PHIDIPPIDES
And what have you done with your sandals, you poor fool?
STREPSIADES
If I have lost them, it is for what was necessary, just as Pericles did. But come, move yourself, let us go in; if necessary, do wrong to obey your father. When you were six years old and still lisped, I was the one who obeyed you. I remember at the feasts of Zeus you had a consuming wish for a little chariot and I bought it for you with the first obolus which I received as a juryman in the courts.
PHIDIPPIDES
You will soon repent of what you ask me to do.
STREPSIADES
Oh! now I am happy! He obeys.
loudly
Come, Socrates, come! Come out quick! Here I am bringing you my son; he refused, but I have persuaded him.
SOCRATES
Why, he is but a child yet. He is not used to these baskets, in which we suspend our minds.
PHIDIPPIDES
To make you better used to them, I would you were hung.
STREPSIADES
A curse upon you! you insult your master!
SOCRATES
"I would you were hung!" What a stupid speech! and so emphatically spoken! How can one ever get out of an accusation with such a tone, summon witnesses or touch or convince? And yet when we think, Hyperbolus learnt all this for one talent!
STREPSIADES
Rest undisturbed and teach him. He has a most intelligent nature. Even when quite little he amused himself at home with making houses, carving boats, constructing little chariots of leather, and understood wonderfully how to make frogs out of pomegranate rinds. Teach him both methods of reasoning, the strong and also the weak, which by false arguments triumphs over the strong; if not the two, at least the false, and that in every possible way.
SOCRATES
The Just and Unjust Discourse themselves shall instruct him. I shall leave you.
STREPSIADES
But forget it not, he must always, always be able to confound the true.
Socrates enters the Thoughtery; a moment later the JUST and the UNJUST DISCOURSE come out; they are quarrelling violently.
JUST DISCOURSE
Come here! Shameless as you may be, will you dare to show your face to the spectators?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Take me where you will. I seek a throng, so that I may the better annihilate you.
JUST DISCOURSE
Annihilate me! Do you forget who you are?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
I am Reasoning.
JUST DISCOURSE
Yes, the weaker Reasoning."
UNJUST DISCOURSE
But I triumph over you, who claim to be the stronger.
JUST DISCOURSE
By what cunning shifts, pray?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
By the invention of new maxims.
JUST DISCOURSE
.... which are received with favour by these fools.
He points to the audience.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Say rather, by these wise men.
JUST DISCOURSE
I am going to destroy you mercilessly.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
How pray? Let us see you do it.
JUST DISCOURSE
By saying what is true.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
I shall retort and shall very soon have the better of you. First, maintain that justice has no existence.
JUST DISCOURSE
Has no existence?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
No existence! Why, where is it?
JUST DISCOURSE
With the gods.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
How then, if justice exists, was Zeus not put to death for having put his father in chains?
JUST DISCOURSE
Bah! this is enough to turn my stomach! A basin, quick!
UNJUST DISCOURSE
You are an old driveller and stupid withal.
JUST DISCOURSE
And you a degenerate and shameless fellow.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Hah! What sweet expressions!
JUST DISCOURSE
An impious buffoon.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
You crown me with roses and with lilies.
JUST DISCOURSE
A parricide.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Why, you shower gold upon me.
JUST DISCOURSE
Formerly it was a hailstorm of blows.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
I deck myself with your abuse.
JUST DISCOURSE
What impudence!
UNJUST DISCOURSE
What tomfoolery!
JUST DISCOURSE
It is because of you that the youth no longer attends the schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those who are fools enough to believe you.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
You are overwhelmed with wretchedness.
JUST DISCOURSE
And you, you prosper. Yet you were poor when you said, "I am the Mysian Telephus," and used to stuff your wallet with maxims of Pandeletus to nibble at.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Oh! the beautiful wisdom, of which you are now boasting!
JUST DISCOURSE
Madman! But yet madder the city that keeps you, you, the corrupter of its youth!
UNJUST DISCOURSE
It is not you who will teach this young man; you are as old and out of date at Cronus.
