STREPSIADES. What? Does the mind attract the sap of the water-cress? Ah! my dear little Socrates, come down to me! I have come to ask you for lessons.
SOCRATES. And for what lessons?
STREPSIADES. I want to learn how to speak. I have borrowed money, and my merciless creditors do not leave me a moment's peace; all my goods are at stake.
SOCRATES. And how was it you did not see that you were getting so much into debt?
STREPSIADES. My ruin has been the madness for horses, a most rapacious evil; but teach me one of your two methods of reasoning, the one whose object is not to repay anything, and, may the gods bear witness, that I am ready to pay any fee you may name.
SOCRATES. By which gods will you swear? To begin with, the gods are not a coin current with us.
STREPSIADES. But what do you swear by then? By the iron money of Byzantium?[498]
SOCRATES. Do you really wish to know the truth of celestial matters?
STREPSIADES. Why, truly, if 'tis possible.
[498] In the other Greek towns, the smaller coins were of copper.
Studies
