Aristophanes Clouds 1162

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Clouds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (English) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Νεφέλαι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) — 1131-1302 focus
Translations (2)
Clouds Perseus (Aristophanes. The Comedies of Aristophanes, Vol. I. Hickie, William James, translator. Bohn: London, 1853.) — 1154 focus
English (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) Experimental (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) — 1154 focus

Commentary

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) focus

1162. mvp-tlg0019-tlg003-sanjaya-com-eng1-84

Line 1162

λυσανίας πατρῴων μεγάλων κακῶν·
The phrase λυσανίας πατρῴων μεγάλων κακῶν refers to the specific legal action of 'liberating' (λύειν) a debtor from the burden of ancestral debts (πατρῴα κακά), a central theme in the play's satire of Socrates and the Sophists who allegedly taught such arguments. While λύω is standard for releasing from bonds, the construction here relies on the genitive of the thing released (πατρῴων κακῶν) without an explicit object of the verb's transitive action in the immediate context, relying on the reader's knowledge of the 'debt' as the implied accusative object of the participle's sense. More critically, this is a direct reference to the 'debt-relief' laws or the specific rhetorical trickery attributed to the 'New Education' which claimed to absolve citizens of inherited obligations, a point of intense political and social anxiety in Athens regarding the stability of the family unit and the oikos. The term κακῶν here is not merely 'evils' but a technical legal euphemism for the financial liabilities inherited from one's father, a usage that would be opaque without the specific context of the play's plot regarding the old man's financial ruin and his son's Sophistic education.