PAPHLAGON O speak you can! and you’re the man, I warrant, who is able A mangled mess full well to dress, and serve it up to table. I know your case, the common case; against some alien folk You had some petty suit to plead, and fairly well you spoke. For oft you’d conned the speech by night, and in the streets discussed it, And, quaffing water, shown it off, and all your friends disgusted. Now you’re an orator, you think. O fool, the senseless thought!
SAUSAGE-SELLER Pray what’s the draught which you have quaffed that Athens you have brought Tongue-wheedled by yourself alone to sit so mute and still?
PAPHLAGON Who to compare with me will dare? I’ll eat my tunny grill, And quaff thereon a stoup of wine which water shall not touch, And then with scurrilous abuse the Pylian generals smutch.
SAUSAGE-SELLER I’ll eat the paunch of cow and swine, and quaff thereon their stew,
SAUSAGE-SELLER And rising from the board with hands which water never knew I’ll throttle all the orators, and flutter Nicias too.
CHORUS With all beside I’m satisfied, but one thing likes me not, You speak as if you ate alone whatever stew you’ve got.
PAPHLAGON You’ll not consume your bass and then Miletus bring to grief.
SAUSAGE-SELLER But mines I’ll purchase when I’ve first devoured my ribs of beef.
PAPHLAGON I’ll leap the Council-chamber in, and put them all to rout.
SAUSAGE-SELLER I’ll treat you like a sausage-skin, and twirl your breech about.
PAPHLAGON I’ll hoist you by your crupper up, and thrust you through the gate, sir.
CHORUS If him you thrust, me too you must; you must as sure as fate, sir.
PAPHLAGON Your feet in the stocks I’ll fix full tight.
SAUSAGE-SELLER And you for your cowardice I’ll indict.
PAPHLAGON Outstretched on my board your hide I’ll pin.
SAUSAGE-SELLER “Pickpocket’s purse” I’ll make your skin.
PAPHLAGON Your limbs on the tanhouse floor I’ll stake.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Your flesh into force-meat balls I’ll bake.
PAPHLAGON I’ll twitch the lashes off both your eyes.
SAUSAGE-SELLER I’ll cut your gizzard out, poulterer-wise.
DEMOSTHENES Prop open his mouth with all your strength; Insert the extender from jaw to jaw; Pull out his tongue to its utmost length, And, butcher-fashion, inspect his maw, And whilst his gape is so broad and fine, See if he’s not The symptoms got Which show that he’s nought but a measly swine.
CHORUS There are things, then, hotter than fire; there are speeches more shameless still Than the shameless speeches of those who rule the City at will. No trifling task is before you; upon him and twist and garotte him. Do nought that is little or mean; for round the waist you have got him. If in this assault you knead him limp and supple to your hand, You will find the man a craven; I his habits understand.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Truly for an arrant coward he has all his life been known Yet a Man he seemed but lately, reaping where he had not sown. Now the ears of corn he brought us, he aspires to parch and dry, Shuts them up in wood and fetters, hopes to sell them by and by
PAPHLAGON You and your allies I fear not, while the Council lives, and while Demus moons upon the benches with his own unmeaning smile.
CHORUS O see how he brazens it out! The colour remains as before In his shameless impudent face. And O, if I hate you not sore, Let me be a filthy sheepskin, that whereon Cratinus lay, Or let Morsimus instruct me as the Chorus to his Play.
CHORUS Thou in all places, and thou at all hours, Flitting and sitting in briberry flowers, Sucking and sipping the gold they contain, Mayest thou lightly, as ’twas swallowed, cast thy mouthful up again. Then will I ever the roundelay sing Drink for the luck which the Destinies bring, And old Iulius’s son, the pantler Prytanean, For joy will “Bacche-Bacchus” shout, and chant his Io-Pacan.
CHORUS Shrewd body, you were provident, and stole away your meat Before the vernal swallow came, as folk their nettles eat.
