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?(1)
f(1) A fanciful name constructed from (the word for) a cloud, and (the word for) a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos.—'Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German. Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.
EPOPS Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!
EUELPIDES Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes(1) and most of Aeschines'(2) is?
f(1) He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised a great deal and never kept his word.
f(2) Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'
PISTHETAERUS No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,(1) where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.
f(1) Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction of the poets.
EUELPIDES Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?(1)