PHIDIPPIDES. That has no bearing on the case, good sir; Socrates would find no connection, I assure you. STREPSIADES. Then do not beat at all, for otherwise you have only yourself to blame afterwards. PHIDIPPIDES. What for? STREPSIADES. I have the right to chastise you, and you to chastise your son, if you have one. PHIDIPPIDES. And if I have not, I shall have cried in vain, and you will die laughing in my face. STREPSIADES. What say you, all here present? It seems to me that he is right, and I am of opinion that they should be accorded their right. If we think wrongly, 'tis but just we should be beaten. PHIDIPPIDES. Again, consider this other point. STREPSIADES. 'Twill be the death of me. PHIDIPPIDES. But you will certainly feel no more anger because of the blows I have given you. STREPSIADES. Come, show me what profit I shall gain from it. PHIDIPPIDES. I shall beat my mother just as I have you. STREPSIADES. What do you say? what's that you say? Hah! this is far worse still. PHIDIPPIDES. And what if I prove to you by our school reasoning, that one ought to beat one's mother? STREPSIADES. Ah! if you do that, then you will only have to throw yourself along with Socrates and his reasoning, into the Barathrum.[573] Oh! Clouds! all our troubles emanate from you, from you, to whom I entrusted myself, body and soul. CHORUS. No, you alone are the cause, because you have pursued the path of evil. STREPSIADES. Why did you not say so then, instead of egging on a poor ignorant old man? CHORUS. We always act thus, when we see a man conceive a passion for what is evil; we strike him with some terrible disgrace, so that he may learn to fear the gods. STREPSIADES. Alas! oh Clouds! 'tis hard indeed, but 'tis just! I ought not to have cheated my creditors.... But come, my dear son, come with me to take vengeance on this wretched Chaerephon and on Socrates, who have deceived us both. PHIDIPPIDES. I shall do nothing against our masters. STREPSIADES. Oh! show some reverence for ancestral Zeus! PHIDIPPIDES. Mark him and his ancestral Zeus! What a fool you are! Does any such being as Zeus exist? STREPSIADES. Why, assuredly. PHIDIPPIDES. No, a thousand times no! The ruler of the world is the Whirlwind, that has unseated Zeus. STREPSIADES. He has not dethroned him. I believed it, because of this whirligig here. Unhappy wretch that I am! I have taken a piece of clay to be a god. PHIDIPPIDES. Very well! Keep your stupid nonsense for your own consumption. (_Exit_.)