Juppiter Tragoedus

Zeus Goodness me, what a shout, Gods! they are all cheering Damis. And our man seems posed; he is frightened and trembles; he is going to throw up the sponge, I am certain of it; he looks round for a gap to get away through.

Timocles And will you scout Euripides too, then? Again and again be brings Gods on the stage, and shows them upholding virtue in the Heroes, but chastising wickedness and impiety (like yours).

Damis My noble philosopher, if that is how the tragedians have convinced you, you have only two alternatives: you must suppose that divinity is temporarily lodged either in the actor—a Polus, an Aristodemus, a Satyrus—, or else in the actual masks, buskins, long tunics, cloaks, gloves, stomachers, padding, and ornamental paraphernalia in general of tragedy—a manifest absurdity; for when Euripides can speak bis own sentiments unfettered by dramatic necessity, observe the freedom of his remarks:

Timocles Well, but all men—ay, all nations—have acknowledged and féted Gods 3 was it all delusion?

Damis Thank you; a timely reminder 3 national observances show better than anything else how vague religious theory is. Confusion is endless, and beliefs as many as believers. Scythia makes offerings to a scimetar, Thrace to the Samian runaway Zamolxis, Phrygia to a Month-God, Ethiopia to a Day-Goddess, Cyllene to Phales, Assyria to a dove, Persia to fire, Egypt to water. In Egypt, though, besides the universal worship of water, Mempbis has a private cult of the ox, Pelusium of the onion, other cities of the ibis or the crocodile, others again of baboon, cat, or monkey. Nay, the very villages have their specialities: one deifies the right shoulder, and another across the river the left; one a balf skull, another an earthenware bowl or platter. Come, my fine fellow, ts tt not all ridiculous?

Momus What did I tell you, Gods? All this was sure to come out and be carefully overhauled.

Timocles Infidel! where do you find the source of oracles and prophecies, if not in the Gods and their Providence?

Damis About oracles, friend, the less said the better; I shall ask you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo's answer to the Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife; or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will Croesus’s passage of the Halys destroy bis own realm, or Cyruss? Yet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for bis ambidextrous hexameter.

Momus The man is realizing just my worst apprehensions, Where is our handsome musician now? Ah, there you are; go down and plead your own cause against him.

Zeus Hush, Momus; you are murdering our feelings; it is no time for recrimination.

Timocles Have a care, Damis; this is sacrilege, no less; what you say amounts to razing the temples and upsetting the altars.

Damis Ob, not all the altars; what harm do they do, so long as incense and perfume is the worst of it? As for Artemis’s altar at Tauri, though, and her hideous feasts, I should like it overturned from base to cornice.

Zeus Whence comes this resistless plague among us? ‘There is none of us he spares; he is as free with his tongue as a tub orator,

Momus The innocent? You will not find many of those among us, Zeus. He will soon come to laying hands upon some of the great and eminent, I dare say.

Timocles Do you close your ears even to Zeus’s thunder, atheist? Da. I clearly cannot shut out the thunder; whether it is

Momus I could have told you that was coming long ago. What, Zeus? pale? and your teeth chattering?, What is the matter? You should cheer up, and treat such manikins with lofty contempt.

Zeus Contempt? See what a number of them there is— how set against us they are already—and he has them fast by the ears.

Momus Well, but you have only to choose, and you can let down your golden cord, and then every man of them With earth and sky and all thou canst draw up.

Timocles Blasphemer, have you ever been a voyage?

Damis Many.

Timocles Well, then, thé wind struck the canvas and filled the sails, and it or the oars gave you way, but there was a person responsible for steering and for the safety of the ship?

Damis Certainly.

Timocles Now that ship would not have sailed, without a steersman; and do you suppose that this great universe drifts unsteered and uncontrolled?

Zeus Good, this time, 'Timocles; a cogent illustration, that.

Damis But, you pattern of piety, the earthly navigator makes bis plans, takes his measures, gives his orders, with a single eye to efficiency; there is nothing useless or purposeless on board 3 everything is to make navigation easy or possible; but as for the navigator for whom you claim the management of this vast ship, he and bis crew show no reason or appropriateness in any of their arrangements; the forestays, as likely as not, are made fast to the stern, and both sheets to the bows; the anchor will be gold, the beak lead, decoration below the water-line, and unsightliness above.

As for the men, you will find some lazy awkward coward in second or third command, or a fine swimmer, active as a cat aloft, and a handy man generally, chosen out of all the rest to—pump. It is just the same with the passengers: here is a gaolbird accommodated with a seat next the captain and treated with reverence, there a debauchee or parricide or temple-robber in honourable possession of the best place, while crowds of respectable people are packed together in a corner and hustled by their real inferiors. Consider what sort of a voyage Socrates and Aristides and Phocion had of it, on short rations, not venturing, for the filth, to stretch out their legs on the bare deck; and on the other hand what a comfortable, luxurious, contemptuous life it was for Callias or Midias or Sardanapalus.

That is how things go on board your ship, sir wiseacre; and who shall count the wrecks? If there had been a captain supervising and directing, in the first place he would have known the difference between good and bad passengers, and in the second he would have given them their deserts; the better would have had the better accommodation above by his side, and the worse gone below; with some of the better he would have shared his meals and his counsels. So too for the crew: the keen sailor would have been made look-out man or captain of the watch, or given some sort of precedence, and the lazy shirker have tasted the rope’s end half a dozen times a day. The metaphorical ship, your worship, ts likely to be capsized by its captain’s incompetence.

Momus He is sweeping on to victory, with wind and tide.

Zeus Too probable, Momus. And Timocles never gets hold of an effective idea; he can only ladle out trite commonplaces higgledy-piggledy—no sooner heard than refuted.

Timocles Weil, well; my ship leaves you unconvinced; I must drop my sheet-anchor, then; that at least is unbreakable.

Zeus I wonder what it is.

Timocles See whether this is a sound syllogism; can you upset it?—

Damis Ha, ha, ha! I will answer as soon as I can get done with laughing.

Timocles Will you never stop? At least tell me what the joke is.

Damis Why, you don’t see that your anchor (sheet-anchor, too) hangs by a mere thread. You depend on connexion between the existence of Gods and the existence of altars, and fancy yourself Safe at anchor! As you admit that this was your sheet-anchor, there is nothing further to detain us.

Timocles You retire; you confess yourself beaten, then?

Damis Yes; we have seen you take sanctuary at the altars under persecution. At those altars I am ready (the sheet-anchor be my witness) to swear peace and cease from strife.

Timocles You are playing with me, are you, you vile body-snatcher, you loathsome well-whipped scum! As if we didn’t know who your father was, how your mother was a harlot! You strangled your own brother, you live in fornication, you debauch the young, you unabashed lecher! Don't be in such a hurry; bere is something for you to take with you 5 this broken pot will serve me to cut your foul throat.

Zeus Damis makes off with a laugh, and the other after him, calling him names, mad at his insolence. He will get him on the head with that pottery, I know. And now, what are we to do?

Hermagoras Why, the man in the comedy was not far out: Put a good face on’t, and thou hast no harm.

It is no such terrible disaster, if a few people go away infected. There are plenty who take the other view—a majority of Greeks, the body and dregs of the people, and the barbarians to'a man.

Zeus Ah, Hermes, but there is a great deal in Darius’s remark about Zopyrus—I would rather have had one ally like Damis than be the lord of a thousand Babylons.