Aristophanes: Clouds

The Clouds by Aristophanes

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I'd always heard that Socrates was a character in the Clouds, but I hadn't realized that he was a main character.

Strepsiades is a venal cheater who doesn't want to pay his creditors. So, he gets the brilliant of idea of learning how to cheat his creditors in court by learning from a Sophist educator the wrong argument that always beats just arguments. The Sophist teacher in this case is Socrates.

Socrates and his school are depicted as wan, over-educated, buffoonish con-men. Strepsiades is not necessarily one step ahead, although his comic asides can elicit belly laughs and chuckles.

I was amazed by how little humor had evolved. The humor in this story would not have been out of place in Vaudeville. We thing that movies and TV shows that “break the fourth wall” are something new, but Aristophanes was doing that 2,500 years ago.

I was equally fascinated by how Aristophanes could lampoon his fellow Athenians - calling them cowards, pansies, or, in the case of Socrates, the biggest fool that ever lived. Apparently, there was no libel laws in Athens or method for settling disputes by dueling.