Timon, or the Misanthrope (4)

The result is that you are reaping the fruit of your laziness. Nobody either sacrifices or wears wreaths in your honour any longer, except now and then a man who does it as something incidental to the games at Olympia; and even in that case he does not think he is doing anything at all necessary, but just contributes to the support of an ancient custom. Little by little, most noble of the gods, they have ousted you from your high esteem and are turning you into a Cronus. I will not say how many times they have robbed your temple already; some of them, however, have actually laid their

hands upon your own person at Olympia, and you, High-thunderer though you be, were too sluggish to rouse the dogs or to call in the neighbours that they might come to your rescue and catch the fellows while they were still packing up for flight. No, you noble Giant-killer and Titan-conqueror, you sat still and let them crop your long locks, holding a fifteen-foot thunderbolt in your right hand![*]

Come, you marvellous ruler, when will you stop overlooking these things in such a careless way? When will you punish all this wrong-doing? How many conflagrations and deluges will be enough to cope with such overwhelming insolence in the world?