یک متن انگلیسی طولانی (درخواست شده بود)
UNJUST DISCOURSE And I too.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS Who is to speak first?
UNJUST DISCOURSE Let it be my opponent, he has my full consent; then
I shall follow upon the very ground he shall have chosen and shall
shatter him with a hail of new ideas and subtle fancies; if after
that he dares to breathe another word, I shall sting him in the face
and in the eyes with our maxims, which are as keen as the sting of
a wasp, and he will die.
CHORUS (singing) Here are two rivals confident in their powers of
oratory and in the thoughts over which they have pondered so long.
Let us see which will come triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom,
for which my friends maintain such a persistent fight, is in great
danger.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS Come then, you, who crowned men of other days
with so many virtues, plead the cause dear to you, make yourself known
to us.
JUST DISCOURSE Very well, I will tell you what was the old education,
when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty
was held in veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that
it should not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school,
all the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged
in good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At
the master's house they had to stand with their legs apart and they
were taught to sing either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth
cities," or "A noise resounded from afar" in the solemn tones of the
ancient harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice
any of the soft inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples
of Phrynis take so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy
of the Muses and belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they
would sit with outstretched legs and without display of any indecency
to the curious. When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so
as to leave no trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child
rubbed with oil below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained
its fresh bloom and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be
seen approaching a lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft
modulation of the voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not
have dared, before those older than themselves, to have taken a radish,
an aniseed or a leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes
or cross their legs.
UNJUST DISCOURSE What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the
days of the festivals of Zeus Polieus, to the Buphonia, to the time
of the poet Cecides and the golden cicadas?
JUST DISCOURSE Nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men
of Marathon-But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle themselves
quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see them at the
Panathenaea forgetting Athene while they dance, and covering their
tools with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to range yourself
beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will then be able to
shun the public place, to refrain from the baths, to blush at all
that is shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at, to give
place to your elders, to honour your parents, in short, to avoid all
that is evil. Be modesty itself, and do not run to applaud the dancing
girls; if you delight in such scenes, some courtesan will cast you
her apple and your reputation will be done for. Do not bandy words
with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old
man, who has cherished you, with his age.
UNJUST DISCOURSE If you listen to him, by Bacchus! you will be the
image of the sons of Hippocrates and will be called mother's big ninny.
JUST DISCOURSE No, but you will pass your days at the gymnasia, glowing
with strength and health; you will not go to the public place to cackle
and wrangle as is done nowadays; you will not live in fear that you
may be dragged before the courts for some trifle exaggerated by quibbling.
But you will go down to the Academy to run beneath the sacred olives
with some virtuous friend of your own age, your head encircled with
the white reed, enjoying your ease and breathing the perfume of the
yew and of the fresh sprouts of the poplar, rejoicing in the return
of springtide and gladly listening to the gentle rustle of the plane
tree and the elm. (With greater warmth from here on) If you devote
yourself to practising my precepts, your chest will be stout, your
colour glowing, your shoulders broad, your tongue short, your hips
muscular, but your tool small. But if you follow the fashions of the
day, you will be pallid in hue, have narrow shoulders, a narrow chest,
a long tongue, small hips and a big thing; you will know how to spin
forth long-winded arguments on law. You will be persuaded also to
regard as splendid everything that is shameful and as shameful everything
that is honourable; in a word, you will wallow in degeneracy like
Antimachus.
CHORUS (singing) How beautiful, high-souled, brilliant is this wisdom
that you practise! What a sweet odour of honesty is emitted by your
discourse! Happy were those men of other days who lived when you were
honoured! And you, seductive talker, come, find some fresh arguments,
for your rival has done wonders.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS You will have to bring out against him all the
battery of your wit, it you desire to beat him and not to be laughed
out of court.
UNJUST DISCOURSE At last! I was choking with impatience, I was burning
to upset his arguments! If I am called the Weaker Reasoning in the
schools, it is just because I was the first to discover the means
to confute the laws and the decrees of justice. To invoke solely the
weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred
thousand drachmae. But see how I shall batter down the sort of education
of which he is so proud. Firstly, he forbids you to bathe in hot water.
