Parodos
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.
Socrates.
How? The one with you is ἀλεκτρὺων, and the other is ἀλεκτρὺων also.
Strepsiades.
Yea, by Neptune! How now ought I to call them?
665
Socrates.
The one ἀλεκτρύαινα and the other ἀλέκτωρ.
Strepsiades.
Ἀλεκτρύαινα? Capital, by the Air! So that, in return for this lesson alone, I will fill your kardopos full of barley-meal on all sides.
Socrates.
See! See! There again is another blunder! You make κάρδοπος, which is feminine, to be masculine.
670
Strepsiades.
In what way do I make κάρδοπος masculine?
Socrates.
Most assuredly; just as if you were to say Κλεώνυμος.
Strepsiades.
How pray? Tell me.
Socrates.
Κάρδοπος with you is tantamount to Κλεώνυμος.
Strepsiades.
Good sir, Cleonymus had no kneading-trough, but kneaded his bread in a round mortar. How ought I to call it henceforth?
675
Socrates.
How? Call it καρδόπη, as you call Σωστράτη.
