Strep. Socrates! my little Socrates!

Soc. Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?

Strep. First tell me, I beseech you, what you are doing.

Soc. I am walking in the air,^[2] and speculating about the sun.

Strep. And so you look down upon^[3] the gods from your basket, and not from the earth? if, indeed, it is so.

Soc. For I should never have rightly discovered things celestial, if I had not suspended the intellect, and mixed the thought in a subtle form with its kindred air. But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on things above, I should never have discovered them. For^[4] the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative moisture. Water-cresses also suffer^[5] the very same thing.

Strep, What do you say?—Does meditation attract the moisture to the water-cresses? Come then, my little Socrates, descend to me, that you may teach me those things, for the sake of which I have come. [Socrates lowers himself and gets out of the basket.]

Soc. And for what did you come?

Strep. Wishing to learn to speak; for, by reason of usury, and most ill-natured creditors, I am pillaged and plundered, and have my goods seized for debt.

Soc. How did you get in debt without observing it?

Strep. A horse-disease consumed me,—terrible at eating. But teach me the other one of your two causes,^[6] that which