Racine: Phaedra

THE KNIGHTS 179
Chorus.—O thou, the saviour of the State, with joy and admiration
!
We contemplate your happy fate and future exaltation.
Doomed with the trident in your hand to reign in power
and glory,
In full career to domineer, to drive the world before ye
To raise with ease and calm the seas, and also raise a
fortune,
While distant tribes, with gifts and bribes, to thee will
be resorting.
Keep your advantage, persevere, attack him, work him,
bait him,
You'll over-bawl him, never fear, and out-vociferate him.
Cleon.—You'll not advance ; you've not a chance, good people,
of prevailing
Recorded facts, my warlike acts, will muzzle you from
railing
As long as there remains a shield, of all the trophy taken
At Pylos, I can keep the field, unterrified, unshaken.
Sausage-Seller.—Stop there a bit, don't triumph yet—those
shields afford a handle
For shrewd surmise ; and it implies a treasonable scan-
dal
That there they're placed, all strapped and braced, ready
prepared for action
A plot it is ! a scheme of his ! a project of the faction
Dear Demus, he, most wickedly, with villainous advisement,
V Prepares a force, as his resource, against your just chastisement
:
The curriers and the tanners all, with sundry crafts of
leather,
Young lusty fellows stout and tall, you see them leagued
together
And there beside them, there abide cheesemongers bold
and hearty,
Who with the grocers are allied, to join the tanner's
party.
Then if you turn your oyster eye, with ostracising look,
Those his allies, will from the pegs, those very shields
unhook '