No More Learning

[265] His wings were only wicker-work
ones, and yet he got himself chosen Phylarch and then Hipparch; from
being nobody, he has risen to be famous; 'tis now the finest gilded cock
of his tribe. [266]

PISTHETAERUS. Halloa! What's this? By Zeus! I never saw anything so funny
in all my life. [267]

EUELPIDES. What makes you laugh?

PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis your bits of wings. D'you know what you look like?
Like a goose painted by some dauber-fellow.

EUELPIDES. And you look like a close-shaven blackbird.

PISTHETAERUS.
'Tis ourselves asked for this transformation, and, as
Aeschylus has it, "These are no borrowed feathers, but truly our
own. "[268]

EPOPS. Come now, what must be done?

PISTHETAERUS. First give our city a great and famous name, then sacrifice
to the gods.

EUELPIDES. I think so too.

EPOPS. Let's see. What shall our city be called?

PISTHETAERUS. Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call
it Sparta?

EUELPIDES. What! call my town Sparta?