Birds

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 902 sections

1.1211
You hear how she holds us in derision. Did you present yourself to the officers in command of the jays? You don't answer. Have you a permit, bearing the seal of the storks?
1.1213b
Am I dreaming?
1.1214
Did you get one?
1.1214b
Are you mad?
1.1214c
No
1.1215
head-bird gave you a safe-conduct?
1.1216
A safe-conduct to me. You poor fool!
1.1217
Ah! and so you slipped into this city on the sly and into these realms of air-land that don't belong to you.
1.1219
And what other roads can the gods travel?
1.1220
By Zeus! I know nothing about that, not I. But they won't pass this way. And you still dare to complain? Why, if you were treated according to your deserts, no Iris would ever have more justly suffered death.
1.1224
I am immortal.
1.1224b
You would have died nevertheless. —
1.1225
Oh! that would be truly intolerable! What! should the universe obey us and the gods alone continue their insolence and not understand that they must submit to the law of the strongest in their due turn? But tell me, where are you flying to?
1.1230
I? The messenger of Zeus to mankind, I am going to tell them to sacrifice sheep and oxen on the altars and to fill their streets with the rich smoke of burning fat.
1.1233b
Of which gods are you speaking?
1.1234
Of which? Why, of ourselves, the gods of heaven.
1.1235
You, gods?
1.1235b
Are there others then?
1.1236
Men now adore the birds as gods, and it's to them, by Zeus, that they must offer sacrifices, and not to Zeus at all!
1.1238
Oh! fool! fool! Rouse not
1.1240
the wrath of the gods, for it is terrible indeed. Armed with the brand of Zeus, Justice would annihilate your race; the lightning would strike you as it did Licymnius and consume both your body and the porticos of your palace.
1.1243
Here! that's enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian
1.1245
and think to frighten me with your big words? Know, that if Zeus worries me again, I shall go at the head of my eagles, who are armed with lightning, and reduce his dwelling and that of Amphion to cinders. I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions
1.1250
clothed in leopards' skins up to heaven against him; and formerly a single Porphyrion gave him enough to do. As for you, his messenger, if you annoy me, I shall begin by getting between your thighs,
1.1255
and even though you are Iris, you will be surprised at the erection the old man can produce; it's three times as good as the ram on a ship's prow!
1.1257
May you perish, you wretch, you and your infamous words!
1.1258
Won't you get out of here quickly? Come, stretch your wings or look out for squalls!
1.1259
If my father does not punish you for your insults ...
1.1260
Ha! ... but just you be off elsewhere to roast younger folk than us with your lightning.
1.1263
We forbid the gods, the sons of Zeus, to pass through our city
1.1265
and the mortals to send them the smoke of their sacrifices by this road.
1.1269
It's odd that the messenger
1.1270
we sent to the mortals has never returned.
1.1271
Oh! blessed Pisthetaerus, very wise, very illustrious, very gracious, thrice happy, very ... Come, prompt me, somebody, do
1.1273b
Get to your story!
1.1274
All peoples are filled with admiration for your wisdom, and they award you this golden crown.
1.1276
I accept it. But tell me, why do the people admire me?
1.1277
Oh you, who have founded so illustrious a city in the air, you know not in what esteem men hold you and how many there are who burn with desire to dwell in it.
1.1280
Before your city was built, all men had a mania for Sparta; long hair and fasting were held in honor, men went dirty like Socrates and carried staves. Now all is changed.
1.1285
Firstly, as soon as it's dawn, they all spring out of bed together to go and seek their food, the same as you do; then they fly off towards the notices and finally devour the decrees.
1.1290
The bird-madness is so clear that many actually bear the names of birds. There is a halting victualler, who styles himself the partridge; Menippus calls himself the swallow; Opuntius the one-eyed crow;
1.1295
Philocles the lark; Theogenes the fox-goose; Lycurgus the ibis; Chaerephon the bat; Syracosius the magpie; Midias the quail; indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard on the head.
1.1300
Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, the goose or the pigeon; in each verse you see wings, or at all events a few feathers. This is what is happening down there.
1.1305
Finally, there are more than ten thousand folk who are coming here from earth to ask you for feathers and hooked claws; so, mind you supply yourself with wings for the immigrants.