JUST DISCOURSE
Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be lost and to practise verbosity only.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
(to PHIDIPPIDES) Come here and leave him to beat the air.
JUST DISCOURSE
You'll regret it, if you touch him.
CHORUS-LEADER
(stepping between them as they are about to come to blows) A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But you expound what you taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.
JUST DISCOURSE
I am quite agreeable.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
And I too.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Who is to speak first?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Let it be my opponent, he has my full consent; then I shall follow upon the very ground he shall have chosen and shall shatter him with a hail of new ideas and subtle fancies; if after that he dares to breathe another word, I shall sting him in the face and in the eyes with our maxims, which are as keen as the sting of a wasp, and he will die.
CHORUS
(singing) Here are two rivals confident in their powers of oratory and in the thoughts over which they have pondered so long. Let us see which will come triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom, for which my friends maintain such a persistent fight, is in great danger.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Come then, you, who crowned men of other days with so many virtues, plead the cause dear to you, make yourself known to us.
JUST DISCOURSE
Very well, I will tell you what was the old education, when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was held in veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that it should not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school, all the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the master's house they had to stand with their legs apart and they were taught to sing either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth cities," or "A noise resounded from afar" in the solemn tones of the ancient harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the soft inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples of Phrynis take so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they would sit with outstretched legs and without display of any indecency to the curious. When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so as to leave no trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before those older than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross their legs.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the days of the festivals of Zeus Polieus, to the Buphonia, to the time of the poet Cecides and the golden cicadas?
JUST DISCOURSE
Nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men of Marathon-But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle themselves quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see them at the Panathenaea forgetting Athene while they dance, and covering their tools with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to range yourself beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will then be able to shun the public place, to refrain from the baths, to blush at all that is shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at, to give place to your elders, to honour your parents, in short, to avoid all that is evil. Be modesty itself, and do not run to applaud the dancing girls; if you delight in such scenes, some courtesan will cast you her apple and your reputation will be done for. Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
If you listen to him, by Bacchus! you will be the image of the sons of Hippocrates and will be called mother's big ninny.
JUST DISCOURSE
No, but you will pass your days at the gymnasia, glowing with strength and health; you will not go to the public place to cackle and wrangle as is done nowadays; you will not live in fear that you may be dragged before the courts for some trifle exaggerated by quibbling. But you will go down to the Academy to run beneath the sacred olives with some virtuous friend of your own age, your head encircled with the white reed, enjoying your ease and breathing the perfume of the yew and of the fresh sprouts of the poplar, rejoicing in the return of springtide and gladly listening to the gentle rustle of the plane tree and the elm. (With greater warmth from here on) If you devote yourself to practising my precepts, your chest will be stout, your colour glowing, your shoulders broad, your tongue short, your hips muscular, but your tool small. But if you follow the fashions of the day, you will be pallid in hue, have narrow shoulders, a narrow chest, a long tongue, small hips and a big thing; you will know how to spin forth long-winded arguments on law. You will be persuaded also to regard as splendid everything that is shameful and as shameful everything that is honourable; in a word, you will wallow in degeneracy like Antimachus.
CHORUS
(singing) How beautiful, high-souled, brilliant is this wisdom that you practise! What a sweet odour of honesty is emitted by your discourse! Happy were those men of other days who lived when you were honoured! And you, seductive talker, come, find some fresh arguments, for your rival has done wonders.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
You will have to bring out against him all the battery of your wit, it you desire to beat him and not to be laughed out of court.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
At last! I was choking with impatience, I was burning to upset his arguments! If I am called the Weaker Reasoning in the schools, it is just because I was the first to discover the means to confute the laws and the decrees of justice. To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae. But see how I shall batter down the sort of education of which he is so proud. Firstly, he forbids you to bathe in hot water. What grounds have you for condemning hot baths?
JUST DISCOURSE
Because they are baneful and enervate men.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Enough said! Oh! you poor wrestler! From the very outset I have seized you and hold you round the middle; you cannot escape me. Tell me, of all the sons of Zeus, who had the stoutest heart, who performed the most doughty deeds?
