The Clouds [15]
at Cronus.
JUST DISCOURSE
Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be lost and to
practise verbosity only.
UNJUST DISCOURSE (to PHIDIPPIDES)
Come here and leave him to beat the air.
JUST DISCOURSE
You'll regret it, if you touch him.
CHORUS-LEADER (stepping between them as they are about to come to
blows)
A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But you expound what you
taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing
each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.
JUST DISCOURSE
I am quite agreeable.
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
JUST DISCOURSE
Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be lost and to
practise verbosity only.
UNJUST DISCOURSE (to PHIDIPPIDES)
Come here and leave him to beat the air.
JUST DISCOURSE
You'll regret it, if you touch him.
CHORUS-LEADER (stepping between them as they are about to come to
blows)
A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But you expound what you
taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing
each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.
JUST DISCOURSE
I am quite agreeable.
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