Strepsiades: Io, io!
Strepsiades: Oh King Zeus, how much the money of the nights!
Strepsiades: Boundless. Will there never be a day?
Strepsiades: And indeed, I heard the rooster long ago;
Strepsiades: but the servants are grunting; but not before [the right time].
Strepsiades: May you perish, certainly, O fellow, on account of many things,
Strepsiades: 'Then it is not even possible for me to beat the slaves.'
Strepsiades: But not this good young man either.
Strepsiades: He is getting up from the night, but he is farting.
Strepsiades: entangled in five sisurae.
Strepsiades: But if it seems good, let us grunt while covered.
Strepsiades: But I cannot sleep, wretch that I am, being bitten.
Strepsiades: by the expense and the fodder and the debts
Strepsiades: through this son. And the one with the hair
Strepsiades: He rides horses and competes in chariot races.
Strepsiades: He is dreaming of horses; but I am being ruined.
Strepsiades: seeing the moon leading on the twentieth;
Strepsiades: for the interest is piling up. Fetch a lamp, boy,
Strepsiades: And bring the writing tablet, so that I may read it after taking it.
Strepsiades: To whomever I owe and will calculate the interest.
Strepsiades: Bring it, let me see what I owe? Twelve minae to Pasias.
Strepsiades: the twelve minae to Pasias? What did I ask for?
Strepsiades: When I bought the copy-book. Alas, wretched me,
Strepsiades: I wish I had cut out my eye with a stone earlier.
Pheidippides: You are wrong, Philon; run your own race.
Strepsiades: this is the very evil that has destroyed me;
Strepsiades: for he even dreams while he is asleep of horsemanship.
Pheidippides: How many races will the armor run?
Strepsiades: You are driving me on many a run as if I were his father.
Strepsiades: But why did you put me under the obligation after Pasias?
Strepsiades: three minas of brine and a cart to Amyntas.
Pheidippides: Take the horse away, having washed it, to home.
Strepsiades: But, oh, you who have been with me for three years, you have driven me out of my own [house].
Strepsiades: When I have incurred lawsuits and others' interest as well.
Strepsiades: They say it must be mortgaged.
Pheidippides: Truly, father!
Pheidippides: Why do you make it difficult and spend the whole night turning over?
Strepsiades: A certain magistrate is biting me from the mattress.
Pheidippides: Let me, you madman, be beaten until I am dead.
Strepsiades: But you, then, go to sleep; but know this: these debts...
Strepsiades: It will turn all your head.
Strepsiades: Alas.
Strepsiades: If only the matchmaker had miserably perished,
Strepsiades: She who took me and married your mother;
Strepsiades: for a rustic life was most pleasant to me.
Strepsiades: lying around, idle and untiring,
Strepsiades: May I be crushed by bees and sheep and vetches.
Strepsiades: And then I married Megacles, son of Megacles.
Strepsiades: being a rustic from the city,
Strepsiades: 'A modest one, luxuriating, and adorned with a hood.'
Strepsiades: When I married her, I reclined with her.
Strepsiades: smelling of rich fleeces, a goat of abundance,
Strepsiades: But again, the amount of saffron-scented ointment,
Strepsiades: expenses of the theft of the Koliadas' Genetyllis.
Strepsiades: By no means shall I say that he was idle, but rather that he was a fighter.
Strepsiades: But I, showing her this tunic,
Strepsiades: 'They said it was an excuse, woman, you are cutting it too fine.'
Servant: We do not have oil in the lamp.
Strepsiades: Alas! Why have you extinguished my drinking-cup for me?
Strepsiades: come here so that you may weep.
Servant: For what reason, then, will I weep?
Strepsiades: because you are placing wicks in the fat.
Strepsiades: After this, in order that this son of ours came to be,
Strepsiades: For me, then, and for my good wife,
Strepsiades: It is from here, concerning the name, that we were abusing each other.
Strepsiades: For the one indeed added the horse to the name,
Strepsiades: 'Xanthippus, or Charippus, or Callipides,'
Strepsiades: As for me, I was claiming to be the grandson of Pheidonides.
Strepsiades: At that time, then, we were being judged; but then, with time...
Strepsiades: We went together and we sat down with Pheidippides.
Strepsiades: 'She courted this son while taking him,'
Strepsiades: When you, being great, drive a chariot towards the city,
Strepsiades: like Megacles, holding it horizontally. But I said,
Strepsiades: So, when you lead the goats from the cork tree,
Strepsiades: Like your father, with a leather coat on.
Strepsiades: But he did not apply anything to my arguments,
Strepsiades: But a horse has been drowning my money.
Strepsiades: So now, having spent the whole night worrying about the journey
Strepsiades: I have found a path that is incredibly supernatural.
Strepsiades: If I can persuade this man, I will be saved.
Strepsiades: But I want to wake him up first.
Strepsiades: How then could I wake him most pleasantly? How?
Strepsiades: Pheidippides, Pheidippidion.
Pheidippides: What, father?
Strepsiades: Kiss me and give me your right hand.
Pheidippides: Look. What is it?
Strepsiades: Tell me, do you love me?
Pheidippides: By this Poseidon, the horseman!
Strepsiades: Do not in any way give me that one the horseman's.
Strepsiades: For this god is the cause of my troubles.
Strepsiades: But if indeed you truly love me from the heart,
Strepsiades: Oh son, obey.
Pheidippides: So, should I really listen to you?
Strepsiades: Turn your habits as quickly as possible,
Strepsiades: And learn, having come, whatever I will advise.
Pheidippides: Speak then, what do you command?
Strepsiades: And will he persuade him?
Pheidippides: I will obey.
Pheidippides: By Dionysus!
Strepsiades: Look this way now.
Strepsiades: Do you see this little door and this little window?
Pheidippides: I see. So what is this, truly, O father?
Strepsiades: This is a study of the souls of the wise.
Strepsiades: Here, men, dwell those who [study] the sky
Strepsiades: saying, they persuade as if there is a drowner,
Strepsiades: And this is about us, but we are charcoal.
Strepsiades: These are the ones who teach, if someone gives money,
Strepsiades: to conquer even when speaking unfairly and unjustly.
Pheidippides: Are there some, then?
Strepsiades: I do not know the name precisely;
Strepsiades: caring and good and noble.
Pheidippides: Alas, they are scoundrels, I know. The impostors.
Pheidippides: 'You mean the pale-faced and barefoot ones?'
Pheidippides: of whom the wretched Socrates and Chaerephon.
Strepsiades: Oh, oh, be quiet; say nothing foolish.
Strepsiades: But if it troubles you in any way concerning the ancestral barley,
Strepsiades: Be a splitter of these to me, having torn open the equestrian art.
Pheidippides: Not even by Dionysus, if you were to give me just a little.
Pheidippides: the pheasants that Leogoras raises.
Strepsiades: Come, I beg you, most dear of all men to me.
Strepsiades: Come and teach.
Pheidippides: And what will I learn from you?
Strepsiades: they say that both of these are with them, the two arguments,
Strepsiades: the better one, whoever he is, and the worse one.
Strepsiades: this one of the two speeches, the weaker,
Strepsiades: They say that to win is to speak unjustly.
Strepsiades: Then, if you learn this unjust argument for me,
Strepsiades: What I owe now because of you, these debts
Strepsiades: I would not pay back not even an obol to anyone.
Pheidippides: I would not persuade [him]; for I would not dare to see.
Pheidippides: the horsemen, having their skin chafed.
Strepsiades: Then, by Demeter, it was not necessary for them to be mine,
Strepsiades: Neither he himself, nor the steersman, nor the helmsman;
Strepsiades: But I will throw you out into the crows from the house.
Pheidippides: But my uncle Megacles will not overlook me.
Pheidippides: Unwashed. But I will go in; I do not care about you.
Strepsiades: But not even I, though I have fallen, will lie down.
Strepsiades: But after praying to the gods, I will learn.
Strepsiades: walking himself to the thinking-shop.
Strepsiades: How, then, being old and forgetful and slow
Strepsiades: Will I learn the splinters of precise speeches?
Strepsiades: We must go. Why, while holding these things, am I being strangled?
Strepsiades: But am I not knocking on the door? Boy, boy!
Student: Go to the crows! Who cut the door?
Strepsiades: Strepsiades, son of Phaedon, from Cynna.
Student: A fool indeed, by Zeus, whoever acts so excessively.
Student: You have kicked the door in an unthinking manner.
Student: And you have made cleverly devised worries useless.
Strepsiades: Forgive me, for I live far from the fields.
Strepsiades: But tell me the affair that has been smashed.
Student: But it is not right to speak except to the students.
Strepsiades: speak now to me with confidence, for I am this one
Strepsiades: I have come as a student to the thinkery.
Student: I will speak. But these must be thought of as mysteries.
Student: Fetch Socrates just now, Chaerephon!
Student: How many fleas would jump on her feet;
Student: for a wasp bit the eyebrow of Chaerephon.
Student: He has scratched the head of Socrates.
Strepsiades: How then did he measure it out?
Student: Very kindly.
Student: melting the wax, then taking the flea
Student: He dipped her two feet into the wax,
Student: And then the Persian ones grew cold.
Student: having untied these, he measured the plot of land.
Strepsiades: O king of the subtlety of my mind.
Student: But what else would you learn, if you asked Socrates?
Student: What is the tuition?
Strepsiades: Which one? I beg you, tell me.
Student: Lift him up, Chaerephon of Sphettus.
Student: whichever opinion he has, the ear-rings
Student: 'Should he sing through the mouth or through the anus.'
Strepsiades: But what did that man say about the bedbug?
Student: He said he was the opposite of the pincers.
Student: It is narrow; for although it is thin, the breath
Student: I am walking straight by force of the buttocks;
Student: Then, a hollow [part] attached to a narrow [part].
Student: The anus makes a noise from the force of the wind.
Strepsiades: Then the anus is the trumpet of the wasps.
Strepsiades: O thrice-happy one of the dung-heap.
Strepsiades: Surely, if he were escaping, he would have escaped punishment.
Strepsiades: Whoever is digging the opposite side of the pit.
Student: for indeed a great opinion was taken away from him.
Student: From a snail.
Strepsiades: In what way? Tell me.
Student: when he was seeking the paths of the moon.
Student: and the revolutions, then, of one gaping upwards
Student: At night a catamount fell from the ceiling.
Strepsiades: I rejoiced when Socrates drenched me with a bucket.
Student: Yesterday, however, we did not have dinner in the evening.
Strepsiades: Very well; so what did he do with regard to the barley-cakes?
Student: having spread fine ash over the table
Student: having bent a spit and then taking a divider,
Student: He stole a cloak from the wrestling school.
Strepsiades: Why then do we admire that man, Thales?
Strepsiades: Open, open, having raised the thinking-house,
Strepsiades: And show me Socrates as quickly as possible.
Strepsiades: For I am studying; but open the door.
Strepsiades: O Heracles, where do these beasts come from?
Student: What did you marvel at? Do they seem to resemble you?
Strepsiades: to the Laconians captured from Pylos.
Strepsiades: But why do these men look down at the ground?
Student: These men are seeking the things on the earth.
Strepsiades: So bulbs,
Strepsiades: They are seeking. Do not worry about this now;
Strepsiades: For I know where they are great and beautiful.
Strepsiades: For what are these doing, who are so bent forward?
Student: But these are plowing the darkness under Tartarus.
Strepsiades: Why in the world does the anus look up at the sky?
Student: He learns to observe the stars by himself.
