their worshippers on earth. All steam of sacrifice will be prevented
from rising to Olympus, and the Immortals will very
soon be starved into an acceptance of any terms proposed.
The new Utopia is duly constructed, and the daring plan to secure
the sovereignty is in a fair way to succeed. Meantime various quacks
and charlatans, each with a special scheme for improving things,
arrive from earth, and are one after the other exposed and dismissed.
Presently arrives Prometheus, who informs Epops of the desperate straits
to which the gods are by this time reduced, and advises him to push
his claims and demand the hand of Basileia (Dominion), the handmaid
of Zeus. Next an embassy from the Olympians appears on the scene,
consisting of Heracles, Posidon and a god from the savage regions
of the Triballians. After some disputation, it is agreed
that all reasonable demands of the birds are to be granted, while
Pisthetaerus is to have Basileia as his bride. The comedy winds
up with the epithalamium in honour of the nuptials.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE

EUELPIDES
PISTHETAERUS
EPOPS (the Hoopoe)
TROCHILUS, Servant to Epops
PHOENICOPTERUS
HERALDS
A PRIEST
A POET
A PROPHET