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The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did. . . .

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,

Enthroned in the market place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too

And made a gap in nature.

Plutarch: a Greek biographer of the first century. - Parthians: Parthia was a country in Asia. What they undid, did: apparently heated what they had cooled. — barge: a boat for pleasure or for state occasions. — amorous of loving.-beggared: made poor.-cloth-of-gold of tissue: cloth-ofgold on a ground of tissue. - o'er-pic'turing: picturing again. — Cupid: the little god of love. - Nere'idēs nymphs. -tended her i' the eyes, etc.: a much-disputed passage. Probably it means "waited upon her in her sight and made their service an added adornment." -yarely frame : cleverly perform. of the adjacent wharfs: of the crowds upon the wharfs. - enthroned : Antony was waiting for her in his imperial seat. - which but for vacancy: the old saying, "Nature abhors a vacuum," was probably in the poet's mind.

THE BIRDS

FRAGMENTS FROM ARISTOPHANES

[Translated by John Hookham Frere.]

ARISTOPHANES (about 444-368 B.C.) was the most celebrated comic poet of Greece. He wrote fifty or more comedies, eleven of which are still in existence. He is noted for his keen wit and his shrewd common sense.

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE (1769-1846) was an English writer and diplomatist.

NOTE. Peisthetairus is the type of the political adventurer; Euelpides is his simple, droll companion. King Hoopoe has not forgotten his courtly manners, but the birds are suspicious and ungracious. It is impossible to represent in a translation the abrupt staccato character of their speeches.

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About four hundred years before Christ, Aristophanes, the writer of Greek comedies, was delighting Athens with his poetry and wit. His shafts of ridicule reached hypocrites and tyrants, his flashing satire searched through the favorite follies of the time. One of the most sparkling of 15 his plays is "The Birds."

The hero of this play, Peisthetairus, tired of Athens, sets off to seek his fortune. His friend, Euelpides, goes with him.

A raven and a jackdaw show them the way to the 20 kingdom of the birds, where Tereus, once a mortal, now a

hoopoe, reigns as king. They find Tereus and tell him that they know of a plan by which he may become more powerful than gods and men. Tereus, or King Hoopoe, is much excited by the idea and says:

5 Hoopoe.

Peisthetairus.

But tell me, what would you have us do?

Concentrate !

Bring all your birds together. Build a city. The birds! How could we build a city? Where? Peisthetairus. Nonsense. You can't be serious. What a ques

Hoopoe.

Hoopoe.

Peisthetairus. Come, what d'ye see?

Hoopoe.
Peisthetairus.

Hoopoe.

...

I should sprain it, though.

The clouds and sky; that's all.

Well, there, then, you may build and fortify.
From that position you'll command mankind,
And keep them in utter, thorough subjugation,
Just as you do the grasshoppers and locusts.
And if the gods offend you, you'll blockade 'em
And starve 'em to a surrender.

In what way? Peisthetairus. Why, thus. Your atmosphere is placed, you see,

In a middle point, just betwixt earth and heaven. . . .

If you should find the gods grown mutinous

And insubordinate, you could intercept

All their supplies of sacrificial smoke.

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Hoopoe. By the earth and all its springs! springes and nooses! Odds nets and snares! this is the cleverest notion! . . .

[Calling his subjects.]

Hoop! hoop!

Come in a troop!

Come at a call,

One and all,

Birds of a feather,

All together.

Birds of a humble, gentle bill,

Smooth and shrill,

Dieted on seeds and grain,

Rioting on the furrowed plain,

Pecking, hopping,

Picking, popping,

Among the barley newly sown.

Birds of bolder, louder tone,

Lodging in the shrubs and bushes,
Mavises and thrushes,

On the summer berries browsing,

On the garden fruits carousing.

. . You that in a humbler station,
With an active occupation,
Haunt the lowly watery mead,
Warring against the native breed,
The gnats and flies, your enemies;
In the level marshy plain
Of Marathon, pursued and slain.
You that in a squadron driving
From the seas are seen arriving,

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With the cormorants and mews
Haste to land and hear the news!
All the feathered airy nation,
Birds of every size and station,
For the welfare of the state

Come in a flurry,

With a hurry-scurry,

Hurry to the meeting and attend to the debate.

At this summons the birds come flying from every 10 corner of the kingdom. Great flocks of them wheel over the heads of the strangers, curious, frightened, angry, longing to swoop down upon the intruders and make an end of them.

Euelpides contemplates them with surprise, which soon 15 changes to alarm. He exclaims:

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Peistheta irus.
Euelpides.

25 Peisthetairus.

Chorus.

How they thicken, how they muster,
How they clutter, how they cluster!
Now they ramble here and thither,
Now they scramble all together.
What a fidgeting and clattering!
What a twittering and chattering!
Don't they mean to threaten us?

What think ye? Yes, methinks they do.

They're gaping with an angry look against us both.

Whee! Whaw! Where? Where?

It's very true.

What? What? What? What? What? ...