Student: But go in, so that he does not catch you there.
Strepsiades: Not yet, not yet; but let them wait, so that
Strepsiades: I will tell them something of my business.
Student: But it is not possible for them with the air
Student: To stay outside for too long a time.
Strepsiades: By the gods, what are these things? Tell me.
Student: astronomy is this.
Strepsiades: But what is this?
Student: geometry.
Strepsiades: So what is the use of this?
Student: To measure the earth.
Strepsiades: Which one? The one for the cleruchies?
Student: Not so, but the whole of it.
Strepsiades: You are saying something witty.
Strepsiades: For the trick is popular and useful.
Student: This is the circumference of the whole earth. Do you see?
Student: These are Athens.
Strepsiades: What are you saying? I am not persuaded,
Strepsiades: since I do not see the jurors sitting.
Student: How truly Attic this place is.
Strepsiades: And where are my fellow-citizens of Cicyunna?
Student: They are right here. But Euboea, as you see,
Student: It is now stretched out very far.
Strepsiades: I know it; for it was drawn up in battle array by us, and by Pericles.
Strepsiades: But where is Sparta?
Student: Where is it? Here.
Strepsiades: How near we are. Take very good care of this,
Strepsiades: lead her away from us very far.
Student: But it is not possible.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, so I must groan.
Strepsiades: Come, who is this man hanging from the rack?
Student: He.
Strepsiades: Who is he?
Student: Socrates.
Strepsiades: O Socrates.
Strepsiades: Come on, this one, shout to him loudly for me.
Student: So you call him yourself, for I have no time.
Strepsiades: O Socrates,
Strepsiades: O little Socrates.
Socrates: Why are you calling me, you wretch?
Strepsiades: First of all, I beg you to tell me what you are doing.
Socrates: I walk in the air and despise the sun.
Strepsiades: Then, after the thunder, do you despise the gods?
Strepsiades: But not from the earth, if so?
Socrates: for he would never
Socrates: I have correctly discovered the heavenly matters,
Socrates: if not hanging the thought and the care
Socrates: having mixed a thin [substance] into the similar air.
Socrates: but if being on the ground I were to examine the things above from below,
Socrates: I would never find it, for the earth is not by force
Socrates: It draws the moisture of care towards itself.
Socrates: This same thing happens also to the leeks.
Strepsiades: What do you say?
Strepsiades: Does care draw the moisture into the roots?
Strepsiades: Come now, come down, O Socrates, as for me,
Strepsiades: in order that you may teach me those things for the sake of which I have come.
Socrates: But when did you arrive?
Strepsiades: wanting to learn to speak.
Strepsiades: For I am being ruined by high interest rates and extremely difficult loans.
Strepsiades: I am being led away, I am being carried off; I am pawning my money.
Socrates: And from where did you escape notice that you have become a debtor?
Strepsiades: A terrible horse-madness has gnawed me to eat.
Strepsiades: But teach me the other of your two arguments,
Strepsiades: the one who pays nothing. But whatever fee...
Strepsiades: You are making me swear that I will deposit the gods.
Socrates: Which gods do you swear by? For first the gods
Socrates: We have no currency.
Strepsiades: For why does he swear? Or
Strepsiades: like in Byzantium with iron ones?
Socrates: Do you wish to know the divine things clearly?
Socrates: What are these said correctly?
Strepsiades: By Zeus, if there is one, indeed.
Socrates: and to become acquainted with the Clouds in conversation,
Socrates: by our own demons?
Strepsiades: By all means.
Socrates: then sit upon the sacred stool.
Strepsiades: Look, I am sitting.
Socrates: Then take this one.
Socrates: the wreath.
Strepsiades: For what wreath? Alas, Socrates!
Strepsiades: just as you do not sacrifice that Athamanth.
Socrates: No, but all these [things] to those undergoing initiation.
Socrates: We do it.
Strepsiades: And then what will I gain?
Socrates: you will make a noise of grinding, clapping, and scraping.
Socrates: But hold still.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, he will not deceive me!
Strepsiades: for being trampled upon, I will become a thistle.
Socrates: One must observe silence toward the elder and heed the prayer.
Socrates: O master, lord immeasurable Air, who hold the earth suspended,
Socrates: radiant is the Air and the august goddesses, the Thunder-throwing Clouds,
Socrates: Rise up, appear, my ladies, to the philosopher, hovering in the air.
Strepsiades: not yet, not yet, indeed, until I have folded this, lest I get soaked.
Strepsiades: But the fact that I, the wretched man, did not even bring a dog from home.
Socrates: Come now, you highly esteemed Clouds, to this demonstration;
Socrates: whether you sit upon the holy, snow-swept peaks of Olympus,
Socrates: Whether you set up a sacred dance in the gardens of father Oceanus for the Nymphs,
Socrates: Or shall we draw water from the channels of the Nile in golden vessels?
Socrates: Does he have the Maeotic lake or the snow-capped crag of Mimas?
Socrates: Listen, receiving a sacrifice and rejoicing in the sacred rites.
Chorus: Eternal Clouds
Chorus: Let us raise our manifest, refreshing, and praiseworthy nature,
Chorus: from father heavy-sounding Oceanus
Chorus: the summits of high mountains upon
Chorus: to trim the trees, so that
Chorus: let us look out for the clearly visible sentinels,
Chorus: and the sacred earth watered with fruits,
Chorus: and songs of pure rivers,
Chorus: and the thundering, deep-roaring sea;
Chorus: For the eye of the sky shines ceaselessly.
Chorus: in the marble gleams.
Chorus: but shaking off a storm-cloud
Chorus: Let us grant immortal ideas.
Chorus: with a telescopic eye the earth.
Socrates: O great and august Clouds, I have clearly heard you calling me.
Socrates: Did you hear the voice and the bellowing thunder of the god-revered?
Strepsiades: And I reverence you, O highly honored ones, and I wish to fart in return.
Strepsiades: towards the thunderclaps; thus I am terrified and frightened by them.
Strepsiades: If it is right, then now at last I shall relieve myself; and if it is not right, I shall relieve myself.
Socrates: You will certainly not mock or do what these grape-treading daimons do,
Socrates: But hush, for a great swarm of the gods is stirred up by songs.
Chorus: rain-bearing maidens
Chorus: Let us go to the fertile land of Pallas, the man-nurturing earth.
Chorus: to see the most lovely son of Cecrops.
Chorus: Where is the reverence of unspeakable mysteries, that
Chorus: a house that receives the mystic offerings.
Chorus: in holy initiations it is revealed,
Chorus: to the heavenly gods, gifts,
Chorus: ten temples reaching high to the sky and statues,
Chorus: And most holy processions of the blessed ones,
Chorus: and the well-crowned sacrifices of the gods and the feasts,
Chorus: at all times,
Chorus: And to the approaching spring, grace from Bromia,
Chorus: the provocations of the softly murmuring choruses,
Chorus: and the Muse, thunderous of the pipes.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, I beg you, tell me, what are these, O Socrates?
Strepsiades: The ones who spoke this solemn word? Could they perhaps be heroines?
Socrates: Most certainly not, but heavenly great Clouds are goddesses to idle men;
Socrates: who provide us with judgment, speech, and intellect.
Socrates: and sorcery, and convoluted speech, and drumming, and seizure.
Strepsiades: Now, after hearing this their utterance, my soul has flown away,
Strepsiades: he is already seeking to argue over trifles and to talk at length about smoke,
Strepsiades: And to strike with a little saying the mind of another with a counter-argument;
Strepsiades: So that if in any way it is possible to see them now openly, I desire it.
Socrates: Look now here toward Mount Parnes; for I already see them coming down.
Socrates: Quietly, those.
Strepsiades: Bring it here, where? Show it.
Socrates: These are very numerous.
Socrates: Through the hollows and the rough ones, these are slanted.
Strepsiades: What's the matter?
Strepsiades: Oh, I cannot see!
Socrates: by the entrance.
Strepsiades: By now, with difficulty like this.
Socrates: Now, indeed, you already see them, unless you are blinded by cucumbers.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, I do, O most valuable ones; for they already hold everything.
Socrates: But you did not know that these are goddesses, nor did you think so?
Strepsiades: By Zeus, but I thought them to be mist and dew and smoke.
Socrates: For not by Zeus, you know that these nurture the most sophists,
Socrates: Thuriomantees, physician-technicians, seal-naming-beard-trimmers,
Socrates: song-wrestlers of circular choruses, sky-cheating men,
Socrates: They feed idle men doing nothing, because they make them poets.
Strepsiades: So, that's what the wet, twisting Clouds would do, destroying my mind,
Strepsiades: the locks of Typhon, the hundred-headed, and the storm winds fanning them,
Strepsiades: then aerial wanderers, bent-winged birds floating in the air,
Strepsiades: Showers of the cool waters of the Clouds; then instead of them I swallowed.
Strepsiades: large pieces of good meat and plump chicks.
Socrates: but for these things, is it not justly?
Strepsiades: tell me then, what have you suffered,
Strepsiades: If indeed they are clouds, will they yield to mortal women?
Strepsiades: For those are not like that.
Socrates: Come, for what sort of ones are they?
Strepsiades: I do not know clearly; but they yield at least to woolen things spread out,
Strepsiades: And by Zeus, I won't have it with women at all, not in the least; for they have noses.
Socrates: Now answer what I wish to ask.
Strepsiades: Speak now quickly whatever you wish.
Socrates: Have you ever, having looked up, seen a cloud resembling a centaur?
Socrates: 'With a leopard, or a wolf, or a bull?'
Strepsiades: By Zeus, I do! Then what of this?
Socrates: All things come about as they wish; and then, if they see a comet
Socrates: Some wild one of these bearded men, like Xenophanes,
Socrates: they likened themselves to centaurs, mocking his madness.
Strepsiades: For what reason did Simon see the public thief, and what are they doing?
Socrates: Wolves suddenly became, revealing his nature.
Strepsiades: So these are the things that Clouds, having seen yesterday the spear-tosser Kleonymos,
Strepsiades: Because I saw that this man was the most cowardly, for this reason deer became [of him].
Socrates: And now, you see, because I saw Cleisthenes, that is why women came to be.
Strepsiades: So, hail, mistresses; and now, if indeed to any other,
Strepsiades: Burst forth a voice reaching to the heavens for me too, O all-mighty ones.
Chorus: Hail, old man, hunter of old, of the songs of the lovers of the Muses,
Chorus: And you, priest of the most trifling nonsense, tell us what you need;
Chorus: For we would not obey anyone else than these meteorological sophists now.
Chorus: except for Prodicus, for whose sake he [is] both clever and prudent, but for yours,
Chorus: because you drip in the roads and you squint your eyes,
Chorus: And even the unshod one suffers many evils and stares at us with a solemn face.
Strepsiades: O earth of the sound, how sacred and solemn and wonderful.
Socrates: For these alone are goddesses, but all the rest is chatter.
Strepsiades: But Zeus, by the earth, is he not an Olympian god?
Socrates: Which Zeus? You shall not prattle on; there is no Zeus.
Strepsiades: What are you saying?
Strepsiades: But who is raining? For this is the first thing I must learn of all.
Socrates: Those, indeed; but with great signs I myself will teach it to you.
Socrates: Come, for where have you ever yet seen it raining without the Clouds?
Socrates: Nevertheless, it ought to have rained dryly on him, but these [clouds] are going abroad.
