The Parliament of the Gods (1-5)

ZEUS No more murmuring, Gods, or gathering in corners and whispering in each other’s ears because you take it hard that many share our table who are not worthy. Now that a public meeting upon this question has been authorised, let each declare his opinion openly and bring his charges. Hermes, make the proclamation required by law.

HERMES Hear ye! Silence! Among the gods of full standing, entitled to speak, who desires to do so? The question concerns resident aliens and foreigners.

MOMUS I, Momus here, Zeus, if you would let me speak.

ZEUS The proclamation itself gives permission, so that you will have no need of mine,

MOMUS Well then, I say that some of us behave shockingly; it is not enough for them that they themselves have become gods instead of men, but unless they can make their very attendants and servants as good as we are, they do not think they have done anything important or enterprising. And I beg you, Zeus, to let me speak frankly, for I could not do otherwise. Everybody knows how free of speech I am, and disinclined to hush up anything at all that is ill done. I criticize everybody and express my views openly, without either fearing anyone or concealing my opinion out of respect, so that most people think me vexatious and meddling by nature; they call me a regular public prosecutor. However, inasmuch as it is according to law, and the proclamation has been made, and you, Zeus, allow me to speak with complete liberty, I shall do so, without anyreservations.

Many, I say, not content that they themselves take part in the same assemblies as we and feast with us on equal terms, and that too when they are half mortal, havelugged up into heaven their own servants and boon-companions and have fraudulently registered them, so that now they receive largesses and share in sacrifices on an equal footing without even having paid us the tax of resident aliens.

ZEUS Let us have no riddles, Momus; speak in plain and explicit language, and supply the name, too. Asit is, you have flung your statement into the midst of us

MOMUS It is splendid, Zeus, that you actually urge me to frankness; that is a truly royal, high-souled action. Therefore I shall give the name. It is this peerless Dionysus, who is half human; in fact, on his mother’s side he is not even Greek, but the grandson of a Syrophoenician trader named Cadmus. Inasmuch as he has been honoured with immortality, I say nothing of the man himself—either of his hood or of his drunkenness or of his gait; for you all, I think, see that he is womanish and unmanly in his character, half crazy, with strong drink on his breath from the beginning of the day. But he has foisted upon us a whole clan; he presents himself at the head of his rout, and has made gods out of Pan and Silenus and the Satyrs, regular farm-hands and goat-herds, most of them—capering fellows with queer shapes. One of them has horns and looks like a goat from the waist down, and wears a long beard, so that he is not much different from a goat. Another is a baldpated gaffer with a flat nose who usually rides on a donkey. He is a Lydian. The Satyrs are prickeared, and they too are bald, with horns like those that bud on new-born kids; they are Phrygians, and they all have tails. D’ye see what sort of gods he is making for us, the bounder?

And then we wonder that men despise us when they see such laughable and portentous deities! I omit to mention that he has also brought up two women, one his sweetheart Ariadne, whose very head-band he has admitted into the starry choir, and the other the daughter of Icarius the farmer![*] And what is most ridiculous of all, Gods, even Erigone’s dog—that too he has brought up, so that the little maid shall not be distressed if she cannot have in heaven her pet, darling doggie! Does not all this look to you like insolence, impudence, and mockery? But let me tell you about others.