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Strepsiades on the gnat's trumpet

423 BCE, Athens (Theatre of Dionysus). Strepsiades speaking, in Aristophanes’ play.

Where and when

423 BCEAthens (Theatre of Dionysus)

2,448 years ago

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Aristophanes

, Athens (Theatre of Dionysus)Strepsiades speaking, in Aristophanes’ play

In plain words, ours

So a gnat's backside is a trumpet! What insight. Surely anyone who understands gnat guts could easily get off in court.

The rump of the gnats then is a trumpet! Oh, thrice happy he for his sharp-sightedness! Surely a defendant might easily get acquitted who understands the intestine of the gnat.

Aristophanes, Clouds line 165Translated by William James Hickie (1853)Read the full passage (Aristophanes, Clouds line 165, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

In Aristophanes' comedy Clouds, a student of Socrates is telling Strepsiades about his teacher's discoveries, like measuring a flea with tiny wax slippers. Next comes the question of how gnats buzz.

Checked claim by claim against: the passage around the quote.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

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  5. 423 BCEThis momentStrepsiades on the gnat's trumpet
  6. 423 BCESame year A disciple of Socrates on the flea Same passageMore from Aristophanes
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Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

Strepsiades: How then did he measure this?

Disciple: Most cleverly. He melted some wax; and then took the flea and dipped its feet in the wax; and then a pair of Persian slippers stuck to it when cooled. Having gently loosened these, he measured back the distance.

Strepsiades: O King Jupiter! What subtlety of thought!

Disciple: What then would you say if you heard another contrivance of Socrates?

Strepsiades: Of what kind? Tell me, I beseech you!

Disciple: Chaerephon the Sphettian asked him whether he thought gnats buzzed through the mouth or the breech.

Strepsiades: What, then, did he say about the gnat?

Disciple: He said the intestine of the gnat was narrow and that the wind went forcibly through it, being slender, straight to the breech; and then that the rump, being hollow where it is adjacent to the narrow part, resounded through the violence of the wind.

The quote: Strepsiades: The rump of the gnats then is a trumpet! Oh, thrice happy he for his sharp-sightedness! Surely a defendant might easily get acquitted who understands the intestine of the gnat.

Disciple: But he was lately deprived of a great idea by a lizard.

Strepsiades: In what way? Tell me.

Disciple: As he was investigating the courses of the moon and her revolutions, then as he was gaping upward a lizard in the darkness dropped upon him from the roof.

Strepsiades: I am amused at a lizard’s having dropped on Socrates.

Disciple: Yesterday evening there was no supper for us.

Strepsiades: Well. What then did he contrive for provisions?

Disciple: He sprinkled fine ashes on the table, and bent a little spit, and then took it as a pair of compasses and filched a cloak from the Palaestra.

Strepsiades: Why then do we admire Thales?

Aristophanes, Clouds lines 148–180Translated by William James Hickie (1853)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
423 BCE. Clouds was first staged in 423 BCE; the text that survives is a partial revision Aristophanes made a few years later, which was never staged.
Whose words
Strepsiades speaking, in Aristophanes’ play.
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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