STREPSIADES. Oh! what madness! I had lost my reason when I threw over the gods through Socrates' seductive phrases. Oh! good Hermes, do not destroy me in your wrath. Forgive me; their babbling had driven me crazy. Be my councillor. Shall I pursue them at law or shall I...? Order and I obey.--You are right, no law-suit; but up! let us burn down the home of those praters. Here, Xanthias, here! take a ladder, come forth and arm yourself with an axe; now mount upon the school, demolish the roof, if you love your master, and may the house fall in upon them, Ho! bring me a blazing torch! There is more than one of them, arch-impostors as they are, on whom I am determined to have vengeance. A DISCIPLE. Oh! oh! STREPSIADES. Come, torch, do your duty! Burst into full flame! DISCIPLE. What are you up to? STREPSIADES. What am I up to? Why, I am entering upon a subtle argument with the beams of the house. SECOND DISCIPLE. Hullo! hullo! who is burning down our house? STREPSIADES. The man whose cloak you have appropriated. SECOND DISCIPLE. But we are dead men, dead men! STREPSIADES. That is just exactly what I hope, unless my axe plays me false, or I fall and break my neck. SOCRATES. Hi! you fellow on the roof, what are you doing up there? STREPSIADES. I traverse the air and contemplate the sun.[574] SOCRATES. Ah! ah! woe is upon me! I am suffocating! CHAEREPHON. Ah! you insulted the gods! Ah! you studied the face of the moon! Chase them, strike and beat them down! Forward! they have richly deserved their fate--above all, by reason of their blasphemies. CHORUS. So let the Chorus file off the stage. Its part is played. * * * * * FINIS OF "THE CLOUDS" * * * * * Footnotes: [470] He is in one bed and his son is in another; slaves are sleeping near them. It is night-time. [471] The punishment most frequently inflicted upon slaves in the towns was to send them into the country to work in the fields, but at the period when the 'Clouds' was presented, 424 B.C., the invasions of the Peloponnesians forbade the pursuit of agriculture. Moreover, there existed the fear, that if the slaves were punished too harshly, they might go over to the enemy. [472] Among the Greeks, each month was divided into three decades. The last of the month was called [Greek: en_e kai nea], the day of the old and the new or the day of the new moon, and on that day interest, which it was customary to pay monthly, became due. [473] Literally, the horse marked with the [Greek: koppa] ([Symbol: Letter 'koppa']), a letter of the older Greek alphabet, afterwards disused, which distinguished the thoroughbreds. [474] Phidippides dreams that he is driving in a chariot race, and that an opponent is trying to cut into his track.