Atlas. Then here goes. See how it quivers on account of its altered shape!
Hercules. Hit a little harder; your strokes scarcely reach me.
Atlas. It is the fault of the ball. The south-west wind catches it, because of its lightness.
Hercules. It is its old failing to go with the wind.
Atlas. Suppose we were to inflate the ball, since it has no more notion of a bounce than a melon.
Hercules. A new shortcoming! Formerly it used to leap and dance like a young goat.
Atlas. Look out! Run quickly after that. For Jove's sake, take care lest it fall! Alas! it was an evil hour when you came here.
Hercules. You sent me such a bad stroke that I could not possibly have caught it in time, even at the risk of breaking my neck. Alas, poor little one!... How are you? Do you feel bad anywhere? I don't hear a sigh, nor does a soul move. They are all still asleep.
Atlas. Give it back to me, by all the horns of the Styx, and let me settle it again on my shoulders. And you, take your club, and hasten to heaven to excuse me with Jove for this accident, which is entirely owing to you.
Hercules. I will do so. For many centuries there has been in my father's house a certain poet, named Horace. He was made court poet at the suggestion of Augustus, who has been deified by Jove for his augmentation of the Eoman power. In one of his songs, this poet says that the just man would stir not, though the world fell. Since the world has now fallen, and no one has moved, it follows that all men are just.