Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/179

Rh

Enormous in thickness, enormously long;

Bigger than Babylon; solid and tall,

With bricks and bitumen, a wonderful wall. Eu. Bricks and bitumen! I'm longing to see

What a daub of a building the city will be! Peis. As soon as the fabric is brought to an end,

A herald or envoy to Jove we shall send,

To require his immediate prompt abdication;

And if he refuses, or shows hesitation,

Or evades the demand; we shall further proceed,

With legitimate warfare avowed and decreed:

With a warning and notices, formally given,

To Jove, and all others residing in heaven,

Forbidding them ever to venture again

To trespass on our atmospheric domain,

With scandalous journies, to visit a list

Of Alcmenas and Semeles; if they persist

We warn them, that means will be taken moreover

To stop their gallanting and acting the lover.

Another ambassador also will go

Despatched upon earth, to the people below,

To notify briefly the fact of accession;

And enforcing our claims upon taking possession:

With orders in future, that every suitor,

Who applies to the gods with an offering made,

Shall begin, with a previous offering paid

To a suitable Bird; of a kind and degree

That accords with the god, whosoever he be.

In Venus's fane, if a victim is slain,

First let a Sparrow be feasted with grain

When gifts and oblations to Neptune are made,

To the Drake, let a tribute of barley be paid.

Let the Cormorant's appetite first be appeased,

And let Hercules then have an Ox for his feast.

If you offer to Jove as the Sovereign above,

A Ram for his own; let the Golden-Crown,

As a sovereign Bird, be duly preferred,

Feasted and honoured, in right of his reign;

With a jolly fat pismire offered and slain.