STREPSIADES Because you have put in too thick a wick....Later, when we had this boy, what was to be his name? It was the cause of much quarrelling with my loving wife. She insisted on having some reference to a horse in his name, that he should be called Xanthippus, Charippus or Callippides. I wanted to name him Phidonides after his grandfather. We disputed long, and finally agreed to style him Phidippides....She used to fondle and coax him, saying, "Oh! what a joy it will be to me when you have grown up, to see you, like my father, Megacles, clothed in purple and standing up straight in your chariot driving your steeds toward the town." And I would say to him, "When, like your father, you will go, dressed in a skin, to fetch back your goats from Phelleus." Alas! he never listened to me and his madness for horses has shattered my fortune. (He gets out of bed.) But by dint of thinking the livelong night, I have discovered a road to salvation, both miraculous and divine. If he will but follow it, I shall be out of my trouble! First, however, he must be awakened, but it must be done as gently as possible. How shall I manage it? Phidippides! my little Phidippides! PHIDIPPIDES (awaking again) What is it, father? STREPSIADES Kiss me and give me your hand. PHIDIPPIDES (getting up and doing as his father requests) There! What's it all about? STREPSIADES Tell me! do you love me? PHIDIPPIDES By Posidon, the equestrian Posidon! yes, I swear I do. STREPSIADES Oh, do not, I pray you, invoke this god of horses; he is the one who is the cause of all my cares. But if you really love me, and with your whole heart, my boy, believe me. PHIDIPPIDES Believe you? about what? STREPSIADES Alter your habits forthwith and go and learn what I tell you. PHIDIPPIDES Say on, what are your orders? STREPSIADES Will you obey me ever so little? PHIDIPPIDES By Bacchus, I will obey you. STREPSIADES Very well then! Look this way. Do you see that little door and that little house? PHIDIPPIDES Yes, father. But what are you driving at? STREPSIADES That is the Thoughtery of wise souls. There they prove that we are coals enclosed on all sides under a vast snuffer, which is the sky. If well paid, these men also teach one how to gain law-suits, whether they be just or not. PHIDIPPIDES What do they call themselves? STREPSIADES I do not know exactly, but they are deep thinkers and most admirable people. PHIDIPPIDES Bah! the wretches! I know them; you mean those quacks with pale faces, those barefoot fellows, such as that miserable Socrates and Chaerephon? STREPSIADES Silence! say nothing foolish! If you desire your father not to die of hunger, join their company and let your horses go. PHIDIPPIDES No, by Bacchus! even though you gave me the pheasants that Leogoras raises. STREPSIADES Oh! my beloved son, I beseech you, go and follow their teachings. PHIDIPPIDES And what is it I should learn? STREPSIADES It seems they have two courses of reasoning, the true and the false, and that, thanks to the false, the worst law-suits can be gained. If then you learn this science, which is false, I shall not have to pay an obolus of all the debts I have contracted on your account. PHIDIPPIDES No, I will not do it. I should no longer dare to look at our gallant horsemen, when I had so ruined my tan. STREPSIADES Well then, by Demeter! I will no longer support you, neither you, nor your team, nor your saddle-horse. Go and hang yourself, I turn you out of house and home. PHIDIPPIDES My uncle Megacles will not leave me without horses; I shall go to him and laugh at your anger. (He departs. STREPSIADES goes over to SOCRATES' house.) STREPSIADES One rebuff shall not dishearten me. With the help of the gods I will enter the Thoughtery and learn myself. (He hesitates.) But at my age, memory has gone and the mind is slow to grasp things. How can all these fine distinctions, these subtleties be learned? (Making up his mind) Bah! why should I dally thus instead of rapping at the door? Slave, slave! (He knocks and calls.) A DISCIPLE (from within) A plague on you! Who are you? STREPSIADES Strepsiades, the son of Phido, of the deme of Cicynna. DISCIPLE (coming out of the door) You are nothing but an ignorant and illiterate fellow to let fly at the door with such kicks. You have brought on a miscarriage-of an idea! STREPSIADES Pardon me, please; for I live far away from here in the country. But tell me, what was the idea that miscarried? DISCIPLE I may not tell it to any but a disciple. STREPSIADES Then tell me without fear, for I have come to study among you. DISCIPLE Very well then, but reflect, that these are mysteries. Lately, a flea bit Chaerephon on the brow and then from there sprang on to the head of Socrates. Socrates asked Chaerephon, "How many times the length of its legs does a flea jump?" STREPSIADES And how ever did he go about measuring it? DISCIPLE Oh! it was most ingenious! He melted some wax, seized the flea and dipped its two feet in the wax, which, when cooled, left them shod with true Persian slippers. These he took off and with them measured the distance. STREPSIADES Ah! great Zeus! what a brain! what subtlety! DISCIPLE I wonder what then would you say, if you knew another of Socrates' contrivances? STREPSIADES What is it? Pray tell me. DISCIPLE Chaerephon of the deme of Sphettia asked him whether he thought a gnat buzzed through its proboscis or through its anus. STREPSIADES And what did he say about the gnat? DISCIPLE He said that the gut of the gnat was narrow, and that, in passing through this tiny passage, the air is driven with force towards the breech; then after this slender channel, it encountered the rump, which was distended like a trumpet, and there it resounded sonorously. STREPSIADES So the arse of a gnat is a trumpet. Oh! what a splendid arsevation! Thrice happy Socrates! It would not be difficult to succeed in a law-suit, knowing so much about a gnat's guts! DISCIPLE Not long ago a lizard caused him the loss of a sublime thought. STREPSIADES In what way, please? DISCIPLE One night, when he was studying the course of the moon and its revolutions and was gazing open-mouthed at the heavens, a lizard crapped upon him from the top of the roof. STREPSIADES A lizard crapping on Socrates! That's rich!Back to top.
