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414 BC
THE BIRDS
by Aristophanes
anonymous translator
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY -
EUELPIDES
PITHETAERUS
TROCHILUS, Servant to Epops
Epops (the Hoopoe)
A BIRD
A HERALD
A PRIEST
A POET
AN ORACLE-MONGER
METON, a Geometrician
AN INSPECTOR
A DEALER IN DECREES
IRIS
A PARRICIDE
CINESIAS, a Dithyrambic Poet
AN INFORMER
PROMETHEUS
POSIDON
TRIBALLUS
HERACLES
SLAVES OF PITHETAERUS
MESSENGERS
CHORUS OF BIRDS
THE BIRDS -
(SCENE:- A wild and desolate region; only thickets, rocks, and a single tree are seen. EUELPIDES and PITHETAERUS enter, each with a bird in his hand.) -
EUELPIDES (to his jay)
Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree? -
PITHETAERUS (to his crow)
Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me?... to retrace my steps? -
EUELPIDES
Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; we're wasting our time. -
PITHETAERUS
To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs! -
EUELPIDES
And that I, in obedience to this jay, should have worn my toes down to the nails! -
PITHETAERUS
If only I knew where we were.... -
EUELPIDES
Could you find your country again from here? -
PITHETAERUS
No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides find his. -
EUELPIDES
Alas! -
PITHETAERUS
Aye, aye, my friend, it's surely the road of "alases" 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, the Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharrhelides, for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch! (To his jay) 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. -
PITHETAERUS
Not even the vestige of a trail in any direction. -
EUELPIDES
And what does the crow say about the road to follow? -
PITHETAERUS
By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did. -
EUELPIDES
And which way does it tell us to go now? -
PITHETAERUS
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 crows, 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. It's not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself paying taxes; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for