DEMOS. Ah! great gods! SAUSAGE-SELLER. What is the matter? DEMOS. Away! away out of my sight! 'Tis not my ring he had, 'twas that of Cleonymus. (_To the Sausage-seller_.) Hold, I give you this one; you shall be my steward. CLEON. Master, I adjure you, decide nothing till you have heard my oracles.[107] SAUSAGE-SELLER. And mine. CLEON. If you believe him, you will have to suck his tool for him. SAUSAGE-SELLER. If you listen to him, you'll have to let him skin your penis to the very stump. CLEON. My oracles say that you are to reign over the whole earth, crowned with chaplets. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And mine say that, clothed in an embroidered purple robe, you shall pursue Smicythes and her spouse,[108] standing in a chariot of gold and with a crown on your head. DEMOS. Go, fetch me your oracles, that the Paphlagonian may hear them. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Willingly. DEMOS. And you yours. CLEON. I run. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I run too; nothing could suit me better! CHORUS. Oh! happy day for us and for our children, if Cleon perish. Yet just now I heard some old cross-grained pleaders on the market-place who hold not this opinion discoursing together. Said they, "If Cleon had not had the power we should have lacked two most useful tools, the pestle and the soup-ladle."[109] You also know what a pig's education he has had; his school-fellows can recall that he only liked the Dorian style and would study no other; his music-master in displeasure sent him away, saying: "This youth in matters of harmony, will only learn the Dorian style because 'tis akin to bribery."[110] CLEON. There, behold and look at this heap; and yet I do not bring all. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Ugh! I pant and puff under the weight and yet I do not bring all. DEMOS. What are these? CLEON. Oracles. DEMOS. All these? CLEON. Does that astonish you? Why, I have another whole boxful of them. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I the whole of my attics and two rooms besides. DEMOS. Come, let us see, whose are these oracles? CLEON. Mine are those of Bacis.[111] DEMOS (_to the Sausage-seller_). And whose are yours? SAUSAGE-SELLER. Glanis's, the elder brother of Bacis.[112] DEMOS. And of what do they speak? CLEON. Of Athens, of Pylos, of you, of me, of all. DEMOS. And yours? SAUSAGE-SELLER. Of Athens, of lentils, of Lacedaemonians, of fresh mackerel, of scoundrelly flour-sellers, of you, of me. Ah! ha! now let him gnaw his own penis with chagrin! DEMOS. Come, read them out to me and especially that one I like so much, which says that I shall become an eagle and soar among the clouds. CLEON. Then listen and be attentive! "Son of Erectheus,[113] understand the meaning of the words, which the sacred tripods set resounding in the sanctuary of Apollo. Preserve the sacred dog with the jagged teeth, that barks and howls in your defence; he will ensure you a salary and, if he fails, will perish as the victim of the swarms of jays that hunt him down with their screams."