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.