RIGHT LOGIC Come show yourself now with your confident brow. —To the stage, if you dare!
WRONG LOGIC “Lead on where you please:” I shall smash you with ease, If an audience be there.
RIGHT LOGIC You’ll smash me, you say! And who are you, pray?
WRONG LOGIC A Logic, like you.
RIGHT LOGIC But the Worst of the two.
WRONG LOGIC Yet you I can drub whom my Better they dub.
RIGHT LOGIC By what artifice taught?
WRONG LOGIC By original thought.
RIGHT LOGIC Aye, truly your trade so successful is made. By means of these noodles of ours, I’m afraid.
WRONG LOGIC Not noodles, but wise.
RIGHT LOGIC I’ll smash you and your lies!
WRONG LOGIC By what method, forsooth?
RIGHT LOGIC By speaking the Truth.
WRONG LOGIC Your words I will meet, and entirely defeat: There never was Justice or Truth, I repeat.
RIGHT LOGIC No Justice! you say?
WRONG LOGIC Well, where does it stay?
RIGHT LOGIC With the Gods in the air.
WRONG LOGIC If Justice be there, How comes it that Zeus could his father reduce, Yet live with their Godships unpunished and loose?
RIGHT LOGIC Ugh! Ugh! These evils come thick, I feel awfully sick, A bason, quick, quick!
WRONG LOGIC You’re a useless old drone with one foot in the grave!
RIGHT LOGIC You’re a shameless, unprincipled, dissolute knave!
WRONG LOGIC Hey! a rosy festoon.
RIGHT LOGIC And a vulgar buffoon!
WRONG LOGIC What! Lilies from you?
RIGHT LOGIC And a parricide too!
WRONG LOGIC ’Tis with gold (you don’t know it) you sprinkle my head,
RIGHT LOGIC O gold is it now? but it used to be lead!
WRONG LOGIC But now it’s a grace and a glory instead.
RIGHT LOGIC You’re a little too bold.
WRONG LOGIC You’re a good deal too old.
RIGHT LOGIC ’Tis through you I well know not a stripling will go To attend to the rules which are taught in the Schools; But Athens one day shall be up to the fools.
WRONG LOGIC How squalid your dress!
RIGHT LOGIC Yours is fine, I confess. Yet of old, I declare, but a pauper you were; And passed yourself off, our compassion to draw As a Telephus, (Euripidéan) Well pleased from a beggarly wallet to gnaw At inanities Pandeletéan.
WRONG LOGIC O me! for the wisdom you’ve mentioned in jest!
RIGHT LOGIC O me! for the folly of you, and the rest Who you to destroy their children employ!
WRONG LOGIC Him you never shall teach: you are quite out of date.
RIGHT LOGIC If not, he’ll be lost, as he’ll find to his cost: Taught nothing by you but to chatter and prate.
WRONG LOGIC He raves, as you see: let him be, let him be.
RIGHT LOGIC Touch him if you dare! I bid you beware.
CHORUS Forbear, forbear to wrangle and scold! Each of you show You what you taught their fathers of old,
CHORUS You let us know Your system untried, that hearing each side From the lips of the Rivals the youth may decide To which of your schools he will go.
RIGHT LOGIC This then will I do.
WRONG LOGIC And so will I too.
CHORUS And who will put in his claim to begin?
WRONG LOGIC If he wishes, he may: I kindly give way: And out of his argument quickly will I Draw facts and devices to fledge the reply Wherewith I will shoot him and smite and refute him. And at last if a word from his mouth shall be heard My sayings like fierce savage hornets shall pierce His forehead and eyes, Till in fear and distraction he yields and he—dies!
CHORUS With thoughts and words and maxims pondered well Now then in confidence let both begin: Try which his rival can in speech excel: Try which this perilous wordy war can win, Which all my votaries’ hopes are fondly centred in. O Thou who wert born our sires to adorn with characters blameless and fair, Say on what you please, say on and to these your glorious Nature declare.
