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. See Herodotus 3, 153 ff.