Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/160

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144
THE CLOUDS.
648—675.

Strep. But what good will rhythms do me for a living?

Soc. In the first place, to be clever at an entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.

Strep. According to the dactyle? By Jove, but I know it.

Soc. Tell me, pray.

Strep. What else but this finger? Formerly, indeed, when I was yet a boy, this here!

Soc. You are boorish and stupid.

Strep. For I do not desire, you wretch, to learn any of these things.

Soc. What then?

Strep. That, that, the most unjust cause.

Soc. But you must learn other things before these: namely, what quadrupeds are properly masculine.

Strep. I know the males, if I am not mad:—κριὸς, τράγος, ταῦρος, κύων, ἀλεκτρυών.[1]

Soc. Do you see what you are doing? You are calling both the female and the male ἀλεκτρυὼν in the same way.

Strep. How, pray? come, tell me.

Soc. How?[2] The one with you is ἀλεκτρυὼν, and the other is ἀλεκτρυὼν also.

Strep. Yea, by Neptune! how now ought I to call them?

Soc. The one ἀλεκτρύαινα, and the other ἀλέκτωρ.

Strep. Ἀλεκτρύαινα? Capital, by the Air! So that, in return for this lesson alone, I will fill your κάρδοπος full of barley-meal on all sides.

Soc. See! see![3] there again 's another blunder! You make κάρδοπος, which is feminine, to be masculine.

Strep. In what way do I make κάρδοπος masculine?

Soc. Most assuredly; just as if you were to say Κλεώνυμος.

Strep. How, pray? Tell me.

Soc. Κάρδοπος with you is tantamount to Κλεώνυμος.

Strep. Good sir, Cleonymus had no kneading-trough, but

  1. "It is very stupid of the rustic to reckon a cock among quadrupeds; Socrates, however, does not notice this, but censures what is more trifling." Bergler.
  2. This is certainly wrong. Repeated questions are always in the relative (ὅπως) form, as in 677. See Krüger, Gr. Gr. § 61, 17, obs. 3. An obvious emendation is ΣΤΡ. πῶς δή; φέρ᾽. ΣΩΚ. ὅπως;
  3. See Herm. Vig. n. 235.