RIGHT LOGIC To hear then prepare of the Discipline rare which flourished in Athens of yore When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth and Sobriety bloomed on our shore; First of all the old rule was preserved in our school that “boys should be seen and not heard:” And then to the home of the Harpist would come decorous in action and word All the lads of one town, though the snow peppered down, in spite of all wind and all weather:
RIGHT LOGIC
And they sang an old song as they paced it along, not shambling with thighs glued together: “O the dread shout of War how it peals from afar,” or “Pallas the Stormer adore,” To some manly old air all simple and bare which their fathers had chanted before. And should anyone dare the tune to impair and with intricate twistings to fill, Such as Phrynis is fain, and his long-winded train, perversely to quaver and trill, Many stripes would he feel in return for his zeal, as to genuine Music a foe, And every one’s thigh was forward and high as they sat to be drilled in a row, So that nothing the while indecent or vile the eye of a stranger might meet; And then with their hand they would smooth down the sand whenever they rose from their seat, To leave not a trace of themselves in the place for a vigilant lover to view, They never would soil their persons with oil but were inartificial and true.
WRONG LOGIC Faugh! this smells very strong of some musty old song, and Chirrupers mounted in gold; And Slaughter of beasts, and old-fashioned feasts.
RIGHT LOGIC Yet these are the precepts which taught The heroes of old to be hardy and bold, and the Men who at Marathon fought! But now must the lad from his boyhood be clad in a Man’s all-enveloping cloak: So that, oft as the Panathenaea returns, I feel myself ready to choke When the dancers go by with their shields to their thigh, not caring for Pallas a jot. You therefore, young man, choose me while you can; cast in with my Method your lot; And then you shall learn the forum to spurn, and from dissolute baths to abstain, And fashions impure and shameful abjure, and scorners repel with disdain: And rise from your chair if an elder be there, and respectfully give him your place, And with love and with fear your parents revere, and shrink from the brand of Disgrace, And deep in your breast be the Image impressed of Modesty, simple and true, Nor resort any more to a dancing-girl’s door, nor glance at the harlotry crew, Lest at length by the blow of the Apple they throw from the hopes of your Manhood you fall. Nor dare to reply when your Father is nigh, nor “musty old Japhet” to call
RIGHT LOGIC In your malice and rage that Sacred Old Age which lovingly cherished your youth.
WRONG LOGIC Yes, yes, my young friend, if to him you attend, by Bacchus I swear of a truth You will scarce with the sty of Hippocrates vie, as a mammy-suck known even there!
RIGHT LOGIC But then you’ll excel in the games you love well, all blooming, athletic and fair: Not learning to prate as your idlers debate with marvellous prickly dispute, Nor dragged into Court day by day to make sport in some small disagreeable suit: But you will below to the Academe go, and under the olives contend With your chaplet of reed, in a contest of speed with some excellent rival and friend: All fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content, and the leaf which the lime blossoms fling, When the plane whispers love to the elm in the grove in the beautiful season of Spring. If then you’ll obey and do what I say, And follow with me the more excellent way, Your chest shall be white, your skin shall be bright, Your arms shall be tight, your tongue shall be slight, And everything else shall be proper and right. But if you pursue what men nowadays do, You will have, to begin, a cold pallid skin, Arms small and chest weak, tongue practised to speak,
RIGHT LOGIC Special laws very long, and the symptoms all strong Which show that your life is licentious and wrong. And your mind he’ll prepare so that foul to be fair And fair to be foul you shall always declare; And you’ll find yourself soon, if you listen to him, With the filth of Antimachus filled to the brim!
CHORUS O glorious Sage! with loveliest Wisdom teeming! Sweet on thy words does ancient Virtue rest! Thrice happy they who watched thy Youth’s bright beaming! Thou of the vaunted genius, do thy best; This man has gained applause: His Wisdom stands confessed. And you with clever words and thoughts must needs your case adorn Else he will surely win the day, and you retreat with scorn,
WRONG LOGIC Aye, say you so? why I have been half-burst; I do so long To overthrow his arguments with arguments more strong. I am the Lesser Logic? True: these Schoolmen call me so, Simply because I was the first of all mankind to show How old established rules and laws might contradicted be: And this, as you may guess, is worth a thousand pounds to me, To take the feebler cause, and yet to win the disputation.
