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you please.
STREPSIADES. How can I obey? I have lost my money and my complexion, my blood and my slippers, and to cap my misery, I must keep awake on this couch, when scarce a breath of life is left in me.
SOCRATES. Well now! what are you doing? are you reflecting?
STREPSIADES. Yes, by Posidon!
SOCRATES. What about?
STREPSIADES. Whether the bugs will not entirely devour me.
SOCRATES. May death seize you, accursed man!
STREPSIADES. Ah! it has already.
SOCRATES. Come, no giving way! Cover up your head; the thing to do is to find an ingenious alternative.
STREPSIADES. An alternative! ah! I only wish one would come to me from within these coverlets!
SOCRATES. Hold! let us see what our fellow is doing. Ho! you! are you asleep?
STREPSIADES. No, by Apollo!
SOCRATES. Have you got hold of anything?
STREPSIADES. No, nothing whatever.
SOCRATES. Nothing at all!
STREPSIADES. No, nothing but my tool, which I've got in my hand.
SOCRATES. Are you not going to cover your head immediately and ponder?
STREPSIADES. Over what? Come, Socrates, tell me.
SOCRATES. Think first what you want, and then tell me.
STREPSIADES. But I have told you a thousand times what I want. 'Tis not to pay any of my creditors.
SOCRATES. Come, wrap yourself up; concentrate your mind, which wanders too lightly, study every detail, scheme and examine thoroughly.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe! woe! oh dear! oh dear!
SOCRATES. Keep yourself quiet, and if any notion troubles you, put it quickly aside, then resume it and think over it again.
STREPSIADES. My dear little Socrates!
SOCRATES. What is it, old greybeard?
STREPSIADES. I have a scheme for not paying my debts.
SOCRATES. Let us hear it.
STREPSIADES. Tell me, if I purchased a Thessalian witch, I could make the moon descend during the night and shut it, like a mirror, into a round box and there keep it ca