No More Learning

CLEON. Oh, oh, dear! The conspirators are murdering me!

CHORUS. Strike, strike with all your might; bruise his belly, lashing him
with your guts and your tripe; punish him with both arms! Oh! vigorous
assailant and intrepid heart! Have you not routed him totally in this
duel of abuse? how shall I give tongue to my joy and sufficiently praise
you?

CLEON. Ah! by Demeter! I was not ignorant of this plot against me; I knew
it was forming, that the chariot of war was being put together. [61]

CHORUS (_to Sausage-seller_). Look out, look out!
Come, outfence him with
some wheelwright slang?

SAUSAGE-SELLER. His tricks at Argos do not escape me. Under pretence of
forming an alliance with the Argives, he is hatching a plot with the
Lacedaemonians there; and I know why the bellows are blowing and the
metal that is on the anvil; 'tis the question of the prisoners.

CHORUS. Well done! Forge on, if he be a wheelwright.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. And there are men at Sparta[62] who are hammering the
iron with you; but neither gold nor silver nor prayers nor anything else
shall impede my denouncing your trickery to the Athenians.

CLEON. As for me, I hasten to the Senate to reveal your plotting, your
nightly gatherings in the city, your trafficking with the Medes and with
the Great King, and all you are foraging for in Boeotia. [63]

SAUSAGE-SELLER. What price then is paid for forage by Boeotians?

CLEON. Oh! by Heracles!