Strep. How, pray? For inform me what good you will do me by this.

Phid. I will beat my mother, just as I have you.

Strep. What do you say? What do you say? This other, again, is a greater wickedness.

Phid. But what if, having the worst Cause, I shall conquer you in arguing, proving that it is right to beat one's mother?

Strep. Most a.s.suredly, if you do this, nothing will hinder you from casting yourself and your Worse Cause into the pit along with Socrates. These evils have I suffered through you, O Clouds! Having intrusted all my affairs to you.

Cho. Nay, rather, you are yourself the cause of these things, having turned yourself to wicked courses.

Strep. Why, pray, did you not tell me this, then, but excited with hopes a rustic and aged man?

Cho. We always do this to him whom we perceive to be a lover of wicked courses, until we precipitate him into misfortune, so that he may learn to fear the G.o.ds.

Strep. Ah me! it is severe, O Clouds! But it is just; for I ought not to have withheld the money which I borrowed. Now, therefore, come with me, my dearest son, that you may destroy the blackguard Chaerephon and Socrates, who deceived you and me.

Phid. I will not injure my teachers.

Strep. Yes, yes, reverence Paternal Jove.

Phid. "Paternal Jove" quoth'a! How antiquated you are!

Why, is there any Jove?

Strep. There is.

Phid. There is not, no; for Vortex reigns having expelled Jupiter.

Strep. He has not expelled him; but I fancied this, on account of this Vortex here. Ah me, unhappy man! When I even took you who are of earthenware for a G.o.d.

Phid. Here rave and babble to yourself.

[Exit Phidippides]

Strep. Ah me, what madness! How mad, then, I was when I ejected the G.o.ds on account of Socrates! But O dear Hermes, by no means be wroth with me, nor destroy me; but pardon me, since I have gone crazy through prating.

And become my adviser, whether I shall bring an action and prosecute them, or whatever you think. You advise me rightly, not permitting me to get up a lawsuit, but as soon as possible to set fire to the house of the prating fellows. Come hither, come hither, Xanthias! Come forth with a ladder and with a mattock and then mount upon the thinking-shop and dig down the roof, if you love your master, until you tumble the house upon them.

[Xanthias mounts upon the roof]

But let some one bring me a lighted torch and I'll make some of them this day suffer punishment, even if they be ever so much impostors.

1st Dis. (from within) Hollo! Hollo!

Strep. It is your business, O torch, to send forth abundant flame.

[Mounts upon the roof]

1st Dis. What are you doing, fellow?

Strep. What am I doing? Why, what else, than chopping logic with the beams of your house?

[Sets the house on fire]

2nd Dis. (from within) You will destroy us! You will destroy us!

Strep. For I also wish this very thing; unless my mattock deceive my hopes, or I should somehow fall first and break my neck.

Soc. (from within). Hollo you! What are you doing, pray, you fellow on the roof?

Strep. I am walking on air, and speculating about the sun.

Soc. Ah me, unhappy! I shall be suffocated, wretched man!

Chaer. And I, miserable man, shall be burnt to death!

Strep. For what has come into your heads that you acted insolently toward the G.o.ds, and pried into the seat of the moon? Chase, pelt, smite them, for many reasons, but especially because you know that they offended against the G.o.ds!

[The thinking shop is burned down]

Cho. Lead the way out; for we have sufficiently acted as chorus for today.