Zeus. Speak, my son, in spite of all; give not this enemy occasion to blaspheme; let him not flout thy powers with tripod and water and frankincense, as though thine art were lost without them.
Apol. Father, it were better done at Delphi or at Colophon, with all the customary instruments to hand. Yet, bare and unprovided as I am, I will essay to tell whether of them twain shall prevail. — If the metre is a little rough, you must make allowances.
Mo. Go on, then; but remember, Apollo: lucidity; no ‘able counsel,’ no solutions that want solving themselves. It is not a question of lamb and tortoise boiling [Footnote: See Croesus in Notes.] in Lydia now; you know what we want to get at.
Zeus. What will thine utterance be? How dread, even now, is the making ready! The altered hue, the rolling eyes, the floating locks, the frenzied gesture — all is possession, horror, mystery.
Apol.
Who lists may hear Apollo’s soothfast rede
Of stiff debate, heroic challenge ringing
Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof.
Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife;
Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak.
But when grasshopper feels the vulture’s talons,
Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last,
Prevail the mules, butts his swift foals the ass.
Zeus. Why that ribald laughter, Momus? It is no laughing matter. Stop, stop, fool; you’ll choke yourself.
Mo. Well, such a clear simple oracle puts one in spirits.
Zeus. Indeed? Then perhaps you will kindly expound it.
Mo. No need of a Themistocles this time; it is absolutely plain. The oracle just says in so many words that he is a quack, and we pack-asses (quite true) and mules to believe in him; we have not as much sense, it adds, as a grasshopper.
Herac. Father, I am only an alien, but I am not afraid to give my opinion. Let them begin their debate. Then, if Timocles gets the best of it, we can let the meeting go on, in our own interest; on the other hand, if things look bad, I will give the Portico a shake, if you like, and bring it down on Damis; a confounded fellow like that is not to insult us.
Zeus. Now by Heracles — I can swear by you, I certainly cannot swear by your plan — what a crude — what a shockingly philistine suggestion! What! destroy all those people for one man’s wickedness? and the Portico thrown in, with the Miltiades and Cynaegirus on the field of Marathon? Why, if these were ruined, how could the orators ever make another speech, with the best of their stock-in-trade taken from them? Besides, while you were alive, you might possibly have done a thing like that; but now that you are a God, you surely understand that only the Fates are competent, and we cannot interfere?
Herac. Then when I slew the lion or the Hydra, was I only the Fates’ instrument?
Zeus. Of course you were.
Herac. And now, suppose any one insults me, or robs my temple, or upsets an image of me, am I not to pulverize him, just because the Fates have not decreed it long ago?
Zeus. Certainly not.
Herac. Then allow me to speak my mind;
I’m a blunt man; I call a spade a spade.
If this is the state of things with you, good-bye for me to your honours and altar-steam and fat of victims; I shall be off to Hades. There, if I show my bow ready for action, the ghosts of the monsters I have slain will be frightened, at least.
Zeus. Oh, splendid! ‘Thine own lips testify against thee,’ says the book; you would have saved Damis some trouble by putting this in his mouth.
But who is this breathless messenger? Bronze — a nice clean figure and outline — chevelure rather out of date. Ah, he must be your brother, Hermes, who stands in the Market by the Poecile; I see he is all over pitch; that is what comes of having casts taken of you every day. My son, why this haste? Have you important news from Earth?
Hermag. Momentous news, calling for infinite energy.
Zeus. Speak, tarry not, if any peril else hath escaped our vigilance.
Hermag.
It chanced of late that by the statuaries
My breast and back were plastered o’er with pitch;
A mock cuirass tight-clinging hung, to ape
My bronze, and take the seal of its impression.
When lo, a crowd! therein a pallid pair
Sparring amain, vociferating logic;
’Twas Damis and —
Zeus. Truce to your iambics, my excellent Hermagoras; I know the pair. But tell me whether the fight has been going on long.
Hermag. Not yet; they were still skirmishing — slinging invective at long range.
Zeus. Then we have only, Gods, to look over and listen. Let the Hours unbar, draw back the clouds, and open the doors of Heaven.
Upon my word, what a vast gathering! And I do not quite like the looks of Timocles; he is trembling; he has lost his head; he will spoil everything; it is perfectly plain, he will not be able to stand up to Damis. Well, there is one thing left us: we can pray for him
Inwardly, silently, lest Damis hear.
Ti. What, you miscreant, no Gods? no Providence?
Da. No, no; you answer my question first; what makes you believe in them?
Ti. None of that, now; the onus probandi is with you, scoundrel.
Da. None of that, now; it is with you.
Zeus. At this game ours is much the better man — louder-voiced, rougher-tempered. Good, Timocles; stick to invective; that is your strong point; once you get off that, he will hook and hold you up like a fish.
Ti. I solemnly swear I will not answer first.
Da. Well, put your questions, then; so much you score by your oath.
But no abuse, please.
