As we were preparing to come here, we were hailed by the Moon and were charged to wish joy and happiness both to the Athenians and to their allies; further, she said that she was enraged and that you treated her very shamefully, her, who does not pay you in words alone, but who renders you all real benefits. Firstly, thanks to her, you save at least a drachma each month for lights, for each, as he is leaving home at night, says, "Slave, buy no torches, for the moonlight is beautiful,"--not to name a thousand other benefits. Nevertheless you do not reckon the days correctly and your calendar is naught but confusion.[527] Consequently the gods load her with threats each time they get home and are disappointed of their meal, because the festival has not been kept in the regular order of time. When you should be sacrificing, you are putting to the torture or administering justice. And often, we others, the gods, are fasting in token of mourning for the death of Memnon or Sarpedon,[528] while you are devoting yourselves to joyous libations. 'Tis for this, that last year, when the lot would have invested Hyperbolus[529] with the duty of Amphictyon, we took his crown from him, to teach him that time must be divided according to the phases of the moon. SOCRATES. By Respiration, the Breath of Life! By Chaos! By the Air! I have never seen a man so gross, so inept, so stupid, so forgetful. All the little quibbles, which I teach him, he forgets even before he has learnt them. Yet I will not give it up, I will make him come out here into the open air. Where are you, Strepsiades? Come, bring your couch out here. STREPSIADES. But the bugs will not allow me to bring it. SOCRATES. Have done with such nonsense! place it there and pay attention. STREPSIADES. Well, here I am. SOCRATES. Good! Which science of all those you have never been taught, do you wish to learn first? The measures, the rhythms or the verses? STREPSIADES. Why, the measures; the flour dealer cheated me out of two _choenixes_ the other day. SOCRATES. 'Tis not about that I ask you, but which, according to you, is the best measure, the trimeter or the tetrameter?[530] STREPSIADES. The one I prefer is the semisextarius. SOCRATES. You talk nonsense, my good fellow. STREPSIADES. I will wager your tetrameter is the semisextarius.[531] SOCRATES. Plague seize the dunce and the fool! Come, perchance you will learn the rhythms quicker. STREPSIADES. Will the rhythms supply me with food? SOCRATES. First they will help you to be pleasant in company, then to know what is meant by oenoplian rhythm[532] and what by the dactylic.[533] STREPSIADES. Of the dactyl? I know that quite well. SOCRATES. What is it then? STREPSIADES. Why, 'tis this finger; formerly, when a child, I used this one.[534] SOCRATES. You are as low-minded as you are stupid. STREPSIADES. But, wretched man, I do not want to learn all this. SOCRATES. Then what _do_ you want to know?