Lines 609–789

CHORUS.
Hard it is, my Lord Poseidon,
if the Knights we cannot flee
Even in the depths of Ocean, anywhere by land or sea.
[Enter the Sausage-Seller]
Dearest of men, my lustiest, trustiest friend,
Good lack! how anxious has your absence made us!
But now that safe and sound you are come again,
Say what has happened, and how went the fight.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
How else but thus? The Council-victor I.

CHORUS.
Now may we, joyous, raise the song of sacred praise.
Fair the words you speak, but fairer
Are the deeds you do.
Far I’d go, This I know,
But to hear them through.
Now then tell us all the story,
All that, where you went, befell;
Fearless be, Sure that we
All delight in all you tell.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Aye and ’tis worth the hearing. When behind him
I reached the Council-chamber, there was he
Crashing and dashing, hurling at the Knights
Strange wonder-working thunder - driving words,
Calling them all, with all-persuading force,
Conspirators! And all the Council, hearing,
Grew full of lying orach at his talk,
Wore mustard looks, and puckered up their brows,
So when I saw them taking in his words,
Gulled by his knavish tricks, Ye Gods, said I,
Ye Gods of knavery, Skitals, and Phenaces,
And ye Beresceths, Cobals, Mothon, and
Thou Agora, whence my youthful training came,
Now give me boldness and a ready tongue
And shameless voice! And as I pondered thus,
I heard a loud explosion on my right,
And made my reverence; then I dashed apart
The railing-wicket, opened wide my mouth,
And cried aloud, O Council, I have got
Some lovely news which first I bring to you.
For never, never, since the War broke out,
Have I seen pilchards cheaper than to-day.
They calmed their brows and grew serene at once,
And crowned me for my news; and I suggested,
Bidding them keep it secret, that forthwith,
To buy these pilchards, many for a penny,
’Twere best to seize the cups in all the shops.
They clapped their hands, and turned agape to me.
But Paphlagon perceived, and well aware
What kind of measures please the Council best,
Proposed a resolution; Sirs, quoth he,
I move that for these happy tidings brought,
One hundred beeves be offered to Athene.
The Council instantly inclined to him.
So, overpowered with cow-dung, in a trice
I overshot him with two hundred beeves.
And vow, said I, to slay to-morrow morn,
If pilchards sell one hundred for an obol,
A thousand she-goats to our huntress Queen.
Back came their heads, expectantly, to me.
He, dazed at this, went babbling idly on;
So then the Prytanes and the Archers seized him.
And they stood up, and raved about the pilchards;
And he kept begging them to wait awhile
And hear the tale the Spartan envoy brings;
He has just arrived about a peace, shrieked he.
But all the Council with one voice exclaimed,
What! now about a peace? No doubt, my man,
Now they’ve heard pilchards are so cheap at Athens!
We want no truces; let the War go on!
With that, Dismiss us, Prytanes! shouted they;
And overleaped the railings everywhere.
And I slipped out, and purchased all the leeks
And all the coriander in the market;
And as they stood perplexed, I gave them all
Of my free bounty garnish for their fish.
And they so praised and purred about me, that
With just one obol’s worth of coriander
I’ve all the Council won, and here I am.

CHORUS.
What rising men should do
Has all been done by you
He, the rascal, now has met a
Bigger rascal still,
Full of guile Plot and wile,
Full of knavish skill.
Mind you carry through the conflict
In the same undaunted guise.
Well you know Long ago
We’re your faithful true allies.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
See here comes Paphlagon, driving on before him
A long ground-swell, all fuss and fury, thinking
To drink me up. Boh! for your impudent bluster.

PAPHLAGON.
O if I’ve any of my old lies left,
And don’t destroy you, may I fall to bits!

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
I like your threats I’m wonderfully tickled
To hear you fume; I skip and cuckoo around you.

PAPHLAGON.
By Demeter, if I eat you not
Out of the land, I’ll never live at all.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
You won’t? Nor I, unless I drink you up,
And swill you up, and burst myself withal.

PAPHLAGON.
I’ll crush you, by my Pylus-won precedence.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Precedence, is it? I’m in hopes to see you
In the last tier, instead of here in front.

PAPHLAGON.
By Heaven, I’ll clap you in the public stocks.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
How fierce it’s growing! what would it like to eat
What is its favourite dainty? Money-bags?

PAPHLAGON.
I’ll tear your guts out with my nails, I will.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
I’ll scratch your Town Hall dinners out, I will.

PAPHLAGON.
I’ll hale you off to Demus; then you’ll catch it.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Nay, I’ll hale you, and then out-slander you.

PAPHLAGON.
Alack, poor chap, he pays no heed to you,
But I can fool him to my heart’s content.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
How sure you seem that Demus is your own!

