Zeus the Tragedian (15)

Hermes

Well, are you never going to begin?

Zeus

I imagine, men of Olympus, that you would gladly give considerable sums to obtain an idea of what this matter may be with reference to which you are now summoned. This being the case, you will do well to lend me your ears with all eagerness. Now the present crisis, deities, wellnigh declares, with audible voice, that we must give all our energies to considering the matters before us, but, as a matter of fact, we seem to me to treat them with negligence. But I should like-my Demosthenes fails me—to explain to you why I was so much disturbed as to call an assembly. Yesterday, as you are aware, Mnesitheos, the ship-master, offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his ship that was almost lost off Kaphereus, and we feasted in the Peiraieusas many of us, that is, as Mnesitheos had invited to the banquet. After the libations you dispersed in different directions, pursuing your own devices, while I, seeing that it was not yet late, went up to the city to stroll about at dusk in the Kerameikos, pondering on the meanness of Mnesitheos. For he offered up, by way of feast to sixteen gods, one cock, aged and asthmatic at that, and four grains of frankincense, pretty well decayed, so

that it went out immediately on the embers, and not enough fragrance came out of the smoke to tickle the tip of your nose. And yet when his ship was actually going on the rocks and within. the reef he promised whole hecatombs.