"Messenger. There came a body of thirty thousand cranes
(I won't be positive, there might be more)
With stones from Africa in their craws and gizzards,
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers
Worked into shape and finished. The sand-martins
And mudlarks too were busy in their department,
Mixing the mortar; while the water-birds,
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water,
To temper and work it.
Peis. (in a fidget). But who served the masons?
Who did you get to carry it?
Mess. To carry it?
Of course the carrion crows and carrier-pigeons."[1]— (F.)
The geese with their flat feet trod the mortar, and the pelicans with their saw-bills were the carpenters. The name fixed upon for this new metropolis is "Cloud-Cuckoo-Town"— the first recorded "castle in the air." It must be the place, Euelpides thinks, where some of those great estates lie which he has heard certain friends of his in Athens boast of. It appears to be indeed a very unsubstantial kind of settlement; for Iris, the messenger of the Immortals, who has been despatched from heaven to inquire after the arrears of sacrifice, quite unaware of its existence and its purpose, dashes through the airy blockade immediately after its building. She is pursued, however, by a detachment of light cavalry—hawks, falcons, and eagles—and brought upon the stage as prisoner, in a state of great wrath at
- ↑ The play on the names is, of course, not the same in the Greek as in the English. Mr Frere has perhaps managed it as well as it could be done.