JUST DISCOURSE
None, in my opinion, surpassed Heracles.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Where have you ever seen cold baths called 'Bath of Heracles'? And yet who was braver than he?
JUST DISCOURSE
It is because of such quibbles, that the baths are seen crowded with young folk, who chatter there the livelong day while the gymnasia remain empty.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Next you condemn the habit of frequenting the market-place, while I approve this. If it were wrong Homer would never have made Nestor speak in public as well as all his wise heroes. As for the art of speaking, he tells you, young men should not practise it; I hold the contrary. Furthermore he preaches chastity to them. Both precepts are equally harmful. Have you ever seen chastity of any use to anyone? Answer and try to confute me.
JUST DISCOURSE
To many; for instance, Peleus won a sword thereby.
UNJUST DISCOURSE A
sword! Ah! what a fine present to make him! Poor wretch! Hyperbolus, the lamp-seller, thanks to his villainy, has gained more than....do not know how many talents, but certainly no sword.
JUST DISCOURSE
Peleus owed it to his chastity that he became the husband of Thetis.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
.... who left him in the lurch, for he was not the most ardent; in those nocturnal sports between the sheets, which so please women, he possessed but little merit. Get you gone, you are but an old fool. But you, young man, just consider a little what this temperance means and the delights of which it deprives you-young fellows, women, play, dainty dishes, wine, boisterous laughter. And what is life worth without these? Then, if you happen to commit one of these faults inherent in human weakness, some seduction or adultery, and you are caught in the act, you are lost, if you cannot speak. But follow my teaching and you will be able to satisfy your passions, to dance, to laugh, to blush at nothing. Suppose you are caught in the act of adultery. Then up and tell the husband you are not guilty, and recall to him the example of Zeus, who allowed himself to be conquered by love and by women. Being but a mortal, can you be stronger than a god?
JUST DISCOURSE
Suppose your pupil, following your advice, gets the radish rammed up his arse and then is depilated with a hot coal; how are you going to prove to him that he is not a broad-arse?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
What's the matter with being a broad-arse?
JUST DISCOURSE
Is there anything worse than that?
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Now what will you say, if I beat you even on this point?
JUST DISCOURSE
I should certainly have to be silent then.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Well then, reply! Our advocates, what are they?
JUST DISCOURSE
Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Nothing is more true. And our tragic poets?
JUST DISCOURSE
Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Well said again. And our demagogues?
JUST DISCOURSE
Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
You admit that you have spoken nonsense. And the spectators, what are they for the most part? Look at them.
JUST DISCOURSE
I am looking at them.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Well! What do you see?
JUST DISCOURSE
By the gods, they are nearly all broad-arses. (pointing) See, this one I know to be such and that one and that other with the long hair.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
What have you to say, then?
JUST DISCOURSE
I am beaten. Debauchees! in the name of the gods, receive my cloak; I pass over to your ranks. (He goes back into the Thoughtery.)
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Well then! Are you going to take away your son or do you wish me to teach him how to speak?
STREPSIADES
Teach him, chastise him and do not fail to sharpen his tongue well, on one side for petty law-suits and on the other for important cases.
UNJUST DISCOURSE
Don't worry, I shall return him to you an accomplished sophist.
PHIDIPPIDES
Very pale then and thoroughly hang-dog-looking.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Take him with you. (The UNJUST DISCOURSE and PHIDIPPIDES
go into the THOUGHTERY. To STREPSIADES, who is just going into his own house.) I think you will regret this. (The CHORUS turns and faces the audience.) judges, we are all about to tell you what you will gain by awarding us the crown as equity requires of you. In spring, when you wish to give your fields the first dressing, we will rain upon you first; the others shall wait. Then we will watch over your corn and over your vinestocks; they will have no excess to fear, neither of heat nor of wet. But if a mortal dares to insult the goddesses of the Clouds, let him think of the ills we shall pour upon him. For him neither wine nor any harvest at all! Our terrible slings will mow down his young olive plants and his vines. If he is making bricks, it will rain, and our round hailstones will break the tiles of his roof. If he himself marries or any of his relations or friends, we shall cause rain to fall the whole night long. Verily, he would prefer to live in Egypt than to have given this iniquitous verdict.
