Icaromenippus, or the Sky-man (9-10)

MENIPPUS

As for the gods, why speak of them at all, seeing that to some a number was god, while others swore by geese and dogs and plane-trees?[*] Moreover, some banished all the rest of the gods and assigned the governance of the universe to one only, so that it made me a little disgusted to hear that gods were so scarce. Others, however, lavishly declared them

to be many and drew a distinction between them, calling one a first god and ascribing to others second and third rank in divinity. Furthermore, some thought that the godhead was without form and substance, while others defined it as body. Then too they did not all think that the gods exercise providence in our affairs; there were some who relieved them of every bit of responsibility as we are accustomed to relieve old men of public duties; indeed, the part that they give them to play is just like that of supers in comedy. A few went beyond all this and did not even believe that there were any gods at all, but left the world to wag on unruled and ungoverned.

MENIPPUS

When I heard all this, the result was that I did not venture to disbelieve “high-thundering” gentlemen with goodly beards, and yet did not know where to turn in order to find a point of doctrine that was unassailable and not in any way subject to refutation by someone else. So I went through just what Homer speaks of; again and again I was fain to believe one of them,

“but other counsel drew me back.

Od. 9, 302. At my wit’s end in view of all this, I despaired of hearing any truth about these matters on earth and thought that the only way out of my whole dilemma would be to get wings somehow and go up to Heaven. The wish was father to the thought, of course, but the story-teller Aesop had something to do with it also, for he makes Heaven accessible to eagles and beetles and now and then even to camels. Well, that I myself could ever grow wings was not in any way possible, I thought; butif L put on the wings of a vulture or an eagle (for no others would be large enough to uphold the weight of a man’s body), perhaps my attempt would succeed. So catching my birds, I carefully cut of the right wing of the eagle and the left wing of the vulture, tied them tightly together, fitted them to my shoulders with stout straps and made grips for my hands at the ends of the primary feathers. Then I first tried myself by jumping up and down, working my arms and doing as geese do—lifting myself along the ground and running on tiptoe as I flew. When the thing began to work well for me, I went in for the experiment with greater boldness. Going up to the acropolis, I let myself drop down the cliff right into the theatre.