Strep. Socrates! My little Socrates!

Socrates. Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?

Strep. First tell me, I beseech you, what are you doing.

Soc. I am walking in the air, and speculating about the
sun.

Strep. And so you look down upon the gods from your
basket, and not from the earth?

Soc. For I should not have rightly discovered things
celestial if I had not suspended the intellect, and
mixed the thought in a subtle form with its kindred air.
But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on
things above, I should never have discovered them. For
the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative
moisture. Water-cresses also suffer the very same thing.

Strep. What do you say? Does meditation attract the
moisture to the water-cresses? Come then, my little
Socrates, descend to me, that you may teach me those
things, for the sake of which I have come.

[Socrates lowers himself and gets out of the basket.]

Soc. And for what did you come?

Strep. Wishing to learn to speak; for by reason of