Strepsiades: By Apollo, you have now indeed explained this matter very well to me with this very speech;
Strepsiades: And yet, previously I truly thought that Zeus urinates through a sieve.
Strepsiades: But whoever it is who thunders, tell me; this is what makes me go mad.
Socrates: These thunder as they roll.
Strepsiades: In what way, O you who dare everything?
Socrates: when they have been filled with much water and are compelled to carry it,
Socrates: to be hurled down full of rain by necessity, then heavy.
Socrates: falling into one another, they burst and crash.
Strepsiades: But who is the one forcing them to be, not Zeus, so as to be carried?
Socrates: Not at all, but the Aetherial Vortex.
Strepsiades: The vortex? That escaped my notice,
Strepsiades: Zeus does not exist, but instead of him the Whirlwind now rules.
Strepsiades: But you have not yet taught me anything about the thunderclap and the thunder.
Socrates: Didn't you hear that I say the Clouds are full of water?
Socrates: to clap them as they fall into each other because of the density?
Strepsiades: 'Come now, to whom must one believe this?'
Socrates: I will teach you from yourself.
Socrates: Already filled with broth by the Panathenaians, then you were disturbed.
Socrates: The belly, and suddenly it let out a great burp?
Strepsiades: By Apollo, he's doing terrible things to me right away, and he's in a state of confusion.
Strepsiades: And just as thunder makes the little pot clatter and shriek terribly;
Strepsiades: And when I shit, it booms 'pa-pa-pax' just like those do.
Socrates: Consider, then, what you have roasted from a little belly of tunny-fish;
Socrates: How is it not likely that this boundless Air should thunder loudly?
Strepsiades: So thunder and flatulence are also similar in name.
Strepsiades: But tell me, from where is this thunderbolt now coming, shining with fire,
Strepsiades: And he scorches us while throwing [stones], and he talks nonsense to those who are alive?
Strepsiades: for Zeus clearly shoots this one at the perjurers.
Socrates: And how, you fool, do you and the smell of the son of Cronus and the moon-eater,
Socrates: If indeed he strikes the perjurers, then clearly he did not burn Simon.
Socrates: Not even Cleonymus and Theorus? Yet they are both most grievous oath-breakers;
Socrates: but he is shooting his own temple and the promontory of the Athenians at Sounion.
Socrates: And the great oaks too; what did he learn? For by Zeus, an oak does not commit perjury.
Strepsiades: I do not know; but you clearly speak well. For what is thunder, then?
Socrates: when a dry wind, having been raised aloft, is shut in among these,
Socrates: He blows them from inside just like a bladder, and then by force
Socrates: Bursting them, he is carried out serious because of the density,
Socrates: 'By the gully and the stream, I myself burn myself.'
Strepsiades: By Zeus, at least I myself truly suffered this once to the Diasians.
Strepsiades: roasting a belly for his relatives, and then, having neglected it, not having [it].
Strepsiades: And then indeed it would blow, and then suddenly, barking out, to them
Strepsiades: He grabbed my eye and burned my face.
Chorus: O man who has desired great wisdom from us,
Chorus: how fortunate he will become among the Athenians and among the Greeks,
Chorus: if you are mindful and thoughtful, and if the wretched [state of affairs] is present
Chorus: In the soul, and yet you do not tire, neither standing nor walking,
Chorus: do not be annoyed either by shivering too much or by wishing to eat breakfast,
Chorus: it abstains from wine, from gymnasia, and from the other foolish things,
Chorus: And you think this is the best thing, which a sensible man would consider right,
Chorus: prevailing by acting and deliberating and fighting with the tongue.
Strepsiades: But because of a soul of hard and difficult-to-comfort care.
Strepsiades: and of the purse-stringer, and of the glutton, and of the leek-dinner,
Strepsiades: I would indeed be confident on account of these things, if I were to offer myself to forge [them].
Socrates: So then, do you now consider some other god, none except what we do?
Socrates: This Chaos and the Clouds and the tongue, are these three the same?
Strepsiades: No, I would not truly converse with the others, nor would I even meet them;
Strepsiades: I would not sacrifice, nor would I pour a libation, nor would I place incense.
Chorus: Now tell us what you are doing with confidence, so that you will not come to harm.
Chorus: to honor us and admire us and seek to be on the right side.
Strepsiades: Oh ladies, I beg you, then, this very little thing,
Strepsiades: I say that I am the best of the Greeks by a hundred stades.
Chorus: But this will be from us; so that from now on...
Chorus: In the city, no one will defeat more people than you in opinion.
Strepsiades: Do not speak great thoughts to me; for I do not desire these things,
Strepsiades: but [I want] to twist-judge myself and to slip past the creditors.
Chorus: So he will provide what you long for; for you do not desire great things.
Chorus: But trusting yourself, hand yourself over to our attendants.
Strepsiades: I will do these things, trusting you; for necessity is pressing me.
Strepsiades: on account of the winged horses and the marriage that has ground me down.
Strepsiades: Now then, quite clearly, what they want
Strepsiades: This is my body to them.
Strepsiades: I provide, to beat, to starve, to thirst
Strepsiades: 'To inflate, shivering, to rub the skin of a wineskin,'
Strepsiades: if indeed I shall escape the debts,
Strepsiades: I shall seem to be to men
Strepsiades: bold, eloquent, daring traveler
Strepsiades: a hateful glue-maker of lies.
Strepsiades: a talker, a trimmer of lawsuits
Strepsiades: kurbis, krotalon, kinados, tryme
Strepsiades: a hired liar, a slick hypocrite, a charlatan.
Strepsiades: a foul, painful sting
Strepsiades: a lick-spittle;
Strepsiades: If they call me these things, I will meet them all,
Strepsiades: while they are doing exactly what they need,
Strepsiades: And if they wish,
Strepsiades: By Demeter, a string from me!
Strepsiades: having placed [it] before the philosophers.
Chorus: boldness is indeed present in this case
Chorus: Not timid but ready. Be sure that
Chorus: having learned these things from me, [you will have] fame of sky-high stature.
Chorus: you will have among mortals.
Strepsiades: What shall I suffer?
Chorus: for all time with me
Chorus: You will lead the most enviable life of men.
Strepsiades: Could it be that I, then, at some point...
Strepsiades: I will see it?
Chorus: so that always you sit by the doors,
Chorus: [they] wishing to be made partners and to enter into discussion.
Chorus: things and counterfeits of many talents,
Chorus: Worthy of your mind, those who give you advice along with you.
Chorus: But put the old man to the test with whatever you are about to teach him,
Chorus: And stir up his mind and try out his opinion.
Socrates: Come now, tell me your own way of life,
Socrates: so that knowing who he is, [you may devise] contrivances
Socrates: Now, on top of these things, I bring new ones to you.
Strepsiades: But what is it? Do you intend that I fight on the walls, by the gods?
Socrates: No, but I want to learn a few things from you.
Socrates: Are you a person with a good memory?
Strepsiades: two ways, by Zeus;
Strepsiades: For if someone owes me something, he is very mindful of it;
Strepsiades: But if I owe, wretch, I am very forgetful.
Socrates: Is it therefore possible to learn from nature?
Strepsiades: Speaking is not possible, but depriving is possible.
Socrates: So how will you be able to learn?
Strepsiades: By all means, very well.
Socrates: Come now, how, whenever I propose something wise to you
Socrates: about the heavenly bodies, he will snatch [them] up immediately.
Strepsiades: What then? Will I feed my wisdom with a dog?
Socrates: This man is ignorant and barbarous.
Socrates: I fear you, old man, that you may lack blows.
Socrates: Come, let me see what you are doing, if someone is hitting you?
Strepsiades: I am being struck,
Strepsiades: Then, after waiting a little, I swear by my testimony,
Strepsiades: And then, having skipped over the barren part, I am judged.
Socrates: Come now, put on your cloak.
Strepsiades: Have I been wronged in some way?
Socrates: No, but it is thought that they enter naked.
Strepsiades: But I am entering so that I may not be discovered.
Socrates: Put it down. Why are you babbling?
Strepsiades: Tell me now.
Socrates: 'What?'
Strepsiades: If I am diligent and learn eagerly,
Strepsiades: Will I become similar to the students?
Socrates: You will not differ from Chaerephon's nature in any way.
Strepsiades: Alas, I shall become a wretched half-dead man.
Socrates: You will not speak, but you will follow me.
Socrates: having done something, [will you come] here more quickly?
Strepsiades: Now to my hands!
Strepsiades: Give me the honeyed cup first; for I am afraid.
Strepsiades: coming down inside, just as into Trophonius's.
Socrates: Go on; why are you peeping while standing by the door?
Chorus: but go, rejoicing in your courage.
Chorus: For this reason.
Chorus: may good fortune come to the man,
Chorus: because he has advanced
Chorus: into the deep of age
Chorus: to their nature, [he is] newer
Chorus: It is being used in matters.
Chorus: and he practices wisdom.
Chorus: Oh spectators, I will speak freely to you.
Chorus: The truth, by Dionysus who reared me.
Chorus: So may I win, and be considered wise,
Chorus: considering you to be skillful spectators
Chorus: and this one to have been the most wise of my comedies,
Chorus: having judged you worthy to be the first to taste, she provided me with
Chorus: a very great work; then we retired, oppressed by vile men.
Chorus: Having been defeated, I am not worthy; therefore I blame you for these things.
Chorus: to the wise, for whose sake I undertook these things.
Chorus: But I will never betray your right hands, not even of my own free will.
Chorus: for since the time that here by men, with whom it is pleasant even to speak,
Chorus: The sensible man and the butt-kicker heard it very well,
Chorus: And I, for I was still a maiden, and it was not yet permitted for me to bear children,
Chorus: I was mowed down, and another girl, having taken me, killed me,
Chorus: But you have nobly reared and educated them;
Chorus: From this I have trustworthy oaths of your opinion.
Chorus: Now then, just as Electra, so too this comedy
Chorus: She came seeking, if perhaps she may meet such wise spectators;
Chorus: For he will know, if indeed he sees, his brother's lock.
Chorus: How naturally prudent he is, consider this; she who first...
Chorus: No mended tunic with hanging straps has come.
Chorus: red from the very top, thick, so that the children may laugh;
Chorus: He did not even tease the bald men, nor did he pull the bowstrings,
Chorus: Nor does the old man who speaks hit the ground with his staff.
Chorus: He strikes the present one, destroying evil jokes,
Chorus: nor did she light torches, nor does she cry 'iō iō'.
Chorus: But she has come trusting in herself and in the words.
Chorus: And I, being such a man, do not make music as a poet,
Chorus: Nor do I seek to deceive you by bringing in the same things twice and three times,
Chorus: but I am always devising new ideas, bringing them forth,
Chorus: not one like another, and all right hands;
Chorus: he who, being the greatest, struck Kleon in the belly,
Chorus: And she did not dare to jump upon him again while he was lying down.
Chorus: But these, as soon as Hyperbolus once handed over a bribe,
Chorus: Always tormenting this wretch and his mother.
Chorus: Eupolis was the first to drag out Maricas.
Chorus: having turned our Knights upside down, he is bad indeed,
Chorus: having added to him an old woman drunk for the sake of the cordax, which
Chorus: Phrynichus long ago has made [it], which the whale used to eat.
Chorus: then Hermippus again wrote against Hyperbolus,
Chorus: And all the others now are leaning against Hyperbolus,
Chorus: imitating my eel-pictures.
Chorus: Whoever therefore laughs at these things, let him not rejoice at my things;
Chorus: And may I and my own find joy in my discoveries,
Chorus: You will seem to have good sense in the other hours.
