Part 2

Soc. By no means, but aethereal Vortex.

Strep. Vortex? It had escaped my notice that Jupiter did not exist, and that Vortex now reigned in his stead. But you have taught me nothing as yet concerning the clap and the thunder.

Soc. Have you not heard me, that I said that the Clouds, when full of moisture, dash against each other and clap by reason of their density?

Strep. Come, how am I to believe this?

Soc. I'll teach you from your own case. Were you ever, after being stuffed with broth at the Panathenaic festival, then disturbed in your belly, and did a tumult suddenly rumble through it?

Strep. Yes, by Apollo! And immediately the little broth plays the mischief with me, and is disturbed and rumbles like thunder, and grumbles dreadfully: at first gently pappax, pappax; and then it adds papa-pappax; and finally, it thunders downright papapappax, as they do.

Soc. Consider, therefore, how you have trumpeted from a little belly so small; and how is it not probable that this air, being boundless, should thunder so loudly?

Strep. For this reason, therefore, the two names also Trump and Thunder, are similar to each other. But teach me this, whence comes the thunderbolt blazing with fire, and burns us to ashes when it smites us, and singes those who survive. For indeed Jupiter evidently hurls this at the perjured.

Soc. Why, how then, you foolish person, and savouring of the dark ages and antediluvian, if his manner is to smite the perjured, does he not blast Simon, and Cleonymus, and Theorus? And yet they are very perjured. But he smites his own temple, and Sunium the promontory of Athens, and the tall oaks. Wherefore, for indeed an oak does not commit perjury.

Strep. I do not know; but you seem to speak well. For what, pray, is the thunderbolt?

Soc. When a dry wind, having been raised aloft, is inclosed in these Clouds, it inflates them within, like a bladder; and then, of necessity, having burst them, it rushes out with vehemence by reason of its density, setting fire to itself through its rushing and impetuosity.

Strep. By Jupiter, of a truth I once experienced this exactly at the Diasian festival! I was roasting a haggis for my kinsfolk, and through neglect I did not cut it open; but it became inflated and then suddenly bursting, befouled my eyes and burned my face.

Cho. O mortal, who hast desired great wisdom from us! How happy will you become among the Athenians and among the Greeks, if you be possessed of a good memory, and be a deep thinker, and endurance of labour be implanted in your soul, and you be not wearied either by standing or walking, nor be exceedingly vexed at shivering with cold, nor long to break your fast, and you refrain from wine, and gymnastics, and the other follies, and consider this the highest excellence, as is proper a clever man should, to conquer by action and counsel, and by battling with your tongue.

Strep. As far as regards a sturdy spirit, and care that makes one's bed uneasy, and a frugal spirit and hard-living and savory-eating belly, be of good courage and don't trouble yourself; I would offer myself to hammer on, for that matter.

Soc. Will you not, pray, now believe in no god, except what we believe in--this Chaos, and the Clouds, and the Tongue--these three?

Strep. Absolutely I would not even converse with the others, not even if I met them; nor would I sacrifice to them, nor make libations, nor offer frankincense.

Cho. Tell us then boldly, what we must do for you? For you shall not fail in getting it, if you honour and admire us, and seek to become clever.

Strep. O mistresses, I request of you then this very small favour, that I be the best of the Greeks in speaking by a hundred stadia.

Cho. Well, you shall have this from us, so that hence-forward from this time no one shall get more opinions passed in the public assemblies than you.

Strep. Grant me not to deliver important opinions; for I do not desire these, but only to pervert the right for my own advantage, and to evade my creditors.

Cho. Then you shall obtain what you desire; for you do not covet great things. But commit yourself without fear to our ministers.

