PISTHETAERUS. And yet the birds must be thoroughly basted with it.[366]

HERACLES. We have no interest to serve in fighting you; as for you, be
friends and we promise that you shall always have rain-water in your
pools and the warmest of warm weather. So far as these points go we are
armed with plenary authority.

PISTHETAERUS. We have never been the aggressors, and even now we are as
well disposed for peace as yourselves, provided you agree to one
equitable condition, namely, that Zeus yield his sceptre to the birds. If
only this is agreed to, I invite the ambassadors to dinner.

HERACLES. That's good enough for me. I vote for peace.

POSIDON. You wretch! you are nothing but a fool and a glutton. Do you
want to dethrone your own father?

PISTHETAERUS. What an error! Why, the gods will be much more powerful if
the birds govern the earth. At present the mortals are hidden beneath the
clouds, escape your observation, and commit perjury in your name; but if
you had the birds for your allies, and a man, after having sworn by the
crow and Zeus, should fail to keep his oath, the crow would dive down
upon him unawares and pluck out his eye.

POSIDON. Well thought of, by Posidon![367]

HERACLES. My notion too.

PISTHETAERUS. (_to the Triballian_). And you, what's your opinion?