STREPSIADES
(coming out again) Another four, three, two days, then the eve, then the day, the fatal day of payment! I tremble, I quake, I shudder, for it's the day of the old moon and the new. Then all my creditors take the oath, pay their deposits, I swear my downfall and my ruin. As for me, I beseech them to be reasonable, to be just, "My friend, do not demand this sum, wait a little for this other and give me time for this third one." Then they will pretend that at this rate they will never be repaid, will accuse me of bad faith and will threaten me with the law. Well then, let them sue me! I care nothing for that, if only Phidippides has learnt to speak fluently. I am going to find out; I'll knock at the door of the school. (He knocks.) .... Ho! slave, slave!
SOCRATES
(coming out) Welcome! Strepsiades!
STREPSIADES
Welcome! Socrates! But first take this sack; (offers him a sack of flour) it is right to reward the master with some present. And my son, whom you took off lately, has he learnt this famous reasoning? Tell me.
SOCRATES
He has learnt it.
STREPSIADES
Wonderful! Oh! divine Knavery!
SOCRATES
You will win just as many causes as you choose.
STREPSIADES
Even if I have borrowed before witnesses?
SOCRATES
So much the better, even if there are a thousand of them!
STREPSIADES
(bursting into song) Then I am going to shout with all my might. "Woe to the usurers, woe to their capital and their interest and their compound interest! You shall play me no more bad turns. My son is being taught there, his tongue is being sharpened into a double-edged weapon; he is my defender, the saviour of my house, the ruin of my foes! His poor father was crushed down with misfortune and he delivers him." Go and call him to me quickly. Oh! my child! my dear little one! run forward to your father's voice!
SOCRATES
(singing) Lo, the man himself!
STREPSIADES
(singing) Oh, my friend, my dearest friend!
SOCRATES
(singing) Take your son, and get you gone.
STREPSIADES
(as PHIDIPPIDES appears) Oh, my son! oh! oh! what a pleasure to see your pallor! You are ready first to deny and then to contradict; it's as clear as noon. What a child of your country you are! How your lips quiver with the famous, "What have you to say now?" How well you know, I am certain, to put on the look of a victim, when it is you who are making both victims and dupes! And what a truly Attic glance! Come, it's for you to save me, seeing it is you who have ruined me.
PHIDIPPIDES
What is it you fear then?
STREPSIADES
The day of the old and the new.
PHIDIPPIDES
Is there then a day of the old and the new?
STREPSIADES
The day on which they threaten to pay deposit against me.
PHIDIPPIDES
Then so much the worse for those who have deposited! for it's not possible for one day to be two.
STREPSIADES
What?
PHIDIPPIDES
Why, undoubtedly, unless a woman can be both old and young at the same time.
STREPSIADES
But so runs the law.
PHIDIPPIDES
I think the meaning of the law is quite misunderstood.
STREPSIADES
What does it mean?
PHIDIPPIDES
Old Solon loved the people.
STREPSIADES
What has that to do with the old day and the new?
PHIDIPPIDES
He has fixed two days for the summons, the last day of the old moon and the first day of the new; but the deposits must only be paid on the first day of the new moon.
STREPSIADES
And why did he also name the last day of the old?
PHIDIPPIDES
So, my dear sir, that the debtors, being there the day before, might free themselves by mutual agreement, or that else, if not, the creditor might begin his action on the morning of the new moon.
STREPSIADES
Why then do the magistrates have the deposits paid on the last of the month and not the next day?
PHIDIPPIDES
I think they do as the gluttons do, who are the first to pounce upon the dishes. Being eager to carry off these deposits, they have them paid in a day too soon.