Strep. I will do so in reliance upon you, for necessity oppresses me, on account of the blood-horses, and the marriage that ruined me. Now, therefore, let them use me as they please. I give up this body to them to be beaten, to be hungered, to be troubled with thirst, to be squalid, to shiver with cold, to flay into a leathern bottle, if I shall escape clear from my debts, and appear to men to be bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventive of words, a practiced knave in lawsuits, a law-tablet, a thorough rattle, a fox, a sharper, a slippery knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an impostor, a gallows-bird, a blackguard, a twister, a troublesome fellow, a licker-up of hashes. If they call me this, when they meet me, let them do to me absolutely what they please. And if they like, by Ceres, let them serve up a sausage out of me to the deep thinkers.

Cho. This man has a spirit not void of courage, but prompt. Know, that if you learn these matters from me, you will possess among mortals a glory as high as heaven.

Strep. What shall I experience?

Cho. You shall pass with me the most enviable of mortal lives the whole time.

Strep. Shall I then ever see this?

Cho. Yea, so that many be always seated at your gates, wishing to communicate with you and come to a conference with you, to consult with you as to actions and affidavits of many talents, as is worthy of your abilities.

[To Socrates.]

But attempt to teach the old man by degrees whatever you purpose, and scrutinize his intellect, and make trial of his mind.

Soc. Come now, tell me your own turn of mind; in order that, when I know of what sort it is, I may now, after this, apply to you new engines.

Strep. What? By the gods, do you purpose to besiege me?

Soc. No; I wish to briefly learn from you if you are possessed of a good memory.

Strep. In two ways, by Jove! If anything be owing to me, I have a very good memory; but if I owe unhappy man, I am very forgetful.

Soc. Is the power of speaking, pray, implanted in your nature?

Strep. Speaking is not in me, but cheating is.

Soc. How, then, will you be able to learn?

Strep. Excellently, of course.

Soc. Come, then, take care that, whenever I propound any clever dogma about abstruse matters, you catch it up immediately.

Strep. What then? Am I to feed upon wisdom like a dog?

Soc. This man is ignorant and brutish--I fear, old man, lest you will need blows. Come, let me see; what do you do if any one beat you?

Strep. I take the beating; and then, when I have waited a little while, I call witnesses to prove it; then again, after a short interval, I go to law.

Soc. Come, then, lay down your cloak.

Strep. Have I done any wrong?

Soc. No; but it is the rule to enter naked.

Strep. But I do not enter to search for stolen goods.

Soc. Lay it down. Why do you talk nonsense?

Strep. Now tell me this, pray. If I be diligent and learn zealously, to which of your disciples shall I become like?

Soc. You will no way differ from Chaerephon in intellect.

Strep. Ah me, unhappy! I shall become half-dead.

Soc. Don't chatter; but quickly follow me hither with smartness.

Strep. Then give me first into my hands a honeyed cake; for I am afraid of descending within, as if into the cave of Trophonius.

Soc. Proceed; why do you keep poking about the door?

[Exeunt Socrates and Strepsiades]

Cho. Well, go in peace, for the sake of this your valour. May prosperity attend the man, because, being advanced into the vale of years, he imbues his intellect with modern subjects, and cultivates wisdom!

[Turning to the audience.]

