Zeus the Tragedian (43)

Timokles

But tell me, god-forsaken wretch, whose work would you call oracles and prophecies of future events, if not of the gods and their providence?

Damis

Hold your peace, my good fellow, on the subject of the oracles, for I shall ask you

which of them in particular you would like to recall. Perhaps that one Apollo delivered to the Lydian, which was neatly double-edged and looked both ways, like some of the Hermae, which are exactly alike on both sides to whichever part of them you look. For tell me, will Croesus by crossing the Halys be more likely to overthrow his own kingdom or that of Cyros? And yet that Sardian pest paid no small sum for this reversible utterance.

Momos

The man is enumerating the very things I was most afraid of. Where now is our handsome harper? Go down and defend yourself against these charges of his.

Zeus

You strike us when we are down, Momos, finding fault with us now, when the season is past.