Aristophanes' BIRDS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

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PISTHETAERUS. Well then, what name can you suggest?

EUELPIDES. Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell--in short, some well-known name.

PISTHETAERUS. Do you like Nephelococcygia?[270]

EPOPS. Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES. Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes[271] and most of Aeschines'[272] is?

PISTHETAERUS. No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,[273] where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

EUELPIDES. Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?[274]

[270] A fanciful name constructed from [Greek: nephele], a cloud, and [Greek: kokkux], a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos.--Wolkenkukelheim[*] is a clever approximation in German. Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.

[* Transcriber's note: So in original. The correct German word is Wolkenkuckucksheim.]

[271] He was a boaster nicknamed [Greek: Kapnos], smoke, because he promised a great deal and never kept his word.

[272] Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'

[273] Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction of the poets.

[274] A sacred cloth, with which the statue of Athene in the Acropolis was draped.

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