You see how he is carried away with
admiration
and enthusiasm.
Aristophanes
I pray you, not there!
but, if I must lie down and
ponder, let me lie on the ground.
SOCRATES. 'Tis out of the question. Come! on to the couch!
STREPSIADES. What cruel fate! What a torture the bugs will this day put
me to!
SOCRATES. Ponder and examine closely, gather your thoughts together, let
your mind turn to every side of things; if you meet with a difficulty,
spring quickly to some other idea; above all, keep your eyes away from
all gentle sleep.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe, woe! oh, woe, woe!
SOCRATES. What ails you? why do you cry so?
STREPSIADES. Oh! I am a dead man! Here are these cursed Corinthians[539]
advancing upon me from all corners of the couch; they are biting me, they
are gnawing at my sides, they are drinking all my blood, they are
twitching off my testicles, they are exploring all up my back, they are
killing me!
SOCRATES. Not so much wailing and clamour, if you please.
STREPSIADES. How can I obey? I have lost my money and my complexion, my
blood and my slippers, and to cap my misery, I must keep awake on this
couch, when scarce a breath of life is left in me.
SOCRATES. Well now! what are you doing? are you reflecting?
STREPSIADES. Yes, by Posidon!
SOCRATES. What about?
STREPSIADES. Whether the bugs will not entirely devour me.
SOCRATES. May death seize you, accursed man!
STREPSIADES. Ah! it has already.
SOCRATES. Come, no giving way! Cover up your head; the thing to do is to
find an ingenious alternative.
STREPSIADES. An alternative! ah! I only wish one would come to me from
within these coverlets!
SOCRATES. Hold! let us see what our fellow is doing. Ho! you! are you
asleep?
STREPSIADES. No, by Apollo!
SOCRATES. Have you got hold of anything?
STREPSIADES. No, nothing whatever.
SOCRATES. Nothing at all!
STREPSIADES. No, nothing but my tool, which I've got in my hand.
SOCRATES. Are you not going to cover your head immediately and ponder?
STREPSIADES. Over what? Come, Socrates, tell me.
SOCRATES. Think first what you want, and then tell me.
STREPSIADES. But I have told you a thousand times what I want. 'Tis not
to pay any of my creditors.
SOCRATES. Come, wrap yourself up; concentrate your mind, which wanders
too lightly, study every detail, scheme and examine thoroughly.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe! woe! oh dear! oh dear!
SOCRATES. Keep yourself quiet, and if any notion troubles you, put it
quickly aside, then resume it and think over it again.
STREPSIADES. My dear little Socrates!
SOCRATES. What is it, old greybeard?
STREPSIADES. I have a scheme for not paying my debts.
SOCRATES. Let us hear it.
STREPSIADES. Tell me, if I purchased a Thessalian witch, I could make the
moon descend during the night and shut it, like a mirror, into a round
box and there keep it carefully. . . .
SOCRATES. How would you gain by that?
STREPSIADES. How? Why, if the moon did not rise, I would have no interest
to pay.
SOCRATES. Why so?
STREPSIADES. Because money is lent by the month.
SOCRATES. Good! but I am going to propose another trick to you. If you
were condemned to pay five talents, how would you manage to quash that
verdict? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. How? how? I don't know, I must think.
SOCRATES. Do you always shut your thoughts within yourself. Let your
ideas fly in the air, like a may-bug, tied by the foot with a thread.
STREPSIADES. I have found a very clever way to annul that conviction; you
will admit that much yourself.
SOCRATES. What is it?
STREPSIADES. Have you ever seen a beautiful, transparent stone at the
druggists, with which you may kindle fire?
SOCRATES. You mean a crystal lens. [540]
STREPSIADES. Yes.
SOCRATES. Well, what then?
STREPSIADES. If I placed myself with this stone in the sun and a long way
off from the clerk, while he was writing out the conviction, I could make
all the wax, upon which the words were written, melt.
SOCRATES. Well thought out, by the Graces!
STREPSIADES. Ah! I am delighted to have annulled the decree that was to
cost me five talents.
SOCRATES. Come, take up this next question quickly.
STREPSIADES. Which?
SOCRATES. If, when summoned to court, you were in danger of losing your
case for want of witnesses, how would you make the conviction fall upon
your opponent?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis very simple and most easy.
SOCRATES. Let me hear.
STREPSIADES. This way. If another case had to be pleaded before mine was
called, I should run and hang myself.
SOCRATES. You talk rubbish!
STREPSIADES. Not so, by the gods! if I was dead, no action could lie
against me.
