Stasimon 2
[Lyric-Scene]
Then I will shout with a very loud
Strepsiades.
shout: Ho! Weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your principals, and your compound interests! For you can no longer do me any harm, because such a son is being reared for me in this house,
1155
shining with a double-edged tongue, for my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and summon from within to me.
1160
Socrates.
assigned to Strepsiades in the the print.O child! O son! Come forth from the house! Hear your father!
Re-enter Socrates leading in Phidippides. Lo, here is the man!
1165
Strepsiades.
O my dear, my dear!
Socrates.
Take your son and depart.
Strepsiades.
Oh, oh, my child! Huzza! Huzza! How I am delighted at the first sight of your complexion! Now, indeed, you are, in the first place, negative and disputatious to look at, and this fashion native to the place plainly appears, the what do you say? and the seeming
1170
to be injured when, I well know, you are injuring and inflicting a wrong; and in your countenance there is the Attic look. Now, therefore, see that you save me, since you have also ruined me.
1175
Phidippides.
What, pray, do you fear?
Strepsiades.
The Old and New.
Phidippides.
Why, is any day old and new?
Strepsiades.
Yes; on which they say that they will make their deposits against me.
1180
Phidippides.
Then those that have made them will lose them; for it is not possible that two days can be one day.
Phidippides.
Certainly not; unless the same woman can be both old and young at the same time.
Strepsiades.
And yet it is the law.
1185
Phidippides.
For they do not, I think, rightly understand what the law means.
1185
Strepsiades.
And what does it mean?
Phidippides.
The ancient Solon was by nature the commons’ friend.
Strepsiades.
This surely is nothing whatever to the Old and New.
