Pisthetaerus: Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call it Sparta?
Euelpides: What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my bed, even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.
Pisthetaerus: Well then, what name can you suggest?
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?
Epops: Oh! capital! truly ’tis a brilliant thought!
Euelpides: Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes and most of Aeschines’ is?
Pisthetaerus: No, ’tis rather the plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.
Euelpides: Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?
Pisthetaerus: Why not choose Athene Polias?
Euelpides: Oh! what a well-ordered town ’twould be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes was spinning!
Pisthetaerus: Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?
Epops: One of us, a bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.
Euelpides: Oh! noble chick! What a well-chosen god for a rocky home!
Pisthetaerus: Come! into the air with you to help the workers who are building the wall; carry up rubble, strip yourself to mix the mortar, take up the hod, tumble down the ladder, an you like, post sentinels, keep the fire smouldering beneath the ashes, go round the walls, bell in hand, and go to sleep up there yourself; then despatch two heralds, one to the gods above, the other to mankind on earth and come back here.
Euelpides: As for yourself, remain here, and may the plague take you for a troublesome fellow!
Pisthetaerus: Go, friend, go where I send you, for without you my orders cannot be obeyed. For myself, I want to sacrifice to the new god, and I am going to summon the priest who must preside at the ceremony. Slaves! slaves! bring forward the basket and the lustral water.
Chorus: I do as you do, and I wish as you wish, and I implore you to address powerful and solemn prayers to the gods, and in addition to immolate a sheep as a token of our gratitude. Let us sing the Pythian chant in honour of the god, and let Chaeris accompany our voices.
Pisthetaerus: To the flute-player. Enough! but, by Heracles! what is this? Great gods! I have seen many prodigious things, but I never saw a muzzled raven.
Epops: Priest! ’tis high time! Sacrifice to the new gods.
Priest: I begin, but where is he with the basket? Pray to the Vesta of the birds, to the kite, who presides over the hearth, and to all the god and goddess-birds who dwell in Olympus.
Chorus: Oh! Hawk, the sacred guardian of Sunium, oh, god of the storks!
Priest: Pray to the swan of Delos, to Latona the mother of the quails, and to Artemis, the goldfinch.
Pisthetaerus: ’Tis no longer Artemis Colaenis, but Artemis the goldfinch.
Priest: And to Bacchus, the finch and Cybele, the ostrich and mother of the gods and mankind.