Demosthenes: Men of the cavalry, come here; now is the time. O Simon,
Demosthenes: 'Oh Panaitius, aren't you driving towards the right horn?'
Demosthenes: Men, close! But defend yourself and turn back again.
Demosthenes: The dust is obvious that they are lying there together.
Demosthenes: But defend yourself and pursue him and make him turn tail.
Chorus of Knights: Strike, strike the cunning and horse-shaking man.
Chorus of Knights: and the tax-collector, and the chasm, and Charybdis of plunder,
Chorus of Knights: Cunning and cunning; for often I will say it.
Chorus of Knights: For this fellow was a rogue many times during the day.
Chorus of Horsemen: but strike and pursue and confuse and confuse!
Chorus of Knights: And you shall be loathed, for we too will shout it out.
Chorus of Knights: Beware lest he escape you; for he knows the ways,
Chorus of Knights: Just as Eukrates was fleeing straight from the corybants.
Cleon: O old men, sun-bathers, brothers of the obol,
Cleon: Whom I feed, shouting, both just and unjust,
Cleon: Help me, as I am being beaten by conspirators.
Chorus: You do it justly, since you are devouring the common property before you have drawn lots.
Chorus: and you squeeze them while pressing, checking those who are responsible,
Chorus: whoever of them is raw or ripe or not ripe,
Chorus: And if you know any one of them to be idle and gaping,
Chorus: having brought down, having slandered from the Chersonese, having anchored
Chorus: Then, turning your own shoulder, you stumbled.
Chorus: And you look carefully among the citizens as to who is a lamb-shearer,
Chorus: rich and not wicked and trembling over the affairs.
Cleon: You are pressing the attack? But I, men, am being beaten because of you,
Cleon: because I was about to express my opinion as being just in the city.
Cleon: It is to set up a monument of your bravery.
Chorus: What a bluffer, what a braggart! You saw how he carries himself!
Chorus: As if he is treating us old men like cobblers?
Chorus: But if he wins in this way, he will be struck in this way.
Chorus: But if he ever leans back from the right, his leg will be shattered.
Cleon: O city and people, how I am being gorged by what beasts!
Chorus: And you have shouted, just as always destroying the city?
Cleon: But I will turn you to flight first with this noise.
Chorus: but if you are victorious in the shouting, you are a jackdaw;
Chorus: If he passes you with impudence, then our pyramus [is done].
Cleon: This man I accuse, and I say that he is to be brought forward.
Cleon: pickles for the triremes of the Peloponnesians.
Sausage-seller: Yes, by Zeus, and I [want] this one, because it has an empty belly.
Sausage-Seller: Having run into the Prytaneion, then again he throws it with full force.
Demosthenes: By Zeus, he is indeed bringing out the secret things, along with bread and meat.
Demosthenes: And a piece, for which Pericles was never deemed worthy.
Cleon: Let us die right away.
Sausage-seller: I will shout three times as loud as you.
Cleon: I will shout to you, shouting.
Sausage-seller: I will shout at you, shouting.
Cleon: I will slander you if you become general.
Sausage-seller: I will beat your back.
Cleon: I will strip you of your pretensions.
Sausage-Seller: I will cut your legs off.
Cleon: Look at me, you flat-nosed wretch.
Sausage-seller: I too have been brought up in the marketplace.
Cleon: I will argue with you if you croak at all.
Sausage-Seller: I'll shit on you if you speak.
Cleon: I admit to stealing; but you do not.
Sausage-seller: By Hermes the Market-god,
Sausage-Seller: I even swear, while they are watching.
Cleon: Well then, he makes a fool of others,
Cleon: And I will show you to the presidents.
Cleon: un-taxed sacred things of the gods
Cleon: having a belly.
Chorus: O filthy and detestable fellow, and squawker, [of] your boldness
Chorus: every land is full, every assembly is full, and the taxes.
Chorus: and paintings and a lawcourt, you mud-wallahs and
Chorus: having utterly ruined our city,
Chorus: Whoever of us has made Athens deaf by shouting,
Chorus: and from the rocks above watching for tuna for the taxes.
Cleon: I know this matter from where it has long been beaten into shape.
Sausage-seller: If, then, you don't know the little tricks, I don't know the strings either,
Sausage-seller: whoever you are, when you cut off the skin of a wretched ox
Sausage-seller: slyly to the country bumpkins, so as to appear thick,
Sausage-seller: And even before daybreak it was bigger than two fistfuls.
Demosthenes: By Zeus, he did the same thing to me, so that I am an object of ridicule.
Demosthenes: to provide a very great amount to the citizens and friends;
Demosthenes: for before there was a Pergasian, there was one in the embases.
Chorus: Surely, then, isn't it from the beginning that you have shown your shamelessness,
Chorus: She who alone protects the orators?
Chorus: With which you, trusting, milk the profits from the foreigners,
Chorus: being first; but Hippodamos is being poured out while looking.
Chorus: But a different man has appeared, a much greater one.
Chorus: More foul than you, so that I take my leave,
Chorus: the one who will stop you and will take you away, he is clearly from that very place,
Chorus: by cunning and by boldness
Chorus: and with cobbling.
Chorus: but, oh, you who were reared from wherever men are who are such as they are,
Chorus: now show that to be reared with moderation means saying nothing.
Sausage-seller: Yes indeed, listen to what sort of citizen this fellow is.
Cleon: You won't let me, then?
Sausage-Seller: By Zeus, since I am also a rogue.
Chorus: If, however, he does not yield in this way, say that he is also from bad people.
Cleon: Will you not, then, leave me alone?
Sausage-seller: By Zeus.
Cleon: Yes, by Zeus.
Sausage-Seller: By Poseidon.
Sausage-seller: But I shall first contend with him over who shall speak first.
Cleon: Alas, I am about to burst.
Sausage-seller: And indeed I shall not give it up.
Chorus: Give it, give it, by the gods, to be torn apart from him.
Cleon: And even though you are confident, do you demand that I speak against you?
Sausage-Seller: For I am able to speak and to make nut-cakes.
Cleon: Look, he is speaking. So you would be well, having encountered a matter.
Cleon: Having received a raw, torn piece of flesh, handle it well.
Cleon: But do you know what you think you have suffered? The multitude.
Cleon: if you ever said something justly against a foreigner and resident alien,
Cleon: 'By night, muttering and talking to yourself in the streets,'
Cleon: drinking water and showing it off and annoying his friends,
Cleon: You thought you were able to speak. You fool of stupidity.
Sausage-seller: But what have you done to the city while drinking, so that now...
Sausage-Seller: The silence that was stammered by you, the loneliest one?
Cleon: For to whom of men have you opposed me, whoever you are, who is straight?
Cleon: Having devoured hot tunny fish, and then having drunk unmixed wine,
Cleon: Let me make a libation of wine and splash the generals at Pylos.
Butcher: I have a cow's udder and a sow's belly.
Sausage-seller: after swallowing it down and then drinking it, unclean.
Sausage-seller: I will chop up the orators and disturb Nicias.
Chorus: In other respects you have pleased me by speaking; but there is one thing which I do not accept,
Chorus: of the matters whoever alone will taste the broth.
CLEO: But you will not stagger the Milesians by devouring the sea bass.
Sausage-seller: But I will buy ores having eaten a chameleon.
Cleon: I, however, will rouse up the council by force while rushing at it.
Sausage-seller: I will move your anus instead of a bladder.
Cleon: But I will drag you out of the house, you rascal.
Chorus: By Poseidon, I too, if you were to drag him away.
Cleon: I'll tie you to the wooden post.
Sausage-seller: I will chase you for cowardice.
Cleon: Your hide will be beaten.
Sausage-seller: I will beat you, a bag of theft.
Cleon: He will be beaten flat on the ground.
Sausage-Seller: I will prepare trimmings from you.
Cleon: I will pluck out your eyelashes.
Sausage-seller: I will not castrate the herald.
Demosthenes: And by Zeus, throwing in on him
Demosthenes: a cook's rag.
Demos: into the mouth, and then from inside
Demosthenes: having drawn out his tongue
Demosthenes: we will consider it carefully and manfully.
Demosthenes: [one who is] gaping.
Demosthenes: 'A rectum if it is raining hail.'
Chorus: There were, then, other things hotter than fire and words.
Chorus: in the city of the shameless ones, [they are] more shameless; and the matter...
Chorus: Was it not a trivial matter, then, to do so, but rather to go on and swirl?
Chorus: do not do anything little. For now he is caught in the middle;
Chorus: as long as you soften him in the charge,
Chorus: You will find it cowardly; for I know the ways.
Sausage-seller: but nevertheless this man, being such a one, throughout his entire life,
Allantopoles: And then he seemed to be a man, [one who] will take away our summer from others.
