Clouds
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Socrates.
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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.
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Strepsiades.
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How? How? I do not know but I must seek.
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Socrates.
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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.
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Strepsiades.
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I have found a very clever method of getting rid of my suit, so that you yourself would acknowledge it.
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Strepsiades.
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Have you ever seen this stone in the chemist’s shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they kindle fire?
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Strepsiades.
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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?
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Socrates.
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Cleverly done, by the Graces!
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Socrates.
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Come now, quickly seize upon this.
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Socrates.
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How, when engaged in a lawsuit, you could overturn the suit, when you were about to be cast, because you had no witnesses.
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Strepsiades.
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Most readily and easily.
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Socrates.
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You talk nonsense.
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Socrates.
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You talk nonsense. Begone; I can’t teach you any longer.
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Strepsiades.
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Why so? Yea, by the gods, O Socrates!
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Socrates.
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You straightaway forget whatever you learn. For what now was the first thing you were taught? Tell me.
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Strepsiades.
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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?
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Strepsiades.
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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.
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Chorus.
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We, old man, advise you, if you have a son grown up, to send him to learn in your stead.
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Strepsiades.
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Well, I have a fine, handsome son, but he is not willing to learn. What must I do?
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Chorus.
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But do you permit him?
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Chorus.
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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.
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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.
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Strepsiades.
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By Mist, you certainly shall not stay here any longer! But go and gnaw the columns of Megacles.
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Phidippides.
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My good sir, what is the matter with you, O father? You are not in your senses, by Olympian Jupiter!
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Strepsiades.
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See, see, Olympian Jupiter! What folly! To think of your believing in Jupiter, as old as you are!
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Phidippides.
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Why, pray, did you laugh at this?
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Phidippides.
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Well, what is it?
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Phidippides.
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I did.
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Strepsiades.
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Vortex reigns, having expelled Jupiter.
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Phidippides.
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Bah! Why do you talk foolishly?
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Phidippides.
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Who says this?
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Phidippides.
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Have you arrived at such a pitch of frenzy that you believe madmen?
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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.
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Phidippides.
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What good could any one learn from them?
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Strepsiades.
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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.
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Phidippides.
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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?
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Strepsiades.
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Come, let me see; what do you consider this to be? Tell me.
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Phidippides.
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Alectryon.
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Phidippides.
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Alectryon.
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Phidippides.
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Ἀλεκτρύαινα! Did you learn these clever things by going in just now to the Titans?
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Strepsiades.
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And many others too; but whatever I learned on each occasion I used to forget immediately, through length of years.
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Phidippides.
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Is it for this reason, pray, that you have also lost your cloak?
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Strepsiades.
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I have not lost it; but have studied it away.
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Phidippides.
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What have you made of your slippers, you foolish man?
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Strepsiades.
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I have expended them, like Pericles, for needful purposes.
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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.
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Phidippides.
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You will assuredly some time at length be grieved at this.
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Strepsiades.
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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.
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Phidippides.
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You would yourself be used to them if you were hanged.
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Strepsiades.
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A mischief take you! Do you abuse your teacher?
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Socrates.
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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
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or a legal summons, or persuasive refutation? And yet Hyperbolus learned this at the cost of a talent.
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Strepsiades.
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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,
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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.
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If not both, at any rate the unjust one by all means.
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Socrates.
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He shall learn it himself from the two causes in person.
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Just Cause.
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Come hither! Show yourself to the spectators, although being audacious.
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Unjust Cause.
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Go whither you please; for I shall far rather do for you, if I speak before a crowd.
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Just Cause.
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You destroy me? Who are you?
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Unjust Cause.
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But I conquer you, who say that you are better than I.
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Unjust Cause.
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By discovering new contrivances.
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Just Cause.
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For these innovations flourish by the favour of these silly persons.
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Unjust Cause.
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No; but wise persons.
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Unjust Cause.
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Tell me, by doing what?
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Unjust Cause.
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But I will overturn them by contradicting them; for I deny that justice even exists at all.
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Just Cause.
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Do you deny that it exists?
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Just Cause.
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With the gods.
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Unjust Cause.
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You are a dotard and absurd.
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Just Cause.
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You are debauched and shameless.
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Unjust Cause.
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You have spoken roses of me.
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Unjust Cause.
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You crown me with lilies.
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Unjust Cause.
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You don’t know that you are sprinkling me with gold.
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Just Cause.
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Certainly not so formerly, but with lead.
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Unjust Cause.
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But now this is an ornament to me.
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Just Cause.
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You are very impudent.
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Just Cause.
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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.
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Unjust Cause.
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You are shamefully squalid.
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Unjust Cause.
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Oh, the wisdom—
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Unjust Cause.
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Which you have mentioned.
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Just Cause.
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And of your city, which supports you who ruin her youths.
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Unjust Cause.
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You shan’t teach this youth, you old dotard.
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Just Cause.
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Yes, if he is to be saved, and not merely to practise loquacity.
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Unjust Cause.
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Come hither, and leave him to rave.
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Just Cause.
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You shall howl, if you lay your hand on him.
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Chorus.
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Cease from contention and railing.
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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.
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Just Cause.
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I am willing to do so.
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Chorus.
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Come now, which of the two shall speak first?
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Unjust Cause.
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I will give him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts.
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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.
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Chorus.
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Now the two, relying on very dexterous arguments and thoughts, and sententious maxims, will show which of them shall appear superior in argument.
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For now the whole crisis of wisdom is here laid before them; about which my friends have a very great contest.
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Chorus.
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But do you, who adorned our elders with many virtuous manners, utter the voice in which you rejoice, and declare your nature.
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Just Cause.
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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,
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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 Παλλάδα περσέπολιν δεινὰν or τηλέπορόν τι βόαμα 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,
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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;
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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,
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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.
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Unjust Cause.
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Aye, antiquated and dipolia-like and full of grasshoppers, and of Cecydes, and of the Buphonian festival!
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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
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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.