SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, no, 'tis Cleon; he is incessantly asking you for
light vessels to go and collect the tributes, and Apollo advises you not
to grant them.
DEMOS. What connection is there between a galley and a dog-fox?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. What connection? Why, 'tis quite plain--a galley travels
as fast as a dog.
DEMOS. Why, then, does the oracle not say dog instead of dog-fox?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Because he compares the soldiers to young foxes, who,
like them, eat the grapes in the fields.
DEMOS. Good! Well then! how am I to pay the wages of my young foxes?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will undertake that, and in three days too! But listen
to this further oracle, by which Apollo puts you on your guard against
the snares of the greedy fist.
DEMOS. Of what greedy fist?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. The god in this oracle very clearly points to the hand of
Cleon, who incessantly holds his out, saying, "Fill it."
CLEON. 'Tis false! Phoebus means the hand of Diopithes.[123] But here I
have a winged oracle, which promises you shall become an eagle and rule
over all the earth.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I have one, which says that you shall be King of the
Earth and of the Sea, and that you shall administer justice in Ecbatana,
eating fine rich stews the while.
CLEON. I have seen Athené[124] in a dream, pouring out full vials of
riches and health over the people.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I too have seen the goddess, descending from the
Acropolis with an owl perched upon her helmet; on your head she was
pouring out ambrosia, on that of Cleon garlic pickle.
DEMOS. Truly Glanis is the wisest of men. I shall yield myself to you;
guide me in my old age and educate me anew.
CLEON. Ah! I adjure you! not yet; wait a little; I will promise to
distribute barley every day.
DEMOS. Ah! I will not hear another word about barley; you have cheated me
too often already, both you and Theophanes.[125]
CLEON. Well then! you shall have flour-cakes all piping hot.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will give you cakes too, and nice cooked fish; you will
only have to eat.
DEMOS. Very well, mind you keep your promises. To whichever of you twain
shall treat me best I hand over the reins of state.
CLEON. I will be first.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, no, _I_ will.
CHORUS. Demos, you are our all-powerful sovereign lord; all tremble
before you, yet you are led by the nose. You love to be flattered and
fooled; you listen to the orators with gaping mouth and your mind is led
astray.
DEMOS. 'Tis rather you who have no brains, if you think me so foolish as
all that; it is with a purpose that I play this idiot's role, for I love
to drink the lifelong day, and so it pleases me to keep a thief for my
minister. When he has thoroughly gorged himself, then I overthrow and
crush him.
CHORUS. What profound wisdom! If it be really so, why! all is for the
best. Your ministers, then, are your victims, whom you nourish and feed
up expressly in the Pnyx, so that, the day your dinner is ready, you may
immolate the fattest and eat him.
DEMOS. Look, see how I play with them, while all the time they think
themselves such adepts at cheating me. I have my eye on them when they
thieve, but I do not appear to be seeing them; then I thrust a judgment
down their throat as it were a feather, and force them to vomit up all
they have robbed from me.
CLEON. Oh! the rascal!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Oh! the scoundrel!
CLEON. Demos, all is ready these three hours; I await your orders and I
burn with desire to load you with benefits.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I ten, twelve, a thousand hours, a long, long while,
an infinitely long while.
DEMOS. As for me, 'tis thirty thousand hours that I have been impatient;
very long, infinitely long that I have cursed you.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Do you know what you had best do?
DEMOS. If I do not, tell me.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Declare the lists open[126] and we will contend abreast
to determine who shall treat you the best.