What grounds have you for condemning hot baths?
JUST DISCOURSE Because they are baneful and enervate men.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Enough said! Oh! you poor wrestler! From the very
outset I have seized you and hold you round the middle; you cannot
escape me. Tell me, of all the sons of Zeus, who had the stoutest
heart, who performed the most doughty deeds?
JUST DISCOURSE None, in my opinion, surpassed Heracles.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Where have you ever seen cold baths called 'Bath
of Heracles'? And yet who was braver than he?
JUST DISCOURSE It is because of such quibbles, that the baths are
seen crowded with young folk, who chatter there the livelong day while
the gymnasia remain empty.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Next you condemn the habit of frequenting the market-place,
while I approve this. If it were wrong Homer would never have made
Nestor speak in public as well as all his wise heroes. As for the
art of speaking, he tells you, young men should not practise it; I
hold the contrary. Furthermore he preaches chastity to them. Both
precepts are equally harmful. Have you ever seen chastity of any use
to anyone? Answer and try to confute me.
JUST DISCOURSE To many; for instance, Peleus won a sword thereby.
UNJUST DISCOURSE A sword! Ah! what a fine present to make him! Poor
wretch! Hyperbolus, the lamp-seller, thanks to his villainy, has gained
more than....do not know how many talents, but certainly no sword.
JUST DISCOURSE Peleus owed it to his chastity that he became the
husband of Thetis.
UNJUST DISCOURSE .... who left him in the lurch, for he was not the
most ardent; in those nocturnal sports between the sheets, which so
please women, he possessed but little merit. Get you gone, you are
but an old fool. But you, young man, just consider a little what this
temperance means and the delights of which it deprives you-young fellows,
women, play, dainty dishes, wine, boisterous laughter. And what is
life worth without these? Then, if you happen to commit one of these
faults inherent in human weakness, some seduction or adultery, and
you are caught in the act, you are lost, if you cannot speak. But
follow my teaching and you will be able to satisfy your passions,
to dance, to laugh, to blush at nothing. Suppose you are caught in
the act of adultery. Then up and tell the husband you are not guilty,
and recall to him the example of Zeus, who allowed himself to be conquered
by love and by women. Being but a mortal, can you be stronger than
a god?
JUST DISCOURSE Suppose your pupil, following your advice, gets the
radish rammed up his arse and then is depilated with a hot coal; how
are you going to prove to him that he is not a broad-arse?
UNJUST DISCOURSE What's the matter with being a broad-arse?
JUST DISCOURSE Is there anything worse than that?
UNJUST DISCOURSE Now what will you say, if I beat you even on this
point?
JUST DISCOURSE I should certainly have to be silent then.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Well then, reply! Our advocates, what are they?
JUST DISCOURSE Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Nothing is more true. And our tragic poets?
JUST DISCOURSE Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Well said again. And our demagogues?
JUST DISCOURSE Sons of broad-arses.
UNJUST DISCOURSE You admit that you have spoken nonsense. And the
spectators, what are they for the most part? Look at them.
JUST DISCOURSE I am looking at them.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Well! What do you see?
JUST DISCOURSE By the gods, they are nearly all broad-arses. (pointing)
See, this one I know to be such and that one and that other with
the long hair.
UNJUST DISCOURSE What have you to say, then?
JUST DISCOURSE I am beaten. Debauchees! in the name of the gods,
receive my cloak; I pass over to your ranks. (He goes back into the
Thoughtery.)
UNJUST DISCOURSE Well then! Are you going to take away your son or
do you wish me to teach him how to speak?
STREPSIADES Teach him, chastise him and do not fail to sharpen his
tongue well, on one side for petty law-suits and on the other for
important cases.
UNJUST DISCOURSE Don't worry, I shall return him to you an accomplished
sophist.
