Zeus Catechized (4-7)

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.”[*] 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.

ZEUS

I know where you get these clever questions— from the cursed sophists, who say that we do not even exert any providence on behalf of men. At any rate they ask questions like yours out of impiety, and dissuade the rest from sacrificing and praying on the ground that it is silly; for we, they ay, not only pay no heed to what goes on among you, but have no power at all over affairs on ‘arth. But they shall be sorry for talking in that vay,

CYNISCUS

I swear by the spindle of Clotho, Zeus, they did lot put me up to ask you this, but our talk itself as

it went on led somehow or other to the conclusion that sacrifices are superfluous. But if you have no objection I will question you briefly once more. Do not hesitate to answer, and take care that your answer is not so weak.

ZEUS

Ask, if you have time for such nonsense.

CYNISCUS

You say that all things come about through the Fates?

ZEUS

Yes, I do.

CYNISCUS

And is it possible for you to change them, to unspin them?

ZEUS

Not by any means.

CYNISCUS

Then do you want me to draw the conclusion or is it patent even without my putting it into words?

ZEUS

It is patent, of course; but those who sacrifice do not do so for gain, driving a sort of bargain, forsooth, and as it were buying blessings from us; they do so simply to honour what is superior to themselves.

CYNISCUS

Even that is enough, if you yourself admit that sacrifices are not offered for any useful purpose, but by reason of the generosity of men, who honour what is superior. And yet, if one of your sophists were here, he would ask you wherein you allege the gods to be superior, when really they are fellow-

slaves with men, and subject to the same mistresses, the Fates. For their immortality will not suffice to make them seem better, since that feature certainly is far worse, because men are set free by death at least, if by nothing else, while with you gods the thing goes on to infinity and your slavery is eternal, being controlled by a long thread.[*]