The Birds, page 18 by Aristophanes
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whole coppice with honey-sweet melody!
EUELPIDES Hush!
PISTHETAERUS What's the matter?
EUELPIDES Will you keep silence?
PISTHETAERUS What for?
EUELPIDES Epops is going to sing again.
EPOPS (IN THE COPPICE) Epopoi poi popoi, epopoi, popoi, here, here, quick, quick, quick, my comrades in the air; all you who pillage the fertile lands of the husbandmen, the numberless tribes who gather and devour the barley seeds, the swift flying race who sing so sweetly. And you whose gentle twitter resounds through the fields with the little cry of tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of long-necked birds assemble here; know that a clever old man has come to us, bringing an entirely new idea and proposing great reforms. Let all come to the debate here, here, here, here. Torotorotorotorotix, kikkobau, kikkobau, torotorotorotorolililix.
PISTHETAERUS Can you see any bird?
EUELPIDES By Phoebus, no! and yet I am straining my eyesight to scan the sky.
PISTHETAERUS 'Twas really not worth Epops' while to go and bury himself in the thicket like a plover when a-hatching.
PHOENICOPTERUS Torotina, torotina.
PISTHETAERUS Hold, friend, here is another bird.
EUELPIDES I' faith, yes, 'tis a bird, but of what kind? Isn't it a peacock?
PISTHETAERUS Epops will tell us. What is this bird?
EPOPS 'Tis not one of those you are used to seeing; 'tis a bird from the marshes.
PISTHETAERUS Oh! oh! but he is very handsome with his wings as crimson