The Birds Part 9

f(7) Meaning, "We are your oracles." --Dodona was an oracle in Epirus.--The temple of Zeus there was surrounded by a dense forest, all the trees of which were endowed with the gift of prophecy; both the sacred oaks and the pigeons that lived in them answered the questions of those who came to consult the oracle in pure Greek.

f(8) The Greek word for 'omen' is the same as that for 'bird.'

f(9) A satire on the pa.s.sion of the Greeks for seeing an omen in everything.

f(10) An imitation of the nightingale's song.

f(11) G.o.d of the groves and wilds.

f(12) The 'Mother of the G.o.ds'; roaming the mountains, she held dances, always attended by Pan and his accompanying rout of Fauns and Satyrs.

f(13) An allusion to c.o.c.k-fighting; the birds are armed with brazen spurs.

f(14) An allusion to the spots on this bird, which resemble the scars left by a branding iron.

f(15) He was of Asiatic origin, but wished to pa.s.s for an Athenian.

f(16) Or Philamnon, King of Thrace; the scholiast remarks that the Phrygians and the Thracians had a common origin.

f(17) The Greek word here is also the name of a little bird.

f(18) A basket-maker who had become rich.--The Phylarchs were the headmen of the tribes. They presided at the private a.s.semblies and were charged with the management of the treasury.--The Hipparchs, as the name implies, were the leaders of the cavalry; there were only two of these in the Athenian army.

f(19) He had become a senator.

PISTHETAERUS Halloa! What's this? By Zeus! I never saw anything so funny in all my life.(1)

f(1) Pisthetaerus and Euelpides now both return with wings.

EUELPIDES What makes you laugh?

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis your bits of wings. D'you know what you look like?

Like a goose painted by some dauber-fellow.

EUELPIDES And you look like a close-shaven blackbird.

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis ourselves asked for this transformation, and, as Aeschylus has it, "These are no borrowed feathers, but truly our own."(1)

f(1) Meaning, 'tis we who wanted to have these wings.--The verse from Aeschylus, quoted here, is taken from 'The Myrmidons,' a tragedy of which only a few fragments remain.

EPOPS Come now, what must be done?

PISTHETAERUS First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice to the G.o.ds.

EUELPIDES I think so too.

EPOPS Let's see. What shall our city be called?

PISTHETAERUS 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,(1) even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

f(1) The Greek word signified the city of Sparta, and also a kind of broom used for weaving rough matting, which served for the beds of the very poor.

PISTHETAERUS 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.

PISTHETAERUS Do you like Nephelococcygia?(1)

f(1) A fanciful name constructed from (the word for) a cloud, and (the word for) a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos.--'Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German.

Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.

EPOPS Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes(1) and most of Aeschines'(2) is?

f(1) He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised a great deal and never kept his word.

f(2) Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'

PISTHETAERUS No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,(1) where the G.o.ds withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

f(1) Because the war of the t.i.tans against the G.o.ds was only a fiction of the poets.

EUELPIDES Oh! what a splendid city! But what G.o.d shall be its patron?

for whom shall we weave the peplus?(1)

f(1) A sacred cloth, with which the statue of Athene in the Acropolis was draped.

PISTHETAERUS Why not choose Athene Polias?(1)

f(1) Meaning, to be patron-G.o.ddess of the city. Athene had a temple of this name.

EUELPIDES Oh! what a well-ordered town 'twould be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes(1) was spinning!

f(1) An Athenian effeminate, frequently ridiculed by Aristophanes.

PISTHETAERUS Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?(1)