SOCRATES. You are merely beating the air. Begone! I will give you no more
lessons.
STREPSIADES. Why not? Oh! Socrates! in the name of the gods!
SOCRATES. But you forget as fast as you learn. Come, what was the thing I
taught you first? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. Ah! let me see. What was the first thing? What was it then?
Ah! that thing in which we knead the bread, oh! my god! what do you call
it?
SOCRATES. Plague take the most forgetful and silliest of old addlepates!
STREPSIADES. Alas! what a calamity! what will become of me? I am undone
if I do not learn how to ply my tongue. Oh! Clouds! give me good advice.
CHORUS. Old man, we counsel you, if you have brought up a son, to send
him to learn in your stead.
STREPSIADES. Undoubtedly I have a son, as well endowed as the best, but
he is unwilling to learn. What will become of me?
CHORUS. And you don't make him obey you?
STREPSIADES. You see, he is big and strong; moreover, through his mother
he is a descendant of those fine birds, the race of Coesyra. [541]
Nevertheless, I will go and find him, and if he refuses, I will turn him
out of the house. Go in, Socrates, and wait for me awhile.
CHORUS (_to Socrates_). Do you understand, that, thanks to us, you will
be loaded with benefits? Here is a man, ready to obey you in all things.
You see how he is carried away with admiration and enthusiasm. Profit by
it to clip him as short as possible; fine chances are all too quickly
gone.
STREPSIADES. No, by the Clouds! you stay no longer here; go and devour
the ruins of your uncle Megacles' fortune.
PHIDIPPIDES. Oh! my poor father! what has happened to you? By the
Olympian Zeus! you are no longer in your senses!
STREPSIADES. See! see! "the Olympian Zeus. " Oh! the fool! to believe in
Zeus at your age!
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there in that to make you laugh?
STREPSIADES. You are then a tiny little child, if you credit such
antiquated rubbish! But come here, that I may teach you; I will tell you
something very necessary to know to be a man; but you will not repeat it
to anybody.
PHIDIPPIDES. Come, what is it?
STREPSIADES. Just now you swore by Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. Aye, that I did.
STREPSIADES. Do you see how good it is to learn? Phidippides, there is no
Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there then?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Jupiter and is King
now.
PHIDIPPIDES. Go to! what drivel!
STREPSIADES. Know it to be the truth.
PHIDIPPIDES. And who says so?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis Socrates, the Melian,[542] and Chaerephon, who knows
how to measure the jump of a flea.
PHIDIPPIDES. Have you reached such a pitch of madness that you believe
those bilious fellows?
STREPSIADES. Use better language, and do not insult men who are clever
and full of wisdom, who, to economize, are never shaved, shun the
gymnasia and never go to the baths, while you, you only await my death to
eat up my wealth. But come, come as quickly as you can to learn in my
stead.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what good can be learnt of them?
STREPSIADES. What good indeed? Why, all human knowledge. Firstly, you
will know yourself grossly ignorant. But await me here awhile.
PHIDIPPIDES. Alas! what is to be done? My father has lost his wits. Must
I have him certificated for lunacy, or must I order his coffin?
STREPSIADES. Come! what kind of bird is this? tell me.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. Good! And this female?
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. The same for both? You make me laugh! For the future you
will call this one a pigeonnette and the other a pigeon.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeonnette! These then are the fine things you have just
learnt at the school of these sons of the Earth! [543]
STREPSIADES. And many others; but what I learnt I forgot at once, because
I am too old.
PHIDIPPIDES. So this is why you have lost your cloak?
STREPSIADES. I have not lost it, I have consecrated it to Philosophy.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what have you done with your sandals, you poor fool?
STREPSIADES. If I have lost them, it is for what was necessary, just as
Pericles did. [544] But come, move yourself, let us go in; if necessary,
do wrong to obey your father. When you were six years old and still
lisped, 'twas I who obeyed you. I remember at the feasts of Zeus you had
a consuming wish for a little chariot and I bought it for you with the
first obolus which I received as a juryman in the Courts.
PHIDIPPIDES. You will soon repent of what you ask me to do.
STREPSIADES. Oh! now I am happy! He obeys. Here, Socrates, here! Come out
quick! Here I am bringing you my son; he refused, but I have persuaded
him.
SOCRATES. Why, he is but a child yet. He is not used to these baskets, in
which we suspend our minds. [545]
PHIDIPPIDES. To make you better used to them, I would you were hung.
STREPSIADES. A curse upon you! you insult your master!
