Zeus Rants (41)

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

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?

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.

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