PISTHETAERUS. And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians. (_Beats him._) DEALER IN DECREES. Hullo! what are you doing? PISTHETAERUS. Now will you be off with your decrees? For I am going to let _you_ see some severe ones. INSPECTOR (_returning_). I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.[302] PISTHETAERUS. Ha! my friend! are you still there? DEALER IN DECREES. "Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them, according to the decree duly posted..." PISTHETAERUS. What! rascal! you are there too? INSPECTOR. Woe to you! I'll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand drachmae. PISTHETAERUS. And I'll smash your urns.[303] INSPECTOR. Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where the decrees are posted? PISTHETAERUS. Here! here! let him be seized. (_The inspectors run off._) Well! don't you want to stop any longer? PRIEST. Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat inside.[304] CHORUS. Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might. My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed everywhere: "A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,[305] and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants."[306] We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent to him among you who shall kill Philocrates, the Strouthian;[307] four, if he brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others." That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men. Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter! Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days; when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody, my home is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry on the myrtle bushes.