No More Learning

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! would you beat me in impudence! If you succeed,
may I no longer have my share of the victims offered to Zeus on the city
altar.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And I, I swear by the blows that have so oft rained upon
my shoulders since infancy, and by the knives that have cut me, that I
will show more effrontery than you; as sure as I have rounded this fine
stomach by feeding on the pieces of bread that had cleansed other folk's
greasy fingers. [52]

CLEON. On pieces of bread, like a dog! Ah! wretch! you have the nature of
a dog and you dare to fight a cynecephalus? [53]

SAUSAGE-SELLER. I have many another trick in my sack, memories of my
childhood's days. I used to linger around the cooks and say to them,
"Look, friends, don't you see a swallow? 'tis the herald of springtime. "
And while they stood, their noses in the air, I made off with a piece of
meat.

CHORUS. Oh! most clever man! How well thought out! You did as the eaters
of artichokes, you gathered them before the return of the swallows.