Parodos
[Agon]
Why did you bring me from down yonder?
340
Pisthetaerus
To have you with me.
340
Euelpides
Say rather to have me melt into tears.
Pisthetaerus
Go on! you are talking nonsense. How will you weep with your eyes pecked out?
Chorus
Io! io! forward to the attack, throw yourselves upon the foe,
spill his blood; take to your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them.
345
Nothing can save them from our wrath, neither the mountain forests, nor the clouds that float in the sky, nor the foaming deep.
350
Leader of the Chorus
Come, peck, tear to ribbons. Where is the chief of the cohort? Let him engage the right wing.
Euelpides
This is the fatal moment. Where shall I fly to, unfortunate wretch that I am?
Pisthetaerus
Wait! Stay here!
Euelpides
That they may tear me to pieces?
355
Pisthetaerus
And how do you think to escape them?
355
Euelpides
I don't know at all.
Pisthetaerus
Come, I will tell you. We must stop and fight them. Let us arm ourselves with these stew-pots.
Euelpides
Why with the stew-pots?
Pisthetaerus
The owl will not attack us then.
Euelpides
But do you see all those hooked claws?
Pisthetaerus
Take the spit
and pierce the foe on your side.
360
Euelpides
And how about my eyes?
360
Pisthetaerus
Protect them with this dish or this vinegar-pot.
Euelpides
Oh! what cleverness! what inventive genius! You are a great general, even greater than Nicias, where stratagem is concerned.
Leader of the Chorus
Forward, forward, charge with your beaks! Come, no delay.
Tear, pluck, strike, flay them, and first of all smash the stew-pot.
365
Epops
Oh, most cruel of all animals, why tear these two men to pieces, why kill them? What have they done to you? They belong to the same tribe, to the same family as my wife.
Leader of the Chorus
Are wolves to be spared? Are they not our most mortal foes?
So let us punish them.
370
Epops
If they are your foes by nature, they are your friends in heart, and they come here to give you useful advice.
Leader of the Chorus
Advice or a useful word from their lips, from them, the enemies of my forebears?
Epops
The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. It is just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, it's the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war;
375
