Sarpedon, you are pouring libations and laughing. For which reason Hyperbolus, having obtained by lot this year to be Hieromnemon, was afterwards deprived by us gods of his[1] crown: for thus he will know better that he ought to spend the days of his life according to the Moon. [Enter Socrates.]
Soc. By Respiration, and Chaos, and Air, I have not seen any man so boorish, nor so impracticable, nor so stupid, nor so forgetful; who, while learning some little petty quibbles, forgets them before he has learnt them. Nevertheless I will certainly call him out here to the light.[2] Where is Strepsiades? come forth with your couch.
Strep. (from within). The bugs do not permit me to bring it forth.
Soc. Make haste and lay it down; and give me your attention. [Enter Strepsiades.]
Strep. Very well.
Soc. 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?
Strep. I should prefer to learn about measures; for it is but lately I was cheated out of two chœnices by a meal-huckster.
Soc. I do not ask you this, but which you account the most beautiful measure; the trimeter or the tetrameter?
Strep. I think nothing superior to the semisextarius.[3]
Soc. You talk nonsense, man.
Strep. Make a wager then with me,[4] if the semisextarius be not a tetrameter.
Soc. Go to the devil! how boorish you are and dull of learning! Perhaps you may be able to learn about rhythms.
- ↑ For this anacoluthon, cf. Aves, 535, 1456. Lys. 560. Equit 392. Horn. Il. Α. 478.
- ↑ "Said satirically of the school of Socrates, as if it were a den of wild beasts." Ernesti. "i. e. because the φροντιστήριον was dark and gloomy. Hence Strepsiades compares it to the cave of Trophonius." Schütz.
- ↑ "The Attic medimnus was divided into 48 chœnices. The ἑκτεὺς, sextarius, or modius, was the sixth part of a medimnus, and contained 8. chœnices; therefore the ἡμιεκτέον, or semisextarius, = 4 chœnices." Brunck.
- ↑ Cf. Ach. 772, 1115, 791. Hom. Il. ψ. 485.
