Academic study
The Clouds (Aristophanes)
Νεφέλαι
The farmer Strepsiades, ruined by his son's debts, goes to Socrates' "thinkery" to learn the argument that wins unjust cases. Socrates appears suspended in a basket to observe the heavens, replaces Zeus with Vortex and worships the Clouds, goddesses of windbags. The play ends with the school being burnt down. Plato cites it in the Apology as the origin of the prejudice against Socrates; it is the only testimony about him written in his lifetime.
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Authorship note
A comedy by Aristophanes (c. 446–386 BCE), staged in Socrates' lifetime. It is a caricature, not a testimony: it attributes to Socrates the speculative physics and rhetoric of the sophists. The surviving text is a partial revision that was never staged.
Editions and translations
Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.
English
Lysistrata and Other Plays (Lysistrata, The Acharnians, The Clouds)
Penguin Classics, 2002
Translation: Alan H. Sommerstein
ISBN 9780140448146
Aristophanes 1: Clouds, Wasps, Birds
Hackett Publishing, 1998
Translation: Peter Meineck
ISBN 9780872203600
Introducción de Ian C. Storey.
Socrates
The Clouds
The Conscious LibraryThe Clouds
Project Gutenberg (trad. de W. J. Hickie, Bohn's Classical Library, 1853), 1853
Translation: W. J. Hickie
Dominio público.
Español
Las nubes
Ediciones Clásicas, 1999
ISBN 9788478823734
Other works by Socrates
- Apology of Socrates · 395
- Crito · 395
- Phaedo · 385
- Euthyphro · 395
- Symposium · 380
- Laches · 390
- Charmides · 390
- Lysis · 390
- Protagoras · 385
- Gorgias · 385
- Meno · 385
- Ion · 395
- Lesser Hippias · 395
- Euthydemus · 385
- Theaetetus · 369
- Phaedrus · 370
- Republic · 375
- Greater Hippias · 390
- First Alcibiades · 360
- Parmenides · 365
- Other dialogues of the Platonic corpus featuring Socrates · 360
- Memorabilia (Memoirs of Socrates) · 371
- Apology of Socrates (Xenophon) · 380
- Symposium (Xenophon) · 380
- Oeconomicus (The Estate Manager) · 362
- Aristotle's testimonies on Socrates · 340
- Life of Socrates (Diogenes Laertius, Lives II 18–47) · 230
- Fragments of the other Socratics (Aeschines of Sphettus, Antisthenes, Phaedo, Euclides) · 380
- Verses composed in prison (lost) · 399
- Socratic Epistles · 200
Sources
- Aristófanes. Las nubes (Νεφέλαι), representada en 423 a. C.; trad. inglesa de W. J. Hickie, The Comedies of Aristophanes, Bohn's Classical Library, Londres, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 2562).
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