SOCRATES. "I would you were hung! " What a stupid speech! and so
emphatically spoken! How can one ever get out of an accusation with such
a tone, summon witnesses or touch or convince? And yet when we think,
Hyperbolus learnt all this for one talent!
STREPSIADES. Rest undisturbed and teach him. 'Tis a most intelligent
nature. Even when quite little he amused himself at home with making
houses, carving boats, constructing little chariots of leather, and
understood wonderfully how to make frogs out of pomegranate rinds. Teach
him both methods of reasoning, the strong and also the weak, which by
false arguments triumphs over the strong; if not the two, at least the
false, and that in every possible way.
SOCRATES. 'Tis Just and Unjust Discourse themselves that shall instruct
him. [546]
STREPSIADES. I go, but forget it not, he must always, always be able to
confound the true.
JUST DISCOURSE. Come here! Shameless as you may be, will you dare to show
your face to the spectators?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Take me where you list. I seek a throng, so that I may
the better annihilate you.
JUST DISCOURSE. Annihilate me! Do you forget who you are?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I am Reasoning.
JUST DISCOURSE. Yes, the weaker Reasoning. [547]
UNJUST DISCOURSE. But I triumph over you, who claim to be the stronger.
JUST DISCOURSE. By what cunning shifts, pray?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. By the invention of new maxims.
JUST DISCOURSE. . . . which are received with favour by these fools.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Say rather, by these wiseacres.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am going to destroy you mercilessly.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How pray? Let us see you do it.
JUST DISCOURSE. By saying what is true.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I shall retort and shall very soon have the better of
you. First, I maintain that justice has no existence.
JUST DISCOURSE. Has no existence?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. No existence! Why, where are they?
JUST DISCOURSE. With the gods.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How then, if justice exists, was Zeus not put to death
for having put his father in chains?
JUST DISCOURSE. Bah! this is enough to turn my stomach! A basin, quick!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are an old driveller and stupid withal.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you a debauchee and a shameless fellow.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Hah! What sweet expressions!
JUST DISCOURSE. An impious buffoon!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You crown me with roses and with lilies.
JUST DISCOURSE. A parricide.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Why, you shower gold upon me.
JUST DISCOURSE. Formerly, 'twas a hailstorm of blows.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I deck myself with your abuse.
JUST DISCOURSE. What impudence!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What tomfoolery!
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis because of you that the youth no longer attends the
schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those
who are fools enough to believe you.
UNJUST DISCOURSE.
ponder, let me lie on the ground.
SOCRATES. 'Tis out of the question. Come! on to the couch!
STREPSIADES. What cruel fate! What a torture the bugs will this day put
me to!
SOCRATES. Ponder and examine closely, gather your thoughts together, let
your mind turn to every side of things; if you meet with a difficulty,
spring quickly to some other idea; above all, keep your eyes away from
all gentle sleep.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe, woe! oh, woe, woe!
SOCRATES. What ails you? why do you cry so?
STREPSIADES. Oh! I am a dead man! Here are these cursed Corinthians[539]
advancing upon me from all corners of the couch; they are biting me, they
are gnawing at my sides, they are drinking all my blood, they are
twitching off my testicles, they are exploring all up my back, they are
killing me!
SOCRATES. Not so much wailing and clamour, if you please.
STREPSIADES. How can I obey? I have lost my money and my complexion, my
blood and my slippers, and to cap my misery, I must keep awake on this
couch, when scarce a breath of life is left in me.
SOCRATES. Well now! what are you doing? are you reflecting?
STREPSIADES. Yes, by Posidon!
SOCRATES. What about?
STREPSIADES. Whether the bugs will not entirely devour me.
SOCRATES. May death seize you, accursed man!
STREPSIADES. Ah! it has already.
SOCRATES. Come, no giving way! Cover up your head; the thing to do is to
find an ingenious alternative.
STREPSIADES. An alternative! ah! I only wish one would come to me from
within these coverlets!
SOCRATES. Hold! let us see what our fellow is doing. Ho! you! are you
asleep?
STREPSIADES. No, by Apollo!
SOCRATES. Have you got hold of anything?
STREPSIADES. No, nothing whatever.
SOCRATES. Nothing at all!
STREPSIADES. No, nothing but my tool, which I've got in my hand.
SOCRATES. Are you not going to cover your head immediately and ponder?
STREPSIADES. Over what? Come, Socrates, tell me.
SOCRATES. Think first what you want, and then tell me.
STREPSIADES. But I have told you a thousand times what I want. 'Tis not
to pay any of my creditors.
SOCRATES. Come, wrap yourself up; concentrate your mind, which wanders
too lightly, study every detail, scheme and examine thoroughly.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe! woe! oh dear! oh dear!