Chorus: of the high-sovereign gods
Chorus: Zeus, tyrant, into the chorus
Chorus: First I call upon a great one;
Chorus: and the mighty treasurer of the trident,
Chorus: a savage ploughman of the earth and the salt sea;
Chorus: and our great-named father
Chorus: Most august Aether, nourisher of all life;
Chorus: the tenth horse-tamer, who with most shining
Chorus: it holds with rays
Chorus: the great plain of the earth is among the gods.
Chorus: and a god among mortals.
Chorus: O most wise spectators, pay attention here.
Chorus: For having been wronged by you, we accuse you openly;
Chorus: for the greatest number of all the gods, benefiting the city,
Chorus: You sacrifice not to the gods, nor do you pour libations to us alone,
Chorus: We, who watch over you. For if there should be any exit
Chorus: If we are not with understanding, then let us either thunder or sprinkle dust.
Chorus: then the tanner Paphlagon, who is hostile to the gods
Chorus: When you were choosing a general, we were growing our eyebrows.
Chorus: And we are doing terrible things, and a thunderclap has been split apart by lightning;
Chorus: the moon has gone out of the roads, but the sun
Chorus: having immediately drawn the lamp wick to himself
Chorus: He said that he would not make himself manifest to you, if Cleon were to be general.
Chorus: But still you chose this man. For they say that he is a bad counselor.
Chorus: to be present to this city, these things, however, [are] to the gods
Chorus: whatever things you might have erred in, to turn them for the better.
Chorus: But when we have also made this clear, we will teach it easily:
Chorus: If we catch Kleon the thief, having taken bribes and committed theft.
Chorus: then gag this man's neck with this piece of wood,
Chorus: Again, for you to the original, if you have committed any error at all,
Chorus: The affair will be brought to a better state for the city.
Chorus: Around me again, lord Phoebus
Chorus: You who hold Delos, the one of Mount Cynthus,
Chorus: high-horned rock,
Chorus: And you, the blessed one of Ephesus, you hold the all-golden one.
Chorus: a house in which maidens greatly revere you, Lydians,
Chorus: And our native goddess
Chorus: charioteer of the aegis, guardian of the grey-eyed, Athena,
Chorus: Whoever holds Parnassus
Chorus: The rock resounds with pines.
Chorus: Resplendent in the robes of the Delphic Bacchae,
Chorus: Dionysus the reveler.
Chorus: When we have prepared to set out from here,
Chorus: The moon, meeting with us, has sent [us] to say,
Chorus: First of all, greetings to the Athenians and to the allies;
Chorus: Then he said that he was going mad; for he had suffered terrible things.
Chorus: I wish that I were helping you all, not by words but openly.
Chorus: First of all, for the month, not less than a drachma for a torch,
Chorus: so that they say that everyone goes out at nightfall,
Chorus: Do not blow out the torch, child, since it is the beautiful light of the moon.
Chorus: He says he does other things well, but does not lead your days.
Chorus: Nothing is right, but rather it is in a tumult, both up and down;
Chorus: So he says that the gods threaten her every time.
Chorus: whenever they have been tricked out of dinner and have gone home,
Chorus: Not having been part of the festival in accordance with the days.
Chorus: And then, whenever it is necessary to sacrifice, twist the rope and give judgment;
Chorus: often, while we were bringing peace to the gods,
Chorus: whenever we mourn either Memnon or Sarpedon,
Chorus: Make libations, you, and laugh; in return Hyperbolus has obtained the lot.
Chorus: to be sure, they perform a sacred memory, and then from us, the gods
Chorus: the wreath has been taken away; for in this way he will know better.
Chorus: We must lead the days of life by the moon.
Socrates: By the Breath, by the Chaos, by the Air
Socrates: I have not seen such a rustic man as this.
Socrates: neither difficult nor awkward nor forgetful;
Socrates: whoever learns a few little things by climbing up the ladder
Socrates: he has forgotten these things before learning them; nevertheless, indeed
Socrates: Him, I call out, out of doors, come here to the light.
Socrates: Where is Strepsiades? Will he take the strap?
Strepsiades: But the girls do not let me bring them out.
Socrates: Do something and pay attention.
Strepsiades: Look!
Socrates: Come then, what do you wish to learn first now?
Socrates: Of these, have you not learned anything at all? Tell me.
Socrates: Whether about measures, or about words, or about rhythms?
Strepsiades: I'm talking about the meters; for once recently
Strepsiades: I was cut down by a flour-miller, a man of dissension.
Socrates: I do not ask this of you, but [ask] what is the most beautiful measure.
Socrates: Lead the way. Which one, the trimeter or the tetrameter?
Strepsiades: I, for my part, am not yet half-emptied.
Socrates: You say nothing, man.
Strepsiades: Now, look at me.
Strepsiades: if it is not in four-meters, it must be read in half-meters.
Socrates: To hell with you, since you are a boor and slow to learn.
Socrates: you would quickly be able to learn about rhythms.
Strepsiades: And how will the rhythms help me in relation to the barley-cakes?
Socrates: First of all, to be refined in conversation,
Socrates: know what kind of rhythms it is.
Socrates: By the arms, and what a way it is by the finger.
Strepsiades: By the finger? By Zeus, but I know.
Socrates: say then.
Strepsiades: Who else, instead of this finger?
Strepsiades: Before, yes, when I was a boy, this fellow.
Socrates: You are a rustic and clumsy fellow.
Strepsiades: For you are not a fool.
Strepsiades: I desire to learn nothing of these things.
Socrates: Why then?
Strepsiades: That one, that most unjust speech.
Socrates: But you must learn other things before this,
Socrates: As for the quadrupeds, those which are correctly males.
Strepsiades: But I know it is a male, if I am not mad.
Strepsiades: a ram, a goat, an ox, a dog, a rooster.
Socrates: Do you see what is happening to you? You are calling the female one.
Socrates: a rooster at the same time as the male.
Strepsiades: Well, how are things?
Socrates: How? A rooster and a hen.
Strepsiades: By Poseidon! Now how ought I to be called?
Socrates: a hen, but the other a rooster.
Strepsiades: a rooster? Well, by the Air!
Strepsiades: So, instead of this teaching alone
Strepsiades: I will beat you round the head with a club.
Socrates: Look, again this other thing: the cardoon.
Socrates: You call a female a male.
Strepsiades: In that way
Strepsiades: Shall I call it a male, or a cardopus?
Socrates: Most certainly,
Socrates: Just as with Cleonymus too.
Strepsiades: How so? Tell me.
Socrates: A fig-stone is just as powerful for Cleonymus as for you.
Strepsiades: But, good sir, Kleonymus was not even a coward,
Strepsiades: But in a round laurel wreath he would have died.
Strepsiades: But how must I be called from now on?
Socrates: How?
Socrates: the carder, just as you call Sostrata.
Strepsiades: the female donkey?
Socrates: For you speak correctly.
That would have been, Cardope, Kleonymus.
Socrates: Still then, you must learn about the names,
Socrates: Some are male, and some of them are female.
Strepsiades: But I know for sure that it is female.
Socrates: Speak, then.
Strepsiades: Lysilla, Philinna, Kleitagora, Demetria.
Socrates: And what of the male names?
Strepsiades: ten thousand.
Strepsiades: Philoxenos, son of Melasius, son of Amyntias.
Socrates: But you scoundrel, these things are not manly.
Strepsiades: Is it not male for you?
Socrates: Not at all, since
Socrates: How would you greet Amyntas upon meeting him?
Strepsiades: How so? This way, come here, come here, Amynias.
Socrates: Do you see? You are calling the woman Amynias.
Strepsiades: Is it not right, then, that she does not serve in the army?
Strepsiades: But why do I learn these things which we all know?
Socrates: Not at all, by Zeus, but lie down here—
Strepsiades: What am I doing?
Socrates: attend to some of your own affairs.
Strepsiades: Do not, I beg you, beg here; but if it is necessary,
Strepsiades: Leave me on the ground to worry about these things.
Socrates: There are no other things besides these.
Strepsiades: woe is me,
Strepsiades: What punishment will I give the girls today.
Chorus: Be sure to take care of yourself in every way.
Chorus: whirl, having thickened.
Chorus: quickly, when you fall into a predicament,
Chorus: Jump to another place!
Chorus: a thought of the mind; and let sweet-spirited sleep be absent from the eyes.
Strepsiades: Alas, alas.
Chorus: What is happening to you? What are you suffering?
Strepsiades: I am ruined, poor wretch! Because of the mule.
Strepsiades: The Corinthians are crawling out and biting me.
Strepsiades: and they gnaw at my ribs.
Strepsiades: and they drink up the soul as well.
Strepsiades: and they pull out the testicles.
Strepsiades: 'And they dig out the anus,'
Strepsiades: And they will destroy me.
Chorus: Let it not now hurt too painfully.
Strepsiades: And how? Since I...
Strepsiades: The money is lost, the cash is gone,
Strepsiades: a useless soul, and a useless passenger;
Strepsiades: and on top of all this, yet more misfortunes
Strepsiades: singing while on guard
Strepsiades: I have almost become sane.
Socrates: What are you doing? Don't you care?
Strepsiades: Me?
Strepsiades: By Poseidon.
Socrates: And what, then, did you care about?
Strepsiades: If anything is left over for me by the maidens.
Socrates: He will destroy it most terribly.
Strepsiades: But, oh good man, I was just ruined.
Socrates: No, it must not be padded, but covered with a cloak.
Socrates: For a mind that steals must be discovered.
Socrates: And I'm getting a head full of lice!
Strepsiades: Alas, who would surely be able to put on (the chariot)?
Strepsiades: from lambs a thief of counsel?
Socrates: Come now, first observe what this one is doing.
Socrates: Are you asleep?
Strepsiades: By Apollo, not I.
Socrates: Do you have something?
Strepsiades: By Zeus, certainly not I.
Socrates: Not at all?
Strepsiades: Nothing at all except the penis in the right hand.
Socrates: Didn't you wrap yourself up quickly and worry about something?
Strepsiades: About what? For tell me this, O Socrates.
Socrates: You yourself, whoever invented it first, say it.
Strepsiades: I have heard it ten thousand times, I want to,
Strepsiades: about the interest, so that I may pay it to no one.
Socrates: Come now, cover up and split the thought.
Socrates: despise matters little by little, gradually.
Socrates: dividing correctly and examining.
Strepsiades: Alas, wretched me.
Socrates: Hold fast and be still; and if you are puzzled about something of the thoughts,
Socrates: Having left, go away, and [return] according to your opinion again.
Socrates: move it again and yoke it on the fourth.
Strepsiades: O dearest Socrates.
Socrates: What, old man?
Strepsiades: I have a plan to avoid paying interest.
Socrates: show it.
Strepsiades: tell me now —
Socrates: What is 'the what'?
Strepsiades: if he had bought a Thessalian female poisoner.
Strepsiades: I would lower the moon at night, and then indeed
Strepsiades: I would lock her up in a round loft,
Strepsiades: just like a mirror, and then I would hold it in my hand —
Socrates: But what good would this do you?
Strepsiades: What?
Strepsiades: If the moon were no longer rising anywhere,
Strepsiades: I would not pay back the interest.
Socrates: What is it, then?
Strepsiades: For he borrows the money every month.
Socrates: Very well; but I shall propose another apt thing to you as well.
Socrates: if a lawsuit for five talents were being brought against you,
Socrates: Tell me how you might destroy her.
