Quotes from The Birds

Quotations follow the Peter Meineck translation (Hackett Publishing, 1998) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   By the gods, I've never seen a more magnificent plan! Let's build our city in the clouds!

2. 3

   Firstly, black-winged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest.

3. 4

   First I advise that the birds gather together in one city and that they build a wall of great bricks, like that at Babylon, round the plains of the air and the whole region of space that divides earth from heaven.

4. 5

   Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream, hearken to us, who are immortal beings.

5. 6

   It was not the gods, but the birds, who were formerly the masters and kings over men; of this I have a thousand proofs.

6. 7

   The crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts.

7. 8

   Why, 'tis not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no purse.

8. 9

   Your race is older than Saturn, the Titans and the Earth.

9. 10

   The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety.

10. 11

    Oh, Muse! celebrate happy Nephelococcygia in your hymns.