PAPHLAGON.
Because I know the titbits he prefers.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And feed him badly as the nurses do.
You chew, and pop a morsel in his mouth,
But thrice as much you swallow down yourself.

PAPHLAGON.
And I’m so dexterous-handed, I can make
Demus expand, and then contract again.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
I can do that with many things, I trow.

PAPHLAGON.
’Twon’t be like bearding me in the Council now!
No, come along to Demus.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Aye, why not?
I’m ready; march; let nothing stop us now.

PAPHLAGON.
O Demus, come out here,

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
O yes, by Zeus,
Come out, my father.

PAPHLAGON.
Dearest darling Demus,
Come out, and hear how they’re ill-treating me!

DEMUS.
What’s all this shouting? go away, you fellows.
You’ve smashed my harvest-garland all to bits!
Who wrongs you, Paphlagon?

PAPHLAGON.
He, and these young men,
Keep beating me because of you.

DEMUS.
Why so?

PAPHLAGON.
Because I love you and adore you, Demus.

DEMUS.
[To the Sausage-seller]
And who are you?

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
A rival for your love.
Long have I loved, and sought to do you good,
With many another honest gentleman,
But Paphlagon won’t let us. You yourself,
Excuse me sir, are like the boys with lovers,
The honest gentlemen you won’t accept,
Yet give yourself to lantern-selling chaps,
To sinew-stitchers, cobblers, aye and tanners.

PAPHLAGON.
Because I am good to Demus.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Tell me how.

PAPHLAGON.
“Twas I slipped in before the general there
And sailed to Pylus, and brought back the Spartans.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And I walked round, and from the workshop stole
A mess of pottage, cooked by someone else.

PAPHLAGON.
Come, make a full Assembly out of hand,
O Demus, do; then find which loves you best,
And so decide, and give that man your love.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
O Demus, do. Not in the Pnyx however.

DEMUS.
Aye, in the Pnyx, not elsewhere will I sit.
So forward all, move forward to the Pnyx.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
O luckless me, I’m ruined! The old fellow
Is, when at home, the brightest man alive;
But once he sits upon his rock, he moons
With open mouth, as one who gapes for figs.

CHORUS.
Now loosen every hawser,
now speed your bark along,
And mind your soul is eager,
and mind your words are strong,
No subterfuge admitting;
the man has many a trick
From hopeless things, in hopeless times,
a hopeful course to pick.
Upon him with a whirlwind’s force,
impetuous, fresh and quick.
But keep on his movements a watch; and be sure
that before he can deal you a blow,
You hoist to the mast your dolphins, and cast
your vessel alongside the foe.

PAPHLAGON.
To the Lady who over the city presides,
to our mistress Athene, I pray
If beyond all the rest I am stoutest and best,
in the service of Demus to-day,
Except Salabaccho, and Cynna the bold,
and Lysicles —then in the Hall
May I dine as of late at the cost of the State
for doing just nothing at all.
But O if I hate you, nor stride to the van
to protect you from woes and mishaps,
Then slay me, and flay me, and saw me to bits,
to be cut into martingale straps.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And I, if I love you not, Demus, am game
to be slaughtered by chopping and mincing,
And boiled in a sausage-meat pie; and if that
is, you think, not entirely convincing,
Let me here, if you please, with a morsel of cheese,
upon this to a salad be grated,
Or to far Cerameicus be dragged through the streets
with my flesh-hook, and there be cremated.

PAPHLAGON.
O Demus, how can there be ever a man
who loves you as dearly as I?
When on me you relied your finances to guide,
your Treasury never was dry,
I was begging of these, whilst those I would squeeze
and rack to extort what was due,
And nought did I care how a townsman might fare,
so long as I satisfied you.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
Why, Demus, there’s nothing to boast of in that;
to do it I’m perfectly able.
I’ve only to steal from my comrade a meal,
and serve it up hot on your table.
And as for his loving and wishing you well,
it isn’t for you that he cares,
Excepting indeed for the gain that he gets,
and the snug little fire that he shares.
Why you, who at Marathon fought with the Medes,
for Athens and Hellas contending,
And won the great battle, and left us a theme
for our songs and our speeches unending,
He cares not a bit that so roughly you sit
on the rocks, nor has dreamed of providing
Those seats with the thing I have stitched you and bring.
Just lift yourself up and subside in
This ease-giving cushion for fear you should gall
what at Salamis sat by the oar.

DEMUS.
Who are you? To opine you are sprung from the line
of Harmodius famous of yore;
So noble and Demus-relieving an act
I never have witnessed before!

PAPHLAGON.
O me, by what paltry attentions and gifts
you contrive to attract and delude him!

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
’Twas by baits that are smaller and poorer than mine,
you rascal, you hooked and subdued him.