Strepsiades: By Zeus, I beg you, tell me, what are these, O Socrates?
Strepsiades: The ones who spoke this solemn word? Could they perhaps be heroines?
315
Socrates: Most certainly not, but heavenly great Clouds are goddesses to idle men;
Socrates: who provide us with judgment, speech, and intellect.
Socrates: and sorcery, and convoluted speech, and drumming, and seizure.
Strepsiades: Now, after hearing this their utterance, my soul has flown away,
Strepsiades: he is already seeking to argue over trifles and to talk at length about smoke,
320
Strepsiades: And to strike with a little saying the mind of another with a counter-argument;
Strepsiades: So that if in any way it is possible to see them now openly, I desire it.
Socrates: Look now here toward Mount Parnes; for I already see them coming down.
Socrates: Quietly, those.
Strepsiades: Bring it here, where? Show it.
Socrates: These are very numerous.
Socrates: Through the hollows and the rough ones, these are slanted.
325
Strepsiades: What's the matter?
Strepsiades: Oh, I cannot see!
Socrates: by the entrance.
Strepsiades: By now, with difficulty like this.
Socrates: Now, indeed, you already see them, unless you are blinded by cucumbers.
Strepsiades: By Zeus, I do, O most valuable ones; for they already hold everything.
Socrates: But you did not know that these are goddesses, nor did you think so?
Strepsiades: By Zeus, but I thought them to be mist and dew and smoke.
330
Socrates: For not by Zeus, you know that these nurture the most sophists,
Socrates: Thuriomantees, physician-technicians, seal-naming-beard-trimmers,
Socrates: song-wrestlers of circular choruses, sky-cheating men,
Socrates: They feed idle men doing nothing, because they make them poets.
Strepsiades: So, that's what the wet, twisting Clouds would do, destroying my mind,
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Strepsiades: the locks of Typhon, the hundred-headed, and the storm winds fanning them,
Strepsiades: then aerial wanderers, bent-winged birds floating in the air,
Strepsiades: Showers of the cool waters of the Clouds; then instead of them I swallowed.
Strepsiades: large pieces of good meat and plump chicks.
Socrates: but for these things, is it not justly?
340
Strepsiades: tell me then, what have you suffered,
Strepsiades: If indeed they are clouds, will they yield to mortal women?
Strepsiades: For those are not like that.
Socrates: Come, for what sort of ones are they?
Strepsiades: I do not know clearly; but they yield at least to woolen things spread out,
Strepsiades: And by Zeus, I won't have it with women at all, not in the least; for they have noses.
Socrates: Now answer what I wish to ask.
345
Strepsiades: Speak now quickly whatever you wish.
Socrates: Have you ever, having looked up, seen a cloud resembling a centaur?
Socrates: 'With a leopard, or a wolf, or a bull?'
Strepsiades: By Zeus, I do! Then what of this?
Socrates: All things come about as they wish; and then, if they see a comet
Socrates: Some wild one of these bearded men, like Xenophanes,
Socrates: they likened themselves to centaurs, mocking his madness.
350
Strepsiades: For what reason did Simon see the public thief, and what are they doing?
Socrates: Wolves suddenly became, revealing his nature.
Strepsiades: So these are the things that Clouds, having seen yesterday the spear-tosser Kleonymos,
Strepsiades: Because I saw that this man was the most cowardly, for this reason deer became [of him].
Socrates: And now, you see, because I saw Cleisthenes, that is why women came to be.
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