Part 3

Strep. Come, let me see: nay, what was the first? What was the fist? Nay, what was the thing in which we knead our flour? Ah me! What was it?

Soc. Will you not pack off to the devil, you most forgetful and most stupid old man?

Strep. Ah me, what then, pray will become of me, wretched man? For I shall be utterly undone, if I do not learn to ply the tongue. Come, O ye Clouds, give me some good advice.

Cho. We, old man, advise you, if you have a son grown up, to send him to learn in your stead.

Strep. Well, I have a fine, handsome son, but he is not willing to learn. What must I do?

Cho. But do you permit him?

Strep. Yes, for he is robust in body, and in good health, and is come of the high-plumed dames of Coesyra. I will go for him, and if he be not willing, I will certainly drive him from my house.

[To Socrates.]

Go in and wait for me a short time.

[Exit]

Cho. Do you perceive that you are soon to obtain the greatest benefits through us alone of the gods? For this man is ready to do everything that you bid him. But you, while the man is astounded and evidently elated, having perceived it, will quickly fleece him to the best of your power.

[Exit Socrates]

For matters of this sort are somehow accustomed to turn the other way.

[Enter Strepsiades and Phidippides]

Strep. By Mist, you certainly shall not stay here any longer! But go and gnaw the columns of Megacles.

Phid. My good sir, what is the matter with you, O father? You are not in your senses, by Olympian Jupiter!

Strep. See, see, "Olympian Jupiter!" What folly! To think of your believing in Jupiter, as old as you are!

Phid. Why, pray, did you laugh at this?

Strep. Reflecting that you are a child, and have antiquated notions. Yet, however, approach, that you may know more; and I will tell you a thing, by learning which you will be a man. But see that you do not teach this to any one.

Phid. Well, what is it?

Strep. You swore now by Jupiter.

Phid. I did.

Strep. Seest thou, then, how good a thing is learning? There is no Jupiter, O Phidippides!

Phid. Who then?

Strep. Vortex reigns, having expelled Jupiter.

Phid. Bah! Why do you talk foolishly?

Strep. Be assured that it is so.

Phid. Who says this?

Strep. Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footmarks of fleas.

Phid. Have you arrived at such a pitch of frenzy that you believe madmen?

Strep. Speak words of good omen, and say nothing bad of clever men and wise; of whom, through frugality, none ever shaved or anointed himself, or went to a bath to wash himself; while you squander my property in bathing, as if I were already dead. But go as quickly as possible and learn instead of me.

Phid. What good could any one learn from them?

Strep. What, really? Whatever wisdom there is among men. And you will know yourself, how ignorant and stupid you are. But wait for me here a short time.

[Runs off]

Phid. Ah me! What shall I do, my father being crazed? Shall I bring him into court and convict him of lunacy, or shall I give information of his madness to the coffin-makers?

[Re-enter Strepsiades with a cock under one arm and a hen under the other]

Strep. Come, let me see; what do you consider this to be? Tell me.

Phid. Alectryon.

Strep. Right. And what this?

Phid. Alectryon.

Strep. Both the same? You are very ridiculous. Do not do so, then, for the future; but call this alektryaina, and this one alektor.

Phid. Alektryaina! Did you learn these clever things by going in just now to the Titans?

Strep. And many others too; but whatever I learned on each occasion I used to forget immediately, through length of years.

Phid. Is it for this reason, pray, that you have also lost your cloak?

Strep. I have not lost it; but have studied it away.

Phid. What have you made of your slippers, you foolish man?

Strep. I have expended them, like Pericles, for needful purposes. Come, move, let us go. And then if you obey your father, go wrong if you like. I also know that I formerly obeyed you, a lisping child of six years old, and bought you a go-cart at the Diasia, with the first obolus I received from the Heliaea.

Phid. You will assuredly some time at length be grieved at this.

Strep. It is well done of you that you obeyed. Come hither, come hither O Socrates! Come forth, for I bring to you this son of mine, having persuaded him against his will.

[Enter Socrates]

Soc. For he is still childish, and not used to the baskets here.

Phid. You would yourself be used to them if you were hanged.

Strep. A mischief take you! Do you abuse your teacher?

Soc. "Were hanged" quoth 'a! How sillily he pronounced it, and with lips wide apart! How can this youth ever learn an acquittal from a trial or a legal summons, or persuasive refutation? And yet Hyperbolus learned this at the cost of a talent.

