Pisthetaerus: Ah! and so you slipped into this city on the sly and into these realms of air-land that don’t belong to you.
Iris: And what other roads can the gods travel?
Pisthetaerus: By Zeus! I know nothing about that, not I. But they won’t pass this way. And you still dare to complain! Why, if you were treated according to your deserts, no Iris would ever have more justly suffered death.
Iris: I am immortal.
Pisthetaerus: You would have died nevertheless.—Oh! ’twould be truly intolerable! What! should the universe obey us and the gods alone continue their insolence and not understand that they must submit to the law of the strongest in their due turn? But tell me, where are you flying to?
Iris: I? The messenger of Zeus to mankind, I am going to tell them to sacrifice sheep and oxen on the altars and to fill their streets with the rich smoke of burning fat.
Pisthetaerus: Of which gods are you speaking?
Iris: Of which? Why, of ourselves, the gods of heaven.
Pisthetaerus: You, gods?
Iris: Are there others then?
Pisthetaerus: Men now adore the birds as gods, and ’tis to them, by Zeus, that they must offer sacrifices, and not to Zeus at all!
Iris: Oh! fool! fool! Rouse not the wrath of the gods, for ’tis terrible indeed. Armed with the brand of Zeus, Justice would annihilate your race; the lightning would strike you as it did Licymnius and consume both your body and the porticos of your palace.
Pisthetaerus: Here! that’s enough tall talk. Just you listen and keep quiet! Do you take me for a Lydian or a Phrygian and think to frighten me with your big words? Know, that if Zeus worries me again, I shall go at the head of my eagles, who are armed with lightning, and reduce his dwelling and that of Amphion to cinders. I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions clothed in leopards’ skins up to heaven against him; and formerly a single Porphyrion gave him enough to do. As for you, his messenger, if you annoy me, I shall begin by stretching your legs asunder, and so conduct myself, Iris though you be, that despite my age, you will be astonished. I will show you something that will make you three times over.
Iris: May you perish, you wretch, you and your infamous words!
Pisthetaerus: Won’t you be off quickly? Come, stretch your wings or look out for squalls!
Iris: If my father does not punish you for your insults …
Pisthetaerus: Ha! … but just you be off elsewhere to roast younger folk than us with your lightning.
Chorus: We forbid the gods, the sons of Zeus, to pass through our city and the mortals to send them the smoke of their sacrifices by this road.
Pisthetaerus: ’Tis odd that the messenger we sent to the mortals has never returned.
Herald: Oh! blessed Pisthetaerus, very wise, very illustrious, very gracious, thrice happy, very … Come, prompt me, somebody, do.
Pisthetaerus: Get to your story!
Herald: All peoples are filled with admiration for your wisdom, and they award you this golden crown.
Pisthetaerus: I accept it. But tell me, why do the people admire me?
Herald: Oh you, who have founded so illustrious a city in the air, you know not in what esteem men hold you and how many there are who burn with desire to dwell in it. Before your city was built, all men had a mania for Sparta; long hair and fasting were held in honour, men went dirty like Socrates and carried staves. Now all is changed. Firstly, as soon as ’tis dawn, they all spring out of bed together to go and seek their food, the same as you do; then they fly off towards the notices and finally devour the decrees. The bird-madness is so clear, that many actually bear the names of birds. There is a halting victualler, who styles himself the partridge; Menippus calls himself the swallow; Opuntius the one-eyed crow; Philocles the lark; Theogenes the fox-goose; Lycurgus the ibis; Chaerephon the bat; Syracosius the magpie; Midias the quail; indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard over the head. Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, the goose or the pigeon; in each verse you see wings, or at all events a few feathers. This is what is happening down there. Finally, there are more than ten thousand folk who are coming here from earth to ask you for feathers and hooked claws; so, mind you supply yourself with wings for the immigrants.
Pisthetaerus: Ah! by Zeus, ’tis not the time for idling. Go as quick as possible and fill every hamper, every basket you can find with wings. Manes will bring them to me outside the walls, where I will welcome those who present themselves.