PHIDIPPIDES Very pale then and thoroughly hang-dog-looking.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS Take him with you. (The UNJUST DISCOURSE and
PHIDIPPIDES go into the THOUGHTERY. To STREPSIADES, who is just going
into his own house.) I think you will regret this. (The CHORUS turns
and faces the audience.) judges, we are all about to tell you what
you will gain by awarding us the crown as equity requires of you.
In spring, when you wish to give your fields the first dressing, we
will rain upon you first; the others shall wait. Then we will watch
over your corn and over your vinestocks; they will have no excess
to fear, neither of heat nor of wet. But if a mortal dares to insult
the goddesses of the Clouds, let him think of the ills we shall pour
upon him. For him neither wine nor any harvest at all! Our terrible
slings will mow down his young olive plants and his vines. If he is
making bricks, it will rain, and our round hailstones will break the
tiles of his roof. If he himself marries or any of his relations or
friends, we shall cause rain to fall the whole night long. Verily,
he would prefer to live in Egypt than to have given this iniquitous
verdict.
STREPSIADES (coming out again) Another four, three, two days, then
the eve, then the day, the fatal day of payment! I tremble, I quake,
I shudder, for it's the day of the old moon and the new. Then all
my creditors take the oath, pay their deposits, I swear my downfall
and my ruin. As for me, I beseech them to be reasonable, to be just,
"My friend, do not demand this sum, wait a little for this other and
give me time for this third one." Then they will pretend that at this
rate they will never be repaid, will accuse me of bad faith and will
threaten me with the law. Well then, let them sue me! I care nothing
for that, if only Phidippides has learnt to speak fluently. I am going
to find out; I'll knock at the door of the school. (He knocks.)
.... Ho! slave, slave!
SOCRATES (coming out) Welcome! Strepsiades!
STREPSIADES Welcome! Socrates! But first take this sack; (offers
him a sack of flour) it is right to reward the master with some present.
And my son, whom you took off lately, has he learnt this famous reasoning?
Tell me.
SOCRATES He has learnt it.
STREPSIADES Wonderful! Oh! divine Knavery!
SOCRATES You will win just as many causes as you choose.
STREPSIADES Even if I have borrowed before witnesses?
SOCRATES So much the better, even if there are a thousand of them!
STREPSIADES (bursting into song) Then I am going to shout with all
my might. "Woe to the usurers, woe to their capital and their interest
and their compound interest! You shall play me no more bad turns.
My son is being taught there, his tongue is being sharpened into a
double-edged weapon; he is my defender, the saviour of my house, the
ruin of my foes! His poor father was crushed down with misfortune
and he delivers him." Go and call him to me quickly. Oh! my child!
my dear little one! run forward to your father's voice!
SOCRATES (singing) Lo, the man himself!
STREPSIADES (singing) Oh, my friend, my dearest friend!
SOCRATES (singing) Take your son, and get you gone.
STREPSIADES (as PHIDIPPIDES appears) Oh, my son! oh! oh! what a
pleasure to see your pallor! You are ready first to deny and then
to contradict; it's as clear as noon. What a child of your country
you are! How your lips quiver with the famous, "What have you to say
now?" How well you know, I am certain, to put on the look of a victim,
when it is you who are making both victims and dupes! And what a truly
Attic glance! Come, it's for you to save me, seeing it is you who
have ruined me.
PHIDIPPIDES What is it you fear then?
STREPSIADES The day of the old and the new.
PHIDIPPIDES Is there then a day of the old and the new?
STREPSIADES The day on which they threaten to pay deposit against
me.
PHIDIPPIDES Then so much the worse for those who have deposited!
for it's not possible for one day to be two.
STREPSIADES What?
PHIDIPPIDES Why, undoubtedly, unless a woman can be both old and
young at the same time.
STREPSIADES But so runs the law.
PHIDIPPIDES I think the meaning of the law is quite misunderstood.
STREPSIADES What does it mean?
PHIDIPPIDES Old Solon loved the people.
STREPSIADES What has that to do with the old day and the new?
