SOCRATES
Never by Chaos, Air, and Respiration, Never, no never have I seen a clown So helpless, and forgetful, and absurd! Why if he learns a quirk or two he clean Forgets them ere he has learnt them: all the same, I’ll call him out of doors here to the light. Take up your bed, Strepsiades, and come!
STREPSIADES By Zeus, I can’t: the bugs make such resistance.
SOCRATES Make haste. There, throw it down, and listen.
STREPSIADES Well!
SOCRATES Attend to me: what shall I teach you first That you’ve not learnt before? Which will you have, Measures or rhythms or the right use of words?
STREPSIADES Oh! measures to be sure: for very lately A grocer swindled me of full three pints.
SOCRATES I don’t mean that: but which do you like the best Of all the measures; six feet, or eight feet?
STREPSIADES Well, I like nothing better than the yard.
SOCRATES Fool! don’t talk nonsense.
STREPSIADES What will you bet me now That two yards don’t exactly make six feet?
SOCRATES Consume you! what an ignorant clown you are! Still, perhaps you can learn tunes more easily.
STREPSIADES But will tunes help me to repair my fortunes?
SOCRATES They’ll help you to behave in company: If you can tell which kind of tune is best For the sword-dance, and which for finger music.”
STREPSIADES For fingers! aye, but I know that.
SOCRATES Say on, then.
STREPSIADES What is it but this finger? though before, Ere this was grown, I used to play with that.
SOCRATES Insufferable dolt!
STREPSIADES Well but, you goose, I don’t want to learn this.
SOCRATES What do you want then?
STREPSIADES Teach me the Logic! teach me the unjust Logic.
SOCRATES But you must learn some other matters first:
SOCRATES As, what are males among the quadrupeds.
STREPSIADES I should be mad indeed not to know that. The Ram, the Bull, the Goat, the Dog, the Fowl.
SOCRATES Ah! there you are! there’s a mistake at once! You call the male and female fowl the same.
STREPSIADES How! tell me how.
SOCRATES Why fowl and fowl of course.
STREPSIADES That’s true though! what then shall I say in future?
SOCRATES Call one a fowless and the other a fowl.
STREPSIADES A fowless? Good! Bravo! Bravo! by Air. Now for that one bright piece of information I’ll give you a barley bumper in your trough.
SOCRATES Look there, a fresh mistake; you called it trough, Masculine, when it’s feminine.
STREPSIADES How, pray? How did I make it masculine?
SOCRATES Why “trough,” Just like “Cleonymus.”
STREPSIADES I don’t quite catch it.
SOCRATES Why “trough,” “Cleonymus,” both masculine.
STREPSIADES Ah, but Cleonymus has got no trough, His bread is kneaded in a rounded mortar: Still, what must I say in future?
SOCRATES What! why call it A “troughess,” female, just as one says “an actress.”
STREPSIADES A “troughess,” female?
SOCRATES That’s the way to call it.
STREPSIADES O “troughess” then and Miss Cleonymus.
SOCRATES Still you must learn some more about these names; Which are the names of men and which of women.
STREPSIADES Oh, I know which are women.
SOCRATES Well, repeat some.
STREPSIADES Demetria, Cleitagora, Philinna.
SOCRATES Now tell me some men’s names.
STREPSIADES O yes, ten thousand. Philon, Melesias, Amynias.
SOCRATES Hold! I said men’s names: these are women’s names.
STREPSIADES No, no, they’re men’s.
SOCRATES They are not men’s, for how Would you address Amynias if you met him?
STREPSIADES How? somehow thus: “Here, here, Amynia!”
SOCRATES Amynia! a woman’s name, you see.
STREPSIADES And rightly too; a sneak who shirks all service! But all know this: let‘s pass to something else.
SOCRATES Well, then, you get into the bed.
STREPSIADES And then?
SOCRATES Excogitate about your own affairs,
STREPSIADES Not there: I do beseech, not there: at least Let me excogitate on the bare ground.
SOCRATES There is no way but this.
STREPSIADES O luckless me! How I shall suffer from the bugs to-day.
SOCRATES Now then survey in every way, with airy judgement sharp and quick: Wrapping thoughts around you thick: And if so be in one you stick, Never stop to toil and bother, Lightly, lightly, lightly leap, To another, to another; Far away be balmy sleep.
STREPSIADES Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
CHORUS What’s the matter? where’s the pain?
STREPSIADES Friends! I’m dying. From the bed
STREPSIADES Out creep bugbears scantly fed, And my ribs they bite in twain, And my life-blood out they suck, And my manhood off they pluck, And my loins they dig and drain, And I’m dying, once again.
CHORUS O take not the smart so deeply to heart.
