MOMUS Didn't I tell you, gods, that all this would come
out and be thoroughly looked into?
 ZEUS You did, Momus, and your criticism was just. I
shall try to set it all right if we escape this immediate
danger.
 TIMOCLES But, you god-hater, how about the oracles and pre-

 

dictions of coming events? whose work can you call
them except that of the gods and their providence?
 DAMIS Don’t say a word about the oracles, my worthy
friend, or else I'l ask you which of them you want
to cite. The one that Apollo gave the Lydian, which
was thoroughly double-edged and two-faced, like
some of our Herms, which are double and just alike
on both sides, whichever way you look at them; for
what was there to show that Croesus by crossing the
Halys would destroy his own kingdom rather than
that of Cyrus? And yet the luckless Sardian had
paid a. good many thousands for that ambidextrous
verse.
 MOMUS Gods, the man keeps saying the very things that
I most feared. Where is our handsome musician
now? (Zo Arotto) Go down and defend yourself
to him against these charges!
 ZEUS You are boring us to extinction, Momus, with yout
untimely eriticism.
 TIMOCLES Take care what you are doing, Damis, you miscreant! You are all but upsetting the very temples
of the gods with your arguments, and their altars
too.
 DAMIS Not all the altars, as far as I am concerned,
Timocles; for what harm do they do if they are full
of incense and sweet savour? But I should be glad
to see the altars of Artemis among the’ Tauvians
turned: completely upside down, those on which the
maiden goddess used to enjoy such horrid feasts. ZEUS Where did he get this insufferable stuff that he is
pouring out on us? He doesn’t spare any of the
gods, but speaks out like a fishwife and Takes first one, then the other, the guiltless along with the guilty. Iliad 15, 137. MOMUS I tell you, Zeus, you'll find few that are guiltless
among us, and possibly as he continues the man will
soon fasten on a certain person of prominence.