THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS
Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished.
May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.
Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples.
The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.
So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving.
There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.
Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us—
Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.
They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters.
Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of statues and altars.
Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and Delos
The craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?
And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate us
Can they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?
But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder—
Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!
Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older!
If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!