Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/287

257 THE BIRDS 257

That once I was a man.

JEuelpides. We did not laugh

At you, sir.

Hoojioe. What, then, were you laughing at ? 115

Euelpides. Only that beak of yours seemed rather odd.

Hoopoe. It was your poet Sophocles ^ that reduced me To this condition with his tragedies.

Euelpides. What are you, Tereus ? Are you a bird, or what ? 119

Hoopoe. A bird.

Euelpides. Then where are all your feathers ?

Hoopoe. Gone.

Euelpides. In consequence of an illness ?

Hoopoe. No, the birds

At this time of the year leave off their feathers. But you ! What are ye ? Tell me.

Euelpides. Mortal men.

Hoopoe. What countrymen ?

Euelpides. Of the country of the Triremes.^

Hoopoe. Jurymen, I suppose?

Euelpides. Quite the reverse,

We 're anti-jurymen.

Hoopoe. Does that breed still 126

Continue amongst you ?

Euelpides. Some few specimens ^

You '11 meet with, here and there, in country places.

^ In his tragedy of Tereus, Sophocles had represented him as transformed (probably only in the last scenes) with the head and beak of a bird.

^ Galleys with three banks of oars. The Athenians were at that time undisputed masters of the sea.

^ The love of litigation and the passion for sitting on juries seems