APOLLO Hark to the words of the prophet, oracular words of Apollo, Touching the shivery strife in which heroes are facing each other. Loudly they shout in the battle, and fast-flying words are their weapons; Many a blow while the hisses of conflict are ebbing and flowing This way and that shall be dealt on the crest of the plowtail stubborn; Yet when the hook-taloned vulture the grasshopper grips in his clutches, Then shall the rainbearing crows make an end of their cawing forever: Vict’ry shall go to the mules, and the ass will rejoice in his offspring! ZEUS What are you guffawing about, Momus? Surely
there is nothing to laugh at in the situation we are
facing. Stop, hang you! You'll choke yourself to
death with your laughing.
 MOMUS How can I, Zeus, when the oracle is so clear and
manifest?
 ZEUS Well then, suppose you tell us what in the world
it means.
 MOMUS It is quite manifest, so that we shan’t need a
Themistocles. See p. 121, note. . The prophecy says as plainly as you

 

please that this fellow is a humbug and that you who
believe in him are pack-asses and mules, without
as much sense as grasshoppers.

 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! The porch in question was the Painted Porch, with its fresco representing the battle of Marathon. If they should collapse
how could the orators orate any more? They would
be robbed of their principal topic for speeches. Compare The Orators’ Coach (Rhet. Praec.), 18. 
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.

 ZEUS But who is this coming up in hot haste, the
one of bronze, with the fine tooling and the fine contours, with his hair tied up in the old-fashioned way? Oh yes, it is your brother, Hermes, the one of the public square, beside the Painted Porch. "As you go toward the portico that is called Poikile because of its paintings, there is a bronze Hermes, called Agoraios (of the square), and a gate close by” (Pausan. 1, 15,1). Playing upon "Hermes Agoraios,” Zeus dubs him Hermagoras, after a well-known rhetorician. At any rate he is all covered with pitch from being cast every day by the sculptors. My lad, what brings you here at a run? Do you bring us news from earth, by any chance? HERMAGORAS Important news, Zeus, that requires unlimited
attention.
 ZEUS Tell me whether we have overlooked anything
else in the way of conspiracy.

 HERMAGORAS It fell just now that they who work in bronze Had smeared me o’er with pitch on breast and back; A funny corslet round my body hung, Conformed by imitative cleverness To take the full impression of the bronze. I saw a crowd advancing with a pair Of sallow bawlers, warriors with words, Hight Damis, one— A parody on Euripides; compare Orest. 866, 871, 880. ZEUS Leave off your bombast, my good Hermagoras; I
know the men you mean. But tell me whether they
have been in action long.
 HERMAGORAS Not very; they were still skirmishing, slinging
abuse at each other at long range.
 ZEUS Then what else remains to be done, gods, except to stoop over and listen to them? So let the Hours remove the bar now, drive the clouds away and throw open the gates of Heaven. ZEUS Heracles! what a crowd has come together to listen! ‘Timocles himself does not please me at all, for he is trembling and confused. The fellow will spoil it all to-day; in fact, it is clear that he won’t even be able to square off at Danis. But let’s do the very utmost that we can and pray for him, Silently, each to himself, so that Damis may not be the wiser. A parody on Iliad 7, 195. TIMOCLES At this point the scene becomes double; down below are the philosophers disputing in the Stoa, and up above are the gods, listening eagerly with occasional comments. 
Damis, you sacrilegious wretch, why do you say
that the gods do not exist and do not show providence in behalf of men?
 DAMIS No, you tell me first what reason you have for
believing that they do exist.
 TIMOCLES No, you tell me, you miscreant!
 DAMIS No, you!
 ZEUS So far our man is much better and more noisy in
his bullying. Good, Timocles! Pile on your abuse;
that is your strong point, for in everything else he
will make you as mute as a fish.
 TIMOCLES But I swear by Athena that I will not answer
you first.
 DAMIS Well then, put your question, Timocles, for you

 

have won with that oath of yours. But no abuse,
please.