PHIDIPPIDES He has fixed two days for the summons, the last day of
the old moon and the first day of the new; but the deposits must only
be paid on the first day of the new moon.
STREPSIADES And why did he also name the last day of the old?
PHIDIPPIDES So, my dear sir, that the debtors, being there the day
before, might free themselves by mutual agreement, or that else, if
not, the creditor might begin his action on the morning of the new
moon.
STREPSIADES Why then do the magistrates have the deposits paid on
the last of the month and not the next day?
PHIDIPPIDES I think they do as the gluttons do, who are the first
to pounce upon the dishes. Being eager to carry off these deposits,
they have them paid in a day too soon.
STREPSIADES Splendid! (to the audience) Ah! you poor brutes, who
serve for food to us clever folk! You are only down here to swell
the number, true blockheads, sheep for shearing, heap of empty pots!
Hence I will sing a song of victory for my son and myself. "Oh! happy,
Strepsiades! what cleverness is thine! and what a son thou hast here!"
Thus my friends and my neighbours will say, jealous at seeing me gain
all my suits. But come in, I wish to regale you first. (They both
go in. A moment later a creditor arrives, with his witness.)
PASIAS (to the WITNESS) A man should never lend a single obolus.
It would be better to put on a brazen face at the outset than to get
entangled in such matters. I want to see my money again and I bring
you here to-day to attest the loan. I am going to make a foe of a
neighbour; but, as long as I live, I do not wish my country to have
to blush for me. Come, I am going to summon Strepsiades....
STREPSIADES (coming out of his house) Who is this?
PASIAS ....for the old day and the new.
STREPSIADES (to the WITNESS) I call you to witness, that he has
named two days. What do you want of me?
PASIAS I claim of you the twelve minae, which you borrowed from me
to buy the dapple-grey horse.
STREPSIADES A horse! do you hear him? I, who detest horses, as is
well known.
PASIAS I call Zeus to witness, that you swore by the gods to return
them to me.
STREPSIADES Because at that time, by Zeus! Phidippides did not yet
know the irrefutable argument.
PASIAS Would you deny the debt on that account?
STREPSIADES If not, what use is his science to me?
PASIAS Will you dare to swear by the gods that you owe me nothing?
STREPSIADES By which gods?
PASIAS By Zeus, Hermes and Posidon!
STREPSIADES Why, I would give three obols for the pleasure of swearing
by them.
PASIAS Woe upon you, impudent knave!
STREPSIADES Oh! what a fine wine-skin you would make if flayed!
PASIAS Heaven! he jeers at me!
STREPSIADES It would hold six gallons easily.
PASIAS By great Zeus! by all the gods! you shall not scoff at me
with impunity,
STREPSIADES Ah! how you amuse me with your gods! how ridiculous it
seems to a sage to hear Zeus invoked.
PASIAS Your blasphemies will one day meet their reward. But, come,
will you repay me my money, yes or no? Answer me, that I may go.
STREPSIADES Wait a moment, I am going to give you a distinct answer.
(He goes indoors and returns immediately with a kneading-trough.)
PASIAS (to the WITNESS) What do you think he will do? Do you think
he will pay?
STREPSIADES Where is the man who demands money? Tell me, what is
this?
PASIAS Him? Why, he is your kneading-trough.
STREPSIADES And you dare to demand money of me, when you are so ignorant?
I will not return an obolus to anyone who says him instead of her
for a kneading-trough.
PASIAS You will not repay?
STREPSIADES Not if I know it. Come, an end to this, pack off as quick
as you can.
PASIAS I go, but, may I die, if it be not to pay my deposit for a
summons. (Exit)
STREPSIADES Very well! It will be so much more loss to add to the
twelve minae. But truly it makes me sad, for I do pity a poor simpleton
who says him for a kneading-trough (Another creditor arrives.)
AMYNIAS Woe! ah woe is me!
STREPSIADES Wait! who is this whining fellow? Can it be one of the
gods of Carcinus?
AMYNIAS Do you want to know who I am? I am a man of misfortune!
STREPSIADES Get on your way then.
