The Clouds
Aristophanes423 BCEAristophanes put Socrates on stage as a ridiculous figure, head in the clouds, teaching young men to argue their way out of paying debts.
Read this if you…
- have read Plato, and want to see a comedian roast the hell out of socrates and friends
- want to see the sentiment that may have led to the death of Socrates
- like low-brow people making fun of elites
Skip this if you…
- haven't read Plato/ don't know a lot about Socrates
- are into intellectualism and don't want to be made fun of
Why It Matters
Aristophanes put Socrates on stage as a ridiculous figure, head in the clouds, teaching young men to argue their way out of paying debts. It is the earliest comic portrait of an intellectual, and it shaped how Athens saw Socrates enough that Plato felt he had to respond. It is also genuinely funny about the gap between philosophy and common sense.
The 
Take
After reading Plato, this is exactly what the doctor ordered. Finally someone shits on Socrates and parodies the whole “philosophy scene”. The arguments were spot on. Also makes sense that 20 years later, everyone wanted to kill Socrates. That scene seemed real annoying
Where to go next
- Apology by Plato. The Clouds shaped it. - Aristophanes put Socrates on stage as a fraud — suspended in a basket, studying the heavens, teaching young men to argue wrong into right - That caricature stuck for a generation, and it's why the historical Socrates ended up on trial - *The Clouds* is the comedy that the *Apology* spends its opening pages trying to undo
- The Symposium by Plato. The Clouds shaped it. - Aristophanes put Socrates in a basket, mocked as a sophist who "walks on air and studies things in the heavens" — slander Plato later blames *The Clouds* for by name in the *Apology* - Plato answered by seating Aristophanes at his banquet and handing him *The Symposium*'s most famous speech, the origin-of-love myth - The comic playwright who lampooned Socrates becomes a character in Socrates' own circle — a reply written across decades
Depicted in Art
Strepsiades and Pheidippides stand below in conversation while Socrates hangs suspended in a wicker basket overhead, observing the heavens.
1564
Greek title page reading 'Aristophanous komodiai ennea' — the first printed edition of Aristophanes' nine comedies, with Peace listed among them, in Venetian Greek type.
Aldus Manutius (printer); Markos Mousouros (editor), 1498
Printer's ornament showing two seated men with flags in a rectangular cartouche, used as a chapter-head decoration in the 1715 English translation.
1715
Recommended Editions
Peter Meineck
Hackett Publishing · 2000
Meineck makes the think-ery scenes play like modern sketch comedy, which is the right register. His introduction on the gap between the real Socrates and Aristophanes's caricature is sharper than most scholarly essays on the same question.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Wrong will be right and right will be wrong if you learn to argue properly.”
“Socrates: I walk on air and look down on the sun.”
More by Aristophanes
- The Acharnians
425 BCE · Comedy
- Wasps
422 BCE · Comedy
- Peace
421 BCE · Comedy
- The Birds
414 BCE · Comedy
- Lysistrata
411 BCE · Comedy
- The Frogs
405 BCE · Comedy