Zeus Rants (30-32)

MOMUS

But as for you, my admirable friend, since you claim to be a prophet and have collected large fees for such work, even to the extent of getting ingots of gold once upon a time, why do you not give us a timely display of your skill by foretelling which of the

sophists will win in the argument? Of course you know what the outcome will be, if you are a prophet:

APOLLO

How can I do that, Momus, when we have no tripod here, and no incense or prophetic spring like Castaly?

MOMUS

There now! you dodge the test when it comes to the pinch.

ZEUS

Speak up, my boy, all the same, and don’t give this libeller a chance to malign and insult your profession by saying that it all depends on a tripod and water and incense, so that if you didn’t have those things you would be deprived of your skill.

APOLLO

It would be better, father, to do such business at Delphi or Colophon where I have all the necessaries at hand, in the usual way. However, even thus devoid of them and unequipped, I will try to foretell whose the victory shall be: you will bear with me if my verses are lame.

MOMUS

Do speak; but let it be clear, and not itself in need of a spokesman or an interpreter. It is not now a question of lamb and turtle cooking together in Lydia, but you know what the debate is about.

ZEUS

What in the world are you going to say, my boy? These preliminaries to your oracle are terrifying in themselves; your colour is changed, your eyes are rolling, your hair stands on end, your movements are

frenzied, and in a word everything about you suggests demoniacal possession and gooseflesh and mysteries.

HERACLES

As for me, father, though I am but an alien I.shall not hesitate to say what I think. When they have met and are disputing, if Timocles gets the better of it, let’s allow the discussion about us to proceed; but if it turns out at all adversely, in that case, if you approve, I myself will at once shake the porch and throw it down on Damis, so that he may not affront us, confound him!

ZEUS

In the name of Heracles! that was a loutish, horribly Boeotian thing you said, Heracles, to involve so many honest men in the destruction of a single rascal, and the porch too, with its Marathon and Miltiades and Cynegirus![*] If they should collapse how could the orators orate any more? They would be robbed of their principal topic for speeches.[*] Moreover, although while you were alive you could no doubt have done something of the sort, since you have become a god you have found out, I suppose, that only the Fates can do such things; and that we have no part in them.

HERACLES

So when I killed the lion or the Hydra, the Fates did it through my agency?

ZEUS

Why, certainly!

HERACLES

And now, in case anyone affronts me by robbing my temple or upsetting my image, can’t I exterminate him unless it was long ago settled that way by the Fates?

ZEUS

No, not by any means.

HERACLES

Then hear me frankly, Zeus, for as the comic poet puts it,

I'm but a boor and call a spade a spade.

If that is the way things stand here with you, I shall say good-bye forever to the honours here and the odour of sacrifice and the blood of victims and go down to Hell, where with my bow uncascd I can at least frighten the ghosts of the animals I have slain.

ZEUS

Bravo! testimony from the inside, as the saying goes. Really you would have done us a great service if you had given Damis a hint to say that.