O earthy offspring of the earth, fell race,
Keep your temper, Zeus, since I cannot answer you in comedy metre as the others do, nor have I swallowed Euripides whole so as to take my part in the drama when you give me the cue.
Do you imagine that I don't know the cause of your distress?
"Thou dost not know, els hadst thou shrieked aloud."
I know that the sum and substance of your trouble comes from love-making. Of course, I do not shriek, for I am used to this insulting treatment at your hands. Undoubtedly you have come upon some Danae or Semele or Europa again, and are attacked with love, and so you are scheming to become a bull or a satyr, or to pour down as a shower of golden rain through the roof into your lady-love's lap. These groans, these tears, this pallor are symptoms of the lover and nobody else.
Poor, simple thing, do you think, then,
that my present affairs have to do with love-making and such-like child's play?
Being Zeus, you are disturbed by nothing else, I know.
O Hera, things divine are in extremity. As the saying is, it is touch and go with us whether we are still to be honored and to receive the gifts that are offered up on earth, or whether we are to be disregarded altogether and held utterly insignificant.
Surely the earth has not produced another race of giants? Or have the Titans broken their bonds and overpowered their guard, and taken up arms against us again?
Then what could happen to frighten us? If you have no anxiety of that kind I do not see why you have favored us with this little dramatic exhibition.
Hera, Timokles the Stoic and Damis the
Epicurean held a discussion yesterday on the
doctrine of providence. I do not know how the
question arose, but the audience was large and
respectable, and that, to my mind, was the most
annoying feature of the affair. Damis denied that
the gods exist or have any hand whatever in the
ordering and administration of the world. But
the worthy Timokles strove to defend our side,
and just then a crowd of people streamed in, so
that the meeting came to no decision, but dissolved,
Really this is very dreadful, and you were not so far wrong, Zeus, in addressing us in tragic vein.
And yet you thought it was some Danae or Antiope that I was thinking about in such distress. Well, Hermes and Hera and Athene, what would be best? Take your turns in helping me to discover.
I for my part say that an assembly ought to be called for open discussion.
I think precisely as he does.
But it strikes me just the other way, father. I do not think you ought to involve all heaven in your embarrassment, or show your own alarm at the affair; but make your arrangements privately so that Timokles may triumph and Damis be laughed out of court.
But, Zeus, this course will not be unperceived, for the philosophers will hold their
Very well, then. Summon them at once and let all appear. For you are right.
Halloo, gods! Come to the assembly! Do not loiter Gather, all of you! Come! We are going to discuss great things!
Hermes, is that bare, unadorned, prosaic style of announcement the proper thing, particularly when the greatest matters are in question?
Why, what do you think more proper, Zeus?
What do I think more proper? I say you ought to make your summons impressive by means of some sort of rhythm, and a sonorous, poetic form, to bring them the more readily.
Yes; but such things belong to versewriters and declaimers, Zeus, and I am the worst poet imaginable. I should certainly ruin my summons by having too many feet in it or too few, and they would laugh at the illiteracy of my composition. I see that even Apollo's verses in his oracles are sometimes jeered at, though his prophecies are generally very obscure, so that those who receive them have not much leisure to criticize the versification.
Well, then, string a lot of Homer's verses
I can't say that I have them very pat.
However, I will try :
Well done, Hermes. You could not have summoned them better, and the proof is that they are gathering already. So, receive them and seat them according to the value of each in material or workmanship; that is to say, the golden in the seats of honor, next to these the silver ones, then those of ivory, then those of bronze or stone; and in this class preference is to be given to the works of Pheidias and Alkamenes and Myron and Euphranor and artists of their rank. But thrust these vulgar ones, the work of bunglers, together on one side, and let them confine themselves to silently making a quorum.
Very well. They shall take their seats in proper order. But I ought to know this: if one of them is of gold or of great weight but not well executed-in fact actually amateur's work and out of drawing—is he to take his seat in front of the bronzes of Myron and Polykleitos, and the marbles of Pheidias and Alkamenes, or is preference to be given to workmanship?
