The Birds (cont'd)

PISTHETAERUS
He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some present. Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me to be shivering with cold.

POET
My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of Pindar's on your mind.

PISTHETAERUS
Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!

POET
"Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic." Do you conceive my bent?

PISTHETAERUS
I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (TO EUELPIDES), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you, take it and begone.

POET
I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city: "Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery, freezing city; I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala! Tralala!"[1]

[1] A parody of poetic pathos, not to say bathos.

PISTHETAERUS
What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic, you no longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this cursed fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come, priest, take the lustral water and circle the altar.

PRIEST
Let all keep silence!

A PROPHET
Let not the goat be sacrificed.[1]

[1] Which the priest was preparing to sacrifice.

PISTHETAERUS
Who are you?

PROPHET
Who am I? A prophet.

PISTHETAERUS
Get you gone.

PROPHET
Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia.

PISTHETAERUS
Why did you not reveal it to me before I founded my city?

PROPHET
The divine spirit was against it.

PISTHETAERUS
Well, 'tis best to know the terms of the oracle.

PROPHET
"But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together between Corinth and Sicyon..."

PISTHETAERUS
But how do the Corinthians concern me?

PROPHET
'Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated in this manner. "They must first sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora, and give the prophet, who first reveals my words, a good cloak and new sandals."

PISTHETAERUS
Are the sandals there?

PROPHET
Read. "And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the entrails of the victim."

PISTHETAERUS
Of the entrails--is it so written?

PROPHET
Read. "If you do as I command, divine youth, you shall be an eagle among the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor eagle, nor woodpecker."

PISTHETAERUS
Is all that there?

PROPHET
Read.

PISTHETAERUS
This oracle