AMYNIAS (in tragic style) Oh! cruel god! Oh Fate, who hast broken
the wheels of my chariot! Oh, Pallas, thou hast undone me!
STREPSIADES What ill has Tlepolemus done you?
AMYNIAS Instead of jeering me, friend, make your son return me the
money he has had of me; I am already unfortunate enough.
STREPSIADES What money?
AMYNIAS The money he borrowed of me.
STREPSIADES You have indeed had misfortune, it seems to me.
AMYNIAS Yes, by the gods! I have been thrown from a chariot.
STREPSIADES Why then drivel as if you had fallen off an ass?
AMYNIAS Am I drivelling because I demand my money?
STREPSIADES No, no, you cannot be in your right senses.
AMYNIAS Why?
STREPSIADES No doubt your poor wits have had a shake.
AMYNIAS But by Hermes! I will sue you at law, if you do not pay me.
STREPSIADES Just tell me; do you think it is always fresh water that
Zeus lets fall every time it rains, or is ill always the same water
that the sun pumps over the earth?
AMYNIAS I neither know, nor care.
STREPSIADES And actually you would claim the right to demand your
money, when you know not an iota of these celestial phenomena?
AMYNIAS If you are short, pay me the interest anyway.
STREPSIADES What kind of animal is interest?
AMYNIAS What? Does not the sum borrowed go on growing, growing every
month, each day as the time slips by?
STREPSIADES Well put. But do you believe there is more water in the
sea now than there was formerly?
AMYNIAS No, it's just the same quantity. It cannot increase.
STREPSIADES Thus, poor fool, the sea, that receives the rivers, never
grows, and yet you would have your money grow? Get you gone, away
with you, quick! Slave! bring me the ox-goad!
AMYNIAS I have witnesses to this.
STREPSIADES Come, what are you waiting for? Will you not budge, old
nag!
AMYNIAS What an insult!
STREPSIADES Unless you start trotting, I shall catch you and stick
this in your arse, you sorry packhorse! (AMYNIAS runs off.) Ah!
you start, do you? I was about to drive you pretty fast, I tell you-you
and your wheels and your chariot! (He enters his house.)
CHORUS (singing) Whither does the passion of evil lead! here is
a perverse old man, who wants to cheat his creditors; but some mishap,
which will speedily punish this rogue for his shameful schemings,
cannot fail to overtake him from to-day. For a long time he has been
burning to have his son know how to fight against all justice and
right and to gain even the most iniquitous causes against his adversaries
every one. I think this wish is going to be fulfilled. But mayhap,
mayhap, will he soon wish his son were dumb rather!
STREPSIADES (rushing out With PHIDIPPIDES after him) Oh! oh! neighbours,
kinsmen, fellow-citizens, help! help! to the rescue, I am being beaten!
Oh! my head! oh! my jaw! Scoundrel! Do you beat your own father?
PHIDIPPIDES (calmly) Yes, father, I do.
STREPSIADES See! he admits he is beating me.
PHIDIPPIDES Of course I do.
STREPSIADES You villain, you parricide, you gallows-bird!
PHIDIPPIDES Go on, repeat your epithets, call me a thousand other
names, if it please you. The more you curse, the greater my amusement!
STREPSIADES Oh! you ditch-arsed cynic!
PHIDIPPIDES How fragrant the perfume breathed forth in your words.
STREPSIADES Do you beat your own father?
PHIDIPPIDES Yes, by Zeus! and I am going to show you that I do right
in beating you.
STREPSIADES Oh, wretch! can it be right to beat a father?
PHIDIPPIDES I will prove it to you, and you shall own yourself vanquished.
STREPSIADES Own myself vanquished on a point like this?
PHIDIPPIDES It's the easiest thing in the world. Choose whichever
of the two reasonings you like.
STREPSIADES Of which reasonings?
PHIDIPPIDES The Stronger and the Weaker.
STREPSIADES Miserable fellow! Why, I am the one who had you taught
how to refute what is right. and now you would persuade me it is right
a son should beat his father.
