: The point is that these birds work

  for themselves

  so that, when, as normally happens,

  a sacrifice takes place

  and the entrails and fat are about to be put

  in the god’s hands,

  the birds dash in and grab them before

  they can get to Zeus.

  And nobody swore, in those days gone by,

  by the gods.

  They swore by the birds and even today

  Lampon the oraclemonger swears

  “by the Goose”

  when confirming a lie.

  Such was your high repute and veneration then.

  But now you are featherweight birdbrained nits

  Sozzled like creatures out of their wits,

  Hunted with nooses, birdlime, and nets,

  With snares and decoys, triggers and traps

  Even in sight of the temple steps.

  And when you are caught you’re sold by the dozen,

  Stuffed with fodder until you are plump,

  Then dressed appropriately for the oven:

  Smothered in oil and grated cheese,

  Mustard and vinegar, glazed with sweet

  Basting sauce, shiny and hot,

  Hotter than you’ve ever been,

  And you no better than

  A hunk of barbecued meat.

  CHORUS: Yes, it’s a sad, and yes, it’s a terrible tale

  you’ve told me, O Man, and it fills me with grief

  for the sins of my parents, for they in the course of my life

  have lost the benefits our fathers were well

  endowed with and handed down.

  But now by a miracle or gift from heaven

  you have appeared as a timely savior,

  and I commit my life and my young to your care.

  LEADER: Now will you tell us what our next step is,

  for unless we recover the reins of our realm

  our future is bare.

  PEISETAIRUS: Very well. You ought to begin

  by founding a bird city between earth and heaven, then

  encircling the whole empyrean in a dome

  with ramparts of brick baked in a kiln

  just like the walls of Babylon.

  LEADER: My word! I swear by the giants Cebriones and Porphyrion494

  that is one formidable town.

  PEISETAIRUS: And when you have got all this ready,

  demand from Zeus restitution of your sovereignty,

  and is he refuses, doesn’t want to, won’t comply,

  declare a holy war against him and deny

  the gods passage through your territory,

  as is their wont with flaming erections

  on their way down for a spot of adultery

  with their Alcmenes, their Alopes, and their Semeles.495

  And if you catch them trespassing, clap a padlock on their

  penises

  and put a stopper to their fucking connections.

  And I strongly urge you to send

  another messenger bird to mankind

  to tell them that since birds are now the lords

  all sacrifices from now on must first be made to the birds

  and only afterwards to the gods.

  Furthermore, that whatever bird

  was assigned to whatever god,

  it must match that god’s propensities.

  For instance, if the sacrifice is to Aphrodite,

  then the bird to be sacrificed to is the Pricktail;

  if it’s a sheep to Poseidon, then the duck must be offered

  ground white wheat.

  If the sacrifice is to Heracles, then the cormorant

  must be offered a honey tart.

  If it’s a ram to Zeus the King,

  then before Zeus gets anything,

  to that royal bird the gold tessellated wren must befall

  a stud gnat sacrificed with testicles intact.

  EUELPIDES: The sacrifice of a gnat! That calls for applause. Great Zeus the Thunderer will raise his eyebrows.

  LEADER: But when people see us fluttering around with wings,

  how will they be able to tell that we’re not just daws?

  PEISETAIRUS: Don’t be silly! Hermes flits about with wings on

  and is a god, as do many other deities.

  Victory, for instance, flies about with golden wings on,

  and so does Cupid; and Homer is pleased to observe

  that Iris hovers like a dove.

  EUELPIDES: And I expect Zeus will send us thunder and lightning

  with wings on from above.

  PEISETAIRUS: Meanwhile, if people continue to think you are

  nothing

  and the Olympians are real gods,

  let a burst of sparrows and seed-eating finches

  rise in a cloud and polish off the grain in their fields;

  and when they’re starving, let Demeter dole out their rations.

  EUELPIDES: But she won’t want to, that’s for sure, and ’ll give

  reasons.

  PEISETAIRUS: And let the ravens peck out the eyes of the bullocks

  plowing their tracts, as well as of their sheep.

  That’ll give them a few shocks!

  Then have Apollo the doctor heal them and earn his keep.

  EUELPIDES: Not till I’ve sold my own little brace of bullocks,

  please.

  PEISETAIRUS: But if they accept you as their god, as their Zeus,

  as their Mother Earth, their Poseidon, their Cronus,

  then let every blessing be theirs.

  EUELPIDES: What kind of blessings? Explain.

  PEISETAIRUS: Well, to begin with, the locusts will not devour

  their vines in flower because a battalion

  of owls and kestrels will reduce them to naught.

  On top of that, your figs will no longer be beset

  by gallfly and ant.

  A si
ngle contingent of thrushes will wipe them out.

  LEADER: But how will you make them rich in money?

  You know how they crave for that.

  PEISETAIRUS: When people use them for augury496

  the birds will reveal where the mines are,

  and to the weather reporters they’ll reveal

  in which direction safe and successful voyages lie

  so that no shipowner ever suffers a loss.

  EUELPIDES: Never suffers a loss? Why?

  PEISETAIRUS: Because when he consults a weather reporter

  before a voyage, a bird will supply every detail,

  such as “Don’t sail today. A storm is on the way,” or

  “Sail now or you’ll miss

  a successful trip.”

  EUELPIDES: I’ll buy a cargo boat at once and own a ship

  and stop lounging around with the rest of you.

  PEISETAIRUS: And they will disclose to them the heaps of silver

  buried by the ancients, of which the birds know where they lie.

  The saying is true: “Only a bird knows the place of my

  treasure.”

  EUELPIDES: I’m selling my tub and getting me a spade,

  and I’ll dig up pots of silver.

  LEADER: But how will the birds make people healthy?

  Isn’t that a gift of the gods?

  PEISETAIRUS: Surely, if they’re healthy, they have it made?

  EUELPIDES: But you know very well that a man who’s doing badly

  feels poorly.

  LEADER: But how will they reach a ripe old age? That’s

  up to the Olympians, too—

  or are they to be snuffed out while only brats?

  PEISETAIRUS: Heavens, no! These birds will add three centuries to their lifespan.

  LEADER: Where will they get them from?

  PEISETAIRUS: Where? From themselves. Don’t you know that: “The

  crow

  lives five cycles of man”?497

  EUELPIDES: Shucks! These birds are better kings for us than Zeus.

  PEISETAIRUS: Much better, yes!

  For a start, we wouldn’t have to build them

  Marble temples with gilded porticoes;

  Birds live in thickets and woods,

  With an olive tree perhaps as temple

  For anyone of the higher-ups.

  We wouldn’t have to go to Delphi

  To sacrifice, or to Ammon,498 but

  It would be the strawberry tree‡

  And wild olive we’d be among,

  Holding out handfuls of wheat and barley,

  Asking the birds for various blessings

  And never having to wait—

  All for a sprinkle of wheat.

  LEADER: You dearest old man, no more an enemy of mine,

  converted instead into my dearest friend—

  how could it enter my head to ignore your plan?

  TEREUS:499 Encouraged by your words, I have to say

  And certainly to swear, that when you lend