STREPSIADES
Splendid! (to the audience) Ah! you poor brutes, who serve for food to us clever folk! You are only down here to swell the number, true blockheads, sheep for shearing, heap of empty pots! Hence I will sing a song of victory for my son and myself. "Oh! happy, Strepsiades! what cleverness is thine! and what a son thou hast here!" Thus my friends and my neighbours will say, jealous at seeing me gain all my suits. But come in, I wish to regale you first. (They both go in. A moment later a creditor arrives, with his witness.)
PASIAS
(to the WITNESS) A man should never lend a single obolus. It would be better to put on a brazen face at the outset than to get entangled in such matters. I want to see my money again and I bring you here to-day to attest the loan. I am going to make a foe of a neighbour; but, as long as I live, I do not wish my country to have to blush for me. Come, I am going to summon Strepsiades....
STREPSIADES
(coming out of his house) Who is this?
PASIAS
....for the old day and the new.
STREPSIADES
(to the WITNESS) I call you to witness, that he has named two days. What do you want of me?
PASIAS
I claim of you the twelve minae, which you borrowed from me to buy the dapple-grey horse.
STREPSIADES A
horse! do you hear him? I, who detest horses, as is well known.
PASIAS
I call Zeus to witness, that you swore by the gods to return them to me.
STREPSIADES
Because at that time, by Zeus! Phidippides did not yet know the irrefutable argument.
PASIAS
Would you deny the debt on that account?
STREPSIADES
If not, what use is his science to me?
PASIAS
Will you dare to swear by the gods that you owe me nothing?
STREPSIADES
By which gods?
PASIAS
By Zeus, Hermes and Posidon!
STREPSIADES
Why, I would give three obols for the pleasure of swearing by them.
PASIAS
Woe upon you, impudent knave!
STREPSIADES
Oh! what a fine wine-skin you would make if flayed!
PASIAS
Heaven! he jeers at me!
STREPSIADES
It would hold six gallons easily.
PASIAS
By great Zeus! by all the gods! you shall not scoff at me with impunity,
STREPSIADES
Ah! how you amuse me with your gods! how ridiculous it seems to a sage to hear Zeus invoked.
PASIAS
Your blasphemies will one day meet their reward. But, come, will you repay me my money, yes or no? Answer me, that I may go.
STREPSIADES
Wait a moment, I am going to give you a distinct answer. (He goes indoors and returns immediately with a kneading-trough.)
PASIAS
(to the WITNESS) What do you think he will do? Do you think he will pay?
STREPSIADES
Where is the man who demands money? Tell me, what is this?
PASIAS
Him? Why, he is your kneading-trough.
STREPSIADES
And you dare to demand money of me, when you are so ignorant? I will not return an obolus to anyone who says him instead of her for a kneading-trough.
PASIAS
You will not repay?
STREPSIADES
Not if I know it. Come, an end to this, pack off as quick as you can.
PASIAS
I go, but, may I die, if it be not to pay my deposit for a summons. (Exit)
STREPSIADES
Very well! It will be so much more loss to add to the twelve minae. But truly it makes me sad, for I do pity a poor simpleton who says him for a kneading-trough (Another creditor arrives.)
AMYNIAS
Woe! ah woe is me!
STREPSIADES
Wait! who is this whining fellow? Can it be one of the gods of Carcinus?
AMYNIAS
Do you want to know who I am? I am a man of misfortune!
STREPSIADES
Get on your way then.
AMYNIAS
(in tragic style) Oh! cruel god! Oh Fate, who hast broken the wheels of my chariot! Oh, Pallas, thou hast undone me!
STREPSIADES
What ill has Tlepolemus done you?
AMYNIAS
Instead of jeering me, friend, make your son return me the money he has had of me; I am already unfortunate enough.
STREPSIADES
What money?
AMYNIAS
The money he borrowed of me.
STREPSIADES
You have indeed had misfortune, it seems to me.
AMYNIAS
Yes, by the gods! I have been thrown from a chariot.
STREPSIADES
Why then drivel as if you had fallen off an ass?
