Zeus Tragoedus (1-5)

Wherefore thus brooding, Zeus? wherefore apart, And palely pacing, as Earth’s sages use? Let me thy counsel know, thy cares partake; And find thy comfort in a faithful fool.

Cronides, lord of lords, and all our sire, I clasp thy knees; grant thou what I require; A boon the lightning-eyed Tritonia asks: Speak, rend the veil thy secret thought that masks; Reveal what care thy mind within thee gnaws, Blanches thy cheek, and this deep moaning draws,

Speech hath no utterance of surpassing fear, Tragedy holds no misery or woe, But our divinest essence soon shall taste.

Alas, how dire a prelude to thy tale!

A truce to your passion, Zeus. We have not these good people’s gift for farce or recitation; we have not swallowed Euripides whole, and cannot play up to you.

Do you suppose we do not know how to account for your annoyance?

Don’t tell me; it’s a love affair; that’s what’s the matter with you. However, you won’t have any ‘wailings’ from me; I am too much hardened to neglect, I suppose you have discovered some new Danae or Semele or Europa whose charms are troubling you; and so you are meditating a transformation into a bull or satyr, or a descent through the roof into your beloved’s bosom as a shower of gold; all the symptoms—your groans and your tears and your white face—point to love and nothing else.

Happy ignorance, that sees not what perils now forbid love and such toys!

Is your name Zeus, or not? and, if so, what else can possibly annoy you but love?

Hera, our condition is most precarious; it is touchand-go, as they call it, whether we are still to enjoy reverence and honour from the earth, or be utterly neglected and become of no account.

Has Earth produced a new brood of giants? Have the Titans broken their chains, overpowered their guards, and taken up arms against us once more?

What can the matter be, then? To hear you, one