Socrates: Consider, then, what you have roasted from a little belly of tunny-fish;
Socrates: How is it not likely that this boundless Air should thunder loudly?
Strepsiades: So thunder and flatulence are also similar in name.
Strepsiades: But tell me, from where is this thunderbolt now coming, shining with fire,
395
Strepsiades: And he scorches us while throwing [stones], and he talks nonsense to those who are alive?
Strepsiades: for Zeus clearly shoots this one at the perjurers.
Socrates: And how, you fool, do you and the smell of the son of Cronus and the moon-eater,
Socrates: If indeed he strikes the perjurers, then clearly he did not burn Simon.
Socrates: Not even Cleonymus and Theorus? Yet they are both most grievous oath-breakers;
400
Socrates: but he is shooting his own temple and the promontory of the Athenians at Sounion.
Socrates: And the great oaks too; what did he learn? For by Zeus, an oak does not commit perjury.
Strepsiades: I do not know; but you clearly speak well. For what is thunder, then?
Socrates: when a dry wind, having been raised aloft, is shut in among these,
Socrates: He blows them from inside just like a bladder, and then by force
405
Socrates: Bursting them, he is carried out serious because of the density,
Socrates: 'By the gully and the stream, I myself burn myself.'
Strepsiades: By Zeus, at least I myself truly suffered this once to the Diasians.
Strepsiades: roasting a belly for his relatives, and then, having neglected it, not having [it].
Strepsiades: And then indeed it would blow, and then suddenly, barking out, to them
410
Strepsiades: He grabbed my eye and burned my face.
Chorus: O man who has desired great wisdom from us,
Chorus: how fortunate he will become among the Athenians and among the Greeks,
Chorus: if you are mindful and thoughtful, and if the wretched [state of affairs] is present
Chorus: In the soul, and yet you do not tire, neither standing nor walking,
415
Chorus: do not be annoyed either by shivering too much or by wishing to eat breakfast,
Chorus: it abstains from wine, from gymnasia, and from the other foolish things,
Chorus: And you think this is the best thing, which a sensible man would consider right,
Chorus: prevailing by acting and deliberating and fighting with the tongue.
Strepsiades: But because of a soul of hard and difficult-to-comfort care.
420
Strepsiades: and of the purse-stringer, and of the glutton, and of the leek-dinner,
Strepsiades: I would indeed be confident on account of these things, if I were to offer myself to forge [them].
Socrates: So then, do you now consider some other god, none except what we do?
Socrates: This Chaos and the Clouds and the tongue, are these three the same?
Strepsiades: No, I would not truly converse with the others, nor would I even meet them;
425
Strepsiades: I would not sacrifice, nor would I pour a libation, nor would I place incense.
Chorus: Now tell us what you are doing with confidence, so that you will not come to harm.
Chorus: to honor us and admire us and seek to be on the right side.
Strepsiades: Oh ladies, I beg you, then, this very little thing,
Strepsiades: I say that I am the best of the Greeks by a hundred stades.
430
Chorus: But this will be from us; so that from now on...
Chorus: In the city, no one will defeat more people than you in opinion.
Strepsiades: Do not speak great thoughts to me; for I do not desire these things,
Strepsiades: but [I want] to twist-judge myself and to slip past the creditors.
Chorus: So he will provide what you long for; for you do not desire great things.
435
Chorus: But trusting yourself, hand yourself over to our attendants.
Clouds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.