文档介绍：410 BC
THE BIRDS
by Aristophanes
anonymous translator
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
EUELPIDES
PITHETAERUS
TROCHILUS, Servant to Epops
Epops (the Hoopoe)
A BIRD
A HERALD
A PRIEST
A POET
AN ORACLE-MONGER
METON, a Geometrician
AN INSPECTOR
A DEALER IN DECREES
IRIS
A PARRICIDE
1
CINESIAS, a Dithyrambic Poet
AN INFORMER
PROMETHEUS
POSIDON
TRIBALLUS
HERACLES
SLAVES OF PITHETAERUS
MESSENGERS
CHORUS OF BIRDS
BIRDS
(SCENE:-A wild and desolate region; only thickets, rocks, and a
single tree are seen. EUELPIDES and PITHETAERUS enter, each with a
bird in his hand.)
EUELPIDES (to his jay)
Do you think I should walk straight for yon tree?
PITHETAERUS (to his crow)
Cursed beast, what are you croaking to me?...to retrace my steps?
EUELPIDES
Why, you wretch, we are wandering at random, we are exerting
ourselves only to return to the same spot; we're wasting our time.
PITHETAERUS
2
To think that I should trust to this crow, which has made me cover
more than a thousand furlongs!
EUELPIDES
And that I, in obedience to this jay, should have worn my toes
down to the nails!
PITHETAERUS
If only I knew where we were....
EUELPIDES
Could you find your country again from here?
PITHETAERUS
No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could Execestides
find his.
EUELPIDES
Alas!
PITHETAERUS
Aye, aye, my friend, it's surely the road of "alases" we are
following.
EUELPIDES
That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick,
when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus, the
Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us
this jay, a true son of Tharrhelides, for an obolus, and this crow for
3
three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and
scratch! (To his jay) What's the matter with you then, that you keep
opening your beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down
these rocks? There is no road that way.
PITHETAERUS
Not