And bring out the ledger, so I can read how many people I owe and work out the interest. Come, let me see, what do I owe? Twelve minas to Pasias. Twelve minas to Pasias, what for? What did I spend it on? When I bought the koppa-horse. Oh no, poor me! I wish I had had my eye knocked out with a stone first!

Twelve minas was a great deal of money, years of a laborer's wages, and it went on one horse. Strepsiades reads his own ledger like a man meeting his debts for the first time: he has to ask himself what the money was for, and the answer hurts so much that he would rather have lost an eye. The horse is a koppatias, a horse branded with the letter koppa, an old letter of the alphabet. Horses carried brands of their breed, and this one was said to come from Corinth: a known strain with a price to match. And the wish that follows plays on the brand: koppa-horse, and "if only I had been knocked (ex-ekop-ēn) in the eye".