It ought to be; but, nevertheless, the gold must take precedence.
I see. Your orders are that they shall take their seats in order of wealth rather than in order of merit, in proportion to their taxable property. Come to the front seats, then, you golden ones!
It looks as though the barbarians would have the front seats to themselves. The Greeks, at any rate, are, as you see, graceful and goodly of aspect and shaped with skill, but they are all alike, of wood or stone, except the very most valuable of them, and they are ivory with something of golden decoration. But they are merely colored and plated with it, and within they, too, are wooden, and give shelter to whole droves of mice who inhabit them. But Bendis here, and Anoubis and Attis beside him, and Mithres and Men are of solid gold, heavy, and really valuable.
Now, Hermes, is this just, to let this
No, Earthshaker; but, you see, Lysippos made you of bronze and poor because the Corinthians had no gold at the time, and Anoubis is whole mines richer than you. So you must e'en put up with being shoved aside, and not lose your temper if a god with such a great golden muzzle as his has been preferred to you.
Take me, too, then, Hermes, and place me somewhere in the front rows, for I am golden.
Not as far as I can see, Aphrodite. Unless I am exceedingly blear-eyed, you were quarried out of the white stone of Pentele, and then, at the good pleasure of Praxiteles, you became Aphrodite and were handed over to the Knidians.
But I will furnish you a trustworthy referee in Homer, who, up and down in his poetry, declares me "golden Aphrodite."
Oh, Homer says that Apollo, too, is full of gold and rich, but now you will see him sitting somewhere in the worst seats, for the robbers took his crown and stripped the pegs from his lyre. So you may congratulate yourself that you are not placed down among the servants.
I imagine that no one will venture to
vie with me, for I am Helios, and as you see for
What is to be done, Zeus? This case, too, is certainly a hard one to decide, for if I regard his material, he is bronze; but if I compute how much money it cost to forge him, he ranks above the highest class.
Why need he be here, anyhow, to comment on the smallness of other people and give trouble about his seat? However, O mightiest of the Rhodians, even you take rank never so much above the golden gods, how could you take your seat before them unless you ask them all to get up? If you were to sit down you would fill the whole Pnyx. So you would do better to stand during the meeting and bend over the assembly.
Here is another nice point to decide between Dionysos here and Herakles. Both are bronze; their workmanship is the same, for both are by Lysippos; and, most vital point of all, they are equals by birth, being alike sons of Zeus. Which of them is to have precedence? They are wrangling about it, as you see.
We are wasting time, Hermes. We should
Good heavens, what a din they make, crying out, in plain every-day language, "Rations!" and "Where is the nectar?" and "The ambrosia is giving out!" and "Where are the hecatombs?" and "The sacrifices are common property!"
Call them to order, Hermes. Make them stop this nonsense and hear why they were convened.
But, Zeus, they do not all understand Greek, and I am no polyglot to deliver an announcement to Scythians and Persians and Thracians and Celts all at once. I think I should do best to enjoin silence by dumb show.
Very well.
There! Behold them reduced to the silence of the sophists. Now is your time to address them. See, they are looking towards you already, awaiting your speech.
Hermes, you are my son, and I don't mind telling you just how I feel. You know what aplomb and magniloquence I have always shown in our assemblies?
Indeed I do. I was always frightened
But this time, my child, whether it is the greatness of the impending dangers or of the audience-for the meeting is well attended, as you see my presence of mind has utterly deserted me, and I am trembling with nervousness and my tongue seems tied. And, most absurd of all, I have forgotten the opening of my speech, which I had prepared with a view to making as agreeable a first impression as possible.
You have spoiled everything. Your silence is making them suspicious already, and the more you delay the more overwhelmingly bad news do they expect.
Do you think, then, that I might begin to recite to them that introduction of Homer's?
What one?
"Hearken now, ye gods, and every goddess, hearken."
Stuff! You have recited those opening lines often enough in your cups already. But,
if you like, give up this tiresome business of poetry, and piece together any you choose of Demosthenes's orations against Philip, altering them a
little. That is the way most speaking is done
now, anyhow.
