The Parliament of the Gods (4-7)

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.

ZEUS Say nothing, Momus, about either Asclepius or Heracles, for I see where you are heading in your speech. As far as they are concerned, one of them is a doctor who cures people of their illnesses and is “as good as a host in himself,”[*] whilst Heracles, though my own son, purchased his immortality at the cost of many labours; so do not denounce them.

MOMUS I shall hold my tongue, Zeus, for your sake, although I have plenty to say. Indeed, if there were nothing else, they still carry the marks of fire![*] And if it were permissible to employ free speech about yourself, I should have plenty to say.

MOMUS Well, in Crete not only that may be heard, but they tell another story about you and show people atomb. However, I put no faith either in them or in the Achaeans of Aegium, who assert that you are a changeling.[*]

But I do intend to speak of one thing that in my opinion ought by all means to be censured.

It was you, Zeus, who began these illegalities and caused the corruption of our body politic by cohabiting with mortal women and going down to visit them, now in one form, now in another. It has gone so far that we are afraid that someone may make a victim of you if he catches you when you are a bull, or that some goldsmith may work you up when you are gold, and instead of Zeus we may have you turning up as a necklace or a bracelet or an earring. However that may be, you have filled heaven with these—demigods! I do not care to put it otherwise. And it is a very ridiculous state of things when one suddenly hears that Heracles has been appointed a god, but Eurystheus, who used to order him about, is dead; and that the temple of Heracles, who was a slave, and the tomb of Eurystheus, his master, stand side by side; and again, that in Thebes Dionysus is a