SOCRATES Old man sit you still, and attend to my will, and hearken in peace to my prayer, O Master and King, holding earth in your swing, O measureless infinite Air; And thou glowing Ether, and Clouds who enwreathe her with thunder, and lightning, and storms, Arise ye and shine, bright Ladies Divine, to your student in bodily forms.
STREPSIADES No, but stay, no, but stay, just one moment I pray, while my cloak round my temples I wrap.
STREPSIADES To think that I’ve come, stupid fool, from my home, with never a waterproof cap!
SOCRATES Come forth, come forth, dread Clouds, and to earth your glorious majesty show; Whether lightly ye rest on the time-honoured crest of Olympus environed in snow, Or tread the soft dance ’mid the stately expanse of Ocean, the nymphs to beguile, Or stoop to enfold with your pitchers of gold, the mystical waves of the Nile, Or around the white foam of Maeotis ye roam, or Mimas all wintry and bare, O hear while we pray, and turn not away from the rites which your servants prepare.
CHORUS Clouds of all hue, Rise we aloft with our garments of dew. Come from old Ocean’s unchangeable bed, Come, till the mountain’s green summits we tread, Come to the peaks with their landscapes untold, Gaze on the Earth with her harvests of gold, Gaze on the rivers in majesty streaming, Gaze on the lordly, invincible Sea, Come, for the Eye of the Ether is beaming, Come, for all Nature is flashing and free. Let us shake off this close-clinging dew From our members eternally new, And sail upwards the wide world to view. Come away! Come away!
SOCRATES O Goddesses mine, great Clouds and divine, ye have heeded and answered my prayer. Heard ye their sound, and the thunder around, as it thrilled through the tremulous air?
STREPSIADES Yes, by Zeus, and I shake, and I’m all of a quake, and I fear I must sound a reply, Their thunders have made my soul so afraid, and those terrible voices so nigh: So if lawful or not, I must run to a pot, by Zeus, if I stop I shall die.
SOCRATES Don’t act in our schools like those Comedy-fools with their scurrilous scandalous ways. Deep silence be thine: while this Cluster divine their soul-stirring melody raise.
CHORUS Come then with me, Daughters of Mist, to the land of the free. Come to the people whom Pallas hath blest, Come to the soil where the Mysteries rest; Come, where the glorified Temple invites The pure to partake of its mystical rites: Holy the gifts that are brought to the Gods, Shrines with festoons and with garlands are crowned, Pilgrims resort to the sacred abodes, Gorgeous the festivals all the year round. And the Bromian rejoicings in Spring, When the flutes with their deep music ring, And the sweetly-toned Choruses sing Come away! Come away!
STREPSIADES O Socrates pray, by all the Gods, say, for I earnestly long to be told,
STREPSIADES Who are these that recite with such grandeur and might? are they glorified mortals of old?
SOCRATES No mortals are there, but Clouds of the air, great Gods who the indolent fill: These grant us discourse, and logical force, and the art of persuasion instil, And periphrasis strange, and a power to arrange, and a marvellous judgement and skill.
STREPSIADES So then when I heard their omnipotent word, my spirit felt all of a flutter, And it yearns to begin subtle cobwebs to spin and about metaphysics to stutter, And together to glue an idea or two, and battle away in replies: So if it’s not wrong, I earnestly long to behold them myself with my eyes.
SOCRATES Look up in the air, towards Parnes out there, for I see they will pitch before long These regions about.
STREPSIADES Where? point me them out.
SOCRATES They are drifting, an infinite throng, And their long shadows quake over valley and brake.
STREPSIADES Why, whatever’s the matter to-day? I can’t see, I declare.
SOCRATES By the Entrance; look there!
STREPSIADES Ah, I just got a glimpse, by the way.
SOCRATES There, now you must see how resplendent they be, or your eyes must be pumpkins, I vow.
STREPSIADES Ah! I see them proceed; I should think so indeed: great powers! they fill everything now.
SOCRATES So then till this day that celestials were they, you never imagined or knew?
STREPSIADES Why, no, on my word, for I always had heard they were nothing but vapour and dew.
SOCRATES O, then I declare, you can’t be aware that ’tis these who the sophists protect, Prophets sent beyond sea, quacks of every degree, fops signet-and-jewel-bedecked, Astrological knaves, and fools who their staves of dithyrambs proudly rehearse— ’Tis the Clouds who all these support at their ease, because they exalt them in verse.
