Lines 403–574

STREPSIADES.
Can’t say that they do: your words appear true.
Whence comes then the thunderbolt, pray?

SOCRATES.
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.

STREPSIADES.
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!

CHORUS.
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,
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,
So away with all care from henceforth, and prepare
to be placed in our votaries’ hands.

STREPSIADES.
This then will I do, confiding in you,
for Necessity presses me sore,
And so sad is my life, ’twixt my cobs and my wife,
that I cannot put up with it more.
So now, at your word, I give and afford
My body to these, to treat as they please,
To have and to hold, in squalor, in cold,
In hunger and thirst, yea by Zeus, at the worst,
To be flayed out of shape from my heels to my nape
So along with my hide from my duns I escape,
And to men may appear without conscience or fear,
Bold, hasty, and wise, a concocter of lies,
A rattler to speak, a dodger, a sneak,
A regular claw of the tables of law,
A shuffler complete, well worn in deceit,
A supple, unprincipled, troublesome cheat;
A hang-dog accurst, a bore with the worst,
In the tricks of the jury-courts thoroughly versed.
If all that I meet this praise shall repeat,
Work away as you choose, I will nothing refuse,
Without any reserve, from my head to my shoes.
You shan’t see me wince though my gutlets you mince,
And these entrails of mine for a sausage combine,
Served up for the gentlemen students to dine.

CHORUS.
Here’s a spirit bold and high
Ready-armed for any strife.
[To Strepsiades]
If you learn what I can teach
Of the mysteries of speech,
Your glory soon shall reach
To the summit of the sky.

STREPSIADES.
And what am I to gain?

CHORUS.
With the Clouds you will obtain
The most happy, the most enviable life.

STREPSIADES.
Is it possible for me
Such felicity to see?

CHORUS.
Yes, and men shall come and wait
In their thousands at your gate,
Desiring consultations and advice
On an action or a pleading
From the man of light and leading,
And you’ll pocket many talents in a trice.
[To Socrates]
Here, take the old man, and do all that you can,
your new-fashioned thoughts to instil,
And stir up his mind with your notions refined,
and test him with judgement and skill.

SOCRATES.
Come now, you tell me something of your habits:
For if I don’t know them, I can’t determine
What engines I must bring to bear upon you.

STREPSIADES.
Eh! what? Not going to storm me, by the Gods?

SOCRATES.
No, no: I want to ask you a few questions.
First: is your memory good?

STREPSIADES.
Two ways, by Zeus:
If I’m owed anything, I’m mindful, very:
But if I owe, (Oh, dear!) forgetful, very.

SOCRATES.
Well then: have you the gift of speaking in you?

STREPSIADES.
The gift of speaking, no: of cheating, yes.

SOCRATES.
No? how then can you learn?

STREPSIADES.
Oh, well enough.

SOCRATES.
Then when I throw you out some clever notion.
About the laws of nature, you must catch it.

STREPSIADES.
What! must I snap up sapience, in dog-fashion?

SOCRATES.
Oh! why the man’s an ignorant old savage:
I fear, my friend, that you’ll require the whip.
Come, if one strikes you, what do you do?

STREPSIADES.
I’m struck:
Then in a little while I call my witness:
Then in another little while I summon him.

SOCRATES.
Put off your cloak.

STREPSIADES.
Why, what have I done wrong?

SOCRATES.
O, nothing, nothing: all go in here naked.

STREPSIADES.
Well, but I have not come with a search-warrant.

SOCRATES.
Fool! throw it off.

STREPSIADES.
Well, tell me this one thing;
If I’m extremely careful and attentive,
Which of your students shall I most resemble?

SOCRATES.
Why, Chaerephon. You’ll be his very image.

STREPSIADES.
What! I shall be half-dead! O luckless me!

SOCRATES.
Don’t chatter there, but come and follow me;
Make haste now, quicker, here.

STREPSIADES.
Oh, but do first
Give me a honied cake: Zeus! how I tremble,
To go down there, as if to see Trophonius.

SOCRATES.
Go on! why keep you pottering round the door?

CHORUS.
Yes! go, and farewell; as your courage is great,
So bright be your fate.
May all good fortune his steps pursue,
Who now, in his life’s dim twilight haze,
Is game such venturesome things to do,
To steep his mind in discoveries new,
To walk, a novice, in wisdom’s ways.

O Spectators, I will utter
honest truths with accents free,
Yea! by mighty Dionysus,
Him who bred and nurtured me.
So may I be deemed a poet,
and this day obtain the prize,
As till that unhappy blunder
I had always held you wise,
And of all my plays esteeming
this the wisest and the best,
Served it up for your enjoyment,
which had, more than all the rest,
Cost me thought, and time, and labour:
then most scandalously treated,
I retired in mighty dudgeon,
by unworthy foes defeated.
This is why I blame your critics,
for whose sake I framed the play:
Yet the clever ones amongst you
even now I won’t betray.
No! for ever since from judges
unto whom ’tis joy to speak,
Brothers Profligate and Modest
gained the praise we fondly seek,
When, for I was yet a Virgin,
and it was not right to bear,
I exposed it, and Another
did the foundling nurse with care,
But ’twas ye who nobly nurtured,
ye who brought it up with skill;—
From that hour I proudly cherish
pledges of your sure good will.
Now then comes its sister hither,
like Electra in the Play,
Comes in earnest expectation
kindred minds to meet to-day;
She will recognize full surely,
if she find, her brother’s tress.
And observe how pure her morals:
who, to notice her first dress,
Enters not with filthy symbols
on her modest garments hung,
Jeering bald-heads, dancing ballets,
for the laughter of the young.
In this play no wretched greybeard
with a staff his fellow pokes,
So obscuring from the audience
all the poorness of his jokes.
No one rushes in with torches,
no one groans, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
Trusting in its genuine merits
comes this play before you here.
Yet, though such a hero-poet,
I, the bald-head, do not grow
Curling ringlets: neither do I
twice or thrice my pieces show,
Always fresh ideas sparkle,
always novel jests delight,
Nothing like each other, save that
all are most exceeding bright.
I am he who floored the giant,
Cleon, in his hour of pride,
Yet when down I scorned to strike him,
and I left him when he died!
But the others, when a handle
once Hyperbolus did lend,
Trample down the wretched caitiff,
and his mother, without end.
In his Maricas the Drunkard,
Eupolis the charge began,
Shamefully my “Knights” distorting,
as he is a shameful man,
Tacking on the tipsy beldame,
just the ballet-dance to keep,
Phrynichus’s prime invention,
eat by monsters of the deep.
Then Hermippus on the caitiff
opened all his little skill,
And the rest upon the caitiff
are their wit exhausting still;
And my simile to pilfer
“of the Eels” they all combine.
Whoso laughs at their productions,
let him not delight in mine.
But for you who praise my genius,
you who think my writings clever,
Ye shall gain a name for wisdom,
yea! for ever and for ever

O mighty God, O heavenly King,
First unto Thee my prayer I bring,
O come, Lord Zeus, to my choral song;—
And Thou, dread Power, whose resistless hand
Heaves up the sea and the trembling land,
Lord of the trident, stern and strong;—
And Thou who sustainest the life of us all
Come, Ether, our parent, O come to my call;—
And Thou who floodest the world with light,
Guiding thy steeds through the glittering sky,
To men below and to Gods on high
A Potentate heavenly-bright!