Racine: Phaedra

172
ARISTOPHANES
And they so thanked and praised me, that in short,
For twenty-pence, I've purchased and secured them.
Chorus.—With fair event your first essay began,
Betokening a predestined happy man.
The villain now shall meet
In equal war,
A more accomplished cheat,
A viler far
With turns and tricks more various.
More artful and nefarious.
But thou
Bethink thee now;
Rouse up thy spirit to the next endeavor!
Our hands and hearts and will,
Both heretofore and ever.
Are with thee still.
Sausage-Seller.—The Paphlagonian ! Here he's coming,
foaming
And swelling like a breaker in the surf
With his hobgoblin countenance and look
For all the world as if he'd swallow me up.
Enter Cleon.
Cleon.—May I perish and rot, but I'll consume and ruin ye;
I'll leave no trick, no scheme untried to do it.
Sausage-Seller.—It makes me laugh, it amuses one, to see
him
Bluster and storm ! I whistle and snap my fingers.
Cleon.—By the powers of earth and heaven ! and as I live
You villain, I'll annihilate and devour ye.
Sausage-Seller.—Devour me! and as I live, I'll swallow ye;
And gulp ye down at a mouthful, without salt.
Cleon.—I swear by the precedence, and the seat
Which I achieved at Pylos, I'll destroy ye.
Sausage-Seller.— Seat, precedence truly ! I hope to see you,
The last amongst us in the lowest place.
Cleon.—I'll clap you in jail, in the stocks—By heaven ! I will.
Sausage-Seller,—To see it how it takes on! Barking and
tearing!
What ails the creature? Does it want a sop?