But besides this, the author who was to write a new burlesque for the Athenians, and had resolved to take as his theme these modern vagaries of speculative philosophy, wanted a central figure for his piece. So in ‘The Acharnians’ he takes Lamachus, a well-known general of the day, to represent the passion for war which he there holds up to ridicule, and dresses him up with gorgon-faced shield and tremendous crest, in parody of military splendour: though we have no reason whatever to suppose that he had any private grudge against the man, or that Lamachus was more responsible for the war than others. Here the representative figure must be a philosopher, and well known. Whether his opinions were very accurately represented or not, probably neither the dramatist nor his audience would very much care. Who so convenient for his purpose as the well-known and remarkable teacher whose grotesque person must have struck every passer-by in the public streets, whose face, with its flat nose, lobster-like eyes, and thick lips, seemed a ready-made comic mask, and whose round and protuberant body made his very friends liken him to the figures of Silenus,—who went about barefooted, unwashed, and in shabby clothes, and would sometimes stand for half an hour in a public thoroughfare as it were wrapt in a dream? There is surely no need to imagine that the comic dramatist had any personal grudge against the philosopher, or any special horror of his particular teaching. Such an artist could hardly have helped caricaturing him, if he had been his personal friend.
The opening scene in this comedy is an interior. It represents a room in the house of Strepsiades, a well-to-do citizen, in which he and his son Pheidippides are discovered occupying two pallet-beds. The household slaves are supposed to be sleeping in an outer room, the door of which is open. So much of the antecedents of the drama as is required to be known in order to its ready comprehension come out at once in the soliloquy of the anxious father.
Str. (yawning in his bed). O—h!
Great Jove, how terribly long the nights are now!
Interminable! will it never be day, I wonder?
I’m sure I heard the cock crow long ago.
These slaves are snoring still, the rascals. Ah!
It was not so in the old times of peace.
Curse the war, I say, both for other reasons,
And specially that I daren’t punish my own slaves.[28]
And there’s that hopeful son of mine can sleep
Sound as a top, the whole night long, rolled up
Like a great sausage there, in five thick blankets.
Well—I suppose I’d as well put my head
Under the clothes, and try to get a snooze.—
I can’t—I can’t get to sleep! There are things biting me—
I mean the bills, the stable expenses, and the debts
Run up for me by that precious son of mine.
And he—oh, he lives like a gentleman,
Keeps his fine horses, drives his curricle—
Is dreaming of them now, no doubt—while I lie vexing,
Knowing next month those notes of hand come due,
With interest mounting up. (Calls to his slave without.)
Boy! light a lamp;
Bring me my pocket-book, that I may see
How my accounts stand, and just cast them up.
(Slave brings a lamp, and holds it while Strepsiades
sits up and looks over his account-book.) Let’s see now. First, here’s Prasias, fifty pounds.
Now, what’s that for? When did I borrow that?
Ah! when I bought that grey. Oh dear, oh dear!
I shall grow grey enough, if this goes on.
Ph. (talking in his sleep). That’s not fair, Philo! keep your own side of the course!
Str. Ay, there he goes! that’s what is ruining me;
He’s always racing, even in his dreams.
Ph. (still asleep). How many times round do the war-chariots go?
Str. You make your old father’s head go round, you do.
But let me see—what stands here next to Prasias?—
Twelve pounds to Amynias,—for a car and wheels.
Ph. There—give that horse a roll, and take him home.
Str. You’ll roll me out of house and home, young man!
I’ve judgment debts against me, and the rest of them
Swear they’ll proceed.
Ph. (awaking). Good heavens! my dear father,
What makes you groan and toss so all night long?
Str. There’s a sheriff’s officer at me—in the bed-clothes.
Ph. Lie quiet, sir, do pray, and let me sleep.
Str. Sleep, if you like; but these debts, I can tell you,
“Will fall on your own head some day, young man.
Heugh! may those match-makers come to an evil end
Who drew me into marrying your good mother!
There I was living a quiet life in the country,—
Shaved once a-week, may-be, wore my old clothes—
Full of my sheep, and goats, and bees, and vineyards,
And I must marry the fine niece of Megacles.
The son of Megacles! an awkward country fellow
Marry a fine town belle, all airs and graces!
A pretty pair we were to come together—
I smelling of the vineyard and the sheep-shearing,
She with her scents, and essences, and cosmetics,
And all the devilries of modern fashion.
Not a bad housekeeper though—I will say that—
For she kept open house. “Madam,” said I,
Showing her one day my old coat with a hole in’t,
By way of parable,—“this can’t last long.”
Slave (examining the lamp, which is going out). This lamp has got no oil in it.
Str. Deuce take you,
Why did you light that thirsty beast of a lamp?
Come here, and you shall catch it.
Slave. Catch it,—why?
Str. (boxes his ears). For putting such a thick wick in, to be sure.—
Well,—in due time this boy of ours was born
To me and my grand lady. First of all,
We got to loggerheads about his name;
She would have something that had got a horse in it,—
Xanthippus—or Charippus—or Philippides;[29]
I was for his grandfather’s name—Pheidonides.
Well, for some time we squabbled; then at last
We came to a compromise upon Pheid—ippides.
This boy—she’d take him in her lap and fondle him,
And say, “Ah! when it grows up to be a man,
It shall drive horses, like its uncle Megacles,
And wear a red cloak, it shall.” Then I would say,
“He shall wear a good sheep-skin coat, like his own father,
And drive his goats to market from the farm.”
But there—he never would listen to me for a moment;
He’s had a horse-fever always—to my ruin.
