“Close around him and confound him, the confounder of us all! Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him,--rummage, ransack, overhaul him! Overbear him, and out-bawl him; bear him down, and bring him under! Bellow like a burst of thunder--robber, harpy, sink of plunder! Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain! I repeat. Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated. Close upon him left and right--spit upon him, spurn and smite; Spit upon him as you see: spurn and spit at him, like me.” --(F.) They surround and hustle the representative of Cleon, who calls in vain for his partisans to come to his assistance. The Black-pudding man takes courage, and comes to the front; and a duel in the choicest Athenian Billingsgate takes place, in which the current truths or slanders of the day are paraded, no doubt much to the amusement of an Athenian audience--hardly so to the English reader. The new champion shows himself at least the equal of his antagonist in this kind of warfare, and the Chorus are delighted. “There is something hotter, after all, than fire--a more consummate blackguard has been found than Cleon!” From words the battle proceeds to blows, and the Paphlagonian retires discomfited, threatening his antagonist with future vengeance, and challenging him to meet him straightway before the Senate.[11] The Chorus fill up the interval of the action by an address to the audience; in which, speaking on the author’s behalf, they apologise on the ground of modesty for his not having produced his previous comedies in his own name and on his own responsibility, and make a complaint--common to authors in all ages--of the ingratitude of the public to its popular favourites of the hour. Thence the chant passes into an ode to Neptune, the tutelary god of a nation of seamen, and to Pallas Athene, who gives her name to the city. And between the pauses of the song they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, the praises of the good old days of Athens.