lawful wedlock: and if there be not children born in lawful wedlock, the nearest akin by birth is to inherit the property." HERC.—To me, then, there is no share in my father's pro perty ? your father PIŠTH.—No, indeed, by Jove: but tell me, has as yet led you to be numbered among your tribesmen ? HERC.-Me do you ask? not he: and, indeed, it has long been a subject of wonder to me. PISTH.—Why are you gaping aloft, looking daggers? But come, should you take your stand with us, I will set you up as king; I will afford you bird's' milk ! HERC.-Rightly to me, at least, aye, long ago, you seem to speak with relation to the damsel, and I, for my part, deliver her up to you. PISTH.-What is that you say? PISTA.— The whole matter now rests with Triballus. What say you? TRIB.—The botiful damosel and gigantic, Basilissanau, me give up to de bird! HERC.—You say you give her up. NEPT.- No, by Jove, this fellow, at least, does not say he gives her up, unless, indeed, he twitter, like the swallows. PISTH.-That being the case then, he does assuredly bid you give her up to the swallows.” NEPT.-Do you two now make the truce and enter together into the league, and I, since it seems good to you, will hold my tongue. HERC.—To us, whatever you say, it appears right to concede : but do you yourself come with us to heaven, that you may receive the Basileia, and every thing else there. PISTH.-Just in time these here have been cut off for the marriage-feast, have they not? 1 Vide suprà, v. 733. τίς ήν ο γράψας πρώτος ανθρώπων άρα HERC.-Would you that I remain here the while, and grill these meats, and you go? NEPT.-What? Grill the meats? Excess of gluttony' it is you mention. Will you not go with us? HERC.—Well, at least, I should have been disposed of. PISTH.-Come, let some one give me here a marriage-cloak. CHOR.-At Phanæ2 adjoining the Clepsydra (i. e. at Accusation-hall near the river Hour-glass) live a villanous ventriloquistic race, who both harvest, and sow, and gather grapes with their tongues, and figs too: barbarians they are by extraction, both Gorgias" and Philippi: and from these same ventriloquistic Philippi in Attica the tongue is severed in twain. MESS. 3 MESSENGER. O ye that fare well in every respect, O more than words may tell, O thrice happy winged race of birds, receive your lord into your mansions of the blest: for he comes such as never all-glittering star has shone to sight in its orbit bespangled with gold,—nor ever has the far resplendent flare of the sun's beams gleamed with such a blaze: and the beauty of the damsel he leads with him, oh! it is unutterable,grasping the thunder, the winged weapon of Jove. Odours baffling attempts to name waft themselves to the circles' depth, -glorious sight! and from the perfumes burnt, breezes' shave through the smoke's wreathed curls. Nay, here he comes: and now behoves it the Divine Muse open her sacred auspicious mouth in song. 98. 1 Vide Brunck ad Nub. 1198. 2 Phanæ itself really was a promontory of Chios. Vide Virg. Georg. ii. "Rex ipse Phanaeus." Liv. xxxvi. 43. 3 Vide Vesp. 421. 4 Vide Hom. Odyss. iii. 332; Pac. 1061; yλtta xwpis réμveral. 5 Vide Plat. Phæd. § 76; Matth. G. G. 534; Hor. Od. iv. ii. 59. videri." • Vide Æschyl. Ρ. V. 115, τίς ὀδμὰ προσέπτα μ' ἀφεγγής; "Niveus 7 Vide Æschyl. Ρ. V. 402, λευρόν γὰρ οἶμον αἰθέρος ψαίρω πτεροῖς· Virg." Radit iter liquidum." Milton, P. L. ii. 604 : "Shaves with level wing the deep." S S. CHOR.-Fall back,-divide,-move forward,—make room, -fly around that mortal blest with his blest lot. Oh for beauty's' prime! What loveliness! Oh you who have entered into a marriage most blest for this our state here! Mighty, mighty blessings result to the race of birds through this man. Come, receive with hymeneal strains and nuptial' odes him and his Basileia. S. CHOR.