When the wisdom of each
Depends on a toss of the die.
We see a mighty contest lie
Between these friends of mine:
Ah, which will shine?
LEADER: [addressing MR. GOOD REASON]
Many were the gifts of civilization
With which you graced an older generation.
Now spell out for us from the center of your soul
The nature of your role.
MR. GOOD REASON:
Fine! Let me describe to you
how a boy was educated in the days of my prime
when I was promulgating what was right
and common decency was the norm.
Rule number one was:
not a murmur, not a syllable out of a boy;
then that the boys of each clan
should walk through the streets together
and in good order on their way
to the music master.
They walked without coats even if the snow
was coming down as thick as bran.
He’d make them get a song by heart:
a song like “Pallas, you city-sacker,”
or “I heard a cry from afar,” while making sure
they kept their thighs apart
from touching one another,
and that their voices followed the old uses
their fathers had handed down.
If any boy began to fool around
or jazz up a song in the rubbishy way singers do now
in fake Phrynisy,251 he’d get a sound thrashing
for trying to blot out the Muses.
At the trainer’s252
a boy had to sit with his legs crossed
so’s not to torment any viewer with lust,
and when he stood up he had to smooth down the sand
so’s to erase the imprint of his young virility
from the gaze of any gloaters.
In those days
no boy would anoint himself with oil below the navel,
and his genitals were a marvel
in their downy, dewy bloom—like ripe apricots.
No boy would affect a trickling simper
to make a lover get the hots
or mince around with come-hithering glances.
At dinner, the chance was
he couldn’t even help himself to a radish
or grab a bunch of dill
or a head of parsley until his elders had it,
and certainly not have his fill of any of the serious stuff.
At meals he couldn’t giggle
or sit with his legs crossed, and if—
MR. BAD REASON: How archaic! How old-fashioned and out-of-date!
Like some antediluvian dithyrambic festival of Zeus253
with its bovine massacres and grasshopper brooches.254
MR. GOOD REASON: Say what you like. It was along these lines
that the men of Marathon§ were bred,
whereas you, you teach our young men
to muffle up in greatcoats.
It sends me into a fury when I see one of them
dance Pallas Athena’s martial dance steps
screening his butt with a shield,255
quite ignoring Athena.
And so, my boy, feel compelled
to vote for me, Good Reason, and you’ll learn
to despise the market square
and to keep away from the public baths,
and to feel ashamed at what is shameful,
and to catch fire if someone laughs
at you, and to stand when older people enter,
and to offer them your chair.
And you won’t give your parents lip
or do anything to disgrace the face of Modesty—
like barging into the home of a dancing girl and caddishly
gawking while she chucks a little love apple at you
and you let your reputation slip.
And you’re not to answer back your father
or call him an old fogy, for remember
the years he devoted to bringing you up.
MR. BAD REASON: By Bacchus, my lad, if you do any of that
you’ll end up like Hippocrates’ sons256
and be called an oafish brat.
MR. GOOD REASON: On the contrary, you’ll be a sleek and fresh
and spend your time in healthy exercise,
not jabbering in the Plaza about some current aberration
or being hauled into court because of some abstruse
pifflingly-boring-nitpickingly-daft-accusation.257
Instead you’ll be in the precincts of the Academy,258
crowned with white flowers
under the sacramental olive trees;
and you’ll run races with a nice straightforward boy
your own age, and smell of honeysuckle and be
gloriously free,
with the pale catkins of the poplars gently falling by
and you celebrating the joy
of the spring that overwhelms . . .
and the maples murmuring to the elms.
[He breaks into song and dance.]‡
If you do this, let me tell you
(And never let it slip your mind)
You’ll always win
A glistening chest and glowing skin,
Broad shoulders, a small tongue,
A mighty bottom and a tiny prong.§
If on the other hand you go in
For the present
Way of behaving, then you’ll gain
A puny chest, a doughy skin,
Narrow shoulders, a lolloping tongue,
A tiny bottom and a long harangue.
And he’ll have you believing wrong is right,
That foul is fair and fair is quite
Foul; and to be outrageous
He’ll make Antimachus’259 buggery contagious.
CHORUS: Oh what a tower
Of wisdom you teach, and the flower
That blossoms from your words is sweet.
Oh to have lived in the time of Cronus,
What a bonus!
[turning to MR. BAD REASON]
You’ll need all the specious art you’ve got
To rebut him and defend your tommyrot.
Your antagonist
Knows every twist.
LEADER: It looks as though you’ll have to be darn clever
To rebut him and not come a thumping cropper.
MR. BAD REASON:
As a matter of fact I’ve got
a bellyache from waiting to thrash your trash.
