Stasimon 1
Socrates.
Come now; what do you now wish to learn first of those things in none of which you have ever been instructed? Tell me. About measures, or rhythms, or verses?
Strepsiades.
I should prefer to learn about measures; for it is but lately I was cheated out of two choenices by a meal-huckster.
Socrates.
I do not ask you this, but which you account the most beautiful measure; the trimetre or the tetrameter?
Strepsiades.
I think nothing superior to the semisextarius.
Socrates.
You talk nonsense, man.
Strepsiades.
Make a wager then with me, if the semisextarius be not a tetrameter.
Socrates.
Go to the devil! How boorish you are and dull of learning. Perhaps you may be able to learn about rhythms.
Strepsiades.
But what good will rhythms do me for a living?
Socrates.
In the first place, to be clever at an entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.
Strepsiades.
According to the dactyle? By Jove, but I know it!
Strepsiades.
What else but this finger? Formerly, indeed, when I was yet a boy, this here!
Socrates.
You are boorish and stupid.
655
Strepsiades.
For I do not desire, you wretch, to learn any of these things.
655
Strepsiades.
That, that, the most unjust cause.
Socrates.
But you must learn other things before these; namely, what quadrupeds are properly masculine.
Strepsiades.
I know the males, if I am not mad:—κριὸς, τράγος, ταῦρος, κύων, ἀλεκτρυών.
660
Socrates.
Do you see what you are doing? You are calling both the female and the male ἀλεκτρυὼν in the same way.
Strepsiades.
How, pray? Come, tell me.
