Lines 1098–1327

JUST LOGIC.
It must go
For probed adulterers: him I know,
And him, and him: the Probed are most.

UNJUST LOGIC.
How stand we then?

JUST 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.

CHORUS.
Go: but in us the thought is strong,
you will repent of this ere long.
Now we wish to tell the Judges
all the blessings they shall gain
If, as Justice plainly warrants,
we the worthy prize obtain.
First, whenever in the Season
ye would fain your fields renew,
All the world shall wait expectant
till we’ve poured our rain on you;
Then of all your crops and vineyards
we will take the utmost care
So that neither drought oppress them,
nor the heavy rain impair.
But if anyone amongst you
dare to treat our claims with scorn,
Mortal he, the Clouds immortal,
better had he ne’er been born!
He from his estates shall gather
neither corn, nor oil, nor wine,
For whenever blossoms sparkle
on the olive or the vine
They shall all at once be blighted:
we will ply our slings so true.
And if ever we behold him
building up his mansions new,
With our tight and nipping hailstones
we will all his tiles destroy.
But if he, his friends or kinsfolk,
would a marriage-feast enjoy,
All night long we’ll pour in torrents:
so perchance he’ll rather pray
To endure the drought of Egypt,
than decide amiss to-day!

STREPSIADES.
The fifth, the fourth, the third, and then the second,
And then that day which more than all the rest
I loathe and shrink from and abominate,
Then comes at once that hateful Old-and-New day.
And every single blessed dun has sworn
He’ll stake his gage, and ruin and destroy me.
And when I make a modest small request,
“O my good friend, part don’t exact at present,
And part defer, and part remit,” they swear
So they shall never touch it, and abuse me
As a rank swindler, threatening me with actions,
Now let them bring their actions! Who’s afraid?
Not I: if these have taught my son to speak.
But here’s the door: I’ll knock and soon find out.
Boy! Ho there, boy!

SOCRATES.
I clasp Strepsiades.

STREPSIADES.
And I clasp you: but take this meal-bag first,
’Tis meet and right to glorify one’s Tutors.
But tell me, tell me, has my son yet learnt
That Second Logic which he saw just now?

SOCRATES.
He hath.

STREPSIADES.
Hurrah! great Sovereign Knavery!

SOCRATES.
You may escape whatever suit you please.

STREPSIADES.
What, if I borrowed before witnesses?

SOCRATES.
Before a thousand, and the more the merrier,

STREPSIADES.
“Then shall my song be loud and deep.”
Weep, obol-weighers, weep, weep, weep,
Ye, and your principals, and compound interests,
For ye shall never pester me again.
Such a son have I bred,
(He is within this door),
Born to inspire my foemen with dread,
Born his old father’s house to restore
Keen and polished of tongue is he,
He my Champion and Guard shall be,
He will set his old father free,
Run you, and call him forth to me.
“O my child! O my sweet! come out, I entreat;
’Tis the voice of your sire.

SOCRATES.
Here’s the man you require.

STREPSIADES.
Joy, joy of my heart!

SOCRATES.
Take your son and depart.

STREPSIADES.
O come, O come, my son, my son,
O dear! O dear!
O joy, to see your beautiful complexion!
Aye now you have an aspect Negative
And Disputative, and our native query
Shines forth there “What d’ye say?” You’ve the true face
Which rogues put on, of injured innocence.
You have the regular Attic look about you.
So now, you save me, for ’twas you undid me.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
What is it ails you?

STREPSIADES.
Why the Old-and-New day.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
And is there such a day as Old-and-New?

STREPSIADES.
Yes: that’s the day they mean to stake their gages.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
They’ll lose them if they stake them. What! do you think
That one day can be two days, both together?

STREPSIADES.
Why, can’t it be so?

PHEIDIPPIDES.
Surely not; or else
A woman might at once be old and young,

STREPSIADES.
Still, the law says so.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
True: but I believe
They don’t quite understand it.

STREPSIADES.
You explain it.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
Old Solon had a democratic turn.

STREPSIADES.
Well, but that’s nothing to the Old-and-New.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
Hence then he fixed that summonses be issued
For these two days, the old one and the new one,
So that the gage be staked on the New-month.

STREPSIADES.
What made him add “the old” then?

PHEIDIPPIDES.
I will tell you.
He wished the litigants to meet on that day
And compromise their quarrels: if they could not,
Then let them fight it out on the New-month.

STREPSIADES.
Why then do Magistrates receive the stakes
On the Old-and-New instead of the New-month?

PHEIDIPPIDES.
Well, I believe they act like the Foretasters.
They wish to bag the gage as soon as possible,
And thus they gain a whole day’s foretaste of it.

STREPSIADES.
Aha! poor dupes, why sit ye mooning there,
Game for us Artful Dodgers, you dull stones,
You ciphers, lambkins, butts piled up together!
Oh! my success inspires me, and I’ll sing
Glad eulogies on me and thee, my son.
“Man, most blessed, most divine,
What a wondrous wit is thine,
What a son to grace thy line,”
Friends and neighbours day by day
Thus will say,
When with envious eyes my suits they see you win:
But first I’ll feast you, so come in, my son, come in.

PASIAS.
What! must a man lose his own property!
No: never, never. Better have refused
With a bold face, than be so plagued as this.
See! to get paid my own just debts, I’m forced
To drag you to bear witness, and what’s worse
I needs must quarrel with my townsman here.
Well, I won’t shame my country, while I live,
I’ll go to law, I’ll summon him.

STREPSIADES.
Hallo!

PASIAS.
To the next Old-and-New.

STREPSIADES.
Bear witness, all!
He named two days. You’ll summon me; what for?

PASIAS.
The fifty pounds I lent you when you bought
That iron-grey.

