Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein
The Knights was produced at the Lenaea early in 424 B.C., in the seventh year of the war against Sparta. The previous summer the war had taken what appeared to be a decisive turn in favour of Athens, and the manner in which this had happened had a marked effect on internal Athenian politics as well.
An Athenian force under Demosthenes had occupied the promontory of Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese. They had beaten off an attack, and with the help of naval reinforcements besieged their former Spartan besiegers on the neighbouring island of Sphacteria. Sparta, afraid of the possible loss of several hundred of their small citizen body, immediately made a truce and sent representatives to Athens to sue for peace; this mission is mentioned in The Knights (p. 66). Cleon, however, who was at this time the dominant personality in the Assembly, persuaded his fellow-citizens to impose pre-conditions that were and were meant to be unacceptable, and the peace mission came to nothing.
The siege of Sphacteria was resumed, but as the weeks passed with no news of its capture public opinion at Athens became restive and inclined to criticize Demosthenes. Cleon, seeking to take advantage of this feeling, proposed that extra troops should be sent, and implicitly called Nicias, the senior general then in Athens, a coward for not already having sailed to Pylos. Nicias promptly resigned his command in Cleon’s favour, and Cleon, who is not known to have previously had any experience of military leadership whatever, sailed to Pylos with a small additional force. Before he left he promised to bring back the Spartans, dead or alive, within twenty days. It was afterwards believed that this promise was not as irresponsible as it sounded, because (it was said) Cleon had private information that Demosthenes intended shortly to storm the island in any case. This was done shortly after Cleon’s arrival, and he returned with three hundred prisoners (over a hundred of them Spartan citizens) within the promised time.
This victory changed the whole course of the war. Ever since 431 the Spartans had invaded Attica annually and ravaged the country-side, so that the whole population had had to live within the fortified zone of the city and the Peiraeus. Now Athens held three hundred hostages, whom they announced they would put to death if Attica was again invaded. For the rest of 425 Athens took the offensive; and the whole credit for the transformation was given to Cleon. Honours were showered upon him, and his political influence, already great, became overwhelming. It was in this situation that Aristophanes for the first time produced a comedy in his own name.
The play is more than just an attack on Cleon, though the sheer venom of Aristophanes’ hatred is unmatched in any of his works. It is a satire on the whole nature of politics and political leadership in Athens. As is repeatedly pointed out by the Chorus, the Sausage-Seller defeats his rival by outdoing him in those very qualities which make Cleon loathsome: the implication is that there is no other way to win influence over the sovereign People. Only at the end of the play does the Sausage-Seller reveal himself in his true colours as restorer of the ‘good old days’ for which Aristophanes’ more sympathetic characters so often yearn. But can one in the real world expect a politician who has risen to the top by means of bribery, flattery and slander to become a paragon of virtue when he attains power? So the audience might well ask themselves. In the play it takes a miracle to give The people his wits back. In life there are no miracles, and if the Athenians do not want all their politicians to become corrupt, even those who are honest by nature, then, Aristophanes suggests, they had better get their own wits about them and learn to distinguish between true and fraudulent merit, instead of awarding men like Cleon ‘dining rights in the Town Hall for doing absolutely nothing’.
Aristophanes’ hostility to Cleon was personal as well as political. In 426 Cleon had prosecuted him for ‘slandering the City in the presence of foreigners’with his play The Babylonians, and he had been convicted. Aristophanes had dropped broad hints in The Acharnians (425) that he would shortly take his revenge, and he now does so. Cleon, it would seem, was again infuriated beyond measure by The Knights, and since the previous charge would not stick this time (no foreigners being present at the Lenaea), he threatened to prosecute Aristophanes for falsely pretending to be an Athenian citizen. This acćusation probably never came to trial; a passage in The Wasps seems to suggest that Aristophanes, perhaps fearing Cleon’s influence over the juries (‘the Comrades of the Order of the Three Obols’, p. 46), offered some sort of apology. In any case, he continued to attack Cleon in play after play until Cleon’s death in 422.*
In The Knights Cleon appears in the thin disguise of a slave from Paphlagonia in Asia Minor. This origin is chosen because of the similarity of the name to paphlazein ‘to bubble’ (cf. ‘The pot is boiling over’, p. 70). The character is called ‘Cleon’ in the manuscripts’ indications of speakers and in their list of dramatis personae; but since in the text itself the character (as distinct from the real-life politician) is always called ‘the Paphlagonian’, I have so designated him in this translation. For the other two slaves, on the other hand, I have retained the manuscripts’ names ‘Nicias’ and ‘Demosthenes’; there seems to me no doubt that they are intended to represent these two generals, and if, as seems likely, the names were introduced into the dramatis personae by the conjecture of an ancient critic, that is not in itself a reason for inconveniencing the reader by removing them.
The Chorus consists of twenty-four hippēs, conventionally translated ‘Knights’, though ‘cavalrymen’ would be more accurate. The Athenian cavalry consisted of a thousand young men of rich and mostly aristocratic families (they were required to provide their own horses), who were naturally opposed to Cleon, the populist who had ‘been in trade’. Indeed, it appears from a passage in The Acharnians that on one occasion they had forced him to ‘cough up’ a large sum of money, perhaps in order to avoid prosecution for bribery. They are thus ideal allies for the Sausage-Seller in this play.
It was believed in antiquity that Aristophanes’ contemporary and rival Eupolis had had some hand in the composition of The Knights. Eupolis himself claimed to have ‘collaborated with that baldhead in The Knights and made a gift of it to him’, but that was after he had been stung by an accusation of plagiarism. Suspicion has chiefly centred on the second parabasis (pp. 83’5); the reader may make up his own mind whether the tone of it is Aristophanic.
Although The Knights won first prize, Cleon’s popularity was unaffected. Many of the poorer citizens who were his chief supporters may not have been present at the performance. At any rate, not many weeks later he was elected one of the board of ten generals, a position which he appears to have retained for the remaining two years of his life.
| DEMOSTHENES | |
slaves of Thepeople |
| NICIAS |
A SAUSAGE-SELLER
PAPHLAGONIAN (Cleon) steward to Thepeople
THEPEOPLE an elderly Athenian
CHORUS OF KNIGHTS
TWO GIRLS (The Peacetreaties)
SEVERAL SLAVES
SCENE: Before the house of THEPEOPLE in Athens. Sounds of beating and cries of pain are heard within.
[Presently DEMOSTHENES and NICIAS burst out of the house, doubled up and screaming.]
DEMOSTHENES: YOWWW! Help! Murder! It’s that blasted Paphlagonian again – that horror master’s gone and bought! Why don’t the gods blast him to hell, him and his tricks? Well, why don’t they? Ever since he infected the house, we’ve not had a day without a flogging!
NICIAS: Hear, hear! To hell with the Arch-Paphlagonian and all his lying tales – and quickly too!
DEMOSTHENES: How are you feeling now, poor thing?
NICIAS: Red and raw, like you.
DEMOSTHENES: Come on, then, why don’t we sob a duet to an old Olympian melody?1 [They half hum, half sob a few bars together.] Dammit, what are we standing here moaning for? We need to find a way out of this – a way to stop getting carved up.
NICIAS: What way, though?
DEMOSTHENES: You tell me.
NICIAS: No, you tell me.
[DEMOSTHENES gives him a very black look.]
Ah – ah – no need for a punch-up, now.
DEMOSTHENES: I won’t tell you. Tell you what, though. You go ahead and say what we should do, and then I’ll tell you.
NICIAS: I’ve not got the guts for that. What’s the posh way of putting it – what does Euripides say? – oh yes! [Falling suppliant at DEMOSTHENES’ feet] Oh, couldst thou now but speak my words for me!2
DEMOSTHENES [dragging him to his feet]: Enough of that parsley sauce!3 What we’ve got to do is find a way to trip the light fantastic away from our master.
NICIAS: Away, away! that’s an idea. Listen, old chap. Say the word ‘way’, like this, short and sharp, ‘way’.
DEMOSTHENES: All right. Way.
NICIAS: Very good. Now say ‘runner’.
DEMOSTHENES: Runner.
NICIAS: That’s right. Now do like you were fucking yourself. Starting slowly, like this, ‘way’, then ‘runner’, speeding up a little, you see, and then keep repeating faster and faster.
DEMOSTHENES [following instructions]: Way, runner, way-runner-way-run away!
NICIAS: There! Isn’t it absolute ecstasy?
DEMOSTHENES: Well, yes and no. You see, there’s a word you used that’s sort of making my back tingle. It’s a bad omen.
NICIAS: What do you mean?
DEMOSTHENES: They say too much fucking yourself is bad for the skin. And running away, if you’re caught, that can be bad for the skin too! [He points to his whip-scarred back.]
NICIAS: Well, if that’s how you feel, there’s only one thing for it. We must g-go and p-p-prostrate ourselves as s-s-suppliants at one of the holy st-t-tatues of the gods.
DEMOSTHENES: What do you mean, st-t-tatues? You don’t even believe in the gods.
NICIAS: I didn’t use to, but I do now.
DEMOSTHENES: Why?
NICIAS: Because if there weren’t any gods, I wouldn’t be so bloody god-forsaken. Right or wrong?
DEMOSTHENES: Mm, you have a point there. But we’re still looking for our brilliant idea. Here, for heaven’s sake, hadn’t I better tell these people here [indicating the audience] what this is all about?
NICIAS: All right. Just one thing, though, people. We’d like you to let us know: are you enjoying the play?
DEMOSTHENES [after a pause; apparently satisfied with the audience’s response]: All right, here goes. Our master is a real case. He’s a countryman and bad-tempered to match, he’s got a morbid craving for beans,4 and he flies into a fiery rage in no time. His name’s Thepeople, that’s right, Thepeople, and he lives on the Pnyx,5 and he’s as dyspeptic a deaf old man as you ever met. Well last New Moon’s day he went and bought a new slave, a tanner from Paphlagonia, and a greater swine of a stool-pigeon never walked this earth. This tanner-fellow soon got to know master’s ways, and then he fell at his feet, licked his boots, wheedled, flattered, sucked up, everything to take him in, with all the trimmings – in real leather. ‘Thepeople,’ he’d say, ‘why don’t you just try one case today and then have a good bath and get stuck into a slap-up supper on your three obols?6 Shall I serve the first course now?’ Whereupon he grabs something one of us has been cooking, this Paphlagonian does, and gives it to master so master will think he cooked it and love him even more. Why, only the other day I’d baked a lovely Spartan cake down in Pylos,7 and round he sneaks and grabs it and serves up my cake as if it was all his work! And he won’t let anyone but himself wait on master. If we try, he chases us away. All through dinner he stands behind master with his fly-whisk (also real leather) and flicks away all the other politicians. And his oracles! He’s for ever trotting them out, throwing Sibylline dust8 in master’s eyes, and when he thinks he’s got master sufficiently ga-ga, he starts in with his lies. He’ll say anything if it’ll get one of us a flogging. And then he makes the round of the whole household, taking bribes, blackmailing people, making everyone’s teeth chatter. ‘Look at Hylas,’ he says. ‘Master gave him the works yesterday. All my doing. Best get on the right side of me, that’s my advice, else it’ll be your turn next.’ And we pay up. What else can we do? If we say no, we’ll only find ourselves shitting eight times as hard when he spins his yarn to master. [To NICIAS] We’ve got to think hard, old chap. What can we do? Who is there for us to turn to?
NICIAS: I still favour my runner plan. Old chap.
DEMOSTHENES: But how can we do that without that Paphlagonian seeing us? There’s nothing he doesn’t see. He bestrides the world, one foot in Pylos and the other here on the Pnyx. He’s the All-Present – he can have his arse in Bigholia,9 his hands in the public purse, and his mind in Robbers’ Vale, all at one and the same moment! No, there’s nothing left for us to do but lie down and die. Or – what do you think would be the noblest, the manliest kind of death?
NICIAS: Noblest… manliest… I know! Let’s do what Themistocles did,10 drink a cup of bull’s blood! What could be a nobler death than that?
DEMOSTHENES: I’ve got a better idea than that. If we’re going to drink, why don’t we have some good neat wine from the cup of Good Fortune? Maybe that’ll help us figure out a good plan.
