Chorus: This town will soon be inhabited by a crowd of men.
Pisthetaerus: If fortune favours us.
Chorus: Folk are more and more delighted with it.
Pisthetaerus: Come, hurry up and bring them along.
Chorus: Will not man find here everything that can please him—wisdom, love, the divine Graces, the sweet face of gentle peace?
Pisthetaerus: Oh! you lazy servant! won’t you hurry yourself?
Chorus: Let a basket of wings be brought speedily. Come, beat him as I do, and put some life into him; he is as lazy as an ass.
Pisthetaerus: Aye, Manes is a great craven.
Chorus: Begin by putting this heap of wings in order; divide them in three parts according to the birds from whom they came; the singing, the prophetic and the aquatic birds; then you must take care to distribute them to the men according to their character.
Pisthetaerus: To Manes. Oh! by the kestrels! I can keep my hands off you no longer; you are too slow and lazy altogether.
A parricide: Oh! might I but become an eagle, who soars in the skies! Oh! might I fly above the azure waves of the barren sea!
Pisthetaerus: Ha! ’twould seem the news was true; I hear someone coming who talks of wings.
Parricide: Nothing is more charming than to fly; I burn with desire to live under the same laws as the birds; I am bird-mad and fly towards you, for I want to live with you and to obey your laws.
Pisthetaerus: Which laws? The birds have many laws.
Parricide: All of them; but the one that pleases me most is, that among the birds it is considered a fine thing to peck and strangle one’s father.
Pisthetaerus: Aye, by Zeus! according to us, he who dares to strike his father, while still a chick, is a brave fellow.
Parricide: And therefore I want to dwell here, for I want to strangle my father and inherit his wealth.
Pisthetaerus: But we have also an ancient law written in the code of the storks, which runs thus, “When the stork father has reared his young and has taught them to fly, the young must in their turn support the father.”
Parricide: ’Tis hardly worth while coming all this distance to be compelled to keep my father!
Pisthetaerus: No, no, young friend, since you have come to us with such willingness, I am going to give you these black wings, as though you were an orphan bird; furthermore, some good advice, that I received myself in infancy. Don’t strike your father, but take these wings in one hand and these spurs in the other; imagine you have a cock’s crest on your head and go and mount guard and fight; live on your pay and respect your father’s life. You’re a gallant fellow! Very well, then! Fly to Thrace and fight.
Parricide: By Bacchus! ’Tis well spoken; I will follow your counsel.
Pisthetaerus: ’Tis acting wisely, by Zeus.
Cinesias: “On my light pinions I soar off to Olympus; in its capricious flight my Muse flutters along the thousand paths of poetry in turn …”
Pisthetaerus: This is a fellow will need a whole shipload of wings.
Cinesias: Singing. “… and being fearless and vigorous, it is seeking fresh outlet.”