Clouds

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 715 sections

729b
Ah me! Would, pray, some one would throw over me a swindling contrivance from the sheep-skins.
731
Come now; I will first see this fellow, what he is about. Ho you! Are you asleep?
732b
No, by Apollo, I am not!
733
Have you got anything?
733b
No; by Jupiter, certainly not!
733c
Nothing at all?
734
Nothing, except what I have in my right hand.
735
Will you not quickly cover yourself up and think of something?
736
About what? For do you tell me this, O Socrates!
737
Do you, yourself, first find out and state what you wish.
738
You have heard a thousand times what I wish. About the interest; so that I may pay no one.
740
Come then, wrap yourself up, and having given your mind play with subtilty, revolve your affairs by little and little, rightly distinguishing and examining.
742b
Ah me, unhappy man!
743
Keep quiet; and if you be puzzled in any one of your conceptions, leave it and go; and then set your mind in motion again, and lock it up.
746
(in great glee). O dearest little Socrates!
746b
What, old man?
747
I have got a device for cheating them of the interest.
748
Exhibit it.
748b
Now tell me this—
748c
Pray?
749
If I were to purchase a Thessalian witch,
750
and draw down the moon by night, and then shut it up, as if it were a mirror, in a round crest-case, and then carefully keep it—
753
What good, pray, would this do you?
753b
What? If the moon were to rise no longer anywhere, I should not pay the interest.
755b
Why so, pray?
756
Because the money is lent out by the month.
757
Capital! But I will again propose to you another clever question. If a suit of five talents should be entered against you, tell me how you would obliterate it.
761
How? How? I do not know but I must seek.
762
Do not then always revolve your thoughts about yourself; but slack away your mind into the air, like a cock-chafer tied with a thread by the foot.
765
I have found a very clever method of getting rid of my suit, so that you yourself would acknowledge it.
766b
Of what description?
767
Have you ever seen this stone in the chemist’s shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they kindle fire?
769b
Do you mean the burning-glass?
770
I do. Come what would you say, pray, if I were to take this, when the clerk was entering the suit, and were to stand at a distance, in the direction of the sun, thus, and melt out the letters of my suit?
773
Cleverly done, by the Graces!
773b
Oh! How I am delighted, that a suit of five talents has been cancelled!
775
Come now, quickly seize upon this.
775b
What?
776
How, when engaged in a lawsuit, you could overturn the suit, when you were about to be cast, because you had no witnesses.
778
Most readily and easily.
778b
Tell me, pray.
778c
Well now, I’ll tell you. If, while one suit was still pending, before mine was called on, I were to run away and hang myself.
781
You talk nonsense.
781b
By the gods, would I! For no one will bring action against me when I am dead.
783
You talk nonsense. Begone; I can’t teach you any longer.
784
Why so? Yea, by the gods, O Socrates!
785
You straightaway forget whatever you learn. For what now was the first thing you were taught? Tell me.
787
Come, let me see: nay, what was the first? What was the fist? Nay, what was the thing in which we knead our flour? Ah me! What was it?
789b
Will you not pack off to the devil, you most forgetful and most stupid old man?
791
Ah me, what then, pray will become of me, wretched man? For I shall be utterly undone, if I do not learn to ply the tongue. Come, O ye Clouds, give me some good advice.
794
We, old man, advise you, if you have a son grown up, to send him to learn in your stead.
797
Well, I have a fine, handsome son, but he is not willing to learn. What must I do?
799
But do you permit him?
799b
Yes, for he is robust in body, and in good health, and is come of the high-plumed dames of Coesyra. I will go for him, and if he be not willing, I will certainly drive him from my house. To Socrates. Go in and wait for me a short time.
804
Do you perceive that you are soon to obtain the greatest benefits through us alone of the gods? For this man is ready to do everything that you bid him.
810
But you, while the man is astounded and evidently elated, having perceived it, will quickly fleece him to the best of your power. Exit Socrates. For matters of this sort are somehow accustomed to turn the other way.
814
By Mist, you certainly shall not stay here any longer! But go and gnaw the columns of Megacles.
816
My good sir, what is the matter with you, O father? You are not in your senses, by Olympian Jupiter!
818
See, see, Olympian Jupiter! What folly! To think of your believing in Jupiter, as old as you are!
820
Why, pray, did you laugh at this?
820b
Reflecting that you are a child, and have antiquated notions. Yet, however, approach, that you may know more; and I will tell you a thing, by learning which you will be a man. But see that you do not teach this to any one.
825
Well, what is it?
825b
You swore now by Jupiter.
826
I did.
826b
Seest thou, then, how good a thing is learning? There is no Jupiter, O Phidippides!
827b
Who then?
828
Vortex reigns, having expelled Jupiter.
829
Bah! Why do you talk foolishly?
829b
Be assured that it is so.
830
Who says this?
830b
Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footmarks of fleas.
832
Have you arrived at such a pitch of frenzy that you believe madmen?
833b
Speak words of good omen, and say nothing bad of clever men
835
and wise; of whom, through frugality, none ever shaved or anointed himself, or went to a bath to wash himself; while you squander my property in bathing, as if I were already dead. But go as quickly as possible and learn instead of me.
840
What good could any one learn from them?
841
What, really? Whatever wisdom there is among men. And you will know yourself, how ignorant and stupid you are. But wait for me here a short time.
844
Ah me! What shall I do, my father being crazed? Shall I bring him into court and convict him of lunacy, or shall I give information of his madness to the coffin-makers?
847
Come, let me see; what do you consider this to be? Tell me.
848
Alectryon.
848b
Right. And what this?
849
Alectryon.
849b
Both the same? You are very ridiculous. Do not do so, then, for the future; but call this ἀλεκτρύαινα, and this one ἀλέκτωρ.
852
Ἀλεκτρύαινα! Did you learn these clever things by going in just now to the Titans?
854
And many others too; but whatever I learned on each occasion I used to forget immediately, through length of years.
856
Is it for this reason, pray, that you have also lost your cloak?
857
I have not lost it; but have studied it away.
858
What have you made of your slippers, you foolish man?
859
I have expended them, like Pericles, for needful purposes.
860
Come, move, let us go. And then if you obey your father, go wrong if you like. I also know that I formerly obeyed you, a lisping child of six years old, and bought you a go-cart at the Diasia, with the first obolus I received from the Heliaea.
865
You will assuredly some time at length be grieved at this.
866
It is well done of you that you obeyed. Come hither, come hither O Socrates! Come forth, for I bring to you this son of mine, having persuaded him against his will.
868b
For he is still childish, and not used to the baskets here.
870
You would yourself be used to them if you were hanged.
871
A mischief take you! Do you abuse your teacher?
872
Were hanged quoth’a! How sillily he pronounced it, and with lips wide apart! How can this youth ever learn an acquittal from a trial
875
or a legal summons, or persuasive refutation? And yet Hyperbolus learned this at the cost of a talent.
877
Never mind; teach him. He is clever by nature. Indeed, from his earliest years, when he was a little fellow only so big, he was wont to form houses and carve ships within-doors,
880
and make little wagons of leather, and make frogs out of pomegranate-rinds, you can’t think how cleverly. But see that he learns those two causes; the better, whatever it may be; and the worse, which, by maintaining what is unjust, overturns the better.
885
If not both, at any rate the unjust one by all means.
886
He shall learn it himself from the two causes in person.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0019.tlg003.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.