PISTHETAERUS Stay! stop here!
EUELPIDES That they may tear me to pieces?
PISTHETAERUS And how do you think to escape them?
EUELPIDES I don't know at all.
PISTHETAERUS Come, I will tell you. We must stop and fight them. Let us arm ourselves with these stew-pots.
EUELPIDES Why with the stew-pots?
PISTHETAERUS The owl will not attack us.(1)
f(1) An allusion to the Feast of Pots; it was kept at Athens on the third day of the Anthesteria, when all sorts of vegetables were stewed together and offered for the dead to Bacchus and Athene. This Feast was peculiar to Athens.—Hence Pisthetaerus thinks that the owl will recognize they are Athenians by seeing the stew-pots, and as he is an Athenian bird, he will not attack them.
EUELPIDES But do you see all those hooked claws?
PISTHETAERUS Seize the spit and pierce the foe on your side.