The Parliament of the Gods (7)

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