Pheidippides comes out of Socrates’ school, now wearing a white mask in place of the dark one he had when he went in. Strepsiades embraces his son, admiring his wan complexion—symbol of an unhealthy life indoors—and they walk off towards their house. They meet two fat creditors who threaten legal action. Strepsiades makes fun of them and drives them off with threats. He goes into his house with his arm around his son. Suddenly the father comes running out with his son in pursuit. Strepsiades howls that his son is beating him.[11]
He appeals to the chorus: he just asked his son to sing an ode of Simonides on the lyre, but his son refused. Strepsiades suggested some lines of Aeschylus; his son disparaged that poet. He would settle for a new-fangled poem of Euripides; but his son recited something ribald and offensive from him.
“Didn’t I do right in defending Euripides from one who would not recognize him as the most gifted of poets?” complains Pheidippides.
Strepsiades turns to his son: “How is that right? Didn’t I nourish you, you ingrate, and anticipate your every need, whatever you wanted? When you said, ‘dwink,’ I gave you a drink. When you said, ‘bwed,’ I came running with bread. As soon as you said, ‘poopy,’ I came to the door and held you out to do your job.”
“First I will ask you, this,” replies Pheidippides. “When I was a child, did you beat me?”
“I did, because I loved and cherished you.”
“Tell me, isn’t it right for me to love you likewise? And to beat you, since loving is the same as beating? How is it that your body can be untouched by blows, but mine not? I was born free, too, not a slave to be whipped. … You seem to think this is the job of a child. But I reply that the old are children twice over. It’s more appropriate for the old to be whipped than the young, inasmuch as they should know better than to misbehave.”
“But nowhere does the law allow a father to be treated like that.”
“Well, wasn’t the one who invented this law a man just like you and me? And didn’t he convince the ancients by his words? Do I have any less right to propose a new law, allowing sons to beat their fathers? We will excuse all the blows we received before the law was in effect, and forgive them freely. Consider the roosters and all their kind, how they fight their fathers. Yet how do they differ from us, except that they don’t pass laws?”
Turning to the crowd, Strepsiades says, “Alas, you grownups, he seems to be right. He seems to make a good case for this thesis. It’s reasonable for us fathers to be punished if we do wrong.” “No, no!” the crowd shouts back.
“Consider another point,” the son continues.
“I’m done for!”
“And perhaps you won’t resent how I treated you. I should beat my mother as well as you!” Boos and catcalls.
“What are you saying? What are you saying? This is even more intolerable!”
“What will you do if I can defeat you with my thesis that I should beat my mother, with False Speech on my side?”
“What will I do but let you go to hell, and take Socrates and his False Speech with you!” Turning to the chorus, he says, “This mess happened to me because I let you tell me what to do!”
“You did this to yourself, when you turned to evil practices,” replies the chorus.
“Alas, hard words but true, O Clouds. I shouldn’t have tried to keep back the money I borrowed. Now, dear son, come with me and let’s get rid of that damned Chaerephon and Socrates, who deceived us both!”
“But I can’t do wrong to my masters!”
“Yes, you can! Show reverence to paternal Zeus!”
“There you go again. Paternal Zeus! How old-fashioned. Is there a Zeus?”
“There is!”
“There’s no Zeus, since heavenly Eddy rules, after driving Zeus out.”
“He didn’t, but that was just my idea, because of this stupid pot,” pointing to the stove. “What an idiot I was to think you, a piece of ceramic, to be God.”
“Well, go act crazy and talk nonsense to yourself.”
“What a fool I’ve been! How mad I’ve been, since I cast out the gods because of Socrates! But dear Hermes,” he says, addressing himself to a statue of Hermes painted on the prism at the door of the school, “don’t destroy me, but have mercy on my stupid chatter. And advise me whether to pursue them with lawsuits, or whatever you like.” With that Strepsiades attacks the school and drives out the scoundrels in it, and the play comes to an end.[12]
Applause rang out for the performance. The actors assembled in the orchestra for the ovation, doffing their masks and bowing, surrounded by the fluffy chorus.
[11].Aristophanes Clouds 866-1324.
[12].Aristophanes Clouds 1325-1511. According to Hypothesis I, the ending we now have, where Socrates’ school is burned down, is new with the revision. How precisely the original play ended is not known.