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d [the word for] a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos. --'Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German. Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.
EPOPS Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!
EUELPIDES Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes[1] and most of Aeschines'[2] is?
f[1] He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised a great deal and never kept his word. f[2] Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'
PISTHETAERUS No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,[1] where the gods withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.
f[1] Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction of the poets.
EUELPIDES Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron? for whom shall we weave the peplus?[1]
f[1] A sacred cloth, with which the statue of Athene in the Acropolis was draped.
PISTHETAERUS Why not choose Athene Polias?[1]
f[1] Meaning, to be patron-goddess of the city. Athene had a temple of this name.
EUELPIDES Oh! what a well-ordered town 'twould be to have a female deity armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes[1] was spinning!
f[1] An Athenian effeminate, frequently ridiculed by Aristophanes.
PISTHETAERUS Who then shall guard the Pelargicon?[1]
f[1] This was the name of the wall surrounding the Acropolis.
EPOPS One of us, a bird of Persian strain, who is everywhere proclaimed to be the bravest of all, a true chick of Ares.[1]
f[1] i.e. the fighting cock.
EUELPIDES Oh! noble chick! What a well-chosen god for a rocky home!
PISTHETAERUS Come! into the air with you to help the workers who are building the wall; carry up rubble, strip yourself to mix the mortar, take up the hod, tumble down the ladder, an you like, post sentinels, keep the fire smouldering beneath the ashes, go round the walls, bell in hand,[1] and go to sleep up there yourself; then d[i]spatch two heralds, one