-TO Olympian Juno once upon a time the Fates, in union with the Gods, led forth the mighty lord of the thrones on high, with such an hymeneal strain as this,"Hymen, Hymen, joyous Hymen!" and young love, in the bloom of youth, with his wings of gold directed the bending reins,3 bride's man at the marriage of Jove, and of the blessed Juno. "Hymen, Hymen, joyous Hymen !" PISTH.-With joy I hear your hymns, with joy I hear your notes, with delight I wonder at your words! Come now here let us hymn the praises of the thunder which mutters underneath, and the fiery bolts of Jove, and the dread white-gleaming levin-brand. CHOR.-O thou mighty golden blaze of lightning! O thou immortal fiery weapon of Jove! O ye hoarse ringing thunders in the bosom of the earth, and tempest-bearing bolts,* vaunt couriers, with which he now shakes the earth, by your means possessed of all, he has even Basileia, the assessor of Jove! "Hymen, hymen, joyous Hymen!” PISTH.-Follow now the marriage-train, ye winged tribes all of kindred birds, to the mansion of Jove and the nuptial couch. Stretch forth, blessed queen, thy hand, and taking 4 Vide Monk ad Hippolyt. 1196. See Shakspeare. Lear, Act. iii.: You sulphurous and thought-executing fires hold of my wings, join with me in the mazy dance. And I taking hold will buoy you up in air. CHOR.-Alala! Io Pæan! Joyous, joyous, joyous day! Thou mighty, mighty king! END OF THE BIRDS. ADDITIONAL NOTES. Note on the Acharnians, p. 36, v. 863, rois oorivos, k. 7. č. “ The Tapinambas, as they gained upon them, held up their fifes of human bone, and rattled their necklaces of human teeth, shouting and exulting with the certain hope of victory.”—Southey's History of the Brazils, 1st ed. 4to. 1810. Note to p. 211, “ a sneeze too you call a bird."" Father Tachard, in his Voyages (i. v.) informs us, that the Siamese imagine that the supreme judge of hell is eternally minuting, in a memorandum book, the lives and actions of all mankind; and when he turns to the title page of any particular person's life, the page sneezes, and we mortals sympathetically sneeze with it. Hence arose the custom of wishing long life to the sneezer. Several causes have been assigned for the origin of this custom; and Father Feyjoo has attributed it to the ordinance of Pope Gregory, who instituted a short prayer to be used at a time when a pestilence raged, the fatal crisis of which was indicated by sneezing. (Thucyd. ii. 49.) The rabbis have a tale, that before the time of Jacob men never sneezed but once, and then immediately died. The patriarchs, they say, obtained a revocation of this law, the memory of which was ordered to be preserved in all nations by some salutary exclamation after sneezing. It is a curious fact that the word should be an õpvis in almost every, even the most distant nations, in the western climes of America, no less than in the “ gorgeous east.” Note to p. 217," and to ostrich,” &c. Thevenot has some quaint remarks. Travels into the Levant, Part I. p. 164, fol. ed. 1687. “ As for the estridges they also live only in the deserts, where some of them are of a prodigious bigness. Every one knows how estridges are shaped, which have a neck, head, and hunch on the back like camels, with which they agree in many things, so that the Turks call them deve couch,' that is to say, bird camels (Herod. iv. 175, 192, otpovoos karáyalogotpovboi xepoaiol, Ælian. de Animal. xiv. 13, Facciolati vv. Passer, Struthiocamelus); they go in the fields always in an even number, as two, and two; or four, and four. They always beget a male and female, and run swifter than a horse, but tire likewise sooner, and while they run they throw with their feet the stones which they find with so much force against those that pursue them, that if they hit a man they would do him a great deal of hurt. I saw one once give a great dog such a blow with his foot, as left him sprawling with his four legs up in the air!!” FINIS. Printed by J. Munday, Oxford. |