Chorus: we have summoned the god-born gods.
Chorus: no longer to cross my city,
Chorus: nor let anyone any more carry a sacrificial victim across the floor.
1265
Chorus: to send smoke to the gods here among mortals.
Pisthetaerus: The herald among mortals is certainly terrible.
Pisthetaerus: go, if he does not ever return again.
1270
Herald: O Pisthetaerus, O blessed one, O most wise one,
Herald: O most renowned, O most wise, O most cunning,
Herald: O thrice-happy one, O give the signal.
Pisthetaerus: What are you saying?
Messenger: with this golden crown, because of your wisdom
Crier: all the people crown and honor you.
1275
Pisthetairos: I accept. Why then do the people honor me thus?
Herald: O you who have founded the most famous city in the ether,
Herald: Do you not know what great honor it brings among men,
Crier: and all the lovers of this country that you have.
Herald: for before you had founded this city,
1280
Herald: Everyone was eating roasted hare at that time,
Herald: We had long hair, we were hungry, we were filthy, we were Socratic.
Herald: we carried the scepter, but now having turned back again
Herald: They are crazed for birds, and everything because of pleasure.
Crier: They do exactly what the birds imitate;
1285
Herald: first of all, straight away, everyone together from the bed
Herald: They flew at dawn, just as we [flew] to the pasture;
Crier: and then they would have descended together into the books;
Herald: Then bring the decrees here.
Crier: 'They are bird-mad so conspicuously that even'
1290
Crier: many birds had their names inscribed.
Keryx: one quail was called a huckster.
Herald: he was lame, and to Menippus the name was Swallow,
Herald: A crow that does not have an eye in the Opuntian manner,
Herald: a lark for Philocles, a goose-fox for Theogenes,
1295
Herald: ibis to Lycurgus, bat to Chaerephon,
Herald: For a Syracusan, a kitta; and for Meidias, a kitta over there.
Herald: it was called 'ortux'; for indeed it used to fly like an ortyx.
Herald: [He is] struck on the head by a blow from a pestle.
Keryx: All sang songs under the influence of bird-love,
1300
Herald: where there was some swallow that had been made of wax.
Crier: Is it a pelican or a goose or a pigeon?
Herald: Either wings, or something winged and small must have been present.
Herald: Such things, then, from there. But I say one thing to you:
Herald: They will come from there to here by the tens of thousands.
1305
Herald: Needing wings and hooked-clawed manners;
Herald: So you need wings, the ones you have settled among.
Pisthetairos: By Zeus, then, there is still no work for us to do.
Pisthetaerus: but as quickly as possible, you, going, the hens
Pisthetaerus: And fill all the baskets with feathers;
1310
Pisthetaerus: Let a madman bring my wings out to the door.
Pisthetaerus: But I will receive those who are approaching them.
