f[1] In allusion to the leather strap which flute-players wore
to constrict the cheeks and add to the power of the breath.
The performer here no doubt wore a raven's mask.
EPOPS
Priest! 'tis high time! Sacrifice to the new gods.
PRIEST
I begin, but where is he with the basket? Pray to the Vesta
of the birds, to the kite, who presides over the hearth, and
to all the god and goddess-birds who dwell in Olympus.
CHORUS
Oh! Hawk, the sacred guardian of Sunium, oh, god of the storks!
PRIEST
Pray to the swan of Delos, to Latona the mother of the quails, and to
Artemis, the goldfinch.
PISTHETAERUS
'Tis no longer Artemis Colaenis, but Artemis the goldfinch.[1]
f[1] Hellanicus, the Mitylenian historian, tells that this surname
of Artemis is derived from Colaenus, King of Athens before Cecrops
and a descendant of Hermes. In obedience to an oracle he erected
a temple to the goddess, invoking her as Artemis Colaenis (the Artemis
of Colaenus).
PRIEST
And to Bacchus, the finch and Cybele, the ostrich and mother
of the gods and mankind.
CHORUS
Oh! sovereign ostrich, Cybele, The mother of Cleocritus,[1]
grant health and safety to the Nephelococcygians as well as
to the dwellers in Chios...
f[1] This Cleocritus, says the scholiast, was long-necked and strutted
like an ostrich.
PISTHETAERUS
The dwellers in Chios! Ah! I am delighted they should be thus
mentioned on all occasions.[1]
f[1] The Chians were the most faithful allies of Athens, and hence
their name was always mentioned in prayers, decrees, etc.
CHORUS
...to the heroes, the birds, to the sons of heroes, to
the porphyrion, the pelican, the spoon-bill, the redbreast, the grouse,
the peacock, the horned-owl, the teal, the bittern, the heron,
the stormy petrel, the fig-pecker, the titmouse...
PISTHETAERUS
Stop! stop! you drive me crazy with your endless list. Why,
wretch, to what sacred feast are you inviting the vultures and
the sea-eagles? Don't you see that a single kite could easily carry off
the lot at once? Begone, you and your fillets and all; I shall know
how to complete the sacrifice by myself.
PRIEST
It is imperative that I sing another sacred chant for the rite
of the lustral water, and that I invoke the immortals, or at least one
of them, provided always that you have some suitable food to offer
him; from what I see here, in the shape of gifts, there is naught
whatever but horn and hair.
PISTHETAERUS
Let us address our sacrifices and our prayers to the winged gods.
A POET
Oh, Muse! celebrate happy Nephelococcygia in your hymns.
PISTHETAERUS
What have we here? Where did you come from, tell me? Who are you?
POET
I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave
of the Muses, as Homer has it.
PISTHETAERUS
You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?
POET
No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves
of the Muses, according to Homer.
PISTHETAERUS
In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal!
But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?
POET
I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host
of splendid dithyrambs and parthenians[1] worthy of Simonides himself.
f[1] Verses sung by maidens.
PISTHETAERUS
And when did you compose them? How long since?
POET
Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this city.
PISTHETAERUS
But I am only celebrating its foundation with this sacrifice;[1]
I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.
f[1] This ceremony took place on the tenth day after birth, and
may be styled the pagan baptism.
POET
"Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does
the voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of
the town of Aetna,[1] thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices,[2]
make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest."
f[1] Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse. --This passage is borrowed from Pindar.
f[2] [Hiero] in Greek means 'sacrifice.'
PISTHETAERUS
He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some present.
Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off
and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me
to be shivering with cold.
POET
My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses
of Pindar's on your mind.
PISTHETAERUS
Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!
POET
"Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment.
He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic."
Do you conceive my bent?
PISTHETAERUS
I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (TO
EUELPIDES), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you,
take it and begone.
POET
I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city:
"Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery,
freezing city; I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered
plains. Tralala! Tralala!"[1]
f[1] A parody of poetic pathos, not to say bathos.
PISTHETAERUS
What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic, you no
longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this cursed
fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come, priest,
take the lustral water and circle the altar.
PRIEST
Let all keep silence!
A PROPHET
Let not the goat be sacrificed.[1]
F[1] Which the priest was preparing to sacrifice.
PISTHETAERUS
Who are you?
PROPHET
Who am I? A prophet.
PISTHETAERUS
Get you gone.
PROPHET
Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle
of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia.
PISTHETAERUS
Why did you not reveal it to me before I founded my city?
PROPHET
The divine spirit was against it.
PISTHETAERUS
Well, 'tis best to know the terms of the oracle.
PROPHET
"But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together
between Corinth and Sicyon..."
PISTHETAERUS
But how do the Corinthians concern me?
PROPHET
'Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated in this manner.
"They must first sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora, and give
the prophet, who first reveals my words, a good cloak and new sandals."
PISTHETAERUS
Are the sandals there?
PROPHET
Read. "And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share
of the entrails of the victim."
PISTHETAERUS
Of the entrails--is it so written?
PROPHET
Read. "If you do as I command, divine youth, you shall be an eagle
among the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor eagle,
nor woodpecker."
PISTHETAERUS
Is all that there?
PROPHET
Read.
PISTHETAERUS
This oracle in no sort of way resembles the one Apollo dictated
to me: "If an impostor comes without invitation to annoy you during
the sacrifice and to demand a share of the victim, apply a stout stick
to his ribs."
PROPHET
You are drivelling.
PISTHETAERUS
"And don't spare him, were he an eagle from out of the clouds,
were it Lampon[1] himself or the great Diopithes."[2]
f[1] Noted Athenian diviner, who, when the power was still shared
between Thucydides and Pericles, predicted that it would soon be
centred in the hands of the latter; his ground for this prophecy was
the sight of a ram with a single horn.
f[2] No doubt another Athenian diviner, and possibly the same person whom
Aristophanes names in 'The Knights' and 'The Wasps' as being a thief.
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