Strepsiades: How? How? I don't know; but it must be sought out.
Socrates: Now, do not constantly twist your opinion around yourself,
Socrates: But throw your care into the air.
Socrates: linen-wrapped like a pomegranate, for the foot.
Strepsiades: I have found the most clever obliteration of the lawsuit,
Strepsiades: So that he admits you to me.
Socrates: which one?
Strepsiades: Already at the pharmacists' the stone.
Strepsiades: You have seen this beautiful one, the transparent one,
Strepsiades: from which they light the fire?
Socrates: Do you mean the glass?
Strepsiades: I certainly. Come then, what would you do, if taking this,
Strepsiades: whenever the clerk was writing out the lawsuit,
Strepsiades: Stand further back, here towards the sun.
Strepsiades: I would burn the letters of my lawsuit!
Socrates: Very wisely, by the Graces.
Strepsiades: Oh, how I rejoice!
Strepsiades: Because a lawsuit for five talents has been entered against me.
Socrates: Come now, quickly snatch this up.
Strepsiades: What?
Socrates: so that, while disputing, he might escape a lawsuit.
Socrates: about to incur [a fine] when witnesses are not present.
Strepsiades: very badly and easily.
Socrates: Tell, then.
Strepsiades: And now I speak.
Strepsiades: if before yet another present lawsuit,
Strepsiades: before my name is called, may I choke myself while running.
Socrates: You are saying nothing.
Strepsiades: By the gods, I myself, since
Strepsiades: No one will bring a lawsuit against me after I am dead.
Socrates: You are a fool; begone, I would not teach you any longer.
Strepsiades: What? Yes, by the gods, O Socrates.
Socrates: But you will immediately forget whatever you learn.
Socrates: since what have you been taught first? Speak.
Strepsiades: Come, let me see: what was it first? What was it first?
Strepsiades: Where was it that we were threshing the barley, then?
Strepsiades: Alas, who was it?
Socrates: He will not perish to the crows,
Socrates: the most forgetful and clumsy little old man?
Strepsiades: Alas! What then, indeed, shall the wretch suffer?
Strepsiades: For I shall be ruined, having not learned to twist my tongue.
Strepsiades: But oh, Clouds, advise me to do something good.
Chorus: We, sir, advise you,
Chorus: if you have a son who has been reared,
Chorus: to send him in your place to learn.
Strepsiades: But he is my son, handsome and good.
Strepsiades: But he will not learn, for he is unwilling. What am I to suffer?
Chorus: But do you permit?
Strepsiades: for he is well-built and vigorous,
Strepsiades: And now from the winged women of Coisura.
Strepsiades: But I shall steal him; but if he does not wish,
Strepsiades: It is not possible that I will not drive them out of the house.
Strepsiades: But, having entered, wait for me a little while.
Chorus: Do you now perceive that you will soon receive the greatest good things from us?
Chorus: Only the goddesses? Indeed,
Chorus: Ready is this to do everything.
Chorus: whatever you order.
Chorus: but you, a man who has been struck and openly insulted
Chorus: knowing what pleasure you are able to have the most,
Chorus: Quickly, for in a way it loves to be turned toward such things.
Strepsiades: By Mist, you will not stay here any longer;
Strepsiades: But come in and eat the pillars of Megacles.
Pheidippides: O strange man, what is the matter with you, O father?
Pheidippides: You are not thinking well, by Zeus of Olympus.
Strepsiades: Behold, behold, by Olympian Zeus! the folly,
Strepsiades: that Zeus is of such great size.
Pheidippides: But why did you really laugh at that?
Strepsiades: thinking
Strepsiades: Because you are a child and you have old-fashioned ideas.
Strepsiades: Nevertheless, come over, so that you may know more,
Strepsiades: And I will tell you something, which, having learned, a man will be.
Strepsiades: so that you teach this to no one.
Pheidippides: Look; what is it?
Strepsiades: You have sworn by Zeus now.
Pheidippides: Yes, I [will].
Strepsiades: Do you see, then, how good it is to learn?
Strepsiades: Zeus is not, O Pheidippides.
Pheidippides: But who?
Strepsiades: A whirlwind, having expelled Zeus, reigns.
Pheidippides: Alas, what nonsense are you talking?
Strepsiades: Know that this is so.
Pheidippides: Who says these things?
Strepsiades: Socrates the Melian
Strepsiades: and Chaerephon, who knows the tracks of fleas.
Pheidippides: But you have come to the point where you are one of the madmen.
Pheidippides: So he persuades men even when they are angry?
Strepsiades: speak well.
Strepsiades: And say nothing bad about clever men.
Strepsiades: and having intelligence; of which, because of stinginess
Strepsiades: No one has ever cut it, nor has anyone anointed it.
Strepsiades: He did not even come to the bathhouse to bathe; but you
Strepsiades: Just as the rain of the dead washes away my life.
Strepsiades: But come as quickly as possible and find out for me.
Pheidippides: 'But what good could one learn from those men?'
Strepsiades: Truly? All things that are wise among men;
Strepsiades: You will know yourself that you are ignorant and dull.
Strepsiades: But wait for me a little while here.
Pheidippides: Alas, what shall I do, my father being out of his mind?
Pheidippides: whether, having led him in by madness, he caught [him],
Pheidippides: Shall I tell my madness to the coffin-bearers?
Strepsiades: Bring [it], let me see; what do you call this? Tell me.
Pheidippides: A rooster.
Strepsiades: Very well. But what about this one?
Pheidippides: a rooster.
Strepsiades: Both at the same time? You are ridiculous.
Strepsiades: not now for the rest, but to call this one
Strepsiades: this cock here is a cock-a-doodle-doo!
Pheidippides: a chicken? You've learned the right-hand side of that.
Pheidippides: having just gone inside, to the Earth-born?
Strepsiades: And indeed many other things too; but whatever I might learn on each occasion,
Strepsiades: I would have forgotten immediately under the weight of years.
Pheidippides: Is it for this very reason that you even lost your tunic?
Strepsiades: But you have not perished, but you have been thoroughly neglected.
Pheidippides: Where did you stuff the boots, you wretched woman?
Strepsiades: Just as Pericles, I have lost everything I needed.
Strepsiades: But come, walk on, let us go; then to the father.
Strepsiades: Having been persuaded, I went wrong; and so, by Zeus, I once did,
Strepsiades: I know, having been persuaded by the one who stammers in the sixth year,
Strepsiades: which first obol I received as a juror's fee,
Strepsiades: I would buy you a carriage from the Dioscuri.
Pheidippides: Indeed, you will be annoyed by these things at some time in the future.
Strepsiades: Good that you have been persuaded. Come here, here, O Socrates,
Strepsiades: Come out, for I am bringing you this son of mine.
Strepsiades: Having persuaded him unwillingly.
Socrates: for he is still a beginner,
Socrates: And not yet the woolen socks of the ones here.
Pheidippides: You yourself would be a cloak, if you were at least hanging.
Strepsiades: Not to the crows? Do you curse the teacher?
Socrates: 'Look, he is hanging,' as he foolishly exclaimed.
Socrates: and with the lips split open.
Socrates: How might this fellow ever learn to escape a lawsuit?
Socrates: 'Either a call or an unconvincing babble?'
Socrates: And yet Hyperbolus has learned this for a talent.
Strepsiades: by all means teach him; he is wise by nature.
Strepsiades: immediately, by Zeus, the little boy is there!
Strepsiades: He was molding ships inside the house, and he was carving them,
Strepsiades: and he made cart-wheels of leather,
Strepsiades: And from the frogs in the pond, how do you think he made them?
Strepsiades: so that he may learn those two things,
Strepsiades: the better one, whoever he is, and the worse one,
Strepsiades: who, speaking unjustly, overturns the stronger man;
Strepsiades: But if not, at least [I will do it] by any unjust art.
Socrates: He himself will learn from those two arguments.
Socrates: But I will be away.
Strepsiades: remember this now, how
Strepsiades: he will be able to contradict every law.
Just Argument: go over here, show yourself
Just Argument: to the spectators, even though bold.
Unjust Speech: Come, wherever you need. For much more indeed...
Unjust Argument: speaking among the many, I will destroy.
Just Argument: you will be destroyed? Who are you?
Unjust Speech: speech.
Just Argument: being weaker.
Unjust Argument: but I conquer you, one superior to mine.
Unjust Speech: claiming to be.
Just Argument: What wise thing am I doing?
Unjust Speech: discovering new ideas.
Just Argument: for these things bloom through these men.
Just Argument: the foolish ones.
Unjust Argument: Not so, but rather wise.
Just Argument: I will destroy you badly.
Unjust Speech: say what [you do]?
Just Argument: speaking just things.
Unjust Argument: but I shall overturn them, arguing in opposition;
Unjust Speech: for I do not even say that justice exists at all.
Just Argument: you say it is not right?
Unjust Logos: Come, then, where is it?
Just Argument: [it is] with the gods.
Unjust Speech: so how is Zeus, when justice exists?
Unjust Speech: he has not destroyed his father.
Unjust Argument: having bound?
Just Argument: by Zeus, this forsooth
Just Argument: the evil is leaving; give me a basin.
Unjust Speech: you are a blustering old man and ill-fitted.
Just Argument: you are a puncher and shameless.
Unjust Speech: You have spoken roses to me.
Just Argument: and a buffoon.
Unjust Speech: with garlands.
Just Argument: and of those who are ungrateful to their fathers.
Unjust Argument: You do not recognize that I am superior to you in gold.
Just Argument: No, indeed, not before, but with lead.
Unjust Argument: And now, however, this is the world for me.
Just Argument: you are bold for much.
Unjust Speech: but you are old.
Just Argument: but on account of you I shall go to school.
Just Argument: no one of the youths wants to.
Just Argument: and he will be known to the Athenians at some time.
Just Argument: such things you teach the foolish.
Unjust Argument: you are shameless.
Just Argument: but you, on the other hand, are doing well.
Just Argument: yet earlier you were a pauper,
Just Argument: Telephus, a Mysian, claiming that he is,
Just Argument: from a phrygian cap
Just Argument: gnawing the opinions of the Panhellenes.
Unjust Argument: Alas, for wisdom —
Just Argument: Alas, madness —
Unjust Speech: of whom you remembered —
Just Logos: of your city, which nourishes you.
Just Argument: corrupting the boys.
Unjust Speech: Will you not teach this one, being Cronus?
Just Argument: if indeed it is necessary for him to be saved
Just Argument: and not to practice mere chatter.
Unjust Argument: come here, and let this one rage.
Just Argument: You will weep, whenever you lay your hand [on me].
Chorus: Stop the fighting and the abuse.
Chorus: But show us also the earlier ones.
Chorus: What things you were teaching, you and the new
Chorus: education, so that, having heard, you two
Chorus: it roams judging the disputers.
Just Argument: I wish to do these things.
Unjust Speech: And I also want to.
Chorus: Come now, which one will speak first?
Unjust Argument: I will give this to him;
Unjust Speech: and then from these things which he may say
Unjust Speech: by new little verbs him
Unjust Speech: and with my thoughts I will pierce with arrows.
Unjust Speech: but the last thing, if he grumbles,
Unjust Speech: the entire face and the eyes.
Unjust Speech: being stung just like by a bee
Unjust Speech: he will be destroyed by the maxims.
Chorus: Now show the right hand to the right.
Chorus: with words and cares and thought-forming worries,
Chorus: whichever of them speaks better will appear to be better.