Spectators, I will freely declare to you the truth, by Bacchus, who nurtured me! So may I conquer, and be accounted skillful, as that, deeming you to be clever spectators, and this to be the cleverest of my comedies, I thought proper to let you first taste that comedy, which gave me the greatest labour. And then I retired from the contest defeated by vulgar fellows, though I did not deserve it. These things, therefore, I object to you, a learned audience, for whose sake I was expending this labour. But not even thus will I ever willingly desert the discerning portion of you. For since what time my Modest Man and my Rake were very highly praised here by an audience, with whom it is a pleasure even to hold converse, and I (for I was still a virgin, and it was not lawful for me as yet to have children) exposed my offspring, and another girl took it up, and owned it, and you generously reared and educated it, from this time I have had sure pledges of your good will toward me. Now, therefore, like that well-known Electra, has this comedy come seeking, if haply it meet with an audience so clever, for it will recognize, if it should see, the lock of its brother. But see how modest she is by nature, who, in the first place, has come, having stitched to her no leathern phallus hanging down, red at the top, and thick, to set the boys a laughing; nor yet jeered the bald-headed, nor danced the cordax; nor does the old man who speaks the verses beat the person near him with his staff, keeping out of sight wretched ribaldry; nor has she rushed in with torches, nor does she shout iou, iou; but has come relying on herself and her verses. And I, although so excellent a poet, do not give myself airs, nor do I seek to deceive you by twice and thrice bringing forward the same pieces; but I am always clever at introducing new fashions, not at all resembling each other, and all of them clever; who struck Cleon in the belly when at the height of his power, and could not bear to attack him afterward when he was down. But these scribblers, when once Hyperbolus has given them a handle, keep ever trampling on this wretched man and his mother. Eupolis, indeed, first of all craftily introduced his Maricas, having basely, base fellow, spoiled by altering my play of the Knights, having added to it, for the sake of the cordax, a drunken old woman, whom Phrynichus long ago poetized, whom the whale was for devouring. Then again Hermippus made verses on Hyperbolus; and now all others press hard upon Hyperbolus, imitating my simile of the eels. Whoever, therefore, laughs at these, let him not take pleasure in my attempts; but if you are delighted with me and my inventions, in times to come you will seem to be wise.

I first invoke, to join our choral band, the mighty Jupiter, ruling on high, the monarch of gods; and the potent master of the trident, the fierce upheaver of earth and briny sea; and our father of great renown, most august Aether, life-supporter of all; and the horse-guider, who fills the plain of the earth with exceeding bright beams, a mighty deity among gods and mortals.

Most clever spectators, come, give us your attention; for having been injured, we blame you to your faces. For though we benefit the state most of all the gods, to us alone of the deities you do not offer sacrifice nor yet pour libations, who watch over you. For if there should be any expedition without prudence, then we either thunder or drizzle small rain. And then, when you were for choosing as your general the Paphlagonian tanner, hateful to the gods, we contracted our brows and were enraged; and thunder burst through the lightning; and the Moon forsook her usual paths; and the Sun immediately drew in his wick to himself, and declared he would not give you light, if Cleon should be your general. Nevertheless you chose him. For they say that ill counsel is in this city; that the gods, however, turn all these your mismanagements to a prosperous issue. And how this also shall be advantageous, we will easily teach you. If you should convict the cormorant Cleon of bribery and embezzlement, and then make fast his neck in the stocks, the affair will turn out for the state to the ancient form again, if you have mismanaged in any way, and to a prosperous issue.

Hear me again, King Phoebus, Delian Apollo, who inhabitest the high-peaked Cynthian rock! And thou, blessed goddess, who inhabitest the all-golden house of Ephesus, in which Lydian damsels greatly reverence thee; and thou, our national goddess, swayer of the aegis, Minerva, guardian of the city! And thou, reveler Bacchus, who, inhabiting the Parnassian rock, sparklest with torches, conspicuous among the Delphic Bacchanals!

When we had got ready to set out hither, the Moon met us, and commanded us first to greet the Athenians and their allies; and then declared that she was angry, for that she had suffered dreadful things, though she benefits you all, not in words, but openly. In the first place, not less than a drachma every month for torches; so that also all, when they went out of an evening, were wont to say, "Boy, don't buy a torch, for the moonlight is beautiful." And she says she confers other benefits on you, but that you do not observe the days at all correctly, but confuse them up and down; so that she says the gods are constantly threatening her, when they are defrauded of their dinner, and depart home, not having met with the regular feast according to the number of the days. And then, when you ought to be sacrificing, you are inflicting tortures and litigating. And often, while we gods are observing a fast, when we mourn for Memnon or Sarpedon, you are pouring libations and laughing. For which reason Hyperbolus, having obtained the lot this year to be Hieromnemon, was afterward deprived by us gods of his crown; for thus he will know better that he ought to spend the days of his life according to the Moon.

