Aristophanes: The Complete Plays
Page 15
SOCRATES:
When a dry wind rises into the atmosphere
it gets locked up in these Clouds
and the wind blows them up like a bladder
and then by pressure it bursts them asunder
because of the density and
it scorches itself to nothing
because of the friction and speed.
STREPSIADES:
Once at the feast of Diasia217
the same thing happened to me
when I was cooking haggis218 for the family
and forgot to prick it first.
Of course it began to inflate and then it burst,
spattering a gory mess in my eyes and my face.
LEADER: O man who craves of us the source of knowledge,
how blessed in Athens and all of Greece you will be
if you have a good memory
and are able to think and judge and persevere
and stand or walk without fear
of tiring and are not upset by the cold
and are not excessively pulled
towards breakfast, and if you will avoid
wine and gymnasiums and suchlike foolishness,
and if you will agree, as must a man of sense,
that triumph and excellence
in everything is wrung
from deed and thought and tongue . . .
STREPSIADES: Yes, if it’s a rugged soul you want
with a fretful curiosity and a frugal half-starved belly
feasting on greens—then have no fear, I am your man
and present myself now for you to work upon.
SOCRATES: I take it for granted then
that now you believe in what we believe in:
the Void, the Clouds, the Tongue—
these three alone?
STREPSIADES:
Yes, I wouldn’t so much as nod to other deities
if I met them in the street,
nor make them offerings or pour libations
or burn incense before them.
CHORUS:
So tell us now forthrightly
what we can do for you.
No harm can come to you
so long as thou payest us respect and esteem
and hast a yen to learn.
STREPSIADES:
Good mistresses, just this:
that right here and now you promise
that I become by a hundred miles
the cleverest speaker in Greece.
CHORUS:
Our pleasure! Exactly that!
So from now on no one in the Boulé219
will carry more motions than you.
STREPSIADES:
No, no, not making speeches, sorry!
That’s not what I was after,
but simply to screw up the law to suit myself
and give my creditors the slip.
CHORUS:
Be it done according to your will,
for what you wish to know is not beyond our scope,
so boldly without a peep
put yourself in the hands of our agents here.
STREPSIADES:
That I do, say no more,
I the slave of necessity,
hounded by those branded horses
and the marriage that was my calamity.
[He breaks into song.]
Over to them, then, with no further thought
To do as they like with: here is my body.
Beat it, starve it, smear it, parch it,
Freeze it, flense it into wineskin,
If that will make me flee my debts,
If that will give me human status:
Make me brassy, glib, and gall-full as it gets;
Giddy and a stinking liar,
Gobbledygooker, oily waffler,
Assassin of the legal body,
Chattering charlatan, a fox,
Piss hole, slimy talker, fraud,
Pariah, prick, and slippery grease spot,
Infestation, cudgel fodder,
Trifle tinker.
All this they can call me freely
And please themselves how they treat me,
Yes, by Demeter!
Let them turn me into sausage for the thinker.
CHORUS:
My word, this fellow’s full of spunk:
Nothing he’s not ready for.
[turning to STREPSIADES]
Once you have mastered all this from us you’ll be
the glorious peak of humanity.
STREPSIADES: Of what more could I think?
CHORUS: To live with us for the rest of your life:
the most envious life possible to man.
STREPSIADES: Am I really going to see this happen?
CHORUS:
You really are:
people camping by the legion outside your door
screaming to meet you and sort out
their legal problems and their claims
encompassing enormous sums,
more than eager to consult a man of your mental clout.
[to SOCRATES]
Set the old man on the course you plan for him.
Get his mind moving and test his cerebral vim.
SOCRATES: [to STREPSIADES]
Come along now, describe for me your main
features. Once I know that
I can begin to plan a campaign.
STREPSIADES: Campaign? Do you mean I’m under siege?
SOCRATES: No, no, just a question or two. For instance, how’s your memory?
STREPSIADES: Just so-so, by Zeus! Owed something by a creditor—excellent. Owing to a creditor—no use.
SOCRATES: Is it in your character to speak well?
STREPSIADES: To speak well? No, only to cheat well.
SOCRATES: In that case how do you expect to learn?
STREPSIADES: I’ll manage somehow.
SOCRATES: Well, now, when I toss you a juicy piece of cosmology,
grab it on the spot.
STREPSIADES: So I’m going to gulp down knowledge like a dog?
SOCRATES: The man’s a barbarian, a complete clot.
I’m afraid you’ll have to be whipped, you dotard.
Come, let’s see how you respond to a blow.
STREPSIADES: When hit, I pause. I summon witnesses.
Without delay I wait again; then off to court I go.
SOCRATES: Take off your coat.
STREPSIADES: What have I done wrong?
SOCRATES: It’s just that we take coats off before going in.
