STREPSIADES. Hardly, if at all, can I distinguish them.
SOCRATES. You must see them clearly now, unless your eyes are filled with gum as thick as pumpkins.
STREPSIADES. Aye, undoubtedly! Oh! the venerable goddesses! Why, they fill up the entire stage.
SOCRATES. And you did not know, you never suspected, that they were goddesses?
STREPSIADES. No, indeed; methought the Clouds were only fog, dew and vapour.
SOCRATES. But what you certainly do not know is that they are the support of a crowd of quacks, both the diviners, who were sent to Thurium,[503] the notorious physicians, the well-combed fops, who load their fingers with rings down to the nails, and the baggarts, who write dithyrambic verses, all these are idlers whom the Clouds provide a living for, because they sing them in their verses.
STREPSIADES. 'Tis then for this that they praise "the rapid flight of the moist clouds, which veil the brightness of day" and "the waving locks of the hundred-headed Typho" and "the impetuous tempests, which float through the heavens, like birds of prey with aerial wings, loaded with mists" and "the rains, the dew, which the clouds outpour."[504] As a reward for these fine phrases they bolt well-grown, tasty mullet and delicate thrushes.
SOCRATES. Yes, thanks to these. And is it not right and meet?
STREPSIADES. Tell me then why, if these really are the Clouds, they so very much resemble mortals. This is not their usual form.
SOCRATES. What are they like then?