Juppiter Tragoedus

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 2. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1915.

Do you suppose we don’t know the reason of your. anguish ?

ZEUS

  • You know not: otherwise you ‘Id shriek and
    • scream.[*](From Euripides, according to Porson.) HERA I know that the sum and substance of your troubles is a love-affair; I don’t shriek and scream, though, because I am used to it, as you have already affronted me many a time in this way. It is likely that you have found another Danae or Semele or Europa and are plagued by love, and that you are thinking of turning into a bull or a satyr or a shower of gold, to fall down through the roof into the lap of your sweetheart, for these symptoms—groans and_tears and paleness—belong to nothing but love.

    ZEUS You simple creature, to think that our circumstances permit of love-making and such pastimes !

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    HERA Well, if that isn’t it, what else is plaguing you ? Aren’t you Zeus?

    ZEUS Why, Hera, the circumstances of the gods are as bad as they can be, and as the saying goes, it rests on the edge of a razor whether we are still to be honoured and have our due on earth or are actually to be ignored completely and count for nothing.

    HERA It can’t be that the earth has once more given birth to giants, or that the Titans have burst their bonds and overpowered their guard, and are once more taking up arms against us?

    ZEUS

    1. Take heart: the gods have naught to fear from Hell.[*](A parody on Euripides, Phoenissae 117.)
    HERA Then what else that is terrible can happen? Unless something of that sort is worrying you, I don’t see why you should behave in our presence like a Polus or an Aristodemus[*](Famous actors in tragedy, contemporaries of Demosthenes.) instead of Zeus.

    ZEUS Why, Hera, Timocles the Stoic and Damis the Epicurean had a dispute about Providence yesterday (I don’t know how the discussion began) in the presence of a great many men of high standing, and it was that fact that annoyed me most. Damis asserted that gods did not even exist, to say nothing of overseeing or directing events, whereas Timocles, good soul that he is, tried to take our part. Then a

    v.2.p.97
    large crowd collected and they did not finish the conversation ; they broke up after agreeing to finish the discussion another day, and now everybody is in suspense to see which will get the better of it and appear to have more truth on his side of the argument. You see the danger, don’t you? We are in a tight place, for our interests are staked on a single man, and there are only two things that can happen—we must either be thrust aside in case they conclude that we are nothing but names, or else be honoured as before if Timocles gets the better of it in the argument.

    HERA A dreadful situation in all conscience and it wasn’t for nothing, Zeus, that you ranted over it.

    ZEUS And you supposed I was thinking of some Danaé or Antiope in all this confusion! Come now, Hermes and Hera and Athena, what can we do? You too, you know, must do your share of the planning.

    HERMES Ihold the question should be laid before the people ; let’s call a meeting.

    HERA I think the same as he does.

    ATHENA But I think differently, father. Let’s not stir Heaven all up and show that you are upset over the business: manage it yourself in such a way that Timocles will win in the argument and Damis will be laughed to scorn and abandon the field.

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    HERMES But people won’t fail to know of it, Zeus, as the philosophers are to have their dispute in public, and they will think you a tyrant if you don't call everyone into counsel on such important matters of common concern to all.

    ZEUS Well then, make a proclamation and let everyone come; you are right in what you say.

    HERMES Hear ye, gods, assemble in meeting! Don’t delay ! Assemble one and all! Come! We are to meet about important matters.

    ZEUS Is that the sort of proclamation you make, Hermes, so bald and simple and prosaic, and that too when you are calling them together on business of the greatest importance?

    HERMES Why, how do you want me to do it, Zeus?

    ZEUS How do I want you to do it? Ennoble your proclamation, I tell you, with metre and_highsounding, poetical words, so that they may be more eager to assemble.

    HERMES Yes, but that, Zeus, is the business of epic poets and reciters, and I am not a bit of a poet, so that I shall ruin the proclamation by making my lines too long or too short and it will be a laughing-stock to them because of the limping verses. In fact I see that even Apollo gets laughed at for some of his oracles, although they are generally so beclouded

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    with obscurity that those who hear them don’t have much chance to examine their metres.

    ZEUS Well then, Hermes, put into the proclamation a lot of the verses which Homer used in calling us together; of course you remember them.

    HERMES Not at all as distinctly and readily as I might, but I'll have a try at it anyway :

  • Never a man of the gods bide away nor ever a woman,
  • Never a stream stay at home save only the river of Ocean,
  • Never a Nymph; to the palace of Zeus you're to come in a body,
  • There to confer. I bid all, whether feasters on hecatombs famous,
  • Whether the class you belong to be middle or lowest, or even
  • Nameless you sit beside altars that yield ye no savoury odours.

    • ZEUS Splendid, Hermes! an excellent proclamation, that. Indeed, they are coming together already, so take them in charge and seat each of them in his proper place according to his material and workmanhip, those of gold in the front row, then next to hem those of silver, then all those of ivory, then hose of bronze or stone, and among the latter let he gods made by Phidias or Alcamenes or Myron t Euphranor or such artists have precedence and et these vulgar, inartistic fellows huddle together

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    in silence apart from the rest and just fill out the quorum.

    HERMES It shall be done, and they shall be seated properly ; but I had better find out about this; if one of them is of gold and very heavy, yet not precise in workmanship but quite ordinary and misshapen, is he to sit in front of the bronzes of Myron and Polyclitus and the marbles of Phidias and Alcamenes, or is precedence to be given to the art?

