云

云（古希腊语：Νεφέλαι）是古希腊剧作家阿里斯托芬创作的一部喜剧，最初于公元前423年在酒神祭上演，是当年艺术节上三部戏剧中的最后一部。剧中对雅典智者们的流行风气进行了辛辣的讽刺，作者认为这是道德沦丧的根源所在。阿里斯托芬认为《云》是自己的得意之作，但演出后并没有像作者所希望的那样受到欢迎，只得到了末等奖。阿里斯托芬在公元前420年至前417年之间修订了剧本，之后以手稿形式发行，原始作品的副本没有留存下来。

学者们的分析表明，修订版的内容相对于一般的旧喜剧剧本并不完整。然而这种不完整性在翻译和现代表演中并不明显从今日看起来，《云》可被认为是世界上现存的第一部“思想喜剧”，也被文学评论家认为是这一体裁中的一部典范之作。此外柏拉图的《申辩篇》中提到该剧，认为其中对苏格拉底的讽刺部分造成了对哲学家的审判和处决。

人物

斯瑞西阿得斯，在思想所求学的人

斐狄庇得斯，斯瑞西阿得斯的儿子

苏格拉底，开设思想所的哲学家

门徒，苏格拉底的门徒。

开瑞丰, 苏格拉底的朋友和忠诚追随者

云彩们，组成歌队

众学生

逻辑甲

逻辑乙

帕西阿斯

阿密尼阿斯

The Clouds (Ancient Greek: Νεφέλαι, Nephelai) is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and was not as well received as the author had hoped, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420 and 417 BC and was thereafter circulated in manuscript form.

No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that the revised version is an incomplete form of Old Comedy. Any missing text, however, is not obvious in translations and modern performances.

Retrospectively, The Clouds can be considered the world's first extant "comedy of ideas" and is considered by literary critics to be among the finest examples of the genre. The play also, however, remains notorious for its caricature of Socrates, and is cited by Plato in the Apology as a contributing factor to the philosopher's trial and execution.

Characters

Socrates, the philosopher who runs The Thinkery

Strepsiades, student who joins The Thinkery

Pheidippides, his son

Chaerephon, disciple of Socrates

The Clouds, who form the chorus

Chorus Leader

Slave

Students

First Student

Wrong Argument

Right Argument

First Creditor

Second Creditor

Witness

Xanthias

Plot

The play begins with Strepsiades suddenly sitting up in bed while his son, Pheidippides, remains blissfully asleep in the bed next to him. Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep – his wife (the pampered product of an aristocratic clan) has encouraged their son's expensive interest in betting on horse races. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get out of debt, wakes the youth gently and pleads with him to do something for him. Pheidippides at first agrees to do as he is asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for wastrels and bums with which no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be associated. Strepsiades explains that students of The Thinkery learn how to turn inferior arguments into winning arguments and this is the only way he can beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age.

There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea's foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made by a gnat (its rear end resembles a trumpet) and a new use for a large pair of compasses (as a kind of fishing-hook for stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Strepsiades begs to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries. The wish is soon granted; Socrates appears overhead, wafted in a basket at the end of a rope, the better to observe the Sun and other meteorological phenomena. The philosopher descends and quickly begins the induction ceremony for the new elderly student, the highlight of which is a parade of the Clouds, the patron goddesses of thinkers and other layabouts. The Clouds arrive singing majestically of the regions whence they arose and of the land they have now come to visit, loveliest in all being Greece. Introduced to them as a new devotee, Strepsiades begs them to make him the best orator in Greece by a hundred miles. They reply with the promise of a brilliant future. Socrates leads him into the dingy Thinkery for his first lesson and The Clouds step forward to address the audience.