d by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so
that in their turn they may decoy other men.

Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter!
Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the
divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning
the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home is beneath the
foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic
with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the
Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.

I want now to speak to the judges about the prize they are going to
award; if they are favourable to us, we will load them with benefits far
greater than those Paris(4) received. Firstly, the owls of Laurium,(5)
which every judge desires above all things, shall never be wanting to
you; you shall see them homing with you, building their nests in your
money-bags and laying coins. Besides, you shall be housed like the
gods, for we shall erect gables(6) over your dwellings; if you hold
some public post and want to do a little pilfering, we will give you the
sharp claws of a hawk. Are you dining in town, we will provide you with
crops.(7) But, if your award is against us, don't fail to have metal
covers fashioned for yourselves, like those they place over statues;(8)
else, look out! for the day you wear a white tunic all the birds will
soil it with their droppings.

f(1) A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to
atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the
existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the
idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and
perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea.

f(2) By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and
that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was
constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received
by the populace.

f(3) A poulterer.--Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from
the name of his 'deme,' is derived from (the Greek for) 'a sparrow.' The
birds' foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological surname.

f(4) From Aphrodite (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of
beauty, in the contest of the "goddesses three."

f(5) Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic
peninsula containing valuable s