Chorus: for now all danger is lifted from wisdom here,
Chorus: About this there is the greatest contest for my friends.
Chorus: But, having crowned the old men with many good customs,
Chorus: Break forth in the voice with which you rejoice, and tell your own nature.
Just Argument: I will therefore speak about the ancient education as it was.
Just Argument: when I, speaking justly, was in flower, and self-control was esteemed.
Just Argument: first of all, when a child has cried, nothing should be heard;
Just Argument: then to walk orderly in the streets to a cithara-player.
Just Speech: that the villagers be naked and together, and if it were to rain, that they be soaked.
Just Speech: and then again he used to teach a song beforehand to the two thighs not moving together,
Just Argument: either Pallas, the city-destroying, terrible, or a distant cry,
Just Argument: having tightened the harmony which our fathers handed down.
Just Argument: if one of them should mock or should bend someone's limb,
Just Argument: of what sort [are] these difficult-to-bend ones, which now [exist] concerning Phrynichus,
Just Argument: he was being rubbed while being struck, destroying many, just as the Muses.
Just Argument: when sitting in the wrestling school, one must throw the thigh forward.
Just Argument: that the children might show nothing harsh to those outside;
Just Argument: and then again, again, to lift up and to crush, and to provide beforehand
Just Argument: he does not leave an image for the lovers of youth.
Just Logos: No boy would have been anointed below the navel at that time, so that
Just Argument: dew and dust bloom upon the modest ones just as upon apples.
Just Argument: nor would I, having cultivated a soft voice, [speak] to the lover.
Just Argument: he was walking with his own eyes leading him,
Just Argument: nor was it lawful to pick up while dining and a head of radish,
Just Argument: nor would I steal from the elders, not even a sprig of celery,
Just Argument: nor to eat fish, nor to rub the soles of the feet, nor to hold the feet alternately.
Unjust Speech: truly ancient and god-fearing and full of cicadas.
Unjust Speech: both of Kakeidos and of Bouphontion.
Just Argument: but still, those are those things,
Just Argument: from which our education raised men who fought at Marathon.
Just Argument: but you immediately teach them to be wrapped up in clothes.
Just Argument: So that I should be strangled, when they ought to dance at the Panathenaea.
Just Argument: holding out the shield of the dung-beetle, he neglects Tritogeneia.
Just Argument: in the face of this, young man, choose me, the stronger argument, with confidence.
Just Argument: and he will learn to hate the marketplace and to abstain from baths,
Just Argument: and to feel shame at shameful things, even if someone mocks you for burning.
Just Argument: and one must rise from the seats for the elders as they approach,
Just Argument: and not to practice deceit against your own parents, and nothing else.
Just Argument: It is shameful to do this, that you are about to recast the image of reverence.
Just Speech: do not even sing into a dancing-girl's ear, so that you may not stand with your mouth open at these things
Just Argument: being struck by an apple from a whore, shatter;
Just Argument: neither to answer back to your father in any way, nor having called upon Iapetus,
Just Argument: to bear a grudge against the age from which you were newly nourished.
Unjust Speech: if this boy is persuaded by these things, by Dionysus!
Unjust Speech: you will be a slanderer against the sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you a 'bean-eater'.
Justified Argument: but indeed you will spend time in the gymnasia, well-fed and flourishing,
Just Argument: I am not a blusterer, trampling the marketplace with my feet like these men do now,
Just Argument: not even while being dragged around a petty, mealy-mouthed, word-crushing matter;
Just Argument: but going down to the Academy, he will run away under the myrtles.
Just Argument: having crowned himself with a white reed along with a sensible companion,
Just Argument: smelling of mallow and of leisure and of a white fig-tree shedding its leaves,
Justified Argument: rejoicing in the season of spring, whenever the plane tree whispers to the elm.
Just Argument: if you do these things, I will tell you,
Just Argument: and in addition to this, pay attention,
Just Argument: you will always have it.
Just Argument: a fat chest, a radiant complexion,
Justified Speech: big shoulders, a short tongue,
Just Argument: a big fist, a small penis.
Just Argument: but if you continue to do what you are doing now,
Just Argument: first, you will have
Just Argument: a pale complexion, small shoulders,
Just Argument: a slender chest, a large tongue,
Just Argument: a small fist, a large thigh,
Just Argument: a long decree, and it will persuade you.
Just Argument: to regard all that is shameful as noble,
Just Argument: the beautiful is shameful.
Just Argument: and in addition to this, of Antimachus'
Just Speech: it will fill you with ass-kicking.
Chorus: O you who practice most renowned wisdom, beautiful-towered,
Chorus: How sweet is the flower of sound sense in your words.
Chorus: Happy, then, were those who lived at that time,
Chorus: [of the former]†; having these things before you, O charming and graceful Muse,
Chorus: You must say something new, as the man approved.
Chorus: it seems that you need to devise some terrible schemes against him,
Chorus: If indeed he surpasses the man and you do not incur ridicule.
Unjust Argument: And indeed, for a long time now I have been having my entrails choked and I have been longing for it.
Unjust Speech: to overthrow all these things with opposing opinions.
Unjust Speech: For on account of this very thing I was called inferior.
Unjust Argument: among the men of thought, because I was the first to devise it
Unjust Argument: to speak against the laws and the courts in the opposite manner.
Unjust Speech: and this is worth more than ten thousand staters,
Unjust Speech: to choose the weaker arguments and then to win.
Unjust Speech: Consider the education with which I am confident that I will refute you.
Unjust Speech: whoever says that you should bathe in warm water first will not allow it.
Unjust Argument: and yet, what opinion having do you criticize the warm baths?
Just Argument: for it is the very worst thing and makes the man a coward.
Unjust Argument: Stop! For I shall immediately have you, having seized you in the middle, escapeless.
Unjust Speech: and tell me, which of Zeus's sons is the best man?
Unjust Speech: you think it has a soul, tell me, and has undergone the greatest hardships.
Just Argument: As for me, I judge that no man is better than Heracles.
Unjust Speech: where, pray tell, have you ever seen cold baths, Heraclia?
Unjust Argument: and yet, who was braver?
Just Argument: these things are those things,
Just Argument: which [things] the young men always talk about during the day
Just Argument: it makes the baths full, but the wrestling schools empty.
Unjust Argument: Then you criticize the discourse in the market-place; but I praise it.
Unjust Argument: for if it were bad, Homer would never have made it.
Unjust Speech: he would not even have been a speaker, not even by all the wise men.
Unjust Argument: 'I shall now depart from here to the tongue, which this one...
Unjust Argument: he says that the young men should not train, but I say they should.
Unjust Argument: And again he says that one ought to be prudent; two very great evils.
Unjust Argument: since, because of your being sensible, you have never yet seen anything.
Unjust Speech: tell me, having become something good, and refute me by saying.
Just Argument: to many. For certainly Peleus took the sword for this reason.
Unjust Speech: a sword? A witty profit indeed the wretched one has taken.
Unjust Speech: Hyperbolus, not from the lamps, but from many talents.
Unjust Argument: he has taken [it] through wickedness, but by Zeus, not a sword.
Just Argument: And Peleus married Thetis, for her being moderate.
Unjust Speech: And then, having abandoned him, she went away; for she was not a wrongdoer.
Unjust Speech: and not sweet to spend the night in bed keeping vigil;
Unjust Speech: and a woman, when she is being made pregnant, rejoices; but you are Cronippos.
Unjust Argument: Consider, boy, indeed, in being sensible everything.
Unjust Speech: it is possible, and the pleasures of which you are about to be deprived,
Unjust Speech: the games of boys, women, knucklebones, food, drinks, and dice.
Unjust Argument: And yet, what is there worth living for, if you are deprived of these things?
Unjust Argument: All right. I will depart from here to the necessities of nature.
Unjust Speech: you sinned, you fell in love, you committed adultery with someone, and then you were caught;
Unjust Speech: You are destroyed, for you are unable to speak. And conversing with me...
Unjust Logos: use nature, jump, laugh, think that nothing is shameful.
Unjust Argument: for if you are caught as an adulterer, you will say these things to him,
Unjust Argument: since you have wronged nothing; then bring it back to Zeus,
Unjust Argument: and that one too is overcome by love and women;
Unjust Speech: And yet, being a mortal, how could you possibly be stronger than I?
Just Argument: but what was it, if, having obeyed you, he was rubbed with a radish and brought in ash,
Just Argument: 'Shall I have some thought to say that it is not to be broad-arsed?'
Unjust Speech: If he has a wide buttocks, what bad thing will he suffer?
Just Argument: For what could possibly suffer something greater than this?
Unjust Speech: but what will you say, if you are defeated by me in this?
Just Speech: I will be silent. But what else [is there to do]?
Unjust Speech: Come now, tell me this:
Unjust Speech: from what [things] do they argue in support?
Just Argument: from broad-arsed ones.
Unjust Argument: I am persuaded.
Unjust Speech: Why then? Are you acting the tragic poet from what?
Just Argument: from the broad-girdled.
Unjust Argument: You speak well.
Unjust Argument: but from what are they speaking?
Just Argument: from broad-arsed ones.
Unjust Speech: "Then, is it really..."
Unjust Argument: You know that you are saying nothing?
Unjust Speech: and whoever of the spectators
Unjust Speech: consider more things.
Just Argument: and now I am looking.
Unjust Speech: What exactly are you looking at?
Just Argument: many, by the gods, many more
Just Argument: the broad-backed ones; this one
Just Logic: well, I know that one too.
Just Argument: and this comet.
Unjust Argument: But what exactly will you say?
Just Argument: we are defeated; you who move!
Just Argument: by the gods, accept my [words].
Just Argument: well then, as
Just Argument: I am deserting of my own accord to you.
Socrates: But what then? Are you to take this man and lead him away?
Socrates: Do you want the son, or shall I teach him to speak?
Strepsiades: teach and chastise and remember how
Strepsiades: Give me a good thrashing, him, and on the other side
Strepsiades: like a little jaw, but the other jaw of it
Strepsiades: Shut up about what sort of greater matters.
Socrates: Just take this clever sophist away.
Pheidippides: I suppose, then, that he is pale and ill-fated.
Chorus: Come now. But I think you will regret this.
Chorus: the judges whatever they win, if they [should win] something from this chorus.
Chorus: We wish to declare that we benefit from the just, and we wish to say it.
Chorus: First, then, for if you wish to plough the fields at the right time,
Chorus: We will sing first for you, and later for the others.
Chorus: Then, having brought forth the fruit, we shall guard the vines,
Chorus: so that neither drought nor excessive rain may oppress.
Chorus: But if any mortal, while being a goddess, dishonors us,
Chorus: let him pay attention, what bad things he will suffer from us,
Chorus: taking neither wine nor anything else from the place.
Chorus: For whenever the olive trees sprout and the vines,
Chorus: They will be cut off; with such slings we shall dance a paean.
Chorus: If we should see him making bricks, we will also eat the roof.
Chorus: We will crush his pottery with round hailstones.
Chorus: And if he himself should marry at some time, or one of his relatives or of his friends,
Chorus: We will sing the whole night, so perhaps he will wish [to do so].
Chorus: And if it happens in Egypt, to be better off than to be judged badly.
Strepsiades: fifth, fourth, third, after that second,
Strepsiades: Then the one which I most of all of the days
Strepsiades: I fear and shudder and am disgusted,
Strepsiades: Immediately after this there is a maiden both old and new.
