Ah! you big coward! were you so frightened that you let go your jay?EuelpidesAnd did you not lose your crow, when you fell sprawling on the ground? Tell me that.PisthetaerusNot at all.EuelpidesWhere is it, then?PisthetaerusIt flew away.EuelpidesAnd you did not let it go? Oh! you brave fellow!EpopsFrom within. Open the thicket, that I may go out!He comes out of the thicket.EuelpidesBy Heracles! what a creature! what plumage! What means this triple crest?EpopsWho wants me?EuelpidesBanteringly.The twelve great gods have used you ill, it seems.EpopsAre you twitting me about my feathers? I have been a man, strangers.EuelpidesIt's not you we are jeering at.EpopsAt what, then?EuelpidesWhy, it's your beak that looks so ridiculous to us.EpopsThis is how Sophocles outrages me in his tragedies. Know, I once was Tereus.EuelpidesYou were Tereus, and what are you now? a bird or a peacock?EpopsI am a bird.EuelpidesThen where are your feathers? I don't see any.EpopsThey have fallen off.EuelpidesThrough illness?EpopsNo. All birds moult their feathers, you know, every winter, and others grow in their place. But tell me, who are you?EuelpidesWe? We are mortals.EpopsFrom what country?EuelpidesFrom the land of the beautiful galleys.EpopsAre you dicasts?EuelpidesNo, if anything,we are anti-dicasts.EpopsIs that kind of seed sown among you?EuelpidesYou have to look hard to find even a little in our fields.EpopsWhat brings you here?