’dance as ’twere to the music
    Their own hoofs make.’

I would not seem over curious in search of an apt or inapt quotation:  but nothing can be fitter than a verse of Shakespeare’s to praise at once and to describe the most typical verse of Aristophanes.

THE BIRDS.

(685-723.)

Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the leaves’
          generations,
That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and
          shadowlike nations,
Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of creatures
          fast fleeing,
Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date of
          our being: 
Us, children of heaven, us, ageless for aye, us, all of whose thoughts
          are eternal;
That ye may from henceforth, having heard of us all things aright as to
          matters supernal,
Of the being of birds and beginning of gods, and of streams, and the
          dark beyond reaching,
Truthfully knowing aright, in my name bid Prodicus pack with his preaching.

  It was Chaos and Night at the first, and the blackness of darkness, and
          hell’s broad border,
Earth was not, nor air, neither heaven; when in depths of the womb of the
          dark without order
First thing first-born of the black-plumed Night was a wind-egg hatched
          in her bosom,
Whence timely with seasons revolving again sweet Love burst out as a
          blossom,
Gold wings glittering forth of his back, like whirlwinds gustily turning.  He, after his wedlock with Chaos, whose wings are of darkness, in hell
          broad-burning,
For his nestlings begat him the race of us first, and upraised us to
          light new-lighted. 
And before this was not the race of the gods, until all things by Love
          were united;
And of kind united with kind in communion of nature the sky and the sea
          are
Brought forth, and the earth, and the race of the gods everlasting and
          blest.  So that we are
Far away the most ancient of all things blest.  And that we are of Love’s
          generation
There are manifest manifold signs.  We have wings, and with us have the
          Loves habitation;
And manifold fair young folk that forswore love once, ere the bloom of
          them ended,
Have the men that pursued and desired them subdued, by the help of us
          only befriended,
With such baits as a quail, a flamingo, a goose, or a cock’s comb staring
          and splendid.

  All best good things that befall men come from us birds, as is plain to
          all reason: 
For first we proclaim and make known to them spring, and the winter and
          autumn in season;
Bid sow, when the crane starts clanging for Afric,