cheap sign-board," while the other retorts by comparing him to "a plucked blackbird."[1]
The Choral song that follows is one of the gems of that elegance of fancy and diction which, here and there, in the plays of Aristophanes, almost startle us by contrast with the broad farce which forms their staple, and show that the author possessed the powers of a true poet as well as of a clever satirist.
"Ye children of man! whose life is a span,
Protracted with sorrow from day to day,
Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,
Sickly calamitous creatures of clay!
Attend to the words of the sovereign birds,
Immortal, illustrious lords of the air,
Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,
Your struggles of misery, labour, and care.
Whence you may learn and clearly discern
Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn;
- ↑ If the reader would like to see how thoroughly this kind of humour is in the spirit of modern burlesque, he cannot do better than glance at Mr Planché's "Birds of Aristophanes," produced at the Hay market in 1846. This is his free version of the passage just noticed—('Tomostyleron' and 'Jackanoxides' are the two adventurers of the Greek comedy);—
"King of Birds. And what bird will you be—a popinjay?
Tom. No, no; they pop at him.(To Jack.) What kind would you be?
King (aside). The bird you're most akin to is a booby.
Jack. For fear of accidents, some fowl I'd be,
That folks don't shoot or eat.
Tom. Humph! let me see—
There may be one I never heard the name of.
King (aside). You can't be anything they won't make game of."
