Parodos
[Parodos]
Pray where? Show me.
Socrates.
See! There they come in great numbers through the hollows and thickets; there, obliquely.
Strepsiades.
What’s the matter? For I can’t see them.
325
Socrates.
By the entrance.
Strepsiades.
Now at length with difficulty I just see them.
Socrates.
Now at length you assuredly see them, unless you have your eyes running pumpkins.
Strepsiades.
Yes, by Jupiter! O highly honoured Clouds, for now they cover all things.
Socrates.
Did you not, however, know, nor yet consider, these to be goddesses?
Strepsiades.
No, by Jupiter! But I thought them to be mist, and dew, and smoke.
330
Socrates.
For you do not know, by Jupiter! that these feed very many sophists, Thurian soothsayers, practisers of medicine, lazy-long-haired-onyx-ring-wearers, song-twisters for the cyclic dances, and meteorological quacks. They feed idle people who do nothing, because such men celebrate them in verse.
Strepsiades.
For this reason, then, they introduced into their verses the dreadful impetuosity of the moist, whirling-bright clouds; and the curls of hundred-headed Typho; and the hard-blowing tempests; and then aerial, moist; crooked-clawed birds, floating in air and the showers of rain from dewy Clouds. And then, in return for these, they swallow slices of great, fine mullets, and bird’s-flesh of thrushes.
335
Socrates.
Is it not just, however, that they should have their reward, on account of these?
340
Strepsiades.
Tell me, pray, if they are really clouds, what ails them, that they resemble mortal women? For they are not such.
340
Socrates.
Pray, of what nature are they?
Strepsiades.
I do not clearly know: at any rate they resemble spread-out fleeces, and not women, by Jupiter! Not a bit; for these have noses.
Socrates.
Answer, then, whatever I ask you.
345
Strepsiades.
Then say quickly what you wish.
345
Socrates.
Have you ever, when you; looked up, seen a cloud like to a centaur, or a panther, or a wolf, or a bull?
Strepsiades.
By Jupiter, have I! But what of that?
Socrates.
They become all things, whatever they please. And then if they see a person with long hair, a wild one of these hairy fellows, like the son of Xenophantes, in derision of his folly, they liken themselves to centaurs.