SOCRATES. Keep yourself quiet, and if any notion troubles you, put it
quickly aside, then resume it and think over it again.
STREPSIADES. My dear little Socrates!
SOCRATES. What is it, old greybeard?
STREPSIADES. I have a scheme for not paying my debts.
SOCRATES. Let us hear it.
STREPSIADES. Tell me, if I purchased a Thessalian witch, I could make the
moon descend during the night and shut it, like a mirror, into a round
box and there keep it carefully. . . .
SOCRATES. How would you gain by that?
STREPSIADES. How? Why, if the moon did not rise, I would have no interest
to pay.
SOCRATES. Why so?
STREPSIADES. Because money is lent by the month.
SOCRATES. Good! but I am going to propose another trick to you. If you
were condemned to pay five talents, how would you manage to quash that
verdict? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. How? how? I don't know, I must think.
SOCRATES. Do you always shut your thoughts within yourself. Let your
ideas fly in the air, like a may-bug, tied by the foot with a thread.
STREPSIADES. I have found a very clever way to annul that conviction; you
will admit that much yourself.
SOCRATES. What is it?
STREPSIADES. Have you ever seen a beautiful, transparent stone at the
druggists, with which you may kindle fire?
SOCRATES. You mean a crystal lens. [540]
STREPSIADES. Yes.
SOCRATES. Well, what then?
STREPSIADES. If I placed myself with this stone in the sun and a long way
off from the clerk, while he was writing out the conviction, I could make
all the wax, upon which the words were written, melt.
SOCRATES. Well thought out, by the Graces!
STREPSIADES. Ah! I am delighted to have annulled the decree that was to
cost me five talents.
SOCRATES. Come, take up this next question quickly.
STREPSIADES. Which?
SOCRATES. If, when summoned to court, you were in danger of losing your
case for want of witnesses, how would you make the conviction fall upon
your opponent?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis very simple and most easy.
SOCRATES. Let me hear.
STREPSIADES. This way. If another case had to be pleaded before mine was
called, I should run and hang myself.
SOCRATES. You talk rubbish!
STREPSIADES. Not so, by the gods! if I was dead, no action could lie
against me.
SOCRATES. You are merely beating the air. Begone! I will give you no more
lessons.
STREPSIADES. Why not? Oh! Socrates! in the name of the gods!
SOCRATES. But you forget as fast as you learn. Come, what was the thing I
taught you first? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. Ah! let me see. What was the first thing? What was it then?
Ah! that thing in which we knead the bread, oh! my god! what do you call
it?
SOCRATES. Plague take the most forgetful and silliest of old addlepates!
STREPSIADES. Alas! what a calamity! what will become of me? I am undone
if I do not learn how to ply my tongue. Oh! Clouds! give me good advice.
CHORUS. Old man, we counsel you, if you have brought up a son, to send
him to learn in your stead.
STREPSIADES. Undoubtedly I have a son, as well endowed as the best, but
he is unwilling to learn. What will become of me?
CHORUS. And you don't make him obey you?
STREPSIADES. You see, he is big and strong; moreover, through his mother
he is a descendant of those fine birds, the race of Coesyra. [541]
Nevertheless, I will go and find him, and if he refuses, I will turn him
out of the house. Go in, Socrates, and wait for me awhile.
CHORUS (_to Socrates_). Do you understand, that, thanks to us, you will
be loaded with benefits? Here is a man, ready to obey you in all things.
You see how he is carried away with admiration and enthusiasm. Profit by
it to clip him as short as possible; fine chances are all too quickly
gone.
STREPSIADES. No, by the Clouds! you stay no longer here; go and devour
the ruins of your uncle Megacles' fortune.
PHIDIPPIDES. Oh! my poor father! what has happened to you? By the
Olympian Zeus! you are no longer in your senses!
STREPSIADES. See! see! "the Olympian Zeus. " Oh! the fool! to believe in
Zeus at your age!
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there in that to make you laugh?
STREPSIADES. You are then a tiny little child, if you credit such
antiquated rubbish! But come here, that I may teach you; I will tell you
something very necessary to know to be a man; but you will not repeat it
to anybody.
PHIDIPPIDES. Come, what is it?
STREPSIADES. Just now you swore by Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. Aye, that I did.
STREPSIADES. Do you see how good it is to learn? Phidippides, there is no
Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there then?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Jupiter and is King
now.
PHIDIPPIDES. Go to! what drivel!
STREPSIADES. Know it to be the truth.
