Zeus Rants (41-42)

ZEUS I say, gods! what a shout the crowd raised, applauding Damis! Our man seems to be in a fix.

In fact he is sweating and quaking ; it’s clear he is going to throw up the sponge, and is already looking about for a place to slip out and run away.

TIMOCLES I suppose you don’t think that Euripides is telling the truth either, when he puts the gods themselves on the stage and shows them saving the herves and destroying villains and impious fellows like yourself ?

DAMIS Why, Timocles, you doughtiest of philosophers, if the playwrights have convinced you by doing this, you must needs believe either that Polus and Aristodemus and Satyrus are gods for the nonce, or that the very masks representing the gods, the buskins, the trailing tunics, the cloaks, gauntlets, padded paunches and all the other things with which they make tragedy grand are divine; and that is thoroughly ridiculous. I assure you when Euripides, following his own devices, says what he thinks without being under any constraint imposed by the requirements of his plays, you will hear him speaking frankly then :

Dost see on high this boundless sweep of air

That lappeth earth about in yielding arms ?

Hold this to be Zeus, and believe it God.

From a lost play. These verses are translated by Cicero (Nat. Deor. ii, 25, 65). And again :

'Twas Zeus, whoever Zeus is, for I know Him not, except by hearsay.

From the lost Melanippe the Wise. The line was unfavourably received and subseqnently changed (Plut. Mor. 756 c). and so on.

TIMOCLES Well ‘then, all men and all nations have been mistaken in believing in gods and celebrating festivals ?

DAMIS Thank you kindly, Timocles, for-reminding me of what the nations believe... From that you can discern partitularly well that there is nothing in the theory of gods, for the confusion is great, and some believe one thing, some another. The Scythians offer sacrifice to a scimitar, the Thracians to Zamolxis, a runaway slave who came to them from Samos, the Phrygians to Men, the Ethiopians to Day, the Cyllenians to’ Phales, the Assyrians to a dove, the Persians to fire, and the Egyptians to water. And while all the Egyptians in common have water for a god, the people of Memphis have the bull, the people of Pelusium a wild onion, others an ibis or a crocodile, others a dog-faced god or a cat or a monkey. Moreover, taking them by villages, some hold the right shoulder a god and others, who dwell opposite them, the left; others, half.a skull, and others an earthen cup or dish. Isn’t that matter for laughter, good Timocles?