STREPSIADES.
Just listen to the fellow!
The whole world knows that I detest all horses.

PASIAS.
I swear you swore by all the Gods to pay me,

STREPSIADES.
Well, now I swear I won’t: Pheidippides
Has learnt since then the unanswerable Logic,

PASIAS.
And will you therefore shirk my just demand?

STREPSIADES.
Of course I will: else why should he have learnt it?

PASIAS.
And will you dare forswear it by the Gods?

STREPSIADES.
The Gods indeed! What Gods?

PASIAS.
Poseidon, Hermes, Zeus.

STREPSIADES.
By Zeus I would,
Though I gave twopence halfpenny for the privilege.

PASIAS.
O then confound you for a shameless rogue!

STREPSIADES.
Hallo! this butt should be rubbed down with salt.

PASIAS.
Zounds! you deride me!

STREPSIADES.
Why ’twill hold four gallons,

PASIAS.
You ’scape me not, by Mighty Zeus, and all
The Gods!

STREPSIADES.
I wonderfully like the Gods;
An oath by Zeus is sport to knowing ones,

PASIAS.
Sooner or later you’ll repent of this,
Come do you mean to pay your debts or don’t you?
Tell me, and I’ll be off.

STREPSIADES.
Now do have patience;
I’ll give you a clear answer in one moment,

PASIAS.
What do you think he’ll do?

WITNESS.
I think he’ll pay you.

STREPSIADES.
Where is that horrid dun? O here: now tell me
What you call this.

PASIAS.
What I call that? a trough.

STREPSIADES.
Heavens! what a fool: and do you want your money?
I’d never pay one penny to a fellow
Who calls my troughess, trough. So there’s your answer.

PASIAS.
Then you won’t pay me?

STREPSIADES.
No, not if I know it,
Come put your best foot forward, and be off:
March off, I say, this instant!

PASIAS.
May I die
If I don’t go at once and stake my gage!

STREPSIADES.
No don’t: the fifty pounds are loss enough:
And really on my word I would not wish you
To lose this too just for one silly blunder.

AMYNIAS.
Ah me! Oh! Oh! Oh!

STREPSIADES.
Hallo! who’s that making that horrible noise?
Not one of Carcinus’s snivelling Gods?

AMYNIAS.
Who cares to know what I am? what imports it?
An ill-starred man.

STREPSIADES.
Then keep it to yourself.

AMYNIAS.
“O heavy fate!” “O Fortune, thou hast broken
My chariot wheels!” “Thou hast undone me, Pallas!”

STREPSIADES.
How! has Tlepolemus been at you, man?

AMYNIAS.
Jeer me not, friend, but tell your worthy son
To pay me back the money which I lent him:
I’m in a bad way and the times are pressing.

STREPSIADES.
What money do you mean?

AMYNIAS.
Why what he borrowed.

STREPSIADES.
You are in a bad way, I really think.

AMYNIAS.
Driving my four-wheel out I fell, by Zeus.

STREPSIADES.
You rave as if you’d fall’n times out-of-mind.

AMYNIAS.
I rave? how so? I only claim my own.

STREPSIADES.
You can’t be quite right, surely.

AMYNIAS.
Why, what mean you?

STREPSIADES.
I shrewdly guess your brain’s received a shake.

AMYNIAS.
I shrewdly guess that you’ll receive a summons
If you don’t pay my money.

STREPSIADES.
Well then, tell me,
Which theory do you side with, that the rain
Falls fresh each time, or that the Sun draws back
The same old rain, and sends it down again?

AMYNIAS.
I’m very sure I neither know nor care.

STREPSIADES.
Not care! good heavens! And do you claim your money,
So unenlightened in the Laws of Nature?

AMYNIAS.
If you’re hard up then, pay me back the Interest
At least.

STREPSIADES.
Int-er-est? what kind of a beast is that?

AMYNIAS.
What else than day by day and month by month
Larger and larger still the silver grows
As time sweeps by?

STREPSIADES.
Finely and nobly said.
What then! think you the Sea is larger now
Than ’twas last year?

AMYNIAS.
No surely, ’tis no larger:
It is not right it should be.

STREPSIADES.
And do you then,
Insatiable grasper! when the Sea,
Receiving all these Rivers, grows no larger,
Do you desire your silver to grow larger?
Come now, you prosecute your journey off!
Here, fetch the whip.

AMYNIAS.
Bear witness, I appeal.

STREPSIADES.
Be off! what, won’t you? Gee up, sigma-brand!

AMYNIAS.
I say! a clear assault!

STREPSIADES.
You won’t be off?
I’ll stimulate you; Zeus! I’ll goad your haunches.
Aha! you run: I thought I’d stir you up
You and your phaetons, and wheels, and all!

CHORUS.
What a thing it is to long for matters which are wrong!
For you see how this old man
Is seeking, if he can
His creditors trepan:
And I confidently say
That he will this very day
Such a blow
Amid his prosperous cheats receive,
that he will deeply deeply grieve.
For I think that he has won what he wanted for his son,
And the lad has learned the way
All justice to gainsay,
Be it what or where it may:
That he’ll trump up any tale,
Right or wrong, and so prevail.
This I know.
Yea! and perchance the time will come
when he shall wish his son were dumb.

STREPSIADES.
Oh! Oh!
Help! Murder! Help! O neighbours, kinsfolk, townsmen,
Help, one and all, against this base assault,
Ah! Ah! my cheek! my head! O luckless me!
Wretch! do you strike your father?

PHEIDIPPIDES.
Yes, Papa.

STREPSIADES.
See! See! he owns he struck me.

PHEIDIPPIDES.
To be sure.

STREPSIADES.
Scoundrel! and parricide! and house-breaker!