Sausage-seller: but now those ears of grain which he brought from there,
Sausage-seller: He wants to tie him up in a log and then throw him into the sea.
Cleon: You are not afraid, as long as the council is alive.
Cleon: and the face of the people sitting in the front row.
Chorus: But how shameless he is and he does not change!
Chorus: of the complexion of the one standing by.
Chorus: If I do not hate you, may I become a jar in Cratinus's cellar,
Chorus: And may I learn to sing along to the tragedies of Morsimus.
Chorus: O you who are everywhere and in all things
Chorus: sitting upon bribes,
Chorus: Would that you had cast out the installation as badly as you found it.
Chorus: For I would sing then only,
Chorus: Drink, drink, on the misfortunes.
Chorus: I think I would consider the old man of July to be a wheat-pepper.
Chorus: having been pleased, let us sing the iambic hymn and the bacchic bacchic song.
Cleon: They shall not outdo me in shamelessness, by Poseidon,
Cleon: Or could I perhaps have come by the entrails of the market Zeus?
Sausage-seller: I swear by the knuckles which I have often used on many occasions
Sausage-Seller: I endured from childhood, even the blows of small knives,
Sausage-seller: I think you will surpass these men, or I would be mistaken.
Sausage-seller: If only I had been reared on dates and almonds!
Cleon: apricots like a dog? Oh you most villainous fellow, how then
Cleon: Will you fight while eating dog's fodder, you dog-headed man?
Sausage-Seller: And by Zeus, I have other balls besides, since I am a father.
Sausage-seller: For they used to deceive the cooks by choosing them thus;
Sausage-Seller: Look, children; don't you see? It is a young time, a swallow.
Meat-Seller: But they were watching, and I, in the meantime, was stealing some of the meat.
Chorus: O most clever meat, you have wisely taken care of it!
Chorus: just as you steal while eating nettle-leaves before the swallows.
Ball-seller: "And while doing this, he went unnoticed, I say; but if someone were to see one of them,"
Sausage-Seller: swearing by the gods while hiding in the jar;
Sausage-seller: So a man, one of the orators, seeing me doing this, said:
Sausage-seller: It is not possible that this boy will not manage the demos.
Chorus: That was a good fit indeed; but it is clear from the beginning that he was in agreement.
Chorus: For since you swore and stole, the anus had meat.
Cleon: I will stop your boldness, and I think both of us [will be stopped].
Cleon: For I shall go out to you already splendid and great, descending,
Cleon: Stirring up both the land and the sea at random.
Butcher of salted fish: I, having gathered the salted fish, will then set them free.
Sausage-seller: I myself turned my back to the wave, ordering you to weep at length.
Demosthenes: And I, too, will guard the pump, if it leaks at all.
Cleon: By no means, by Demeter, will he squander many talents.
Cleon: having stolen [from] the Athenians.
Demosthenes: Look, and it is also letting go of the foot;
Demosthenes: as this man already smells of bribery and blackmail.
Ball-seller: And I know well that you, having come from Potidaea, have ten talents.
Cleon: What then? Do you want to take one talent and be silent?
Chorus: A man would gladly take it. He was releasing the tertrians.
Chorus: the breath becomes less.
Cleon: He will avoid the indictments.
Cleon: four hundred talents.
Sausage-seller: But you, then, are twenty years without military service,
Sausage-Seller: More than a thousand thefts.
Cleon: I say that you are from the criminals.
Cleon: to have become the god's.
Sausage-Seller: I say that your grandfather is a sausage-seller.
Sausage-seller: of the bodyguards —
CLEO: Of whom? Tell me.
Sausage-seller: of Byrsine, daughter of Hippius.
Cleon: You are a rascal.
Sausage-seller: You are cunning.
Chorus: Act like a man!
Cleon: ouch ouch,
Cleon: The conspirators are striking me.
Chorus: O boy, very bravely, and
Chorus: fart and to the entrails
Chorus: and to the eunuchs,
Chorus: And how does he punish the man.
Chorus: O most noble flesh, best of all for the soul,
Chorus: and having shown himself savior to the city, both to us the citizens,
Chorus: How well you went down upon that man in various ways in your speeches.
Chorus: How could we praise you as much as we take pleasure?
Cleon: By Demeter, these things did not escape my notice.
Cleon: The matters are being devised, but I knew it.
Cleon: Let's nail them all down and glue them.
Chorus: Alas! Do you say nothing except from a cart-maker?
Sausage-Seller: Then it does not escape my notice, in Argos, what you are doing.
Sausage-seller: on the one hand, he makes the Argives our friends as a pretext,
Sausage-seller: But there privately he meets with the Lacedaemonians.
Sausage-Seller: And these are the things that are naturally joined together.
Sausage-seller: I sing; for it is hammered upon the fettered ones.
Chorus: Good, good indeed, bronze instead of the glued ones.
Allantopōles: and men gather there again,
Ball-seller: And these things neither silver nor gold [will I accept].
Sausage-Seller: giving, you will persuade, neither by inviting friends,
Sausage-Seller: How I will not tell these things to the Athenians.
Cleon: Well then, I will go immediately to the council.
Cleon: I will tell of all the conspiracies of you all,
Cleon: and the nocturnal meetings in the city,
Cleon: and all the things that you swear together with the Medes and the king,
Cleon: And these things are being mixed up from the Boeotians.
Cheese-seller: So how is the cheese for sale in Boeotia?
Cleon: By Heracles, I am watching out for you.
Chorus: Come now, what mind or what soul do you have?
Chorus: Now, then, you will show it, if indeed you hid it then.
Chorus: into the mortar the meat, as you yourself say;
Chorus: for he will run singing into the council-chamber,
Chorus: how this man, having fallen there, will slander
Chorus: He will shout at all of us and the rooster.
Sausage-seller: But I am going. First, however, as I have the guts
Sausage-Seller: And I will put the knives here.
Demosthenes: Hold on now, anoint the neck with this,
Demosthenes: so that you may slip away from the calumnies.
Sausage-seller: But you speak well and like a wrestling trainer, these things.
Demosthenes: Hold it now, take hold of this and lift it up.
Sausage-seller: But what then?
Demosthenes: so that you may be better garlic-roasted in battle.
Demosthenes: and hurry quickly.
Sausage-Seller: I do this.
Demosthenes: now remember
Demosphenes: to bite, to slander, to devour the humps,
Demosphenes: And how, having eaten up the delicacies, will you come back again.
Chorus: But go, rejoicing, and fare well.
Chorus: In my opinion, may it protect you.
Chorus: Zeus the Marketplace-God; and having conquered
Chorus: again from there as for us
Chorus: May you come covered with garlands.
Chorus: But you, pay attention to us.
Chorus: to the anapaests,
Chorus: O Muse of every kind already
Chorus: having been tried against ourselves.
Chorus: If indeed any man of the ancient comic teachers [were to accuse] us
Chorus: He compelled them to speak verses, breaking away to the theater,
Chorus: He would not have happened upon this poorly; but now the poet is worthy,
Chorus: that he dares to hate the same men as us and to speak the just things,
Chorus: And nobly it advances against the whirlwind and the storm.
Chorus: which things, however, he says many approach him with wonder
Chorus: and he is tormenting us, as if not long ago he had asked a chorus by itself,
Chorus: He ordered us to tell you about this. For the man says
Chorus: He does not linger having suffered this out of folly, but believing
Chorus: to be a comic trainer is the most difficult of all tasks;
Chorus: for indeed many have tried to win her, but few have succeeded;
Chorus: recognizing you for a long time as being by nature annual
Chorus: and those of the poets who betray their former selves with old age;
Chorus: knowing this, Magnes, you suffered nothing along with the descending gray hairs,
Chorus: He who has set up the most trophies of victory from the opposing choruses;
Chorus: casting every voice at you, and singing, and fluttering
Chorus: both playing the lyre and roasting and dipping in frogs.
Chorus: it was not enough, but ending at old age, for not at youth,
Chorus: He was expelled while being a old man, because he was left without the ability to mock;
Chorus: then, remembering Cratinus, who once flowed with great praise
Chorus: It flowed through the open fields, dragging the crowd along.
Chorus: they were wearing the oaks and the plane trees and the enemies as frontlets;
Chorus: It was not possible to sing at the symposium except for Doron, the fig-peeler,
Chorus: and carpenters of sweet-sounding hymns; thus that one flourished.
Chorus: Now, seeing him raving, you do not pity him,
Chorus: while the earrings are falling out and the string is no longer present
Chorus: when the nine harmonies yawn; but being old, I flowed around,
Chorus: like Conna, having a wreath, but perished by thirst,
Chorus: He who ought to have been drinking in the Prytaneion because of his previous victories,
Chorus: and do not chatter, but look at the fat man near Dionysus.
