Cleon is given rough handling and the Chorus leader accuses him of manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain. Cleon bellows to the audience for help and the Chorus urges the sausage-seller to outshout him. There follows a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage seller with vulgar boasts and vainglorious threats on both sides as each man strives to demonstrate that he is a more shameless and unscrupulous orator than the other. The knights proclaim the sausage-seller the winner of the argument and Cleon then rushes off to the Boule to denounce them all on a trumped-up charge of treason. The sausage seller sets off in pursuit and the action pauses for a parabasis, during which the Chorus steps forward to address the audience on behalf of the author.