by Aristophanes
can gloat at him in his disgrace.
[To the sound of fife and drum, DEMOS, SAUSAGEMAN, SERVANT BOY, and the TWO TRUCES lead off the CHORUS in the exodus march. PAPHLAGON is ignominiously pushed out of sight by two SERVANTS of DEMOS.]
CLOUDS
Clouds was first produced at the Dionysia of 423
B.C. and was placed third (much to the anger of
Aristophanes); first prize went to Cratinus’ Wine
Flask, and second to Ameipsias’ Beard.
THEME
Aristophanes, a conservative young man of only twenty-three or so,
doesn’t have a very high opinion of the “New Thought” going around,
expressed and promoted by the Sophists, and especially by Socrates,
whom Aristophanes rather unfairly lumps together with them, partly because he knows that Socrates is easy to parody. Clouds is a lively spoof of
the newfangled ideas about the education of youth. Aristophanes sets out
to have fun damning them and reducing the new techniques to absurdity.
CHARACTERS
STREPSIADES,192 elderly countryman of Attica
PHIDIPPIDES, his son
XANTHIAS, slave of Strepsiades
FIRST PUPIL, of Socrates
SOCRATES, the philosopher
MR. GOOD REASON, a way of arguing
MR. BAD REASON, a way of arguing
FIRST CREDITOR, pursuing Strepsiades
SECOND CREDITOR, pursuing Strepsiades
SECOND PUPIL, of Socrates
CHORUS, of Clouds
SILENT PARTS
OTHER PUPILS, of Socrates
SERVANTS, of Strepsiades
WITNESS, with First Creditor
BYSTANDERS
THE STORY
Strepsiades, now living in Athens because of the prolonged war with Sparta, is in despair because of the debts his horse-loving son has landed him in. He has heard of Socrates and the Thinkpot, where for a fee one can learn to prove that wrong is right, and he decides to send his son there to be taught how to prove that a debt is not a debt. But Phidippides refuses to go and the old man decides to go himself and be trained. However, he finds he is too stupid to learn. Meanwhile, the two Arguments appear: Mr. Good Reason, a respectable old gentleman who upholds traditional values, and Mr. Bad Reason, a dapper young scamp. They have a go at each other until Mr. Good Reason is ousted. Mr. Bad Reason then offers to teach Phidippides how it is done and leads him into the Thinkpot. Some time later, Socrates presents Phidippides to his father as a perfect sophist. Two Creditors appear, one after the other, clamoring for payment. Strepsiades, using the little he learned, is able to confound them each in turn. Meanwhile, Strepsiades and his son have been having disagreements at the dinner table and the next thing one sees is Strepsiades being pursued by Phidippides wielding a baton. When the latter says he is going to beat his mother, too, Strepsiades, horror-stricken at the reversal of values, of which he is really the cause, dashes off with his servant Xanthias and burns down the Thinkpot.
OBSERVATIONS
Strepsiades is something of a country bumpkin, both a simpleton and a singleton—simpleminded enough to think that he can avoid paying his debts and single-minded enough to pursue this end by learning how to cheat. However, it is finally by the realization of his folly that Aristophanes has him (and us) acknowledge that newfangled ideas are no match for tradition.
Phidippides is a smart young man who knows on which side his bread is buttered but who is obviously spoiled by his parents. He has no illusions about his father’s character and no scruples about running him into debt.
A somewhat wacky but potentially dangerous old bore, Socrates taught young men how to be successful in a world they could dismantle for their own purposes. He was the high priest of the New Learning, and besides dabbling in astronomy, meteorology, and the sciences, he ran a small school where students were taught how to prove that wrong is right and right is wrong. Aristophanes of course knew that this portrayal was a travesty but it reflected the prejudices of the ignorant, and Plato suggests in his Apologia that it even contributed to Socrates’ condemnation.
The Clouds are a typical Greek chorus in the way they comment and suggest, less typical in the way they are ready to lead down the garden path to their undoing anyone whose conduct is devious. Remarkable is the variety and beauty of their siren songs. If only we had the music to go with their words!
Stage scenery had become more sophisticated by the time of Aristophanes. In the opening of Clouds, for instance, there would have been no difficulty in showing the inside of Strepsiades’ house with people asleep on the floor, though the rest of the play takes place outside. Otherwise one must suppose that Strepsiades and his household wake up in the street!
TIME AND SETTING
It is still dark, an hour before dawn. The main room of STREPSIADES’ house is strewn with sleeping figures lying wrapped up on the floor. STREPSIADES yawns, sits up, and stretches.
STREPSIADES: Bloody hell! . . . What a night, Lord Zeus! It goes on and on. Will daylight never come?
I heard a cock crow ages ago
but the household is still snoring.
There was a time they wouldn’t have dared.
Damn the war! It’s done me in.
I can’t even clip the tail of my own slaves.193
[He prods the sleeping form of PHIDIPPIDES.]
