Page:Aristophanes (Collins).djvu/108

98 reply with truth that the fault was his own; he had sought to be instructed in the school of Injustice, and the teaching has recoiled deservedly on his own head. But he has his revenge. Summoning his slaves, he bids them bring ladders and mattocks, and storm the stronghold of these charlatans and atheists. He mounts the roof himself, torch in hand, and proceeds to set fire to the timbers. When the students rush to the window in dismay to ask what he means by it, he tells them mockingly he is only

Holding a subtle disputation with the rafters.

Socrates is at length aroused from his lucubrations, and inquires what he is doing up there. Strepsiades retorts upon him his own explanation of his position in the hanging basket—

I walk in air, and contemplate the sun.

And the piece concludes with a grand tableau of the Thinking-school in flames, and Socrates and his pupils shrieking half-smothered from the windows.

The comedy, as has been said above, was not so far successful as to obtain for its author either the first or second place in the award of the judges; Cratinus being placed first with his comedy of 'The Bottle'—the child of his old age—and Ameipsias second. It has been thought necessary to account for this on other grounds than the respective merits of the three pieces; though, as we are not in possession of the text of either of the others, we have no means of ascertaining how far the