SAUSAGE-SELLER O let not a word of ill omen be heard; away with all proof and citation, And close for to-day the Law Courts, though they are the joy and delight of our nation. At the news which I bring let the theatre ring with Paeans of loud acclamation.
CHORUS O Light of the City, O Helper and friend of the islands we guard with our fleets, What news have you got? O tell me for what shall the sacrifice blaze in our streets?
SAUSAGE-SELLER Old Demus I’ve stewed till his youth is renewed, and his aspect most charming and nice is.
CHORUS O where have you left him, and where is he now, you inventor of wondrous devices?
SAUSAGE-SELLER He dwells in the City of ancient renown, which the violet chaplet is wearing.
CHORUS O would I could see him! O what is his garb, and what his demeanour and bearing?
SAUSAGE-SELLER As when, for his mess-mates, Miltiades bold and just Aristeides he chose. But now ye shall see him, for, listen, the bars of the great Propylaea unclose. Shout, shout to behold, as the portals unfold, fair Athens in splendour excelling, The wondrous, the ancient, the famous in song, where the noble Demus is dwelling!
CHORUS O shining old town of the violet crown, O Athens the envied, display The Sovereign of Hellas himself to our gaze, the monarch of all we survey.
SAUSAGE-SELLER See, see where he stands, no vote in his hands, but the golden cicala his hair in, All splendid and fragrant with peace and with myrrh, and the grand old apparel he’s wearing!
CHORUS Hail, Sovereign of Hellas! with thee we rejoice, right glad to behold thee again Enjoying a fate that is worthy the State and the trophy on Marathon’s plain.
DEMUS O Agoracritus, my dearest friend, What good your stewing did me!
SAUSAGE-SELLER Say you so? Why, if you knew the sort of man you were, And what you did, you’d reckon me a god.
DEMUS What was I like? What did I do? Inform me.
SAUSAGE-SELLER First, if a speaker in the Assembly said O Demus, I’m your lover, I alone Care for you, scheme for you, tend and love you well, I say if anyone began like that You clapped your wings and tossed your horns.
DEMUS What, I?
SAUSAGE-SELLER Then in return he cheated you and left.
DEMUS O did they treat me so, and I not know it!
SAUSAGE-SELLER Because, by Zeus, your ears would open wide And close again, like any parasol.
DEMUS Had I so old and witless grown as that?
SAUSAGE-SELLER And if, by Zeus, two orators proposed, One to build ships of war, one to increase Official salaries, the salary man Would beat the ships-of-war man in a canter. Hallo! why hang your head and shift your ground?
DEMUS I am ashamed of all my former faults.
SAUSAGE-SELLER You’re not to blame; pray don’t imagine that. ’Twas they who tricked you so. But answer this; If any scurvy advocate should say, Now please remember, justices, ye’ll have No barley, if the prisoner gets off free, How would you treat that scurvy advocate?
DEMUS I’d tie Hyperbolus about his neck, And hurl him down into the Deadman’s Pit.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Why now you are speaking sensibly and well. How else, in public business, will you act?
DEMUS First, when the sailors from my ships of war Come home, I’ll pay them all arrears in full.
SAUSAGE-SELLER For that, full many a well-worn rump will bless you.
DEMUS Next, when a hoplite’s placed in any list, There shall he stay, and not for love or money Shall he be shifted to some other list.
SAUSAGE-SELLER That bit the shield-strap of Cleonymus.
DEMUS No beardless boy shall haunt the agora now.
SAUSAGE-SELLER That’s rough on Straton and on Cleisthenes.
DEMUS I mean those striplings in the perfume-mart,
DEMUS Who sit them down and chatter stuff like this, Sharp fellow, Phaeax; wonderful defence; Coercive speaker; most conclusive speaker Effective; argumentative; incisive; Superlative against the combative.
SAUSAGE-SELLER You’re quite derisive of these talkatives.
DEMUS I’ll make them all give up their politics, And go a-hunting with their hounds instead.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Then on these terms accept this folding-stool? And here’s a boy to carry it behind you. No eunuch he!
DEMUS O, I shall be once more A happy Demus as in days gone by.
SAUSAGE-SELLER I think you’ll think so when you get the sweet Thirty-year treaties. Treaties dear, come here.
DEMUS Worshipful Zeus! how beautiful they are. Wouldn’t I like to solemnize them all. Whence got you these?
SAUSAGE-SELLER Why, had not Paphlagon Bottled them up that you might never see them? Now then I freely give you them to take Back to your farms, with you.
DEMUS But Paphlagon Who wrought all this, how will you punish him?
SAUSAGE-SELLER Not much: this only: he shall ply my trade, Sole sausage-seller at the City gates. There let him dogs’-meat mix with asses’ flesh,
SAUSAGE-SELLER There let him, tipsy, with the harlots wrangle, And drink the filthy scouring of the bath.
DEMUS A happy thought; and very fit he is To brawl with harlots and with bathmen there. But you I ask to dinner in the Hall, To take the place that scullion held before. Put on this frog-green robe and follow me. Whilst him they carry out to ply his trade, That so the strangers, whom he wronged, may see him.
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