Ha-ha-ha! There[There] you are not far wrong.
Heraclius.
Look at Cybele, formerly so bounteous a goddess, whose statue the Emperor lately found in an ash-pit——
Another Courtier.
It was in a dunghill——
Heraclius.
Like enough; fertilising is Cybele’s business. But look at this goddess, I say;—in spite of her hundred breasts, she flows neither with milk nor honey.
[A circle of laughing hearers has gathered round him. While he is speaking, the Emperor Julian has come forward on the steps in the colonnade, unnoticed by those below. He wears a tattered cloak, with a girdle of rope; his hair and beard are unkempt, his fingers stained with ink; in both hands, under his arms, and stuck in his belt, he holds bundles of parchment rolls and papers. He stops and listens to Heraclius with every sign of exasperation.
Heraclius.
[Continuing.] It seems as though this wet-nurse of the world had become barren. We might almost think that she had passed the age when women——