Chorus: what kinds of rages and insults Crates endured from you,
Chorus: who, feasting you from a small expense, sent you away,
Chorus: from a most cabbagey mouth, they devise the wittiest ideas;
Chorus: And he, however, alone withstood it, at one time falling, at another time not.
Chorus: This he always avoided, and besides this he used to say
Chorus: One ought first to become an oarsman before attempting to handle the rudders,
Chorus: And then from here, lead the ship by the prow and lament the winds,
Chorus: And then to steer it for himself. For all these reasons, therefore,
Chorus: that, having acted with sound sense and not foolishly, he prattled,
Chorus: take the rudder from him, and row him off to the Eleven with oars
Chorus: a good uproar of the Lenaia,
Chorus: so that the poet may go away rejoicing.
Chorus: doing according to my mind,
Chorus: with a cheerful, shining forehead.
Chorus: horse lord Poseidon, to whom
Chorus: the clatter of bronze-clattering horses
Chorus: And the snorting pleases.
Chorus: and swift, with blue shields
Chorus: hired triremes,
Chorus: a contest of nine youths, shining in their chariots.
Chorus: and of those who are gloomy,
Chorus: Come here to the chorus, oh golden-breeched one, oh!
Chorus: Rulers of the dolphins, from Sounion,
Chorus: O son of Kronos the old man,
Chorus: From Phormio, dearest,
Chorus: of the other gods also, to the Athenians
Chorus: towards what is present.
Chorus: We wish to bless our fathers, because
Chorus: Men were worthy of this land and of the robe,
Chorus: those with whom, in a naval army, [they fight] with foot battles
Chorus: Everywhere always victorious, they have adorned this city;
Chorus: for indeed no one of them, having seen the enemies,
Chorus: He counted, but the anger of Aminus was straight away.
Chorus: but if they should fall somewhere upon the shoulder in some battle,
Chorus: That they would have denied having fallen, and then would have denied it.
Chorus: But I wrestled again. And not even one general
Chorus: asking Cleainetos for food before the meal.
Chorus: now if they do not bring the place of honor and the grain,
Chorus: They say he will not fight. But we demand that he fight for the city.
Chorus: to defend bravely without pay and to the native gods.
Chorus: and we ask for nothing at all except just this much;
Chorus: Once there was peace and we ceased from our labors,
Chorus: Do not grudge us that they celebrate and are not dried out.
Chorus: O Palladas, O
Chorus: of the most holy of all
Chorus: both in war and with poets
Chorus: by force surpassing
Chorus: who rules the land,
Chorus: come here, having taken the
Chorus: in campaigns and battles
Chorus: our helper
Chorus: Victory, who is a companion of the chorus
Chorus: And he incites strife among our enemies.
Chorus: Now therefore appear here; it is necessary.
Chorus: for to these men in every way
Chorus: to win a victory by art
Chorus: if ever, then also now.
Chorus: The things we are accustomed to with the horses, we wish to praise.
Chorus: They are worthy indeed to be praised; for they have indeed many tricks.
Chorus: they have borne us along with them, both the assaults and the battles.
Chorus: But we do not admire it too much in their case,
Chorus: as when I leaped manfully into the horse market,
Chorus: having bought jugs, but they also garlic and onions;
Chorus: then, taking the oars like us mortals
Chorus: having thrown them in, they gushed forth, hip-pai, who will throw them in?
Chorus: It must be seized. What are we doing? Are you not driving, you wretched creature?
Chorus: He leaped off to Corinth; and then the younger men
Chorus: with the shields they dug up beds and moved the mats;
Chorus: For we ate the prawns instead of any Medean sauce,
Chorus: If someone would come out from the door and hunt from the depths;
Chorus: So Theoros said, 'a Corinthian crab,'
Chorus: Terrible, by Poseidon, if I shall not be able to dive into the depths.
Chorus: They will not escape the Knights, neither on land nor in the sea.
Chorus: O most beloved of men and most youthful!
Chorus: What anxiety you have provided us while away!
Chorus: And now, since you have come back safe,
Chorus: tell us how you fought the matter.
Sausage-seller: But what else would have happened if I had not been Nikoboulos?
Chorus: Now indeed it is right for all of us to shout.
Chorus: O, you speaking beautifully, and far better still than the speeches.
Chorus: Having worked, if only you were to come!
Chorus: Everything is clear to me.
Chorus: as I think to myself
Chorus: and even to travel a long road
Chorus: So to hear. To these things, O best man
Chorus: having taken courage, speak, as, all
Chorus: We delight you.
Sausage-Seller: And indeed, it is worth hearing about the affairs.
Sausage-seller: For I was immediately hurrying from here right after him.
Sausage-seller: But he, having just now broken the thunderbolt from within, spoke.
Sausage-seller: While practicing divination, he was standing against the Knights,
Ball-seller: leaning on cliffs and speaking of conspirators
Sausage-seller: Most likely; and the entire Council listening.
The Sausage-Seller: He became, by him, full of false, deceitful lies,
The leek-seller: Look, he pulled up his eyebrows and his leek.
Sausage-seller: And I, when I realized that these words were possible.
Sausage-seller: and deceived even by the tricks,
Sausage-seller: Come now, Scythians and Phoenicians, I was one of them,
Sausage-seller: "Bereshchoi and Kobaloi and Mothon,"
Sausage-Seller: the market in which I was educated as a boy,
Sausage-Seller: Now tell me, and give me an eloquent tongue.
Sausage-seller: And an impudent voice. Take care of these things for me.
Sausage-Seller: A man farted from behind, right behind him.
Sausage-seller: I also bowed down; and then I thrust [my hand] into the anus.
Ball-salesman: I smashed the railing and, gaping wide,
Sausage-seller: I shouted: O Council, bringing good words
Sausage-seller: I want to bring you good news first.
Sausage-seller: for since the war was broken out against us,
Sausage-seller: I have never seen trouts more worthy.
Sausage-seller: but he straightway cleared up their faces;
Sausage-seller: Then they crowned me with good news, and I figured it out.
Sausage-seller: having made a secret for them quickly,
Sausage-seller: so that they might buy many truffles for an obol,
Sausage-Seller: 'Arrest the artisans and take their bowls.'
Sausage-seller: and they clapped their hands and snored at me.
Sausage-seller: But the Paphlagonian, having suspected, knowing, then
Sausage-seller: The council is most pleased with these sheep in its words,
Sausage-seller: he spoke his mind; Men, it seems to me already
Sausage-Seller: "On the occasion of the good news that has been announced"
Sausage-seller: To sacrifice one hundred cows to the goddess as a sacrifice of good news.
Sausage-seller: The Council nodded at him again.
Sausage-Seller: And I, when I was indeed defeated by the javelins,
Sausage-Seller: I have sharpened it with two hundred oxen,
Sausage-seller: But I advised Agoracritus against a thousand [drachmas].
Sausage-seller: to make a sacrifice of goats for tomorrow,
Sausage-seller: If the skins had been worth a drachma each!
Sausage-seller: The council has again waited in ambush for me.
Sausage-seller: But he, having heard these things, was struck with wonder and gaped.
Sausage-Seller: And then the prytanes and the bowmen dragged him away.
Sausage-seller: But they were making a noise, standing around the figs;
Sausage-Seller: But he was trying to make them stay for a little while,
Sausage-Seller: so that the herald, not of Sparta, may say these things
Sausage-Seller: Find out, for he has arrived concerning truces, saying.
Sausage-Seller: But they all shouted out with one voice:
Sausage-seller: Now about the truce? Since, O my dear...
Allan-topōlēs: They have discovered the nets to be worthy among us.
Sausage-seller: We do not need libations; let the war crawl on.
Sausage-seller: They have been shouting that the prytanes should be let go;
Sausage-seller: Then he jumped over the thorns everywhere.
Sausage-Seller: But I bought the coriander seeds by running underneath.
Sausage-Seller: All the spells and everything that was in the marketplace;
Ball-seller: Then they used to give sweets with their nets.
Sausage-seller: They are at a loss; I gave it to them for free and with a favor.
Sausage-seller: But they were excessively praising me and excessively riding me.
Sausage-seller: all in such a way that the entire council
Sausage-seller: Having taken coriander for an obol, I have come.
Chorus: You have done everything, you know, just as one who is fortunate ought to do.
Chorus: And the rogue found another, far greater in trickery.
Chorus: having been surpassed by greater ones
Chorus: and with various tricks
Chorus: with cunning words.
Chorus: but make sure that he competes.
Chorus: the rest are best.
Chorus: having us as allies, well-disposed
Chorus: You have known for a long time.