STREPSIADES ’Tis for this then they write of “the on-rushin’ might o’ the light-stappin’ rain-drappin’ Cloud,” And the “thousand black curls whilk the Tempest-lord whirls,” and the “thunder-blast stormy an’ loud,” And “birds o’ the sky floatin’ upwards on high,” and “air-water leddies” which “droon Wi’ their saft falling dew the gran’ Ether sae blue,” and then in return they gulp doon Huge gobbets o’ fishes an’ bountifu’ dishes o’ mavises prime in their season.
SOCRATES And is it not right such praise to requite?
STREPSIADES Ah, but tell me then what is the reason That if, as you say, they are Clouds, they to-day as women appear to our view? For the ones in the air are not women, I swear.
SOCRATES Why, what do they seem then to you?
STREPSIADES I can’t say very well, but they straggle and swell like fleeces spread out in the air; Not like women they flit, no, by Zeus, not a bit, but these have got noses to wear.
SOCRATES Well, now then, attend to this question, my friend.
STREPSIADES Look sharp, and propound it to me.
SOCRATES Didst thou never espy a Cloud in the sky, which a centaur or leopard might be, Or a wolf, or a cow?
STREPSIADES Very often, I vow: and show me the cause, I entreat.
SOCRATES Why, I tell you that these become just what they please, and whenever they happen to meet One shaggy and wild, like the tangle-haired child of old Xenophantes, their rule Is at once to appear like Centaurs, to jeer the ridiculous look of the fool.
STREPSIADES What then do they do if Simon they view, that fraudulent harpy to shame?
SOCRATES Why, his nature to show to us mortals below, a wolfish appearance they frame.
STREPSIADES O, they then I ween having yesterday seen Cleonymus quaking with fear, (Him who threw off his shield as he fled from the field), metamorphosed themselves into deer.
SOCRATES Yes, and now they espy soft Cleisthenes nigh, and therefore as women appear.
STREPSIADES O then without fail, All hail! and All hail! my welcome receive; and reply With your voices so fine, so grand and divine, majestical Queens of the Sky!
CHORUS Our welcome to thee, old man, who wouldst see the marvels that science can show: And thou, the high-priest of this subtlety feast, say what would you have us bestow? Since there is not a sage for whom we’d engage our wonders more freely to do, Except, it may be, for Prodicus; he for his knowledge may claim them, but you, For that sideways you throw your eyes as you go, and are all affectation and fuss; No shoes will you wear, but assume the grand air on the strength of your dealings with us.
STREPSIADES O Earth! what a sound, how august and profound! it fills me with wonder and awe.
SOCRATES These, these then alone, for true Deities own, the rest are all Godships of straw.
STREPSIADES Let Zeus be left out: He’s a God beyond doubt: come, that you can scarcely deny.
SOCRATES Zeus, indeed! there’s no Zeus: don’t you be so obtuse.
STREPSIADES No Zeus up aloft in the sky! Then, you first must explain, who it is sends the rain; or I really must think you are wrong.
SOCRATES Well then, be it known, these send it alone: I can prove it by arguments strong. Was there ever a shower seen to fall in an hour when the sky was all cloudless and blue? Yet on a fine day, when the Clouds are away, he might send one, according to you.
STREPSIADES Well, it must be confessed, that chimes in with the rest: your words I am forced to believe.
STREPSIADES Yet before, I had dreamed that the rain-water streamed from Zeus and his chamber-pot sieve. But whence then, my friend, does the thunder descend? that does make me quake with affright!
SOCRATES Why ’tis they, I declare, as they roll through the air.
STREPSIADES What the Clouds? did I hear you aright?
SOCRATES Ay: for when to the brim filled with water they swim, by Necessity carried along, They are hung up on high in the vault of the sky, and so by Necessity strong In the midst of their course, they clash with great force, and thunder away without end.
STREPSIADES But is it not He who compels this to be? does not Zeus this Necessity send?
SOCRATES No Zeus have we there, but a Vortex of air.
STREPSIADES What! Vortex? that’s something, I own. I knew not before, that Zeus was no more, but Vortex was placed on his throne! But I have not yet heard to what cause you referred the thunder’s majestical roar.
