Zeus Rants (51-53)

TIMOCLES Well then, as my comparison of the ship did not seem to you very valid, attend now to my sheetanchor, as they call it, which you can’t by any possibility cut away.

ZEUS What in the world is he going to say?

TIMOCLES See whether I frame this syllogism logically, and whether you can capsize it in any way. If there are altars, there are also gods; but there are altars, ergo there are also gods. What have you to say to that?

DAMIS After I have laughed to my heart’s content I'll tell you.

TIMOCLES Well, it looks as if you would never stop laughing ; tell me, though, how you thought what I said was funny.

DAMIS Because you do not see that your anchor is attached to a slender string—and it’s your sheetanchor at that! Having hitched the existence of gods to the existence of altars, you think you have made yourself a safe mooring. So, as you say you have no better sheet-anchor than this, let's be going.

TIMOCLES You admit your defeat, then, by going away first ?

DAMIS Yes, Timocles, for like men threatened with violence from some quarter or other, you have taken refuge at the altars. Therefore I vow by the sheetanchor, I want to make an agreement with you now, right at the altars, not to dispute any more on this topic.

TIMOCLES Are you mocking me, you ghoul, you miscreant, you abomination, you gallows-bird, you scum of the earth? Don’t we know who your father was, and

how your mother was a courtesan, and that you strangled your brother and you run after women and corrupt the young, you height of all that’s lewd and shameless? Don’t run away! Take a thrashing from me before you go! Ill brain you right now with this brickbat, dirty miscreant that you are!

ZEUS One is going away laughing, gods, and the other is following him up with abuse, because he can’t stand the mockery of Damis ; it looks as if he would hithim on the head with the brickbat. But what ofus? What are we to do now?

HERMES It seems to me that the comic poet hit it right when he said :

No harm’s been done you if you none admit.

Menander, Epitrepontes (179 Kock). What very great harm is it if a few men go away convinced of all this? The people who think diferently are in large majority, not only the rank and file of the Greeks, but the barbarians to a man. mY

ZEUS Yes, Hermes, but what Darius said about Zopyrus is very much in point too. I myself had rather have this man Damis alone on my side than possess a thousand Babylons.[*]