Sausage-Seller: And indeed this Paphlagonian is approaching,
Sausage-seller: pushing a gourd, troubling, and making a noise,
Sausage-Seller: As if I were swallowing you! You insolent rascal!
Cleon: if I were not to destroy you, if you had anything of the same sort as mine
Cleon: May I be struck down by falsehoods, may I fall through everywhere.
Sausage-seller: I was delighted by threats, I laughed at buffooneries,
Ball-player: I have thrown the ball to the back, I have tossed it to the front.
Cleon: No, by Demeter, unless I eat you up!
Cleon: From this land, I shall never live again.
Sausage-seller: "What you will not eat? Well, I will, unless I drink you up."
Ball-seller: And after having coughed it up myself, I am going to vomit it again.
Cleon: I will destroy you, by the presidency at Pylos.
Sausage-Seller: Here is the presidency! How I shall look upon you, I!
Sausage-seller: the last one looking from the presidency.
Cleon: In the wood I will bind you, by heaven.
Sausage-seller: How short-tempered! Come, what shall I give you to eat?
Sausage-seller: 'On the condition that you eat it most pleasantly? On the condition of your purse?'
Cleon: I will snatch your intestines with my claws.
Sausage-Seller: I will take your nails off in the Prytaneion.
Cleon: I will drag you before the people, so that you may pay me justice.
Sausage-Seller: I too will drag you and slander you even more.
Cleon: But, you wretch, he will not obey you at all.
Cleon: But I laugh at him as much as I want to.
Sausage-seller: You have very much made the people your own.
Cleon: For I know on what he subsists.
Sausage-seller: And then, just like the infants, you feed badly.
Sausage-Seller: for you put in a little at first while chewing,
Sausage-seller: But you yourself have torn it three times as much as him.
Cleon: And by Zeus, certainly through the skill of mine.
Cleon: I am able to make the people broad and narrow.
Sausage-Seller: Even my anus here is being clever.
Cleon: You will not think that you have insulted me in the council.
Cleon: Let us go to the people.
Sausage-seller: Nothing prevents it;
Sausage-seller: Look, go, and let nothing hold us back.
Cleon: O Demos, come out here.
Sausage-Seller: By Zeus, oh father!
Sausage-seller: Come out then.
Cleon: O Demidion, O most dear friend
Cleon: Come out, so that you may know how I am being outrageously insulted.
Demos: Who are those shouting? Aren't they going away from the door?
Demos: You have torn my herald's staff to pieces.
Demos: Who is it, O Paphlagonian, that is wronging you?
Cleon: I am being beaten because of you.
Cleon: 'Under this one and the young men.'
Demos: What is the price?
Cleon: Because I love you, O Demos, and I am your lover.
Demos: But who are you, truly?
Sausage-seller: rival lover of this one,
Sausage-seller: having long desired you and wishing to do you well,
Sausage-seller: Many others are also both noble and good.
Sausage-seller: But we are not able because of this fellow. For you
Sausage-seller: You are like the boys in love;
Sausage-seller: 'He does not receive the noble and good men,'
Sausage-seller: But yourself, to the lamp-sellers and the shoemakers
Sausage-seller: And you give [it] to both shoemakers and leather-sellers.
Cleon: for I am doing well by the people.
Ball-seller: Now, tell me, what are you doing?
Cleon: What? [He who] having run away from the generals from Pylos,
Cleon: having sailed there, I led the Lacedaemonians.
Sausage-seller: But as I walk away from the workshop
Sausage-seller: I borrowed the pot while someone else was cooking.
Cleon: And indeed, having summoned an assembly at once.
Cleon: Oh Dēmos, so that you may know which of us is yours.
Cleon: Be more loyal, decide [it], so that you may love this man.
Sausage-seller: Yes, yes, certainly decide, but not in the crowd.
Demos: I would not sit down in any other place.
Demus: But forward to the front. One must be present in the thick of it.
Sausage-seller: Alas, woe is me, I am ruined. For the old man
Sausage-seller: at home he is the most affectionate of men,
Sausage-seller: but when he sits on this rock,
Sausage-Seller: He stands gaping, like someone tripping.
Chorus: Now indeed you must go out with all your beauty,
Chorus: and to wear a furious spirit and uncatchable words
Chorus: They will surpass this man. For the man is varied.
Chorus: and even from impossible things a resourceful person can find a resource.
Chorus: In order that this may be, may it be great and splendid for the man.
Chorus: But guard yourself and be the first to approach him before he approaches you.
Chorus: Raise the dolphins and bring the boat alongside.
Cleon: To the mistress Athena, who rules the city.
Cleon: I pray, if indeed I have become [something] concerning the people of the Athenians
Cleon: the best man after Lysicles and Cynna and Salabaccho,
Cleon: just as now, having done nothing, to dine in the prytaneion;
Cleon: but if I hate you and do not fight for you alone having advanced to the front,
Cleon: May I perish and may I be sliced up and cut into pieces.
Sausage-Seller: And I too, O Demos, if I do not love you and do not cherish you, may I be cut to pieces.
Sausage-seller: I would be cooked in chopped pieces; and if you do not trust in these,
Sausage-seller: 'May I be gnawed on this very spot in a mortar with cheese!'
Sausage-seller: And may I be dragged to the Kerameikos with the orchid-sellers' meat-seller.
Cleon: And how could you, O Demos, become a citizen if I loved you more?
Cleon: who, first of all, whenever I was deliberating, showed you the greatest sums of money
Cleon: In the common [assembly], twisting some, hanging some, and some beheading,
Cleon: Not caring for any of the common people, if I were to win your favor.
Sausage-Seller: This, O Demos, is nothing solemn; for I too shall do this to you.
Bread-Seller: For I will hand over to you the loaves of bread belonging to others, snatching them.
Sausage-Seller: But since he does not love you nor is he well-disposed, I will teach you that very thing first,
Sausage-seller: But does this very thing, for this reason, please you in any way from your charcoal-burning?
Sausage-seller: For you, who out-thrust the Medes concerning the territory of Marathon,
Sausage-Seller: And having greatly defeated us, you handed over a great beating.
Sausage-seller: "He does not worry much about you sitting like this on the rocks."
Sausage-Seller: Not as I have just stitched this for you do I bring it. But take it up,
Sausage-seller: And then sit down gently, so that you do not rub the [bump] in Salamis.
Demos: Man, who are you? Or are you one of those descendants of Harmodius?
Demus: This, then, is truly your noble and democratic work.
Cleon: As you have become well-disposed to him from small flatteries.
Sausage-seller: For you also have seduced him with baits much smaller than these.
Cleon: And indeed, if any man has appeared to the people more effectively defending
Cleon: Or rather, as I love you more, I am willing to stake my head on it.
Sausage-Seller: And how do you love him, seeing that you see him living in the alleyways?
Sausage-seller: And for eight years you have not pitied the vultures or the little towers,
Sausage-seller: But having locked him up, are you mocking? And Archepolis carrying
Sausage-seller: You have scattered the peace, and you drive away the embassies.
Sausage-Seller: I am coming from the city, beating my buttocks, which provoke the truces.
Cleon: so that he may rule over all the Greeks. For he is among the learned.
Cleon: 'How this man must at some time be tried in Arcadia for five drachmas.'
Cleon: If he waits. But I shall surely nurse him and care for him,
Cleon: finding out well and shamelessly from where he will have the three-obol piece.
Sausage-seller: Not in order that, by Zeus of Arcadia, you may be in charge while taking care, but rather in order that you may be more so
Ball-seller: you both snatch and take bribes from the cities, but the people
Sausage-Seller: Because of the war and the fog, which you do not see, cunning men plot against you.
Sausage-seller: But I have rushed up to you out of necessity, at the same time out of need and out of payment.
Sausage-seller: if he were to go to a country place and spend some time in a state of peace,
Sausage-seller: And after eating a raw onion, he will take courage and come to his senses after chewing a fig,
Sausage-Seller: he will learn what fine rewards he has been depriving himself of from the public service.
Sausage-seller: Then a rough, uncouth fellow will come to you, tracking your vote.
Sausage-Seller: You deceive and dream about yourself, knowing this.
Cleon: Surely it is not terrible, then, that you should say these things and slander me?
Cleon: against the Athenians and the people, having done many good things.
Cleon: By Demeter, has Themistocles already done far more for the city?
Sausage-Seller: Oh, City of Argos, listen to what he says. Do you compete with Themistocles?
Sausage-Seller: who, finding our city full to the brim,
Sausage-seller: And besides this, he sharpened his tongue against the Piraeus.
Fishmonger: having taken nothing from the old ones, he has offered new fish;
Sausage-Seller: But you sought to get the Athenians to declare themselves small-minded.