Look at this strapping young fellow here:
he won’t stir till dawn—farting away
all bundled up in his quintuplicate swaddle of covers.
Very well then, let’s all swaddle and snore.
[He sinks under the blankets but after a few moments pops up again.]
It’s no use. I can’t sleep. I’m all fucked-up,
eaten alive by bills, stable dues, debts—
because of this son of mine: him of the lanky locks,
with his horse riding, his chariot racing, his horse dreaming,
while I’m all broken up and stare at the moon:
as she heads for the twentieth—day of my doomsday deficit.
[He moves to the prone figure of XANTHIAS and pokes him.]
Boy, light a lamp,
and bring me the account book:
I want to see my list of creditors
and the interest due them.
[XANTHIAS fetches the ledger and stands with a lamp behind STREPSIADES.]
Hm, let’s see the damage.
Twelve minas to Pasias . . . To Pasias? Whatever for?
Ah yes, for that branded nag I bought—idiot!
A stone in the eye would have made more sense.
PHIDIPPIDES: [calling out in his sleep] Philon, you’re cheating. Keep to your own lane.
STREPSIADES: You see? That’s what’s destroying me.
He’s on horseback even in his dreams.
PHIDIPPIDES: How many laps for the martial chariot race?
STREPSIADES: As many as you’re making your poor father go.
[He turns back to the ledger.]
Where was I? . . . After Pasias how much?
Yes, three minas to Amynias
for a chariot seat and a pair of wheels.
PHIDIPPIDES: Lead him off, that horse. Give him a good roll.
STREPSIADES:
Yes, dear boy, it’s me you’re rolling—
clean off my estate. . . . What with losing lawsuits
and bailiffs clamoring for my property in lieu of interest.
PHIDIPPIDES: [sitting up] Really, Father,
tossing and growling all through the night!
STREPSIADES: There’s a bailiff in the blankets biting me.
PHIDIPPIDES: [lying down and turning on his side]
For God’s sake, let me get a wink of sleep.
STREPSIADES:
Sleep away, but remember this:
one day all these debts will land on your head.
Lord, how I wish someone had throttled that matchmaker
who talked me into marrying your mother!
Mine was a cozy life once:
messy, untrimmed, delightfully idle,
happy with my honeybees, my sheep, my pressed olives.
Then I went and married the niece of Megacles,194
the son of Megacles; I a country boy,
she from town:
grand, fastidious, and as spoiled as Coisyra.195
I smelling of ripe fruit, figs drying, sheepskins,
and cornucopia;
she, of scent and saffron,
tongue-swapping, wastefulness and greed, sex and cunt.
Still, I won’t say she was lazy.
My, she wove fast!196
I used to point at this cloak of mine and say:
“Wife, you get through the thread at a heck of a lick.”
[XANTHIAS appears with an unlit lamp in his hands.]
XANTHIAS: This lamp’s got no oil in it, sir.
STREPSIADES: Damn you, you lit the lamp that guzzles.
Come and get thrashed!
XANTHIAS: Thrashed for what?
STREPSIADES: For putting in a bloody fat wick.
[XANTHIAS slips away and STREPSIADES picks up the account book again.]
Then when this son of ours was born,
to me and my high-flown wife, that is,
we began to bicker over names.
She wanted horse in everything:
Goldtrot, Hackjoy, Beautybronc,197
I wanted Meanypop‡—after his grandfather.
We battled over this for a bit
and came up with the compromise of Shyhorse.§
She used to pick up this kid and coo:
“When you’re a big boy you’ll drive into town in a frock coat
just like Megacles,” and I would retort:
“No, you’ll drive the goats off the shingle
just like your dad did, in leather duds.”
He never took the slightest notice
and now he has horsified my whole estate.
All night long I’ve been searching for a way out
and I’ve hit on a solution—an absolutely fiendish solution.
If only I can talk this boy into it
I’m out in the clear. But first I’ve got to wake him up.
What, I wonder, is the nicest way . . . ? What?
[He stoops over the sleeping PHIDIPPIDES and breathes into his ear.]
Phidippides! Phidippidippikins!
[The young man stirs and lifts his head.]
PHIDIPPIDES: What’s up, Dad?
STREPSIADES: Give me a kiss and your right hand.
PHIDIPPIDES: There. So what?
STREPSIADES: Tell me truly: do you love me?
PHIDIPPIDES: By Poseidon lord of the horse, I do.
STREPSIADES: Less of the horse, please!
That deity is the cause of my troubles.
But if you love me from the bottom of your heart, my boy, listen.
PHIDIPPIDES: What for?
STREPSIADES: To reverse the course of your life in a single stroke
and go and learn what I’m going to propose.
PHIDIPPIDES: Out with it, then. What do you want me to learn?
STREPSIADES: And you’ll do it?
PHIDIPPIDES: By Dionysus, I will.
STREPSIADES: Capital! [He walks PHIDIPPIDES out the front door.]
Take a look over there.
Do you see that little door and that little hut?
PHIDIPPIDES: I do. Get to the point, Dad.
