Delphi Complete Works of Aristophanes (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (35 page)

So the swans on the banks of the Hebrus, tio, tio, tio, tio, tiotinx, mingle their voices to serenade Apollo, tio, tio, tio, tio, tiotinx, flapping their wings the while, tio, tio, tio, tio, tiotinx; their notes reach beyond the clouds of heaven; all the dwellers in the forests stand still with astonishment and delight; a calm rests upon the waters, and the Graces and the choirs in Olympus catch up the strain, tio, tio, tio, tio, tiotinx.

There is nothing more useful nor more pleasant than to have wings. To begin with, just let us suppose a spectator to be dying with hunger and to be weary of the choruses of the tragic poets; if he were winged, he would fly off, go home to dine and come back with his stomach filled. Some Patroclides in urgent need would not have to soil his cloak, but could fly off, satisfy his requirements, and, having recovered his breath, return. If one of you, it matters not who, had adulterous relations and saw the husband of his mistress in the seats of the senators, he might stretch his wings, fly thither, and, having appeased his craving, resume his place. Is it not the most priceless gift of all, to be winged? Look at Diitrephes! His wings were only wicker-work ones, and yet he got himself chosen Phylarch and then Hipparch; from being nobody, he has risen to be famous; ’tis now the finest gilded cock of his tribe.

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

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.”

EPOPS. Come now, what must be done?

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

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, even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

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?

EPOPS. Oh! capital! truly ’tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES. Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes and most of Aeschines’ is?

PISTHETAERUS. No, ’tis rather the plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

EUELPIDES. Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?

PISTHETAERUS. Why not choose Athené Polias?

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

PISTHETAERUS. Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?

EPOPS. One of ourselves, a bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.

EUELPIDES. Oh! noble chick! what a well-chosen god for a rocky home!

PISTHETAERUS. Come! into the air with you to help the workers, who are building the wall; carry up rubble, strip yourself to mix the mortar, take up the hod, tumble down the ladder, an you like, post sentinels, keep the fire smouldering beneath the ashes, go round the walls, bell in hand, and go to sleep up there yourself; then despatch two heralds, one to the gods above, the other to mankind on earth and come back here.

EUELPIDES. As for yourself, remain here, and may the plague take you for a troublesome fellow!

PISTHETAERUS. Go, friend, go where I send you, for without you my orders cannot be obeyed. For myself, I want to sacrifice to the new god, and I am going to summon the priest who must preside at the ceremony. Slaves! slaves! bring forward the basket and the lustral water.

CHORUS. I do as you do, and I wish as you wish, and I implore you to address powerful and solemn prayers to the gods, and in addition to immolate a sheep as a token of our gratitude. Let us sing the Pythian chant in honour of the god, and let Chaeris accompany our voices.

PISTHETAERUS
(to the flute-player)
. Enough! but, by Heracles! what is this? Great gods! I have seen many prodigious things, but I never saw a muzzled raven.

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.

PRIEST. And to Bacchus, the finch and Cybelé, the ostrich and mother of the gods and mankind.

CHORUS. Oh! sovereign ostrich, Cybelé, the mother of Cleocritus, grant health and safety to the Nephelococcygians as well as to the dwellers in Chios….

PISTHETAERUS. The dwellers in Chios! Ah! I am delighted they should be thus mentioned on all occasions.

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 do 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, worthy of Simonides himself.

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; I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.

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, thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices, make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest.”

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!”

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.

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 himself or the great Diopithes.”

PROPHET. Is all that there?

PISTHETAERUS. Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.

PROPHET. Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.

PISTHETAERUS. Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.

METON. I have come to you.

PISTHETAERUS. Yet another pest. What have you come to do? What’s your plan? What’s the purpose of your journey? Why these splendid buskins?

METON. I want to survey the plains of the air for you and to parcel them into lots.

PISTHETAERUS. In the name of the gods, who are you?

METON. Who am I? Meton, known throughout Greece and at Colonus.

PISTHETAERUS. What are these things?

METON. Tools for measuring the air. In truth, the spaces in the air have precisely the form of a furnace. With this bent ruler I draw a line from top to bottom; from one of its points I describe a circle with the compass. Do you understand?

PISTHETAERUS. Not the very least.

METON. With the straight ruler I set to work to inscribe a square within this circle; in its centre will be the marketplace, into which all the straight streets will lead, converging to this centre like a star, which, although only orbicular, sends forth its rays in a straight line from all sides.

PISTHETAERUS. Meton, you new Thales….

METON. What d’you want with me?

PISTHETAERUS. I want to give you a proof of my friendship. Use your legs.

METON. Why, what have I to fear?

PISTHETAERUS. ’Tis the same here as in Sparta. Strangers are driven away, and blows rain down as thick as hail.

METON. Is there sedition in your city?

PISTHETAERUS. No, certainly not.

METON. What’s wrong then?

PISTHETAERUS. We are agreed to sweep all quacks and impostors far from our borders.

METON. Then I’m off.

PISTHETAERUS. I fear me ’tis too late. The thunder growls already.
(Beats him.)

METON. Oh, woe! oh, woe!

PISTHETAERUS. I warned you. Now, be off, and do your surveying somewhere else.
(Meton takes to his heels.)

AN INSPECTOR. Where are the Proxeni?

PISTHETAERUS. Who is this Sardanapalus?

INSPECTOR. I have been appointed by lot to come to Nephelococcygia as inspector.

PISTHETAERUS. An inspector! and who sends you here, you rascal?

INSPECTOR. A decree of Taleas.

PISTHETAERUS. Will you just pocket your salary, do nothing, and be off?

INSPECTOR. I’ faith! that I will; I am urgently needed to be at Athens to attend the assembly; for I am charged with the interests of Pharnaces.

PISTHETAERUS. Take it then, and be off. See, here is your salary.
(Beats him.)

INSPECTOR. What does this mean?

PISTHETAERUS. ’Tis the assembly where you have to defend Pharnaces.

INSPECTOR. You shall testify that they dare to strike me, the inspector.

PISTHETAERUS. Are you not going to clear out with your urns. ’Tis not to be believed; they send us inspectors before we have so much as paid sacrifice to the gods.

A DEALER IN DECREES. “If the Nephelococcygian does wrong to the
Athenian….”

PISTHETAERUS. Now whatever are these cursed parchments?

DEALER IN DECREES. I am a dealer in decrees, and I have come here to sell you the new laws.

PISTHETAERUS. Which?

DEALER IN DECREES. “The Nephelococcygians shall adopt the same weights, measures and decrees as the Olophyxians.”

PISTHETAERUS. And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians.
(Beats him.)

DEALER IN DECREES. Hullo! what are you doing?