1.1308
Ah! by Zeus, there's no time for idling. To some slaves. Go as quick as possible and fill every hamper,
1.1310
every basket you can find with wings. Manes will bring them to me outside the walls, where I will welcome those who present themselves.
1.1313
This town will soon be inhabited by a crowd of men.
1.1315
Fortune favours us alone
1.1316
and thus they have fallen in love with our city.
1.1317
Come, hurry up and bring them along.
1.1318
Will not man find here everything that can please him —
1.1320
wisdom, love, the divine Graces, the sweet face of gentle peace?
1.1323
Oh! you lazy servant! won't you hurry yourself?
1.1325
Let a basket of wings be brought speedily.
1.1327
Come, beat him as I do, and put some life into him;
1.1328
he is as lazy as an ass.
1.1329
Aye, Manes is a great craven.
1.1330
Begin by putting this heap of wings in order; divide them in three parts according to the birds from whom they came; the singing, the prophetic and the aquatic birds; then you must take care to distribute them to the men according to their character.
1335
Oh! by the kestrels! I can keep my hands off you no longer; you are too slow and lazy altogether.
1337
Oh! might I but become an eagle, who soars in the skies! Oh! might I fly above the azure waves of the barren sea!
1340
Ha! it would seem the news was true; I hear someone coming who talks of wings.
1342
Nothing is more charming than to fly; I am bird-mad and fly towards you, for I want
1345
to live with you and to obey your laws.
1346
Which laws? The birds have many laws.
1347
All of them; but the one that pleases me most is that among the birds it is considered a fine thing to peck and strangle one's father.
1349
Yes, by Zeus! according to us,
1350
he who dares to strike his father, while still a chick, is a brave fellow.
1351
And therefore I want to dwell here, for I want to strangle my father and inherit his wealth.
1353
But we have also an ancient law written in the code of the storks, which runs thus,
1355
When the stork father has reared his young and has taught them to fly, the young must in their turn support the father.
1358
It's hardly worth while coming all this distance to be compelled to keep my father!
1360
No, no, young friend, since you have come to us with such willingness, I am going to give you these black wings, as though you were an orphan bird; furthermore, some good advice, that I received myself in infancy. Don't strike your father, but take
1365
these wings in one hand and these spurs in the other; imagine you have a cock's crest on your head and go and mount guard and fight; live on your pay and respect your father's life. You're a gallant fellow! Very well, then! Fly to Thrace and fight.
1370
By Bacchus! You're right; I will follow your counsel.
1371b
It's acting wisely, by Zeus..
1373
On my light pinions I soar off to Olympus; in its capricious flight my Muse flutters along the thousand paths of poetry in turn ...
1375
This is a fellow will need a whole shipload of wings.
1376
... and being fearless and vigorous, it is seeking fresh outlet.
1377
Welcome, Cinesias, you lime-wood man! Why have you come here twisting your game leg in circles?
1380
I want to become a bird, a tuneful nightingale.
1381
Enough of that sort of ditty. Tell me what you want.
1382
Give me wings and I will fly into the topmost airs to gather fresh songs in the clouds,
1385
in the midst of the vapors and the fleecy snow.
1386
Gather songs in the clouds?
1387
'Tis on them the whole of our latter-day art depends. The most brilliant dithyrambs are those that flap their wings in empty space and are clothed in mist and dense obscurity.
1390
To appreciate this, just listen.
1391
Oh! no, no, no!
1391b
By Hermes! but indeed you shall.
1392
I shall travel through thine ethereal empire
1393
like a winged bird, who cleaveth space with his long neck ...
1395a
Stop! Way enough!
1396
... as I soar over the seas, carried by the breath of the winds ...
1398
By Zeus! I'll cut your breath short. He picks up a pair of wings and begins trying to stop Cinesias' mouth with them.
1399
... now rushing along the tracks of Notus, now nearing Boreas
1400
across the infinite wastes of the ether.
1401
Ah! old man, that's a pretty and clever idea truly!
1402
What! are you not delighted to be cleaving the air?
1403
To treat a dithyrambic poet, for whom the tribes dispute with each other, in this style!
1405
Will you stay with us and form a chorus of winged birds as slender as Leotrophides for the Cecropid tribe?
1407b
You are making game of me, that's clear; but know that I shall never leave you in peace if I do not have wings wherewith to traverse the air.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0019.tlg006.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.