PHIDIPPIDES I think I shall convince you so thoroughly that, when
you have heard me, you will not have a word to say.
STREPSIADES Well, I am curious to hear what you have to say.
CHORUS (singing) Consider well, old man, how you can best triumph
over him. His brazenness shows me that he thinks himself sure of his
case; he has some argument which gives him nerve. Note the confidence
in his look!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS But how did the fight begin? tell the Chorus;
you cannot help doing that much.
STREPSIADES I will tell you what was the start of the quarrel. At
the end of the meal, as you know, I bade him take his lyre and sing
me the air of Simonides, which tells of the fleece of the ram. He
replied bluntly, that it was stupid, while drinking, to play the lyre
and sing, like a woman when she is grinding barley.
PHIDIPPIDES Why, by rights I ought to have beaten and kicked you
the very moment you told me to sing.
STREPSIADES That is just how he spoke to me in the house, furthermore
he added, that Simonides was a detestable poet. However, I mastered
myself and for a while said nothing. Then I said to him, 'At least,
take a myrtle branch and recite a passage from Aeschylus to me.'-'For
my own part,' he at once replied, 'I look upon Aeschylus as the first
of poets, for his verses roll superbly; they're nothing but incoherence,
bombast and turgidity.' Yet still I smothered my wrath and said, 'Then
recite one of the famous pieces from the modern poets.' Then he commenced
a piece in which Euripides shows, oh! horror! a brother, who violates
his own uterine sister. Then I could not longer restrain myself, and
attacked him with the most injurious abuse; naturally he retorted;
hard words were hurled on both sides, and finally he sprang at me,
broke my bones, bore me to earth, strangled and started killing me!
PHIDIPPIDES I was right. What! not praise Euripides, the greatest
of our poets?
STREPSIADES He the greatest of our poets? Ah! if I but dared to speak!
but the blows would rain upon me harder than ever.
PHIDIPPIDES Undoubtedly and rightly too.
STREPSIADES Rightly! Oh! what impudence! to me, who brought you up!
when you could hardly lisp, I guessed what you wanted. If you said
broo, broo, well, I brought you your milk; if you asked for mam mam,
I gave you bread; and you had no sooner said, caca, than I took you
outside and held you out. And just now, when you were strangling me,
I shouted, I bellowed that I was about to crap; and you, you scoundrel,
had not the heart to take me outside, so that, though almost choking,
I was compelled to do my crapping right there.
CHORUS (singing) Young men, your hearts must be panting with impatience.
What is Phidippides going to say? If, after such conduct, he proves
he has done well, I would not give an obolus for the hide of old men.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS Come, you, who know how to brandish and hurl
the keen shafts of the new science, find a way to convince us, give
your language an appearance of truth.
PHIDIPPIDES How pleasant it is to know these clever new inventions
and to be able to defy the established laws! When I thought only about
horses, I was not able to string three words together without a mistake,
but now that the master has altered and improved me and that I live
in this world of subtle thought, of reasoning and of meditation, I
count on being able to prove satisfactorily that I have done well
to thrash my father.
STREPSIADES Mount your horse! By Zeus! I would rather defray the
keep of a four-in-hand team than be battered with blows.
PHIDIPPIDES I revert to what I was saying when you interrupted me.
And first, answer me, did you beat me in my childhood?
STREPSIADES Why, assuredly, for your good and in your own best interest.
PHIDIPPIDES Tell me, is it not right, that in turn I should beat
you for your good, since it is for a man's own best interest to be
beaten? What! must your body be free of blows, and not mine? am I
not free-born too? the children are to weep and the fathers go free?
You will tell me, that according to the law, it is the lot of children
to be beaten. But I reply that the old men are children twice over
and that it is far more fitting to chastise them than the young, for
there is less excuse for their faults.
STREPSIADES But the law nowhere admits that fathers should be treated
thus.