Ball-seller: building ramparts and chanting oracles, competing with Themistocles.
Ball-seller: And he is fleeing the land, but you are wiping off the Achilles.
Cleon: But is it not terrible to hear this, O Demos, that I am being treated by this man?
Cleon: Do you know that I love you?
Demus: And there you are, you fellow, and don't be a scoundrel.
Demus: And you have long been hiding from me, even now.
Sausage-seller: the most wretched, Demakides, and having done the most wicked things,
Sausage-seller: Whenever he gapes, even the penises
Sausage-Seller: burning the indictments
Sausage-seller: He is swallowing it, with both hands.
Sausage-seller: He is being defrauded of public funds.
Cleon: You will not rejoice, but I will catch you stealing.
Cleon: I shall choose three myriads.
Sausage-seller: Why are you making a sea-journey and spreading out?
Sausage-seller: most foul, being around the people.
Sausage-Seller: The Athenians? And I will show you off.
Sausage-seller: By Demeter, or may I not live,
Allantopōles: bribed men from Mytilene.
Sausage-seller: more than forty drachmas.
Chorus: O greatest benefit revealed to all men,
Chorus: I envy you for your eloquence. For if you were to act thus,
Chorus: you will be the greatest of the Greeks, and you alone will remain.
Chorus: You will rule the allies in the city, holding a trident,
Chorus: By shaking and stirring up much money, you will accomplish [it].
Chorus: And do not let the man go, since he has given you a catch;
Chorus: for you will easily accomplish it, having such sides.
CLEO: These things are not yet good in this way, by Poseidon.
For a deed of such a kind has been wrought by me, so that
Cleon: to silence all my enemies at once,
Cleon: until any of the shields from Pylos remains.
Sausage-seller: Stop in the shields; for you have given a blow.
Butcher of mutton: For you should not, if you really love the people, have acted with premeditation.
Allantopoles: Let them be untied from these handles.
Sausage-seller: But this is a device, Demos, so that you may be where you wish.
Sausage-seller: Punish this man, so that this may not happen to you.
Leather-seller: For you see what a crowd of leather-sellers there is for him.
Sausage-seller: of young men; but honey-sellers surround them.
Sausage-seller: And cheese-sellers; but this is a confusion into one,
Sausage-seller: So if you were to show your strength and look like a sherd,
Sausage-seller: if they were to snatch the shields at night while running
Choragus: 'If they were to take over our grain supplies.'
Demos: Alas, wretch! They have herons, do they? You wretch!
Demos: For how long you have been interrupting me, acting as a demagogue in such a manner.
Cleon: O god, do not judge the speaker, nor think so.
Cleon: 'He will find a better friend of mine, who, being one alone'
Cleon: I stopped the conspirators, and nothing has escaped my notice.
Cleon: It is being assembled in the city, but I have immediately shouted.
Allantopolēs: For that is what those who hunt eels have suffered.
Ball-seller: When the pond dries up, they get nothing.
Sausage-seller: if they whirl the mud both up and down,
Sausage-seller: They take it; and you too, if you disturb the city.
Sausage-seller: Tell me just this one thing: while selling a skin, how much do you sell?
Sausage-seller: You have already given him a kick from yourself.
Sausage-Seller: 'Claiming to kiss the public?'
Demos: By no means, by Apollo.
Sausage-seller: So you know him, then, what sort of man he is? But I...
Ball-seller: I offer to carry this pair of slippers for a price.
Demos: I judge you to be the best man of all those I know about the people.
Demos: both most loyal to the city and to the fingers.
Cleon: So it is not terrible, then, that a man like this should have such power,
Cleon: Should you not remember me, of how many things you have suffered? Who...
Cleon: I stopped the drunkards, having erased Gryttos.
Sausage-seller: But surely it is not a clever thing for you to be a butt-guardian.
Sausage-seller: Will you stop those who are drunk? And it is not possible to stop them.
Sausage-seller: You did not stop out of jealousy, so that orators might not arise.
Sausage-seller: Seeing this one to be so big and without a tunic,
Sausage-seller: Never have you considered the Demos worthy of a wrestling-match.
Sausage-seller: Since it is winter; but I give you this one.
Demos: Such a thing Themistocles never conceived.
Demus: And yet, that too is wise, the Piraeus; but as for me, however
Demos: No greater discovery appears to have been found than the tunic.
Cleon: Alas, wretched me! With what monkey tricks you torment me.
Sausage-seller: No, but as a man suffers when he urinates while drinking,
Sausage-seller: I act according to your ways, just like a blue-eyed one.
Cleon: But he will not outflank me with flatteries; for I myself
Cleon: I will wrap this around you; but you, you wretch, wail.
Demos: Hurrah!
Demos: Will he not utterly destroy the vilest of the leather-purses, smelling of offal?
Sausage-Seller: And this too was done on purpose to choke you.
Sausage-seller: And earlier he plotted against you. You know that member,
Sausage-Seller: Did the silphium become worth its price?
Demos: I know, however.
Sausage-seller: This fellow did so on purpose to be worthy of it,
Sausage-seller: so that the buyers might eat, and then in the sun.
Sausage-seller: Let the jurors kill each other by farting.
Demos: By Poseidon, and in my opinion, this is what a Copean man said.
Sausage-Seller: For surely you did not become red-haired while farting then?
Demos: And by Zeus, that was indeed Pyrrander's device.
Cleon: With what sort of buffooneries, you scoundrel, do you disturb me?
Sausage-Seller: for the goddess commanded me to defeat you with your blustering.
Cleon: But you will not win. For I say that I will provide you with
Cleon: Oh, Deme, to suck down a rhyton without doing anything for pay.
Sausage-Seller: But I give you both a cup and a medicine.
Sausage-seller: 'Rub the pull-strings that are in the shin-guards.'
Cleon: But I, not from the old, will make a new one for you.
Sausage-seller: Here, take the tail of a hare with the little eyes, well roasted.
Cleon: I will wipe my nose on your head, oh my Demos.
Sausage-Seller: Then certainly I am.
Cleon: Then, as for me.
Cleon: I will make you serve as trierarch.
Cleon: spending the
Cleon: 'yourself, having an old ship,'"
Cleon: into which you will not endure spending.
Cleon: nor even when building ships;
Cleon: I will devise a plan so that
Cleon: If you take a rotten sail.
Chorus: The man is splashing, stop, stop!
Chorus: superheated; let it be drawn down.
Chorus: we must fetch the torches.
Chorus: and of these threats, [it is] thus.
Cleon: You will give me a fair lawsuit.
Cleon: being pushed by the bribes.
Cleon: for I am among the rich
Cleon: I will hurry you so that you may be enrolled.
Sausage-seller: But I will threaten nothing,
Sausage-seller: But I pray this for you:
Sausage-seller: the frying-pan of lampreys
Sausage-seller: stand hissing; but you
Sausage-seller: [I will speak] about someone intending to speak a thought
Ball-seller: Of the Milesians and to win money.
Sausage-seller: a talent, if you can earn it,
Sausage-seller: Hurry up so that you [get] the cuttlefish.
Sausage-seller: May you be filled with plague, you wretch!
Sausage-seller: having come to the assembly; then
Sausage-seller: 'Before a man should eat, let him urinate,'
Ball-thrower: And you take the talent.
Sausage-seller: wanting, eating
Ball-seller: May you be drowned in it!
Chorus: Good heavens, by Zeus and Apollo and Demeter.
Demos: It seems so to me too; and the rest is clearly so.
Demos: A good citizen, as none has been before in time.
Demos: A man has become to the many the value of an obol.
Demos: But you, O Paphlagonian, claiming to love me, have turned me into a scoundrel.
Demus: And now return the ring, as if you were no longer [in need of it].
Demos: I will be the treasurer.
Cleon: Hold it. But know this much that,
Cleon: if you do not let me manage, someone else again
Cleon: Someone more cunning than I shall appear.
Demus: No, this one does not have a ring.
Demus: Mine! At least the sign appears different,
Demus: but do I not see?
Sausage-Seller: Come, let me see what your token was;
Demos: a dried piece of ox-gut, fried in oil.
Sausage-Seller: That is not possible.
Demos: Not the thrion? But what then?
Sausage-Seller: A gull with open beak, standing on a rock, making a speech.
Demos: woe is me, poor wretch.
Sausage-Seller: What is it?
Demos: Carry him off out of the way.
Demos: He did not have his own, but Cleonymus'.
Demos: But take this one from me and keep it for me.
Cleon: Do not, I pray, yet, O master, I beg you,
Cleon: before you hear my oracles.
Sausage-seller: And of mine too now.
Cleon: But if he persuades him,
Cleon: you must become a buffoon.
