Strepsiades: And indeed, from where we first began to abuse one another.
Strepsiades: I will speak; for since we are dining, as you know,
Strepsiades: First, I ordered him to take the lyre.
1355
Strepsiades: Sing a song of Simonides, how the Ram was raised.
Strepsiades: and he immediately said that playing the lyre was ancient.
Strepsiades: to sing and drink like a nightingale, a woman having been caught.
Pheidippides: For you should not, you see, have been struck and trampled on at that time,
Pheidippides: 'To order him to sing, as it were, a cicada, while dining?'
1360
Strepsiades: But even then he used to say things just like these, inside the house,
Strepsiades: And he used to say that Simonides was a bad poet.
Strepsiades: And I too at first, though with difficulty, endured it.
Strepsiades: And then he ordered him, but to take myrrh instead
Strepsiades: speak to me some of Aeschylus' words; and then straightaway this man said:
1365
Strepsiades: For I consider Aeschylus to be the first among poets,
Strepsiades: A rattle, the most intolerable noise, a cliff-maker?
Strepsiades: And even here, how do you think my heart is stretched?
Strepsiades: However, I said, having bitten my anger, but you, on the contrary, these things
Strepsiades: Tell me one of the newer things, what these wise things are.
1370
Strepsiades: And he immediately sang some speech of Euripides, how he would stir things up.
Strepsiades: You have destroyed your half-sister, wretch.
Strepsiades: And I am no longer angry, but I am immediately praying for a curse.
Strepsiades: with many evils and misfortunes; and then from here, as is likely,
Strepsiades: word for word we grapple; then this fellow leaps up,
1375
Strepsiades: And then he bullied me, and he insulted me, and he choked me, and he crushed me.
Pheidippides: Then you are not acting justly, since you do not praise Euripides.
Pheidippides: 'most wise?'
Strepsiades: That man is most wise, O — what should I say to you?
Strepsiades: But again I shall be beaten.
Pheidippides: By Zeus, he would be in the right.
Strepsiades: And how justly? Since I raised you, shameless one.
1380
Strepsiades: realizing that you were stammering everything, what you were thinking.
Strepsiades: If indeed you were to say 'drink', knowing this, I would have refrained from drinking;
Strepsiades: if your mother had asked, I would have come to you bringing bread;
Strepsiades: You would not have been able to speak ill, and I, having taken [it], go out the door.
Strepsiades: I would have taken you away and even offered you a reward; but you now strangle me.
1385
