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EUELPIDES. What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the birds,[179] do everything we can to that end, and we cannot find our way! Yes, spectators, our madness is quite different to that of Sacas. He is not a citizen, and would fain be one at any cost; we, on the contrary, born of an honourable tribe and family and living in the midst of our fellow-citizens, we have fled from our country as hard as ever we could go. 'Tis not that we hate it; we recognize it to be great and rich, likewise that everyone has the right to ruin himself; but 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.[180] That is why we started off with a basket, a stew-pot and some myrtle boughs[181] and have come to seek a quiet country in which to settle. We are going to Tereus, the Epops, to learn from him, whether, in his aerial flights, he has noticed some town of this kind.

PISTHETAERUS. Here! look!

EUELPIDES. What's the matter?

PISTHETAERUS. Why, the crow has been pointing me to something up there for some time now.

EUELPIDES. And the jay is also opening its beak and craning its neck to show me I know not what. Clearly, there are some birds about here. We shall soon know, if we kick up a noise to start them.

[179] Literally, to go to the crows, a proverbial expression equivalent to our going to the devil.

[180] They leave Athens because of their hatred of lawsuits and informers; this is the especial failing of the Athenians satirized in 'The Wasps.'

[181] Myrtle boughs were used in sacrifices, and the founding of every colony was started by a sacrifice.
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