Sausage-seller: "And even this one,"
Sausage-seller: You must become a eunuch until the myrrhine [vase].
Cleon: But those who speak to me say that you must begin.
Cleon: crowned with roses in every land.
Sausage-seller: But now they tell me that it is a purple robe.
Sausage-Seller: having a covering and a wreath upon a cart
The Sausage-Seller: He will chase Smicythias away, and he is the master.
Chorus: And indeed, take them along with you, so that this man
Chorus: You will hear them.
Demos: Very much so. And you, now, bring it.
Cleon: Look!
Sausage-seller: Look, by Zeus, nothing prevents it.
Chorus: the sweetest light of the day
Chorus: There will be for those present as well
Chorus: to those who have come here,
Chorus: If Cleon perishes.
Chorus: yet, of some older men
Chorus: of what most painful things
Chorus: in the sample of the trials
Chorus: I heard the arguers,
Chorus: as if this one were not here
Chorus: great for the city, I would not have stood
Chorus: two useful vessels,
Chorus: a pipe and also a reed.
Chorus: But I, at least, wonder at this too.
Chorus: of the hog-music
Chorus: Right there; for they say that he, the
Chorus: boys who were constantly accompanying,
Chorus: it would be fitting only in the Doric dialect.
Chorus: often the lyre,
Chorus: But he does not wish to learn another thing.
Chorus: And then the cithara-player?
Chorus: having been angered, he orders to lead away,
Chorus: how the boy [is] in harmony
Chorus: This one is not able to learn.
Chorus: Unless it is in the style of bribery.
Cleon: Look, you see, and I do not bring out everyone.
Sausage-seller: Oh, how I feel like farting, and I cannot hold in everyone.
Demos: What is this?
Cleon: words.
Demus: All things?
Cleon: Were you amazed?
Cleon: By Zeus, and yet the box is still full.
Sausage-Seller: But to me a room and a shared living arrangement, two.
Demos: Come, let me see, whose oracles are they ever?
Cleon: Alas, they are coming from Bacis.
Demus: But who, for whom?
Ball-seller: Of Glanis, the elder brother of Bakis.
Demos: Are they about him?
Cleon: concerning Athens, concerning Pylos,
Cleon: about you, about me, about all matters.
Demus: But what about you?
Allantopoles: About Athens, about lentil soup,
Sausage-seller: concerning the Lacedaemonians, concerning new mackerel,
Buckler-seller: about the grain-measurers in the market selling the barley-meal badly,
Sausage-seller: About you, about me, about all things.
Demos: Come now, so that you may read them to me,
Demos: and that fellow about me with whom I am pleased,
Demos: For I will become an eagle in the clouds.
Cleon: Listen now and pay attention to me.
Cleon: Tell the path of the oracles, son of Erechtheus, which Apollo [gave] to you
Cleon: He has shouted from the inner sanctuary through the highly revered tripods.
Cleon: He ordered you to save the sacred dog with the sharp teeth,
Cleon: who, before you, chattered and shouted terrible things on your behalf
Cleon: He will find you a wage, and even if he does not do these things, he will be ruined.
Cleon: For many envious cuckoos will hiss at them.
Demos: By Demeter, I do not know what he is saying.
Demus: For what is [the matter] with Erechtheus and the painted [statues] and the dog?
Cleon: I am the dog; for I bark before you.
Cleon: But Phoebus told you to save me, the dog.
Sausage-seller: The oracle does not say this, but this dog here.
Sausage-Seller: Just like a door, he gnawed on your sacred writings.
Sausage-seller: For I have the matter concerning this dog correctly settled.
Demos: Speak now; for I shall first take a stone,
Demos: so that this oracle does not bite my penis.
Sausage-Seller: Tell the dog Kerberos, the slave-trader, about Erechtheus.
Sausage-seller: whoever, wagging his tail, watches you whenever you dine.
Baker: he sells you the bread whenever you gape somewhere else;
Sausage-seller: I will sneak up on you and catch you like a dog.
Sausage-Seller: lapping up the pans and the islands at night.
Demos: By Poseidon, that is much better, Glanis.
Cleon: Oh, listen, and then decide this matter.
Cleon: There is a woman, and she will bear a lion in sacred Athens,
Cleon: He who will fight the people like a gnat against many
Cleon: so, having stood on the little dogs; you guard him,
Cleon: having made a wooden wall and iron towers.
Cleon: You know what he says, don't you?
Demos: by Apollo, I certainly will not.
Cleon: The god clearly told you to save me;
Cleon: For I am in the place of the lion to you.
Demos: And how did you escape my notice, having become Antileon?
Sausage-seller: "It does not teach you one of the famous sayings willingly,"
Sausage-seller: "The only iron wall and wooden [one],"
Sausage-seller: in which he commanded you to save this man, the Pythian Apollo.
Demos: How then did the god reveal this?
Sausage-seller: this one
Sausage-Seller: I ordered you to be tied in a five-pipe wooden block.
Demos: I think that these things ought to be accomplished already, now that the words are clear.
Cleon: Do not be persuaded; for envious crows are cawing overhead.
Cleon: But keep the hawk in mind in your mind, who is yours.
Cleon: He led them off, having bound the Spartans in rags.
Sausage-seller: This is what Paphlagon has indeed risked, getting drunk.
Sausage-Seller: You son of Cecrops, you evil-minded one, why do you think this work is great?
Sausage-seller: And a woman would carry a burden, since a man would put it down;
Sausage-Seller: But he would not fight; for he would vomit if he fought.
Cleon: But tell this, whether you thought Pylos was before Pylos.
Cleon: There is Pylos before Pylos—
Demos: What is this saying, before Pylos?
Sausage-seller: he says that he will catch the basins in the bathhouse.
Demus: But will I be unwashed today?
Sausage-seller: for he has snatched our mortars from us.
Sausage-Seller: But this man, you see, is concerned about the navy.
Sausage-seller: The oracle, which you must pay very close attention to.
Demos: Pay attention; you read, to my sailors.
Demos: in order that the wage may first be paid.
Sausage-seller: Aigeidēs, beware of the fox, lest it trap you,
Sausage-seller: a swift-footed, deceitful knave, skilled in many tricks.
Sausage-Seller: Do you know what this is?
Demos: Philostratos the fox.
Sausage-seller: Not this, he says, but a ship each time.
Ball-seller: This man is asking for swift money-counters.
Sausage-seller: Apollo forbids him from giving you these.
Demus: How then is a trireme a fox?
Sausage-Seller: "How so?"
Sausage-seller: because the trireme is fast and the dog is fast.
Demus: How then was the fox added to the dog?
Sausage-seller: He has beaten the soldiers with foxes,
Sausage-Seller: Because they eat grapes in the fields.
Demus: Let it be.
Demos: Where is the pay for these foxes?
Sausage-seller: I will provide it, and this one in three days.
Sausage-seller: But listen to this one more, whom he told you to choose.
Sausage-seller: Let the son of Leto, from Cyllene, not ensnare you.
Demos: Which Cyllene?
Sausage-seller: He made this hand of his.
Ball-seller: 'Throw in correctly a lame one, as she says, a lame one.'
Cleon: He does not state correctly; for Phoebus [built] the Cyllene [temple].
Cleon: He has correctly guessed the meaning of Diopithes' [statement].
Cleon: But I have an oracle about you, winged one.
Cleon: You rule as an eagle, just as you were born, and over all the earth.
Sausage-seller: Indeed, it is so for me too; and of the land and of the red sea too,
Sausage-seller: And what will you decide in Ecbatana, licking up the drippings?
Cleon: But I saw a dream, and the goddess herself did not seem so to me.
Cleon: to pour the wealth and health of the people onto a bucket.
Sausage-Seller: By Zeus, and so did I; and that very goddess did not seem right to me either.
Sausage-seller: to come from the city and an owl to perch upon her;
Ball-seller: then pour down on the head with an oil-flask.
Garlic-seller: ambrosia against you, but against this man garlic-leek.
Demus: ouch ouch.
Demos: Was there really no one wiser than Glanis?
Demus: And now I entrust myself to you, this man.
Demos: to lead the old men about and to educate them again.
Cleon: Not yet, I pray you, but wait, as I say.
Cleon: I will provide you with barley and a living day by day.
Demos: I cannot endure listening to barley; often
Demus: I was deceived both by you and by Thucanon.
Cleon: But I will already procure some barley-meal for you prepared.
Sausage-seller: But I have mixed cakes.
Sausage-Seller: And roasted wheat too; nothing else, unless you eat it.
Demos: Do now whatever you may do; for I,
Demos: whichever of you two now does me more good,
Demos: To this man I shall hand over the reins of the dense crowd.