NICIAS: Neat wine indeed! Trust you to find an excuse for a drink! Liquor never helped anyone to plan anything.
DEMOSTHENES: You watch out, you old water-bibber-babbler! Don’t you laugh at wine. Wine’s got great creative potential, I’d have you know. There is nothing in the world that has produced so many great inventions as wine has. Use a bit of observation. When is it men get rich? When do they bring off their business deals, win their lawsuits, feel happy, do good to their friends? When they drink, that’s when! Come on now, bring me out a jugful. I want to oil my brain and get a few ideas.
NICIAS: I don’t know what’s going to become of us with all your boozing, I really don’t.
DEMOSTHENES: Never you mind. Let’s have the stuff. I’ll lie down for a bit.
[NICIAS goes into the house; DEMOSTHENES lies on the ground in a luxuriating pose.]
Just a drink or two, and the whole street will be awash with my brilliant ideas and plans and policies.
NICIAS [returning with jug]: Whew, that was lucky that I didn’t get caught!
DEMOSTHENES: What’s our Paphlagonian up to?
NICIAS: Oh, he’s been guzzling a haul of gorgeous cakes, the bastard, confiscated from convicts, and now he’s snoring, dead drunk, lying on his back among his hides.
DEMOSTHENES: Come on then, open up, let’s have a libation. A real good big one.
NICIAS [pouring out a cup]: Here you are. Let the libation be to Good Fortune. [He hands the cup to DEMOSTHENES.]
DEMOSTHENES: This cup to Good Fortune, vintage Pramnian!11 [Pours a little of the wine on the ground.] Good Fortune, over to you, let’s have an idea! [He drinks the cup off.]
NICIAS: What does she say?
DEMOSTHENES: He’s asleep, right? Creep inside and pinch those oracles that he keeps and bring them out here.
NICIAS: Okay. You are sure that was Good Fortune, not her ugly sister? [He goes inside again.]
DEMOSTHENES [drawing the jug towards him]: Let’s get this a bit closer, so I can oil my brain again. [He downs another cup.]
NICIAS [re-emerging with a scroll]: Gosh, you should hear him snoring and farting in there, that Paphlagonian. So sound asleep he was, I got hold of his most closely guarded secrets and he never knew I was there. Look, here’s the oracle.
DEMOSTHENES: Good man! Here, let’s have a look at it.
[NICIAS gives him the scroll.]
And pour me out another cup while you’re about it, could you?
[As he opens up the scroll] Now let’s see what’s in here… Good gracious! Quick, give me the cup!
NICIAS [doing so]: There. What’s the oracle say?
DEMOSTHENES [who has finished the cup he was given a moment ago]: Pour me another.
NICIAS: ‘Pour me another’? That’s an odd thing for an oracle to say. [Nevertheless he does refill DEMOSTHENES’ cup.]
DEMOSTHENES [after a moment’s further reading]: Holy Bakis!12
NICIAS: What is it?
DEMOSTHENES: Let’s have the cup again, d’you mind?
NICIAS: This Bakis is certainly some drinker!
DEMOSTHENES [who has been reading more]: What?! You villainous swine! No wonder you were guarding this oracle so fiercely – it’s about Your Paphlagonianship itself, and you didn’t dare let it be seen!
NICIAS: What’s all this, what’s all this?
DEMOSTHENES: It’s all in here. He’s finished. He’s had it.
NICIAS: How, how?
DEMOSTHENES: It’s here in the oracle, in black and white. First of all, it says, there will come a hemp-seller, who will direct all the City’s affairs.13
NICIAS: Seller number one. Yes, what’s next?
DEMOSTHENES: Then after him, a sheep-seller.14
NICIAS: Seller number two. And what becomes of him?
DEMOSTHENES: He shall hold power until another man appears who is even more loathsome than he is, and then he shall fall. For on his heels will appear a leather-seller, our Paphlagonian, a robber and a shrieker, with a voice like an overloaded sewer.
NICIAS: The sheep-seller was to be overthrown by a leather-seller?
DEMOSTHENES: That’s right.
NICIAS: We’re in the soup, then, aren’t we? Isn’t there just one more seller to follow?
DEMOSTHENES: Don’t worry, there is – but you’ll never guess what he sells.
NICIAS: Tell me, tell me, who is he?
DEMOSTHENES: You’d like to know?
NICIAS: Please!
DEMOSTHENES: The man destined to evict our Paphlagonian is a sausage-seller.
NICIAS: A sausage-seller! Poseidon, what a profession! But where are we supposed to find him?
DEMOSTHENES: Well, we can look.
[They begin to scan the audience; but at this moment the SAUSAGE-SELLER himself enters by a side passage. He is extremely rough and dirty, and carries on his back a cooking-table, knives and other implements, and long strings of sausages.]
NICIAS: Look, look! The gods be praised! Here comes one now, going to the market!
DEMOSTHENES [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]: Hey, you! You there with the blessing of heaven on you! Come over here, beloved sausage-seller! Become our saviour and the City’s too!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Wot is it? Woddaya want me for?
DEMOSTHENES: Come here and let us tell you how fortunate and happy the gods have made you!
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER, scratching his head, goes over to them.]
NICIAS: You take off that table of his and tell him all about the holy oracle. I’d better go and keep an eye on our Paphlagonian. [He goes into the house.]
DEMOSTHENES: Come on now, put down all your stuff, and then kiss the earth and make obeisance to the gods.
SAUSAGE-SELLER [after complying with these instructions]: A’ right. Nah wot’s all this abaht?
DEMOSTHENES: Blessings and riches are showered upon you! Today you are nothing, tomorrow you will be everything! You are the destined lord and master of Athens, the most blest of cities!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Look ’ere, mate, can’t yer see I got to wash aht these blinking guts and sell me sausages? I ain’t got time to waste with you making a fool of me.
DEMOSTHENES: You blind fool, talking about guts! Look over there [indicating the audience]! Do you see all those rows and rows of people?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss.
DEMOSTHENES: Of all these you shall be the absolute ruler. You will be monarch of all you survey – the Market Square, the harbours, the Pnyx, everywhere. You will plant your foot on the Council’s neck and compel the Generals to toe the line. You will have the right to throw whom you will into prison, and to screw whom you will in the Town Hall!15
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Wot me?
DEMOSTHENES: Yes, you – and you haven’t seen the tenth part of it yet. Come on, stand on this table and look round the horizon. Can’t you see all our subject islands?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, I see them.
DEMOSTHENES: And our trading posts, and all the ships plying to and fro?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss.
DEMOSTHENES: Don’t you see how the gods have blessed you? Now try and look even further. Look out of the corner of your right eye, and you’ll see Caria; and out of the left, right away to Carthage.16
SAUSAGE-SELLER [trying to comply]: Ouch! Bless me if I ain’t pulled a neck muscle! [He overbalances and falls off the table.]
DEMOSTHENES [picking him up]: What I mean is that all these countries will be your stock in trade, I mean your empire. This oracle which I have predicts that you will become a Great Man.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: A sausage-seller be a great man? Ha! ha! Come on, tell me another.
DEMOSTHENES: No, I’m serious. That’s precisely your qualification to be a Great Man – that you’re born and bred in the Market Square, and that you’re a brazen-faced rogue.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: But look ’ere – I don’t think I deserve to be great.
DEMOSTHENES: What’s all this about not deserving to be great?
You’ve not got any secret virtues on your conscience, have you?
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER shakes his head.]
You’re not of good birth, by any chance?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: The worst birth you could think of.
DEMOSTHENES: Thank heaven! That’s just what’s wanted for a politician.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: But look ’ere – I ’ardly went to school, I got no learning. Why, I can only just read an’ write.
DEMOSTHENES: What a shame you can only just! If only you couldn’t at all! Come off it, you don’t think politics is for the educated, do you, or the honest? It’s for illiterate scum like you now! I beg you, don’t let slip the marvellous opportunity the holy oracle has revealed.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Why, what’s the oracle say?
DEMOSTHENES: It’s full of blessings, cleverly concealed in riddling words. [Unrolls the scroll and recites.]
When that within the great jaws of the crook-talon’d Eagle of Leather
Shall be entrappèd the serpent Stupidity, drinker of swine’s blood,
Then shall the tannery-brine of the Paphlagonians perish,
Then to the sellers of guts (unless they prefer to continue
Flogging their sausages still) shall the god give the power and the glory.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ’Ere, ’ow’s that got ter do with me?
DEMOSTHENES: Well, the Eagle of Leather is our Paphlagonian here. [Pointing at Cleon in the front row of the audience.]
SAUSAGE-SELLER: But wot’s ‘crook-taloned’ mean?
DEMOSTHENES: Why, that he’s a crook and a thief, of course.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I see. And the serpint?
DEMOSTHENES: That’s most obvious of all. A serpent’s long and thin, right? and so’s a sausage. Then a serpent drinks blood, okay? and so does a sausage. So it means that the serpent, that means you, will vanquish the Eagle of Leather, so long as it doesn’t let it talk it out of it.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: So long as wot doesn’t let wot – never mind. I like that oracle. But I still don’t know how you expect me ter manage all the People’s business.
DEMOSTHENES: Dead easy. Just carry on doing what you’ve always done, Mix all the City’s policies into a complete hash, butter the People up a bit,17 throw in a pinch of rhetoric as a sweetener, and there you are. All the other essentials of a good politician you’ve got already. You’ve a voice to scare a Gorgon, you were brought up in the Market Square, oh yes and born in the gutter – what more do you need? And all the oracles and Pythian Apollo himself point the way to greatness. Here, put on this wreath and pour libation to Stupidity.
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER does as he is told, using the wine brought out earlier.]
There you are; now for the fray!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: But ’oo will there be to ’elp me? That there Paphlagonian frightens the rich aht of their wits, and the poor, when ’e’s arahnd, they can’t even keep their arses shut.
DEMOSTHENES: Have no fear, the Knights will be here, a thousand of them, all hating his guts – I beg your pardon, all hating him. They’ll be on your side. So will all honest and decent citizens, and all our audience here – well, all those that have any brains; and so will I, and the god of Delphi too. Oh, and by the way, you needn’t be afraid to look at his face. It won’t look like the real one. You see, our sponsor was a bit worried in case you-know-who might – you know what.18 Ah, but he’ll be recognized all right; as I say, we’ve a brainy audience!
NICIAS [shouting from within]: Look out! Look out! It’s the Paphlagonian! He’s going to come out!
[And indeed out of the house comes the PAPHLAGONIAN, a tall, blond, powerful and exceedingly ugly slave. In manner he is slightly, but only slightly, more polished than the SAUSAGE-SELLER.]
PAPHLAGONIAN [thunderously]: By the Twelve Gods, I’ll not let you get away with this! Conspiring against the People again, I’ll be bound. [Seizing from the SAUSAGE-SELLER the cup used for the libation] Ha ! what have we here? A Chalcidian cup, indeed! So the two of you are plotting to stir up a revolt in Chalcidice!19 This cup is irrefutable proof, I say, irrefutable proof. Villains, you shall perish! The just rage of the People will annihilate yon! [The SAUSAGE-SELLER takes to his heels.]
DEMOSTHENES: Hey! Sausage-seller! Noble sausage-seller! Come back! Why are you running away? Don’t give up the ship! – Knights! Knights! Come to the rescue! [Breaks into song.]20
Come on here, come on here, come on every Knight,
Come and charge, come and charge upon the right!
Here they come, here they come, wheel around and fight,
And put the hated foe to flight!
See the dust, see the dust, as it rises from the ground – the Knights are close at hand!
They are near, they are near, and Panaetius and Simon come at my command!
Come on here, come on here, come on every Knight,
Come and charge, come and charge upon the right!
Here they come, here they come, wheel around and fight,
And put the hated foe to flight!
[The CHORUS OF KNIGHTS charge in, long-haired, fastidiously dressed young men, and make straight for the PAPHLAGONIAN.]
CHORUS:
Strike, strike and never cease
The wrecker of our peace –
He’s the whirlpool who sucks all the Revenue away;
The cheat, the cheat, the cheat!
This word we now repeat,
’Cos he repeats all his cheating tricks several times a day.