AMYNIAS
Am I drivelling because I demand my money?
STREPSIADES
No, no, you cannot be in your right senses.
AMYNIAS
Why?
STREPSIADES
No doubt your poor wits have had a shake.
AMYNIAS
But by Hermes! I will sue you at law, if you do not pay me.
STREPSIADES
Just tell me; do you think it is always fresh water that Zeus lets fall every time it rains, or is ill always the same water that the sun pumps over the earth?
AMYNIAS
I neither know, nor care.
STREPSIADES
And actually you would claim the right to demand your money, when you know not an iota of these celestial phenomena?
AMYNIAS
If you are short, pay me the interest anyway.
STREPSIADES
What kind of animal is interest?
AMYNIAS
What? Does not the sum borrowed go on growing, growing every month, each day as the time slips by?
STREPSIADES
Well put. But do you believe there is more water in the sea now than there was formerly?
AMYNIAS
No, it's just the same quantity. It cannot increase.
STREPSIADES
Thus, poor fool, the sea, that receives the rivers, never grows, and yet you would have your money grow? Get you gone, away with you, quick! Slave! bring me the ox-goad!
AMYNIAS
I have witnesses to this.
STREPSIADES
Come, what are you waiting for? Will you not budge, old nag!
AMYNIAS
What an insult!
STREPSIADES
Unless you start trotting, I shall catch you and stick this in your arse, you sorry packhorse! (AMYNIAS runs off.) Ah! you start, do you? I was about to drive you pretty fast, I tell you-you and your wheels and your chariot! (He enters his house.)
CHORUS
(singing) Whither does the passion of evil lead! here is a perverse old man, who wants to cheat his creditors; but some mishap, which will speedily punish this rogue for his shameful schemings, cannot fail to overtake him from to-day. For a long time he has been burning to have his son know how to fight against all justice and right and to gain even the most iniquitous causes against his adversaries every one. I think this wish is going to be fulfilled. But mayhap, mayhap, will he soon wish his son were dumb rather!
STREPSIADES
(rushing out With PHIDIPPIDES after him) Oh! oh! neighbours, kinsmen, fellow-citizens, help! help! to the rescue, I am being beaten! Oh! my head! oh! my jaw! Scoundrel! Do you beat your own father?
PHIDIPPIDES
(calmly) Yes, father, I do.
STREPSIADES
See! he admits he is beating me.
PHIDIPPIDES
Of course I do.
STREPSIADES
You villain, you parricide, you gallows-bird!
PHIDIPPIDES
Go on, repeat your epithets, call me a thousand other names, if it please you. The more you curse, the greater my amusement!
STREPSIADES
Oh! you ditch-arsed cynic!
PHIDIPPIDES
How fragrant the perfume breathed forth in your words.
STREPSIADES
Do you beat your own father?
PHIDIPPIDES
Yes, by Zeus! and I am going to show you that I do right in beating you.
STREPSIADES
Oh, wretch! can it be right to beat a father?
PHIDIPPIDES
I will prove it to you, and you shall own yourself vanquished.
STREPSIADES
Own myself vanquished on a point like this?
PHIDIPPIDES
It's the easiest thing in the world. Choose whichever of the two reasonings you like.
STREPSIADES
Of which reasonings?
PHIDIPPIDES
The Stronger and the Weaker.
STREPSIADES
Miserable fellow! Why, I am the one who had you taught how to refute what is right. and now you would persuade me it is right a son should beat his father.
PHIDIPPIDES
I think I shall convince you so thoroughly that, when you have heard me, you will not have a word to say.
STREPSIADES
Well, I am curious to hear what you have to say.
CHORUS
(singing) Consider well, old man, how you can best triumph over him. His brazenness shows me that he thinks himself sure of his case; he has some argument which gives him nerve. Note the confidence in his look!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
But how did the fight begin? tell the Chorus; you cannot help doing that much.
