CHORUS. He argued rightly; to steal, perjure yourself and make a receiver of your rump[55] are three essentials for climbing high.
CLEON. I will stop your insolence, or rather the insolence of both of you. I will throw myself upon you like a terrible hurricane ravaging both land and sea at the will of its fury.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Then I will gather up my sausages and entrust myself to the kindly waves of fortune so as to make you all the more enraged.
DEMOSTHENES. And I will watch in the bilges in case the boat should make water.
CLEON. No, by Demeter! I swear, 'twill not be with impunity that you have thieved so many talents from the Athenians.[56]
CHORUS (_to the Sausage-seller_). Oh! oh! reef your sail a bit! Here is Boreas blowing calumniously.
CLEON. I know that you got ten talents out of Potidaea.[57]
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Hold! I will give you one; but keep it dark!
CHORUS. Hah! that will please him mightily; now you can travel under full sail.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Yes, the wind has lost its violence.
CLEON. I will bring four suits against you, each of one hundred talents.[58]
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I twenty against you for shirking duty and more than a thousand for robbery.
CLEON. I maintain that your parents were guilty of sacrilege against the goddess.[59]
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I, that one of your grandfathers was a satellite....
SAUSAGE-SELLER. To Byrsina, the mother of Hippias.[60]
CLEON. Oh, oh, dear! The conspirators are murdering me!
CHORUS. Strike, strike with all your might; bruise his belly, lashing him with your guts and your tripe; punish him with both arms! Oh! vigorous assailant and intrepid heart! Have you not routed him totally in this duel of abuse? how shall I give tongue to my joy and sufficiently praise you?
CLEON. Ah! by Demeter! I was not ignorant of this plot against me; I knew it was forming, that the chariot of war was being put together.[61]
CHORUS (_to Sausage-seller_). Look out, look out! Come, outfence him with some wheelwright slang?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. His tricks at Argos do not escape me. Under pretence of forming an alliance with the Argives, he is hatching a plot with the Lacedaemonians there; and I know why the bellows are blowing and the metal that is on the anvil; 'tis the question of the prisoners.