Aristophanes' Clouds Part 1

STREPSIADES: Ooooooh Zeus Almighty! These nights just never end. Will it ever be morning? I heard the rooster crowing a while back, but the slaves are still snoring. Things aren’t what they used to be. Damn this bloody war, the cause of all my problems. I can’t even whip my slaves now. But this boy wonder of mine, nothing keeps him up at night. No, he just keeps farting away under the covers, all five of them. Well if that’s how it is, let’s just keep cozy and snore! Oh who am I kidding. I can’t sleep so long as my expenses keep eating me alive, stable fees and debts, all because of this son of mine, with his long hair and addiction to horseback riding and chariot racing. He even dreams of horses! All the while I watch my subsistence waning with the phases of the moon, as my interest payments are soon to be due. Slave! Light a lamp and bring me my account book, so I can count my creditors and calculate the interest. Let’s see...what do I owe? Twelve minae to Pasias. Twelve minae for what? Where’d that end up? Ah, when I bought that mustang. Oh...my life! I’d sooner have gouged my eyes out. PHIDIPPIDES: You’re cheating, Philo! Stay in your lane! STREP: See, that’s the problem right there that’s brought me to ruin. Put him to sleep and he starts dreaming of horsemanship. Q.E.D! PHID: How many laps is the chariot race? STREP: Quite a few laps you’re driving me around, your own father. Anyway, moving on from Pasias, what debt burdens me next? Three minae to Amynias for a driver’s seat and a set of wheels. PHID: Give that horse a roll and lead him on home! STREP: It’s me, dear boy, who you’re rolling out of house and home, to the point that I’m going bankrupt and they’re threatening to sue me. I’ll surely lose! PHID: What’s going on, Dad? Why are you so grumpy and up and about all night? STREP: I’m being bitten by a bailiff in my bedsheets. PHID: Just let me catch some sleep, you devil. STREP: Sleep, then! Just know that all these debts will come home to roost on your head. Whoever started that dating service service that hooked me up with your mother, I hope they die a slow, painful death! My life was so happy, idyllic, simple, unrefined, care-free, teeming with honey-bees and spring lambs and olive-cakes. But then I, a country bumpkin, went ahead and married a city girl, a niece of Megacles McMegacles--high-class, high-living, high-cost. That’s what I married, and I went down on her smelling of wine, figs, sheep and silos...she of roses, perfume, tongue kisses, opulence, gluttony, Aphrodite, Venus, whatever you want to call her. Now I’m not calling her lazy--boy could she knit! I once showed her this scarf as proof of that, and said “Woman, you knit too much.” What do you mean the lamp’s out of oil? Goddammit! Why did you light me a lamp with a drinking problem? Now bend over and take a whipping. Why punish you? Because you used a fat wick! Anyway, when our son was born, my ritzy wife and I were at each other’s throats over or Chaerippus or Callippides. But I wanted to name him Phidonides after his grandpa, Phidon. So after a long debate we finally compromised and named him Phidippides. She used to pick him up and cuddle him with words like “When you grow up you’ll drive a chariot downtown decked in cashmere, just like your uncle Megacles.” But I said “When you grow up you’ll drive goats from the moor decked in leather, just like your Dad.” But my words fell on deaf ears, and instead he’s spreading horse-plague all over my assets. But now that I’ve been up all night pondering an express way out of this mess, I found one rather strange, but devilishly clever. And if I can convince him to take it, I just might find salvation. But first I got to get him up, but in the nicest possible way. No how do I go about that...? Phidippides! Phidippideepoo! PHID: What, Dad? STREP: Hug me and give me your hand. PHID: OK. What’s up? STREP: Tell me, do you love me? PHID: By Poseidon god of horses I do! STREP: Don’t give me that “god of horses” crap. That god is the cause of all my problems. But if you really love me from the bottom of your heart, son, please do as I say. PHID: Do what as you say? STREP: Turn your life around, abandon your ways, and get the kind education that I prescribe. PHID: What are you making me do? Tell me. STREP: And will you obey? PHID: By Dionysus I’ll obey! STREP: Now take a good look over there. You see the door to that building over there? PHID: I see it. What’s it really, Dad? STREP: That’s a Thinketerium, for those intellectual types. They’ve got people in there who will talk you into believing that there’s a warming trend in the Earth’s atmosphere, and that we’re the cause of it! And if you pay tuition, they’ll teach you to win arguments, whether your cause is just or wicked. PHID: Who are these people? STREP: I don’t know the proper term....critical thinkers, fine and upstanding people. PHID: Ewwwww! Those people are nasty. You mean a bunch of pasty-faced nerds and barefooted hippies, like Chaerephon and that wretch, Socrates. STREP: Oh shut up. Don’t talk like such a little punk. Now if you have any pity for your father’s paycheck, quit horsing around and become one of these men.