STREPSIADES
I will tell you what was the start of the quarrel. At the end of the meal, as you know, I bade him take his lyre and sing me the air of Simonides, which tells of the fleece of the ram. He replied bluntly, that it was stupid, while drinking, to play the lyre and sing, like a woman when she is grinding barley.
PHIDIPPIDES
Why, by rights I ought to have beaten and kicked you the very moment you told me to sing.
STREPSIADES
That is just how he spoke to me in the house, furthermore he added, that Simonides was a detestable poet. However, I mastered myself and for a while said nothing. Then I said to him, 'At least, take a myrtle branch and recite a passage from Aeschylus to me.'-'For my own part,' he at once replied, 'I look upon Aeschylus as the first of poets, for his verses roll superbly; they're nothing but incoherence, bombast and turgidity.' Yet still I smothered my wrath and said, 'Then recite one of the famous pieces from the modern poets.' Then he commenced a piece in which Euripides shows, oh! horror! a brother, who violates his own uterine sister. Then I could not longer restrain myself, and attacked him with the most injurious abuse; naturally he retorted; hard words were hurled on both sides, and finally he sprang at me, broke my bones, bore me to earth, strangled and started killing me!
PHIDIPPIDES
I was right. What! not praise Euripides, the greatest of our poets?
STREPSIADES
He the greatest of our poets? Ah! if I but dared to speak! but the blows would rain upon me harder than ever.
PHIDIPPIDES
Undoubtedly and rightly too.
STREPSIADES
Rightly! Oh! what impudence! to me, who brought you up! when you could hardly lisp, I guessed what you wanted. If you said broo, broo, well, I brought you your milk; if you asked for mam mam, I gave you bread; and you had no sooner said, caca, than I took you outside and held you out. And just now, when you were strangling me, I shouted, I bellowed that I was about to crap; and you, you scoundrel, had not the heart to take me outside, so that, though almost choking, I was compelled to do my crapping right there.
CHORUS
(singing) Young men, your hearts must be panting with impatience. What is Phidippides going to say? If, after such conduct, he proves he has done well, I would not give an obolus for the hide of old men.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Come, you, who know how to brandish and hurl the keen shafts of the new science, find a way to convince us, give your language an appearance of truth.
PHIDIPPIDES
How pleasant it is to know these clever new inventions and to be able to defy the established laws! When I thought only about horses, I was not able to string three words together without a mistake, but now that the master has altered and improved me and that I live in this world of subtle thought, of reasoning and of meditation, I count on being able to prove satisfactorily that I have done well to thrash my father.
STREPSIADES
Mount your horse! By Zeus! I would rather defray the keep of a four-in-hand team than be battered with blows.
PHIDIPPIDES
I revert to what I was saying when you interrupted me. And first, answer me, did you beat me in my childhood?
STREPSIADES
Why, assuredly, for your good and in your own best interest.
PHIDIPPIDES
Tell me, is it not right, that in turn I should beat you for your good, since it is for a man's own best interest to be beaten? What! must your body be free of blows, and not mine? am I not free-born too? the children are to weep and the fathers go free? You will tell me, that according to the law, it is the lot of children to be beaten. But I reply that the old men are children twice over and that it is far more fitting to chastise them than the young, for there is less excuse for their faults.
STREPSIADES
But the law nowhere admits that fathers should be treated thus.
PHIDIPPIDES
Was not the legislator who carried this law a man like you and me? In those days be got men to believe him; then why should not I too have the right to establish for the future a new law, allowing children to beat their fathers in turn? We make you a present of all the blows which were received before his law, and admit that you thrashed us with impunity. But look how the cocks and other animals fight with their fathers; and yet what difference is there betwixt them and ourselves, unless it be that they do not propose decrees?
STREPSIADES
But if you imitate the cocks in all things, why don't you scratch up the dunghill, why don't you sleep on a perch?
PHIDIPPIDES
That has no bearing on the case, good sir; Socrates would find no connection, I assure you.
STREPSIADES
Then do not beat at all, for otherwise you have only yourself to blame afterwards.
PHIDIPPIDES
What for?