Cleon: I should run inside first.
Sausage-Seller: Not then, but I.
Chorus: O Demeas, you have a fine wife.
Chorus: beginning, when all people
Chorus: They fear you just like...
Chorus: A tyrant.
Chorus: But you are easily led.
Chorus: And you rejoice, being flattered.
Chorus: and being deceived,
Chorus: towards the one who always speaks
Chorus: You are astonished; but your mind...
Chorus: He is present but is away on a journey.
Demos: There is no sense in the tresses.
Demus: of you, when I do not think
Demos: Suppose so; but I of my own accord
Demus: I am being foolish about these things.
Demus: for I myself take pleasure
Demos: 'You are full of the daily.'
Demus: I want to steal as well.
Demos: to raise up a single protector;
Demos: but this one, whenever he is full,
Demos: I raised it and struck it.
Chorus: In that case, you would do well,
Chorus: if there is compactness to you,
Chorus: In the manner, as you say,
Chorus: to this man very much,
Chorus: if these [men] on purpose as if
Chorus: You are raising public slaves.
Chorus: in the crowd, and then whenever
Chorus: May it not happen to you that you are a relish,
Chorus: whoever of these is fat,
Chorus: After sacrificing, you dine.
Demos: Consider me, if wisely
Demos: I go around them.
Demos: those who think they are wise
Demos: and he tries to deceive me.
Demos: for I watch them constantly.
Demos: nor do I seem to see
Demos: stealing; then I force
Demos: again vomit
Demos: What they have stolen from me,
Demos: I am making the pumpkin green.
Cleon: Get out of here, away to the blessed island.
Sausage-seller: But you, oh ruin!
Cleon: O Demos, I, for my part, am ready.
Cleon: I sit here three times old, wishing to do you a favor.
Sausage-seller: As for me, I have ten hands and twelve hands.
Sausage-Seller: And very old, and extremely old, and super-duper old.
Demos: But as for me, I was expecting for three years.
Demus: I loathe you both, and have loathed you for a very, very long time.
Sausage-Seller: Do you know then what to do?
Demos: if not, then at least explain yourself.
Sausage-seller: Let go of me and this fellow from the bellows,
Sausage-Seller: So that we may treat you well on an equal footing.
Demos: I must do these things.
Demus: 'Go away.'
Cleon and the Sausage-seller: Behold.
Demos: May the gods wish it.
Sausage-Seller: I won't let you do it.
Demus: but shall I be greatly happy today
Demos: By Zeus, either I will be crushed by the lovers or [something else implied, but strictly: I will be crushed by the lovers].
Cleon: Do you see? I bring out a chair first for you.
Sausage-Seller: But not a table, but rather I am the more senior.
Cleon: Look, I bring you this little loaf.
Cleon: [It is] mixed from the olives from Pylos.
Sausage-seller: But I [have] pickled pickled pickled things.
Sausage-seller: by the hand of the goddess, the ivory one.
Demos: Indeed, mistress, you had a large finger.
Cleon: I, however, am a dark-skinned, handsome, and good man;
Cleon: Then again, Pallas, the spear-bearer, sharpened it.
Sausage-seller: Oh Demeas, the goddess is watching you clearly,
Sausage-seller: And now he surpasses you in having a full pot of broth.
Demus: For do you think that this city would still be inhabited,
Demos: if it did not openly hold over us the pot?
Cleon: This piece Phobesistratos gave you.
Sausage-seller: And the Obri-mopatra has boiled meat from the broth.
Sausage-seller: And he is a cholick-greedy man and a belly-greedy man.
Demos: She has done well in remembering the robe.
Cleon: Gorgolophos ordered you to eat this.
Cleon: a steersman, so that we may steer the ships well.
Sausage-seller: Take this too, now.
Demos: And what shall I do with these men?
Demos: to the dead?
Sausage-seller: He sent it to you on purpose.
Sausage-seller: May the goddess be a bowel-woman for the triremes.
Sausage-Seller: for he is inspecting the navy conspicuously.
Sausage-seller: Take it and drink it, mixed, for three and two.
Demus: Oh how sweet, Zeus, and bringing the three things well.
Sausage-seller: for the Tritogeneia [Athena] made him a third-rate man.
Cleon: Now take a slice of rich cake from me.
Sausage-seller: but the whole of this cake is from me.
Cleon: But you will not have a hare from which to give, but I will.
Sausage-Seller: Alas, where will hares come to me?
Pulley: O fellow, now invent something for a buffoon.
Cleon: Do you see these things, you wretched man?
Ball-seller: It matters little to me.
Sausage-seller: For some men are coming towards me like that.
Ball seller: ambassadors carrying bags of silver.
Cleon: Where, where?
Sausage-Seller: What is this to you? Will you not let the strangers [go]?
Hare-seller: Oh Demidion, do you see the hares I am bringing you?
Cleon: Alas, wretch, you have violently snatched away my things unjustly.
Sausage-Seller: By Poseidon, and indeed you are from Pylos too.
Demos: Speak, I beg you, how did you contrive to snatch?
Sausage-Seller: The goddess's plan, but my cleverness.
Cleon: But I took a risk, and I certainly roasted it.
Demus: Go away; for it is not [to me] but to the one who placed it that the favor belongs.
Cleon: Alas, wretch, I shall be utterly shameless.
Sausage-Seller: Why do you not distinguish which Demos we have?
Sausage-seller: a man better than you and your belly?
Demos: With what proof, then, could I make use of you?
Demus: Should I appear to judge wisely for the spectators?
Sausage-seller: I will tell you. Go to my chest.
Sausage-seller: Seize him in silence and torture him for what is inside.
Sausage-seller: And the one from Paphlagonia; and indeed you will judge well.
Demos: Come, let me see what is going on.
Sausage-seller: Don't you see [it is] empty?
Allan-toseller: Oh little dog? For I used to carry everything for you.
Demos: This chest thinks the thoughts of the Demos.
Sausage-seller: Now walk and come here to the house of the Paphlagonian.
Sausage-Seller: Do you see these things?
Demos: Alas for the good men, how many there are!
Demus: He put aside as much money as the price of the cake.
Demos: And he gave me a tongue-cutting.
Sausage-seller: But I used to do the same to you before as well.
Sausage-Seller: he was giving you a little of what he was taking,
Sausage-seller: But he himself was setting before himself the larger portions.
Demos: O filthy one, did you steal these things from me and deceive me?
Demos: But I crowned you and gave you a gift.
Cleon: But I stole for the city's good, indeed.
Demos: Put down the crown quickly, so that I [may do something] with this man
Demos: Let him be whistled off.
Sausage-seller: Put it down quickly, you whipper!
Cleon: No, certainly not, since I have a Pythian oracle.
Cleon: Tell me by whom I will be forced to be defeated, alone.
Sausage-Seller: I, at least, am saying my name very clearly.
Cleon: And indeed, I wish to convict you with evidence,
Cleon: if you should understand anything of the god in accordance with the oracles.
Cleon: And first I shall try you to the utmost;
Cleon: When you were a boy, whose teacher did you attend?
Sausage-seller: I was fitted in the soft soles.
Cleon: How did you say it? As if an oracle touches my mind.
Cleon: Very well.
Cleon: And what kind of wrestling match did you learn from a wrestling trainer?
Sausage-seller: stealing, perjury, and looking straight ahead;
Cleon: O Phoebus Apollo Lycian, what on earth will you do to me?
Cleon: But what art did you have when you were growing up?
Sausage-Seller: I was selling sausages and, in fact, I was also drinking wine.
Cleon: Alas, wretched me; I am nothing any longer.
Cleon: a slender hope it is upon which we ride.
Cleon: And tell me this much: whether in the agora
Cleon: Are you selling real Greek goods, or are you selling them by the gates?
Sausage-seller: By the gates, where the fish-sauce was for sale.
Cleon: Alas, the oracle of the god has been fulfilled.
Cleon: Roll this wretched man inside.
Cleon: O garland, farewell, depart, and if I should seize you unwillingly
Cleon: I am leaving; but someone else will take you and possess you,
Cleon: A thief he would not be any more, but perhaps a lucky one.
Sausage-Seller: Hellenic Zeus, yours is the prize of victory.
Chorus: hail, victorious one, and remember that
Chorus: You have become a man because of me; and I beg you briefly,
Chorus: How I will be to you a painter of court cases.
Demos: But as for me, whatever your name is, say it.
Sausage-seller: Market-bought.
Sausage-seller: for while I was being judged in the marketplace, I was being fed.
Demus: So then, I entrust myself to Agoracritus,
Demos: And I hand over this fellow Paphlagon.
Sausage-Seller: And indeed, I will look after you well, O Demos.
