Mark him and his
ancestral
Zeus!
Aristophanes
STREPSIADES. Alas! oh Clouds! 'tis hard indeed, but 'tis just! I ought
not to have cheated my creditors. . . . But come, my dear son, come with me
to take vengeance on this wretched Chaerephon and on Socrates, who have
deceived us both.
PHIDIPPIDES. I shall do nothing against our masters.
STREPSIADES. Oh! show some reverence for ancestral Zeus!
PHIDIPPIDES.
Mark him and his ancestral Zeus! What a fool you are! Does
any such being as Zeus exist?
STREPSIADES. Why, assuredly.
PHIDIPPIDES. No, a thousand times no! The ruler of the world is the
Whirlwind, that has unseated Zeus.
STREPSIADES. He has not dethroned him. I believed it, because of this
whirligig here. Unhappy wretch that I am! I have taken a piece of clay to
be a god.
PHIDIPPIDES. Very well! Keep your stupid nonsense for your own
consumption.
