TRYGAEUS I will reveal a great, a terrible conspiracy against the gods to you.
HERMES Hah! speak and perchance I shall let myself be softened.
TRYGAEUS Know then, that the Moon and that infamous Sun are plotting against you, and want to deliver Greece into the hands of the Barbarians.
HERMES What for?
TRYGAEUS Because it is to you that we sacrifice, whereas the barbarians worship them; hence they would like to see you destroyed, that they alone might receive the offerings.
HERMES 'Tis then for this reason that these untrustworthy charioteers have for so long been defrauding us, one of them robbing us of daylight and the other nibbling away at the other's disk.(1)
f(1) Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.
TRYGAEUS Yes, certainly. So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate the great Panathenaea(1) in your honour as well as all the festivals of the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries, the Dipolia, the Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as your first present.
f(1) The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athene, the Mysteries
to Demeter, the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodite and
Adonis. Trygaeus promises Hermes that he shall be worshipped
in the place of the other gods.
HERMES Ah! how golden cups do influence me! Come, friends, get to work. To the pit quickly, pick in hand, and drag away the stones.