Strepsiades: for everyone who swears, I happen to be a debtor,
Strepsiades: He says that the gods will ruin and utterly destroy me.
Strepsiades: And also from me, as I ask moderately and justly,
Strepsiades: O divine one, do not, I beg, take it now,
Strepsiades: "But it's not right to lift it up and then let it go; they never say that."
Strepsiades: 'Thus I will be dismissed, but they abuse me.'
Strepsiades: How unjust I am, and they say that I am to be judged.
Strepsiades: Let him be judged now, then; for I care little about it,
Strepsiades: if Phidippides has learned well to speak.
Strepsiades: I shall soon know after cutting the schoolhouse.
Strepsiades: boy, alas, boy, boy.
Socrates: I greet Strepsiades.
Strepsiades: And I too [want to go with] you; but take this one first;
Strepsiades: For one must admire the teacher in some way.
Strepsiades: And tell me whether he has learned the speech.
Strepsiades: That one, whom you just introduced.
Socrates: He has learned.
Strepsiades: Well, O all-powerful Apaiolis.
Socrates: So you could escape any punishment you wish.
Strepsiades: And even if witnesses were present when I borrowed?
Socrates: By far more so, even if a thousand were present.
Strepsiades: Therefore I will shout the over-the-top thing.
Strepsiades: Alas! Oh, you who live in the Olophix!
Strepsiades: both they themselves and the ancient ones and the interest on interest;
Strepsiades: for nothing would ever again make me do something base,
Strepsiades: Such a thing is being raised for me
Strepsiades: in these very houses a boy,
Strepsiades: shining with a two-edged tongue,
Strepsiades: my prop, savior of the house, harm to enemies,
Strepsiades: A liberator of my father's great evils.
Strepsiades: Call him running from inside as quickly as me.
Socrates: O child, O boy, come out of the house,
Socrates: 'Blow on your father.'
Socrates: This is that man.
Strepsiades: O friend, O friend.
Socrates: Go away, having been caught.
Strepsiades: Alas, alas, child, alas, alas.
Strepsiades: How delighted I am, having seen your face first.
Strepsiades: Now, first of all, you must be seen to be denying.
Strepsiades: and argumentative, this is also a country trait.
Strepsiades: Indeed it is flourishing, the thing that you say? And seems to be.
Strepsiades: I know that the unjust suffer injustice and the criminals suffer wrong.
Strepsiades: There is an Attic look upon his face.
Strepsiades: So now, how will you save me, since you have also ruined me.
Pheidippides: What then is he afraid of?
Strepsiades: the pregnant and the young one.
Pheidippides: For it is indeed a fresh and new day.
Strepsiades: into which, they say, they will place the prytaneia.
Pheidippides: Let those who set it up perish then; for there is no way
Pheidippides: If only one day could become two days.
Strepsiades: 'It would not happen, would it?'
Pheidippides: How so? If not at least at the same time
Pheidippides: May she turn out to be both an old woman and a young woman.
Strepsiades: And indeed, I have established a law.
Pheidippides: For I do not think [it is] the law.
Pheidippides: They know correctly what he is thinking.
Strepsiades: But what is he thinking?
Pheidippides: Solon the old was a lover of the people by nature.
Strepsiades: This, however, has nothing to do with an old and a young woman yet.
Pheidippides: So that man, the summons for two days.
Pheidippides: He set it, at least on the new and fresh one,
Pheidippides: so that the positions might be established on the new moon.
Strepsiades: So why did you add the new one?
Pheidippides: so that, O honey
Pheidippides: The fugitives are present for one day.
Pheidippides: Let them depart beforehand willingly, but if not,
Pheidippides: On the first day of the month, they would run out early in the morning.
Strepsiades: why then do they not accept it at the beginning of the month?
Strepsiades: The beginnings of the prytaneion, but in one and a new way?
Pheidippides: That is what the long-winded seem to me to do, for...
Pheidippides: 'that they might take the Prytaneion as soon as possible,'
Pheidippides: For this reason they were a day ahead.
Strepsiades: Well then! Wretched fools, why are you sitting there idle,
Strepsiades: being the profits of the wise, stones,
Strepsiades: Count them, sheep otherwise, amphorae in a state of fasting?
Strepsiades: So, to myself and this son of mine
Strepsiades: I should sing a song of triumph.
Strepsiades: O blessed Strepsiades,
Strepsiades: You yourself have grown wise.
Strepsiades: What a pig you are raising, your son,
Strepsiades: So my friends will say of me,
Strepsiades: and the jurors too
Strepsiades: envying, whenever you win, arguing the cases.
Strepsiades: But I want to invite you first to have dinner.
Pasias: Then must a man of his own sort be made to advance?
Pasias: Never, but rather at that time it was stronger immediately
Pasia: to blush rather than to have dealings,
Pasias: since for the sake of my own money at present
Pasias: I drag you away to summon [someone], and I will be [so].
Pasias: an enemy, in addition to this, to a citizen.
Pasias: But I will never disgrace my country.
Pasias: alive, but I am called Strepsiades —
Strepsiades: Who is this man?
Pasias: into the ninth and new [month].
Strepsiades: I call to witness,
Strepsiades: 'That he said it in two days. For the money?'
Pasicles: the twelve minae, which you took when buying.
Pasion: the shaggy horse.
Strepsiades: A horse? Do you not hear?
Strepsiades: whom you all know to hate the equestrian art.
Pasias: And by Zeus, you swore to the gods that you would pay it back.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, for at that time he did not yet know it.
Strepsiades: Pheidippides, give me the indomitable speech.
Pasias: But now, does he intend to be a denier on this account?
Strepsiades: For what else would I enjoy from the lesson?
Pasias: And you will even be willing to defraud me of the gods with these things.
Pasion: Wherever I command you?
Strepsiades: Which gods?
Pasias: Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon.
Strepsiades: By Zeus!
Strepsiades: And even if I were to lie down under, so as to swear three obols.
Pasicl: So then, may you perish on account of your shamelessness.
Strepsiades: Having been anointed with salt, he would be a donkey.
Pasias: Oh, how you mock me!
Strepsiades: He will hold six libations.
Pasias: By Zeus the great and the gods, no!
Pasion: he will defraud me.
Strepsiades: I was wonderfully pleased by the gods,
Strepsiades: and Zeus is ridiculous when he swears by the things the gods know.
Pasiadas: By Zeus, you will pay the penalty for these things by this time.
Pasias: but whether you will pay back the money to me or not,
Pasias: dismiss him after answering.
Strepsiades: Hold on now, quietly.
Strepsiades: For I will answer you clearly right away.
Pasias: What do you think he will do?
Witness: I think he will pay me back.
Strepsiades: Where is this fellow demanding my money from me? Speak!
Strepsiades: What is this?
Pasias: What is this? A cardon.
Strepsiades: And then you demand the money, being such a man?
Strepsiades: I would not pay out not even an obolus to anyone,
Strepsiades: whoever would call a cardopos 'the cardopē'.
Pasias: Will you not give it back, then?
Strepsiades: Not so much as to know.
Strepsiades: So you won't finish anything any faster by cheating?
Strepsiades: From the door?
Pasic: I am going, and know this: that
Pasias: I will become prytanis or I shall no longer live.
Strepsiades: And you will lose them all along with the twelve.
Strepsiades: And yet I do not wish to suffer this.
Strepsiades: That you have called the carding-machine foolishly.
Amyntias: Alas, alas!
Strepsiades: Let it be.
Strepsiades: Who is this, pray, that is lamenting? No, surely not.
Strepsiades: Did one of the gods of Cancer speak?
Amyntias: But why does anyone wish to know this about me?
Amyntias: a wretched man.
Strepsiades: Now turn against yourself.
Aminias: O hard-hearted daemon, O fates, shatters of chariots!
Aminias: Oh, Pallas, how you have ruined my horses.
Strepsiades: What evil, then, has Telephus ever done to you?
Amyntias: Do not mock me, you fellows, but give me the money.
Aminias: 'Order him to give back the son; he has not taken him.'
Aminias: Moreover, and indeed, to someone who has fared badly.
Strepsiades: Which money is this?
Amyntias: He borrowed it.
Strepsiades: you were indeed in bad shape, as it seems to me.
Amyntias: I fell off while driving horses, by the gods.
Strepsiades: Why on earth are you babbling as if you had fallen from a donkey?
Aminias: I am babbling, [to think that] I shall get the money if I want?
Strepsiades: It is not possible that you yourself are in good health.
Amyntias: Why, then?
Strepsiades: You seem to me to be shaking my brain just as you do yourself.
Aminias: And by Hermes, you are to be summoned by me,
Aminias: unless you return the money.
Strepsiades: Now tell it down,
Strepsiades: do you think that Zeus is always new?
Strepsiades: To rain water every time, or the sun
Strepsiades: to draw up this same water again from below?
Aminias: I don't know, indeed, which, nor does it concern me.
Strepsiades: How, then, can you justly receive the money,
Strepsiades: If you know nothing of the lofty matters?
Aminias: But if you are in need, give me the interest on the silver.
Amyntias: give it back.
Strepsiades: But what sort of monster is this interest?
Amyntias: What else, then, but every month and every day?
Amyntias: the money is always becoming more.
Amyntias: 'As time slips by?'
Strepsiades: You speak well.
Strepsiades: And what then? Is the sea, for example, larger?
Strepsiades: Now do you think so, or before?
Amyntias: By Zeus, but it is equal.
Amyntias: for it is not just to be more.
Strepsiades: And then how?
Strepsiades: This, alas, does not happen at all.
Strepsiades: with the rivers overflowing, more, but you
Strepsiades: Do you want to make your money more?
Strepsiades: Won't he drive you out of the house?
Strepsiades: bring me the gimlet.
Amyntias: I testify to this.
Strepsiades: Go. Why are you delaying? Do you not drive on, you wretch?
Aminias: Is this certainly not hubris?
Strepsiades: Will you sing? I will catch you.
Strepsiades: I will sting you, the tail-carrier, right under your buttocks.
Strepsiades: Are you fleeing? Was I about to stir you up, then?
Strepsiades: With your wheels and your yokes.
Chorus: such is the love of trivial matters; for the
Chorus: This old man, having fallen in love,
Chorus: he wishes to rob
Chorus: He borrowed the money.
Chorus: and it is not possible that not today.
Chorus: He will take some matter, which this man
Chorus: perhaps he will make the sophist,
Chorus: for which reasons you began to act cunningly, suddenly to suffer some evil.
Chorus: I think, for he will find it immediately, whatever
Chorus: long ago indeed he was seeking
Chorus: for the son is dangerous for them
Chorus: to utter contrary opinions.
Chorus: for the just, so as to conquer.
Chorus: all those whomsoever
Chorus: Let him be born, even if he says he is utterly wicked.
Chorus: Perhaps, yes, perhaps he will decide that he himself should be mute.
Strepsiades: ouch ouch.
Strepsiades: O neighbors and relatives and fellow citizens,
Strepsiades: Protect me, who am being struck, with every skill.
Strepsiades: Alas, woe is my head and my jaw.
Strepsiades: O scoundrel, are you hitting your father?
Pheidippides: I have heard a report, father.
Strepsiades: Look, they admit that he is beating me.
Pheidippides: and indeed.
Strepsiades: O you filthy man and father's-killer and wall-climber.
Pheidippides: Again say the same things and more.
Pheidippides: Do you know that I rejoice greatly when I hear bad things?
Strepsiades: O shit-kicker.
Pheidippides: strike with many roses.
