But I can not sleep, poor me, bitten by the bills and the stable and the debts, all because of this son of mine. He wears his hair long, rides horses, drives a chariot and dreams of horses. And I am dying as I watch the moon bring on the twenties of the month. The interest is mounting up. Boy, light a lamp!

Strepsiades is "bitten" by his bills, and the word will come back: in a few lines he will claim a bug is biting him in bed. The real bite is money. The son's long hair is a detail every Athenian could read at a glance. Long hair on a young man meant the horse-riding rich, the families who could afford to keep a stable and race chariots. Pheidippides has the habits of a class his father only married into. The moon is the cruelest image. Athenian months followed the moon, and debts and interest fell due at the end of the month. So the old man lies awake counting down the days by the moon as it moves toward the twenties, and the last week before the creditors come.