Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you secretly to go
to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.

LITTLE DAUGHTER
Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would
leave me, you would vanish into the sky, you would go to the crows?[1]
'Tis impossible! Answer, father, an you love me.

f[1] "Go to the crows," a proverbial expression equivalent to our "Go
to the devil."

TRYGAEUS
Yes, I am going. You hurt me too sorely, my daughters, when you
ask me for bread, calling me your daddy, and there is not the ghost of
an obolus in the house; if I succeed and come back, you will have a
barley loaf every morning--and a punch in the eye for sauce!

LITTLE DAUGHTER
But how will you make the journey? 'Tis not a ship that will
carry you thither.

TRYGAEUS
No, but this winged steed will.

LITTLE DAUGHTER
But what an idea, daddy, to harness a beetle, on which to fly to the gods.

TRYGAEUS
We see from Aesop's fables that they alone can fly to the abode of
the Immortals.[1]