Now chase him and catch him and beat him, bash him, mash him,
smash him, just like us.
Set upon him, scout him, flout him, shout and call him names and
swear and cuss!
Now take care that he don’t escape from you,
‘Cos he knows all the back ways to get through,
Like Eucrates21 once to his warehouse ran
And hid himself among the bran!
[Music continues as the CHORUS, aided by DEMOSTEBNES and the SAUSAGE-SELLER, who has returned with new heart, surround the PAPHLAGONIAN and rain blows upon him.]
PAPHLAGONIAN [through music]: Help! Members of the jury! Comrades of the Order of the Three Obols!22 Remember how I’ve fed you all these years with my prosecutions – right or wrong, I never gave a damn, I just shouted as hard as I could! Come quickly and help! I’m being assaulted by a gang of conspirators!
LEADER: And you deserve it too. Haven’t you had your finger in the public pie for years? Don’t you size up all the ex-magistrates when they render their accounts,23 feeling them like figs to see if they’re dry or just ripening or really juicy? And if you find one of them’s a bit of a novice at political infighting, don’t you drag him all the way home from the Chersonese,24 floor him with a speech miles below the belt, get a hold on him, twist his arm half off and then devour him? And anyone in the City who’s a bit of an innocent lamb, rich and honest and not caring for squabbles, you’ve got your eye on him too. No one’s safe.
PAPHLAGONIAN: What, so you Knights are in this too? Don’t you realize that the indignities I’m suffering are all on your account? I was just about to propose that in honour of your gallantry a public monument ought to be set up on the Acropolis! [He ducks, and, protecting his head with his arms, tries to force a way through the CHORUS, but they block him by weight of numbers and relentlessly continue hitting him.]
CHORUS:
The twister and the liar!
He thinks we’ve lost our fire,
And he flatters us as though we were old and had no brain!
Don’t try and take to flight,
For, go you left or right,
We will bash you so hard you will never walk again!
PAPHLAGONIAN:
Let the People and the City witness how these swine are winding
me!
LEADER:
So you think you’ll cow the City with your shouts again? Well,
we shall see!
No he won’t, for I’ll outdo him,
And beat him, and shout him down!
CHORUS:
If you really can outdo him,
We’ll give you the victor’s crown!
So we’ll now have a battle of impudence,
See if yours or if his is more immense;
And if you can defeat him in every way,
Then we will take the cake25 today!
[Music continues as the PAPHLAGONIAN, held helpless by the CHORUS, and the SAUSAGE-SELLER, restrained from assaulting him by DEMOSTHENES, shout at each other at the top of their unpleasant voices.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: I indict this man for high treason! I charge him with supplying strings of sausages to undergird warships in the Peloponnesian fleet!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I indict this man for ’igh gluttony! ’E rushes into the Tahn ’All every day wiv a hempty stomach, and a moment later rushes aht wiv a full one!26
DEMOSTHENES: And with a bag stuffed full of public bread and meat and fish into the bargain, which it’s strictly forbidden to consume off the premises! Not even Pericles was allowed to do that!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll sentence you to death, that’s what I’ll do!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I bet I shaht three times as lahd as you.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll beat you hollow with my raucous yell!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll scream yer dahn and send yer strite to ’ell!
PAPHLAGONIAN: When you’re a General, I’ll accuse and try you!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll chop yer back in tiny bits and fry you!
PAPHLAGONIAN: My lying talk will catch you by the heels.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll cut yer footsies up for ’igh-class meals.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Just look me in the eye now, if you dare!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’m also a son of Athens’ Market square!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Another word and I’ll cut up your hide!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Come on, you shit, I gotter chuck you ahtside!
PAPHLAGONIAN: What impudence! I’m a real thief ’ are you?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, and if caught, a first-rate liar too!
PAPHLAGONIAN [breaking free]: That’s trespassing on my territory!
Members of the Executive Committee!27 I hereby indict this man for being in unlawful and sacrilegious possession of consecrated guts on which no tithe has been paid!
[During the succeeding chorus the PAPHLAGONIAN and the SAUSAGE-SELLER continue to glower and shake their fists at each other.]
CHORUS:
O villain and monster and screamer so base,
The whole of the City is full of your face
(In both of its senses);
O’er all the Assembly and all of the Courts,
Indictments and taxes and tolls at the ports,
Are spread your offences.
You stir up the mud and you muddy the stream,
You’ve made all of Athens stone deaf with your scream,
And drained her of money;
You take up your stand on the top of a cliff
To spy the approach of the tribute,28 as if
The tribute were tunny29 –
And don’t think that’s funny!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I know just how and where this conspiracy was stitched together!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Well, you bloody well oughter know abaht stitching. ’S yer trade, innit? Like I sell sausages, you stitch shoes together. Or wot you call shoes. I remember the time you pulled a fast one on those farmers with cutting up yer leather so it looked thicker than wot it was – and yer chose a bad animal to take the ’ide off as well. They all thought it was good solid stuff, and a day later they fahnd they ’ad shoes six inches wider than wot their feet were!
DEMOSTHENES: That’s just what he did to me. Just the same thing. Made me the laughing-stock of all my friends and neighbours. I hadn’t got two miles out of town, and my shoes were so big I was swimming in them!
CHORUS:
The leopard keeps his spots
The same from start to end;
He’s full of shamelessness,
The politician’s friend.
All foreigners of wealth
You milk to earn your keep;
And at the sorry sight
All honest statesmen30 weep.
But now – O joy, O bliss! –
Appears a champion new,
Who’s manifestly much
More villainous than you.
For he’ll surpass you far,
It’s obvious to see,
In trickery and crime
And sheer audacity.
LEADER:
Now, you who come whence all men come who reach the top today,
Prove once for all that decent education doesn’t pay.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll tell yer first of all wot kind of a cit’zen’e is.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Look here, I should speak first.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Why? I’m as big a crook as you are or bigger.
LEADER: If that doesn’t shut him up, trot out your ignoble ancestry as well.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I say I should speak first.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: No, by Zeus!
PAPHLAGONIAN: By Zeus, yes!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: By Poseidon, no! I’ll fight yer for it first.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I shall burst in a moment!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I won’t never let yer –
LEADER: Oh, please do! Please do let him burst!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Where did you get the audacity to speak in opposition to me?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ’Cos I can talk as well as you, and garnish my speech with the best sauces too.
PAPHLAGONIAN: You can talk, eh? I suppose you can take a case all red and raw, dress it up beautifully and serve it to the jury, yes? You know what? I think you’ve got swelled head. A lot of people get that way. You had some simple little case against a resident foreigner. You burnt the midnight oil over it, you repeated your speech to yourself walking down the street, you took the pledge, you bored your friends stiff with reciting extracts. When the day came you managed to win the case, and now you think you’re an orator. [Shakes his head.] I pity your simplicity.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Taken the pledge, ’ave I? Wot’s your liquor, that makes you able to paralyse every tongue in Athens with one wag of your own?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Who is there that can compare to me? When I’ve had my pickled tunny fish, topped by a gallon of neat wine, I can screw the Generals in Pylos to the wall!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Well, when I’ve gulped dahn a cow’s stomach and a pig’s guts, drunk orf the gravy and not washed me ’ands, I can throttle every politician in tahn, and Nicias too!
LEADER: We’re delighted with your performance so far, but we do hope you don’t intend to slurp down all the national gravy yourself.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Did you ever eat the Milesians’ bass and then put the wind up their arse?31
SAUSAGE-SELLER: No, but I’ll ’ave pleasure in eating a few ribs o’ beef and then buying some juicy mining concessions!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll pounce on the Council and shake them out of their little wits!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll stuff up your arsehole like a sausage-skin!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll grab you by the backside and throw you out of town!
DEMOSTHENES: If you do, you’ll have me to reckon with as well!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll shove you in the stocks unless you yield!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll charge you with desertion in the field!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll stretch your hide, I’ll give you no relief!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll make your skin a wallet for a thief!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll pin you to the ground with iron pegs!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll make bad mincemeat of your arms and legs!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll pluck your eyelashes from out each eye!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll slit your crop, and like a fowl you’ll die!
[They wrestle with each other. Soon the SAUSAGE-SELLER has the PAPHLAGONIAN on the ground.]
DEMOSTHENES [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]:
Yes, prop his cakehole open wide,
His reeking tongue pull out,
And then look very carefully
Beneath his swinish snout,
And while his mouth gapes large and broad
(His arsehole gapes thus ever)
Examine him for little spots
In case he’s got swine-fever.
CHORUS [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]:
O heat than fire yet more intense!
Your speech all speech surpasses
In brazen, barefaced impudence!
Your arrogance first-class is.
Now nothing common do or mean,
But get a throttling grip
And wring his neck; for now you’re seen
To have him on the hip.
LEADER:
Now get in close and smash him up – you’ll find his face turns yellow;
I know him coward through and through, this Paphlagonian fellow.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ’E’s been the same all ’is life. Look wot’ appened when ’e pretended to be a big tough man and went and reaped someone else’s ’arvest.32 Look wot ’e’s done with the ears o’ Spartan corn ’e brought back. ’E’s chained ’em all up and letting ’em parch away till ’e sees an opportunity to make a killing by selling them.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’m not afraid of you, not while the Council Chamber stands and the People sits in assembly! [Aside] With open mouth and empty brainbox.
CHORUS:
How shameless the colour that stays in his face!
Of remorse or repentance there isn’t a trace!
If I do not hate you and wish you were dead,
Then a sheet may I be on Cratinus’s bed!33
And when he’s finished weeing, that very same day
May I sing in the chorus in Morsimus’ play!34
O bee that so often in search of more honey
Alights upon flowers all teeming with money,
I wish that as fast as you suck the cash up
You would puke it all out so the People could sup.
For then would I raise old Simonides’ song,
‘Let’s drink to the triumph’ –of right over wrong!35
And the man that tests the bread,
Who comes of noble line,
Will quickly lose his head
(With the help of potent wine)
And sing ‘Now joy will follow!
No more will he attack us!
All glory to Apollo
And Bacchi-Bacchi-Bacchus!’
PAPHLAGONIAL: I vow that your shamelessness will never surpass mine. If I fail, may I never taste the sacrifices to the God of Public Meetings again!
SAUSAGH-SELLER: And I swear, by all the fists that ’ave pummelled me right since I was a boy, and by all the carving-knives that have ever been brandished at me, overcome you I will. Not for nuffing did I eat gutter scraps for twenty years to grow big and strong like wot I am nah.
PAHLAGONIAN: Gutter scraps? Huh! Dog’s food! And you dare fight, you fool, with a deadly dog-eating monkey like me?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yeah! Monkey business’ been my trade since I was so ’igh. Know’ ow I useter diddle the cooks? I sang out, ‘Look, the spring’s ’ere,’ says I, ‘the swallow’s come, don’t yer see ’im?’ and they all gawped up at the sky, and then I whipped some o’ their meat.
LEADER: I must congratulate you on your foresight about that meat. It’s as true of stolen meat as of stinging nettles – you can only eat ’em before the swallow comes.36
SAUSAGE-SELLER: And o’ course, none on ’em ever saw a thing. Or if they did, I’d just tuck it behind my bollocks and swear by all the gods I knew that I’d never stolen it, not never. Fact I remember there was some politician feller, saw me at it and ’e said, ‘This lad will go far,’ ‘e said,’ “e’ll be the People’s watchdog one day.’
LEADER: Well predicted! And you can see how he knew. Pinch the meat, stuff it up your arse and act the little innocent – how could such an infant prodigy fail to make his mark?
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll stop your tongue yet, and yours too, What’s-your-name. I’ll sweep down upon you like a rushing mighty wind, and throw land, sea and sky into confusion.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Well, in that case I’ll take in sausage and run before the storm, and you can do what you something well like.
DEMOSTHENES: And if there’s a leak, I’ll be there to man the pumps.
PAPHLAGONIAN [drawing a deep breath]: You have embezzled a sum from the Treasury that runs into five figures, and I swear you shall pay for your villainy!