Strepsiades: Are you beating your father?
Pheidippides: And I shall reveal it, by Zeus.
Pheidippides: "As in justice, I struck you."
Strepsiades: O most filthy one,
Strepsiades: And how could it be lawful to beat one's father?
Pheidippides: I myself will prove it and will defeat you while speaking.
Strepsiades: You will win this?
Pheidippides: Very indeed and easily.
Pheidippides: Choose whichever of the two arguments you want to speak.
Strepsiades: What kind of words?
Pheidippides: the stronger rather than the weaker.
Strepsiades: But by Zeus, I have taught you, my dear.
Strepsiades: to argue against what is right, if only these things [are so].
Strepsiades: You are about to persuade, as it is just and noble.
Strepsiades: it is fitting for the father to be beaten by the sons.
Pheidippides: but I think, however, that I will persuade you, and so
Pheidippides: Nor did you answer at all, having heard it yourself.
Strepsiades: And indeed, whatever you may say, I want to hear it.
Chorus: It is your business, old man, to consider how.
Chorus: You will seize the man,
Chorus: How if this man, unless he trusted someone, would not have been.
Chorus: in this way unrestrained.
Chorus: But he is bold with someone; it is clear, indeed, of the man.
Chorus: There is the courage.
Chorus: But since the battle first began,
Chorus: It is now necessary to speak to the chorus; certainly, however, you will do this.
Strepsiades: And indeed, from where we first began to abuse one another.
Strepsiades: I will speak; for since we are dining, as you know,
Strepsiades: First, I ordered him to take the lyre.
Strepsiades: Sing a song of Simonides, how the Ram was raised.
Strepsiades: and he immediately said that playing the lyre was ancient.
Strepsiades: to sing and drink like a nightingale, a woman having been caught.
Pheidippides: For you should not, you see, have been struck and trampled on at that time,
Pheidippides: 'To order him to sing, as it were, a cicada, while dining?'
Strepsiades: But even then he used to say things just like these, inside the house,
Strepsiades: And he used to say that Simonides was a bad poet.
Strepsiades: And I too at first, though with difficulty, endured it.
Strepsiades: And then he ordered him, but to take myrrh instead
Strepsiades: speak to me some of Aeschylus' words; and then straightaway this man said:
Strepsiades: For I consider Aeschylus to be the first among poets,
Strepsiades: A rattle, the most intolerable noise, a cliff-maker?
Strepsiades: And even here, how do you think my heart is stretched?
Strepsiades: However, I said, having bitten my anger, but you, on the contrary, these things
Strepsiades: Tell me one of the newer things, what these wise things are.
Strepsiades: And he immediately sang some speech of Euripides, how he would stir things up.
Strepsiades: You have destroyed your half-sister, wretch.
Strepsiades: And I am no longer angry, but I am immediately praying for a curse.
Strepsiades: with many evils and misfortunes; and then from here, as is likely,
Strepsiades: word for word we grapple; then this fellow leaps up,
Strepsiades: And then he bullied me, and he insulted me, and he choked me, and he crushed me.
Pheidippides: Then you are not acting justly, since you do not praise Euripides.
Pheidippides: 'most wise?'
Strepsiades: That man is most wise, O — what should I say to you?
Strepsiades: But again I shall be beaten.
Pheidippides: By Zeus, he would be in the right.
Strepsiades: And how justly? Since I raised you, shameless one.
Strepsiades: realizing that you were stammering everything, what you were thinking.
Strepsiades: If indeed you were to say 'drink', knowing this, I would have refrained from drinking;
Strepsiades: if your mother had asked, I would have come to you bringing bread;
Strepsiades: You would not have been able to speak ill, and I, having taken [it], go out the door.
Strepsiades: I would have taken you away and even offered you a reward; but you now strangle me.
Strepsiades: "Bellowing and shouting, that"
Strepsiades: I wish I were a wasp, you have not endured.
Strepsiades: Bring it out, you wretch!
Strepsiades: Open the door for me, but I am suffocating.
Strepsiades: I did it right there.
Chorus: I think, at any rate, the hearts of the younger men
Chorus: Jump whatever he says.
Chorus: for if this man has been so thoroughly trained,
Chorus: The speaker will persuade,
Chorus: we might take the skins of the older men.
Chorus: but not even a chickpea.
Chorus: your work, O mover and lever of new verses
Chorus: [she] seeks to persuade someone, so that you may seem to speak justly.
Pheidippides: How sweet it is to converse with new and clever things,
Pheidippides: and to be able to despise the established laws.
Pheidippides: For when I was paying attention to the mind solely with horsemanship,
Pheidippides: He was not even able to speak three words before he made a mistake;
Pheidippides: Now, since this man himself has stopped me from these things,
Pheidippides: but I am at home with subtle opinions and arguments and worries,
Pheidippides: I think I will teach that it is just to punish one's father.
Strepsiades: So ride, by Zeus, as it is better for me.
Strepsiades: 'Whether to rear a four-horse chariot or to be beaten by a thrashing.'
Pheidippides: From there, from where you cut me off from the argument, I shall return.
Pheidippides: And first I will ask you this: did you beat me, though I was a boy?
Strepsiades: I, wishing you well and taking care of you.
Pheidippides: tell me then,
Pheidippides: It is not just for you that I am to be well-disposed equally.
Pheidippides: to strike, then, since indeed to strike is to be well-disposed?
Pheidippides: for how is it necessary for your body to be free from blows,
Pheidippides: What about mine? And indeed, I was born free too.
Pheidippides: the children are weeping, but do you not think that the father is not weeping?
Pheidippides: You will be thought to have done this, as the work of a boy.
Pheidippides: But I would retort that the old men are twice [as much] children;
Pheidippides: it is more likely that the old men than the young should weep at something,
Pheidippides: The less they are wrong, the more just it is for them.
Strepsiades: But it is not considered anywhere for a father to suffer this.
Pheidippides: Then the man who laid down this law was not originally so.
Pheidippides: Just as you and I, did you persuade the ancients even while speaking?
Pheidippides: Then surely it is also allowed for me, from now on, something new again.
Pheidippides: to strike down the law that sons should strike back at their fathers?
Pheidippides: How many blows we had before the law was established,
Pheidippides: We give them up, and we give them freely to be hacked up.
Pheidippides: Consider the roosters and the rest of these beasts,
Pheidippides: how he defends his fathers; and yet, what difference do they make?
Pheidippides: Those are ours, except that they do not write decrees?
Strepsiades: But why, since you imitate all the roosters,
Strepsiades: You don't eat, and you sleep on dung and on wood?
Pheidippides: It is not the same thing, by the goddesses, nor would it even seem so to Socrates.
Strepsiades: For these things, do not strike; but if you do not, you will blame yourself.
Pheidippides: And how?
Strepsiades: Since I am just in punishing you,
Strepsiades: But you, if it happens to you, [will have] the son.
Pheidippides: But if it does not happen,
Pheidippides: In vain will he weep for me, but you will die in a fainting fit.
Strepsiades: And so, men of my own age, it seems to me that he speaks justly;
Strepsiades: And to me too it seems that one should make allowances for these things.
Strepsiades: For it is likely that we should weep, unless we do what is just.
Pheidippides: consider yet another thought as well.
Strepsiades: For from
Pheidippides: And indeed, perhaps you will not be annoyed having suffered what you are now suffering.
Strepsiades: How so? For tell me, how will you benefit me from these things.
Pheidippides: I will strike your mother just as I struck you.
Strepsiades: What do you say, what do you say, you?
Strepsiades: This is another, even greater evil.
Pheidippides: 'But what was he holding, the weaker one?'
Pheidippides: I will defeat you by speaking a word.
Pheidippides: "Must I strike my mother?"
Strepsiades: And what else would this do, I ask you,
Strepsiades: Nothing will prevent you from yourself.
Strepsiades: to throw into the chasm
Strepsiades: after Socrates
Strepsiades: and the weaker argument.
Strepsiades: I have suffered these things on your account, O Clouds,
Strepsiades: having devoted all my affairs to you.
Chorus: therefore you yourself are responsible for these things to yourself,
Chorus: turning yourself toward evil things.
Strepsiades: So why did you not tell me this then,
Strepsiades: But did you take a rustic and an old man?
Chorus: We do these things from time to time whenever someone
Chorus: let us know the lover of wicked things, being one,
Chorus: until we cast him into evil,
Chorus: so that they may know that the gods are feared.
Strepsiades: Alas, wicked ones, you are, O Clouds, but just.
Strepsiades: For I ought not to have borrowed the money.
Strepsiades: to defraud. Now then, how it may be, dearest friend
Strepsiades: Chaerephon the foul one and Socrates
Strepsiades: You will be ruined having come with me, since they deceived both you and me.
Pheidippides: But I should not wrong the teachers.
Strepsiades: yes, yes, have reverence for the ancestral Zeus.
Pheidippides: Look, here is the ancestral Zeus! How ancient you are.
Pheidippides: For is there a Zeus?
Strepsiades: It is.
Pheidippides: No, no, because
Pheidippides: Vortex, having driven out Zeus, now rules.
Strepsiades: He has not driven him out, but I thought so.
Strepsiades: through this whirlwind. Alas, wretched me!
Strepsiades: Since I thought that even you, being a potter, were a god.
Pheidippides: Be mad to yourself here and talk nonsense.
Strepsiades: Alas, for madness! For I have been mad, it seems,
Strepsiades: when they were expelling the gods because of Socrates.
Strepsiades: But, O dear Hermes, do not at all sacrifice for me.
Strepsiades: Do not wear me out, but be patient.
Strepsiades: when I have gone mad with idle talk;
Strepsiades: And be my advisor, whether [you will bring] them to trial
Strepsiades: I shall go and get some writing materials, whatever you think best.
Strepsiades: You are advising correctly, not allowing [me] to be a litigant.
Strepsiades: but how quickly to set the house on fire.
Strepsiades: Of the gadflies. Come here, come here, O Xanthias,
Strepsiades: taking a ladder, go out and carrying a file,
Strepsiades: and then getting back up onto the thinking-shop.
Strepsiades: "Tear down the roof, if you love your master,"
Strepsiades: Until you put the house inside them;
Strepsiades: But let someone bring me a dry stick,
Strepsiades: And I too will make one of them pay a penalty today.
Strepsiades: I will make it so, even if they are extremely arrogant.
Student A: ooh ooh.
Strepsiades: It is your job, sir, to send up a great flame.
Student A: Man, what are you doing?
Strepsiades: What am I doing? And what else, then, than
Strepsiades: Am I being bored by the beams of the house?
Student B: Alas, who is setting our house on fire?
Strepsiades: That man from whom you have taken the cloak.
Student 3: You will be ruined, you will be ruined.
Strepsiades: For it is this very thing that I also wish,
Strepsiades: If the weasel does not betray my hopes,
Strepsiades: Or may I perhaps be broken-necked and fall first.
Socrates: What are you doing up there on the roof?
Strepsiades: I walk on air and look down on the sun.
Socrates: Alas, wretched, miserable, I shall be strangled.
Chaerephon: But as for me, the wretch, I shall be completely burned.
Strepsiades: For what, having learned [these things], do you blaspheme the gods,
Strepsiades: And were you observing the seat of the moon?
Hermes: chase, strike, hit, for many reasons,
Hermes: most certainly, knowing that the gods were treating them unjustly.
Chorus: Lead the way outside; for the dancing has been completed.
Chorus: moderately, at any rate, today, for us.