STREPSIADES:
That’s the Thinkpot for the brilliant.
Inside are clever people who can prove to you
that the sky is the lid of a broiler
and that it envelops us and that we are the charcoal.
PHIDIPPIDES: Who are these people?
STREPSIADES:
I don’t exactly know
but they are deep-ruminating cerebrationalists,
nice beautiful people.
PHIDIPPIDES:
Yuk! I know them. Boy, are they poison!
You’re talking of a bunch of frauds:
that barefoot dough-faced lot like that pitiful Socrates
and that Chaerephon.198
STREPSIADES:
Hey, hey, hold on! Utter no such nonsense!
And if you care a damn for your father’s daily bread,
forget about horses and become one of them.
PHIDIPPIDES: No! By Dionysus absolutely not!
Not even if you got me some of those pheasants Leogoras199 rears.
STREPSIADES: Please, I’m begging you—you the one I love most—
go and be trained.
PHIDIPPIDES: What d’you want me to learn?
STREPSIADES:
They say that in there are a couple of Reasons,
the Good—whatever that may be—and the Bad.
And one of those, the Bad—so I am told—the Bad
can plead the Wrong and make it Right.
So all you have to do for me
is learn the Bad Reason
and I won’t have to pay a penny
of all those debts I owe because of you.
PHIDIPPIDES: No, I’ll not do it.
I couldn’t look my horse pals in the eye with a clean face.
STREPSIADES:
Then you’ll not have a bite of mine to eat:
not you, not your yoke horse, not your favorite Thoroughbred . . .
and to hell out of here!
PHIDIPPIDES: Well, my uncle Megacles won’t see me go horseless.
I’m off. And as for you, I don’t give a damn.
[PHIDIPPIDES stomps back into the house.]
STREPSIADES:
Fine! I’m not taking this trip-up lying down.
I’ll wing a prayer and go off to the Thinkpot myself for training.
But how is an old relic like me,200
forgetful and lumbering, going to master the art
of logic chopping and hairsplitting?
[starts walking again]
But I’ve got to go.
[He reaches the hut of the Thinkpot and stands wavering outside.]
Why am I shilly-shallying like this?
Why don’t I just knock on the door?
[He bangs on the door, shouting.]
Hey, boy! Boyakins!
FIRST PUPIL: [from inside] Go to blazes, whoever’s banging on my
door!
[He opens the door.]
STREPSIADES: Strepsiades son of Phidon, from Cicynna.
FIRST PUPIL: A real dumbo, by God! Kicking the door down
and causing a thought to miscarry!
STREPSIADES: Please excuse me. My home’s in the country,
but do tell me about the thought that’s got miscarried.
FIRST PUPIL: To tell anyone not a pupil is a sacrilege.
STREPSIADES: Oh don’t bother!
I’ve really come to the Thinkpot to be a pupil myself.
FIRST PUPIL:
All right, I’ll tell you but you’ve got to realize
this is holy stuff—hush-hush.
Socrates has just been asking Chaerephon
on how many of its own feet a flea can jump.
You see, a flea just bit Chaerephon’s eyebrow
and then jumped onto Socrates’ pate.
STREPSIADES: And Socrates is measuring the terrain?
FIRST PUPIL:
Yes, he melted some wax,
took the flea, and dipped its feet in it
so when the wax cooled
the flea had fancy Persian slippers on.
These he removed to measure the distance.
STREPSIADES: Lord above, what subtlety!
FIRST PUPIL: Like to hear another brilliant idea of Socrates?
STREPSIADES: Another? I can’t wait.
FIRST PUPIL:
Chaerephon of Sphettus asked him
what his position on gnats was:
do they whine from their mouths
or their bottoms?
STREPSIADES: So? What did he say about the gnat?
FIRST PUPIL:
The gnat’s inside is narrow, he affirmed,
so the air gets pressed through a restricted space rumpwards,
and because of the force of the wind
the arsehole’s opening to the narrow passage
lets out a tune.
STREPSIADES:
So the bottom becomes a trumpet?
Three cheers for such sharp-sightedness!
Anyone with such an intimate knowledge of a gnat’s inside
has to be an invincible defendant.
FIRST PUPIL: Yes, and he’s just had another wonderful insight,
but ’twas snatched away by a lizard.
STREPSIADES: Really? Do tell me.
FIRST PUPIL:
He was scrutinizing the byways of the moon,
gazing upwards in the dark with his mouth open
when a gecko shat on him from the ceiling.
STREPSIADES: Oh I like that: a gecko shitting on Socrates!
FIRST PUPIL: And yesterday when we had nothing to eat for
dinner . . .
STREPSIADES: What? He wangled something?
FIRST PUPIL:
He sprinkled a layer of ash on the table,
tried to use a bent skewer for a compass,
then produced a gay he’d picked up from the wrestling school
and undressed him.201
STREPSIADES: And we think Thales202 was a marvel!
[They walk to the entrance of the Thinkpot.]