Racine: Phaedra

THE KNIGHTS 171
Of pilchards being likely to be cheap.
I then proceeded and proposed a vote
To meet the emergence secretly and suddenly
To seize at once the trays of all the workmen,
And go with them to market to buy pilchards,
Before the price was raised. Immediately
They applauded, and sat gaping all together.
Attentive and admiring. He perceived it
And framed a motion, suited as he thought
To the temper of the Assembly. *' I move," says he,
**That on occasion of this happy news.
We should proclaim a general thanksgiving
With a festival moreover, and a sacrifice
Of a hundred head of oxen ; to the goddess."
Then seeing he meant to drive me to the wall
With his hundred oxen, I overbid him at once;
And said " two hundred," and proposed a vow.
For a thousand goats to be offered to Diana,
Whenever sprats should fall to forty a penny.
With that the Senate smiled upon me again
And he grew stupefied and lost, and stammering
And attempting to interrupt the current business.
Was called to order, and silenced and put down.
Then they were breaking up to buy their pilchards:
But he must needs persist, and beg for a hearing
** For a single moment—for a messenger
For a herald that was come from Lacedaemon,
With an offer of peace—for an audience to
him."
But they broke out in an uproar all together
be given
y Peace truly! Peace forsooth! Yes, now's their time;
I warrant 'em ; when pilchards are so plenty.
They've heard of it ; and now they come for peace
I
No ! No ! No peace ! The
Then they called out to the Presidents to adjourn
And scrambled over the railing and dispersed ;
And I dashed down to the market-place headlong;
And bought up all the fennel, and bestowed it
As donative, for garnish to their pilchards,
Among the poorer class of Senators
war must take its course.'*