The Birds ': Frere's Translation

[_Enter Messenger, quite out of breath, and speaking in short
snatches_.]

_Messenger_--Where is he? Where? Where is he? Where? Where
is he?--The president Peisthetairus?

_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