Racine: Phaedra

158
ARISTOPHANES
Chorus.—Some element may prove more fierce than fire!
Some viler scoundrel may be seen,
Than ever yet has been !
And many a speech hereafter, many a word.
More villainous, than ever yet was heard.
We marvel at thy prowess and admire
Therefore proceed
In word and deed,
Be firm and bold,
Keep steadfast hold
Only keep your hold upon him. Persevere as you began;
He'll be daunted and subdued; I know the nature of
the man.
Sausage-Seller.—Such as here you now behold him, all his
life has he been known.
Till he reaped a reputation, in a harvest not his own
Now he shows the sheaves -^ at home, that he clandestinely
conveyed,
Tied and bound and heaped together, till his bargain
can be made.
Clkon [released and recovering himself].—I'm at ease, I need
not fear ye, with the Senate on my side.
And the Commons all dejected, humble, poor, and stu-
pefied.
Chorus.— Mark his visage ! and behold.
How brazen, unabashed, and bold!
How the color keeps its place
In his face
Cleon.—Let me be the vilest thing, the mattress that Cra-
tinus^^ stains
Or be forced to learn to sing, Morsimus's ^* tragic
strains
If I don't despise and loathe, scorn and execrate ye both.
Chorus.— Active, eager, airy thing!
Ever hovering on the wing,
Ever hovering and discovering
" The Spartan prisoners taken at ^ The famous camic poet, now grown
Pylos, and kept in the most severe con- old; and infirm, a« it appears,
finement.
** Ridiculed elsewhere as a bad writer
of tragedy.