SOCRATES: Why have you come?

STREPSIADES:                         I want to learn to argue.
        I’m being pillaged—ruined by interest                                                             [240]
        and by creditors I can’t pay off—                                                               290
        they’re slapping liens on all my property.

SOCRATES: How come you got in such a pile of debt
        without your knowledge?

STREPSIADES:                                 I’ve been ravaged
        by disease—I’m horse sick. It’s draining me
        in the most dreadful way. But please teach me
        one of your two styles of arguing, the one
        which never has to discharge any debt.
        Whatever payment you want me to make,
        I promise you I’ll pay—by all the gods.

SOCRATES: What gods do you intend to swear by?                                      300
        To start with, the gods hold no currency with us.

STREPSIADES: Then, what currency do you use to swear?
        Is it iron coin, like in Byzantium?

SOCRATES: Do you want to know the truth of things divine,                              [250]
        the way they really are?

STREPSIADES:                              Yes, by god, I do,
        if that’s possible.

SOCRATES:                          And to commune and talk
        with our own deities the Clouds?

STREPSIADES:                                    Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: Then sit down on the sacred couch.

STREPSIADES:                                                     All right.
        I’m sitting down.

SOCRATES:                 Take this wreath.

Aristophanes Clouds 423 BC