Parodos
[Choral]
and perhaps, perhaps his father will wish that he were even speechless.
1320
Strepsiades.
(running out of the house pursued by his son). Hollo! Hollo! O neighbours, and kinsfolk, and fellow-tribesmen, defend me, by all means, who am being beaten! Ah me, unhappy man, for my head and jaw! Wretch! Do you beat your father?
Phidippides.
Yes, father.
1325
Strepsiades.
You see him owning that he beats me.
Strepsiades.
O wretch, and parricide, and house-breaker!
Phidippides.
Say the same things of me again, and more. Do you know that I take pleasure in being much abused?
Strepsiades.
You blackguard!
1330
Phidippides.
Sprinkle me with roses in abundance.
1330
Strepsiades.
Do you beat your father?
Phidippides.
And will prove too, by Jupiter! that I beat you with justice.
Strepsiades.
O thou most rascally! Why, how can it be just to beat a father?
Phidippides.
I will demonstrate it, and will overcome you in argument.
Strepsiades.
Will you overcome me in this?
1335
Phidippides.
Yea, by much and easily. But choose which of the two Causes you wish to speak.
1335
Strepsiades.
Of what two Causes?
Phidippides.
The better, or the worse?
Strepsiades.
Marry, I did get you taught to speak against justice, by Jupiter, my friend, if you are
going to persuade me of this, that it is just and honourable for a father to be beaten by his sons!
1340
Phidippides.
I think I shall certainly persuade you; so that, when you have heard, not even you yourself will say anything against it.
Strepsiades.
Well, now, I am willing to hear what you have to say.
[Agon]
It is your business, old man, to consider in what way you shall conquer the man; for if he were not relying upon something, he would not be so licentious. But he is emboldened by something; the boldness of the man
1345
Now you ought to tell to the Chorus from what the contention first arose. And this you must do by all means.
Strepsiades.
Well, now, I will tell you from what we first began to rail at one another. After we had feasted, as you know,
I first bade him take a lyre, and sing a song of Simonides, The Shearing of the Ram. But he immediately said it was old-fashioned to play on the lyre and sing while drinking, like a woman grinding parched barley.
1355
Phidippides.
For ought you not then immediately to be beaten and trampled on, bidding me sing, just as if you were entertaining cicadae?
Strepsiades.
He expressed, however, such opinions then too within, as he does now; and he asserted that Simonides was a bad poet. I bore it at first, with difficulty indeed, yet nevertheless I bore it. And then I bade him at least take a myrtle-wreath
and recite to me some portion of Aeschylus; and then he immediately said, Shall I consider Aeschylus the first among the poets, full of empty sound, unpolished, bombastic, using rugged words? And hereupon you can’t think how my heart panted. But, nevertheless, I restrained my passion, and said, At least recite some passage
1365
of the more modern poets, of whatever kind these clever things be. And he immediately sang a passage of Euripides, how a brother, O averter of ill! Debauched his uterine sister. And I bore it no longer, but immediately assailed him with many abusive reproaches. And then, after that, as was natural,
1370
