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The play opens with Strepsiades, who wakes up in his bed with his son and swears an oath to Zeus. Pheidippides, still sleeping, cries out “that’s unjust!” This reveals that Strepsiades’s son has a sense of justice. We also come to see what is troubling Strepsiades: he’s going broke because of his son, who loves horses, chariots, and racing; but he is also troubled because he can’t beat his servants to make them obey as there is a war going on, which allows them easily to defect. Strepsiades is trying to find a way out of this situation, and in thinking about it becomes up with the idea of sending Pheidippides to the thinkery.
When Pheidippides first awakens we discover that he is aware that Strepsiades’s sleep has been troubled – he’s been tossing and turning all night – and that he is not particularly interested to know why; he’d rather go back to sleep.
In later gently waking up his son to present to him his solution to their problem, we get a chance to see just how aware of the thinkery and its inhabitants Pheidippides is: he does not quite know who they are by his father’s description of what they do, but he does know their names. Moreover, he also knows that their way of life is not very attractive; he will not obey his father and go to study at the thinkery, as he could not face the other horse riders having lost his tan. No one wants to be a pasty -faced wastrel.
Rather than making his son obey, Strepsiades takes it upon himself to learn the unjust speech. While he decides to go to the thinkery himself, he is nevertheless apprehensive about going back to school, hesitating along the way. Why might he hesitate? Perhaps for the same reason we say, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ We seem to assume that at a certain point we become unable to learn anything new, that from then on all we can do is forget. Is that true?
Regardless, a student answers the door and swears by Zeus, that is, he swears by the traditional deity, not by the clouds or by the dog or by some other such thing. Generally speaking, we today hear things such as “Jesus Christ,” or “for god’s sake,” or “god damn it” being said by Christians and non-Christians alike. Now Christians are not supposed to take the Lord’s name in vain, making the foregoing phrases exceptional or worthy of note – their use draws the listeners’ attention to what was said, which is a point of swearing. But non-Christians are under no such prohibition. So, what’s the point of using them? Within a generally Christian political community, where we tend to assume that others we meet are also believers (unless there is evidence to the contrary), they serve the same function. But do they have the same meaning? Only the believer risks the eternal life of their soul by committing this mortal sin; the nonbeliever risks nothing.
Thus, how to understand the students use of Zeus is not entirely clear: is he a believer, or does he merely swear by the traditional Greek gods because he lives in a Greek city? Another possibility is that the student, thinking whoever knocks on the door of the thinkery is likely to be more traditional in his theological outlook, does so intentionally so as to conceal his unorthodox views. Then again, the student does not seem to keep secrets very well, sharing what’s going on in the thinkery quite readily.
At this point we get the story of the flea. The reaction of most people to a flea jumping on them is to kill it or at least try to kill it, but Socrates thinks about how they can measure how far the flea jumped in its own terms. This is very odd, not only because he seems unconcerned with killing it, but also because he seeks to understand it in terms of its own proportions. Typically, we use standard weights and measures, for example, we would measure how far the flea jumped in terms of feet or inches. We don’t think of trying to understand animals in their own terms, but in our terms.
The student then volunteers the next story, which is also supposed to be secret, about the gnat farts. Notice that they’re looking at insect questions, that is questions that have nothing to do with real-life. The Socratic method here is suggesting that when one examines insects you do so on the insect’s terms, which may be a reply to Protagoras who asserted that man is the measure of all things.
The third story is that the lizard crapped on Socrates. And the fourth indicates that Socrates has had to steal in order to feed them. Here Strepsiades indicates that the students look like prisoners of war, emaciated and rundown. Strepsiades wants to continue speaking to the student, but they can’t remain outdoors for too long. Pasty-faced wastrels, indeed.
At line 200, we see Strepsiades’s reaction to the teaching equipment. His questions about it are all directed towards the use of the knowledge that is learned thereby, that is, towards practical or productive concerns and not towards contemplation or understanding. Notice moreover that all of these concerns relate to human beings, to the concerns of human beings, and that Strepsiades reveals himself to be concerned with political things – he asks that they move Sparta further away from Athens on the map, because they are currently at war with Sparta! At this point Strepsiades asks the student to call Socrates over, but the student no longer has the time despite having just taken a fair bit to show him around. Why did he lose interest?
We get our first glimpse of Socrates suspended in a basket, yet another indication that in your analysis you are to take the perspective of the thing you are investigating.
In response to Strepsiades’s explanation of why he has come – to learn to be a speaker – Socrates asks, “how is it that you were unaware of yourself becoming indebted?” Is this question not the first one anyone would ask? Moreover, it points to the question of responsibility. In reply, Strepsiades says, “But teach me one of the two speeches, the one that pays nothing back. Whatever fee you set, I swear by the gods to pay you.” (244-6) Do we see a problem here? Would you take on Strepsiades as a student?
Much of the conversation between Socrates and Strepsiades leaves us with the impression that the latter is not too bright. However, he displays his previous education by making reference to poetry in relation to the clouds. Even more importantly, however, he’s not simply satisfied with Socrates’s account of the origin of thunder, pushing him instead to give a fuller explanation. At this point, moreover, he also engages in what we could call a deductive science, he comes up with the analogy of lightning to the puffed-up sausage that splits if you don’t slit it. Regardless, Socrates and Strepsiades strike up an agreement and they go into the thinkery so that the latter can be instructed.