No More Learning

CLEON. I will peg you out on the ground.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will slice you into mince-meat.

CLEON. I will tear out your eyelashes.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will slit your gullet.

DEMOSTHENES. We will set his mouth open with a wooden stick as the cooks
do with pigs; we will tear out his tongue, and, looking down his gaping
throat, will see whether his inside has any pimples. [46]

CHORUS. Thus then at Athens we have something more fiery than fire, more
impudent than impudence itself! 'Tis a grave matter; come, we will push
and jostle him without mercy. There, you grip him tightly under the arms;
if he gives way at the onset, you will find him nothing but a craven; I
know my man.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
That he has been all his life and he has only made
himself a name by reaping another's harvest; and now he has tied up the
ears he gathered over there, he lets them dry and seeks to sell them. [47]

CLEON. I do not fear you as long as there is a Senate and a people which
stands like a fool, gaping in the air.

CHORUS. What unparalleled impudence! 'Tis ever the same brazen front. If
I don't hate you, why, I'm ready to take the place of the one blanket
Cratinus wets;[48] I'll offer to play a tragedy by Morsimus. [49] Oh! you
cheat! who turn all into money, who flutter from one extortion to
another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then
only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event! "[50]
Then even the son of Iulius,[51] the old niggard, would empty his cup
with transports of joy, crying, "Io, Paean! Io, Bacchus! "

CLEON. By Posidon! You!