PISTHETAERUS And I'll smash your urns.(1)
f(1) Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose of inaugurating the assemblies of the people or some tribunal.
INSPECTOR Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where the decrees are posted?
PISTHETAERUS Here! here! let him be seized. (THE INSPECTOR RUNS OFF.) Well! don't you want to stop any longer?
PRIEST Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.(1)
f(1) So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted.
CHORUS Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: "A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,(1) and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants."(2) We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian;(3) four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others." That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter! Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.
I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far greater than those Paris(4) received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,(5) which every judge desires above all things, shall never be wanting to you; you shall see them homing with you, building their nests in your money-bags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the gods, for we shall erect gables(6) over your dwellings; if you hold some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the sharp claws of a hawk. Are you dining in town, we will provide you with crops.(7) But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;(8) else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will soil it with their droppings.
f(1) A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea.