to the Sausage-Seller
Leader of the Chorus
Now you can travel under full sail. The wind has lost its violence.
Cleon
I will bring four suits against you, each of one hundred talents.
Sausage-Seller
And I twenty against you for shirking duty and more than a thousand for robbery.
Cleon
445
I maintain that your parents were guilty of sacrilege against the goddess.
Sausage-Seller
And I, that one of your grandfathers was a satellite....
Cleon
To whom? Explain!
Sausage-Seller
To Byrsina, the mother of Hippias.
Cleon
450
You are an impostor.
Sausage-Seller
And you are a rogue.
He strikes Cleon with a sausage.
Chorus
Hit him hard.
Cleon
Alas! The conspirators are murdering me!
Chorus
to the Sausage-Seller
Hit him! Hit him with all your might! Bruise his belly and lash him with your guts
455
and your tripe! Punish him with both hands!
Cleon sinks beneath the blows.
Knights. Aristophanes. ed. Eugene O'Neill, Jr.. New York. 1938.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.