Strep. Never mind; teach him. He is clever by nature. Indeed, from his earliest years, when he was a little fellow only so big, he was wont to form houses and carve ships within-doors, and make little wagons of leather, and make frogs out of pomegranate-rinds, you can't think how cleverly. But see that he learns those two causes; the better, whatever it may be; and the worse, which, by maintaining what is unjust, overturns the better. If not both, at any rate the unjust one by all means.

Soc. He shall learn it himself from the two causes in person.

[Exit Socrates]

Strep. I will take my departure. Remember this now, that he is to be able to reply to all just arguments.

[Exit Strepsiades and enter Just Cause and Unjust Cause]

Just Cause. Come hither! Show yourself to the spectators, although being audacious.

Unjust Cause. Go whither you please; for I shall far rather do for you, if I speak before a crowd.

Just. You destroy me? Who are you?

Unj. A cause.

Just. Ay, the worse.

Unj. But I conquer you, who say that you are better than I.

Just. By doing what clever trick?

Unj. By discovering new contrivances.

Just. For these innovations flourish by the favour of these silly persons.

Unj. No; but wise persons.

Just I will destroy you miserably.

Unj. Tell me, by doing what?

Just By speaking what is just.

Unj. But I will overturn them by contradicting them; for I deny that justice even exists at all.

Just Do you deny that it exists?

Unj. For come, where is it?

Just With the gods.

Unj. How, then, if justice exists, has Jupiter not perished, who bound his own father?

Just Bah! This profanity now is spreading! Give me a basin.

Unj. You are a dotard and absurd.

Just You are debauched and shameless.

Unj. You have spoken roses of me.

Just And a dirty lickspittle.

Unj. You crown me with lilies.

Just And a parricide.

Unj. You don't know that you are sprinkling me with gold.

Just Certainly not so formerly, but with lead.

Unj. But now this is an ornament to me.

Just You are very impudent.

Unj. And you are antiquated.

Just And through you, no one of our youths is willing to go to school; and you will be found out some time or other by the Athenians, what sort of doctrines you teach the simple-minded.

Unj. You are shamefully squalid.

Just And you are prosperous. And yet formerly you were a beggar saying that you were the Mysian Telephus, and gnawing the maxims of Pandeletus out of your little wallet.

Unj. Oh, the wisdom--

Just Oh, the madness--

Unj. Which you have mentioned.

Just And of your city, which supports you who ruin her youths.

Unj. You shan't teach this youth, you old dotard.

Just Yes, if he is to be saved, and not merely to practise loquacity.

Unj. (to Phidippides) Come hither, and leave him to rave.

Just You shall howl, if you lay your hand on him.

Cho. Cease from contention and railing. But show to us, you, what you used to teach the men of former times, and you, the new system of education; in order that, having heard you disputing, he may decide and go to the school of one or the other.

Just. I am willing to do so.

Unj. I also am willing.

Cho. Come now, which of the two shall speak first?

Unj. I will give him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts. And at last, if he mutter, he shall be destroyed, being stung in his whole face and his two eyes by my maxims, as if by bees.

Cho. Now the two, relying on very dexterous arguments and thoughts, and sententious maxims, will show which of them shall appear superior in argument. For now the whole crisis of wisdom is here laid before them; about which my friends have a very great contest. But do you, who adorned our elders with many virtuous manners, utter the voice in which you rejoice, and declare your nature.

Just. I will, therefore, describe the ancient system of education, how it was ordered, when I flourished in the advocacy of justice, and temperance was the fashion. In the first place it was incumbent that no one should hear the voice of a boy uttering a syllable; and next, that those from the same quarter of the town should march in good order through the streets to the school of the harp-master, naked, and in a body, even if it were to snow as thick as meal. Then again, their master would teach them, not sitting cross-legged, to learn by rote a song, either "pallada persepolin deinan" or "teleporon ti boama" raising to a higher pitch the harmony which our fathers transmitted to us. But if any of them were to play the buffoon, or to turn any quavers, like these difficult turns the present artists make after the manner of Phrynis, he used to be thrashed, being beaten with many blows, as banishing the Muses. And it behooved the boys, while sitting in the school of the Gymnastic-master, to cover the thigh, so that they might exhibit nothing indecent to those outside; then again, after rising from the ground, to sweep the sand together, and to take care not to leave an impression of the person for their lovers. And no boy used in those days to anoint himself below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep the legs crossed.

Unj. Aye, antiquated and dipolia-like and full of grasshoppers, and of Cecydes, and of the Buphonian festival!

