Zeus Tragoedus (30-32)

But, reverend sir, you claim the gift of prophecy, and it has brought you in good pay—golden ingots on one occasion?— why not seize this opportunity of exhibiting your art? You might tell us which of the disputants will win; a prophet knows the future, of course.

I have no tripod or incense here; no substitute for the divining-well of Castaly.

Aha! you are caught! you will not come to the scratch.

Speak, my son, in spite of all; give not this enemy occasion to blaspheme; let him not flout thy powers with tripod and water and frankincense, as though thine art were lost without them.

Father, it were better done at Delphi or at Colophon, with all the customary instruments to hand. Yet, bare and unprovided as I am, I will essay to tell whether of them twain shall prevail—If the metre is a little rough, you must make allowances.

Goon, then; but remember, Apollo: lucidity; no ‘able counsel,[*] no solutions that want solving themselves. It is not a question of lamb and tortoise boiling’ in Lydia now; you know what we want to get at.

What will thine utterance be? How dread, even now, is the making ready! The altered hue, the rolling eyes, the floating locks, the frenzied gesture—all is possession, horror, mystery.

Father, I am only an alien, but I am not afraid to give my opinion, Let them begin their debate. Then, if Timocles gets the best of it, we can let the meeting go on, in our own interest; on the other hand, if things look bad, I will give the Portico a shake, if you like, and bring it down on Damis; a confounded fellow like that is not to insult us.

Now by Heracles—I can swear by you, I certainly cannot swear by your plan—what a crude—what a shockingly philistine suggestion! What! destroy all those people for one man’s wickedness? and the Portico thrown in, with the Miltiades and Cynaegirus on the field of Marathon? Why, if these were ruined, how could the orators ever make another speech, with the best of their stock-in-trade taken from them? Besides, while you were alive, you might possibly have done a thing like that; but now that you are a God, you surely understand that only the Fates are competent, and we cannot interfere?

Then when I slew the lion or the Hydra, was I only the Fates’ instrument?

Of course you were.

And now, suppose any one insults me, or robs my temple, or upsets an image of me, am I not to pulverize him, just because the Fates have not decreed it long ago?.

Certainly not.

Then allow me to speak my mind; I’m a blunt man; I call a spade a spade. If this is the state of things with you, good-bye for me to your honours and altar-steam and fat of victims; I shall be off to Hades, There, if I:show my bow ready for action, the ghosts of the monsters I have slain will be frightened, at least.