The Sausage-Seller comes out of the house of Demos, splendidly robed.
Sausage-Seller
Solemnly
Maintain a holy silence! Keep your mouths from utterance! call no more witnesses; close these tribunals, which are the delight of this city, and gather at the theater to chant the Paean of thanksgiving to the gods for a fresh favour.
Leader of the Chorus
Oh! torch of sacred Athens, saviour of the Islands,
[1320]
what good tidings are we to celebrate by letting the blood of the victims flow in our market-places?
Sausage-Seller
I have freshened Demos up somewhat on the stove and have turned his ugliness into beauty.
Leader of the Chorus
I admire your inventive genius; but, where is he?
Sausage-Seller
He is living in ancient Athens, the city of the garlands of violets.
Leader of the Chorus
How I should like to see him! What is his dress like, what his manner?
Sausage-Seller
[1325]
He has once more become as he was in the days when he lived with Aristides and Miltiades. But you will judge for yourselves, for I hear the vestibule doors opening. Hail with your shouts of gladness the Athens of old, which now doth reappear to your gaze, admirable, worthy of the songs of the poets and the home of the illustrious Demos.
Leader of the Chorus
Oh! noble, brilliant Athens, whose brow is wreathed with violets,
[1330]
show us the sovereign master of this land and of all Greece.
Demos comes from his house, rejuvenated and joyous.
Sausage-Seller
Lo! here he is coming with his hair held in place with a golden band and in all the glory of his old-world dress; perfumed with myrrh, he spreads around him not the odor of lawsuits, but that of peace.
Leader of the Chorus
Hail! King of Greece, we congratulate you upon the happiness you enjoy; it is worthy of this city, worthy of the glory of Marathon.