from bursting into song
to celebrate this son of mine and me.
“Lucky Strepsiades,
Born so wise
With such a clever son!”
That’s what my friends will say
And my neighbors, too,
When you have won
My suits in court
With your brilliant talk.
But let’s go home, and in a
Festive mood for dinner.
[STREPSIADES and PHIDIPPIDES go into the house as FIRST CREDITOR arrives with WITNESS.]
FIRST CREDITOR: [to WITNESS]
A man surely isn’t expected to jettison his livelihood?
It would have been better and aboveboard
never to have made this deal
than to be putting up with all this rigmarole.
Here am I hauling you along as witness
all because of a financial favor—and this as well:
making an enemy of a man who is my neighbor.
All the same, I can’t refuse
and let my country down, so here and now
I arraign Strepsiades. . . .
STREPSIADES: [stepping out of the house] Who’s that?
FIRST CREDITOR: . . . to appear in court on the Old Day and the New.
STREPSIADES: [to BYSTANDERS] Notice, all of you,
he said two days. . . . So what’s it all about?
FIRST CREDITOR: A debt:
the twelve minas you borrowed to buy
that dapple gray roan.
STREPSIADES: Roan? Did you hear that? You all know how I hate anything horsey.
FIRST CREDITOR: Holy Zeus, you swore by heaven to repay me!
STREPSIADES: Holy Zeus, it can’t be done!
At that time my Phidippides hadn’t yet learned
the Unanswerable Argument.
FIRST CREDITOR: And that’s the reason you repudiate the debt?
STREPSIADES: How else can I recover the fees for his tuition?
FIRST CREDITOR: And you’re ready to swear by the gods
that you owe me naught?
STREPSIADES: Which gods?
FIRST CREDITOR: Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon.
STREPSIADES: Zeus! . . . I’d lay on another three obols
to swear by Zeus.
FIRST CREDITOR: Your flippancy, I hope in time,
will be something you collide on.
STREPSIADES: [patting FIRST CREDITOR’s stomach] Steeped in brine this could make a lovely wineskin.
FIRST CREDITOR: Is that a joke?
STREPSIADES: It could hold three gallons.
FIRST CREDITOR: By almighty Zeus and all the gods,
I’ll not put up with this bloke.
STREPSIADES: “By all the gods”—ha ha—that’s neat! And swearing by Zeus—so sophisticatedly funny!
FIRST CREDITOR: You’ll pay for this one day, take good note,
and I’m not moving till you tell me I’m getting back
my money.
STREPSIADES: [going into the house] Just a moment and I
shall be back with my reply.
FIRST CREDITOR: [to WITNESS] What d’you think he’ll do? Cough up?
[STREPSIADES reappears carrying a pastry bowl.]
STREPSIADES: You there, who are putting the squeeze on me,
what’s this—a cup?
FIRST CREDITOR: That? A pastry bowl.
STREPSIADES: And you expect me to cough up after an answer like
that?
I wouldn’t give one measly obol
to someone who calls a basin a pastry bowl.
FIRST CREDITOR: So you’re not paying?
STREPSIADES: Not as far as I can gather. . . . Now off with you,
remove yourself, and pronto, from my front door.
FIRST CREDITOR: I’m going, but of this be sure:
I’m putting down a deposit for a suit
if it’s the last thing I do.
STREPSIADES: Throwing money after the twelve minas to boot? Far be it from me to wish that on you
just because you were silly enough to call
a basin a pastry bowl.
[Exit FIRST CREDITOR and WITNESS as SECOND CREDITOR appears.]
SECOND CREDITOR: My, oh my!
STREPSIADES: Do I hear groans? One of Carcinus’266 myrmidons perhaps.
SECOND CREDITOR: Who am I? You want to know? An unhappy sap.
STREPSIADES: Ssh! Keep it to yourself.
SECOND CREDITOR: O cruel goddess! Oh dire mishap
that smashed my chariot! O Pallas, thou hast undone me.267
STREPSIADES: What has Thempolamus268 ever done to you?
SECOND CREDITOR: Don’t taunt me, my good sir.
Just tell your son to pay
me my money back.
STREPSIADES: Money? What money?
SECOND CREDITOR: The money he borrowed.
STREPSIADES: You really are in a bad way.
SECOND CREDITOR: I should think so. I fell off my trap.
STREPSIADES: The way you’re blabbering,
I’d say you fell on your noggin.
SECOND CREDITOR: Me, blabbering,
when all I want is my money back?
STREPSIADES: Your money back? What about your reason?
SECOND CREDITOR: What d’you mean?
STREPSIADES: I’m inclined to think your brain’s gone.
SECOND CREDITOR: And I’m inclined to think
you’re getting a writ served on you if you don’t pay up.
STREPSIADES: And are you inclined to think
that Zeus rains freshwater
every time it rains or does the sun suck up
the water that’s already there?
SECOND CREDITOR: I don’t know and I don’t care.
