CYNISCUS 
But, Zeus, I for my part won’t annoy you that
way by asking for wealth or gold or dominion,
which are, it seems, very desirable to most people,
but not very easy for you to give; at any rate I
notice that you generally turn a deaf ear to their
prayers. I should like to have you grant me only
a single wish, and a very simple one.
 ZEUS 
What is it, Cyniscus? You shall not be disappointed, especially if your request is reasonable, as
you say it is.
 CYNISCUS 
Answer me a question ; it isn’t hard.
 ZEUS 
Your prayer is indeed trivial and easy to fulfil;
so ask what you will.
 CYNISCUS 
It is this, Zeus: you certainly have read the
poems of Homer and Hesiod: tell me, then, is
what they have sung about Destiny and the Fates
true, that whatever they spin for each of us at
his birth is inevitable ? Homer, Iliad 20, 127; Hesiod, Theogony 218, 904. 

 

 ZEUS 
It is really quite true. There is nothing which
the Fates do not dispose; on the contrary, everything that comes to pass is controlled by their
spindle and has its outcome spun for it in each
instance from the very beginning, and it cannot
come to pass differently.
 CYNISCUS 
Then when this same Homer in another part of
his poem says :

 Take care lest ere your fated hour you go to
house in Hell εἰσαφίκηαι: completes the line. Iliad20, 336 

and that sort of thing, of course we are to assume
that he is talking nonsense ?
 ZEUS 
Certainly, for nothing can come to pass outside
the control of the Fates, nor beyond the thread
they spin. As for the poets, all that they sing
under the inspiration of the Muses is true, but
when the goddesses desert them and they compose
by - themselves, then they make mistakes and contradict what they said before. And it is excusable
that being mere men they do not recognize the
truth when that influence is gone which formerly
abode with them and rhapsodized through them.
 CYNISCUS 
Well, we'll assume this to be so. But answer
me another question. There are only three of
the Fates, are there not—Clotho, Lachesis, I believe,
and Atropos?
 ZEUS 
Quite so.

 

 CYNISCUS 
Well then, how about Destiny and Fortune?
They are also very much talked of. Who are they,
and what power has each of them? Equal power
with the Fates, or even somewhat more than they?
I hear everyone saying that there is nothing more
powerful than Fortune and Destiny.
 ZEUS 
It is not permitted you to know everything, Cyniscus. But why did you ask me that question about
the Fates?
 CYNISCUS 
Just tell me something else first, Zeus. Are you
ods under their rule too, and must you needs be
ttached to their thread ?
 ZEUS 
We must, Cyniscus. But what made you smile?
 CYNISCUS 
I happened to think of those lines of Homer in
hich he described you making your speech in the
sembly of the gods, at the time when you threatied them that you would hang the universe upon a
rd of gold. You said, you know, that you would
t the cord down from Heaven, and that the other
ds, if they liked, might hang on it and try to
Il you down, but would not succeed, while you,
lenever you chose, could easily draw them all up,
nd the earth and the sea along with them.” Iliad 8, 24. At
at time it seemed to me that your power was wontful, and I shuddered as I heard the lines; but I
now that in reality you yourself with your cord
and your threats hang by a slender thread, as you

 

admit. In fact, I think that Clotho would have a
better right to boast, inasmuch as she holds you,
even you, dangling from her spindle as fishermen
hold fish dangling from a rod.

 ZEUS 
I don’t know what you are driving at with these
questions.
 CYNISCUS 
This, Zeus—and I beg you by the Fates and by
Destiny not to hear me with exasperation or anger
when I speak the truth boldly. If all this is so, and
the Fates rule everything, and nobody can ever
change anything that they have once decreed, why
do we men sacrifice to you gods and make you great
offerings of cattle, praying to receive blessings from
you? I really don’t see what benefit we can derive
from this precaution, if it is impossible for us through
our prayers either to get what is bad averted or to
secure any blessing whatever by the gift of the gods.