LEADER [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]: Ahoy there, slacken sail! Nor’- easterly gale getting up, blowing straight from Informerland!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: You got sixty thousand drachmas from the Potidaeans, and don’t deny it!37
PAPHLAGONIAN: Would you be prepared to take six thousand to keep quiet about it?
LEADER: I’m sure he would, with pleasure. [To SAUSAGE-SELLER] You can let out a bit more sail now, I think the wind’s dropping.
PAPHLAGONIAN:
I’ll have you fined for bribery
A million drachs, for sure!
No, wait a minute, that’s too light.
One million? Make it four!
SAUSAGE-SELLER:
I’ll ’ave you fined for cowardice
Not less ’n twenny times,
And thahsandfold for robbery
And all yer other crimes!
PAPHLAGONIAN:
Your ancestors were of the race
That bears Athena’s carse!38
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Your grandad was a bodyguard –
SAUSAGE-SELLER: King Happy-arse!39
PAPHLAGONIAN: Monkey!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Villain!
LEADER: Get him now!
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER and DEMOSTHENES, supported by the CHORUS, give the PAPHLAGONIAN a pasting.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: Help! Conspirators! Eeow!
CHORUS: Hit him hard! Let’s see you launch
Punishing punches at his paunch!
[Eventually, the PAPHLAGONIAN being quite black and blue, his attackers desist.]
LEADER:
O choicest meat, O soul of souls the best,
Of Athens and her People saviour blest,
So well you used each skilful verbal ploy
To beat your foe, we scarce can voice our joy.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Don’t think I’m unaware how this conspiracy was built up. I know exactly how it was fixed and who oiled the wheels of it.
LEADER [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]: Quick! Think of some good workshop expressions, or we’re sunk.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: And you needn’t think I’m unaware wot you’re up to with the Argives. You know wot all those little trips of’is to Argos are abaht?’ E says’e’s trying to bring ’em into the war on our side, but all the time ’e’s busy there intriguing with the Spartans. And I know where ’is plot gets its rivets from. The steel will be tempered with them Spartan prisoners we’ve got.
LEADER: Bravo! Tempered steel to match his oily wheels. That’s the stuff!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, and there are Spartans ’elping to ’ammer it aht as well. And not all your silver and gold nor all the threats of those pals of yours is gonna stop me telling the ’ole story to the People.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ve had enough of this. I’m going straight to the Council. I’ll tell them about the whole lot of you and all your anti-Athenian conspiracies. How you hold secret meetings on the Acropolis at night. How you’ve made a deal with the King of Persia. How you’ve been and cooked up a great big Boeotian cheese of a plot40 with the Thebans.
SAUSAGE-SELLER [innocently]: Oh, you know the price of Boeotian cheese, do you? I wonder if you could tell me how much it is?
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll have you flat on my tanning-board yet, I swear. [He storms out.]
LEADER: Now what’s your plan? What do you think you’ll do? Now we’ll see if that story of yours is true, how you stole that meat and hid it behind your bollocks. You’d better dash off to the Council Chamber right away now. You know what he’s going to do – rush in there, scream himself hoarse, and make the most dreadful accusations against all of us.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, I’d best be off. But first of all p’r’aps I ought to get rid of my guts and my carving-knives. [He gives these to some SLAVES who carry them away.]
DEMOSTHENES [who has fetched a bottle of ointment]: Come on now, rub this on your neck, so you’ll be able to slip out of his grip when he tries to throttle you with a lie.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Good idea. Thanks a lot, coach.
DEMOSTHENES: And now, if you’d just eat this piece of garlic.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: What for?
DEMOSTHENES: To make you a real fighting-cock.41
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER eats the garlic.]
On your way, then!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Okay, I’m off.
DEMOSTHENES: Don’t forget, use your teeth and your tongue well, and grab his comb in your beak and gobble up the feathers. See you soon!
[The SAUSAGE-SELLER goes out, and DEMOSTHENES goes into the house.]
CHORUS:
Go your way, and way fortune go with you!
May you fare as I dearly desire!
May the Orators’ Patron protect you,
May Zeus all your speeches inspire!
May you conquer, and then to your followers
A hero triumphant return;
And may your linguistic persuasion
– And now, dear spectators, attend us;
We’ll adopt a professional tone,
For we know that you civilized people
Have courted each Muse on your own.
LEADER [advancing to address the audience]:
No poet of the older generation
Would win from us such keen cooperation
In speaking for him in a comic play
As the young man for whom we speak today.
Our poet’s worthy of this honour great:
He speaks the truth, he hates the men we hate,
He does not shy from danger like a child
But dares the storm and braves the whirlwind wild.
He says that he’s been asked on every side
The reason why he’s not till now applied
To have a Chorus of his own42 and seek
Crowns for himself; on this he’s bid us speak.
He says he wasn’t stupid, but he thought
This job was with more difficulties fraught
Than any other job that mortals do:
Though many court the Muse, she yields to few.
He knew your favour was a fickle jade
And ditched old poets when it saw them fade:
Just look at what old Magnes had to bear
When streaks of white appeared among his hair!
Year after year, till then, he took the crown;
He had no equal, not in all the town.
But though he spoke to you in every voice,
Lute, Lydian, Bird, Fly, Frog43 to suit your choice,
Though in his prime you loved him, when with age
His jokes grew stale, you chucked him off the stage.
Then there’s Cratinus, who in his great days
Flowed o’er the plains in a great flood of praise,
And in his might uprooting every tree,
Oak, plane, competitor, swirled out to sea.
At drinking-parties you would ne’er go wrong
If you could sing his ‘Architects of Song’
Or ‘Bribery-Goddess of the Figwood Shoe’.44
Such was he when he bloomed. Now, shame on you!
He in his dotage babbles round the City,
But on his misery you take no pity.
He’s like a lyre that’s lost its pristine tone:
His pegs have fallen out, his strings are gone;
He’s just like Connas45 with his withered crown;
Half dead, he yearns to gulp a neat draught down.
His former victories would seem to call
At least for drinking rights in the Town Hall,46
And at dramatic feasts it’s only fit
That he should next his Dionysus47 sit.
What wrathful buffets Crates had to bear
For feasting you on inexpensive fare!
But with his clever wit in driest vein
He satisfied you – well, now and again.
He apprehended well your angry side,
And said this proverb to the stage applied:
‘Before you take the helm, first ply the oar;
Then for’ard stand, and study weather-lore;
Then you may steer.’
And this, our poet claims,
Is why he didn’t leap from childish games
Straight to a premature and silly play,
But waited till his moment came today.
So raise every oar
And let’s have a real roar,
A cheer this occasion beseeming;
Let our poet depart
With delight in his heart
And his forehead with victory gleaming.48
CHORUS:
Poseidon, lord of horses,
Thou lov’st the clip-clop beat
Of hooves in war’s encounters,
And neighs to thee are sweet;
And when our black-beaked warships
Remuneration gain, 49
Their swiftness cheers the Ruler
Of all the foaming main.
When in the chariot-races
The victory’s in doubt,
Thou joyest (in particular
If someone tumbles out):
Now, Sovereign of the Dolphins,
Thou God of Sunium great, 50
Lord of the Golden Trident,
Thy Chorus thee await.
Thou art the Son of Cronos
Throned on Geraestus high,
And Phormio 51 loved thee dearly
Whose end makes good folk sigh;
And as things are at present,
All Athens’ people pray:
Poseidon, lord of horses,
Remember us today.
LEADER:
Our fathers that begat us let us with our praises crown,
Men worthy of this land and of Athena’s sacred gown.52
They manned the naval ramparts and the armies of your state,
And, everywhere victorious, they made the City great.
Not one of them would ever count the numbers of the foe,
But breathing fire and brimstone, he would up and at ‘em go.
And if in any fight he chanced upon his arm to fall,
He’d just wipe off the dirt and swear he never fell at all,
Then grapple with the foe once more. And generals were too proud
To beg of Cleon’s father to be dining rights53allowed;
While now, if they don’t get the grub and the front seats they like
At all the big occasions, why, they warn they’ll go on strike!
But we will freely fight for Athens and her gods: no pay
Do we demand, but only grant us this one boon, we pray:
If peace shall come again and we from toil shall be released,
Don’t grudge us our long flowing hair and skin so sleekly greased.
CHORUS:
Pallas our Protectress, guardian
Home of power and home of valour,
Home of poets of true worth:
Come thou hither with our ally
In the chorus and the field,
Victory, who ever with us
Fights our foes and makes them yield.
Come, Athena, now if ever!
Let us now thy glory see!
Now, O Maid and Queen, we pray thee,
Give thy Chorus victory!
LEADER:
We wish to praise (for praise is due) the many valiant deeds
Of derring-do we know about, done by our noble steeds.
Invasions they’ve been through with us and battles by the score;
Yet at their prowess nautical we marvel even more.54
They got their garlic, onions too and drinking-vessels, then
They leaped aboard their transport-ships just like so many men.
They took their oars as we do and they hollered ‘Yo-neigh-ho!
Lay to! Pull harder! What’s all this? Gee up there, make her go!’
They disembarked at Corinth, where the young ones by and by
Went hunting for some fodder when they’d dug a place to lie.
They couldn’t get the grass they like, so crabs they ate instead,
Not just on land – they fished them out right from the water’s bed.
And so a source reliable (Theorus is his name)55
Declares he heard a crab from Corinth to his god exclaim:
‘Poseidon, it’s disgraceful, I’m denied my natural rights!
On land or in the depths of sea, I can’t escape the Knights.’
SCENE ONE: The same.
[The CHORUS are present as before. Enter SAUSAGE-SELLER, garlanded.]
LEADER: Back safe and sound! My dear impetuous friend! How we worried while you were away! Now tell us, tell us, how did the battle in the Council Chamber go?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Why, I’m the All-comers’ Champion of the Council Chamber!
CHORUS [dancing round him]:56
Let’s give three cheers for the man who brings
Such wonderful news and has done great things!
I long to hear your tale unfurled –
To hear it I’d go right round the world!
Take courage, friend, and tell us all
Of everything that did befall –
We’re all excited
And so delighted
That on you we thus can call:
Hail to the champion, hail to the champion… etc.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ’S worth ’earing an’ all. I rushed orf there right be’ind ’im. When I got there, I fahnd ’im ’urling great big thunderbolts o’ words and crushing them dahn monstrous ’ard on the ’eads of the Knights. Gigan’ic rocks o’ words ’e was throwing, specially ’conspirators’, over an’ over again, and they was swallowing it all, listening all intently, you could see the liesweed57 sprahting aht o’ their ears, and they looked ’ot mustard and contracted their brahs like Zeus ’isself. And when I saw ’ow they was being all taken in by ’is lies and trickery, I said, ’Gods of Worthlessness,’ I said, ’Gods of Wool-pulling and Folly and Monkey-business, Protector of the Drunk and Disorderly, and you, O Market Square, wot brought me up from a baby, please give me a nimble tongue, loads of imperdence, an’ a voice to put all men to shame, ’cept meself’. An’ as I was saying that to meself, some pansy bloke or other let orf an enormous fart on my right side, and I bowed low in acceptance of the omen. Then I burst open the swinging gate wiv me backside, opened me mahth wide, took a deep breath and howled, ’Members of the Cahncil! I got lovely noos for you! Ever since the war broke out, I’ve never known sardines be as cheap as wot they are today!’ That took the storm signals orf their faces all right, and they put this crahn on me in token of the good noos I’d brought. Then I said I’d got a secret to tell ’em. ’Know ’ow to get them sardines really dirt cheap? You want to go aht and grab all the bowls in all the shops so no one else’ll be able to take ’em ’ome.’ Oh, such applause yer never ’eard, and they was all looking enraptured at me. But the Paphlagonian, yer see, soon as ’e realized wot was going on, ’e thought quickly wot kind of thing the Cahncil would like best, an’ ’e proposed a motion. ’Gentlemen,’ ’e said, ’it is may opinion that in honour of the good taydings we have just received we should forthwith sacrifayce one hundred oxen to Athena.’ An’ ’ey presto, the Cahncil was all ’is again. Well, I could see this bullshit was going to smother me, so I overbid ’im with two ’undred oxen, and ’wot’s more,’ I said, ’if by tomorrer sardines is an ’undred for an obol, I think as ’ow we should offer one thahsand she-goats to Artemis, the ’Untress.58’ And the ’ole Cahncil did an eyes right and looked ’ungrily at me. An’ ’im, ’e was struck dumb; ’e could do nothing but babble, until the Executive Committee ordered the constables to remove ’im. By nah the Cahncil were all on their feet, shahting’ Sardines! Sardines!’ an ’e, while they was trying to drag ’im away, ’e was begging them to stay and listen a moment. ”Won’t you give audience to the Spartan Ambassador? He is here with peace proposals.’ And with one voice they cried, ’Wot? Peace nah? They must’ve ’eard abaht our cheap sardines. Trying to get their ’ands on ’em, eh? No peace nah, thank you; let the war go on!’ And they shahted to the Executive Committee to close the meeting, and then they rushed orf as fast as they could, jumping over all the bars of the ’ouse. Meantime I slipped orf to the Market Square and bought up all the leeks and coriander leaves they ’ad; so when the Cahncillors came and couldn’t find anything to season their sardines with, I ’ad seasoning to give ’em for nothing. And they was all over me, fussing over me, congratulating me, in fact for an obol’s worth of coriander I’ve got the ’ole Cahncil in me pocket. An’ ’ere I am back.
