Dialogi deorum

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 1. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Hermes Mother, I am the most miserable god in Heaven.

Maia Don’t say such things, child.

Hermes Am I to do all the work of Heaven with my own hands, to be hurried from one piece of drudgery to another, and never say a word? I have to get up early, sweep the dining-room, lay the cushions and put all to rights: then I have to wait on Zeus and take his messages, up and down, all day long:- and I am no sooner back again (no time for a wash) than I have to lay the table; and there was the nectar to pour out, too, till

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this new cup-bearer was bought. And it really is too bad, that when every one else is in bed, I should have to go off to Pluto with the Shades, and play the usher in Rhadamanthus’s court. It is not enough that I must be busy all day in the wrestlingground and the Assembly and the schools of rhetoric, the dead must have their share in me too.

Leda’s sons take turn and turn about betwixt Heaven and Hades—I have to be in both every day. And why should the sons of Alcmena and Semele, paltry women, why should they feast at their ease, and I—the son of Maia, the grandson of Atlas—wait upon them? And now here am I only just back from Sidon, where he sent me to see after Europa, and before I am in breath again—off I must " go to Argos, in quest of Danae, ‘and you can take Boeotia on your way,’ says father, ‘and see Antiope.’ I am half dead with it all. Mortal slaves are better off than I am: they have the chance of being sold to a new master; I wish I had the same!

Maia Come, come, child. You must do as your father bids you, like a good boy. Run along now to Argos and Boeotia; don’t loiter, or you will get a whipping. Lovers are apt to be hasty.