STREPSIADES: I wasn’t planning to stuff my coat with loot.
SOCRATES: Oh do put it down and stop gibbering!
STREPSIADES: There you are! Now tell me this:
if I’m all attention and work hard
which of your students will I be?
SOCRATES: You’ll be the dead spit of Chaerephon.
STREPSIADES: Dead spit, indeed. I’d rather be dead.
SOCRATES: [at the entrance of the Thinkpot]
Stop blithering and get a move on—
in here with me.
STREPSIADES: Not without a honey cake for the snakes,
if I’m going down Trophonius’ hole.220
SOCRATES: Move! Stop dithering by the door, for the gods’ sakes.
LEADER: [as SOCRATES and STREPSIADES enter the Thinkpot]
Go and good luck to you for your pluck.
CHORUS: Good fortune befall this fellow, for
Though he’s passed the prime of life
There’s a twist to his soul that makes him rare
And he knows the art of being smart.
[The CHORUS groups around the LEADER, who now advances to address the audience.]
LEADER: [speaking for Aristophanes in the name of the CLOUDS] Allow me, Spectators, by Dionysus, to tell you the truth, For he was the god who brought me up all through my youth. I’m hoping to win the prize and, of course, be thought very clever Like you, for this is the most sophist
icated play I’ve ever Written, and so I thought that you should enjoy it first. It cost me a lot to write and naturally I cursed When I lost the competition because of some second-rate men. I shouldn’t have lost; it was because they did not reckon
I’d done it all for them, but I’ll never make a pretense
Of abandoning those of you who have a scrap of sense.
For when my play The Good Boy and the Buggered Boy221
Was received in this very place with undiluted joy
By men it’s a pleasure to know, I was an unmarried mother
And had to expose my child, which was taken up by another,222
And you most generously reared it and gave it education,
And ever since then I’ve counted on your dedication.
Thus this fresh comedy of mine, like the fabled Electra,
Came on a search, and came hoping to find some extra-
Percipient viewers ready to spot the lock of hair223
Belonging to her brother, and when she sees it there . . .
Notice first what a very decent dress she has on:
None of that sewn-on, thick, and red-tipped dangling john224
To make the youngest laugh, nor does she mock bald men
Or dance the kordax225—such a dirty dance—or when
An old man has to cover up a dismal joke
He doesn’t seize a walking stick and bash a bloke.
She doesn’t come charging onto the stage with flares and
smokes,
Yelling, “Yow! Yow!” She comes in all simplicity
Relying on her person and her script implicitly.
So I, too, being a poet of that class
Never behave like some circumambulant ass
Or cheat you by presenting the same ingredients twice or thrice.
No, my skills at writing comedy suffice
To make it different every time, always new,
Always from a most ingenious point of view.
When Cleon was riding high, I was the one who smacked
Him right in the belly, but never was I one who attacked
Him when he was down, the way some other playwrights act.
And when poor Hyperbolus226 had a political flop
They stamped on him and his mother, too, without a stop.
And when Eupolis227 first inflicted his Maricas on you
(Which was a rehash of my Knights and nothing new),
Hack that he is, he stuck a sozzled crone in it
To dance the kordax—the poor old thing—and made her fit
The scene that Phrynichus228 put on the boards ages ago
Of a sea beast that was after her and out to swallow.
Then Hermippus229 in a play pitched into Hyperbolus,
And now the rest of the pack, as if that weren’t superfluous,
Are on him, too, pinching my “eels,”230 and if you find
Their plays at all amusing, I hope you’ll be so kind
As not to laugh at mine; but if you do delight
In me and what I do, the years will prove you right.
CHORUS: Super august of the gods, Zeus, Supremest god, it delights us To invite you foremost to the dance; And you, the mighty trident wielder Who shakes the earth and the briny sea; And you, our patriarchal father—Most blessed sky of heaven Who makes it possible that all may be; And you, the charioteer of the sun231 Shedding the glorious rays that light The earth’s span—a god of might Among the immortals and with mortal man.
LEADER:
And now you superbly perspicacious viewers, listen:
I’m going to berate you for a very serious omission.
None of the deities do as much for your city as I do,
Yet we are the only gods whom you never sacrifice to
Or offer libations, yet we are the ones who keep you in sight:
Whenever there is another stupid campaign, we blight
Proceedings by sending thunder and rain. For instance when
You were about to make that miserable tanner Cleon a general,
we knitted our brows and stirred up a terrible fuss
With clappings of thunder and bolts of lightning all from us.
The moon went berserk232 and the sun in concert snuffed out his
wick
Declining to shine for you if you ever decided to pick
Cleon for a general. But you went and picked him all the same.
