The Clouds Part 11

Soc. So that you can get clear off from whatever suit you please.

Strep. Even if witnesses were present when I borrowed the money?

Soc. Yea, much more! Even if a thousand be present.

Strep. Then I will shout with a very loud shout: Ho!

Weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your princ.i.p.als, and your compound interests! For you can no longer do me any harm, because such a son is being reared for me in this house, shining with a double-edged tongue, for my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and summon from within to me.

[Socrates goes into the house.]

O child! O son! Come forth from the house! Hear your father!

[Re-enter Socrates leading in Phidippides]

Soc. Lo, here is the man!

Strep. O my dear, my dear!

Soc. Take your son and depart.

[Exit Socrates.]

Strep. Oh, oh, my child! Huzza! Huzza! How I am delighted at the first sight of your complexion! Now, indeed, you are, in the first place, negative and disputatious to look at, and this fashion native to the place plainly appears, the "what do you say?" and the seeming to be injured when, I well know, you are injuring and inflicting a wrong; and in your countenance there is the Attic look. Now, therefore, see that you save me, since you have also ruined me.

Phid. What, pray, do you fear?

Strep. The Old and New.

Phid. Why, is any day old and new?

Strep. Yes; on which they say that they will make their deposits against me.

Phid. Then those that have made them will lose them; for it is not possible that two days can be one day.

Strep. Can not it?

Phid. Certainly not; unless the same woman can be both old and young at the same time.

Strep. And yet it is the law.

Phid. For they do not, I think, rightly understand what the law means.

Strep. And what does it mean?

Phid. The ancient Solon was by nature the commons'

friend.

Strep. This surely is nothing whatever to the Old and New.

Phid. He therefore made the summons for two days, for the Old and New, that the deposits might be made on the first of the month.

Strep. Why, pray, did he add the old day?

Phid. In order, my good sir, that the defendants, being present a day before, might compromise the matter of their own accord; but if not, that they might be worried on the morning of the new moon.

Strep. Why, then, do the magistrates not receive the deposits on the new moon, but on the Old and New?

Phid. They seem to me to do what the forestallers do: in order that they may appreciate the deposits as soon as possible, on this account they have the first pick by one day.

Strep. (turning to the audience) Bravo! Ye wretches, why do you sit senseless, the gain of us wise men, being blocks, ciphers, mere sheep, jars heaped together, wherefore I must sing an encomium upon myself and this my son, on account of our good fortune. "O happy Strepsiades! How wise you are yourself, and how excellent is the son whom you are rearing!" My friends and fellow-tribesmen will say of me, envying me, when you prove victorious in arguing causes. But first I wish to lead you in and entertain you.

[Exeunt Strepsiades and Phidippides.]

Pasias (entering with his summons-witness) Then, ought a man to throw away any part of his own property? Never!

But it were better then at once to put away blushes, rather than now to have trouble; since I am now dragging you to be a witness, for the sake of my own money; and further, in addition to this, I shall become an enemy to my fellow-tribesman. But never, while I live, will I disgrace my country, but will summon Strepsiades.

Strep. (from within) Who's there?

Pas. For the Old and New.

Strep. I call you to witness, that he has named it for two days. For what matter do you summon me?

Pas. For the twelve minae, which you received when you were buying the dapple-gray horse.

Strep. A horse? Do you not hear? I, whom you all know to hate horsemanship!

Pas. And, by Jupiter! You swore by the G.o.ds too, that you would repay it.

Strep. Ay, by Jove! For then my Phidippides did not yet know the irrefragable argument.

Pas. And do you now intend, on this account, to deny the debt?

Strep. Why, what good should I get else from his instruction?

Pas. And will you be willing to deny these upon oath of the G.o.ds?

Strep. What G.o.ds?

Pas. Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune.

Strep. Yes, by Jupiter! And would pay down, too, a three-obol piece besides to swear.

Pas. Then may you perish some day for your impudence!

Strep. This man would be the better for it if he were cleansed by rubbing with salt.

Pas. Ah me, how you deride me!

Strep. He will contain six choae.