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Scenes
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Scenes
Scenes at a glance
The Clouds has 15 scenes.
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Scenes15 items
Prologue: Strepsiades and His Debts
Strepsiades, a farmer, lies awake at night unable to sleep because his debts are crushing him. His son Pheidippides ran up enormous bills on horses and racing, and creditors are c…
Strepsiades Approaches the Thinkery
Strepsiades walks up to the Thinkery and gets his first look at the school. The building and its inhabitants seem bizarre and off-putting to him, but he presses on because he need…
Strepsiades Meets the Students
Inside the Thinkery, Strepsiades encounters Socrates' students and gets a tour of what they study. The students are bent over in odd postures, investigating things like the distan…
Strepsiades Meets Socrates
Socrates appears suspended in a basket above the stage, claiming he needs to be elevated to think clearly about the heavens.
Invocation of the Clouds
Socrates leads Strepsiades in calling on the Clouds, who are the goddesses of the Thinkery and the play's Chorus. The Clouds arrive and sing.
Parabasis of the Clouds
The Chorus of Clouds steps out of the play's fiction and addresses the audience directly. They speak on behalf of Aristophanes, complaining that his earlier, more restrained comed…
Strepsiades Fails His Lessons
Strepsiades tries to study at the Thinkery under Socrates but turns out to be a terrible student. He cannot concentrate, keeps falling asleep, and misunderstands every exercise So…
Strepsiades Sends Pheidippides to the Thinkery
Strepsiades goes home and pressures Pheidippides to enroll at the Thinkery. Pheidippides resists because he cares about his social reputation and wants nothing to do with the pale…
The Debate of the Just and Unjust Arguments
Two personified figures, the Just Argument and the Unjust Argument, debate which one should educate Pheidippides. Just Argument represents traditional Athenian values: discipline,…
Pheidippides Completes His Education
Pheidippides emerges from the Thinkery transformed. He is now pale, thin, and confident in his new rhetorical skills.
Strepsiades Confronts His Creditors
Strepsiades, freshly trained in sophistic argument, tries out his new skills on two creditors who come to collect debts.
Pheidippides Beats His Father
The comedy turns dark. Pheidippides, now trained in the Wrong Argument, beats his father Strepsiades and does not apologize.
Pheidippides Justifies Beating His Father
Pheidippides delivers an argument explaining why beating his father was not only acceptable but logically defensible.
Strepsiades Repents and Burns the Thinkery
Strepsiades finally understands that the Clouds, whom he worshipped as his new gods, were never on his side. They led him toward foolishness, not wisdom.
Exodus: Destruction of the Thinkery
The play ends with the Thinkery in flames and Socrates's students fleeing. Strepsiades drives them out, and the Chorus closes the play.
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