Racine: Phaedra

THE KNIGHTS 153
Sausage-Seller [in a louder, shriller tone].—Aye! I can
scream ten times as high.
Cleon.—I'll overbear ye, and out-bawl ye.
Sausage-Seller.—But I'll out-scream ye, and out-squall ye.
Cleon.— I'll impeach you, whilst aboard,
Commanding on a foreign station.
Sausage-Seller.—I'll have you sliced, and slashed, and scored.
Cleon.—Your lion's skin of reputation.
Shall be flayed off your back and tanned.
Sausage- Seller.—I'll take that heart of yours in hand.
Cleon.—Come, bring your eyes and mine to meet
And stare at me without a wink
Sausage- Seller.—Yes! in the market-place and street,
I had my birth and breeding too
And from a boy, to blush or blink,
I scorn the thing as much as you.
Cleon.—I'll denounce you if you mutter.
Sausage-Seller.— I'll douse ye the first word you utter.
Cleon.—My thefts are open and avowed ;
And I confess them, which you dare not.
Sausage-Seller.—But I can take false oaths aloud,
And in the presence of a crowd
And if they know the fact I care not.
Cleon.—What !
do you venture to invade
My proper calling and my trade?
But I denounce here, on the spot.
The sacrificial tripe you've got
The tithe it owes was never paid:
It owes a tithe, I say, to Jove
You've wronged and robbed the powers above.
Chorus.— Dark and unsearchably profound abyss.
Gulf of unfathomable
Baseness and iniquity
Miracle of immense,
Intense impudence
Every court, every hall,
Juries and assemblies, all
Are stunned to death, deafened all.
Whilst you bawl.
The bench and bar