Ti. Done. Tell me, then, and be damned to you, do you deny that the
Gods exercise providence?
Da. I do.
Ti. What, are all the events we see uncontrolled, then?
Da. Yes.
Ti. And the regulation of the universe is not under any God’s care?
Da. No.
Ti. And everything moves casually, by blind tendency?
Da. Yes.
Ti. Gentlemen, can you tolerate such sentiments? Stone the blasphemer.
Da. What do you mean by hounding them against me? Who are you, that you should protest in the Gods’ name? They do not even protest in their own; they have sent no judgement on me, and they have had time enough to hear me, if they have ears.
Ti. They do hear you; they do; and some day their vengeance will find you out.
Da. Pray when are they likely to have time to spare for me? They are far too busy, according to you, with all the infinite concerns of the universe on their hands. That is why they have never punished you for your perjuries and — well, for the rest of your performances, let me say, not to break our compact about abuse. And yet I am at a loss to conceive any more convincing proof they could have given of their Providence, than if they had trounced you as you deserve. But no doubt they are from home — t’other side of Oceanus, possibly, on a visit to ‘the blameless Ethiopians.’ We know they have a way of going there to dinner, self-invited sometimes.
Ti. What answer is possible to such ribaldry?
Da. The answer I have been waiting for all this time; you can tell me what made you believe in divine Providence.
Ti. Firstly, the order of nature — the sun running his regular course, the moon the same, the circling seasons, the growth of plants, the generation of living things, the ingenious adaptations in these latter for nutrition, thought, movement, locomotion; look at a carpenter or a shoemaker, for instance; and the thing is infinite. All these effects, and no effecting Providence?
Da. You beg the question; whether the effects are produced by Providence is just what is not yet proved. Your description of nature I accept; it does not follow that there is definite design in it; it is not impossible that things now similar and homogeneous have developed from widely different origins. But you give the name ‘order’
to mere blind tendency. And you will be very angry if one follows your appreciative catalogue of nature in all its variety, but stops short of accepting it as a proof of detailed Providence. So, as the play says,
Here lurks a fallacy; bring me sounder proof.
Ti. I cannot admit that further proof is required; nevertheless, I will give you one. Will you allow Homer to have been an admirable poet?
Da. Surely.
Ti. Well, he maintains Providence, and warrants my belief.
Da. Magnificent! why, every one will grant you Homer’s poetic excellence; but not that he, or any other poet for that matter, is good authority on questions of this sort. Their object, of course, is not truth, but fascination; they call in the charms of metre, they take tales for the vehicle of what instruction they give, and in short all their efforts are directed to pleasure.
But I should be glad to hear which parts of Homer you pin your faith to. Where he tells how the daughter, the brother, and the wife of Zeus conspired to imprison him? If Thetis had not been moved to compassion and called Briareus, you remember, our excellent Zeus would have been seized and manacled; and his gratitude to her induced him to delude Agamemnon with a lying dream, and bring about the deaths of a number of Greeks. Do you see? The reason was that, if he had struck and blasted Agamemnon’s self with a thunderbolt, his double dealing would have come to light. Or perhaps you found the Diomede story most convincing? — Diomede wounded Aphrodite, and afterwards Ares himself, at Athene’s instigation; and then the Gods actually fell to blows and went a-tilting — without distinction of sex; Athene overthrew Ares, exhausted no doubt with his previous wound from Diomede; and
Hermes the stark and stanch ‘gainst Leto stood.
Or did you put your trust in Artemis? She was a sensitive lady, who resented not being invited to Oeneus’s banquet, and by way of vengeance sent a monstrous irresistible boar to ravage his country. Is it with tales like these that Homer has prevailed on you?
Zeus. Goodness me, what a shout, Gods! they are all cheering Damis. And our man seems posed; he is frightened and trembles; he is going to throw up the sponge, I am certain of it; he looks round for a gap to get away through.
Ti. And will you scout Euripides too, then? Again and again he brings Gods on the stage, and shows them upholding virtue in the Heroes, but chastising wickedness and impiety (like yours).
Da. My noble philosopher, if that is how the tragedians have convinced you, you have only two alternatives: you must suppose that divinity is temporarily lodged either in the actor — a Polus, an Aristodemus, a Satyrus — , or else in the actual masks, buskins, long tunics, cloaks, gloves, stomachers, padding, and ornamental paraphernalia in general of tragedy — a manifest absurdity; for when Euripides can speak his own sentiments unfettered by dramatic necessity, observe the freedom of his remarks:
Dost see this aether stretching infinite,
And girdling earth with close yet soft embrace?
That reckon thou thy Zeus, that name thy God.
And again,
Zeus, whatever Zeus may be (for, save by hearsay,
I know not) —;
and there is more of the same sort.
Ti. Well, but all men — ay, all nations — have acknowledged and, feted Gods; was it all delusion?
