Euelpides: That they may tear me to pieces?
Pisthetaerus: And how do you think to escape them?
Euelpides: I don’t know at all.
Pisthetaerus: Come, I will tell you. We must stop and fight them. Let us arm ourselves with these stew-pots.
Euelpides: Why with the stew-pots?
Pisthetaerus: The owl will not attack us.
Euelpides: But do you see all those hooked claws?
Pisthetaerus: Seize the spit and pierce the foe on your side.
Euelpides: And how about my eyes?
Pisthetaerus: Protect them with this dish or this vinegar-pot.
Euelpides: Oh! what cleverness! what inventive genius! You are a great general, even greater than Nicias, where stratagem is concerned.
Chorus: Forward, forward, charge with your beaks! Come, no delay. Tear, pluck, strike, flay them, and first of all smash the stew-pot.
Epops: Oh, most cruel of all animals, why tear these two men to pieces, why kill them? What have they done to you? They belong to the same tribe, to the same family as my wife.
Chorus: Are wolves to be spared? Are they not our most mortal foes? So let us punish them.
Epops: If they are your foes by nature, they are your friends in heart, and they come here to give you useful advice.
Chorus: Advice or a useful word from their lips, from them, the enemies of my forebears!
Epops: The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. ’Tis just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, ’tis the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war; and ’tis this knowledge that protects our children, our slaves and our wealth.
Chorus: Well then, I agree, let us first hear them, for ’tis best; one can even learn something in an enemy’s school.
Pisthetaerus: Their wrath seems to cool. Draw back a little.
Epops: ’Tis only justice, and you will thank me later.
Chorus: Never have we opposed your advice up to now.
Pisthetaerus: They are in a more peaceful mood; put down your stew-pot and your two dishes; spit in hand, doing duty for a spear, let us mount guard inside the camp close to the pot and watch in our arsenal closely; for we must not fly.
Euelpides: You are right. But where shall we be buried, if we die?
Pisthetaerus: In the Ceramicus; for, to get a public funeral, we shall tell the Strategi that we fell at Orneae, fighting the country’s foes.
Chorus: Return to your ranks and lay down your courage beside your wrath as the Hoplites do. Then let us ask these men who they are, whence they come, and with what intent. Here, Epops, answer me.