Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Nephelokokkygia 5 3

of their divinity, and are obviously competent to harm or help
mankind.

Tereus next invites the two friends into his nest, promising to
find them a magic root1 which will enable them too to grow wings.
Meantime his wife Prokne comes out and together with the Choros
chants the pardbasis, a brilliant vindication of the claims put forward
by the Birds. It tells the old Orphic tale2, how Eros sprang from the
wind-egg laid by black-winged Night, the egg which split into
Ouranos and Ge, primaeval parents of all the gods. Birds declare
the seasons, birds utter oracles, birds give omens; birds in short are
manifestly divine and must be worshipped as such without more ado.

That conclusion reached, out come Pisthetairos and Euelpides
in their fine feathers and at once set about naming the new town
no Sparta this, but something splendid and sonorous, say Nephelo-
kokkygia3. Heralds are despatched to gods and men. Euelpides
must lend a hand in the actual building. Pisthetairos will fetch
a priest to sacrifice to the newfangled gods.

The novel foundation of course attracts the usual influx of busy-
bodies—a needy lyrical poet, an itinerant soothsayer, the astronomer
Meton, a pompous commissioner, a statute-seller. At last they are
a'I got rid of and Pisthetairos quits the stage to sacrifice the goat
within.

Then follows a second pardbasis, in which the Birds appropriate
epithets formerly belonging to Zeus4 and justifiably put a price on
tne head of the bird-catcher Philokrates.

crest at any rate accounts for the belief in the wren as a fire-bearer (E. Rolland op. cit. ii.
293 f., C. Swainson op. cit. p. 42).

'Aristoph. av. 654 l<m yap n pifiox k.t.X. Cp. Ail. de nat. an. i. 35 (many birds use
■"Wgic herbs as prophylactics) oi de Itotcs to adlavrov, Swep o5x ml naWlrpixov KaXovffi
Horapoll. hierogl. 2. 93 avdpuwov ivb ararpvXijs jjXafiivTa koL eavrbv BepairevovTa
°v\6fi(V0l a-qufyai tirowa $uypa(podai Kai aSiavrov rrpi $ot6.vi\v ovtos yap £\et/9ei$ bird
crT<^f>v\ij$ adiavTov airoTWi/ievoz £('s to eavrov <rr6fia Trepiodeierai, Geopon. 15. I. 19 (birds
P ace curative herbs in their nests) Ivoires doiavrov (so H. Beckh, after Gronovius, for
Wavrop codd.), Philes dean, propr. 724 lypuonv firo^ (apparently a blundering tran-
*«pt of Ail. de nat. an. t. 35 or Geopon. 15. 1. 19). On the hoopoe liberating its im-
prisoned young by means of a certain herb (Ail. de nat. an. 3. 26 7r6ax Mptae k.t.X.), sc.

' *PringW0rt, see S. Bochart Hierozoicon rec. E. F. C. Rosenmuller Lipsiae 1796 in-
CM DArcy W- Thompson A Glossary of Greek Birds Oxford 1895 p. 56, Frazer

f" Balder the Beautiful ii. 70 n. 2.

3Supra\\. I020, I034j Iosof.

t Aristoph. av. 818 ff.

(a • /*• »5> fT. -fjSv >oi a-cu-TOTTTa. (cp. supra i. 459, 461 f., "3<>) I "al warrd/W
!rd„Phllnes has m mind Soph. O.C. 1085 f. l& rdvrapxe BeHv Tra^orrra ZeO) B^rol
K ^'l^'ow' tfcnrfaa evXais. | iraaav p-iv yap yav brrdu, \ ircijlw «' tWaMis Kapwobs \