Just Yet certainly these are those principles by which my system of education nurtured the men who fought at Marathon. But you teach the men of the present day, so that I am choked, when at the Panathenaia a fellow, holding his shield before his person, neglects Tritogenia, when they ought to dance. Wherefore, O youth, choose with confidence, me, the better cause, and you will learn to hate the Agora, and to refrain from baths, and to be ashamed of what is disgraceful, and to be enraged if any one jeer you, and to rise up from seats before your seniors when they approach, and not to behave ill toward your parents, and to do nothing else that is base, because you are to form in your mind an image of Modesty: and not to dart into the house of a dancing-woman, lest, while gaping after these things, being struck with an apple by a wanton, you should be damaged in your reputation: and not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy.

Unj. If you shall believe him in this, O youth, by Bacchus, you will be like the sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you a booby.

Just. Yet certainly shall you spend your time in the gymnastic schools, sleek and blooming; not chattering in the market-place rude jests, like the youths of the present day; nor dragged into court for a petty suit, greedy, pettifogging, knavish; but you shall descend to the Academy and run races beneath the sacred olives along with some modest compeer, crowned with white reeds, redolent of yew, and careless ease, of leaf-shedding white poplar, rejoicing in the season of spring, when the plane-tree whispers to the elm. If you do these things which I say, and apply your mind to these, you will ever have a stout chest, a clear complexion, broad shoulders, a little tongue, large hips, little lewdness. But if you practise what the youths of the present day do, you will have in the first place, a pallid complexion, small shoulders, a narrow chest, a large tongue, little hips, great lewdness, a long psephism; and this deceiver will persuade you to consider everything that is base to be honourable, and what is honourable to be base; and in addition to this, he will fill you with the lewdness of Antimachus.

Cho. O thou that practisest most renowned high-towering wisdom! How sweetly does a modest grace attend your words! Happy, therefore, were they who lived in those days, in the times of former men! In reply, then, to these, O thou that hast a dainty-seeming Muse, it behooveth thee to say something new; since the man has gained renown. And it appears you have need of powerful arguments against him, if you are to conquer the man and not incur laughter.

Unj. And yet I was choking in my heart, and was longing to confound all these with contrary maxims. For I have been called among the deep thinkers the "worse cause" on this very account, that I first contrived how to speak against both law and justice; and this art is worth more than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious. But mark how I will confute the system of education on which he relies, who says, in the first place, that he will not permit you to be washed with warm water. And yet, on what principle do you blame the warm baths?

Just. Because it is most vile, and makes a man cowardly.

Unj. Stop! For immediately I seize and hold you by the waist without escape. Come, tell me, which of the sons of Jupiter do you deem to have been the bravest in soul, and to have undergone most labours?

Just. I consider no man superior to Hercules.

Unj. Where, pray, did you ever see cold Herculean baths? And yet, who was more valiant than he?

Just. These are the very things which make the bath full of youths always chattering all day long, but the palaestras empty.

Unj. You next find fault with their living in the market-place; but I commend it. For if it had been bad, Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as an orator; nor all the other wise men. I will return, then, from thence to the tongue, which this fellow says our youths ought not to exercise, while I maintain they should. And again, he says they ought to be modest: two very great evils. For tell me to whom you have ever seen any good accrue through modesty and confute me by your words.

Just. To many. Peleus, at any rate, received his sword on account of it.

Unj. A sword? Marry, he got a pretty piece of luck, the poor wretch! While Hyperbolus, he of the lamps, got more than many talents by his villainy, but by Jupiter, no sword!

Just. And Peleus married Thetis, too, through his modesty.

Unj. And then she went off and left him; for he was not lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated. But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides) consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of how many pleasures you are about to be deprived--of women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of drinking-bouts, of giggling. And yet, what is life worth to you if you be deprived of these enjoyments? Well, I will pass from thence to the necessities of our nature. You have gone astray, you have fallen in love, you have been guilty of some adultery, and then have been caught. You are undone, for you are unable to speak. But if you associate with me, indulge your inclination, dance, laugh, and think nothing disgraceful. For if you should happen to be detected as an adulterer, you will make this reply to him, "that you have done him no injury": and then refer him to Jupiter, how even he is overcome by love and women. And yet, how could you, who are a mortal, have greater power than a god?

Just. But what if he should suffer the radish through obeying you, and be depillated with hot ashes? What argument will he be able to state, to prove that he is not a blackguard?

Unj. And if he be a blackguard, what harm will he suffer?