They say that although political blunders are to blame
For whatever effect these have on the city, the gods can tame
It; and we’ll give you a lesson on how even this
Aberration can be rendered benign: arrest the cockatrice
Cleon, that greedy, thieving cormorant, and clamp him
In the stocks, and everything will be less grim:
Be as before, for in spite of your mistake
The city will be much better off without that fake.
CHORUS: Be with us, too, Phoebus, O Sire
Of Delos who lives on the sheer
Beetling ridges of Cynthus,
And you, blessed virgin dwelling in Ephesus233
In your golden home where Lydian girls
Greatly revere you;
And our own native-born goddess who wields
Her breastplate and shields
Our city; and, too,
He who makes his presence shine
Over the rocks of Parnassus and dazzles
With flaming torches of pine:
Dionysus on his revels.
LEADER: Just as we were about to leave to journey here
The Moon came out to meet us and exclaimed: “Oh do
Say hello to the Athenians and her allies there.”
Then she said how upset she was because of the way
You’ve treated her after all she’s done for you:
Not just babbling but in very fact.
First, she saves you every month a drachma at least
In torches when you go out at night and are able to say:
“There’s a bright moon, boy, no need to squander on torches.”
Then she said that although she does you other services
You yourselves don’t bother to keep your dates in order,
But make a complete mess of them so that the gods
Complain to her, oh yes, she says, great are the odds
They’ll be let down about a dinner and have to go home
Cheated of a celebration listed at that time.
Moreover this, when there’s supposed to be a sacrifice234
You are fussing about witnesses and sentences.
Yet at other times when we gods are fasting
In memory of Memnon and Sarpedon235 everlasting
You are gushing with libations. . . . That’s hardly nice!
On the occasion when Hyperbolus was chosen
As the yearly secretary for sacred affairs, we gods
Had to strip him of his wreath‡ to show the sods
It always pays to use the moon to measure one’s days.
SOCRATES: [emerging from the Thinkpot]
Not by Breath nor Void nor Air
have I ever seen such a lumpkin anywhere:
a clueless clout—no brain, no memory,
immediately forgetting any smattering
he’s managed to acquire.
Well, I suppose I’d better call him out
into the light of day.
[He shouts into the Thinkpot.]
Strepsiades, are you there?
Gather your pallet and come on out.
STREPSIADES: Not easy! The bedbugs don’t want me to expose them.
[He comes out of the Thinkpot carrying his pallet.]
SOCRATES:
Well now, tell me:
what subjects would you apply yourself to
that you’ve never been taught before?
Would it be rhythm, words, measure?
STREPSIADES: I’d say measure.236 Only the other day
SOCRATES:
That’s not what I meant at all.
I’m asking what sorts
of measure in verse you find most beautiful:
is it trimeter or tetrameter?
STREPSIADES: For me, nothing tops the gallon.
SOCRATES: Man, what a nonsense talker!
STREPSIADES: I bet you a gallon’s not tetrameter.
SOCRATES: To hell with you, you dumb clot! . . .
But perhaps you can tackle rhythm?
STREPSIADES: I don’t see how rhythm can get me my daily bread.
SOCRATES: Well, to start with, it can sharpen you up a lot. You’ll recognize which rhythms are best, say, for a march and which for a dactylic dance.237
STREPSIADES: Dactyls? You mean fingers? I know that, by Zeus.
SOCRATES: Tell us.
STREPSIADES: [raising his middle finger] Surely nothing less than this finger here. At least that was so when I was a boy.
SOCRATES: Imbecile! Half-wit!
STREPSIADES: Mutt! I don’t give a damn about all this.
SOCRATES: Then what do you give a damn about?
STREPSIADES: About that . . . that Bad baddest Reason.
SOCRATES: But there are lots of other things you ought to know:
which of the quadrupeds, for instance, are unconditionally male.
STREPSIADES: Male? Of course I know that. I’m not crazy:
ram, billy goat, bull, dog, chicken.
SOCRATES: Don’t you see you’re mistaken? You’ve used the same word to cover both cock and hen.
STREPSIADES: So what?
SOCRATES: So what? Chicken for both.
STREPSIADES: By Poseidon, you’re right! What am I supposed to call them?
SOCRATES: What? Why, “cock” and “coquette.”
STREPSIADES: My, my, Airy fairy, that’s the truth!
For this lesson alone I’m going to fill your bowl
with barleycorn to the brim.
SOCRATES: There, you’ve done it again—a second time! “Bowl” sounds masculine but she couldn’t be more feminine.238
STREPSIADES: How so? Am I really making “bowl” masculine?
SOCRATES: Certainly you are: like doing it to Cleonymus.239
STREPSIADES: Please explain.
SOCRATES: To you “bowl” and “Cleonymus” are synonymous.
STREPSIADES: But, my dear fellow, Cleonymus didn’t use a bowl.
He did his mashing in a can.
So what ought I to call the word from now on?