STREPSIADES
I have the right to chastise you, and you to chastise your son, if you have one.
PHIDIPPIDES
And if I have not, I shall have cried in vain, and you will die laughing in my face.
STREPSIADES
What say you, all here present? It seems to me that he is right, and I am of opinion that they should be accorded their right. If we think wrongly, it is but just we should be beaten.
PHIDIPPIDES
Again, consider this other point.
STREPSIADES
It will be the death of me.
PHIDIPPIDES
But you will certainly feel no more anger because of the blows I have given you.
STREPSIADES
Come, show me what profit I shall gain from it.
PHIDIPPIDES
I shall beat my mother just as I have you.
STREPSIADES
What do you say? what's that you say? Hah! this is far worse still.
PHIDIPPIDES
And what if I prove to you by our school reasoning, that one ought to beat one's mother?
STREPSIADES
Ah! if you do that, then you will only have to throw yourself, along with Socrates and his reasoning, into the Barathrum. Oh! Clouds! all our troubles emanate from you, from you, to whom I entrusted myself, body and soul.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
No, you alone are the cause, because you have pursued the path of evil.
STREPSIADES
Why did you not say so then, instead of egging on a poor ignorant old man?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
We always act thus, when we see a man conceive a passion for what is evil; we strike him with some terrible disgrace, so that he may learn to fear the gods.
STREPSIADES
Alas! oh Clouds! that's hard indeed, but it's just! I ought not to have cheated my creditors....But come, my dear son, come with me to take vengeance on this wretched Chaerephon and on Socrates, who have deceived us both.
PHIDIPPIDES
I shall do nothing against our masters.
STREPSIADES
Oh show some reverence for ancestral Zeus!
PHIDIPPIDES
Mark him and his ancestral Zeus! What a fool you are! Does any such being as Zeus exist?
STREPSIADES
Why, assuredly.
PHIDIPPIDES
No, a thousand times no! The ruler of the world is the Whirlwind, that has unseated Zeus.
STREPSIADES
He has not dethroned him. I believed it, because of this whirligig here. Unhappy wretch that I am! I have taken a piece of clay to be a god.
PHIDIPPIDES
Very well! Keep your stupid nonsense for your own consumption. (He goes back into STREPSIADES' house.)
STREPSIADES
Oh! what madness! I had lost my reason when I threw over the gods through Socrates' seductive phrases. (Addressing the statue of Hermes) Oh! good Hermes, do not destroy me in your wrath. Forgive me; their babbling had driven me crazy. Be my counselor. Shall I pursue them at law or shall I....? Order and I obey.-You are right, no law-suit; but up! let us burn down the home of those praters. Here, Xanthias, here! take a ladder, come forth and arm yourself with an axe; now mount upon the Thoughtery, demolish the roof, if you love your master, and may the house fall in upon them. Ho! bring me a blazing torch! There is more than one of them, arch-impostors as they are, on whom I am determined to have vengeance.
A DISCIPLE
(from within) Oh! oh!
STREPSIADES
Come, torch, do your duty! Burst into full flame!
DISCIPLE
What are you up to?
STREPSIADES
What am I up to? Why, I am entering upon a subtle argument with the beams of the house.
SECOND DISCIPLE
(from within) Hullo! hullo who is burning down our house?
STREPSIADES
The man whose cloak you have appropriated.
SECOND DISCIPLE
You are killing us!
STREPSIADES
That is just exactly what I hope, unless my axe plays me false, or I fall and break my neck.
SOCRATES
(appearing at the window) Hi! you fellow on the roof, what are you doing up there?
STREPSIADES
(mocking SOCRATES' manner) I am traversing the air and contemplating the sun.
SOCRATES
Ah! ah! woe is upon me! I am suffocating!
SECOND DISCIPLE
And I, alas, shall be burnt up!
STREPSIADES
Ah! you insulted the gods! You studied the face of the moon! Chase them, strike and beat them down! Forward! they have richly deserved their fate-above all, by reason of their blasphemies.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
So let the Chorus file off the stage. Its part is played.