CHORUS [dancing round him]:
Success, success in every point!
The villain’s nose is out of joint!
We’ve found a villain even deeper,
A crook, a wheedler and a creeper,
Full of every crafty wile,
A man of truly perfect guile!
The contest isn’t over yet; consider means and ends,
But never let yourself forget that we’re your loyal friends!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yer right it’s norrover. I see that Paphlagonian coming. You can feel the groundswell – it’s going to blow a hurricane. ’E Looks like ’e wants to swaller me ’ole. [To the PAPHLAGONIAN, who now enters] Boo! That’s all I care for you and your threats!
PAPHLAGONIAN: If there’s one lie left in my armoury, then if I don’t destroy you may I fall to pieces!
SAUSAGE-SELLER [laughing uproariously]: Oh, I just love that! Ha! ha! ha! Wot marvellous bombast! Fa la la la! [He dances a little jig Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I swear, if I don’t devour you and exterminate you from this land of ours, I shall di-i-ie!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Devour me, will you? May I die if I don’t drink you up, belch you out and burst in the process!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I Swear by the front seat i won at Phlos59-
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Front seat is it now? Oh, I’m looking forward to seeing you very soon sitting in the very back row!
PAPHLAGONIAN: By heaven, I’ll have you in the stocks yet.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Hah very bad-tempered! Wot shall I give did-dums to eat? Wot does baby like best? Real stuffed leather purses?
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll tear your guts out!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll scratch your name off the Town Hall Dining Rights list!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll haul you before Thepeople! Thepeople will see you pay for this!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll ’aul you before The people, and then we’ll see ’oo can throw the most mud!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Thepeople never takes any notice of no-goods like you. Whereas I can spin him round my little finger.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: How convinced you are Thepeople belongs to you!
PAPHLAGONIAN: He does. I’m the only one that knows all his favourite goodies.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, and then ’ow do you feed ’im? Like a bloody baby-farmer. You chew the stuff up yourself, give ’im a tiny tiny little bit, and pop three times as much dahn yer own throat!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Why, I’m such an expert, I can inflate and deflate Thepeople at will.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: That’s nothing – even my prick knows how to do that.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Don’t think, my man, you can get away with your insolence this time like you did in the Council. I shall appeal to Thepeople!
SAUSAGE-SELLER [marching off towards the audience]: Awright. ’Ere, come on, wot’s stopping you? [He realizes that the PAPHLAGONIAN is making for the door of THEPEOPLE’S house, and runs back to the door himself]
PAPHLAGONIAN [knocking violently on the door]: Thepeople! Thepeople! Come outside! Come here!
SAUSAGE-SELLER [pushing him out of the way and knocking himself]: Here, Thepeople! My darling Thepeoplekins! Daddy!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Thepeoplekins! Come here! Thepeople, my one true love! Come outside and see how terribly I’ve been maltreated!
[THEPEOPLE comes out of the house, an old man, scantily and meanly clothed, and in none too good a mood.]
THEPEOPLE: Who’S doing all this shouting? Get away from the door!
[The PAPHLAGONIAN and the SAUSAGE-SELLER retreat a little way]
Look, you’ve ruined this wreath!60 Ah, my dear Paphlagonian!
Who’s been ill-treating you?
PAFHLAGONIAN: I’ve been beaten up – by this fellow and these young men here [indicating the CHORUS] – and all Because of You.
THEPEOPLE: How come?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Because, Thepeople, I Love You, I truly Do.
THEPEOPLE [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]: And who are you?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I am also your lover. I’ve loved you for a long time and wanted to ’elp you, and so ’ave many other honest folk too, but this one won’t let us. Come to think of it, sir, you treat your lovers just like the young boys do. You turn away all the fine upstanding men and give yourself to the lamp merchants61 and shoemakers and cobblers and most of all the tanners.
PAPHLAGONIAN: That’s because I do good to Thepeople.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Like ’ow?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Like when I sailed round to Pylos, Crept up on the General there and brought the Spartans home myself.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I can do that sorter thing just as well. Like the time I went rahnd to the back of a shop and pinched a pot of soup someone else had cooked.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I propose, Thepeople, that you should immediately call an Assembly and decide which of us more truly loves you, and then you can love, honour and obey the winner for ever!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Good idea! Good idea! Only don’t hold it on the Pnyx
THEPEOPLE: I will sit nowhere else. Forward to the Pnyx, everyone! [All come forward. Slaves bring in two or three long benches, on one of which THEPEOPLE takes his seat.]
SAUSAGE-SELLER [aside]: Help, I’m lost! At ’ome the old man’s perfectly intelligent, but just put ’im on top of that ’ill an’ ’e gawps as if ’e was trying to catch a fig in ’is mahth!
CHORUS:
Your sails must all be set,
Your spirit must be bold,
Your words must all strike home
And lay your rival cold.
But since from any jam
He’s apt to tunnel out,
You’d better gird your loins
For battle long and stout.
LEADER: Watch, and before his onslaught comes prepare to strike your foe; Your leaden dolphin hoist on high,62 then close and let it go!
PAPHLAGONIAN: First I pray to Lady Athena who watches over our City, that if I perform of all men the most valuable services for the People of Athens – of all men, that is, except Lysicles,63 and all women except Cynna and Salabaccho – then may I continue to enjoy my dining rights in the Town Hall for doing absolutely nothing. But if I hate you, Thepeople, and am not your sole champion and defender, then may I perish and be chopped into pieces to be used as yokestraps!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: And I, Thepeople, if I don’t love and cherish you, may I be cut up into mincemeat for boiling. And if that’s not good enough for you, may I be grated into a cheese salad on my own table, and dragged by the bollocks on my own meathook all the way to the Potters’ Quarter!
PAPHLAGONIAN: How could anybody love you more, Thepeople, than I do? Remember when I was on the Council? Didn’t I fill your Treasury full? I’d rack and throttle and extort – I didn’t care a fig for the rights of the individual, so long as I pleased you.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Nothing so marvellous abaht that, Thepeople; I can do just the same. I can pinch any number o’ loaves of bread and serve them up to you on a plate. Meantime I’d just like to prove to you that ’e don’t really love you or care for you at all, ’cept that ’e likes sitting in front of your fire. You defended yer country against the Medes at Marathon, and you was victorious, and every year since we’ve been minting new speeches abaht yer courage and yer glory. But does ’e take pity on you sitting there on them hard benches? Not a bit of it! Whereas I [he takes a cushion from a SLAVE who has unobtrusively brought it in] ’ave made this specially for you. If you’d just get up for a moment [THEPEOPLE does so] and then sit dahn gently. You mustn’t rub yer Salamis battle-scars,64 yer know.
THEPEOPLE [settling gently into the cushion]: Mmm! Who are you, my man? Not a descendant of Harmodius the Liberator,65 by any chance? That was a truly noble act of yours. You are indeed a lover of Thepeople.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Is that your way of showing you love him, these petty little suckings up?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Norralf as petty as the baits you’ve dangled for ’im an’’ooked ’im with.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I tell you – if there’s ever been a greater friend or defender of Thepeople than I am – I’m willing to eat my head!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Friend of the People, indeed! You wot’s seen ’ow they’ve lived these last seven years in tubs and turrets and birds’ nests,66 an’ ’ad no pity on them, but kept the ’ive locked so you could pinch the ’oney? What ’appened when Archeptolemus came with noos of a peace offer? You threw it to the winds, and the Spartan envoys, wot ’ad come begging on their knees for peace, you kicked ∑em clean out of the City!
PAPHLAGONIAN: So that you, Thepeople, could fulfil your manifest destiny and rule over all Greece. There is an oracle that if Thepeople does not flag or fail, he will one day try cases in Arcadia at five obols a time.67’ But be that as it may, I will nourish you and protect you, and ensure, by fair means or foul, that you get your jury pay.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Huh! Rule over Arcadia! That’s all balls; wot ’e wants is to be able to plunder and peculate every city in greece, while you, Thepeople, with all the mud the war throws in yer eyes, can’t see wot ’e’s getting up to, so’s you just go on gawping at ’im, ’alf because you can’t ’elp it an’ ’alf because ’e’s your paymaster. If ever you go ’ome to live in peace in the country and get back to munching your toasties and negotiating your pressed olives, then you’ll realize just ’ow much ’e’s been cheating you aht of while ’e’s been fobbing you off with that three obols of jury pay. then you’ll be a furious ’ound ’ot on ’is trail, clutching yer ’guilty’ vote between yer teeth. That’s why ’e keeps deceiving you and making up all these dreams and oracles and wotnot abaht ’isself.
PAPHLAGONIAN: It is nothing short of outrageous for you to utter these disgraceful slanders against me in the presence of the entire People! i have done more good for the City than the great Themistocles, by Demeter, ever did!68
SAUSAGE-SELLER: O Argive city, hear’st these words?69 What? you set yerself up against Themistocles? ’E fahnd the City ’alf full, and filled her to overflowing, and wot’s more coupled on the Peiraeus as well. ’E didn’t take anything away from the City, ’e added more to it. But you, with your blessed oracles and your internal walls,70 you’ve been trying to make us all into parish-pump citizens, you great rival of Themistocles. An’ ’e ended up in exile, while you wipe yer fingers on top-grade Tahn ’All bread!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I repeat, Thepeople, is it not outrageous that this fellow should speak of me in this way simply because I love you?
THEPEOPLE [to PAPHLAGONIAN]: Quiet, you! no more slanging. How long have you been carrying on your fiddles without my knowing?
SAUSAGE-SELLER:
Yes, while you gawp, Thepeople sweet,
He shows himself a first-class cheat;
On magistrates’ accounting-day?71
He whips the juiciest stalks away
And wolfs the whole lot down himself;
What’s more, he swipes Thepeople’s pelf.
PAPHLAGONIAN: You’ll not get away with this, I vow! I’ll nail you yet, and convict you of stealing thirty thousand drachmas.’
SAUSAGE-SELLER:
Why beat the sea with futile blade?
You chose to ply the robber’s trade.
Now may the gods my death prescribe
If I don’t prove you’ve had a bribe
From Mytilene to the east
Of forty thousand drachs at least.
CHORUS:
Oh saviour of mankind,
My tongue of yours shall sing.
If you press on this way,
Of Greece you’ll be the king.
The City you will rule,
You’ll make our allies quake,
And with your trident’s power
A pile of cash you’ll make.
LEADER:
Now that you’ve got a hold on him, make sure he don’t slip free; Your muscles are so strong, you’ll win an easy victory!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Not so, by Poseidon, not yet! I have wrought an exploit that will shut the mouth of each and every one of my enemies till the end of time, so long as one of the captured shields from Pylos remains.
