Sparkling and florid, with stars in his forehead,
His forehead and hair, and a flutter and flare,
As he rose in the air, triumphantly furnished
To range his dominions, on glittering pinions,
All golden and azure, and blooming and burnished :
He soon, in the murky Tartarean recesses,
With a hurricane's might, in his fiery caresses
Impregnated Chaos; and hastily snatched
To being and life, begotten and hatched,
The primitive Birds: but the Deities all,
The celestial Lights, the terrestrial Ball,
Were later of birth, with the dwellers on earth,
More tamely combined, of a temperate kind.

Our antiquity proved, it remains to be shown,
That Love is our author, and master alone,
Like him, we can ramble, and gambol and fly
O'er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky :

And all the world over we're friends to the lover,
And when other means fail, we are found to prevail,
When a peacock or pheasant is sent as a present.
All lessons of primary daily concern,

You have learnt from the Birds, and continue to learn, Your best benefactors and early instructors;

We give you the warning of seasons returning.

When the cranes are arranged, and muster afloat
In the middle air, with a creaking note,
Steering away to the Lybian sands,
Then careful farmers sow their lands;
The crazy vessel is hauled ashore,
The sail, the ropes, the rudder and oar
Are all unshipped, and housed in store.

The shepherd is warned, by the kite reappearing,
To muster his flock, and be ready for shearing.
You quit your old cloak, at the swallow's behest,
In assurance of summer, and purchase a vest.

Then take us as gods, and you'll soon find the odds,
We'll serve for all uses, as Prophets and Muses;
We'll give ye fine weather, we'll live here together;
We'll not keep away, scornful and proud, a-top of a cloud,
(In Jupiter's way); but attend every day,

To prosper and bless, all you possess,

And all your affairs, for yourselves and your heirs.
And as long as you live, we shall give

You wealth and health, and pleasure and treasure,

In ample measure;

And never bilk you of pigeon's milk,1

Or potable gold; you shall live to grow old,
In laughter and mirth, on the face of the earth,
Laughing, quaffing, carousing, bousing,

Your only distress, shall be the excess

Of ease and abundance and happiness.

Nothing can be more delightful than the having wings to wear! A spectator sitting here, accommodated with a pair,

Might for instance (if he found a tragic chorus dull and heavy) Take his flight, and dine at home; and if he did not choose to

leave ye,

Might return in better humour, when the weary drawl was ended. Introduce then wings in use-believe me, matters will be mended.2

Modern comedy obviously owes nothing to Aristophanes : but the comedy of Molière descends, through Latin imitators, from a group of writers who lived in the late fourth century.3 This New Comedy, as the Greeks called it, was a comedy of manners and took its subjects from everyday life. Large fragments of its greatest writer, Menander (343-291), have lately been recovered from the rubbish heaps of Egypt. Naturalness, mastery of plot-making and character, and an exquisite style (which translation murders) are the chief elements of his genius. Julius Caesar praises the latter in an enthusiastic epigram,

1 'Bird's milk' was an expression for anything rare and precious. 2 Birds, 685 f. (tr. Frere).

The plot of The Comedy of Errors comes from one of these writers.

and took the decisive and most dangerous step of his life with a line of Menander on his lips. Meredith speaks of his beautiful translucency of language', and says that Menander and Molière stand alone specially as comic poets of the feeling and the idea'. The following phrases are characteristic of his art and philosophy.

Whom the gods love die young.

I hold him happiest

Who, before going quickly whence he came,
Hath looked ungrieving on these majesties,
The world-wide sun, the stars, waters and clouds
And fire. Live, Parmeno, a hundred years
Or a few weeks, these thou wilt always see,
And never, never, any greater thing.1

Are life and sorrow kinsmen? Surely sorrow
Is wealth's attendant, fame's familiar,
And walks with poverty the path to age.

As in a chorus

Not all are singers, but some two or three,
Behind the rest, to make the sum complete,
Stand and say nothing-so on this world's stage.
'Tis livelihood gives life: those without money
But fill a place.

1 Quoted in Morley, Recollections, ii. 136.