to be goddesses?

Strep. No, by Jupiter! But I thought them to be mist,
and dew, and smoke.

Soc. For you do not know, by Jupiter! that these feed
very many sophists, Thurian soothsayers, practisers of
medicine, lazy-long-haired-onyx-ring-wearers,
song-twisters for the cyclic dances, and meteorological
quacks. They feed idle people who do nothing, because
such men celebrate them in verse.

Strep. For this reason, then, they introduced into their
verses "the dreadful impetuosity of the moist,
whirling-bright clouds"; and the "curls of
hundred-headed Typho"; and the "hard-blowing tempests";
and then "aerial, moist"; "crooked-clawed birds,
floating in air"' and "the showers of rain from dewy
Clouds." And then, in return for these, they swallow
"slices of great, fine mullets, and bird's-flesh of
thrushes."

Soc. Is it not just, however, that they should have
their reward, on account of these?

Strep. Tell me, pray, if they are really clouds, what
ails them, that they resemble mortal women? For they are
not such.

Soc. Pray, of what nature are they?