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

 

all, so that many are making guesses and applying
your remarks now to one and now to another. Being
an exponent of frankness, you must not stick at saying
anything.
 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! Erigone; her dog Maera guided her to the spot where Icarius lay buried. He had been slain by drunken shepherds to whom he had given wine that Dionysus Thad taught him how to make. After her suicide Erigone became Virgo, and Maera, it would seem from Lucian’s xuvidiov, Procyon (Canis Minor). No doubt it is Momus’ indignation about the dog that accounts for his failure to mention Icarius’ introduction into the heavens as Bootes. 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.