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καὶ Κηκείδου καὶ Βουφονίων.
The text presents a crux regarding the identity of these two figures. 'Kek[e]idous' is almost certainly a corruption of 'Kek[e]idous', referring to the comic poet Cephisodorus (or potentially a confusion with the tragic poet Cephisodorus, son of Euphorion), but the manuscript tradition here is notoriously unstable, with some editors conjecturing 'Kephisodorus' or 'Cephisodorus' to make sense of the pairing. 'Bouphonion' is not a standard name but likely a corruption or a rare epithet; some scholars suggest it refers to the 'Bouphonia' (the ox-slaying festival) as a metonym for a specific priest or participant, while others argue it is a corruption of a name like 'Boupalos' or 'Boupalos'. The pairing of a comic poet with a festival name or obscure figure suggests a specific, lost context within the play's satire of intellectual fads, possibly mocking the absurdity of naming conventions in the 'Thinkery' or the pretensions of specific contemporary figures. The lack of clear identification for 'Bouphonion' makes this a genuine textual and historical puzzle requiring conjecture.
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ἐξ ὧν ἄνδρας Μαραθωνομάχας ἡμὴ παίδευσις ἔθρεψεν.
The phrase ἄνδρας Μαραθωνομάχας serves as a specific historical synecdoche, referring not merely to 'men who fought at Marathon' but to the generation of Athenians born before the Persian Wars (c. 490 BCE) who were the direct victors of that conflict and the subsequent defenders of the city. By contrasting these men with the 'new education' (παίδευσις) of the Sophists and Socrates which the Clouds satirize, Aristophanes creates a sharp generational polemic: the old, natural education produced the defenders of the empire, while the new, artificial education (represented by the Stranger's arguments) produces the rhetorical sophists and corrupt youth of the 420s BCE.
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μήλῳ βληθεὶς ὑπὸ πορνιδίου τῆς εὐκλείας ἀποθραυσθῇς·
The phrase ὑπὸ πορνιδίου ('by a little whore') is a striking example of Aristophanic grotesque humor and semantic degradation, where the abstract concept of εὐκλείας ('reputation' or 'glory') is personified or associated with a lowly prostitute to depict the fall of the wise man. The construction βληθεὶς ὑπὸ πορνιδίου functions as a causal participle modifying the subject of the optative ἀποθραυσθῇς, suggesting a violent, almost mythological assault where the abstract 'glory' is the agent of the physical 'breaking' (ἀποθραυσθῇς) caused by the mundane and shameful 'little whore'. This specific combination of high abstract noun and low concrete noun, mediated by a violent passive participle, is a hallmark of the play's satirical attack on the Sophists, reducing their intellectual pursuits to a farcical scene of physical and moral corruption.
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μνησικακῆσαι τὴν ἡλικίαν ἐξ ἧς ἐνεοττοτροφήθης.
The compound verb μνησικακῆσαι (to bear a grudge) is a hapax legomenon in the surviving corpus of Attic comedy, formed with the prefix μνησ- (from μνάομαι, to remember) and κακ- (from κακός, evil/bad). Its formation mirrors the Homeric μνησικακία (grudge-holding), but the verbal form here represents a specific Aristophanic coinage that emphasizes the active, volitional nature of holding a grudge against one's 'age' or 'generation' (τὴν ἡλικίαν). The accusative τὴν ἡλικίαν is personified, functioning as the object of the grudge, while the relative clause ἐξ ἧς ἐνεοττοτροφήθης (from which you were recently nurtured) employs the rare and archaic verb ἐνεοττοτρέφω (to be newly nurtured), a compound of ἐν- and τρέφω with the intensifying prefix ἐ- and the root νεο-, suggesting a fresh or recent upbringing. This construction highlights the irony of the character resenting the very generation that raised him, a thematic device common in Aristophanes' satire of the Sophistic generation.
