you
insulted
the gods!
Aristophanes
But we are dead men, dead men!
STREPSIADES. That is just exactly what I hope, unless my axe plays me
false, or I fall and break my neck.
SOCRATES. Hi! you fellow on the roof, what are you doing up there?
STREPSIADES. I traverse the air and contemplate the sun. [574]
SOCRATES. Ah! ah! woe is upon me! I am suffocating!
CHAEREPHON. Ah!
you insulted the gods! Ah! you studied the face of the
moon! Chase them, strike and beat them down! Forward! they have richly
deserved their fate--above all, by reason of their blasphemies.
CHORUS. So let the Chorus file off the stage. Its part is played.
* * * * *
FINIS OF "THE CLOUDS"
* * * * *
Footnotes:
[470] He is in one bed and his son is in another; slaves are sleeping
near them. It is night-time.
[471] The punishment most frequently inflicted upon slaves in the towns
was to send them into the country to work in the fields, but at the
period when the 'Clouds' was presented, 424 B. C. , the invasions of the
Peloponnesians forbade the pursuit of agriculture. Moreover, there
existed the fear, that if the slaves were punished too harshly, they
might go over to the enemy.
[472] Among the Greeks, each month was divided into three decades.
STREPSIADES. That is just exactly what I hope, unless my axe plays me
false, or I fall and break my neck.
SOCRATES. Hi! you fellow on the roof, what are you doing up there?
STREPSIADES. I traverse the air and contemplate the sun. [574]
SOCRATES. Ah! ah! woe is upon me! I am suffocating!
CHAEREPHON. Ah!
you insulted the gods! Ah! you studied the face of the
moon! Chase them, strike and beat them down! Forward! they have richly
deserved their fate--above all, by reason of their blasphemies.
CHORUS. So let the Chorus file off the stage. Its part is played.
* * * * *
FINIS OF "THE CLOUDS"
* * * * *
Footnotes:
[470] He is in one bed and his son is in another; slaves are sleeping
near them. It is night-time.
[471] The punishment most frequently inflicted upon slaves in the towns
was to send them into the country to work in the fields, but at the
period when the 'Clouds' was presented, 424 B. C. , the invasions of the
Peloponnesians forbade the pursuit of agriculture. Moreover, there
existed the fear, that if the slaves were punished too harshly, they
might go over to the enemy.
[472] Among the Greeks, each month was divided into three decades.
