Metaphor for luxury
The play starts with the head of the family, Strepsiades, thinking about the money he owns to other people. Strepsiades is worried because he can’t pay all the debts he has, accumulated because of his love for horses and because of his son’s love for horses. This obsession brought them to the breaking point, unable to recover from the debt they accumulated. The horses are also used here as a metaphor for luxury, being presented as something which only the rich could afford. They are also not described as something necessary, but rather as a luxury, thus highlighting this idea even further.
Like a plant near the water-cress
In ancient times, it was commonly believed that a plant that grew near a water-cress had all its supply stolen and in a short period of time that plant was doomed to die. Socrates compared the people who stay on the ground with the plants that grow near water-cresses. He believed that those people had their life force robed out of them and thus he urged them to situate themselves as high as possible. This comparison here is important because it is also used to show just how Socrates’s way of thinking was extremely irrational and even stupid.
Metaphor for the ideas promoted by Socrates
When Strepsiades claims he wants to be initiated into Socrates’s group, Socrates starts the initiation process, giving Strepsiades a few ceremonial items and also saying a form of prayer, invoking the Clouds. The Clouds does not refer here to the actual clouds in the sky but rather to something which can’t be touched and seen. Because of this, the clouds become a metaphor for the ideas promoted by Socrates, referenced time and time again in the play.
Like birds of prey
When Strepsiades described the people who joined Socrates’s movement and who believed in his teachings, they are compared with ferocious birds of prey, coming from the sky, unnoticed by no one until it is too late. The comparison has the purpose of transmitting the idea that those who followed Socrates’s teachings were people with no morals, who wanted nothing more but to profit from others while they were doing nothing to improve their situations.
Like shape-shifting creatures
When the Socrates talks about his ideas, he compares them with clouds, which can one moment look like an animal and the next moment like completely something else. The comparison is aided by a few examples given by Socrates, having the purpose of helping Strepsiades understand the core idea better. The comparison also is used here to transmit the idea that the belifes promoted by Socrates were not honorable and instead their aim was to provide as much profit to those interested as possible.