SAUSAGB-SELLER: Whoa! The shields! That’s your weak spot. If you really love Thepeople, would yer be so good as to explain why you ’ave wilfully and maliciously arranged for them to be ’ung up with their ’andles on? It’s a plot, Thepeople, a plot, to make sure that if you ever want to punish this blighter for ’is wicked deeds, yer won’t be able to. ’E’s got an ’ole battalion of young tanners at ’is beck and call, an’ the honey and cheese merchants in the next street; and they’ve put their ’eads together and decided that if you should ever start getting stroppy with ’im and itching to play a little game of ostracizing,72 all they’ll do is run dahn to the Painted Portico, grab all those shields and occupy your lifeline73 till they’ve starved you aht!
THEPEOPLE: Bless me, I never knew they had handles! You swine! You deceiver of Thepeople! All that time you’ve been gulling me!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Now, my dear Thepeople, do beware of being the slave of the last word! Don’t imagine you’ll ever find a more faithful friend and watchdog than me. All on my own I’ve foiled every plot and conspiracy against you, and nothing that’s hatched in the City ever escapes me; I bark instantly.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, you’re just like an eel-fisher, you are. When the lake’s smooth and clear, they never catch nothing; but when they stir up the mud a bit, up come the eels. An’ it’s the same with you – you can only make a killing by stirring up confusion in the City. Just tell me this. You sell I don’t know how many pairs of shoes every day. ’Ave you ever given Thepeople a single scrap of leather for ’is shoes, you who say you love him so?
THEPEOPLE: I can tell you, he hasn’t.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: So nah yer see wot ’e’s like. [Signals to a SLAVE who brings him a pair of shoes.]But I, I’ve bought you a lovely new pair of shoes to wear, and ’ere they are.
THEPEOPLE[putting the shoes on]: I really must say you’re the best friend I can ever remember Thepeople having. Such loving care for the City and for my poor cold little tootsies!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Disgraceful! That you should be swayed by a mere pair of shoes and forget all the services I’ve performed for you!
Didn’t I put a stop to buggery by striking Grypus off the roll of citizens?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Nah, it was disgraceful of you to ’ave such an un’ealthy interest in people’s arses and buggery and that. Anyway, you only put a stop to it because you was frightened the boys would all become politicians like you did. But you didn’t do nothing for Thepeople here. At ’is age, without even a tunic! You never gave ’im one, not even in winter. But now I ’ave come, and I nah give you this. [Takes a sleeved tunic from a slave, and gives it to
THEPEOPLE[fingering the tunic]: Even Themistocles never thought of that. That Peiraeus idea was a clever one, I admit, but really, for my money, this tunic is the greatest boon that’s ever been conferred on Thepeople of Athens!
PAPHLAGONIAN: More bloody monkey tricks!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Not a bit of it. If a man can put on someone else’s slippers at a party when ’e wants to go and crap, why can’t I use your methods?
PAPHLAGONIAN: You’ll never outdo me in the toadying line. [A SLAVE hands him a leather jacket.] I’m going to put this on him with my own hands and you can go and eat coke!
THEPEOPLE [Trying to wriggle out of the jacket]: Yecch! This leather stinks to high heaven. Take it to hell and stay there!
SAUSAGE-SELLER [rescuing him from the jacket and discarding it]: Yer see, ’e did that deliberately to suffocate you. ’E’s tried it on before. Remember when the price of silphium came dahn?
THEPEOPLE: Yes.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: That was a trick of ’is too. ’E wanted you to buy lots of it and eat it, then start farting when you were sitting on the jury and kill each other with the fumes!
THEPEOPLE: Ah yes, I remember, I heard about that from old Dephaecatus.74
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Turned yer all blond at the wrong end, di’n’ it?
THEPEOPLE: Just the sort of trick Blondie here [meaning the PAPHLAGONIAN] would get up to.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Any more of your stupid buffoonery and I’ll –
SAUSAGE-SELLER: It’s Athena’s will that I’m to ahtmatch you in talking balls!
PAPHLAGONIAN: You’ll never outmatch me! Thepeople, I promise to provide you with a whole bowlful of jury pay to guzzle every day, and you needn’t do anything for it at all!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll give you a little box with ointment in, so you can soothe the sores on your legs!
PAPHLAGONIAN: I’ll pluck out your grey hairs and make you young again!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Look, take this hare’s tail to wipe your eyes with!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Blow your nose, Thepeople, and use my head to wipe your hands! [He kneels in front of THEPEOPLE, who begins to blow his nose.]
SAUSAGE-SELLER [elbowing the PAPHLAGONIAN out of the way]: No, use mine!
PAPHLAGONIAN [vice versa]: No, mine!
[THEPEOPLE, who has been somewhat inconvenienced by this altercation, eventually grabs the PAPHLAGONIAN by one ear and rubs the products of his nose-blowing into his eyes.]
PAPHLAGONIAN [half blind]: Blast your eyes!
I’ll make you captain of an old
And leaky man-o’-war,
On mending and rebuilding which
You’ll fork out more and more.
And when she’s fit (if e’er she is)
To put to sea at last,
I’ll see the sail’s so rotten that
It falls right off the mast!”75
CHORUS:
The pot is boiling over! Quick,
Some faggots take away!
And from the cauldron let’s fish out
The threats in what you say!
[The LEADER lifts the SAUSAGE-SELLER’S meathook threateningly towards the PAPHLAGONIAN.]
PAPHLAGONIAN:
I’ll see the weight of tax on you
Split open wide your arse –
I’ll make damn sure you’re registered
Within the surtax class!
SAUSAGE-SELLER:76
No threats I make, but I
Call down this imprecation:
When cuttlefish you have
In sizzling preparation,
O may the Milesians that day
Preparing be to pay
Six thousand drachs
All free of tax
Which you will pocket away.
(Miletus had said, you see,
‘This sum your reward will be,
If you can in
The Assembly win
The vote on this decree.’)77
So may you eager be
The cuttlefish to swallow,
And dashing to the Pnyx
Ensure success will follow;
Then may a political mate
Come warning that you’re late,
So that in panic mood
You gulp down the food
And thus you suffocate!
CHORUS:
It simply could not be worse!
Oh, what a marvellous curse!
To choke him of air!
By Zeus I swear
I ne’er heard such a curse!
THEPEOPLE: Neither did I. And in every other way too he seems to me to be a truly good citizen, a man of unmatched goodwill towards the bought masses of the people. I mean the broad masses of the people. And you [to the PAPHLAGONIAN], you always claimed to love me, and all the time you were treating me no better than a fighting cock. Give me back my ring; you will no longer be my steward.
PAPHLAGONIAN [handing over the ring]: Here it is. But I warn you, if you won’t have me as your steward, you’ll find my successor a far greater villain.
THEPEOPLE: Here, this isn’t my ring! At least the seal looks different. Or is it just my eyesight? Here, have a look. [He gives the ring to the SAUSAGE-SELLER.]
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Lessee… Wot did yer ’ave on yours?
THEPEOPLE: A baked election bean sandwich.78
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Can’t see that ’ere.
THEPEOPLE: What’s there, then?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: An open-mahthed shark79 on a platform, making a speech.
THEPEOPLE: Ugh!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Woss wrong?
THEPEOPLE: Get rid of it! Take it away! It’s not mine, it’s Cleonymus’s!80 [Taking another ring from his finger] No, this is my real ring. Take it and be my steward.
PAPHLAGONIAN [flinging himself at THEPEOPLE’s feet]: Not yet dear master, I beg of you! Don’t take such a step before you’ve heard my oracles!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Wot abaht mine?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Huh! If you listen to him you’ll end up turned into a bottle!81
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Well, if yer listen to ’im, ’e’ll make you the biggest, reddest cock-up that ever said ‘excuse me’!
PAPHLAGONIAN: My oracles say, master, that you are destined to rule the whole earth and be crowned with roses!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: And mine say as ’ow you’ll ’ave a golden crahn an’ a jewelled purple robe, and ride in a golden chariot to court to prosecute Smicythes’ – husband!82
PAPHLAGONIAN: All right then, go and get your oracles, so master can hear them.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Sure. And you do the same.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Right.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Right.
[Both rush into the house; they collide at the door.]
’Ere, wot’s stopping you?
[The PAPHLAGONIAN replies only with a furious gesture; both go into the house.]
CHORUS:83
How joyful is the day
When we are saved from danger,
From him who traps for prey
Both citizens and stranger!
For everyone that’s here,
One thing they’ll all agree on:
They’ll greet with cheer on cheer
The overthrow of Cleon!
They’ll greet with cheer on cheer
The overthrow of Cleon!
Down where the suits are sold
(The ‘suits’ they sell are legal)
I heard a juror old
Defend that tanner regal:
‘If e’er the Knightly band
Should burst the Cleon bubble,
’Twould ruin all the land –
The damage would be double –
We’d lose our pestle and
Our stirrer-up of trouble!’
His musical training’s a marvellous tale,
For at school all his comrades aver,
As a lyre-player always in majors he’d fail
And the minor modes ever prefer.
At length from the school-house the master irate
Expelled that ineffable swine:
‘Only thieves love the minors’ that teacher would state,
‘’Cos they think ”I’ll make everything mine” !’84
[The door bursts open; stuck in the doorway are the PAPHLAGONIAN and the SAUSAGE-SELLER, each carrying a vast load of scrolls containing oracles. Eventually they disentangle themselves and rush to take their places before THEPEOPLE. The PAPHLAGONIAN wins by a short head.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: Look, look, here they are! And this isn’t the lot by a long chalk.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: This load’s bursting me bowels, and it’s not all by a long chalk eiver.
THEPEOPLE: What is all this stuff?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Why, oracles.
THEPEOPLE: What, all that lot?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Surprised? Let me tell you, I’ve a wardrobe full of them inside.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Thass nothing. I’ve got a loft and two cellars crammed full of’em.
THEPEOPLE: Tell me, from whom do these oracles come?
PAPHLAGONIAN: Mine are from Bakis.85
THEPEOPLE [to SAUSAGE-SELLER]: And yours?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Were given by Frontis, wot’s Bakis’s elder bruvver.
THEPEOPLE [to PAPHLAGONIAN]: Your oracles, what are they about?
PAPHLAGONIAN: All sorts of things: Athens, Pylos, you, me, everything.
THEPEOPLE: And yours?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: All sorts o’ things: Athens, lentil soup, Sparta, fresh mackerel, dealers wot give short measure of barley, you, me –
[THE PAPHLAGONIAN is showing signs of restiveness.]
Oh, go and suck yourself!
THEPEOPLE: Now please read them to me. And don’t forget that one I really love about myself, that I’m going to become an eagle in the clouds.86
PAPHLAGONIAN: Now listen to me. [Clears his throat and recites] Son of Erechthus, mark you the path of the words that Apollo Spoke from his inaccessible shrine through his glorious Tripods: Never abandon The Dog,87 the jag-toothed and holy, but keep him;
He ’tis that barketh before you and for you so fearfully howleth;
He ’tis that getteth your pay (if he getteth it not, then he’s done for, Since that full many a jackdaw is croaking in hatred against him).
THEPEOPLE: I’m sorry, but I can’t make head or tail of that. What on earth have Erechtheus, jackdaws and dogs got to do with each other?
PAPHLAGONIAN: The Dog, that’s me, because I always bark on your behalf. And Apollo says that you’re to keep me and never abandon me.
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Thass not wot it means at all. This Dog, as ’e calls ’isself, is just nibbling orf a bit of the oracles like it was a door.’E’s taking it aht of context. I’ve got the right oracle ’ere abaht that dog.
THEPEOPLE: All right, you tell me yours. But I’d better get a stone, in case the oracle bites me.
SAUSAGE-SELLER [unrolling his oracle]:
Son of Erechtheus, mark you this canine Cerberus-pirate,
Who when you dine stands fawning and wagging his tail, watching closely,
Till, when you gawp to the right or the left, he snaps up your entrée;
Then in the darkness of night he goes doglike, unseen, to the kitchen,
Then he licks clean every plate, and then he licks clean every island.88
THEPEOPLE: Give me Frontis every time!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Listen to this before you make up your mind.
There is a woman shall bring forth a lion in Athens’ fair city,
Lion who’ll fight for Thepeople with myrmidon hordes of mosquitoes,
Just as if you were his cubs. This lion protect thou and cherish,
Building a great wooden wall and raising great towers of iron.
Get that?
THEPEOPLE: Can’t say I do.
