The Birds, Aristophanes
Excerpt from The Birds by Aristophanes
(trans. by William Arrowsmith)
The Chorus turns sharply and faces the audience, while the
flutegirl begins the song of the nightingale at its most mournful.
The flute obbligato accompanies the Chorus throughout.
O suffering mankind,
lives of twilight,
race feeble and fleeting,
like the leaves scattered!
Pale generations,
creatures of clay,
the wingless, the fading!
Unhappy mortals,
shadows in time,
flickering dreams!
Hear us now,
the ever-living Birds,
the undying,
the ageless ones,
scholars of eternity.
Hear and learn from us
the truth
of all there is to know –
what we are,
and how the gods began,
of Chaos and Dark.
(And when you know
tell Prodikos to go
hang: he’s had it!)
There was Chaos at first
and Night and Space
and Tartaros.
There was no Earth.
No Heaven was.
But sable-winged Night
laid her wind-egg there
in the boundless lap
of infinite Dark.
And from that egg,
in the season’ revolving,
Love was born,
the graceful, the golden,
the whirlwind Love
on gleaming wings.
And there in the waste
of Tartaros,
Love with Chaos lay
and hatched the Birds.
We come from Love.
Love brought us to the light.
There were no gods
till Love had married
all the world in love.
Then the world was made.
Blue Heaven stirred,
and Ocean,
the Earth and ageless gods,
the blessed ones
who do not die.
But we came first.
We Birds were born
the first-born sons of Love,
in proof whereof
we wear Love’s wings,
we help his lovers.
How many pretty boys,
their prime not past,
abjuring Love,
have opening up their thighs
and yielded,
overborne by us,
bribed by a Bird,
a Coot, A Goose,
a Persian Cock!
Think of the services
we Birds perform
for all mankind.
We mark your seasons off,
summer, spring,
winter, fall.
When for Africa
the screaming Crane departs,
you sow your fields.
And then the sailor
takes his ease
and hangs his rudder up,
and thief Orestes
weaves himself a cloak
and robs no man.
And then the Kite appears,
whose coming says
the Spring is here,
the time has come
to shear the sheep.
And so the Swallow
brings his summer,
when mankind lays
its winter weeds away.
And we are Ammon
and Dadona.
We are your Apollo,
that prophetic voice
to whom you turn
in everything you do —
practical affairs,
commerce and trade,
and marriage too.
Birds are your signs,
and all your omens
are governed by Birds:
words are omens
sent by the Birds.
And the same for sneezes,
meetings, asses, voices:
all are omens,
and omens are Birds.
Who are we then
if we are not
your prophetic Apollo?