Zeus Rants (5-6)

Well then, make a proclamation and let everyone come; you are right in what you say.

Hear ye, gods, assemble in meeting! Don’t delay! Assemble one and all! Come! We are to meet about important matters.

Is that the sort of proclamation you make, Hermes, so bald and simple and prosaic, and that too when you are calling them together on business of the greatest importance?

Why, how do you want me to do it, Zeus?

How do I want you to do it? Ennoble your proclamation, I tell you, with metre and_highsounding, poetical words, so that they may be more eager to assemble.

Yes, but that, Zeus, is the business of epic poets and reciters, and I am not a bit of a poet, so that I shall ruin the proclamation by making my lines too long or too short and it will be a laughing-stock to them because of the limping verses. In fact I see that even Apollo gets laughed at for some of his oracles, although they are generally so beclouded

Well then, Hermes, put into the proclamation a lot of the verses which Homer used in calling us together; of course you remember them.

Not at all as distinctly and readily as I might, but I'll have a try at it anyway: