And I will cut off your
victuals
at the Prytaneum.
Aristophanes
SAUSAGE-SELLER. By the precedence! Ah! might I see you fall from your
precedence into the hindmost seat!
CLEON. By heaven! I will put you to the torture.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. What a lively wit! Come, what's the best to give you to
eat? What do you prefer? A purse?
CLEON. I will tear out your inside with my nails.
SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And I will cut off your victuals at the Prytaneum.
CLEON. I will haul you before Demos, who will mete out justice to you.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I too will drag you before him and belch forth more
calumnies than you.
CLEON. Why, poor fool, he does not believe you, whereas I play with him
at will.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. So that Demos is your property, your contemptible
creature.
CLEON. 'Tis because I know the dishes that please him.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And these are little mouthfuls, which you serve to him
like a clever nurse. You chew the pieces and place some in small
quantities in his mouth, while you swallow three parts yourself.
CLEON. Thanks to my skill, I know exactly how to enlarge or contract this
gullet.
