Racine: Phaedra

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ARISTOPHANES
Demus.—Well, Glanis has the best of it, I declare.
Cleon.—First listen, my good friend, and then decide:
" In sacred Athens shall a woman dwell,
Who shall bring forth a lion fierce and fell;
This lion shall defeat the gnats and flies,
Which are that noble nation's enemies.
Him you must guard and keep for public good.
With iron bulwarks and a wall of wood."
Demus [to the Sausage-Seller].—D'ye understand it?
Sausage-Seller.— No, not I, by Jove
Cleon.—Apollo admonishes you, to guard and keep me
I am the lion here alluded to.
Demus.—A lion ! Why just now you were a dog
Sausage-Seller.—Aye, but he stifles the true sense of it,
Designedly—that " wooden and iron wall,"
In which Apollo tells ye he should be kept.
Demus.—What did the deity mean by it? What d'ye think?
Sausage-Seller.—To have him kept in the pillory and the
stocks.
Demus.—That prophecy seems likely to be verified.
Cleon.— " Heed not their strain ; for crows and daws abound.
But love your faithful hawk, victorious found.
Who brought the Spartan magpies tied and bound."
Sausage-Seller.—" The Paphlagonian, impudent and rash,
Risked that adventure in a drunken dash.
simple son of Cecrops, ill advised
1 see desert in arms unfairly prized
Men only can secure and kill the game;
A woman's deed it is to cook the same."
Cleon.—Do listen at least to the Oracle about Pylos
" Pylos there is behind, and eke before,**
The bloody Pylos."
Demus.— Let me hear no more
Those Pyloses are my torment evermore.
Sausage-Seller.—But here's an Oracle which you must attend
to;
About the navy—a very particular one,
Demus.—Yes, I'll attend—I wish it would tell me how
To pay my seamen their arrears of wages.
** There were three places of this name, not very distant from each otter.