260 ARISTOPHANES
And call it your Metropolis — your Acropolis, From that position you '11 command mankind, And keep them in utter, thorough subjugation : Just as you do the grasshoppers and locusts. And if the gods offend you, you '11 blockade 'em, 200 And starve 'em to a surrender.
Hoopoe. In what way ?
Peisthetairus. Why, thus. Your atmosphere is placed, you see, In a middle point, just betwixt earth and heaven.
A case of the same kind occurs with us. Our people in Athens, if they send to Delphi ^ 205
With deputations, offerings, or what not, Are forced to obtain a pass from the Boeotians : Thus when mankind on earth are sacrificing. If you should find the Gods grown mutinous And insubordinate, you could intercept 210
All their supplies of sacrificial smoke.
Hoopoe. By the earth and all its springs ! springes and nooses ! ^ Odds, nets and snares ! This is the cleverest notion : And I could find it in my heart to venture, If the other birds agree to the proposal. 215
Peisihetairus. But who must state it to them ?
Hoopoe. You yourself.
They '11 understand ye, I found them mere barbari- ans, But living here a length of time amongst them, I have taught them to converse and speak correctly.^
^ The most famous oracle of Apollo was at Delphi.
^ The Hoopoe's exclamation and oath are in the original, as they are here represented, exactly in the style of Bob Acres.
^ The characteristic impertinence of a predominant people, con- sidering their own language as that which ought to be universally spoken.
