The Birds [in translation]

Euelpides:
...Think of it man:
here we are dying to go tell it to the Birds,*
and then, by god, we can't even find the way.

To the Audience.
Yes, dear people, we confess we're completely mad.
But it's not just like Sakas'* madness. Not a bit.
For he, poor dumb foreigner, wants in, while we,
born and bread Athenians both, true blue,
true citizens, not afraid of any man,
want out.
Yes, we've spread our little feet
and taken off. Not that we hate Athens -
heavens, no. And not that dear old Athens
isn't grand, that blessed land where men are free -
to pay their taxes.*

Relevant text from the Notes section:

Sakas: [via note on text p. 18] "From the frequent allusions in the play to men who, technically ineligible, had somehow managed to get themselves enrolled as Athenian citizens, it's tempting to believe that proposals to revise the citizenship lists were in the air or had recently been carried out. The climax of these allusions comes in the final scene of the play, in which Posthetairos attempts to prove that Herakles is technically a bastard (and hence can not inherit Zeus' estate) since his mother was an ordinary mortal, i.e., of foreign stock.

"to pay their taxes": A slight modernization of the Greek which says: "to pay fines."

"because of legal locusts": Aristophanes favorite complaint against Athens, and one which the entire Wasps is devoted. But although Aristophanes here develops Athens' love of litigation as the major source of dissatisfaction, elsewhere throughout the play other grievances emerge: the restless and mischievous Athenian character (called [Greek word I can't type!]); the plague of informers; the victimization of the Allies; the ambition for power, an ambition which knows no limits and whose only goal is World Mastery ([another word in Greek]).

...For fidelity's sake, this is also a poetic version. A prose Aristophanes is to my mind as much a monstrosity as a limerick in prose paraphrase. And for much the same reasons. If Aristophanes is visibly obscene, farcical, and colloquial, he is also lyrical, elegant, fantastic, and witty. And a translation which, by flattening incongruities and tensions, reduces one dimension necessarily reduces the other. Bowdlerize Aristophanes and you sublimate him into something less vital and whole; prose him and you cripple his wit, dilute his obscenity and slapstick, and weaken his classical sense of the wholeness of human life.

Chorus:
Friends, you haven't really lived till you've tried a set of FEATHERS!
Think, spectators.
Imagine yourself with a pair of wings!
The sheer joy of it! Not having to sit those tragedies out!
No getting bored. You merely flap your little wings and fly off home.
You have a snack, then make it back to catch the COMIC play.
Or again, suppose your're overtaken by a sudden need to crap.
Do you do it in your pants?
Not a bit.
You just zoom off,
fart and shit to your heart's content and whizz right back.
Or perhaps you're having an affair - I won't name any names.
You spot the lady's husband attending some meeting or other.
Up you soar, flap your wings, through the window and into bed!
You make it a quickie, of course, then flutter back to your seat.
So what do you say?
Aren't wings the most wonderful things?