That is a good idea-a sort of abridged rhetoric or oratory made easy for the embarrassed.
Well, are you never going to begin?
I imagine, men of Olympus, that you
would gladly give considerable sums to obtain
an idea of what this matter may be with reference to which you are now summoned. This
being the case, you will do well to lend me your
ears with all eagerness. Now the present crisis,
deities, wellnigh declares, with audible voice, that
we must give all our energies to considering the
matters before us, but, as a matter of fact, we
seem to me to treat them with negligence. But
I should like-my Demosthenes fails me—to explain to you why I was so much disturbed as to
call an assembly. Yesterday, as you are aware,
Mnesitheos, the ship-master, offered a sacrifice
of thanksgiving for his ship that was almost lost
off Kaphereus, and we feasted in the Peiraieusas many of us, that is, as Mnesitheos had invited
to the banquet. After the libations you dispersed
in different directions, pursuing your own devices,
while I, seeing that it was not yet late, went up to
the city to stroll about at dusk in the Kerameikos,
pondering on the meanness of Mnesitheos. For
he offered up, by way of feast to sixteen gods,
one cock, aged and asthmatic at that, and four
grains of frankincense, pretty well decayed, so
Well, revolving this in my mind, I turned up
near the Painted Porch, and there I saw a great
crowd of men gathered, some inside the porch
itself, but most of them in the open air, and some
were shouting, stretched out on the benches. I
guessed what was the case: that they were philosophers of the eristic order, and I determined
to stand by and listen to what they might say. I
happened to have a cloud wrapped round me—a
thick one-so I took on an exterior of their sort,
drew forth my beard, and presented no bad imitation of a philosopher. And so I elbowed my
way through the crowd and got inside without
being recognized, and I found a violent controversy going on between that fox Damis the Epicurean and Timokles the Stoic, the best of men.
Timokles was in a perspiration, and had lost his
voice already with screaming, and Damis was exasperating him still further by sardonic mockery.
Now, if you will believe it, their whole discussion was about us. Damis (confound him) declared that we have no forethought for men or
guardianship of their affairs, asserting that we do
not exist at all, for this was plainly the purport
But the other, Timokles, took our side and fought for us, and excited himself, and did his best for us, praising our watchful care, and rehearsing how all things are arranged and reduced to regularity and order by us. He, too, had some applause, but he had already been speaking too long and his utterance was labored, so that the crowd looked away from him to Damis. Seeing what was at stake, I bade the night descend and break up the meeting, and so they went their ways, agreeing to examine the question completely the next day. I followed along with the crowd, and heard them praising Damis's arguments among themselves as they walked home, and already decidedly siding with him. But there were some, too, who did not think it right to decide beforehand between the rivals, but to wait and see what Timokles would say on the morrow.
These, deities, are my reasons for summoning
you; no slight ones, if you consider that all our
honor, revenue, and prestige come from men.
And if they should be persuaded either that we
do not exist at all or that we have no forethought
for them, we shall have no more sacrifices and
gifts and honor from earth, and we shall sit idly
in heaven oppressed by hunger when we are deprived of those feasts and national holidays and
games and sacrifices and vigils and processions.
Hear ye, silence! Make no disturbance! Who wishes to speak, of those full-grown divinities whose right it is? What is this? Does no one rise? They are all silent, overwhelmed by the importance of the news.
Speak, Momos, without restraint. I am sure your frankness will be for our good.
Hear, then, deities, what at any rate
I think in my heart of hearts, as they say. You
must know that I have been pretty confidently
expecting that our affairs would come to as bad a
pass as this, and that numbers of sophists like
these would spring up against us, finding grounds
for their temerity in our own conduct. By heaven, we have no right to be angry with Epicurus
or with his disciples and successors if they have
particularly when they hear the oracles saying
that if a certain man crosses the Halys he will
overthrow a great kingdom, without specifying
whether it will be his own kingdom or his enemy's. And then again the oracle says: