Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/289

259 THE BIRDS 259

And Teleas would be the first to answer,

" A mere poor creature, a weak restless animal,

A silly bird, that 's neither here nor there." ^ iso

Hoopoe. Yes, Teleas might say so. It would he like Mm. But tell me, what would you have us do ?

jPeisthetairus [^emphatically^. Concentrate!

Bring all your birds together. Build a city.

Hoopoe. The birds ! How could we build a city ? Where ?

Peisthetairus. Nonsense. You can't be serious. What a question ! iss

Look down.

Hoopoe. I do.

Peisthetairus. Look up now. ^Hoopoe. So I do.

Peisthetairus. Now turn your neck round.

Hoopoe. I should sprain it though.

Peisthetairus. Come, what d' ye see ?

Hoopoe. The clouds and sky ; that 's all.

Peisthetairus. Well, that we call the pole and the atmosphere ; And would it not serve you birds for a metropole ? i9o

Hoopoe. Pole ? Is it called a pole ?

Peisthetairus. Yes, that 's the name.

Philosophers of late call it the pole ; Because it wheels and rolls itself about, As it were, in a kind of a roly-poly way.^ Well, there then, you may build and fortify, 195

^ The lines between inverted commas may be understood either as the words of Teleas or as a description of him ; the ambiguitj' exists in the orig^inal and is evidently intentional. It is continued in the next line of the Hoopoe's answer.

2 The comic poets ridiculed the new prevailing passion for astro- nomical and physical science.