[Enter Socrates]

Soc. By Respiration, and Chaos, and Air, I have not seen any man so boorish, nor so impracticable, nor so stupid, nor so forgetful; who, while learning some little petty quibbles, forgets them before he has learned them. Nevertheless I will certainly call him out here to the light. Where is Strepsiades? Come forth with your couch.

Strep. (from within). The bugs do not permit me to bring it forth.

Soc. Make haste and lay it down; and give me your attention.

[Enter Strepsiades]

Strep. Very well.

Soc. Come now; what do you now wish to learn first of those things in none of which you have ever been instructed? Tell me. About measures, or rhythms, or verses?

Strep. I should prefer to learn about measures; for it is but lately I was cheated out of two choenices by a meal-huckster.

Soc. I do not ask you this, but which you account the most beautiful measure; the trimetre or the tetrameter?

Strep. Make a wager then with me, if the semisextarius be not a tetrameter.

Soc. Go to the devil! How boorish you are and dull of learning. Perhaps you may be able to learn about rhythms.

Strep. But what good will rhythms do me for a living?

Soc. In the first place, to be clever at an entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.

Strep. According to the dactyle? By Jove, but I know it!

Soc. Tell me, pray.

Strep. What else but this finger? Formerly, indeed, when I was yet a boy, this here!

Soc. You are boorish and stupid.

Strep. For I do not desire, you wretch, to learn any of these things.

Soc. What then?

Strep. That, that, the most unjust cause.

Soc. But you must learn other things before these; namely, what quadrupeds are properly masculine.

Strep. I know the males, if I am not mad-krios, tragos, tauros, kuon, alektryon.

Soc. Do you see what you are doing? You are calling both the female and the male alektryon in the same way.

Strep. How, pray? Come, tell me.

Soc. How? The one with you is alektryon, and the other is alektryon also.

Strep. Yea, by Neptune! How now ought I to call them?

Soc. The one alektryaina and the other alektor.

Strep. Alektryaina? Capital, by the Air! So that, in return for this lesson alone, I will fill your kardopos full of barley-meal on all sides.

Soc. See! See! There again is another blunder! You make kardopos, which is feminine, to be masculine.

Strep. In what way do I make kardopos masculine?

Soc. Most assuredly; just as if you were to say Cleonymos.

Strep. Good sir, Cleonymus had no kneading-trough, but kneaded his bread in a round mortar. How ought I to call it henceforth?

Soc. How? Call it kardope, as you call Sostrate.

Strep. Kardope in the feminine?

Soc. For so you speak it rightly.

Strep. But that would make it kardope, Kleonyme.

Soc. You must learn one thing more about names, what are masculine and what of them are feminine.

Strep. I know what are female.

Soc. Tell me, pray.

Strep. Lysilla, Philinna, Clitagora, Demetria.

Soc. What names are masculine?

Strep. Thousands; Philoxenus, Melesias, Amynias.

Soc. But, you wretch! These are not masculine.

Strep. Are they not males with you?

Soc. By no means; for how would you call Amynias, if you met him?

Strep. How would I call? Thus: "Come hither, come hither Amynia!"

Soc. Do you see? You call Amynias a woman.

Strep. Is it not then with justice, who does not serve in the army? But why should I learn these things, that we all know?

Soc. It is no use, by Jupiter! Having reclined yourself down here--

Strep. What must I do?

Soc. Think out some of your own affairs.

Strep. Not here, pray, I beseech you; but, if I must, suffer me to excogitate these very things on the ground.

Soc. There is no other way.

[Exit Socrates.]

Strep. Unfortunate man that I am! What a penalty shall I this day pay to the bugs!

Cho. Now meditate and examine closely; and roll yourself about in every way, having wrapped yourself up; and quickly, when you fall into a difficulty, spring to another mental contrivance. But let delightful sleep be absent from your eyes.

Strep. Attatai! Attatai!

Cho. What ails you? Why are you distressed?

