C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Building of Cloud-Cuckoo-Town
By Aristophanes (c. 448–c. 388 B.C.)
[Enter Messenger, quite out of breath, and speaking in short snatches.]
Peisthetairus[coolly]—Here am I.
Mess.[in a gasp of breath]—Your fortification’s finished.
Peis.—Well! that’s well.
Mess.—A most amazing, astonishing work it is!
So that Theagenes and Proxenides
Might flourish and gasconade and prance away
Quite at their ease, both of them four-in-hand,
Driving abreast upon the breadth of wall,
Each in his own new chariot.
Peis.—You surprise me.
Mess.—And the height (for I made the measurement myself)
Is exactly a hundred fathoms.
Peis.—Heaven and earth!
How could it be? such a mass! who could have built it?
Mess.—The Birds; no creature else, no foreigners,
Egyptian bricklayers, workmen or masons.
But they themselves, alone, by their own efforts,—
(Even to my surprise, as an eye-witness)
The Birds, I say, completed everything:
There came a body of thirty thousand cranes,
(I won’t be positive, there might be more)
With stones from Africa in their craws and gizzards,
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers
Worked into shape and finished. The sand-martens
And mud-larks, too, were busy in their department,
Mixing the mortar, while the water-birds,
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water
To temper and work it.
Peis.[in a fidget]—But who served the masons
Who did you get to carry it?
Mess.—To carry it?
Of course, the carrion crows and carrying pigeons.
Peis.[in a fuss, which he endeavors to conceal]—
Yes! yes! but after all, to load your hods,
How did you manage that?
Mess.—Oh, capitally,
I promise you. There were the geese, all barefoot
Trampling the mortar, and when all was ready
They handed it into the hods, so cleverly,
With their flat feet!
Peis.[a bad joke, as a vent for irritation]—
They footed it, you mean—
Come; it was handily done though, I confess.
Mess.—Indeed, I assure you, it was a sight to see them;
And trains of ducks there were, clambering the ladders
With their duck legs, like bricklayers’ ’prentices,
All dapper and handy, with their little trowels.
Peis.—In fact, then, it’s no use engaging foreigners;
Mere folly and waste, we’ve all within ourselves.
Ah, well now, come! But about the woodwork? Heh!
Who were the carpenters? Answer me that!
Mess.—The woodpeckers, of course: and there they were,
Laboring upon the gates, driving and banging,
With their hard hatchet-beaks, and such a din,
Such a clatter, as they made, hammering and hacking,
In a perpetual peal, pelting away
Like shipwrights, hard at work in the arsenal.
And now their work is finished, gates and all,
Staples and bolts, and bars and everything;
The sentries at their posts; patrols appointed;
The watchman in the barbican; the beacons
Ready prepared for lighting; all their signals
Arranged—but I’ll step out, just for a moment,
To wash my hands. You’ll settle all the rest.