should not
be worthy to live, if we did not seek to regain our royalty by every
possible means.

PISTHETAERUS First I advise that the birds gather together in one city
and that they build a wall of great bricks, like that at Babylon, round
the plains of the air and the whole region of space that divides earth
from heaven.

EPOPS Oh, Cebriones! oh, Porphyrion!(1) what a terribly strong place!

f(1) As if he were saying, "Oh, gods!" Like Lampon, he swears by the
birds, instead of swearing by the gods.--The names of these birds are
those of two of the Titans.

PISTHETAERUS Th(en), this being well done and completed, you demand back
the empire from Zeus; if he will not agree, if he refuses and does not
at once confess himself beaten, you declare a sacred war against him and
forbid the gods henceforward to pass through your country with lust, as
hitherto, for the purpose of fondling their Alcmenas, their Alopes, or
their Semeles!(1) if they try to pass through, you infibulate them with
rings so that they can work no longer. You send another messenger to
mankind, who will proclaim to them that the birds are kings, that for
the future they must first of all sacrifice to them, and only afterwards
to the gods; that it is fitting to appoint to each deity the bird
that has most in common with it. For instance, are they sacrificing to
Aphrodite, let them at the same time offer barley to the coot; are they
immolating a sheep to Posidon, let them consecrate wheat in honour of
the duck;(2) is a steer being offered to Heracles, let honey-cakes be
dedicated to the gull;(3) is a goat being slain for King Zeus, there is
a King-Bird, the wren,(4) to whom the sacrifice of a male gnat is due
before Zeus himself even.

f(1) Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, King of Thebes and mother of
Heracles.--Semele, the daughter of Cadmus and Hermione and mother of
Bacchus; both seduced by Zeus.--Alope, daughter of Cercyon, a robber,
who reigned at Eleusis and was conquered by Perseus. Alope was honoured
with Posidon's caresses; by him she had a son named Hippothous, at first
brought up by shepherds but who afterwards was restored to the throne of
his grandfather by Theseus.

f(2) Because water is the duck's domain, as it is that of Posidon.

f(3) Because the gull, like Heracles, is voracious.

f(4) The Germans still call it 'Zaunkonig' and the French 'roitelet,'
both names thus containing the idea of 'king.'

EUELPIDES This notion of an immolated