PISTHETAERUS. No, I feel quite sure I could not, any more than could
Execestides[176] find his.

EUELPIDES. Oh dear! oh dear!

PISTHETAERUS. Aye, aye, my friend, 'tis indeed the road of "oh dears" we
are following.

EUELPIDES. That Philocrates, the bird-seller, played us a scurvy trick,
when he pretended these two guides could help us to find Tereus,[177] the
Epops, who is a bird, without being born of one. He has indeed sold us
this jay, a true son of Tharelides,[178] for an obolus, and this crow for
three, but what can they do? Why, nothing whatever but bite and
scratch!--What's the matter with you then, that you keep opening your
beak? Do you want us to fling ourselves headlong down these rocks? There
is no road that way.

PISTHETAERUS. Not even the vestige of a track in any direction.

EUELPIDES. And what does the crow say about the road to follow?

PISTHETAERUS. By Zeus, it no longer croaks the same thing it did.

EUELPIDES. And which way does it tell us to go now?

PISTHETAERUS. It says that, by dint of gnawing, it will devour my
fingers.

EUELPIDES. What misfortune is ours! we strain every nerve to get to the