CHORUS. Agreed. PISTHETAERUS. Swear it. CHORUS. I swear it and, if I keep my promise, let judges and spectators give me the victory unanimously. PISTHETAERUS. It is a bargain. CHORUS. And if I break my word, may I succeed by one vote only. HERALD. Hearken, ye people! Hoplites, pick up your weapons and return to your firesides; do not fail to read the decrees of dismissal we have posted. CHORUS. Man is a truly cunning creature, but nevertheless explain. Perhaps you are going to show me some good way to extend my power, some way that I have not had the wit to find out and which you have discovered. Speak! 'tis to your own interest as well as to mine, for if you secure me some advantage, I will surely share it with you. But what object can have induced you to come among us? Speak boldly, for I shall not break the truce,--until you have told us all. PISTHETAERUS. I am bursting with desire to speak; I have already mixed the dough of my address and nothing prevents me from kneading it.... Slave! bring the chaplet and water, which you must pour over my hands. Be quick![219] EUELPIDES. Is it a question of feasting? What does it all mean? PISTHETAERUS. By Zeus, no! but I am hunting for fine, tasty words to break down the hardness of their hearts.--I grieve so much for you, who at one time were kings.... CHORUS. We kings! Over whom? PISTHETAERUS. ... of all that exists, firstly of me and of this man, even of Zeus himself. Your race is older than Saturn, the Titans and the Earth. CHORUS. What, older than the Earth! PISTHETAERUS. By Phoebus, yes. CHORUS. By Zeus, but I never knew that before! PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis because you are ignorant and heedless, and have never read your Aesop. 'Tis he who tells us that the lark was born before all other creatures, indeed before the Earth; his father died of sickness, but the Earth did not exist then; he remained unburied for five days, when the bird in its dilemma decided, for want of a better place, to entomb its father in its own head. EUELPIDES. So that the lark's father is buried at Cephalae.[220] EPOPS. Hence, if we existed before the Earth, before the gods, the kingship belongs to us by right of priority. EUELPIDES. Undoubtedly, but sharpen your beak well; Zeus won't be in a hurry to hand over his sceptre to the woodpecker. PISTHETAERUS. It was not the gods, but the birds, who were formerly the masters and kings over men; of this I have a thousand proofs. First of all, I will point you to the cock, who governed the Persians before all other monarchs, before Darius and Megabyzus.[221] 'Tis in memory of his reign that he is called the Persian bird. EUELPIDES. For this reason also, even to-day, he alone of all the birds wears his tiara straight on his head, like the Great King.[222]