CLEON. Ah! I adjure you! not yet; wait a little; I will promise to distribute barley every day.
DEMOS. Ah! I will not hear another word about barley; you have cheated me too often already, both you and Theophanes.[125]
CLEON. Well then! you shall have flour-cakes all piping hot.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will give you cakes too, and nice cooked fish; you will only have to eat.
DEMOS. Very well, mind you keep your promises. To whichever of you twain shall treat me best I hand over the reins of state.
CLEON. I will be first.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, no, I will.
CHORUS. Demos, you are our all-powerful sovereign lord; all tremble before you, yet you are led by the nose. You love to be flattered and fooled; you listen to the orators with gaping mouth and your mind is led astray.
DEMOS. 'Tis rather you who have no brains, if you think me so foolish as all that; it is with a purpose that I play this idiot's role, for I love to drink the lifelong day, and so it pleases me to keep a thief for my minister. When he has thoroughly gorged himself, then I overthrow and crush him.
CHORUS. What profound wisdom! If it be really so, why! all is for the best. Your ministers, then, are your victims, whom you nourish and feed up expressly in the Pnyx, so that, the day your dinner is ready, you may immolate the fattest and eat him.