What a funny play...

So this past week we were reading "Clouds," by Aristophanes. This was one messed up play. I thought it was funny, but I didn't like the nastiness in the content. There were a lot of crude remarks made by Stepsiades, aka Stupid, throughout the whole play.

So the purpose of this play is Stupid asks his son to go to the Pondertorium to learn how to argue the "Lesser Argument," aka the "Wrong Argument," so Stupid can get out of his own debts. He blames his son for his money problems, saying that it was his son who wanted to ride horses, bet on horses, and have everything horse around him. His son refuses to go, so Stupid decides to go instead. He doesn't want to learn knowledge, just how to get out of paying all this money.

He goes to the Pondertorium and meets wise old Socrates. He sees things that look weird, such as students studying what was beneath the earth with their noses to the dirt, while at the same time studying the stars with their asses. He doesn't like the fact that he has to be wrapped up in a flea-infested blanket in order to learn knowledge. He is so dense, in fact, that he takes everything Socrates says either litterally, or he doesn't understand it all.

He actually thought that Zeus makes rain by pissing. He makes all sorts of fart jokes in relation to thunder. Later, when asked if he had a grasp of anything yet, he replys with "My right hand has a good grasp on my prick at the moment." What a rude man. I think this guy should be kicked in the face.

I definitely did not get too much into this book simply because it was a little too vulgar for my liking. If it was a newer play, I don't think it would have bothered me as much. But classical works, I just expect better writing. Or, I guess, I like nicer writing.

Overall, it wasn't a bad book, I just don't like classical works to be vulgar I guess. I expect them to hold some kind of stature I guess.

This week was not so good

So this week I have been very under the weather, so I was not able to get all of the readings done. I read monday's reading, "Crito" by Plato. I liked these two chapters that we read, for the most part. I can understand both sides of Crito and Socrates' argument.

Crito wants Socrates out of jail. He lists several reasons to back up his side of the argument. He is scared about his own reputation, and thinks that if he doesn't bail Socrates out of jail, he will be considered a bad person. He also says that he can make sure Socrates is comfortable in exile, no matter what his needs are. He tries to argue that if Socrates stays in jail, he is actually harming himself and aiding the state in injustice. His very last plead to Socrates used his family abandonment to try and persuade Socrates to escape.

Of course Socrates does what he always did in the marketplace. He proved to Crito why he could not escape using logic. Even if the state is being unjust, if he escaped, he would be unjust as well. He also would be considered a hypocrite, becase he could not be a philosoper if he did not stick to his word.

I feel bad for Socrates, because he knows he is right. He knows he has done nothing wrong. And he also knows that if he "did the right thing" and escaped, he would actually be technically doing "the wrong thing." I don't think I could be friends with somebody like this, mainly because I sometimes get upset when I am wrong, and to have somebody sit there and explain, and make me see exactly why I am wrong, and why the other thing is right would drive me crazy. I would never condemn a person for that, but I would probably tell them to shut up and then walk far away from them.

I am hoping that I can get caught back up this week, and get all of my readings done as well.