No More Learning

CHORUS. Oh, mortal! you, who desire to instruct yourself in our great
wisdom, the Athenians, the Greeks will envy you your good fortune. Only
you must have the memory and ardour for study, you must know how to stand
the tests, hold your own, go forward without feeling fatigue, caring but
little for food, abstaining from wine, gymnastic exercises and other
similar follies, in fact, you must believe as every man of intellect
should, that the greatest of all blessings is to live and think more
clearly than the vulgar herd, to shine in the contests of words.

STREPSIADES. If it be a question of hardiness for labour, of spending
whole nights at work, of living sparingly, of fighting my stomach and
only eating chick-pease, rest assured, I am as hard as an anvil.

SOCRATES. Henceforward, following our example, you will recognize no
other gods but Chaos, the Clouds and the Tongue, these three alone.

STREPSIADES. I would not speak to the others, even if I should meet them
in the street; not a single sacrifice, not a libation, not a grain of
incense for them!

CHORUS. Tell us boldly then what you want of us; you cannot fail to
succeed, if you honour and revere us and if you are resolved to become a
clever man.

STREPSIADES. Oh, sovereign goddesses, 'tis but a very small favour that I
ask of you; grant that I may distance all the Greeks by a hundred stadia
in the art of speaking.

CHORUS.
We grant you this, and henceforward no eloquence shall more often
succeed with the people than your own.

STREPSIADES. May the god shield me from possessing great eloquence! 'Tis
not what I want. I want to be able to turn bad lawsuits to my own
advantage and to slip through the fingers of my creditors.

CHORUS. It shall be as you wish, for your ambitions are modest. Commit
yourself fearlessly to our ministers, the sophists.

STREPSIADES. This will I do, for I trust in you. Moreover there is no
drawing back, what with these cursed horses and this marriage, which has
eaten up my vitals. So let them do with me as they will; I yield my body
to them. Come blows, come hunger, thirst, heat or cold, little matters it
to me; they may flay me, if I only escape my debts, if only I win the
reputation of being a bold rascal, a fine speaker, impudent, shameless, a
braggart, and adept at stringing lies, an old stager at quibbles, a
complete table of the laws, a thorough rattle, a fox to slip through any
hole; supple as a leathern strap, slippery as an eel, an artful fellow, a
blusterer, a villain; a knave with a hundred faces, cunning, intolerable,
a gluttonous dog. With such epithets do I seek to be greeted; on these
terms, they can treat me as they choose, and, if they wish, by Demeter!
they can turn me into sausages and serve me up to the philosophers.

CHORUS.