Not for nothing did I get
the name Bad Reason in the higher echelons of eggheadhood.
I was the first to make it understood
that reason could undermine the just premises of the good.
[turning to PHIDIPPIDES]
It’s worth millions to know the trick
of making wrong reason right and win.
Just watch me as I wreck
the education he believes in.
Number one: he won’t let you have a hot bath.
What on earth is wrong with a hot bath?
MR. GOOD REASON: They’re the worst thing for a man and turn him
into a sissy.
MR. BAD REASON: That’s a laugh!
I’ve got you in a clinch.
Of Zeus’s sons, pray tell me, which one
was the most macho and got away with the most amazing
tasks?
MR. GOOD REASON: I’d say Heracles. He couldn’t be outclassed.
MR. BAD REASON: And did you ever hear
of Heracles ever having a cold bath,260
yet no man manlier?
MR. GOOD REASON: There you go—like a teenager!
Day after day that’s the sort of shitty thing
they chatter about,
emptying the training schools and crowding the public baths.
MR. BAD REASON:
You blame them for loafing round the Plaza,
I commend them.
If this were something wrong
Homer couldn’t have referred to Nestor
and the other worthies as “Plaza men.”261
And when it comes to the tongue,
my adversary thinks that it’s something young
men shouldn’t exercise.
I say they certainly should.
He says, too, they ought to be well behaved.
What a couple of fallacies!
Have you ever seen anyone get a scrap of good
from being well behaved? Tell me.
MR. GOOD REASON: Heaps of people, Peleus for one.
That’s how he got his dagger.262
MR. BAD REASON: Huh, a dagger!
What a sophisticated present for the poor chump!
Not like Hyperbolus,263 who sells lamps
and has made a fortune being a tramp.
He never gets a dagger—no, sir!
MR. GOOD REASON: But Peleus got to marry Thetis
because of his good behavior.
MR. BAD REASON: And because of that got to lose her.
He was too much of a gentleman and missed all the fun
that a night under the sheets is.
A woman enjoys being played with, and all you are
is a boring old Cronus.
[addressing PHIDIPPIDES]
Make a list, my lad. Consider the onus
on good behavior and all the pleasures that you lose with it:
boys, women, cards, good food and drink, hilarity.
Cut these out, and what’s the point of living?
Now turn to what nature says is the real necessity:
falling in love, a few mistakes, a bout of
adultery, at which if you’re caught and can’t talk your way out of,
you’ll need me as guide.
Then you can plunge headlong into everything
and let your nature really let fling
to gambol and have fun with no thought of shame.
Should you ever get caught prick-handed, simply blame
Zeus and say: “Look at him—the randy old thing!
It’s not at all odd;
he didn’t show up too well with women.
How can you expect a mortal to be better than a god?”
MR. GOOD REASON: But what if, misled by you,
he gets himself raped with a radish
and singed on the pate with hot ash?264
How can he defend himself from being buggered?
MR. BAD REASON: What’s wrong with being buggered?
MR. GOOD REASON: You mean, what’s right with it?
MR. BAD REASON: What’ll you say if on this I have you squelched?
MR. GOOD REASON: I’ll shut up. What else?
MR. BAD REASON: Good! Now tell me, where do our lawyers stem from?
MR. GOOD REASON: From buggerhood.
MR. BAD REASON: Quite right! And our tragedians?
MR. GOOD REASON: From buggerhood.
MR. BAD REASON: Good! And politicians?
MR. GOOD REASON: Buggerhood.
MR. BAD REASON: So admit you’re stumped. . . . Look at this bunch
here.
Guess what most of them are.
MR. GOOD REASON: I’m looking.
MR. BAD REASON: And what do you espy?
MR. GOOD REASON: [gazing intently]
Heavens above, they’re all buggers!
Most of them are:
This one here, and that one there,
And this one with the lanky hair.
MR. BAD REASON: So what do you say now?
MR. GOOD REASON: I’m buggered. I give up. Don my mantle, for the gods’ sakes. I Am through. I’m going over to you.
[MR. GOOD REASON hurries away.]
MR. BAD REASON: [to STREPSIADES] What next? Do you want me to take this boy of yours home or take him in hand and teach him how to shoot the breeze?
STREPSIADES: Take him and teach him
and whip him into shape until he’s
honed on one side of his dial for the small suits
and on the other for the bigger stuff.
MR. BAD REASON: Not to worry! You’ll have him back a sophist not
by half.
PHIDIPPIDES: No doubt with a miserable, pasty, fanatical face!
CHORUS: Off with you, buzz!
[As PHIDIPPIDES is led into the Thinkpot, the CHORUS turns to STREPSIADES.]
I’m sorry for you. You’ll come to regret this.
