PHIDIPPIDES. Oh! my poor father! what has happened to you? By the Olympian Zeus! you are no longer in your senses!
STREPSIADES. See! see! "the Olympian Zeus." Oh! the fool! to believe in Zeus at your age!
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there in that to make you laugh?
STREPSIADES. You are then a tiny little child, if you credit such antiquated rubbish! But come here, that I may teach you; I will tell you something very necessary to know to be a man; but you will not repeat it to anybody.
STREPSIADES. Do you see how good it is to learn? Phidippides, there is no Zeus.
STREPSIADES. 'Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Jupiter and is King now.
STREPSIADES. 'Tis Socrates, the Melian,[542] and Chaerephon, who knows how to measure the jump of a flea.
PHIDIPPIDES. Have you reached such a pitch of madness that you believe those bilious fellows?
STREPSIADES. Use better language, and do not insult men who are clever and full of wisdom, who, to economize, are never shaved, shun the gymnasia and never go to the baths, while you, you only await my death to eat up my wealth. But come, come as quickly as you can to learn in my stead.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what good can be learnt of them?
STREPSIADES. What good indeed? Why, all human knowledge. Firstly, you will know yourself grossly ignorant. But await me here awhile.
PHIDIPPIDES. Alas! what is to be done? My father has lost his wits. Must I have him certificated for lunacy, or must I order his coffin?
STREPSIADES. Come! what kind of bird is this? tell me.
STREPSIADES. The same for both? You make me laugh! For the future you will call this one a pigeonnette and the other a pigeon.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeonnette! These then are the fine things you have just learnt at the school of these sons of the Earth![543]
STREPSIADES. And many others; but what I learnt I forgot at once, because I am too old.
PHIDIPPIDES. So this is why you have lost your cloak?
STREPSIADES. I have not lost it, I have consecrated it to Philosophy.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what have you done with your sandals, you poor fool?
STREPSIADES. If I have lost them, it is for what was necessary, just as Pericles did.[544] But come, move yourself, let us go in; if necessary, do wrong to obey your father. When you were six years old and still lisped, 'twas I who obeyed you. I remember at the feasts of Zeus you had a consuming wish for a little chariot and I bought it for you with the first obolus which I received as a juryman in the Courts.