SAUSAGE-SELLER And no one caught me out, or else, if any saw me pot it, I clapped the meat between my thighs and vowed I hadn’t got it; Whereat an orator observed, who watched me at my tricks, Some day this boy will make his mark as leader in the Pnyx.
CHORUS His inference was just; but still ’tis plain from whence he drew it; He saw you filch the meat away, and swear you didn’t do it.
PAPHLAGON I’ll stop your insolence, my man; your friend’s and yours together, I’ll swoop upon you like a gale of fresh and stormy weather, And all the land and all the sea in wild confusion throw.
SAUSAGE-SELLER But I will furl my sausages, and down the tide will go With prosperous seas, and favouring breeze, at you my fingers snapping.
DEMOSTHENES And if your bark a leak should spring, the water I’ll be tapping.
PAPHLAGON Full many a talent have you filched, and dearly shall you pay, You public-treasury thief!
CHORUS Look out, and slack the sheet away, I hear a loud Nor’-Easter there or Sycophanter blow.
PAPHLAGON From Potidaea you received ten talents, that I know.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Will you take one, and hold your tongue?
CHORUS He’d take it like a shot. Let out the yard-arm ropes a bit.
SAUSAGE-SELLER The gale has milder got. The stormy blast is falling fast.
PAPHLAGON You’ll have, for bribery and deceit, Four hundred-talent writs to meet.
SAUSAGE-SELLER And you, for cowardliness a score, For theft a thousand writs and more.
PAPHLAGON From that old sacrilegious race? I’ll say that your descent you trace.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Your father’s father marched, I’ll swear, As body-guard to—
PAPHLAGON Whom? Declare!
SAUSAGE-SELLER To Hippias’s Byrsine.
PAPHLAGON You jackanapes!
SAUSAGE-SELLER You gallows-tree!
CHORUS Strike like a man!
PAPHLAGON O help me! Oh! These plotting traitors hurt me so.
CHORUS Strike, strike him, well and manfully, And with those entrails beat him, And strings of sausage-meat, and try Meet punishment to mete him. O noblest flesh in all the world, O spirit best and dearest, To City and to citizens a Saviour thou appearest.
CHORUS How well and with what varied skill thou foil’st him in debate! O would that I could praise you so, as our delight is great.
PAPHLAGON Now, by Demeter, it escaped me not That these same plots were framing; well I knew How they were pegged, and fixed, and glued together.
CHORUS O, me! (To S.S.) Can’t you say something from the cartwright’s trade?
SAUSAGE-SELLER These Argos doings have escaped me not. He goes, he says, to make a friend of Argos, But ’tis with Sparta he’s colloguing there. Aye and I know the anvil whereupon His plan is forged: ’tis welded on the captives.
CHORUS Good good! return him welding for his glue.
SAUSAGE-SELLER And men from thence are hammering at it too. And not by bribes of silver or of gold Or sending friends, will you persuade me not To tell the Athenians how you are going on.
PAPHLAGON I’ll go this instant to the Council-board, And all your vile conspiracies denounce, And all your nightly gatherings in the town, And how you plotted with the Medes and King, And all your cheese-pressed doings in Boeotia.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Pray, how’s cheese selling in Boeotia now?
PAPHLAGON I’ll stretch you flat, by Heracles I will. [Exit]
CHORUS Now then, what mean you? what are you going to do? Now shall you show us if in very truth
CHORUS You stole the meat and hid it as you said. So to the Council-house you’ll run, for he Will burst in thither, and against us all Utter his lies and bawl a mighty bawl.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Well, I will go; but first I’ll lay me down Here, as I am, these guts and butchers’-knives.
DEMOSTHENES Here take this ointment and anoint your neck, So can you slip more easily through his lies.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Well now, that’s good and trainer-like advice.
DEMOSTHENES And next, take this and swallow it.
SAUSAGE-SELLER What for?
DEMOSTHENES Why, if you are garlic-primed, you’ll fight much better. And now begone.
SAUSAGE-SELLER I’m off.
DEMOSTHENES And don’t forget To peck, to lie, to gobble down his combs, And bite his wattles off. That done, return.
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