Strepsiades: Alas, for madness! For I have been mad, it seems,
Strepsiades: when they were expelling the gods because of Socrates.
Strepsiades: But, O dear Hermes, do not at all sacrifice for me.
Strepsiades: Do not wear me out, but be patient.
Strepsiades: when I have gone mad with idle talk;
1480
Strepsiades: And be my advisor, whether [you will bring] them to trial
Strepsiades: I shall go and get some writing materials, whatever you think best.
Strepsiades: You are advising correctly, not allowing [me] to be a litigant.
Strepsiades: but how quickly to set the house on fire.
Strepsiades: Of the gadflies. Come here, come here, O Xanthias,
1485
Strepsiades: taking a ladder, go out and carrying a file,
Strepsiades: and then getting back up onto the thinking-shop.
Strepsiades: "Tear down the roof, if you love your master,"
Strepsiades: Until you put the house inside them;
Strepsiades: But let someone bring me a dry stick,
1490
Strepsiades: And I too will make one of them pay a penalty today.
Strepsiades: I will make it so, even if they are extremely arrogant.
Strepsiades: It is your job, sir, to send up a great flame.
Student A: Man, what are you doing?
1495
Strepsiades: What am I doing? And what else, then, than
Strepsiades: Am I being bored by the beams of the house?
Student B: Alas, who is setting our house on fire?
Strepsiades: That man from whom you have taken the cloak.
Student 3: You will be ruined, you will be ruined.
Strepsiades: For it is this very thing that I also wish,
Strepsiades: If the weasel does not betray my hopes,
1500
Strepsiades: Or may I perhaps be broken-necked and fall first.
Socrates: What are you doing up there on the roof?
Strepsiades: I walk on air and look down on the sun.
Socrates: Alas, wretched, miserable, I shall be strangled.
Chaerephon: But as for me, the wretch, I shall be completely burned.
1505
Strepsiades: For what, having learned [these things], do you blaspheme the gods,
Strepsiades: And were you observing the seat of the moon?
Hermes: chase, strike, hit, for many reasons,
Hermes: most certainly, knowing that the gods were treating them unjustly.
Chorus: Lead the way outside; for the dancing has been completed.
1510
Chorus: moderately, at any rate, today, for us.