STREPSIADES Oh! Earth! What august utterances! how sacred! how wondrous! SOCRATES That is because these are the only goddesses; all the rest are pure myth. STREPSIADES But by the Earth! is our father, Zeus, the Olympian, not a god? SOCRATES Zeus! what Zeus! Are you mad? There is no Zeus. STREPSIADES What are you saying now? Who causes the rain to fall? Answer me that! SOCRATES Why, these, and I will prove it. Have you ever seen it raining without clouds? Let Zeus then cause rain with a clear sky and without their presence! STREPSIADES By Apollo! that is powerfully argued! For my own part, I always thought it was Zeus pissing into a sieve. But tell me, who is it makes the thunder, which I so much dread? SOCRATES These, when they roll one over the other. STREPSIADES But how can that be? you most daring among men! SOCRATES Being full of water, and forced to move along, they are of necessity precipitated in rain, being fully distended with moisture from the regions where they have been floating; hence they bump each other heavily and burst with great noise. STREPSIADES But is it not Zeus who forces them to move? SOCRATES Not at all; it's the aerial Whirlwind. STREPSIADES The Whirlwind! ah! I did not know that. So Zeus, it seems, has no existence, and its the Whirlwind that reigns in his stead? But you have not yet told me what makes the roll of the thunder? SOCRATES Have you not understood me then? I tell you, that the Clouds, when full of rain, bump against one another, and that, being inordinately swollen out, they burst with a great noise. STREPSIADES How can you make me credit that? SOCRATES Take yourself as an example. When you have heartily gorged on stew at the Panathenaea, you get throes of stomach-ache and then suddenly your belly resounds with prolonged rumbling. STREPSIADES Yes, yes, by Apollo I suffer, I get colic, then the stew sets to rumbling like thunder and finally bursts forth with a terrific noise. At first, it's but a little gurgling pappax, pappax! then it increases, papapappax! and when I take my crap, why, it's thunder indeed, papapappax! pappax!! papapappax!!! just like the clouds. SOCRATES Well then, reflect what a noise is produced by your belly, which is but small. Shall not the air, which is boundless, produce these mighty claps of thunder? STREPSIADES And this is why the names are so much alike: crap and clap. But tell me this. Whence comes the lightning, the dazzling flame, which at times consumes the man it strikes, at others hardly singes him. Is it not plain, that Zeus is hurling it at the perjurers? SOCRATES Out upon the fool! the driveller! he still savours of the golden age! If Zeus strikes at the perjurers, why has he not blasted Simon, Cleonymus and Theorus? Of a surety, greater perjurers cannot exist. No, he strikes his own temple, and Sunium, the promontory of Athens, and the towering oaks. Now, why should he do that? An oak is no perjurer. STREPSIADES I cannot tell, but it seems to me well argued. What is the lightning then? SOCRATES When a dry wind ascends to the Clouds and gets shut into them, it blows them out like a bladder; finally, being too confined, it bursts them, escapes with fierce violence and a roar to flash into flame by reason of its own impetuosity. STREPSIADES Ah, that's just what happened to me one day. It was at the feast of Zeus! I was cooking a sow's belly for my family and I had forgotten to slit it open. It swelled out and, suddenly bursting, discharged itself right into my eyes and burnt my face.Back to top.
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