Da. Thank you; a timely reminder; national observances show better than anything else how vague religious theory is. Confusion is endless, and beliefs as many as believers. Scythia makes offerings to a scimetar, Thrace to the Samian runaway Zamolxis, Phrygia to a Month-God, Ethiopia to a Day-Goddess, Cyllene to Phales, Assyria to a dove, Persia to fire, Egypt to water. In Egypt, though, besides the universal worship of water, Memphis has a private cult of the ox, Pelusium of the onion, other cities of the ibis or the crocodile, others again of baboon, cat, or monkey. Nay, the very villages have their specialities: one deifies the right shoulder, and another across the river the left; one a half skull, another an earthenware bowl or platter. Come, my fine fellow, is it not all ridiculous?
Mo. What did I tell you, Gods? All this was sure to come out and be carefully overhauled.
Zeus. You did, Momus, and your strictures were justified; if once we come safe out of this present peril, I will try to introduce reforms.
Ti. Infidel! where do you find the source of oracles and prophecies, if not in the Gods and their Providence?
Da. About oracles, friend, the less said the better; I shall ask you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo’s answer to the Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife; or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will Croesus’s passage of the Halys destroy his own realm, or Cyrus’s? Tet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for his ambidextrous hexameter.
Mo. The man is realizing just my worst apprehensions. Where is our handsome musician now? Ah, there you are; go down and plead your own cause against him.
Zeus. Hush, Momus; you are murdering our feelings; it is no time for recrimination.
Ti. Have a care, Damis; this is sacrilege, no less; what you say amounts to razing the temples and upsetting the altars.
Da. Oh, not all the altars; what harm do they do, so long as incense and perfume is the worst of it? As for Artemis’s altar at Tauri, though, and her hideous feasts, I should like it overturned from base to cornice.
Zeus. Whence comes this resistless plague among us? There is none of us he spares; he is as free with his tongue as a tub orator,
And grips by turns the innocent and guilty.
Mo. The innocent? You will not find many of those among us, Zeus. He will soon come to laying hands upon some of the great and eminent, I dare say.
Ti. Do you close your ears even to Zeus’s thunder, atheist?
Da. I clearly cannot shut out the thunder; whether it is Zeus’s thunder, you know better than I perhaps; you may have interviewed the Gods. Travellers from Crete tell another story: there is a tomb there with an inscribed pillar, stating that Zeus is long dead, and not going to thunder any more.
Mo. I could have told you that was coming long ago. What, Zeus? pale? and your teeth chattering? What is the matter? You should cheer up, and treat such manikins with lofty contempt.
Zeus. Contempt? See what a number of them there is — how set against us they are already — and he has them fast by the ears.
Mo. Well, but you have only to choose, and you can let down your golden cord, and then every man of them
With earth and sky and all thou canst draw up.
Ti. Blasphemer, have you ever been a voyage?
Da. Many.
Ti. Well, then, the wind struck the canvas and filled the sails, and it or the oars gave you way, but there was a person responsible for steering and for the safety of the ship?
Da. Certainly.
Ti. Now that ship would not have sailed, without a steersman; and do you suppose that this great universe drifts unsteered and uncontrolled?
Zeus. Good, this time, Timocles; a cogent illustration, that.
Da. But, you pattern of piety, the earthly navigator makes his plans, takes his measures, gives his orders, with a single eye to efficiency; there is nothing useless or purposeless on board; everything is to make navigation easy or possible; but as for the navigator for whom you claim the management of this vast ship, he and his crew show no reason or appropriateness in any of their arrangements; the forestays, as likely as not, are made fast to the stern, and both sheets to the bows; the anchor will be gold, the beak lead, decoration below the water-line, and unsightliness above.
As for the men, you will find some lazy awkward coward in second or third command, or a fine swimmer, active as a cat aloft, and a handy man generally, chosen out of all the rest to — pump. It is just the same with the passengers: here is a gaolbird accommodated with a seat next the captain and treated with reverence, there a debauchee or parricide or temple-robber in honourable possession of the best place, while crowds of respectable
people are packed together in a corner and hustled by their real inferiors. Consider what sort of a voyage Socrates and Aristides and Phocion had of it, on short rations, not venturing, for the filth, to stretch out their legs on the bare deck; and on the other hand what a comfortable, luxurious, contemptuous life it was for Callias or Midias or Sardanapalus.
That is how things go on board your ship, sir wiseacre; and who shall count the wrecks? If there had been a captain supervising and directing, in the first place he would have known the difference between good and bad passengers, and in the second he would have given them their deserts; the better would have had the better accommodation above by his side, and the worse gone below; with some of the better he would have shared his meals and his counsels. So too for the crew: the keen sailor would have been made look-out man or captain of the watch, or given some sort of precedence, and the lazy shirker have tasted the rope’s end half a dozen times a day. The metaphorical ship, your worship, is likely to be capsized by its captain’s incompetence.
Delphi Complete Works of Lucian Page 21