He has thought of a scheme, however, if he can but get his son to fall in with it, by which they may both be relieved from the pressure of these debts. So he awakes young Pheidippides, and takes him into his counsels. They both walk to the front; the scene shuts, and they are outside the house. The father points to another building at the wing.
That’s the great Thinking-School of our new philosophers;
There live the men who teach that heaven around us
Is a vast oven, and we the charcoal in it.[30]
And they teach too—for a consideration, mind—
To plead a cause and win it, right or wrong.
Ph. (carelessly). Who are these fellows?
Str. I don’t quite remember
The name they call themselves, it’s such a long one;
Very hard thinkers—but they’re first-rate men.
Ph. Faugh! vulgar fellows—I know ’em. Dirty vagabonds,
Like Socrates there and Chœrephon—a low set.
Str. Pray hold your tongue—don’t show your ignorance.
But, if you care at all for your old father,
Be one of them, now, do, and cut the turf.
Ph. Not I, by Bacchus! not if you would give me
That team of Arabs that Leogoras drives.
Str. (coaxingly). Do, my dear boy, I beg you—go and be taught.
Ph. And what shall I learn there?
Str. Learn? (Confidentially.) “Why, they do say
That these men have the secret of both Arguments,
The honest Argument (if there be such a thing) and the other;
Now this last—this false Argument, you understand—
Will make the veriest rascal win his cause.
So, if you’ll go and learn for us this glorious art,
The debts I owe for you will all be cleared;
For I shan’t pay a single man a farthing.
Ph. (after a little hesitation). No—I can’t do it. Studying hard, you see,
Spoils the complexion. How could I show my face
Among the Knights, looking a beast, like those fellows?
Str. Then, sir, henceforth I swear, so help me Ceres,
I won’t maintain you—you, nor your bays, nor your chestnuts.
Go to the dogs—or anywhere—out of my house!
Ph. Well, sir, I’m going. I know my uncle Megacles
Won’t see me without a horse—so I don’t mind.
Indignant as he is with his son, the father is determined not to lose the chance which this new science offers him of getting rid of his creditors. If his son will not learn, he will take lessons himself, old as he is; and with this resolve he knocks at the door of this “Thinking-School,” the house of Socrates. One of the students comes to answer his summons—in no very good humour, for the loudness and suddenness of Strepsiades’s knock has destroyed in embryo a thought which he was breeding. Still, as the old gentleman seems an earnest disciple, he condescends to expatiate to him on the subject of some of the great master’s subtle speculations; subtle in the extreme, not to say childish, but yet not very unfair caricatures of some which we find attributed to Socrates in the ‘Dialogues’ of Plato. Charmed with what he hears, the new scholar begs to be at once introduced. The back scene opens, and discovers the students engaged in their various investigations, with Socrates himself suspended in a kind of basket, deeply engaged in thought. The extraordinary attitude of one class of learners arrests the attention of the visitor especially:—
Str. What are those doing—stooping so very oddly?
Student. They probe the secrets that lie deep as Tartarus.
Str. But why—excuse me, but—their hinder quarters—
Why are they stuck so oddly up in the air?
Stud. The other end is studying astronomy
Quite independently. (To the students, whose attention is, of course, diverted to the visitor.) Go in, if you please!
Suppose HE comes, and catches us all idling!
But Strepsiades begs to ask a few more questions. These mathematical instruments,—what are they for?
Stud. Oh, that’s geometry.
Str. And what’s the use of it?
Stud. For measuring the Earth.
Str. You mean the grants
We make in the colonies to Athenian citizens?
Stud. No—all the Earth.
Str. A capital idea!
Divide it all?—I call that true democracy.
Stud. See, here’s an outline-map of the whole world;
And here lies Athens.
Str. Athens! nay, go to—
It cannot be—I see no law-courts sitting.
Stud. ’Tis Attica, I assure you, none the less.
Str. And where’s my parish, then—and my fellow-townsmen?
Stud. Oh, they’re all there.—And here’s Eubœa, you see,
That long strip there, stretched out along the coast.
Str. Ay—we and Pericles stretched that—pretty tight.[31]
But where’s Lacedæmon, now?
Stud. Why, there, of course.
Str. How close to Athens! Pray, with all your thinking,
Can’t ye contrive to get it further off?
Stud. (shaking his head). That we can’t do, by Jove!
Str. Then worse luck for ye.—
But who hangs dangling in the basket yonder?
Stud. Himself.
Str. And who’s Himself?
Stud. Why, Socrates.
Str. Ho, Socrates!—Call him, you fellow—call loud.
Stud. Call him yourself—I’ve got no time for calling.
(Exit indoors.)
Str. Ho, Socrates! sweet, darling Socrates!
Soc. Why callest thou me, poor creature of a day?
Str. First tell me, pray, what are you doing up there?
Soc. I walk in air, and contemplate the sun.
Str. Oh, that’s the way that you despise the gods—
You get so near them on your perch there—eh?
Soc. I never could have found out things divine,
Had I not hung my mind up thus, and mixed
My subtle intellect with its kindred air.
Had I regarded such things from below,
I had learnt nothing. For the earth absorbs
Into itself the moisture of the brain.—
It is the very same case with water-cresses.
Str. Dear me! so water-cresses grow by thinking!
He begs Socrates to come down and help him in his difficulties. He is very anxious to learn this new Argument—that “which pays no bills.” Socrates offers to introduce him to the Clouds, the new goddesses of philosophers—“great divinities to idle men;” and Strepsiades—first begging to be allowed to wrap his cloak round his head for fear of rain, having left home in his hurry without a hat—sits down to await their arrival.