Strep. Wretched man, I am perishing! The Corinthians, coming out from the bed, are biting me, and devouring my sides, and drinking up my life-blood, and tearing away my flesh, and digging through my vitals, and will annihilate me.

Cho. Do not now be very grievously distressed.

Strep. Why, how, when my money is gone, my complexion gone, my life gone, and my slipper gone? And furthermore in addition to these evils, with singing the night-watches, I am almost gone myself.

[Re-enter Socrates]

Soc. Ho you! What are you about? Are you not meditating?

Strep. I? Yea, by Neptune!

Soc. And what, pray, have you thought?

Strep. Whether any bit of me will be left by the bugs.

Soc. You will perish most wretchedly.

Strep. But, my good friend, I have already perished.

Soc. You must not give in, but must wrap yourself up; for you have to discover a device for abstracting, and a means of cheating.

[Walks up and down while Strepsiades wraps himself up in the blankets.]

Strep. Ah me! Would, pray, some one would throw over me a swindling contrivance from the sheep-skins.

Soc. Come now; I will first see this fellow, what he is about. Ho you! Are you asleep?

Strep. No, by Apollo, I am not!

Soc. Have you got anything?

Strep. No; by Jupiter, certainly not!

Soc. Nothing at all?

Strep. Nothing, except what I have in my right hand.

Soc. Will you not quickly cover yourself up and think of something?

Strep. About what? For do you tell me this, O Socrates!

Soc. Do you, yourself, first find out and state what you wish.

Strep. You have heard a thousand times what I wish. About the interest; so that I may pay no one.

Soc. Come then, wrap yourself up, and having given your mind play with subtilty, revolve your affairs by little and little, rightly distinguishing and examining.

Strep. Ah me, unhappy man!

Soc. Keep quiet; and if you be puzzled in any one of your conceptions, leave it and go; and then set your mind in motion again, and lock it up.

Strep. (in great glee). O dearest little Socrates!

Soc. What, old man?

Strep. I have got a device for cheating them of the interest.

Soc. Exhibit it.

Strep. Now tell me this, pray; if I were to purchase a Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night, and then shut it up, as if it were a mirror, in a round crest-case, and then carefully keep it--

Soc. What good, pray, would this do you?

Strep. What? If the moon were to rise no longer anywhere, I should not pay the interest.

Soc. Why so, pray?

Strep. Because the money is lent out by the month.

Soc. Capital! But I will again propose to you another clever question. If a suit of five talents should be entered against you, tell me how you would obliterate it.

Strep. How? How? I do not know but I must seek.

Soc. Do not then always revolve your thoughts about yourself; but slack away your mind into the air, like a cock-chafer tied with a thread by the foot.

Strep. I have found a very clever method of getting rid of my suit, so that you yourself would acknowledge it.

Soc. Of what description?

Strep. Have you ever seen this stone in the chemist's shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they kindle fire?

Soc. Do you mean the burning-glass?

Strep. I do. Come what would you say, pray, if I were to take this, when the clerk was entering the suit, and were to stand at a distance, in the direction of the sun, thus, and melt out the letters of my suit?

Soc. Cleverly done, by the Graces!

Strep. Oh! How I am delighted, that a suit of five talents has been cancelled!

Soc. Come now, quickly seize upon this.

Strep. What?

Soc. How, when engaged in a lawsuit, you could overturn the suit, when you were about to be cast, because you had no witnesses.

Strep. Most readily and easily.

Soc. Tell me, pray.

Strep. Well now, I'll tell you. If, while one suit was still pending, before mine was called on, I were to run away and hang myself.

Soc. You talk nonsense.

Strep. By the gods, would I! For no one will bring

## action against me when I am dead.

Soc. You talk nonsense. Begone; I can't teach you any longer.

Strep. Why so? Yea, by the gods, O Socrates!

Soc. You straightaway forget whatever you learn. For what now was the first thing you were taught? Tell me.