WRONG LOGIC And mark me now, how I’ll confute his boasted Education! You said that always from warm baths the stripling must abstain: Why must he? on what grounds do you of these warm baths complain?
RIGHT LOGIC Why, it’s the worst thing possible, it quite unstrings a man.
WRONG LOGIC Hold there: I’ve got you round the waist: escape me if you can. And first: of all the sons of Zeus which think you was the best? Which was the manliest? which endured more toils than all the rest?
RIGHT LOGIC Well, I suppose that Heracles was bravest and most bold.
WRONG LOGIC And are the baths of Heracles so wonderfully cold? Aha! you blame warm baths, I think. This, this is what they say: This is the stuff our precious youths are chattering all the day! This is what makes them haunt the baths, and shun the manlier Games!
WRONG LOGIC Well then, we’ll take the Forum next: I praise it, and he blames. But if it was so bad, do you think old Homer would have made Nestor and all his worthies ply a real forensic trade? Well: then he says a stripling’s tongue should always idle be: I say it should be used of course: so there we disagree,
WRONG LOGIC And next he says you must be chaste. A most preposterous plan! Come, tell me did you ever know one single blessed man Gain the least good by chastity? come, prove I’m wrong: make haste.
RIGHT LOGIC Yes, many, many! Peleus gained a sword by being chaste.
WRONG LOGIC A sword indeed! a wondrous meed the unlucky fool obtained. Hyperbolus the Lamp-maker hath many a talent gained By knavish tricks which I have taught: but not a sword, no, no!
RIGHT LOGIC Then Peleus did to his chaste life the bed of Thetis owe.
WRONG LOGIC And then she cut and ran away! for nothing so engages A woman’s heart as forward warmth, old shred of those dark Ages! For take this chastity, young man: sift it inside and out: Count all the pleasures, all the joys, it bids you live without: No kind of dames, no kind of games, no laughing, feasting, drinking,— Why, life itself is little worth without these joys, I’m thinking. Well, I must notice now the wants by Nature’s self implanted; You love, seduce, you can’t help that, you’re caught, convicted. Granted. You’re done for; you can’t say one word: while if you follow me
WRONG LOGIC Indulge your genius, laugh and quaff, hold nothing base to be. Why if you’re in adultery caught, your pleas will still be ample: You’ve done no wrong, you’ll say, and then bring Zeus as your example. He fell before the wondrous powers by Love and Beauty wielded: And how can you, the Mortal, stand, where He, the Immortal, yielded?
RIGHT LOGIC Aye, but suppose in spite of all, he must be wedged and sanded. Won’t he be probed, or else can you prevent it? now be candid.
WRONG LOGIC And what’s the damage if it should be so?
RIGHT LOGIC What greater damage can the young man know?
WRONG LOGIC What will you do, if this dispute I win?
RIGHT LOGIC I’ll be for ever silent.
WRONG LOGIC Good, begin. The Counsellor: from whence comes he?
RIGHT LOGIC From probed adulterers.
WRONG LOGIC I agree. The Tragic Poets: whence are they?
RIGHT LOGIC From probed adulterers.
WRONG LOGIC So I say. The Orators: what class of men?
RIGHT LOGIC All probed adulterers.
WRONG LOGIC Right again. You feel your error, I’ll engage, But look once more around the stage, Survey the audience, which they be, Probed or not Probed.
RIGHT LOGIC I see, I see.
WRONG LOGIC Well, give your verdict.
RIGHT LOGIC It must go For probed adulterers: him I know, And him, and him: the Probed are most.
WRONG LOGIC How stand we then?
RIGHT LOGIC I own, I’ve lost. O Cinaeds, Cinaeds, take my robe! Your words have won, to you I run To live and die with glorious Probe!
SOCRATES Well, what do you want? to take away your son At once, or shall I teach him how to speak?
STREPSIADES Teach him, and flog him, and be sure you well Sharpen his mother wit, grind the one edge Fit for my little law-suits, and the other, Why, make that serve for more important matters.
SOCRATES Oh, never fear! He’ll make a splendid sophist.
STREPSIADES Well, well, I hope he’ll be a poor pale rascal.
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