The Birds

A Play

Aristophanes

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781504063616
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Drama
• Index: Literature

Birds rule the sky—and man—in this entertaining work by the Ancient Greek playwright known for Lysistrata and The Clouds.
 
This award-winning comedy—first performed in Greece in 414 BC—remains a delightful read even after two millennia. As the birds of Athens express their frustration about sharing a realm with humans, they hatch a plan to build their own empire in the sky: Cloud-cuckoo-land. Soon they are exercising their power as they form a barrier between mortals and the Olympians—and declare themselves the new gods.

The Birds

SCENE: A wild, desolate tract of open country; broken rocks and brushwood occupy the centre of the stage.

EUELPIDES: (TO HIS JAY)1 Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?

PISTHETAERUS: (TO HIS CROW) Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me? … to retrace my steps?

EUELPIDES: Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting ourselves only to return to the same spot; ’tis labour lost.

PISTHETAERUS: To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover more than a thousand furlongs!

EUELPIDES: And that I to this jay, which has torn every nail from my fingers!

PISTHETAERUS: If only I knew where we were….

EUELPIDES: Could you find your country again from here?

PISTHETAERUS: No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides2 find his.

EUELPIDES: Oh dear! oh dear!

PISTHETAERUS: Aye, aye, my friend, ’tis indeed the road of “oh dears” we are following.

EUELPIDES: That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick, when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus, 3 the EPOPS, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us this jay, a true son of Tharelides, 4 for an obolus, and this crow for three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and scratch!—What’s the matter with you then, that you keep opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There is no road that way.

PISTHETAERUS: Not even the vestige of a track in any direction.

EUELPIDES: And what does the crow say about the road to follow?

PISTHETAERUS: By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did.

EUELPIDES: And which way does it tell us to go now?

PISTHETAERUS: It says that, by dint of gnawing, it will devour my fingers.

EUELPIDES: What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the birds, 5 do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different from that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honourable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. ’Tis not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself; but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts.6 That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs7 and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the EPOPS:, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.

PISTHETAERUS: Here! look!

EUELPIDES: What’s the matter?

PISTHETAERUS: Why, the crow has been pointing me to something up there for some time now.

EUELPIDES: And the jay is also opening its beak and craning its neck to show me I know not what. Clearly, there are some birds about here. We shall soon know, if we kick up a noise to start them.

PISTHETAERUS: Do you know what to do? Knock your leg against this rock.

EUELPIDES: And you your head to double the noise.

PISTHETAERUS: Well then use a stone instead; take one and hammer with it.

EUELPIDES: Good idea! Ho there, within! Slave! slave!

PISTHETAERUS: What’s that, friend! You say, “slave,” to summon EPOPS! It would be much better to shout, “EPOPS, EPOPS:!”

EUELPIDES: Well then, EPOPS! Must I knock again? EPOPS!

TROCHILUS: Who’s there? Who calls my master?

PISTHETAERUS: Apollo the Deliverer! what an enormous beak!8

TROCHILUS: Good god! they are bird-catchers.

EUELPIDES: The mere sight of him petrifies me with terror. What a horrible monster.

TROCHILUS: Woe to you!

EUELPIDES: But we are not men.

TROCHILUS: What are you, then?

EUELPIDES: I am the Fearling, an African bird.

TROCHILUS: You talk nonsense.

EUELPIDES: Well, then, just ask it of my feet.9

TROCHILUS: And this other one, what bird is it?

PISTHETAERUS: I? I am a Cackling, 10 from the land of the pheasants.

EUELPIDES: But you yourself, in the name of the gods! what animal are you?

TROCHILUS: Why, I am a slave-bird.

EUELPIDES: Why, have you been conquered by a cock?

TROCHILUS: No, but when my master was turned into a peewit, he begged me to become a bird too, to follow and to serve him.

EUELPIDES: Does a bird need a servant, then?

TROCHILUS: ’Tis no doubt because he was a man. At times he wants to eat a dish of loach from Phalerum; I seize my dish and fly to fetch him some. Again he wants some pea-soup; I seize a ladle and a pot and run to get it.

EUELPIDES: This is, then, truly a running-bird.11 Come, TROCHILUS, do us the kindness to call your master.

TROCHILUS: Why, he has just fallen asleep after a feed of myrtle-berries and a few grubs.

EUELPIDES: Never mind; wake him up.

TROCHILUS: I an certain he will be angry. However, I will wake him to please you.

PISTHETAERUS: You cursed brute! why, I am almost dead with terror!

EUELPIDES: Oh! my god! ’twas sheer fear that made me lose my jay.

PISTHETAERUS: Ah! you great coward! were you so frightened that you let go your jay?

EUELPIDES: And did you not lose your crow, when you fell sprawling on the ground? Pray tell me that.

PISTHETAERUS: No, no.

EUELPIDES: Where is it, then?

PISTHETAERUS: It has flown away.

EUELPIDES: Then you did not let it go? Oh! you brave fellow!

EPOPS: Open the forest, 12 that I may go out!

EUELPIDES: By HERACLES! what a creature! what plumage! What means this triple crest?

EPOPS: Who wants me?

EUELPIDES: The twelve great gods have used you ill, meseems.

EPOPS: Are you chaffing me about my feathers? I have been a man, strangers.

EUELPIDES: ’Tis not you we are jeering at.

EPOPS: At what, then?

EUELPIDES: Why, ’tis your beak that looks so odd to us.

EPOPS: This is how Sophocles outrages me in his tragedies. Know, I once was Tereus.13

EUELPIDES: You were Tereus, and what are you now? a bird or a peacock?14

EPOPS: I am a bird.

EUELPIDES: Then where are your feathers? For I don’t see them.

EPOPS: They have fallen off.

EUELPIDES: Through illness?

EPOPS: No. All birds moult their feathers, you know, every winter, and others grow in their place. But tell me, who are you?

EUELPIDES: We? We are mortals.

EPOPS: From what country?

EUELPIDES: From the land of the beautiful galleys.15

EPOPS: Are you dicasts?16

EUELPIDES: No, if anything, we are anti-dicasts.

EPOPS: Is that kind of seed sown among you?17

EUELPIDES: You have to look hard to find even a little in our fields.

EPOPS: What brings you here?

EUELPIDES: We wish to pay you a visit.

EPOPS: What for?

EUELPIDES: Because you formerly were a man, like we are, formerly you had debts, as we have, formerly you did not want to pay them, like ourselves; furthermore, being turned into a bird, you have when flying seen all lands and seas. Thus you have all human knowledge as well as that of birds. And hence we have come to you to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Dramatis Personæ
• The Birds
• Copyright