Pheidippides: Give the horse a roll and lead him home. Strepsiades: But, my boy, you have rolled me out of everything I own, now that I have lost lawsuits and others say they will seize my goods for the interest. Pheidippides: Really, father, why are you fretting and twisting about the whole night? Strepsiades: Some demarch is biting me in the bedding. Pheidippides: Let me sleep a little, my good man. Strepsiades: Sleep, then. But be sure all these debts will fall on your head.

In his dream Pheidippides is a groom now, telling someone to let the horse have a roll in the dust before leading it home. His father takes the verb and turns it on him: you have rolled me out of house and home. The son wakes just enough to ask why his father is twisting about all night, and the verb he uses, strephei, is the root of his father's name. The demarch was the officer of an Athenian district who helped creditors seize a debtor's goods. Strepsiades means a bedbug, and says "demarch" because that is what is really biting him. When his son rolls over and tells him to let him sleep, the old man has one curse left: all these debts will land on your head.