PHIDIPPIDES. And who says so?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis Socrates, the Melian,[542] and Chaerephon, who knows
how to measure the jump of a flea.
PHIDIPPIDES. Have you reached such a pitch of madness that you believe
those bilious fellows?
STREPSIADES. Use better language, and do not insult men who are clever
and full of wisdom, who, to economize, are never shaved, shun the
gymnasia and never go to the baths, while you, you only await my death to
eat up my wealth. But come, come as quickly as you can to learn in my
stead.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what good can be learnt of them?
STREPSIADES. What good indeed? Why, all human knowledge. Firstly, you
will know yourself grossly ignorant. But await me here awhile.
PHIDIPPIDES. Alas! what is to be done? My father has lost his wits. Must
I have him certificated for lunacy, or must I order his coffin?
STREPSIADES. Come! what kind of bird is this? tell me.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. Good! And this female?
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. The same for both? You make me laugh! For the future you
will call this one a pigeonnette and the other a pigeon.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeonnette! These then are the fine things you have just
learnt at the school of these sons of the Earth! [543]
STREPSIADES. And many others; but what I learnt I forgot at once, because
I am too old.
PHIDIPPIDES. So this is why you have lost your cloak?
STREPSIADES. I have not lost it, I have consecrated it to Philosophy.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what have you done with your sandals, you poor fool?
STREPSIADES. If I have lost them, it is for what was necessary, just as
Pericles did. [544] But come, move yourself, let us go in; if necessary,
do wrong to obey your father. When you were six years old and still
lisped, 'twas I who obeyed you. I remember at the feasts of Zeus you had
a consuming wish for a little chariot and I bought it for you with the
first obolus which I received as a juryman in the Courts.
PHIDIPPIDES. You will soon repent of what you ask me to do.
STREPSIADES. Oh! now I am happy! He obeys. Here, Socrates, here! Come out
quick! Here I am bringing you my son; he refused, but I have persuaded
him.
SOCRATES. Why, he is but a child yet. He is not used to these baskets, in
which we suspend our minds. [545]
PHIDIPPIDES. To make you better used to them, I would you were hung.
STREPSIADES. A curse upon you! you insult your master!
SOCRATES. "I would you were hung! " What a stupid speech! and so
emphatically spoken! How can one ever get out of an accusation with such
a tone, summon witnesses or touch or convince? And yet when we think,
Hyperbolus learnt all this for one talent!
STREPSIADES. Rest undisturbed and teach him. 'Tis a most intelligent
nature. Even when quite little he amused himself at home with making
houses, carving boats, constructing little chariots of leather, and
understood wonderfully how to make frogs out of pomegranate rinds. Teach
him both methods of reasoning, the strong and also the weak, which by
false arguments triumphs over the strong; if not the two, at least the
false, and that in every possible way.
SOCRATES. 'Tis Just and Unjust Discourse themselves that shall instruct
him. [546]
STREPSIADES. I go, but forget it not, he must always, always be able to
confound the true.
JUST DISCOURSE. Come here! Shameless as you may be, will you dare to show
your face to the spectators?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Take me where you list. I seek a throng, so that I may
the better annihilate you.
JUST DISCOURSE. Annihilate me! Do you forget who you are?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I am Reasoning.
JUST DISCOURSE. Yes, the weaker Reasoning. [547]
UNJUST DISCOURSE. But I triumph over you, who claim to be the stronger.
JUST DISCOURSE. By what cunning shifts, pray?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. By the invention of new maxims.
JUST DISCOURSE. . . . which are received with favour by these fools.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Say rather, by these wiseacres.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am going to destroy you mercilessly.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How pray? Let us see you do it.
JUST DISCOURSE. By saying what is true.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I shall retort and shall very soon have the better of
you. First, I maintain that justice has no existence.
JUST DISCOURSE. Has no existence?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. No existence! Why, where are they?
JUST DISCOURSE. With the gods.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How then, if justice exists, was Zeus not put to death
for having put his father in chains?
JUST DISCOURSE. Bah! this is enough to turn my stomach! A basin, quick!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are an old driveller and stupid withal.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you a debauchee and a shameless fellow.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Hah! What sweet expressions!
JUST DISCOURSE. An impious buffoon!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You crown me with roses and with lilies.
JUST DISCOURSE. A parricide.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Why, you shower gold upon me.
JUST DISCOURSE. Formerly, 'twas a hailstorm of blows.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I deck myself with your abuse.
JUST DISCOURSE. What impudence!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What tomfoolery!
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis because of you that the youth no longer attends the
schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those
who are fools enough to believe you.
UNJUST DISCOURSE.
