Note 23 — Chapter III · COMEDIES OF THE WAR: THE ACHARNIANS—THE PEACE—LYSISTRATA.

The old commentators assign the story to Æsop. The eagle had eaten the beetle’s young ones; the beetle, in revenge, rolled the eagle’s eggs out of her nest: so often, that the latter made complaint to her patron Jupiter, who gave her leave to lay her eggs in his bosom. The beetle flew up to heaven, and buzzed about the god’s head, who jumped up in a hurry to catch his tormentor, quite forgetting his duty as nurse, and so the eggs fell out and were broken.