Pheidippides: How sweet it is to converse with new and clever things,
Pheidippides: and to be able to despise the established laws.
1400
Pheidippides: For when I was paying attention to the mind solely with horsemanship,
Pheidippides: He was not even able to speak three words before he made a mistake;
Pheidippides: Now, since this man himself has stopped me from these things,
Pheidippides: but I am at home with subtle opinions and arguments and worries,
Pheidippides: I think I will teach that it is just to punish one's father.
1405
Strepsiades: So ride, by Zeus, as it is better for me.
Strepsiades: 'Whether to rear a four-horse chariot or to be beaten by a thrashing.'
Pheidippides: From there, from where you cut me off from the argument, I shall return.
Pheidippides: And first I will ask you this: did you beat me, though I was a boy?
Strepsiades: I, wishing you well and taking care of you.
1410
Pheidippides: tell me then,
Pheidippides: It is not just for you that I am to be well-disposed equally.
Pheidippides: to strike, then, since indeed to strike is to be well-disposed?
Pheidippides: for how is it necessary for your body to be free from blows,
Pheidippides: What about mine? And indeed, I was born free too.
Pheidippides: the children are weeping, but do you not think that the father is not weeping?
1415
Pheidippides: You will be thought to have done this, as the work of a boy.
Pheidippides: But I would retort that the old men are twice [as much] children;
Pheidippides: it is more likely that the old men than the young should weep at something,
Pheidippides: The less they are wrong, the more just it is for them.
Strepsiades: But it is not considered anywhere for a father to suffer this.
1420
Pheidippides: Then the man who laid down this law was not originally so.
Pheidippides: Just as you and I, did you persuade the ancients even while speaking?
Pheidippides: Then surely it is also allowed for me, from now on, something new again.
Pheidippides: to strike down the law that sons should strike back at their fathers?
Pheidippides: How many blows we had before the law was established,
1425
Pheidippides: We give them up, and we give them freely to be hacked up.
Pheidippides: Consider the roosters and the rest of these beasts,
Pheidippides: how he defends his fathers; and yet, what difference do they make?
Pheidippides: Those are ours, except that they do not write decrees?
Strepsiades: But why, since you imitate all the roosters,
1430
Strepsiades: You don't eat, and you sleep on dung and on wood?
Pheidippides: It is not the same thing, by the goddesses, nor would it even seem so to Socrates.
Strepsiades: For these things, do not strike; but if you do not, you will blame yourself.
Pheidippides: And how?
Strepsiades: Since I am just in punishing you,
Strepsiades: But you, if it happens to you, [will have] the son.
1435
Pheidippides: But if it does not happen,
Pheidippides: In vain will he weep for me, but you will die in a fainting fit.
Clouds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.