Strep. Even if witnesses were present when I borrowed the money?
Soc. Yea, much more! even if a thousand be present.
Strep. Then I will shout with a very loud shout:[1] Ho! weep, you petty-usurers, both you and your principals, and your compound interests! for you can no longer do me any harm, because[2] such a son is being reared for me in this house, shining with a double-edged tongue, my guardian, the preserver of my house, a mischief to my enemies, ending the sadness of the great woes of his father. Him do thou run and summon from within to me. [Socrettes goes into the house.] O child! O son! come forth from the house! hear your father![3] [Re-enter Socrates leading in Phidippides.]
Soc. Lo, here is the man!
Strep. O my dear, my dear!
Soc. Take your son and depart. [Exit Socrates.]
Strep.[4] Oh, oh, my child! Huzza![5] Huzza! how I am delighted at the first sight of your complexion! Now, indeed, you are, in the first place, negative and disputatious to look at, and this fashion native to the place plainly appears, the "What do you say?" and the seeming to be injured when, I well know, you are injuring and inflicting a wrong; and in your countenance there is the Attic look. Now, therefore, see that you save me, since you have also ruined me.
Phid. What, pray, do you fear?
Strep. The Old and New.
Phid. Why, is any day old and new?
Strep. Yes; on which they say that they will make their deposits against me.
Phid. Then those that have made them will lose them; for it is not possible that two days can be one day.[6]
- ↑ See Krüger, Gr. Gr. § 46, 5. Cf. Ach. 1201. For τἄρα, see Mus. Crit. i. p. 74.
- ↑ οἷος = ὅτι τοιοῦτος. See Krüger's Gr. Gr. § 51, 13, obs. 17; Jelf, § 804, 9; Matth. § 480, obs. 3.
- ↑ An adaptation of Hecuba's address to Polyxena.
- ↑ Here the scene changes to the front of Strepsiades' house.
- ↑ See Süvern, Clouds, p. 114.
- ↑ "Phidippides wishes to show that the ἕνη καὶ νέα, being two days, cannot be reckoned as one, therefore the words ἡμέραι δύο must be the subject, and not μί᾽ ἡμέρα. This would be contrary to his argument. Nor can we urge in this place a Schema Pindaricum. Although that is found in Tragedy, (Hermann, Soph. Trach. 517,) it