STREPSIADES Why, what can I do? Vanished my skin so ruddy of hue, Vanished my life-blood, vanished my shoe, Vanished my purse, and what is still worse As I hummed an old tune till my watch should be past, I had very near vanished myself at the last.
SOCRATES Hallo there, are you pondering?
STREPSIADES Eh! what? I? Yes to be sure.
SOCRATES And what have your ponderings come to?
STREPSIADES Whether these bugs will leave a bit of me.
SOCRATES Consume you, wretch!
STREPSIADES Faith, I’m consumed already.
SOCRATES Come, come, don’t flinch: pull up the clothes again: Search out and catch some very subtle dodge To fleece your creditors.
STREPSIADES O me, how can I Fleece any one with all these fleeces on me? (Puts his head under the clothes.)
SOCRATES Come, let me peep a moment what he’s doing. Hey! he’s asleep!
STREPSIADES No, no! no fear of that!
SOCRATES Caught anything?
STREPSIADES No, nothing.
SOCRATES Surely, something.
STREPSIADES Well, I had something in my hand, I’ll own.
SOCRATES Pull up the clothes again, and go on pondering.
STREPSIADES On what? now do please tell me, Socrates.
SOCRATES What is it that you want? first tell me that.
STREPSIADES You have heard a million times what ’tis I want: My debts! my debts! I want to shirk my debts.
SOCRATES Come, come, pull up the clothes: refine your thoughts With subtle wit: look at the case on all sides: Mind you divide corréctly.
STREPSIADES Ugh! O me.
SOCRATES Hush: if you meet with any difficulty Leave it a moment: then return again To the same thought: then lift and weigh it well.
STREPSIADES Oh, here, dear Socrates!
SOCRATES Well, my old friend.
STREPSIADES I’ve found a notion how to shirk my debts.
SOCRATES Well then, propound it.
STREPSIADES What do you think of this? Suppose I hire some grand Thessalian witch To conjure down the Moon, and then I take it And clap it into some round helmet-box, And keep it fast there, like a looking-glass,—
SOCRATES But what’s the use of that?
STREPSIADES The use, quotha: Why if the Moon should never rise again, I’d never pay one farthing.
SOCRATES No! why not?
STREPSIADES Why, don’t we pay our interest by the month?
SOCRATES Good! now I’ll proffer you another problem.
SOCRATES Suppose an action: damages, five talents: Now tell me how you can evade that same.
STREPSIADES How! how! can’t say at all: but I’ll go seek.—
SOCRATES Don’t wrap your mind for ever round yourself, But let your thoughts range freely through the air, Like chafers with a thread about their feet.
STREPSIADES I’ve found a bright evasion of the action: Confess yourself, ’tis glorious.
SOCRATES But what is it?
STREPSIADES I say, haven’t you seen in druggists’ shops That stone, that splendidly transparent stone, By which they kindle fire?
SOCRATES The burning-glass?
STREPSIADES That’s it: well then, I’d get me one of these, And as the clerk was entering down my case, I’d stand, like this, some distance towards the sun, And burn out every line.
SOCRATES By the Three Graces, A clever dodge!
STREPSIADES O me, how pleased I am To have a debt like that clean blotted out.
SOCRATES Come, then, make haste and snap up this. Well, what?
SOCRATES How to prevent an adversary’s suit Supposing you were sure to lose it; tell me.
STREPSIADES O, nothing easier.
SOCRATES How, pray?
STREPSIADES Why thus, While there was yet one trial intervening, Ere mine was cited, I’d go hang myself.
SOCRATES Absurd!
STREPSIADES No, by the Gods, it isn’t though:
STREPSIADES They could not prosecute me were I dead.
SOCRATES Nonsense! Be off: I’ll try no more to teach you.
STREPSIADES Why not? do, please: now, please do, Socrates.
SOCRATES Why you forget all that you learn, directly. Come, say what you learnt first; there’s a chance for you.
STREPSIADES Ah! what was first—Dear me: whatever was it?— Whatever’s that we knead the barley in?— Bless us, what was it?
SOCRATES Be off, and feed the crows, You most forgetful, most absurd old dolt!
STREPSIADES O me! what will become of me, poor wretch! I’m clean undone: I haven’t learnt to speak.— O gracious Clouds, now do advise me something.
CHORUS Our counsel, ancient friend, is simply this, To send your son, if you have one at home, And let him learn this wisdom in your stead.
STREPSIADES Yes! I’ve a son, quite a fine gentleman: But he won’t learn, so what am I to do?
CHORUS What! is he master?
STREPSIADES Well: he’s strong and vigorous, And he’s got some of the Coesyra blood within him: Still I’ll go for him, and if he won’t come By all the Gods I’ll turn him out of doors. Go in one moment, I’ll be back directly.
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