SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I twenty against you for shirking duty and more than a thousand for robbery. CLEON. I maintain that your parents were guilty of sacrilege against the goddess.[59] SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I, that one of your grandfathers was a satellite.... CLEON. To whom? Explain! SAUSAGE-SELLER. To Byrsina, the mother of Hippias.[60] CLEON. You are an impostor. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And you are a rogue. CHORUS. Hit him hard. CLEON. Oh, oh, dear! The conspirators are murdering me! CHORUS. Strike, strike with all your might; bruise his belly, lashing him with your guts and your tripe; punish him with both arms! Oh! vigorous assailant and intrepid heart! Have you not routed him totally in this duel of abuse? how shall I give tongue to my joy and sufficiently praise you? CLEON. Ah! by Demeter! I was not ignorant of this plot against me; I knew it was forming, that the chariot of war was being put together.[61] CHORUS (_to Sausage-seller_). Look out, look out! Come, outfence him with some wheelwright slang? SAUSAGE-SELLER. His tricks at Argos do not escape me. Under pretence of forming an alliance with the Argives, he is hatching a plot with the Lacedaemonians there; and I know why the bellows are blowing and the metal that is on the anvil; 'tis the question of the prisoners. CHORUS. Well done! Forge on, if he be a wheelwright. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And there are men at Sparta[62] who are hammering the iron with you; but neither gold nor silver nor prayers nor anything else shall impede my denouncing your trickery to the Athenians. CLEON. As for me, I hasten to the Senate to reveal your plotting, your nightly gatherings in the city, your trafficking with the Medes and with the Great King, and all you are foraging for in Boeotia.[63] SAUSAGE-SELLER. What price then is paid for forage by Boeotians? CLEON. Oh! by Heracles! I will tan your hide. CHORUS. Come, if you have both wit and heart, now is the time to show it, as on the day when you hid the meat in your breeches, as you say. Hasten to the Senate, for he will rush there like a tornado to calumniate us all and give vent to his fearful bellowings. SAUSAGE-SELLER. I am going, but first I must rid myself of my tripe and my knives; I will leave them here. CHORUS. Stay! rub your neck with lard; in this way you will slip between the fingers of calumny. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Spoken like a finished master of fence. CHORUS. Now, bolt down these cloves of garlic. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Pray, what for? CHORUS. Well primed with garlic, you will have greater mettle for the fight. But hurry, hurry, bestir yourself! SAUSAGE-SELLER. That's just what I am doing.