Scaife ATLAS

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Zeus the Tragedian (36-38)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0062.tlg018.perseus-eng5:36-38
Refs {'start': {'reference': '36', 'human_reference': 'Section 36'}, 'end': {'reference': '38', 'human_reference': 'Section 38'}}
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Timokles

Very well. Tell me, then, is it your opinion, accursed wretch, that the gods exert no providence?

Damis

They do not.

Timokles

What, is the universe, then, not the result of design?

Damis

It is not.

Timokles

And did no god arrange the whole superintendence of things either?

p.43
Damis

No.

Timokles

But all things are borne along haphazard by an unreasoning current?

Damis

Yes.

Timokles

Now can you men endure to hear this and not stone the guilty wretch?

Damis

Why do you stir up the audience against me, Timokles? And who are you to show anger in the gods' behalf when they are not angry themselves? At least they have not handled me roughly, though they have heard me for a long time, supposing they do hear.

Timokles

They hear, Damis, they hear, and they will take vengeance on you some day.

Damis

And when would they have leisure for my case if, as you say, they are full of cares, managing the universe, infinite as it is? That is the reason they have not yet even punished you for your continual perjuries and your other crimes, which I will not specify lest I should be driven to use abusive language myself, contrary to our agreement. And yet I do not see how they could produce better proof of their own providence than by bringing your bad life to a bad end. But clearly they have gone abroad, across the ocean, perchance to visit the "blameless Ethiopians." At least it is their habit to go constantly to dine with them, and sometimes on their own invitation.

p.44

Timokles

What shall I say in reply to such shameless effrontery?

Damis

What I have been yearning to hear from you this long time: how you came to believe in the providence of the gods.

Timokles

I was convinced of it first by the order of natural events: the sun who always travels the same road and the moon similarly, and the recurring seasons, and the growth of plants, and the birth of animals, and these animals themselves so ingeniously contrived that they feed themselves and reason, and move about and walk, and build houses and make shoes, and all the rest of it. Do not these seem to you the works of providence?

Damis

Why, Timokles, you have assumed the very question in dispute, for it remains to be seen. whether each of these is accomplished by providence. That natural events are such as you describe I, too, admit, but it does not follow of necessity that they owe their existence to any intelligent foresight. For it is possible that they had some other origin, and yet have now a consistent and methodical existence. But this forced action of theirs you call 'order,' and then, forsooth, you fly into a rage if some one rejects your argument when, after recounting and praising the nature of objects, you go on to believe that this is a proof that each of them is also put in its

p.45
place by providence. Wherefore, in the words of the comic poet,
This is too feeble, tell me something else.

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