Now I would that you all might turn
to earth and to water!
But for my part, Zeus, if I am at liberty to speak
with perfect freedom, I have a good many things
to say.
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
conceived these notions about us. What, then,
could you ask them to think when they see such
anarchy in human life, the best of them neglected,
perishing utterly in poverty and disease and slavery, while worthless blackguards are preferred
to them in honor, and surpass them in riches, and
are placed in authority over their betters; when
they see that sacrilege is not punished but escapes
unnoticed, while sometimes innocent men are impaled on stakes and beaten to death? It is only
natural, then, that when they see such things they
decide as they do, that we have no existence at
all,