STREPSIADES: Then how can you possibly ask for money
when you’re so meteorologically illiterate?
SECOND CREDITOR: Look, if you’re strapped for cash
just let me have interest on the loan.
STREPSIADES: Interest? What kind of animal is that?
SECOND CREDITOR: Nothing less than the tendency of money
to multiply itself day by day
and month by month, on and on.
STREPSIADES: Very true, but do you think the sea
is fuller now than it used to be?
SECOND CREDITOR: Of course not, it’s the same.
To be fuller would be against nature.
STREPSIADES: Really, you poor nit! So if the sea never gets fuller even if rivers pour into it, how can you possibly expect your money to get fuller? So write yourself right off my estate. Boy, bring me a stake.
SECOND CREDITOR: [to BYSTANDERS] You’re witnesses to this!
STREPSIADES: Gee up, you branded nag;
What’s holding you? Get trotting.
SECOND CREDITOR: The nerve! Can you beat it?
STREPSIADES: Move, or I’ll ram this stake
right up your beastly arse.
[SECOND CREDITOR flees.]
Galloping away? Of course!
I knew that would shift you—
you with your wheels and teams of horse.
[STREPSIADES enters his house.]
STROPHE
CHORUS: What an obsession a lust for shady business is!
Consider this old hick,
Eaten up with this thought of his
Not to repay the money he owes;
And today there’ll be no way that he will lack
Getting himself embroiled in one of those
Fiddles. And that will pay this sophist back
For all the nuisances he’s hatched.
ANTISTROPHE
For I’m sure he’ll soon discover
That which he’s been after:
A son devilishly smart
At twisting truth to make what’s wrong
Right, and beating everyone
No matter how malign the art.
But there’s a chance a chance may come
He’l
l dearly wish his son were dumb.
[STREPSIADES bolts out of the house pursued by PHIDIPPIDES flourishing a baton.]
STREPSIADES: Help! Help! Neighbors, demesmen, kin,
save me. Do whatever you can.
I’m being battered . . . my head! my jaw! . . .
You brute, you’d beat your own father?
PHIDIPPIDES: You bet, Papa!
STREPSIADES: You see, he blithely admits it!
PHIDIPPIDES: Sure!
STREPSIADES: Monster, father killer, criminal!
PHIDIPPIDES: Go on, call me anything you want.
I get a thrill being cursed to hell.
STREPSIADES: Brute arsehole!
PHIDIPPIDES: Cumber me with roses!
STREPSIADES: You’d beat your father?
PHIDIPPIDES: Yes, by God, and I can prove I’m right.
STREPSIADES: Savage! How could it be right to beat a father?
PHIDIPPIDES: I’ll show you how, and I’ll justify it.
STREPSIADES: You’ll justify it?
PHIDIPPIDES: Rather, and with ease.
Choose the argument you want to use:
one of the two.
STREPSIADES: One of the two?
PHIDIPPIDES: The Good Reason or the Bad?
STREPSIADES: By Zeus, my boy, if you can sustain the claim
for fathers to be beaten by their sons, I am
really glad I taught you so well
how to undermine the right.
PHIDIPPIDES: I’m sure I can. And when you’ve heard,
not even you will say a word.
STREPSIADES: Go ahead. I hope it stuns.
CHORUS:
Your job, old man, is to find a way
Of vanquishing your foe,
Who must have had no doubts at all
Of how to vanquish you.
How otherwise could he display
Such keenness for the duel?
LEADER: It’s up to you, old man, to tell the Chorus
how this altercation started, which anyway you’ll do.
STREPSIADES: Willingly, I’ll tell you what began this bickering.
At that dinner I told you of, the first thing
that happened was when I asked him
to fetch his lyre and sing
that song by Simonides called “The Fleecing of the Ram,”
He replied on the dot
that to play the lyre and sing at a party
was terribly old ham—
like a woman plucking barley.
PHIDIPPIDES: Quite right! And you should have been squashed on the
spot.
Fancy asking me to warble away
like someone entertaining cicadas!
STREPSIADES: That’s the kind of thing he was saying in the house,
as he’s saying now.
“As for Simonides,” he said, “a rotten poet.”
I could hardly stand it, but I did at first.
I asked him at least
to hold a sprig of myrtle in his hand and recite269
some Aeschylus.
“Oh yes, Aeschylus,” he snarled.
“I put him in the top rank of noisy inscrutable poets,
a gasbag who installed high blarney.”
Imagine it! My heart missed a beat,
but I bit my tongue and replied:
“Very well, recite some of the modern cerebral stuff,
whatever that is,” and he launched into Euripides:
something about a brother—God help us!—
shagging his sister by the same mother.270
That was enough.
I retaliated with an obscene barrage
of the filthiest words you ever heard,
which led to a real set-to:
us slugging each other word for word,
until up he leaps
and begins to punch, throttle, mash me, and batter.
PHIDIPPIDES: Which you were asking for,
not recognizing Euripides was the tops.