SOCRATES Yes, ’tis they, when on high full of water they fly, and then, as I told you before, By Compression impelled, as they clash, are compelled a terrible clatter to make.
STREPSIADES Come, how can that be? I really don’t see.
SOCRATES Yourself as my proof I will take. Have you never then eat the broth-puddings you get when the Panathenaea comes round,
SOCRATES And felt with what might your bowels all night in turbulent tumult resound?
STREPSIADES By Apollo, ’tis true, there’s a mighty to-do, and my belly keeps rumbling about; And the puddings begin to clatter within and kick up a wonderful rout: Quite gently at first, papapax, papapax, but soon pappapappax away, Till at last, I’ll be bound, I can thunder as loud, papapappappapappax, as They.
SOCRATES Shalt thou then a sound so loud and profound from thy belly diminutive send, And shall not the high and the infinite Sky go thundering on without end? For both, you will find, on an impulse of wind and similar causes depend.
STREPSIADES Well, but tell me from Whom comes the bolt through the gloom, with its awful and terrible flashes; And wherever it turns, some it singes and burns, and some it reduces to ashes! For this ’tis quite plain, let who will send the rain, that Zeus against perjurers dashes.
SOCRATES And how, you old fool of a dark-ages school, and an antediluvian wit, If the perjured they strike, and not all men alike, have they never Cleonymus hit? Then of Simon again, and Theorus explain: known perjurers, yet they escape. But he smites his own shrine with his arrows divine, and “‘Sunium, Attica’s cape,” And the ancient gnarled oaks: now what prompted those strokes? They never forswore I should say.
STREPSIADES Can’t say that they do: your words appear true. Whence comes then the thunderbolt, pray? When a wind that is dry, being lifted on high, is suddenly pent into these, It swells up their skin, like a bladder, within, by Necessity’s changeless decrees: Till, compressed very tight, it bursts them outright, and away with an impulse so strong, That at last by the force and the swing of its course, it takes fire as it whizzes along. That’s exactly the thing that I suffered one Spring, at the great feast of Zeus, I admit: I’d a paunch in the pot, but I wholly forgot about making the safety-valve slit. So it spluttered and swelled, while the saucepan I held, till at last with a vengeance it flew: Took me quite by surprise, dung-bespattered my eyes, and scalded my face black and blue! O thou who wouldst fain great wisdom attain, and comest to us in thy need, All Hellas around shall thy glory resound, such a prosperous life thou shalt lead: So thou art but endued with a memory good, and accustomed profoundly to think, And thy soul wilt inure all wants to endure, and from no undertaking to shrink, And art hardy and bold, to bear up against cold, and with patience a supper thou losest: Nor too much dost incline to gymnastics and wine, but all lusts of the body refusest: And esteemest it best, what is always the test of a truly intelligent brain,
CHORUS To prevail and succeed whensoever you plead, and hosts of tongue-conquests to gain.
STREPSIADES But as far as a sturdy soul is concerned and a horrible restless care, And a belly that pines and wears away on the wretchedest, frugalest fare, You may hammer and strike as long as you like; I am quite invincible there.
SOCRATES Now then you agree in rejecting with me the Gods you believed in when young, And my creed you’ll embrace “I believe in wide space, in the Clouds, in the eloquent Tongue.”
STREPSIADES If I happened to meet other Gods in the street, I’d show the cold shoulder, I vow. No libation I’ll pour: not one victim more on their altars I’ll sacrifice now.
CHORUS Now be honest and true, and say what we shall do: since you never shall fail of our aid, If you hold us most dear in devotion and fear, and will ply the philosopher’s trade.
STREPSIADES O Ladies Divine, small ambition is mine: I only most modestly seek, Out and out for the rest of my life to be best of the children of Hellas to speak
CHORUS Say no more of your care, we have granted your prayer: and know from this moment, that none More acts shall pass through in the People than you: such favour from us you have won.
STREPSIADES Not acts, if you please: I want nothing of these: this gift you may quickly withdraw; But I wish to succeed, just enough for my need, and to slip through the clutches of law.
CHORUS This then you shall do, for your wishes are few: not many nor great your demands,
CHORUS
So away with all care from henceforth, and prepare to be placed in our votaries’ hands.
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