Sausage-Seller: 'So you admit that no human being is like me.'
Sausage-seller: It is better for the city of the Kechineans to see [this].
Chorus: what is more beautiful for those beginning?
Chorus: or [for] those who are being rested
Chorus: Or sing of swift horse-tamers, nothing concerning Lysistrata,
Chorus: and not again to sorrow Thoomantidas the homeless with a willing heart?
Chorus: for this man too, dear Apollo, is always hungry, with fresh tears
Chorus: Touching your quiver, do not be poor in the holy Pytho.
Chorus: To revile the wicked is nothing enviable,
Chorus: But honor belongs to the good, whoever thinks well.
Chorus: if, then, a man, who must hear many evils,
Chorus: He was manifest; I would not have remembered a friend.
Chorus: for now no one who does not know Aeginetus,
Chorus: whoever knows either the white or the upright law.
Chorus: So he is indeed a brother to him in character, but not in kinship,
Chorus: Ariphrades is wicked. But this he does indeed wish to do:
Chorus: For he is not only wicked, for I would not even have noticed him,
Chorus: Not at all base, but he has even discovered something.
Chorus: for he corrupts his own tongue with shameful pleasures,
Chorus: licking the execrable dew in the ovens,
Chorus: both defiling the buttocks and roasting the griddles,
Chorus: and making Poly mnesteia and associating with Oionichos.
Chorus: whoever, then, does not hate such a man very much,
Chorus: Never will he drink from the same cup with us.
Chorus: often in the night-times
Chorus: I have been born in worry,
Chorus: And he has inquired from where on earth Cleonymus eats badly.
Chorus: For they say that he is being reviled with the words of those who have [power].
Chorus: They would not be able to get out of the jar; but they would still throw back missiles.
Chorus: Come now, O master, come from your knees, and come out and forgive the table.
Chorus: They say that the triremes have come together among themselves for a discussion,
Chorus: And utter one of them which was older;
Chorus: And yet you do not inquire about these things, O maidens, those in the city?
Chorus: They say that one of us is being asked for a hundred [drachmas] to go to Carthage.
Chorus: an evil citizen, a sharp fellow Hyperbolus;
Chorus: and for the reputations, this is terrible and unbearable,
Chorus: and someone to say which of the men had not come closer.
Chorus: They will be far from me, certainly not by me shall they rule ever, but if you wish me to,...
Chorus: Being rotten by the teredo here, I shall grow old in this place.
Chorus: Nor is Nauphantes indeed of the Nausones, by the gods,
Chorus: If indeed I too was grown from a pine and from woods.
Chorus: If these things please the Athenians, I think I ought to sit down.
Chorus: To sail to the Theseion, or upon the solemn gods.
Chorus: For it is not our generals who bore the city.
Chorus: But let him go off alone to the crows, if he wishes,
Chorus: having hauled down the barges, in which he used to sell the lamps.
Sausage-Seller: One must be silent and keep one's mouth shut and abstain from giving testimony,
Ball-seller: and even to close the law-courts, in which this city rejoices,
Sausage-seller: To celebrate their new successes, the theater should sing a paean.
Chorus: O light of the holy Athens and aid the islands,
Chorus: With what good reputation do you come, for what purpose do we smoke the streets?
Sausage-seller: Having cooked the People for you, I have made something beautiful out of something shameful.
Chorus: And where is he now, you who discover and devise wonderful things?
Sausage-seller: in the flower-crowned ancient Athens lives.
Chorus: How might we see? What sort of equipment does he have? What has he become?
Sausage-seller: Just as he lived with Aristides and Miltiades before.
Ball seller: You will see; for already there is a sound of the propylaea opening.
Sausage-seller: But shout 'oi oi' with the ancient Athens appearing!
Sausage-seller: both to those who are marvellous and to those who are highly praised, so that the famous Demos may dwell.
Chorus: O lush and violet-crowned and much-envied Athens,
Chorus: show to you the sole ruler of Greece and of this land.
Sausage-seller: This one is that one, bright in an ancient shape, to see the locust-bearing ones,
Sausage-seller: Not the smell of pigs, but of libations, a residue of myrrh.
Chorus: Hail, king of the Greeks; and we rejoice with you.
Chorus: For you are doing deeds worthy of the city and of the trophy at Marathon.
Demos: O most dear of men, come here, Agoracritus.
Demos: All the good things you have done, having done them well.
Sausage-Seller: Me?
Sausage-seller: But oh, you don't know what sort of man you were before,
Sausage-Seller: Not even a seat! For you would think me a god.
Demos: But what did I do, tell me, before? What sort of man was I?
Sausage-seller: First of all, whenever someone should speak in the assembly,
Sausage-Seller: O Demos, I am your lover, I love you.
Sausage-seller: I am anxious for you and I alone give you advice.
Sausage-seller: Whenever anyone wants to use these as preambles,
Sausage-seller: You were swinging your club and your ears.
Demus: Me?
Sausage-seller: Then, having deceived you, he went away instead of these things.
Demos: What do you say?
Demos: I did these things, but I did not realize it?
Sausage-seller: But, by Zeus, your ears would have been stretched out!
Sausage-seller: He was gathered up just like a shadow-ball, and then again.
Demos: So I have become both foolish and old?
Sausage-seller: And by Zeus, if only two orators were speaking,
Sausage-seller: the one makes long ships, and the other one again.
Sausage-seller: To have this hired out, you who are speaking of the hire!
Sausage-seller: He who ran past the triremes, he would have gone away.
Sausage-seller: Why are you bending over? Won't you stay on the ground?
Demos: I am ashamed of you for my former mistakes.
Sausage-Seller: But you are not the cause of these things, do not worry,
Sausage-seller: But these things deceived you. Now tell me.
Sausage-seller: If anyone should say 'mummer advocate'.
Sausage-seller: There are no barley-meal for you, the jurors,
Sausage-seller: unless you reject this lawsuit.
Sausage-Seller: What will you do with this man, tell me, this prosecutor?
Demos: I will lift you up into the air and cast you into the abyss,
Demos: hanging Hyperbolus from his throat.
Sausage-Seller: Now you are speaking rightly and wisely already;
Sausage-seller: But the rest, come, let me see, tell me how you will conduct yourself.
Demos: First, those who drive long ships,
Demos: I will pay the full wage to those who have been defeated.
Sausage-seller: For many buttocks you gave a gift.
Demos: then a hoplite, having been enrolled in the register,
Demos: No one will be enrolled in the register in a hurry,
Demus: But just as it was at first, it will be enrolled.
Shrimp-Seller: This bit the whelk of Cleonymus.
Demos: And no one without a beard will buy anything in the marketplace.
Sausage-seller: But where exactly will Cleisthenes and Stratton buy it?
Demos: These young men, I say, are in the perfume,
Demus: Such are the things he grumbles while sitting down;
Demus: Wise is the Phaeacian, and he did not die on the right side.
Demus: for it is persuasive and effective,
Demos: and perceptive and clear and striking,
Demos: Most excellent at seizing the noisy one.
Sausage-seller: Are you not then a finger-tapper of the chatterer?
Demos: By Zeus, but I will force him to hunt.
Demos: all these, having ceased [to make] decrees.
Sausage-seller: Take, then, this stool for now,
Ball-Seller: and a boy with a hernia, who will carry this one for you;
Sausage-seller: And if it seems good to you somewhere, make him sit cross-legged.
Demos: Now I am being restored to my former glory.
Sausage-seller: You will say, once the thirty-oarsmen
The Sausage-Seller: I will hand over the libations to you. Come here quickly, you Libations.
Demos: O Zeus, highly honored, how beautiful! By the gods,
Demos: Is it permitted to make them three times a triakontor?
Demos: How did you take them, truly?
Sausage-seller: For it is not the Paphlagonian
Sausage-Seller: He was hiding these inside, so that you might not take them?
Sausage-seller: So now I am handing you over to the country.
Sausage-Seller: 'Take them and go.'
Demos: "But the Paphlagonian,"
Demus: Whoever did these things, say what evil you will do.
Sausage-seller: Nothing great, but only my art;
Sausage-seller: I will sell sausages alone at the gates,
Sausage-seller: mixing the canine matters with the donkey ones,
Ball-seller: he will abuse the prostitutes while drunk,
Pudding-seller: And he even drinks the bathing water from the baths.
Demos: Well, you have devised [this] just where he deserves it,
Demos: to have cried out to prostitutes and bath attendants,
Demos: And I call you to the prytaneion in place of these things.
Demos: to the tenth seat, so that he might be the scapegoat there.
Demos: Follow her, taking the little frog.
Demos: And let someone carry that one off to the art as well,
Demos: so that they may see him with what traps the foreigners were caught.