STREPSIADES: All right, he’s the tops, but what do I dare
call you without getting another bashing?
PHIDIPPIDES: Which you will, and Zeus knows you
deserve it.
STREPSIADES: Deserve it? How come? I was the one
who brought you up, you brat;
listened to your baby twitterings;
understood you when you lisped “Orta” and got you water;
And when you cried “Mama,”
there was I with milk and things;
and hardly was the word “kakka” out of your mouth
before I whisked you outside and held you at arm’s length.
But when you were throttling me just now,
And I was yelling and screaming, “I need to crap,”
You never took me outside.
You brute, you didn’t care a scrap
And I kakkaed just where I was at.
CHORUS: I’m sure that the hearts of the young Are throbbing to hear Whatever he has at the tip of his tongue. To behave like a fiend on the spree And then to be Able to win. . . . We are Not giving much for the old man’s skin—No, not a pea.
LEADER: [to PHIDIPPIDES]
It’s all yours, word juggler, master twister.
Make us believe that what you say is right—whatever.
PHIDIPPIDES: How rewarding is the experience
of novelties and being clever!
And being able to thumb one’s nose at normal practice.
In the old days
when there was nothing in my head but horse,
I couldn’t get out three words without coming a cropper.
But now that my antagonist himself
has made me stop all that, of course
I’m completely comfortable with rarefied thought,
argument, and airy speculation: in effect
that to beat your father is politically correct.
STREPSIADES: By Zeus, I’d rather be mixed up again with horses
and cheering at a foursome than be pummeled to pieces.
PHIDIPPIDES: As I was about to say before you interfered:
did you ever spank me as a boy?
STREPSIADES: Naturally, I did, for your good and because I cared.
PHIDIPPIDES: Tell me, then, shouldn’t I now show,
if spanking is evidence of caring,
that I do care by giving you a spanking?
And is it fair
that your carcass be spank-proof but not mine?
If the kids start howling, you think the father shouldn’t?271
You say that’s normal.
I say that’s dotty: old men are children again,
so it’s more reasonable for old men to howl
than the young: they’ve less excuse for being naughty.
STREPSIADES: Nowhere is there a law to treat a father in that way.
PHIDIPPIDES: So this restriction, shall we say,
was first proposed long, long ago by men like you and me
who persuaded the ancients to go along with it.
Well then, can’t I have a turn, too,
at making a law, a new law to fit
tomorrow’s sons: one that lets them beat
their fathers in return?
But we won’t penalize the fathers
for all the buffetings they gave us
before the new law took effect,
or claim compensation for those blows.
Bear in mind how cockerels and creatures similar
withstand their fathers, and yet they are
no different from us, except they don’t pass laws.
STREPSIADES: If you’re on to imitating fowls
why not go whole cock and peck in the manure
and sit on a perch?
PHIDIPPIDES: That’s different, my good sir,
as Socrates would agree.
STREPSIADES: In whic
h case, don’t hit me. You’ll regret it if you do.
PHIDIPPIDES: Why should I?
STREPSIADES: Because I have a right to spank you
and you to spank your son . . . if you ever have one.
PHIDIPPIDES: But say I don’t.
I’ll have done my howling all for nothing
and you’ll have the last laugh.
STREPSIADES: [addressing the spectators]
All you out there of my own age,
I think he’s got a point-and-a-half,
so let’s concede
that these young’uns have some reason on their side,
and that we oldies be made to howl if we misbehave.
PHIDIPPIDES: And here’s another item we should prove. . . .
STREPSIADES: Please not! It’ll be the end of me.
PHIDIPPIDES: On the contrary,
it’ll upset you less than what you’ve just gone through.
STREPSIADES: In what way? Divulge,
because I don’t see what good is all this folderol.
PHIDIPPIDES: Mother, as well as you, gets a licking.
STREPSIADES: What? You can’t mean that! It’s not the same. It’s far more distressing.
PHIDIPPIDES: What if I use Bad Reason to confute you
and show that it’s OK to give my mum a thrashing?
STREPSIADES: Only this: that nothing will save you
From having to plunge
Into the criminal pit
Together with Socrates
And the Reason that’s Wrong.
I blame you Clouds that I’m in this mess,
and after I’d trusted you with everything.
LEADER: Not a bit of it! You yourself are the cause:
you chose the tortuous path to shady ways.
STREPSIADES: Then why didn’t you warn me from the start
instead of leading me on—me, an old bucolic fart?
LEADER: We do the same to everyone
Caught messing with a questionable design.
And him we pitch into something bad
Until he learns some fear of God.
STREPSIADES: Yes, dear Clouds, a hard lesson but not unfair. I shouldn’t have tried to get out of paying what I owed.
[turning to PHIDIPPIDES]
And now, beloved son of mine,
what about coming with me to wipe off the scene
that loathsome Chaerephon and that Socrates,
who hoodwinked both of us?
PHIDIPPIDES: No, no, I musn’t hurt my teachers.
STREPSIADES: Oh yes, you must!