Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/203

Rh Chorus. Henceforth—Our Worth,

Our Right—Our Might,

Shall be shown,

Acknowledged, known;

Mankind shall raise

Prayers, vows, praise,

To the Birds alone.

Our employ, is to destroy

The vermin train,

Ravaging amain,

Your fruits and grain:

We're the wardens

Of your gardens,

To watch and chase

The wicked race,

And cut them snorter,

In hasty slaughter.

The first lines of the Epirrema are descriptive of the cruel madness of the times.—See Note on page 155. Diagoras was a Poet, a foreigner resident at Athens (being suspected of Atheism and consequently of being an accomplice in the imaginary plot), he was proscribed and a price set upon his head; it seems also that, in other instances which are alluded to, assassination was encouraged by public rewards. The history of a similar period. The times of Titus Oates's plot (admirably described by Roger North in his Examen) may serve to illustrate the lines 13 and 14, the community in both instances remaining subject to a reign of terror under obscure wretches whose sole instrument of dominion was perjury; as it was necessary for those Sovereign Witnesses to extort respectable subsidiary evidence in support of their main system of perjury, threats and imprisonment were the means employed in both instances, as appears by the narrative of Andocides.

At the present urgent crisis, all your efforts and attention

Are directed to secure Diagoras's apprehension:

Handsome bounties have been offered of a talent for his head

Likewise, with respect to Tyrants (Tyrants that are gone and dead)

Bounties of a talent each, for all that can be killed or caught:

With a zealous emulation, we, the Birds, have also thought