Racine: Phaedra

148
ARISTOPHANES
Of greatness. Tell me truly : are ye allied
To the families of gentry ?
Sausage-Seller.— Naugh, not I
I'm come from a common ordinary kindred.
Of the lower order.
Demosthenes.— What a happiness
What a footing will it give ye ! What a groundwork
For confidence and favor at your outset
Sausage- Seller.—But bless ye ! only consider my education
I can but barely read ... in a kind of a way.
Demosthenes.—That makes against ye!—the only thing
against ye
The being able to read, in any way
For now no lead nor influence is allowed
To liberal arts or learned education,
But to the brutal, base, and under-bred.
Embrace then and hold fast the promises
Which the oracles of the gods announce to you.
Sausage-Seller.—But what does the Oracle say?
Demosthenes.— Why thus it says,
In a figurative language, but withal
Most singularly intelligible and distinct,
Neatly expressed i'faith, concisely and tersely.**
" Moreover, when the eagle in his pride.
With crooked talons and a leathern hide,
Shall seize the black and blood-devouring snake
Then shall the woful tanpits quail and quake;
And mighty Jove shall give command and place.
To mortals of the sausage-selling race
Unless they choose, continuing as before.
To sell their sausages for evermore."
Sausage- Seller.—But how does this concern me? Explain it,
will ye?
Demosthenes.—The leathern eagle is the Paphlagonian.
Sausage-Seller.—What are his talons ?
Demosthenes.— That explains itself—
Talons for peculation and rapacity.
"This is perfectly in character. De- the merit of the "sacred classics;"' like
mosthenes (as we have seen) does not other critics, therefore, of the same deprofess
to believe in the gods; yet we scription, he does it with a sort of
•ee that upon occasion he can discuss patronizing tone.