He appears to the philosopher not so very unpromising a pupil, and the pair retire into the “Thinking-shop,” to begin their studies, while the Chorus make their usual address to the audience in the poet’s name, touching chiefly upon topics of the day which have lost their interest for us moderns.
But the next act of the comedy brings in Socrates, swearing by all his new divinities that he never met with so utterly hopeless a pupil, in the whole course of his experience, as this very late learner, who has no one qualification for a sophist except his want of honesty. He puts him through a quibbling catechism on the stage about measures, and rhythms, and grammar, all which he declares are necessary preliminaries to the grand science which Strepsiades desires to learn, although the latter very naïvely remonstrates against this superfluous education: he wants to learn neither music nor grammar, but simply how to defeat his creditors. At last his instructor gets out of patience, and kicks him off the philosophical premises as a hopeless dunce. By the advice of the Clouds the rejected candidate goes in search of his son, to attempt once more to persuade him to enter the schools, and learn the art which has proved too difficult for his father’s duller faculties.
One step, indeed, the old gentleman has made in his education; he swears no more by Jupiter, and rebukes his son, when he does so, for entertaining such very old-world superstitions; somewhat to the astonishment of that elegant young gentleman, whose opinions (if he has any on such subjects) are not so far advanced in the way of scepticism. The latter is, however, at last persuaded to become his father’s substitute as the pupil of Socrates, though not without a warning on the young man’s part that he may one day come to rue it. On this head the father has no misgivings, but introduces him to the philosopher triumphantly as a scholar who is sure to do him credit—he was always a remarkable child:—
He was so very clever always, naturally;
When he was but so high, now, he’d build mud houses,
Cut out a boat, make a cart of an old shoe,
And frogs out of pomegranate-stones—quite wonderful![34]
And Socrates, after a sneer at the young gentleman’s fashionable lisp, admits him as a pupil, and undertakes to instruct him in this “new way of paying old debts.”
The choral ode which must have divided this scene from the next is lost. The dialogue which follows, somewhat abruptly as we now have the play, is but another version of the well-known “Choice of Hercules” between Virtue and Vice, by the sophist Prodicus—known probably to the audience of the day as well as to ourselves. The Two Arguments, the Just and the Unjust, now appear upon the stage in character; one in the grave dress of an elder citizen, the other as a young philosopher of the day.[35] It is very probable that they wore masks which would be recognised by the audience as caricatures of real persons; it has been suggested, of Æschylus and Euripides, or of Thrasymachus the sophist, and of Aristophanes himself. What is certain is, that they represent the old and new style of training and education: and they set forth the claims of their respective systems in a long discussion, in which each abuses the other with the utmost licence of Athenian comedy. Yet there are passages of great simplicity and beauty here and there, in the speeches of the worthier claimant. The Unjust Argument, confident in the popularity of his system and his powers of argument, permits his rival to set his claims before the audience first. He proceeds to speak of the days when justice, temperance, and modesty were in fashion; when the Athenian youth were a hardy and a healthy race, not languid and effeminate as now; and he calls upon young Pheidippides to choose for himself the principles and the training which “had made the men of Marathon:”—
Cast in thy lot, O youth, with me, and choose the better paths—
So shalt thou hate the Forum’s prate, and shun the lazy baths;
Be shamed for what is truly shame, and blush when shame is said,
And rise up from thy seat in hall before the hoary head;
Be duteous to thy parents, to no base act inclined,
But keep fair Honour’s image deep within thine heart enshrined;
And speak no rude irreverent word against the father’s years,
Whose strong hand led thine infant steps, and dried thy childhood’s tears.
But the arguments of the evil counsellor are many and plausible. What good, he argues, have men ever gained by justice, continence, and moderation? For one poor instance which his opponent can adduce of virtue being rewarded upon earth, the fluent sophist quotes a dozen against him of those who have made their gain by the opposite qualities. Honesty is not the best policy among mortals; and most assuredly the moral virtues receive no countenance from the example of the gods. Sophistical as the argument is, and utterly unfair as we know it to be if intended to represent the real teaching of Socrates, the satirist seems to have been fully justified in his representation so far as some of the popular lecturers of the day were concerned. The arguments which Plato, in his ‘Republic,’ has put into the mouth of the sophist Thrasymachus—that justice is really only the good of others, while injustice is more profitable to a man’s self—that those who abuse injustice do so “from the fear of suffering it, not from the fear of doing it”—that justice is merely “an obedience yielded by the weak to the orders of the strong,”—do but express in grave philosophical language the same principles which Aristophanes here exaggerates in the person of his devil’s advocate.[36] This latter winds up the controversy by plying his antagonist with a few categorical questions, quite in the style of Socrates:—
Unjust A. Come now,—from what class do our lawyers spring?
Just A. Well—from the blackguards.
Unj. A. I believe you. Tell me
Again, what are our tragic poets?
Just A. Blackguards.
Unj. A. Good; and our public orators?
Just A. Blackguards all.
Unj. A. D’ye see now, how absurd and utterly worthless
Your arguments have been? And now look round—
(turning to the audience)
Which class amongst our friends here seems most numerous?
Just A. I’m looking.
Unj. A. Well;—now tell me what you see.
Just. A. (after gravely and attentively examining the rows of spectators). The blackguards have it, by a large majority.
There’s one, I know—and yonder there’s another—
And there, again, that fellow with long hair.
And amidst the roars of delighted laughter with which the Athenian “gallery” would be sure to receive this sally of buffoonery, the advocate of justice and morality declares that he throws up his brief, and joins the ranks of the dissolute majority.