The Clouds Foolishness and Folly Quotes

Strepsiades's son, Pheidippides, is bad about money, and after footing the bill for his son's fun-time activities (such as a fondness for horse racing) for a while, Strepsiades has got creditors after him. You'll soon find that Strepsiades and Pheidippides are both pretty ridiculous people who make foolish choices basically all the time.

Strepsiades has cooked up the plan that Pheidippides should go to the local Thinkery and figure out how to talk his way out of their debts. The irony is that his plan is pretty ridiculous and childish (seriously, don't only children expect to avoid the consequences of their actions?), but he's calling out his son's "childish" speech and behavior. Like father, like son.

Poor Strepsiades decides to go to the Thinkery himself when he can't get Pheidippides involved in his cause… but he's afraid he's not quite sharp enough to grasp all the material. As we'll soon find, Strepsiades isn't portrayed as the brainiest dude.

When Strepsiades arrives at the Thinkery, he gets a pupil to kind of show him around and give him the lay of the land. As you can see, Aristophanes's portrayal of the Thinkery's intellectual pursuits isn't exactly flattering—he clearly is trying to play up the school's teachings and "research" as dumb.

Here's yet another example of the kind of silly questions that Socrates and his associate, Chaerephon, are portrayed as being interested in at the Thinkery. Hardly seems like great thoughts are happening. However, the pupil relays all this information with apparent reverence for his school/masters.

The pupil continues to extol the "deep thoughts" that the Thinkery pursues, and here things get a bit more anatomy-oriented. There's quite a lot of butt and genital talk in the play, and this is just an early example—and one that highlights once again just how un-lofty the school's lessons can be.

And things just keep getting more ridiculous at the Thinkery. When Strepsiades sees a group of students and wants to know why they're staring at the ground with their rumps in the air, this is what the pupil replies. Because naturally, one's butt is capable of learning any subject. Maybe Shmoop should get in on the whole "learning guides for tushes" business?

The play is great at juxtaposing (often faux) solemn/reverent language with utter nonsense and vulgarity, as is the case here. Strepsiades is trying to pay homage to these new "gods" he's met via Socrates (i.e., the Clouds), but apparently all the noise they made on their big entrance made him feel some serious longing for the potty. Unfortunately, he's unable to keep his thoughts to himself, much to Socrates's dismay.

Eventually, Socrates decides that Strepsiades really is beyond education/help and that he's a total "moron." Hmm, that doesn't sound like very good teacher behavior to us, but then, Aristophanes isn't really trying to make him look good.

This is Better Argument talking to Worse Argument. Better Argument believes that Worse Argument is playing all the kiddos for "fools" with his new magic logic that apparently turns right into wrong.