Clouds (910-959)

You have spoken roses of me.

And a dirty lickspittle.

You crown me with lilies.

And a parricide.

You don’t know that you are sprinkling me with gold.

Certainly not so formerly, but with lead.

But now this is an ornament to me.

You are very impudent.

And you are antiquated.

And through you, no one of our youths is willing to go to school; and you will be found out some time or other by the Athenians, what sort of doctrines you teach the simple-minded.

You are shamefully squalid.

And you are prosperous. And yet formerly you were a beggar saying that you were the Mysian Telephus, and gnawing the maxims of Pandeletus out of your little wallet.

Oh, the wisdom—

Oh, the madness—

Which you have mentioned.

And of your city, which supports you who ruin her youths.

You shan’t teach this youth, you old dotard.

Yes, if he is to be saved, and not merely to practise loquacity.

Come hither, and leave him to rave.

You shall howl, if you lay your hand on him.

Cease from contention and railing.

But show to us, you, what you used to teach the men of former times, and you, the new system of education; in order that, having heard you disputing, he may decide and go to the school of one or the other.

I am willing to do so.

I also am willing.

Come now, which of the two shall speak first?

I will give him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts.

And at last, if he mutter, he shall be destroyed, being stung in his whole face and his two eyes by my maxims, as if by bees.