Racine: Phaedra

152
ARISTOPHANES
Down you cast him, roast and baste him, and devour
him at your ease.
Cleon.—Yes! assault, insult, abuse me! this is the return,
I find,
For the noble testimony, the memorial I designed
Meaning to propose proposals, for a monument of stone.
On the which, your late achievements,^* should be carved
and neatly done.
Chorus.—Out, away with him ! the slave ! the pompous empty
fawning knave
Does he think with idle speeches to delude and cheat us
all? I
As he does the doting elders, that attend his daily call." >/
Pelt him here, and bang him there ; and here and there
and everywhere.
Cleon.—Save me, neighbors! O the monsters! O my side,
my back, my breast
Chorus.—What, you're forced to call for help? You brutal
overbearing pest.
Sausage-Seller [returnmg to Cleon].—I'll astound you with
my voice ; with my bawling looks and noise.
Chorus.—If in bawling you surpass him, you'll achieve a victor's
crown
If again you overmatch him, in impudence, the day's our
own.
Cleon.—I denounce this traitor here, for saiHng on clandestine
trips,
With supplies of tripe and stuffing, to careen the Spartan
ships.
Sausage-Seller.—I denounce then and accuse him, for a
greater worse abuse
That he steers his empty paunch, and anchors at the
public board
Running in without a lading, to return completely stored
Chorus.—Yes! and smuggles out, moreover, loaves and
luncheons not a few,
More than ever Pericles, in all his pride, presumed to do.
Cleon [in a thunderwg tone].—Dogs and villains, you shall
die!
" In the expedition to Corinth. " The veterans of the jury.