Part 29

INFORMER My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis just my words that give you wings.

INFORMER And how can you give a man wings with your words?

PISTHETAERUS 'Tis thus that all first start.

INFORMER All?

PISTHETAERUS Have you not often heard the father say to young men in the barbers' shops, "It's astonishing how Diitrephes' advice has made my son fly to horse-riding."--"Mine," says another, "has flown towards tragic poetry on the wings of his imagination."

INFORMER So that words give wings?

PISTHETAERUS Undoubtedly; words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven. Thus I hope that my wise words will give you wings to fly to some less degrading trade.

INFORMER But I do not want to.

PISTHETAERUS What do you reckon on doing then?

INFORMER I won't belie my breeding; from generation to generation we have lived by informing. Quick, therefore, give me quickly some light, swift hawk or kestrel wings, so that I may summon the islanders, sustain the accusation here, and haste back there again on flying pinions.

PISTHETAERUS I see. In this way the stranger will be condemned even before he appears.

INFORMER That's just it.

PISTHETAERUS And while he is on his way here by sea, you will be flying to the islands to despoil him of his property.

INFORMER You've hit it, precisely; I must whirl hither and thither like a perfect humming-top.

PISTHETAERUS I catch the idea. Wait, i' faith, I've got some fine Corcyraean wings.(1) How do you like them?

f(1) That is, whips--Corcyra being famous for these articles.

INFORMER Oh! woe is me! Why, 'tis a whip!

PISTHETAERUS No, no; these are the wings, I tell you, that set the top a-spinning.

INFORMER Oh! oh! oh!

PISTHETAERUS Take your flight, clear off, you miserable cur, or you will soon see what comes of quibbling and lying. Come, let us gather up our wings and withdraw.

CHORUS In my ethereal flights I have seen many things new and strange and wondrous beyond belief. There is a tree called Cleonymus belonging to an unknown species; it has no heart, is good for nothing and is as tall as it is cowardly. In springtime it shoots forth calumnies instead of buds and in autumn it strews the ground with bucklers in place of leaves.(1)

Far away in the regions of darkness, where no ray of light ever enters, there is a country, where men sit at the table of the heroes and dwell with them always--save always in the evening. Should any mortal meet the hero Orestes at night, he would soon be stripped and covered with blows from head to foot.(2)

f(1) Cleonymous is a standing butt of Aristophanes' wit, both as an informer and a notorious poltroon.

f(2) In allusion to the cave of the bandit Orestes; the poet terms him a hero only because of his heroic name Orestes.

PROMETHEUS Ah! by the gods! if only Zeus does not espy me! Where is Pisthetaerus?

PISTHETAERUS Ha! what is this? A masked man!

PROMETHEUS Can you see any god behind me?