Stasimon 2
[Lyric-Scene]
Now will you get out of here with your decrees? For I am going to let you see some severe ones.
Inspector
I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.
Pisthetaerus
Ha! my friend! are you still here?
Dealer in Decrees
Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them, according to the decree duly posted ...
1050
Pisthetaerus
What! rascal! you are back too?
Inspector
Woe to you! I'll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand drachmae.
Pisthetaerus
And I'll smash your urns.
Inspector
Do you recall that evening when you crapped on the column where the decrees are posted?
Pisthetaerus
Here! here! let him be seized.
The Inspector runs off. Why, don't you want to stay any longer? But let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.
1055
[Parabasis 1]
Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address
First Semi-Chorus
their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees
1060
and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague;
1065
all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing.
1070
[Parabasis]
I hear it proclaimed: A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,
Leader of First Semi-Chorus
and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants. We likewise wish to make our proclamation: A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian; four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven.
1075
He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others. That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds
1080
shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
1085
[Parabasis 1]
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who
Second Semi-Chorus
need no cloak in winter! Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days;
1090
when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, as noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil
1095
