Page:Aristophanes (Collins).djvu/95

Rh seems an earnest disciple, he condescends to expatiate to him on the subject of some of the great master's subtle speculations; subtle in the extreme, not to say childish, but yet not very unfair caricatures of some which we find attributed to Socrates in the 'Dialogues' of Plato. Charmed with what he hears, the new scholar begs to be at once introduced. The back scene opens, and discovers the students engaged in their various investigations, with Socrates himself suspended in a kind of basket, deeply engaged in thought. The extraordinary attitude of one class of learners arrests the attention of the visitor especially:—

Str. What are those doing—stooping so very oddly?

Student. They probe the secrets that lie deep as Tartarus.

Str. But why—excuse me, but—their hinder quarters—

Why are they stuck so oddly up in the air?

Stud. The other end is studying astronomy

Quite independently. (To the students, whose attention is,

of course, diverted to the visitor.) Go in, if you please!

Suppose comes, and catches us all idling!

But Strepsiades begs to ask a few more questions. These mathematical instruments,—what are they for?

Stud. Oh, that's geometry.

Str. And what's the use of it?

Stud. For measuring the Earth.

Str. You mean the grants

We make in the colonies to Athenian citizens?

Stud. No—all the Earth.

Str. A capital idea!

Divide it all?—I call that true democracy.

Stud. See, here's an outline-map of the whole world;

And here lies Athens.