Soc. Ho you! what are you about? Are you not meditating?
Strep. I? Yea, by Neptune!
Soc. And what, pray, have you thought?
Strep. Whether any bit of me will be left by the bugs.
Soc. You will perish most wretchedly.
Strep. But, my good friend, I have already perished.
Soc. You must not give in, but must wrap yourself up; for you have to discover a device for abstracting, and a means of cheating. [Walks up and down while Strepsiades wraps himself up in the blankets.]
Strep. Ah me! would, pray, some one would throw over me a swindling contrivance from the sheep-skins.[1]
Soc. Come now; I will first see this fellow, what he is about. Ho you! are you asleep?
Strep. No; by Apollo, I am not!
Soc. Have you got any thing?
Strep. No; by Jupiter, certainly not!
Soc. Nothing at all?
Strep. Nothing, except what I have in my right hand.
Soc. Will you not quickly cover yourself up, and think of something?
Strep. About what? for do you tell me this, O Socrates!
Soc. Do you, yourself, first find out and state what you wish.
Strep. You have heard a thousand times what I wish. About the interest; so that I may pay no one.
Soc. Come then, wrap yourself up, and having given your mind play[2] with subtilty, revolve your affairs by little and little, rightly distinguishing and examining.
Strep. Ah me, unhappy man!
- ↑ "As Socrates is throwing (ἐπιβάλλει) the lamb or sheep-fleeces (ἀρνακίδας) upon Strepsiades, the latter, before he is finally covered up, delivers himself of a wish, suggested by the equivoque in the words ἀρνακὶς and ἄρνησις." Mitch. "From these lamb-fleeces knowledge how to fleece. It is a common Greek idiom to express a wish in the form of a question." Felton.
"O weh! wer schafft mir armen Kauz
Aus diesem Löcherkittel eine Lugidee!" Droysen. - ↑ See Liddell's Lex. in voc. "Slicing small your reason." Walsh. "Cutting the thought fine." Felton. This seems better to suit the following words, κατὰ μικρόν.
Droysen. "The genitive φρουρᾶς denotes time. See Soph. Gr. Gr. § 196. and Kühner, Gr. Gr. § 273, 4." Felton.
