Parodos
[Episode]
to prowl round the cities and drag them before justice.
1425
Pisthetaerus
Would you do this better if you had wings?
Informer
No, but I should no longer fear the pirates; I should return with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast.
Pisthetaerus
So it seems, despite all your youthful vigor, you make it your trade to denounce strangers?
1430
Informer
Well, and why not? I don't know how to dig.
Pisthetaerus
But, by Zeus! there are
honest ways of gaining a living at your age without all this infamous trickery.
1435
Informer
My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.
Pisthetaerus
It's just my words that gives you wings.
Informer
And how can you give a man wings with your words?
Pisthetaerus
They all start this way.
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
1440
flown towards tragic poetry on the wings of his imagination.
1445
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.
1450
Informer
But I do not want to.
1450
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.
1455
Pisthetaerus
I see. In this way the stranger will be condemned even before he appears.
Pisthetaerus
And while he is on his way here by sea, you will be flying to the islands
to despoil him of his property.
1460
Informer
You've hit it, precisely; I must whirl hither and thither like a perfect humming-top.
1460
Pisthetaerus
I catch the idea. Wait, I've got some fine Corcyraean wings. How do you like them?
Informer
Oh! woe is me! Why, it's a whip!
Pisthetaerus
No, no; these are the wings,
