Icaromenippus, or the Sky-man (23-24)

MENIPPUS

Zeus, however, looked at me with a

fierce, Titanic stare and said in a very terrible voice:

What is your name, sir, whence do you come, and where is your city and hearth-stone?

The line occurs frequently in the Odyssey, e.g. 1, 170. When I heard this, I nearly dropped dead of fright, but stood my ground all the same, though my jaw was hanging and I was thunderstruck by the loudness of his voice. But in time I pulled myself together and told him the whole story clearly, starting at the very beginning—how I wanted to learn about the heavenly bodies, how I went to the philosophers, how I heard them contradicting each other, how I got tired of being pulled this way and that by their arguments, and then about my idea and the wings and all the rest of it till my arrival in Heaven; and at the end I added the message of the moon. Smiling and unbending a little, Zeus remarked: “What can one say to Otus and Ephialtes when even a Menippus has the hardihood to come up to Heaven? However, we invite you to be our guest for to-day, and to-morrow, after we have taken action on the matters about which you have come, we shall send you away.” With that he arose and walked toward the best place in Heaven for hearing, as it was time to sit and listen to the prayers.

MENIPPUS

As he walked along he asked me about things on earth, first the usual questions, how much wheat now costs in Greece, whether the last winter hit us hard and whether the crops needed more rain. Then he

inquired whether any of the descendants of Phidias were still left, why the Athenians had omitted the Diasia for so many years, whether they had any idea of finishing the Olympieion for him and whether the men who robbed his temple in Dodona had been arrested.[*]

When I had answered these questions, he said:

“Tell me, Menippus, what opinion do men hold about me?

“Tell me, Menippus, what opinion do men hold about me?” “What opinion should they hold, sir,” said I, “except the highest possible one, that you are king of all the gods?” “You are fond of your joke,” said he, “but I am thoroughly acquainted with their craze for novelty even without your telling me. There was once a time when they looked upon me as a prophet and a healer, and I was all in all; “Yea, full of Zeus were all the streets And all the marts of men.’ At that time Dodona and Pisa were rich and highly regarded by all, and I could not even see for the smoke of the sacrifices. But since Apollo founded his oracle at Delphi and Asclepius his hospital in Pergamos and the temple of Bendis arose in Thrace and the temple of Anubis in Egypt and the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, these are the places where they all run and celebrate feast-days and bring hecatombs, and offer up ingots of gold, while I, they think, being past my prime, am sufficiently honoured if they sacrifice to me once every four whole years at Olympia. Consequently, you can see for yourself that my altars are more frigid than the Laws of Plato or the Syllogisms of Chrysippus.”