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 flowingThis 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!

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.

How can I, Zeus, when the oracle is so clear and manifest?

Well then, suppose you tell us what in the world it means.

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.

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!

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.

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

Why, certainly!

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?

Important news, Zeus, that requires unlimited attention.

Tell me whether we have overlooked anything else in the way of conspiracy.

It fell just now that they who work in bronzeHad smeared me o’er with pitch on breast and back;A funny corslet round my body hung,Conformed by imitative clevernessTo take the full impression of the bronze.I saw a crowd advancing with a pairOf sallow bawlers, warriors with words,Hight Damis, one—A parody on Euripides; compare Orest. 866, 871, 880.

Leave off your bombast, my good Hermagoras; I know the men you mean. But tell me whether they have been in action long.

Not very; they were still skirmishing, slinging abuse at each other at long range.

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.

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.

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?

No, you tell me first what reason you have for believing that they do exist.

No, you tell me, you miscreant!

No, you!

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.

But I swear by Athena that I will not answer you first.

Well then, put your question, Timocles, for you have won with that oath of yours. But no abuse, please.