what you now suffer.

Strep. How, pray? For inform me what good you will do me
by this.

Phid. I will beat my mother, just as I have you.

Strep. What do you say? What do you say? This other,
again, is a greater wickedness.

Phid. But what if, having the worst Cause, I shall
conquer you in arguing, proving that it is right to beat
one's mother?

Strep. Most assuredly, if you do this, nothing will
hinder you from casting 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, 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 Chaerephon and
Socrates, who deceived you and me.

Phid. I will not injure my teachers.

Strep. Yes, yes, reverence Paternal Jove.

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.

Phid. Here rave and babble to yourself.

[Exit Phidippides]

Strep. Ah me, what madness! How mad, then, I was when I
ejected the gods on account of Socrates! But O dear
Hermes, by no means be wroth with me, nor destroy me;
but pardon me, since I have gone crazy through prating.
And become my adviser, whether I shall bring an action
and prosecute them, or whatever you think. You advise me
rightly, not permitting me to get up a lawsuit, but as
soon as possible to set fire to the house of the prating
fellows. Come hither, come hither, Xanthias! Come forth
with a ladder and with a mattock and then