Heracles This is really a serious matter; your ranting was not so uncalled-for, Zeus. Zeus You fancied me thinking of some Danaé or Antiope; and this was the dread reality. Now, Hermes, Hera, Athene, what is our course? We await your contribution to our plans. Hermagoras My opinion is that an assembly be summoned and the community taken into counsel. Heracles And I concur. Athene Sire, I dissent entirely; you should not fill Heaven with apprehensions, nor let your own uneasiness be visible, but take private measures to assure Timocles’s victory and Damis’s being laughed out of court. Hermagoras It cannot bekept quiet, Zeus; the philosophers’ debate is public, and you will be accused of despotic methods, if you maintain reserve on a matter of so great and general interest.

 Zeus Make proclamation and summon all, then. I approve your judgement.

 

 Hermagoras Here, assemble, all ye Gods; don’t waste time, come along, here you are; we are going to have an important meeting. Zeus What, Hermes? so bald, so plain, so prosy an announcement—on this momentous occasion? Hermagoras Why, how would you like it done? Zeus Some metre, a little poetic sonority, would make the style impressive, and they would be more likely to come. Hermagoras Ah, Zeus, that is work for epic poets or reciters, and I am no good at poetry. I should be sure to put in too many feet, or leave out some, and spoil the thing; they would only laugh at my rude verses. Why, I’ve known Apollo himself laughed at for some of his oracles;_ and prophecy has the advantage of obscurity, which gives the hearers something better to do than scanning verses. Zeus Well, well, Hermes, you can make lines from Homer the chief ingredient of your composition; summon us in his words; you remember them, of course. Hermagoras I cannot say they are exactly on the tip of my tongue; however, I’ll do my best:

 Let ne’er a God (tum, tum), nor eke a Goddess, 
 Nor yet of Ocean’s rivers one be wanting. 

 Nor nymphs; but gather to great Zeus’s council; 
 And all that feast on glorious hecatombs 
 Yea, middle and lower classes of Divinity, 

 Or nameless ones that snuff fat altar-fumes.