HERA 
A dreadful situation in all conscience and it wasn’t
for nothing, Zeus, that you ranted over it.
 ZEUS 
And you supposed I was thinking of some Danaé
or Antiope in all this confusion! Come now, Hermes
and Hera and Athena, what can we do? You too,
you know, must do your share of the planning.
 HERMES 
Ihold the question should be laid before the
people ; let’s call a meeting.
 HERA 
I think the same as he does.
 ATHENA 
But I think differently, father. Let’s not stir
Heaven all up and show that you are upset over the
business: manage it yourself in such a way that
Timocles will win in the argument and Damis will
be laughed to scorn and abandon the field.


 

 HERMES 
But people won’t fail to know of it, Zeus, as the
philosophers are to have their dispute in public, and
they will think you a tyrant if you don't call everyone into counsel on such important matters of
common concern to all.

 ZEUS 
Well then, make a proclamation and let everyone
come; you are right in what you say.
 HERMES 
Hear ye, gods, assemble in meeting! Don’t delay !
Assemble one and all! Come! We are to meet
about important matters.
 ZEUS 
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?
 HERMES 
Why, how do you want me to do it, Zeus?
 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.
 HERMES 
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

 

with obscurity that those who hear them don’t have
much chance to examine their metres.
 ZEUS 
Well then, Hermes, put into the proclamation a lot
of the verses which Homer used in calling us together; of course you remember them.
 HERMES 
Not at all as distinctly and readily as I might, but
I'll have a try at it anyway :
 Never a man of the gods bide away nor ever a woman, 
 Never a stream stay at home save only the river of Ocean, 
 Never a Nymph; to the palace of Zeus you're to come in a body, 
 There to confer. I bid all, whether feasters on hecatombs famous, 
 Whether the class you belong to be middle or lowest, or even 
 Nameless you sit beside altars that yield ye no savoury odours.