PHIDIPPIDES Was not the legislator who carried this law a man like
you and me? In those days be got men to believe him; then why should
not I too have the right to establish for the future a new law, allowing
children to beat their fathers in turn? We make you a present of all
the blows which were received before his law, and admit that you thrashed
us with impunity. But look how the cocks and other animals fight with
their fathers; and yet what difference is there betwixt them and ourselves,
unless it be that they do not propose decrees?
STREPSIADES But if you imitate the cocks in all things, why don't
you scratch up the dunghill, why don't you sleep on a perch?
PHIDIPPIDES That has no bearing on the case, good sir; Socrates would
find no connection, I assure you.
STREPSIADES Then do not beat at all, for otherwise you have only
yourself to blame afterwards.
PHIDIPPIDES What for?
STREPSIADES I have the right to chastise you, and you to chastise
your son, if you have one.
PHIDIPPIDES And if I have not, I shall have cried in vain, and you
will die laughing in my face.
STREPSIADES What say you, all here present? It seems to me that he
is right, and I am of opinion that they should be accorded their right.
If we think wrongly, it is but just we should be beaten.
PHIDIPPIDES Again, consider this other point.
STREPSIADES It will be the death of me.
PHIDIPPIDES But you will certainly feel no more anger because of
the blows I have given you.
STREPSIADES Come, show me what profit I shall gain from it.
PHIDIPPIDES I shall beat my mother just as I have you.
STREPSIADES What do you say? what's that you say? Hah! this is far
worse still.
PHIDIPPIDES And what if I prove to you by our school reasoning, that
one ought to beat one's mother?
STREPSIADES Ah! if you do that, then you will only have to throw
yourself, along with Socrates and his reasoning, into the Barathrum.
Oh! Clouds! all our troubles emanate from you, from you, to whom I
entrusted myself, body and soul.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS No, you alone are the cause, because you have
pursued the path of evil.
STREPSIADES Why did you not say so then, instead of egging on a poor
ignorant old man?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS We always act thus, when we see a man conceive
a passion for what is evil; we strike him with some terrible disgrace,
so that he may learn to fear the gods.
STREPSIADES Alas! oh Clouds! that's hard indeed, but it's 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.
(He goes back into STREPSIADES' house.)
STREPSIADES Oh! what madness! I had lost my reason when I threw over
the gods through Socrates' seductive phrases. (Addressing the statue
of Hermes) Oh! good Hermes, do not destroy me in your wrath. Forgive
me; their babbling had driven me crazy. Be my counselor. Shall I pursue
them at law or shall I....? Order and I obey.-You are right, no law-suit;
but up! let us burn down the home of those praters. Here, Xanthias,
here! take a ladder, come forth and arm yourself with an axe; now
mount upon the Thoughtery, demolish the roof, if you love your master,
and may the house fall in upon them. Ho! bring me a blazing torch!
There is more than one of them, arch-impostors as they are, on whom
I am determined to have vengeance.
A DISCIPLE (from within) Oh! oh!
STREPSIADES Come, torch, do your duty! Burst into full flame!
DISCIPLE What are you up to?
STREPSIADES What am I up to? Why, I am entering upon a subtle argument
with the beams of the house.
SECOND DISCIPLE (from within) Hullo! hullo who is burning down our
house?
STREPSIADES The man whose cloak you have appropriated.
SECOND DISCIPLE You are killing us!
STREPSIADES That is just exactly what I hope, unless my axe plays
me false, or I fall and break my neck.
SOCRATES (appearing at the window) Hi! you fellow on the roof, what
are you doing up there?
STREPSIADES (mocking SOCRATES' manner) I am traversing the air and
contemplating the sun.
SOCRATES Ah! ah! woe is upon me! I am suffocating!
SECOND DISCIPLE And I, alas, shall be burnt up!
STREPSIADES Ah! you insulted the gods! 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.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS So let the Chorus file off the stage. Its part
is played.
THE END
+ نوشته شده در یکشنبه ۲۲ شهریور ۱۳۸۸ ساعت توسط صابر صالحیان متی کلایی
|
بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم... لا اله الا الله