EUELPIDES
Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions
in which we dwell--in short, some well-known name.

PISTHETAERUS
Do you like Nephelococcygia?[1]

f[1] A fanciful name constructed from [the word for] a cloud, and
[the word for] a cuckoo; thus a city of clouds and cuckoos.
--'Wolkenkukelheim' is a clever approximation in German.
Cloud-cuckoo-town, perhaps, is the best English equivalent.

EPOPS
Oh! capital! truly 'tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES
Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theovenes[1] and most
of Aeschines'[2] is?

f[1] He was a boaster nicknamed 'smoke,' because he promised
a great deal and never kept his word.
f[2] Also mentioned in 'The Wasps.'

PISTHETAERUS
No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,[1] where the gods withered
the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

f[1] Because the war of the Titans against the gods was only a fiction
of the poets.