Just. Nay, what could he ever suffer still greater than this?

Unj. What then will you say if you be conquered by me in this?

Just. I will be silent: what else can I do?

Unj. Come, now, tell me; from what class do the advocates come?

Just. From the blackguards.

Unj. I believe you. What then? From what class do tragedians come?

Just. From the blackguards.

Unj. You say well. But from what class do the public orators come?

Just. From the blackguards.

Unj. Then have you perceived that you say nothing to the purpose? And look which class among the audience is the more numerous.

Just. Well now, I'm looking.

Unj. What, then, do you see?

Just. By the gods, the blackguards to be far more numerous. This fellow, at any rate, I know; and him yonder; and this fellow with the long hair.

Unj. What, then, will you say?

Just. We are conquered. Ye blackguards, by the gods, receive my cloak, for I desert to you.

[Exeunt the Two Causes, and re-enter Socrates and Strepsiades.]

Soc. What then? whether do you wish to take and lead away this your son, or shall I teach him to speak?

Strep. Teach him, and chastise him: and remember that you train him properly; on the one side able for petty suits; but train his other jaw able for the more important causes.

Soc. Make yourself easy; you shall receive him back a clever sophist.

Strep. Nay, rather, pale and wretched.

[Exeunt Socrates, Strepsiades, and Phidippides.]

Cho. Go ye, then: but I think that you will repent of these proceedings. We wish to speak about the judges, what they will gain, if at all they justly assist this Chorus. For in the first place, if you wish to plough up your fields in spring, we will rain for you first; but for the others afterward. And then we will protect the fruits, and the vines, so that neither drought afflict them, nor excessive wet weather. But if any mortal dishonour us who are goddesses, let him consider what evils he will suffer at our hands, obtaining neither wine nor anything else from his farm. For when his olives and vines sprout, they shall be cut down; with such slings will we smite them. And if we see him making brick, we will rain; and we will smash the tiles of his roof with round hailstones. And if he himself, or any one of his kindred or friends, at any time marry, we will rain the whole night; so he will probably wish rather to have been even in Egypt than to have judged badly.

[Enter Strepsiades with a meal-sack on his shoulder.]

Strep. The fifth, the fourth, the third, after this the second; and then, of all the days I most fear, and dread, and abominate, immediately after this there is the Old and New. For every one to whom I happen to be indebted, swears, and says he will ruin and destroy me, having made his deposits against me; though I only ask what is moderate and just-"My good sir, one part don't take just now; the other part put off I pray; and the other part remit"; they say that thus they will never get back their money, but abuse me, as I am unjust, and say they will go to law with me. Now therefore let them go to law, for it little concerns me, if Phidippides has learned to speak well. I shall soon know by knocking at the thinking-shop.

[Knocks at the door.]

Boy, I say! Boy, boy!

[Enter Socrates]

Soc. Good morning, Strepsiades.

Strep. The same to you. But first accept this present; for one ought to compliment the teacher with a fee. And tell me about my son, if he has learned that cause, which you just now brought forward.

Soc. He has learned it.

Strep. Well done, O Fraud, all-powerful queen!

Soc. So that you can get clear off from whatever suit you please.

Strep. Even if witnesses were present when I borrowed the money?

Soc. Yea, much more! Even if a thousand be present.

Strep. Then I will shout with a very loud shout: Ho! Weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your principals, and your compound interests! For you can no longer do me any harm, because such a son is being reared for me in this house, shining with a double-edged tongue, for my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and summon from within to me.

[Socrates goes into the house.]

O child! O son! Come forth from the house! Hear your father!

[Re-enter Socrates leading in Phidippides]

Soc. Lo, here is the man!

Strep. O my dear, my dear!

Soc. Take your son and depart.

[Exit Socrates.]

Strep. Oh, oh, my child! Huzza! Huzza! How I am delighted at the first sight of your complexion! Now, indeed, you are, in the first place, negative and disputatious to look at, and this fashion native to the place plainly appears, the "what do you say?" and the seeming to be injured when, I well know, you are injuring and inflicting a wrong; and in your countenance there is the Attic look. Now, therefore, see that you save me, since you have also ruined me.

Phid. What, pray, do you fear?

Strep. The Old and New.

Phid. Why, is any day old and new?

Strep. Yes; on which they say that they will make their deposits against me.

Phid. Then those that have made them will lose them; for it is not possible that two days can be one day.

Strep. Can not it?

Phid. Certainly not; unless the same woman can be both old and young at the same time.

Strep. And yet it is the law.