PAPHLAGONIAN: The god says you must protect and cherish me. Don’t I have a truly leonine nature?
THEPEOPLE: Well, I must admit you’re more than a bit like Leon.89
SAUSAGE-SELLER: One thing ’e’s not explained. ’E don’t say wot that wooden wall the oracle mentioned, that you should protect ’im with, wot it is.
THEPEOPLE: Well, what did the god mean by it?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ’E meant you should keep ’im in a wooden wall with five ’oles in it – two for ’is feet, two for ’is ’ands and one for ’is ’ead!90
THE PEOPLE: I’ve a good mind to get that one fulfilled!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Do not believe him; the crows all around me are jealously croaking.
Love and remember your Hawk, who brought you the rāvenous Spartans
Bound in fetters –
SAUSAGE-SELLER: A risk that he’d never have taken if sober. Foolish son of old Cecrops, why think that a mighty achievement? Even a woman a burden can bear, if a man puts it on her, But she can’t fight; when the spears start hitan', she promptly starts shittin’.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Heed what the god once declared:
‘There is Pylos on Pylos in plenty, Pylos on Pylos on Pylos’91 –
THEPEOPLE [interrupting]: What the hell is this ’Pylos on Pylos’?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: ‘E’s thinking of ’ow ’e’s going to make ’is pile by stealing all the tubs in the public baths.92
THEPEOPLE: You mean he’s going to force me to just stay dirty?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Yerss, ’e’s cheating Thepeople so’s ’e can make ’is pile. But listen, I’ve got a very important oracle ’ere abaht the Navy. Nah pay very close attention.
THEPEOPLE: I will. And start off by telling me when the sailors are going to get their back pay.
SAUSAGE-SELLER:
Son of Aegeus, beware of the Dog (or the Fox) who deceives thee, Swift-footed sneaker, the sly and resourceful and cunning embezzler. Know what that means?
THEPEOPLE: ‘The Dog or the Fox…’ That’s Philostratus, ain’t it?93
SAUSAGE-SELLER: No, no, no – it’s ’im again! ’E’s always askin’ for more warships to go rahnd collecting tribute, and wot Apollo is saying is, don’t give ’im them.
THEPEOPLE: But what has a warship got to do with a dog or a fox?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Well, a dog runs fast, so does a warship, right?
THEPEOPLE: Yes, but where does the fox come into it?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: The foxes are our soldiers. Yer know how they both eat all the grapes in everyone’s vineyard?
THEPEOPLE: Ah, I get it! But as I said a moment ago, where’s these foxes’ pay going to come from?
SAUSAGE-SELLER: Leave that to me; I’ll do it in three days, see if I don’t!
Listen again to the oracle wherein Apollo commands thee Shun Cyllene,94 the Harbour of Palms, for fear it beguile thee.
THEPEOPLE: What is this Harbour of Palms?
SAUSAGE-SELLER:
He speaks of this fellow, and rightly;
Does he not always say ’Cross my palm with a purseful of silver’?
PAPHLAGONIAN: No, that’s not what it means; any palm mentioned in an oracle can only refer to Diopeithes.95; But listen to what I’ve got here! This oracle has wings! ’Know that an eagle you’ll be and the whole earth govern unchallenged!’
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ve got one too. ’Know that you’ll govern the earth, and the Red Sea into the bargain; and in Ecbatana cases you’ll try, munching cakes as you try them!’
PAPHLAGONIAN [casting his oracles aside]: I have had a dream! I saw Athena herself holding a cornucopia, and ladling out health and wealth in profusion upon Thepeople!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ve ’ad a dream as well! I saw Athena coming aht from the Acropolis, with ’er owl on ’er shoulder an’ ’er bucket in ’er ’and, and from that she poured ambrosia on yer ’ead and tanner’s brine on ’is!
THEPEOPLE: Bravo! I vote Fronds the wisest seer who ever lived! [To SAUSAGE-SELLER] I commit myself to your care. Be my guardian and guide. Re-educate me.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Not yet, not yet, please! Just wait a moment and I’ll give your your daily barley bread.
THEPEOPLE: I’ve had enough of your barley. You and Thuphanes96 have done me too often over those so-called free distributions.
PAPHLAGONIAN: But I’ll give you the flour all finely milled!
SAUSAGE-SELLER: I’ll give you the cakes ready made, with baked savouries to taste. All you need to do is eat ’em.
THEPEOPLE: All right, be off and get on with it. And whichever of you makes me the best meal, I’ll make him King of the Pnyx!
PAPHLAGONIAN [running off towards the house]: I’ll be the first inside, then.
SAUSAGE-SELLER [running after him]: That’s what you think! [He catches up with him at the door, shoves him aside-and goes in; the PAPHLAGOANIAN follows.]
CHORUS:
Thepeople’s power’s a glorious thing;
All nations fear him like a king.
Yet he’s an easy one to cheat,
A prey to flattery and deceit.
He sides agawp with every speaker;
There’s none who has convictions weaker.
If he has got a brain, I’d say
It always is on holiday.
THEPEOPLE:
My brain’s all right; it’s your long hair
That hides a mind that isn’t there!
I just affect simplicity;
I like to suck my thumb, you see.
I make a politician fat –
I let him cheat and steal and that –
And when he’s full, I cease to clown
And get me up and strike him down.
CHORUS:
Ah, now I see your cunning ways!
Your cleverness deserves all praise.
Of purpose set you feed the beasts
Like victims for the public feasts,
And then whene’er you’re shot of meat
You choose the one you want to eat,
You kill the fatted calf or swine
And on a politician dine!
THEPEOPLE:
Those crafty chaps that think they’re clever,
Be sure that they outwit me never.
I watch them closer than they know
While on their thieving way they go;
And then I make them all in pain
Regurgitate their ill-won gain!
I stick a funnel down their throats –
The funnel where we cast our votes!97
[The PAPHLAGONIAN and the SAUSAGE–SELLER come out at the same moment, and collide in the doorway.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: Get the hell out of my way!
SAUSAGE–SELLER: You get aht of my way, you carcass!
PAPHLAGONIAN [rushing to where THEPEOPLE is sitting]: Oh, Thepeople, I’ve been sitting here ready and waiting to minister to all your needs for ever so long.
SAUSAGE–SELLER [rushing to his place]: I’ve been waiting ever-ever- ever so long-long-long-long-long! I couldn’t tell you how long!
THEPEOPLE: Well, I’ve been waiting too, ever–ever–ever–ever so long–long–long–long–long–long, and I’m bloody fed up with the both of you.
SAUSAGE–SELLER: Know wot you oughter do?
THEPEOPLE: I will if you tell me.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Look, ’ere’s our starting line, right? You be the starter and give us the signal, together, so we can minister to you on level terms, see?
THEPEOPLE: Good idea. Are you ready?
| PAPHLAGONIAN | |
[crouching as at the start of a race]: Yes! |
| SAUSAGE-SELLER |
THEPEOPLE: GO!
[They run towards the house.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER: Here, you, stop cutting in on me!
[He and the PAPHLAGONIAN disappear into the house.]
THEPEOPLE: Well, I must say, if having two lovers like this isn’t going to make me happy, I don’t know what is.
PAPHLAGONIAN [returning with a chair]: Look, I’m first. I’ve got this for you.
SAUSAGE–SELLER[entering with a table]: He hasn’t brought you this, though; I win this round.
[Both rush back into the house and return with enormous hampers.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: I bring you here a beautiful little cake made of sacred barley from Pylos.
SAUSAGE–SELLER And I bring you these pieces of bread soaked in soup by Athena ’erself with ’er ivory ’and.’98
THEPEOPLE: Oh, Athena, what a big finger you’ve got!
PAPHLAGONIAN: What about this? Lovely green pea soup, and Athena stirred it, Athena the Conqueror of Pylos.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Oh, Thepeople, ’ow true it is that the ’Oly Maid watches over you! Look ’ow she stretches forth ’er ’and to protect you, with a bowl full o’ soup in it!
THEPEOPLE: Yes, if Athena didn’t pour her soup over us, there’d be no Athens today. [He begins to tuck into the soup.]
PAPHLAGONIAN: Here is a slice of fish, given you by the Striker of Terror.
SAUSAGE–SELLER And here’s the meat boiled with the soup, from the Daughter of the Almighty Father. And a special cut of tripe, second, third and fourth stomach all in one!
THEPEOPLE [indistinctly]: Good for her, to remember all the tripods we dedicate.99
PAPHLAGONIAN: The Lady of the Dreaded Crest bids you make good use of this gravy boat. She says if you do, she’ll bless the real Navy.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Ah, but take these!
THEPEOPLE: Ribs of beef? What am I supposed to do with them?
SAUSAGE–SELLER For the ribs of yer warships, of course. That’s why Athena sent you them. Don’t you see ’ow lovingly she watches over the Navy? Look, ’ere’s wine. [Pours.] Special mixture, forty per cent strength.
THEPEOPLE [drinking]: Marvellous! How sweet – you’d never know it was sixty per cent water. Who made this wine?
SAUSAGE–SELLER It was made by the Maid herself.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Here, take a slice of this lovely rich cake.
SAUSAGE–SELLER A slice, eh? ’Ere’s an ’ole cake.
PAPHLAGONIAN: But I bet you haven’t got any hare’s meat you can give Thepeople; I have. Look! [He brings a dish of jugged hare out of his hamper.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER [to himself]: ’Elp! Where can I get some ’are from? [Scratches his head.] Come on, brain, think of something to fool ’im.
PAPHLAGONIAN [displaying the dish]: Ha, ha, poor fellow, what do you think of this?
SAUSAGE–SELLER: I couldn’t care less. [Suddenly pointing off.]Look, I can see somebody coming!
PAPHLAGONIAN: Who, who?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Ambassadors from somewhere – with enormous purses full of money.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Where, where? Quick! [He puts down the dish and runs in the direction indicated by the SAUSAGE–SELLER.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER What business is that of yours? Leave the men alone. Look, Thepeoplekins, ’ere’s lovely jugged ’are for you.
PAPHLAGONIAN [returning empty–handed]: Swine! You’ve stolen my hare!
SAUSAGE–SELLER Look ’oo’s talking. ’Oo stole the credit for Pylos?
THEPEOPLE [who is thoroughly enjoying the hare]: Tell me, I would like to know, how did you get the idea of pinching it like that?
SAUSAGE–SELLER: ‘The idea was Pallas’, but the pinching mine.’100
PAPHLAGONIAN: And I took all the risks of catching the beast! And I cooked it! [Stamps in impotent rage, and bursts into tears.]
THEPEOPLE: Away with you! To the waiter belongs the tip.
PAPHLAGONIAN: I can’t believe it! I’ve been outdone in shameless–ness! [He retires to lick his wounds.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER Well, Thepeople, isn’t it time nah to give judgement, like, on which of us two is more devoted to you, or should I say to yer tum–tum?
THEPEOPLE: Yes, but what evidence should I use? I’ve got to prove to the audience that I judged sensibly.
SAUSAGE–SELLER I’ll tell you. Go and take a quiet look at my ’amper, and see wot’s in it, and then do the same with ’is. Then you’ll be able to give the right verdict all right.
THEPEOPLE [opening the SAUSAGE–SELLER’S hamper]: Let’s see now, what have we here?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Doncher see, daddy? it’s empty. I gave everything in it to you.
THEPEOPLE: This basket is on the side of Thepeople all right!
SAUSAGE–SELLER Nah come over ’ere and look at ’is. Wot do you see?
THEPEOPLE [opening the PAPHLAGONIAN’S hamper]: Good heavens, it’s chock full of goodies! Look at all those cakes he’s stashed away, and he just gave me a tiny tiny slice, no bigger than this! [Demonstrates with his fingers.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER ’At’s wot ’e’s always done to you, Thepeople. Gives you a tiny slice of ’is takings, and puts by all the rest for ’isself
THEPEOPLE [seizing the PAPHLAGONIAN and shaking him almost senseless]: You unutterable villain! So you’ve been hoodwinking me all the time! And ’twas I that did croon ye and gift ye sae mickle!”101
PAPHLAGONIAN: Whatever I stole was for the good of the City.
THEPEOPLE: Come on, off with your crown. This man deserves it better.
