Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German.
Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.

EPOPS Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes(1)
and most of Aeschines'(2) is?

f(1) He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised a great
deal and never kept his word.

f(2) Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'

PISTHETAERUS No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,(1) where the gods
withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

f(1) Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction
of the poets.

EUELPIDES Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron?
for whom shall we weave the peplus?(1)

f(1) A sacred cloth, with which the statue of Athene in the Acropolis
was draped.

PISTHETAERUS Why not choose Athene Polias?(1)

f(1) Meaning, to be patron-goddess of the city. Athene had a temple of
this name.

EUELPIDES Oh! what a well-ordered town 'twould be to have a female deity
armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes(1) was spinning!

f(1) An Athenian effeminate, frequently ridiculed by Aristophanes.

PISTHETAERUS Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?(1)

f(1) This was the name of the wall surrounding the Acropolis.

EPOPS One of us, a bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed
to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.(1)

f(1) i.e. the fighting cock.

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,(1) and go to sleep up there yourself; then d(i)spatch two heralds,
one to the gods above, the other to mankind on earth and come back here.

f(1) To waken the sentinels, who might else have fallen asleep.--There
are several merry contradictions in the various parts of this list of
injunctions.

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