Parodos
[Lyric-Scene]
What money is this?
1270
Amynias.
That which he borrowed.
1270
Strepsiades.
Then you were really unlucky, as I think.
Amynias.
By the gods, I fell while driving my horses.
Strepsiades.
Why, pray, do you talk nonsense, as if you had fallen from an ass?
Amynias.
Do I talk nonsense if I wish to recover my money?
Strepsiades.
You can’t be in your senses yourself.
1275
Strepsiades.
You appear to me to have had your brains shaken as it were.
Amynias.
And you appear to me, by Hermes, to be going to be summoned, if you will not pay me the money?
Strepsiades.
Tell me now, whether you think that Jupiter
always rains fresh rain on each occasion, or that the sun draws from below the same water back again?
1280
Amynias.
I know not which; nor do I care.
Strepsiades.
How then is it just that you should recover your money, if you know nothing of meteorological matters?
Amynias.
Well, if you are in want, pay me the interest of my money.
1285
Strepsiades.
What sort of animal is this interest?
Amynias.
Most assuredly the money is always becoming more and more every month and every day as the time slips away.
Strepsiades.
You say well. What then? Is it possible that you consider the sea to be greater now than formerly?
Amynias.
No, by Jupiter, but equal; for it is not fitting that it should be greater.
Strepsiades.
And how then, you wretch does this become no way greater, though the rivers flow into it, while you
seek to increase your money? Will you not take yourself off from my house? Bring me the goad.
1295
Amynias.
I call you to witness these things.
Strepsiades.
Go! Why do you delay? Won’t you march, Mr. Blood-horse?
Amynias.
Is not this an insult, pray?
Strepsiades.
Will you move quickly?
Pricks him behind with the goad.
I’ll lay on you, goading you behind, you outrigger? Do you fly?
Amynias runs off. I thought I should stir you, together with your wheels and your two-horse chariots.
[Choral]
What a thing it is to love evil courses! For this old man, having loved them,
Chorus.
wishes to withhold the money that he borrowed. And he will certainly meet with something today, which will perhaps cause this sophist
1305
to suddenly receive some misfortune, in return for the knaveries he has begun.
1310
For I think that he will presently find what has been long boiling up, that his son is skilful to speak opinions
opposed to justice, so as to overcome all with whomsoever he holds converse, even if he advance most villainous doctrines;
1315
