You say, my admirable friend, that you are a seer, and you ask a good price for your services, and once even received bricks of gold. Why did you not give us an exhibition of your skill in the nick of time by telling us which of the Sophists is going to prevail in argument? For, of course, you know what the issue will be, since you are a seer.

How can I, Momos, when I have no tripod with me, and no incense and no prophetic fountain like Kastalia?

Look, now, when you have got into a tight place you run away from conviction.

Never mind, my child. Speak out, and do not give this backbiter pretexts for slander, and for saying, in his sneering way, that your skill is dependent on your tripod and your water and your incense, and that unless you have these your art will be lost.

These things, father, are better done in Delphi or in Kolophon, where I have all the accessories to which I am accustomed. Still, bare as I am of these and unequipped, I will try to prophesy which of them will have the mastery. But you will bear with me if my verses should nor be very correct.

Speak, but only make your remarks clear, Apollo, so that they will not need an advocate themselves or interpretation. This is not a case of sheep's flesh and tortoise being boiled together in Lydia. You know what our inquiry is about.

What in the world are you going to tell us, my child? The symptoms that precede the utterance are already alarming. His color is fading, his eyes are rolling, his hair is standing on end, and his gestures are those of a Korybant. His whole bearing is mystic, frantic, possessed.

Hear now the word divine, declared by the prophet ApolloDealing with shuddering strife that men wage, shrill with their screaming,Armed cap-a-pie with words, with arguments well-compacted.Hither and yon with the clucking that shifts to the side of the victorStrike they and bear to earth the towering stern of the plow-tail.Yet, when the locust shall fall 'neath the crooked claw of the vulture,Then the rain - bringing crows shall utter their ultimate portent.Victory lies with the mules, but the ass shall butt his fleet children.

Why do you burst out laughing at this, Momus? Surely there is nothing humorous in our present situation. Stop, wretch, or you will choke with laughing.

How can I help laughing at such a clear, straightforward oracle?

Then, perhaps, you will kindly interpret to us what he says.

It is perfectly plain, so that we shall not need Themistokles. The oracle says clearly that the seer is a juggler and that we are packasses, by Zeus! and mules to believe in him, with not the wit of a locust among us.

I do not hesitate, father, to express my views, even though I am only a resident foreigner. My idea is that when they meet and are already engaged in discussion, then, if Timokles prove the better man, we will allow the meeting to proceed to our advantage. But if it turn out otherwise, then by your leave I will shake the Porch itself from its foundations and hurl it at Damis, so that the accursed wretch may not offer insult to us.

Heavens, Herakles, what a boorish speech, and how horribly Boeotian! To destroy so many for the sake of one wretch, and, what is more, the Porch with Marathon, Miltiades, Kynaegeiros and all? If all these should perish together, how would the orators continue to practise, deprived of the chief theme of their speeches? Moreover, in your lifetime it was perhaps possible to do even a thing of that kind; but since you have become a god, you have learned, I presume, that the Fates alone control these matters, and we have no voice in them.

Then, when I was slaying the lion or the hydra, the Fates were doing these things by my agency?

Certainly.

And at this moment if any one uses insolence towards me, by rifling one of my temples or overturning my statue, shall I not destroy him unless it was long ago so decided by the Fates?

By no means.

Then, Zeus, hear me declare myself frankly, for I am a boor, as the comic poet said, and I call a spade a spade. If this is our plight, I shall bid a long farewell to the worship and savor of burnt-offerings and blood of victims in heaven, and go off to Hades. There the ghosts, at least, of the beasts I slew will be afraid of me, if I have my bow, though I be unarmed beside.

Very well; nothing like a relative for turning state's evidence, as they say. You would have saved Damis the trouble of making these remarks by suggesting them yourself.