< Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu
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1448—1474.
177
THE CLOUDS.
Strep. Most assuredly, if you do this, nothing will hinder you from casting[1] yourself and your Worse Cause into the pit along with Socrates.—These evils have I suffered through you, O Clouds, having intrusted all my affairs to you.

Cho. Nay, rather, you are yourself the cause of these things, having turned yourself to wicked courses.

Strep. Why, pray, did you not tell me this then, but excited with hopes a rustic and aged man?

Cho. We always do this to him whom we perceive to be a lover of wicked courses, until we precipitate him into misfortune, so that he may learn to fear the gods.

Strep. Ah me! it is severe,[2] O Clouds! but it is just; for I ought not to have withheld the money which I borrowed.—Now, therefore, come with me, my dearest son, that you may destroy the blackguard Chærephon and Socrates, who deceived you and me.

Phid. I will not injure my teachers.

Strep. Yes, yes, reverence Paternal Jove.[3]

Phid. "Paternal Jove," quoth'a! How antiquated you are! Why, is there any Jove?

Strep. There is.

Phid. There is not, no; for Vortex reigns, having expelled Jupiter.

Strep. He has not expelled him; but I fancied this, on account of this Vortex here. Ah me, unhappy man! when I even took you who are of earthenware for a god.[4]

  1. ↑ "ἐμβαλεῖν ἐς τὸ βάραθρον. Eqq. 1356, ἄρας μετέωρον ἐς τὸ βάραθρον ἐμβαλῶ. Vid. ad Plut. 431. It means to destruction." Berg.

    "If you should make so fine a hit,
    ⁠You have my full consent to throw
    ⁠Your carcase down the Felon's Pit;—
    ⁠Where else could you expect to go?
    ⁠And carry with you, if you please,
    ⁠The Weaker Cause, and Socrates." Walsh.

    τί δ᾽ ἄλλο γε = certissime. Cf. vs. 1287.

  2. ↑ "Ei Wetter! ärgerlich ist 's, ihr Wolken, doch gerecht." Droysen.
  3. ↑ "Evidently a line from some tragedy or other. The Athenians worshipped a Paternal Apollo, but not a Paternal Jove, because Apollo was fabled to have been the father of the Ionian race. Other tribes, supposed to have been descended from Jove, worshipped a Paternal Jove, but not a Paternal Apollo." Walsh.
  4. ↑ Vs. 1474 is in Dindorf's ed. bracketed as spurious. Shakspeare, Tempest, act v. sc. 1.
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