By our Hermes of the market-place, if caught in the act, why, I perjure myself before those who saw me.
CLEON. These are my own special tricks. I will denounce you to the Prytanes38 as the owner of sacred tripe, that has not paid tithe.
CHORUS. Oh! you scoundrel! you impudent bawler! everything is filled with your daring, all Attica, the Assembly, the Treasury, the decrees, the tribunals. As a furious torrent you have overthrown our city; your outcries have deafened Athens and, posted upon a high rock, you have lain in wait for the tribute moneys as the fisherman does for the tunny-fish.
CLEON. I know your tricks; 'tis an old plot resoled.39
SAUSAGE-SELLER. If you know naught of soling, I understand nothing of sausages; you, who cut bad leather on the slant to make it look stout and deceive the country yokels. They had not worn it a day before it had stretched some two spans.
DEMOSTHENES 'Tis the very trick he served me; both my neighbours and my friends laughed heartily at me, and before I reached Pergasae40 I was swimming in my shoes.
CHORUS. Have you not always shown that blatant impudence, which is the sole strength of our orators? You push it so far, that you, the head of the State, dare to milk the purses of the opulent aliens and, at sight of you, the son of Hippodamus41 melts into tears. But here is another man, who gives me pleasure, for he is a much greater rascal than you; he will overthrow you; 'tis easy to see, that he will beat you in roguery, in brazenness and in clever turns. Come, you, who have been brought up among the class which to-day gives us all our great men, show us that a liberal education is mere tomfoolery.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Just hear what sort of fellow that fine citizen is.
CLEON. Will you not let me speak?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Assuredly not, for I also am a sad rascal.
CHORUS. If he does not give in at that, tell him your parents were sad rascals too.
CLEON. Once more, will you not let me speak?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, by Zeus!
CLEON. Yes, by Zeus, but you shall!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, by Posidon! We will fight first to see who shall speak first.
CLEON. I will die sooner.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will not let you….
CHORUS. Let him, in the name of the gods, let him die.
CLEON. What makes you so bold as to dare to speak to my face?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. 'Tis that I know both how to speak and how to cook.
CLEON. Hah! the fine speaker! Truly, if some business matter fell your way, you would know thoroughly well how to attack it, to carve it up alive! Shall I tell you what has happened to you? Like so many others, you have gained some petty lawsuit against some alien.42 Did you drink enough water to inspire you? Did you mutter over the thing sufficiently through the night, spout it along the street, recite it to all you met? Have you bored your friends enough with it? 'Tis then for this you deem yourself an orator. Ah! poor fool!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And what do you drink yourself then, to be able all alone by yourself to dumbfound and stupefy the city so with your clamour?
CLEON. Can you match me with a rival? Me! When I have devoured a good hot tunny-fish and drunk on top of it a great jar of unmixed wine, I hold up the Generals of Pylos to public scorn.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I, when I have bolted the tripe of an ox together with a sow's belly and swallowed the broth as well, I am fit, though slobbering with grease, to bellow louder than all orators and to terrify Nicias.
CHORUS. I admire your language so much; the only thing I do not approve is that you swallow all the broth yourself.
CLEON. E'en though you gorged yourself on sea-dogs, you would not beat the Milesians.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Give me a bullock's breast to devour, and I am a man to traffic in mines.43
CLEON. I will rush into the Senate and set them all by the ears.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I will lug out your gut to stuff like a sausage.
CLEON. As for me, I will seize you by the rump and hurl you head foremost through the door.
CHORUS. In any case, by Posidon, 'twill only be when you have thrown me there first.44
CLEON. Beware of the carcan!45
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I denounce you for cowardice.
CLEON. I will tan your hide.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will flay you and make a thief's pouch with the skin.
CLEON. I will peg you out on the ground.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will slice you into mince-meat.
CLEON. I will tear out your eyelashes.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will slit your gullet.
DEMOSTHENES. We will set his mouth open with a wooden stick as the cooks do with pigs; we will tear out his tongue, and, looking down his gaping throat, will see whether his inside has any pimples.46
CHORUS. Thus then at Athens we have something more fiery than fire, more impudent than impudence itself! 'Tis a grave matter; come, we will push and jostle him without mercy. There, you grip him tightly under the arms; if he gives way at the onset, you will find him nothing but a craven; I know my man.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. That he has been all his life and he has only made himself a name by reaping another's harvest; and now he has tied up the ears he gathered over there, he lets them dry and seeks to sell them.47
CLEON. I do not fear you as long as there is a Senate and a people which stands like a fool, gaping in the air.
CHORUS. What unparalleled impudence! 'Tis ever the same brazen front. If I don't hate you, why, I'm ready to take the place of the one blanket Cratinus wets;48 I'll offer to play a tragedy by Morsimus.49 Oh! you cheat! who turn all into money, who flutter from one extortion to another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event!"50 Then even the son of Iulius,51 the old niggard, would empty his cup with transports of joy, crying, "Io, Paean! Io, Bacchus!"
CLEON. By Posidon! You! would you beat me in impudence! If you succeed, may I no longer have my share of the victims offered to Zeus on the city altar.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I, I swear by the blows that have so oft rained upon my shoulders since infancy, and by the knives that have
They presided at the Public Assemblies; they were also empowered to try the most important cases.
An allusion to Cleon's former calling.
A country deme of Attica.
Archeptolemus, a resident alien, who lived in Piraeus. He had loaded Athens with gifts and was nevertheless maltreated by Cleon.
This was easier than against a citizen because of the inferiority, in which the pride of the Athenian held those born on other soil.
When drunk he conceives himself rich and the man to buy up the rich silver mines of Laurium, in south-east Attica.
The Chorus throws itself between Cleon and Agoracritus to protect the latter.
An iron collar, an instrument of torture and of punishment.
A disease among swine.
Cleon wanted the Spartans to purchase the prisoners of Sphacteria from him.
With piss—the result of his drunken habits.
A tragic poet, apparently proverbial for feebleness of style.
Beginning of a song of Simonides.
A miser.
