The Birds are at first inclined to receive their human visitors as hereditary and notorious enemies. “Men were deceivers ever,” is their song, in so many words; and it requires all the king’s influence to keep them from attacking them and killing them at once. At length they agree to a parley, and Peisthetærus begins by paying some ingenious compliments to the high respectability and antiquity of the feathered race. Was not the cock once king of the Persians? is he not still called the “Persian bird”? and still even to this day, the moment he crows, do not all men everywhere jump out of bed and go to their work? And was not the cuckoo king of Egypt; and still when they hear him cry “cuckoo!” do not all the Egyptians go into the harvest-fields? Do not kings bear eagles and doves now on their sceptres, in token of the true sovereignty of the Birds? Is not Jupiter represented always with his eagle, Minerva with her owl, Apollo with his hawk? But now,—he goes on to say—“men hunt you, and trap you, and set you out for sale, and, not content with, simply roasting you, they actually pour scalding sauce over you,—oil, and vinegar, and grated cheese,—spoiling your naturally exquisite flavour.” But, if they will be advised by him, they will bear it no longer. If men will still prefer the gods to the birds, then let the rooks and sparrows flock down and eat up all the seed-wheat—and let foolish mortals see what Ceres can then do for them in the way of supplies. And let the crows peck out the eyes of the sheep and oxen; and let them see whether Apollo (who calls himself a physician, and takes care to get his fees as such) will be able to heal them. [Euelpides here puts in a word—he hopes they will allow him first to sell a pair of oxen he has at home.] And indeed the Birds will make much better gods, and more economical: there will be no need of costly marble temples, and expensive journeys to such places as Ammon and Delphi; an oak-tree or an olive-grove will answer all purposes of bird-worship.
He then propounds his great scheme for building a bird-city in mid-air. The idea is favourably entertained, and the two featherless bipeds are equipped (by means of some potent herb known to the Bird-king) with a pair of wings apiece, to make them presentable in society, before they are introduced at the royal table. The metamorphosis causes some amusement, and the two human travellers are not complimentary as to each other’s appearance in these new appendages; Peisthetærus declaring that his friend reminds him of nothing so much as “a goose on a cheap sign-board,” while the other retorts by comparing him to “a plucked blackbird.”[45]
The Choral song that follows is one of the gems of that elegance of fancy and diction which, here and there, in the plays of Aristophanes, almost startle us by contrast with the broad farce which forms their staple, and show that the author possessed the powers of a true poet as well as of a clever satirist.
“Ye children of man! whose life is a span,
Protracted with sorrow from day to day,
Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,
Sickly calamitous creatures of clay!
Attend to the words of the sovereign birds,
Immortal, illustrious lords of the air,
Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,
Your struggles of misery, labour, and care.
Whence you may learn and clearly discern
Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn;
Which is busied of late with a mighty debate,
A profound speculation about the creation,
And organical life, and chaotical strife,
With various notions of heavenly motions,
And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains,
And sources of fountains, and meteors on high,
And stars in the sky.... We propose by-and-by
(If you’ll listen and hear) to make it all clear.”—(F.)
There follows here some fantastical cosmogony, showing how all things had their origin from a mystic egg, laid by Night, from which sprang the golden-winged Eros—Love, the great principle of life, whose offspring were the Birds.
“Our antiquity proved, it remains to be shown
That Love is our author and master alone;
Like him we can ramble and gambol and fly
O’er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky:
And all the world over, we’re friends to the lover,
And where other means fail, we are found to prevail,
When a peacock or pheasant is sent as a present.
All lessons of primary daily concern
You have learnt from the birds, and continue to learn,
Your best benefactors and early instructors;
We give you the warning of seasons returning;
When the cranes are arranged, and muster afloat
In the middle air, with a creaking note,
Steering away to the Lybian sands,
Then careful farmers sow their lands;
The crazy vessel is hauled ashore,
The sail, the ropes, the rudder, and oar
Are all unshipped, and housed in store.
The shepherd is warned, by the kite reappearing,
To muster his flock, and be ready for shearing.
You quit your old cloak at the swallow’s behest,
In assurance of summer, and purchase a vest.
For Delphi, for Ammon, Dodona, in fine
For every oracular temple and shrine,
The birds are a substitute equal and fair,
For on us you depend, and to us you repair
For counsel and aid when a marriage is made,
A purchase, a bargain, a venture in trade:
Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye—
An ox or an ass that may happen to pass,
A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet,
A name or a word by chance overheard—
If you deem it an omen, you call it a bird;
And if birds are your omens, it clearly will follow
That birds are a proper prophetic Apollo.”—(F.)
The Birds proceed at once to build their new city. Peisthetærus prefers helping with his head rather than his hands, but he orders off his simple-minded companion to assist them in the work.
Peis. Come now, go aloft, my boy, and tend the masons;
Find them good stones; strip to it, like a man,
And mix the mortar; carry up the hod—
And tumble down the ladder, for a change.
Set guards over the wall; take care of fire;
Go your rounds with the bell as city watchman—
And go to sleep on your post—as I know you will.
Euelp. (sulkily). And you stay here and be hanged, if you like—there, now!
Peis. (winking at the King). Go! there’s a good fellow, go! upon my word,
They couldn’t possibly get on without you.
The building is completed, by the joint exertions of the Birds, in a shorter time than even the enthusiastic speculations of Peisthetærus had calculated:—
“Messenger. There came a body of thirty thousand cranes
(I won’t be positive, there might be more)
With stones from Africa in their craws and gizzards,
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers
Worked into shape and finished. The sand-martins
And mudlarks too were busy in their department,
Mixing the mortar; while the water-birds,
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water,
To temper and work it.
Peis. (in a fidget). But who served the masons?
Who did you get to carry it?
Mess. To carry it?
Of course the carrion crows and carrier-pigeons.”[46]—(F.)