SAUSAGE–SELLER You ’eard ’im, no–good. Off with it,
PAPHLAGONIAN [shaking himself free]: No, I won’t! There is a Delphic oracle about me that declares there is but one man in the world that can oust me.
SAUSAGE–SELLER It’ll be me, you’ll see.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Evidence. I’ll cross–examine you and see if you match up with the oracle’s requirements. First of all, then, answer me this. [Clears his throat]When you were a boy, where did you go to school?
SAUSAGE–SELLER The singeing–’ouse, ’cept they only taught with their fists.
PAPHLAGONIAN: What did you say? [Aside]The oracle’s very words! [To SAUSAGE–SELLER] Well, then: your gymnastic lessons, what did they consist in?
SAUSAGE–SELLER ’Ow to look someone straight in the eye and say I ’adn’t never stolen a thing.
PAPHLAGONIAN [aside]: Phoebus Apollo, what dost thou to me? [To SAUSAGE–SELLER] When you grew up, what was your profession?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Selling sausages – oh yes, and a little male prostitution on the side.
PAPHLAGONIAN [aside]: Oh, woe is me, I’m finished, I’m no more! Ah, but there’s still one ray of hope that’s left. [To SAUSAGE–SELLER] Tell me just this: where did you sell your sausages? In the Market Square, or at the City gates?
SAUSAGB–SELLBR: At the gates, next to the salt–fish stalls.
PAPHLAGONIAN: Aaah! It’s all fulfilled! Take me within, most wretched as I am!’102 [Removes his garland.]Farewell, my crown. I don’t want to part from you, but I must. Now another must possess you – never a greater thief, but just more lucky.103’ Aaah! [He falls insensible.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER Zeus, Lord of Greece, thou ’ast conquered! [He takes the garland from the ground and sets it on his head.]
DEMOSTHENES [appearing at the window of the house]: Congratulations, my friend and saviour! Don’t forget, will you, that it was me that made you great. I don’t ask for a great reward: only to be allowed to sign your writs, like Phanus did your rival’s.104 [The SAUSAGE–SELLER nods and waves his agreement, and DEMOSTHENES disappears.]
THEPEOPLE: And now I Think it’s time you told me your name.
SAUSAGE–SELLER My name’s Agoracritus, ‘The Market ’Aggler’. Since boy’ood I’ve lived by ’aggling in the Market Square.
THEPEOPLE: Well, then, Agoracritus, I entrust myself to you, and I commit this Paphlagonian also [kicking the PAPHLAGONIAN] to your loving care.
SAUSAGE–SELLER I’ll cherish you and nourish you, Thepeople, so well you’ll swear you’ve never known a man who was a greater benefactor to the City of Gawpers. [Leads THEPEOPLE into his house; the PAPHLAGONIAN remains on the ground.]
CHORUS:
What fairer way to start a song,
What fairer way to end,
Than when the Knights from horses swift
In harmony descend
And sing not of Lysistratus105
Nor persecute Thumantis,
Who never eats, Apollo knows,
Whose raiment very scant is?
At Delphi he grasps the sacred quiver
With many a tear and many a shiver
And begs the god for milk and honey
Or at any rate for a little money!
LEADER:
If we upbraid the wicked, it should be begrudged by none;
If reasonably you look at it, it’s just what should be done.
Now if the man who of my words must feel the pointed end
Himself were quite well known, then never would I name a friend
In Company with him; but as it is, I Must. You All
Know Arignotus, if you know true men from lyres106 at all.
A brother Arignotus has, in morals unrelated:
Ariphrades the wicked he, with evil never sated.
He isn’t just a villain, for that’s common nowadays,
Nor yet a super-villain – he has new unheard–of ways.
He prostitutes his tongue: in black and white to put it down,
He cunnilingus practises on all the whores in town
(Soiling his chin) and pokes their fires in unapproved–of style;
He acts just like Oeonichus or Polymnestus vile.
Whoever loathes not such a man or holds he doesn’t stink
shall never from one cup with me at any party drink.
CHORUS:
When in the night my thoughts roam free,
There’s one thing always beats
My comprehension, viz. to wit,
Just how Cleonymus107 eats.
He grazes on the rich men’s boards
And never lets them be,
So when they see their larders bare
They beg on bended knee:
’We pray thee, Lord, depart this place!
Oh, show thy mercy, show thy grace!
We beg thee, beg thee, go away,
And spare our table now, we pray!’
LEADER:
Not long ago the warships held a meeting, as we’re told,
And first to speak rose up a ship most dignified and old:
‘Girls, have you heard the rumour? That a hundred ships or so
Against the Carthaginians are being urged to go?
Hyperbolus108 proposes this, an evil man and sour.’
‘We must oppose this outrage to the utmost of our power!’
The meeting cried; and one young ship, who man had never known,
Said, ‘Gods, but I will never be Hyperbolus’s own!
If I could find no other way to escape so foul a lot,
I’d rather just remain in dock until I age and rot!’
Then the Nauphante said, ’And me, I vow the same as you,
If I’m a shipwright’s daughter, made of pinewood good and true!
If that is what they want, then let us sail to Theseus’ shrine
For sanctuary, or where there dwell the Eumenides divine.109
But never will Hyperbolus command us in his pride,
Though o’er the land his mouth be open fifty fathoms wide.
If he so badly wants to sail, then let him sail to hell
Upon the oil–boats which he once with lanterns used to sell!’110
SCENE TWO: The same. The house now represents the Acropolis. [The CHORUS are present as before. Enter the SAUSAGE–SELLER in resplendent new clothes.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER
Keep silence all!
Your breath, O save it!
Let no one file
An affidavit!
The Courts, in which
This land rejoices,
Must all be closed!
Now raise your voices,
Spectators all,
In gladness singing
To celebrate
The news I’m bringing!
LEADER [recitative]:
O light for sacred Athens newly kindled,
Protector of the Isles that once were swindled,
What is your good news? Wherefore is it meet
That we should sacrifice in every street?
SAUSAGE–SELLER
I’ve boiled Thepeople, made him young again!111
LEADER:
O marvellous idea! Where is he, then?
SAUSAGE–SELLER
In violet–crownèd Athens112” holds he sway.
LEADER:
O can we see his form and his array?
He is as when, in the brave days of old,
Just Aristides and Miltiades bold113
Dined with him once, when all was bright as gold.
But see, the Propylaean Gates unfold!
[The doors open wide, and THEPEOPLE appears rejuvenated, wearing a linen tunic of the type fashionable at the time of the Persian war, his hair bound up with a golden grasshopper brooch.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER
Behold your City great,
Old Athens in her glory,
The poets’ favourite state,
Acclaimed in song and story,
Where in his power and pride
Thepeople doth reside!
CHORUS:
Rich and shining, violet-crowned,
Athens’ envied, holy ground,
Forth from out thy portals bring
Him who of all Greece is King!
[THEPEOPLE comes forward.]
SAUSAGE–SELLER
The people now behold,
A dish for jaded palates!
Dressed in the fashion old,
His smell is not of ballots
But myrrh and love and peace
For every part of Greece.
CHORUS:
Hail, O King, says every voice!
With you we will now rejoice!
Just reward for you who won
Victory at Marathon!
THEPEOPLE: Come here, my dear Agoracritus. I must say that boiling treatment was very effective. Thank you very much indeed.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Yer thank me nah; but, my dear chap, you dunno wot you useter be like and wot you useter do. If you did, you’d think me a god.
THEPEOPLE: Why, what was I like before? What did I use to do?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Well, for one thing, whenever anyone in the Assembly talked like this, yer know, ‘The people, I love you, I cherish you, I care for you, I am yer only protector’, the sorter standard opening, you know, well, you flapped yer wings and bellowed ‘’Ear, ’ear!’ like a bloody bull.
THEPEOPLE: Did I really?
SAUSAGE–SELLER And then he pulled the wool over yer eyes and left you in the lurch.
THEPEOPLE: What? They did that all the time, and I never realized it?
SAUSAGE–SELLER That’s right And you’d open and close yer ears like an umbrella – open to them and tight shut to everyone else.
THEPEOPLE: Was I as stupid and as senile as that?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Why, if there was two speakers, and it was a question of’ ow to spend some money, and A said we should use it to build warships and B said we should spend it on officials’ and jurymen’s pay, B would win every time by acclamation. Come on, no need to ’ang yer ’ead like that. ’Ere, where are you off to?
THEPEOPLE: I’m so ashamed of all the wrong things I did.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Come orf it, it wasn’t your fault, it was them that deceived you. Let’s test you. Tell me, suppose some layabout of a prosecutor says to you, ‘If you don’t convict this prisoner, gentlemen of the jury, you won’t get your daily bread’114. Wot would you do to ’im?
THEPEOPLE: Up–end him and chuck him into a felon’s grave – with Hyperbolus round his neck for good measure.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Dead right! Just the Job! Now let’s ’ear something abaht a few of yer other policies.
THEPEOPLE: Well, fust of all, all the rowers in the fleet, I’d give them their full pay as soon as they came into port
SAUSAGE–SELLER Many a worn backside will ’oot its delight at that.
THEPEOPLE: Next, when a soldier’s name appears on the list for an expedition, on that list it will stay, withi no chopping and changing of any kind for the benefit of the well–connected.
SAUSAOB–SELLER: Cleonymus is going to feel the pinch!
THEPEOPLE: And no beardless youths will be allowed in the Market Square.
SAUSAGE–SELLER Then ’ow’s Cleisthenes and Strato115 to do their shopping?
THEPEOPLE: No, I don’t mean them – I mean those boys who sit in the perfume market and talk fancy talk, you know, ‘That Phaeax,116 Isn’t he clever? Wasn’t it ingenious, the way he got off on that capital charge? He’s so logical and rhetorical, so inventively phraseological, so very clear, so dynamical, and so extremely drastical when it comes to countering theatricals.’
SAUSAGE–SELLER Well, when it comes to cahntering them chatteronicals, you’re right blowafartical, I can see that.
THEPEOPLE: Yes, I’ll make them abandon all that resolution–moving of theirs and do some good healthy stag hunting.
SAUSAGE–SELLER [presenting a BOY who carries a stool : Then ’ere’s a good old Athenian folding stool for you,117 and ’ere’s a boy to carry it for you, with both ’is balls in place. If you feel like it yon can make him your stool too.
THEPEOPLE [who is quite taken by the Boy]: Ah, back to the good old days with a vengeance!
SAUSAGE–SELLER You’ll say that all right when I give you your thirty–year peace treaties. [Calling off]Peacetreaties! come here.
[Two beautiful girls enter and stand one on each side of THEPEOPLE.]
THEPEOPLE: Whee–whew! Holy Zeus, but they’re a pair of smashers. Can I give them, you know, a bit of the old thirty years? Tell me, how did you get them?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Why, that Paphlagonian hid them in the cupboard so you could never get at ’em. But now I ’and them over to you to take ’ome to the country.118
THEPEOPLE [kicking the still prostrate PAPHLAGONIAN]: Yes, what about this one? He was responsible for all my miseries. What are you going to do to him?
SAUSAGE–SELLER Oh, nothing very terrible. Let ’im take over my stall. ’ E can ’ave a monopoly of selling sausages at the City gates. ’E can mix dogs’ meat with donkey’s meat to ’is ’eart’s content, get drunk, argue with the tarts, an’ ’ave used bathwater to drink!
THEPEOPLE: Good idea. Having shouting contests with the tarts and the bath attendants, that’s just about his level. And now, Agoracritus. I invite you to dine with me in the Town hall, in the very seat formerly occupied by that sub–human swine. [Taking a bright green robe from a slave and giving it to the SAUSAGE–SELLER] Here, wear this to match the occasion. Come on, let’s go. [Glancing at the PAPHLAGONIAN] Oh – him! Here, someone, take him away to his new job. I want all our allies, whom he so grievously wronged, to see him at the City gates selling sausages, or in the vernacular –
ALL:FLOGGING HIS GUTS OUT!!!
[THEPEOPLB and the SAUSAGE–SELLER leave, escorted by the CHORUS, while SLAVES drag the PAPHLAGONIAN off on the other side with a meathook.]119