[STREPSIADES goes into his house.]
LEADER: [addressing spectators] We want to tell you what the judges get for helping Us the Chorus—which is what they’re meant to do. For a start we’ll send them rains in times of plowing On their fields before the rest, who have to queue. Secondly, we’ll keep a watch on crops and vines for drought or flooding. So understand the kind of fines that we exact On any mortal who detracts from us as goddesses: he’ll get no wine; He’ll get nothing from his whole estate. When his olives and his grapes are almost ready We’ll blast them to bits, and if we see him making bricks, We’ll shower on them and rain a steady storm of hailstones On his roof tiles turning them to dust. And if a wedding (family, friends, his own) is coming up, We’ll pour down rain all through the night until he wished he lived in Egypt, Realizing his mistake and what he missed.
STREPSIADES: [entering] The fifth, fourth, third, second,
finally day one, the worst day of all, I reckon:
It scares the crap out of me and turns me into jelly,
because it’s the month’s last day and vigil of the first,
when my creditors, to a man, come down on me
ready to nail me in court and wipe me out.
I plead for clemency and reason:
“Have a heart—not this one,
not now, let it go. . . . Oh, and that one, forget it.”
Their retort is: “We’ll not get paid like that,”
and they shout: “Swindler, we’ll see you in court.”
Go ahead, let them sue me. It’s not at all bad
once Phidippides has mastered the gift of the gab.
I’ll knock at the Thinkpot and find out.
Hey there, boy! Boy, open up!
[SOCRATES comes out.]
SOCRATES: So it’s you, Strepsiades. STREPSIADES: Vice versa, Socrates.
[He fumbles and hands SOCRATES a tiny coin.]
Accept this, please.
It’s only right to remunerate a teacher.
Now, about my son, tell me:
Has he learned that Argument you were airing lately?
SOCRATES: He has indeed.
STREPSIADES: Bravo, you wonderful old fraud!
SOCRATES: Now you can wriggle out of any case you like.
STREPSIADES: Even if witnesses saw me getting paid?
SOCRATES: Even if a thousand did. The more the merrier.
STREPSIADES: [skipping and singing]
Allow me to bellow my head off.
You usurers have come to grief.
With your capital sums
And your interest-on-interest runs
You can molest me no longer:
Not with a boy like mine, I think not,
(For he’s
A homebred son of this house),
With his shining sword of a tongue:
My bulwark, savior, enemy baiter,
His father’s salvation, this house’s,
From falling.
Run along, someone, and summon him here:
My child, my boy, come out of the Thinkpot,
Your father is calling.
[SOCRATES goes into the Thinkpot and leads out PHIDIPPIDES.]
SOCRATES: Here’s your man.
STREPSIADES: Dear beloved boy!
SOCRATES: Take him and go.
[SOCRATES reenters the Thinkpot.]
STREPSIADES: Gosh! Golly! My son,
what a primary joy it is to see your face!
And what a primary revelation, too, to gaze
on that combative, rebarbative, and contradictory
finesse upon your features, that
“What d’you mean by that?” dismissal, that
look of innocence when guilty and caught red-handed;
how well I know that look!—oh yes,
you’ve got Athenian airs down to a T. . . .
Well then, now’s the time for you to save me,
you who wrecked me.
PHIDIPPIDES: Save you from what?
STREPSIADES: The Old Day and the New.
PHIDIPPIDES: You mean the Old Day is the New?
STREPSIADES: I mean the bloody day they file proceedings.
PHIDIPPIDES: They’ll be disappointed. Day Number One
can’t also be Day Number Two.
STREPSIADES: Can’t it?
PHIDIPPIDES: No more than an old crone can be a girl.
STREPSIADES: But that’s the rule.
PHIDIPPIDES: Probably because they don’t know the law.
STREPSIADES: In what way?
PHIDIPPIDES: Well, think back to Solon the holy,265 who laid
down
the days for filing suits on the Old Day and the New,
that is, on the day of the new moon.
STREPSIADES: But why did he even bother with the Old Day?
PHIDIPPIDES:
Because, dear Pop,
it gave defendants the chance
of settling out of court the day before.
Otherwise, they had to face the hearings
on the morrow of the new moon.
STREPSIADES: Morrow of the new moon? Why that, instead
of the Old Day and the New?
PHIDIPPIDES: Because, like the food testers before a spread,
tasting a day early gave them a better chance
to line their pockets.
STREPSIADES: Bravo, son! [He turns to the audience.]
You morons, you good for nothings,
how can you sit there like that—like
dumb stones, ciphers, throng
of sheep, and amphoras with nothing in them,
when my son and I, we men of brains,
are minting lashings
of money? I
cannot refrain