    ZEUS It ought to be that way, but gold must have precedence all the same.

    HERMES I understand : you tell me to seat them in order of wealth, not in order of merit; by valuation. Come to the front seats, then, you of gold. It is likely, Zeus, that none but foreigners will occupy the front row, for as to the Greeks you yourself see what they are like, attractive, to be sure, and good looking and artistically made, but all of marble or bronze, nevertheless, or at most in the case of the very richest, of ivory with just a little gleam of gold, merely to the extent of being superficially tinged and brightened, within while even these are of wood and shelter whole droves of mice that keep court inside. But Bendis here and Anubis over there and Attis beside him and Mithras and Men are of solid gold and heavy and very valuable indeed.

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    POSEIDON Now why is it right, Hermes, for this dog-faced fellow from Egypt[*](Anubis.) to sit in front of me when I am Poseidon?

    HERMES That’s all very well, but Lysippus made you of bronze and a pauper because the Corinthians had no gold at that time, while this fellow is richer than you are by mines-full. So you must put up with being thrust aside and not be angry if one who has such a snout of gold is preferred before you.

    APHRODITE Well then, Hermes, take me and seat me in the front row somewhere, for I am golden.

    HERMES Not as far as I can see, Aphrodite: unless I am stone blind, you are of white marble, quarried on Pentelicus, no doubt, and then, the plan having approved itself to Praxiteles, turned iuto Aphrodite and put into the care of the Cnidians.

    APHRODITE But I'll prove it to you by a competent witness, Homer, who says all up and down his lays that I am “golden Aphrodite.”

    HERMES Yes, and the same man said that Apollo was rich in gold and wealthy, but now you'll see that he too is sitting somewhere among the middle class, uncrowned by the pirates and robbed of the pegs of his lyre. So be content yourself if you are not quite classed with the common herd in the meeting.

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    COLOSSUS OF RHODES But who would make bold to rival me, when I ain Helius and so great in size? If the Rhodians had not wanted to make me monstrous and enormous, they might have made sixteen gods of gold at the same expense, so in virtue of this I should be considered more valuable. And I have art and precision of workmanship, too, for all my great size.

    HERMES What’s to be done, Zeus? This is a hard question to decide, at least for me; for if I should consider the material, he is only bronze, but if I compute how many thousands it cost to cast him, he would be more than a millionaire.

    ZEUS Oh, why had he to turn up to disparage the smallness of the others and to disarrange the seating? See here, most puissant of Rhodians, however much you may deserve precedence over those of gold, how can you sit in the front row unless everyone else is to be obliged to stand up so that you alone can sit down, occupying the whole Pnyx with one of your hams? Therefore you had better stand up during the meeting and stoop over the assembly.

    HERMES Here is still another question that is hard to solve. Both of them are of bronze and of the same artistic merit, each being by Lysippus, and what is more they are equals in point of family, for both are sons of Zeus—I mean Dionysus here and Heracles. Which of them has precedence? Vor they are quarrelling, as you gee.

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    ZEUS We are wasting time, Hermes, when we should have been holding our meeting long ago, so for the present let them sit promiscuously wherever each wishes; some other day we shall call a meeting about this, and I shall then decide what order of precedence should be fixed in their case.

    HERMES Heracles ! what a row they are making with their usual daily shouts: “Give us our shares!”’ “Where is the nectar?” “The ambrosia is all gone!” "Where are the hecatombs?” “Victims in common !”’

    ZEUS Hush them up, Hermes, so that they may learn why they were called together, as soon as they have stopped this nonsense.

    HERMES Not all of them understand Greek, Zeus, and I am no polyglot, to make a proclamation that Scyths and Persians and Thracians and Celts can understand. I had better sign to them with my hand, I think, and make them keep still.

    ZEUS Do so.

    HERMES Good! There you have them, quieter than the sophists. It is time to make your speech, then. Come, come, they have been gazing at you this long time, waiting to see what in the world you are going to say.

    ZEUS Well, Hermes, I need not hesitate to tell you how

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    I feel, since you are my son. You know how confident and loud-spoken I always was in our meetings ?

    HERMES Yes, and I used to be frightened when I heard you making a speech, above all when you threatened to pull up the earth and the sea from their foundations, with the gods to boot, letting down that cord of gold.[*](Iliad, 8, 24; compare Zeus Catechized, 4.) ZEUS But now, my boy, I don’t know whether because of the greatness of the impending disasters or because of the number of those present (for the meeting is packed with gods, as you see), I am confused in the head and trembly and my tongue seems to be tied ; and what is strangest of all, I have forgotten the introduction to the whole matter, which I prepared in order that my beginning might present them “a countenance most fair.”[*](Pindar, Olymp. 6, 4.) HERMES You have spoiled everything, Zeus. They are suspicious of your silence and expect to hear about some extraordinary disaster because you are delaying.

    ZEUS Then do you want me to recite them my famous Homeric introduction ?

    HERMES Which one?

    ZEUS "Hark to me, all of the gods, and all the goddesses likewise.”[*](Iliad 8, 5.)

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    HERMES Tut, tut! you gave ws enough of your parodies in the beginning. If you wish, however, you can stop your tiresome versification and deliver one of Demosthenes’ speeches against Philip, any one you choose, with but little modification. Indeed, that is the way most people make speeches nowadays.

    ZEUS Good! That is a short cut to speechmaking and a timely help to anyone who doesn’t know what to say.