Zeus. Very well; some of your points are reasonable enough. We must put a check on these abuses, or they will get worse.
Mo. On the seventh day of the month in the prytany of Zeus and the presidency of Posidon Apollo in the chair the following Bill introduced by Sleep was read by Momus son of Night before a true and lawful meeting of the Assembly whom Fortune direct.
Whereas numerous persons both Greeks and barbarians being in no way entitled to the franchise have by means unknown procured their names to be enrolled on our register filling the Heavens with false Gods troubling our banquets with a tumultuous rout of miscellaneous polyglot humanity and causing a deficiency in the supplies of ambrosia and nectar whereby the price of the latter commodity owing to increased consumption has risen to four pounds the half-pint:
And whereas the said persons have presumptuously forced themselves into the places of genuine and old-established deities and in contravention of law and custom have further claimed precedence of the same deities upon the Earth:
It has seemed good to the Senate and People that an Assembly be convened upon Olympus at or about the time of the winter solstice for the purpose of electing a Commission of Inquiry the Commissioners to be duly-qualified Gods seven in number of whom three to be appointed from the most ancient Senate of Cronus and the remaining four from the twelve Gods of whom Zeus to be one and the said Commissioners shall before taking their seats swear by Styx according to the established form and Hermes shall summon by proclamation all such as claim admission to the Assembly to appear and bring with them sworn witnesses together with documentary proofs of their origin and all such persons shall successively appear before the Commissioners and the Commissioners after examination of their claims shall either declare them to be Gods or dismiss them to their own tombs and family vaults and if the Commissioners subsequently discover in Heaven any person so disqualified from entering such person shall be thrown into Tartarus and further each God shall follow his own profession and no other and it shall not be lawful either for Athene to heal the sick or for Asclepius to deliver oracles or for Apollo to practise three professions at once but only one either prophecy or music or medicine according as he shall select and instructions shall be issued to philosophers forbidding them either to invent meaningless names or to talk nonsense about matters of which they know nothing and if a temple and sacrificial honours have already been accorded to any disqualified person his statue shall be thrown down and that of Zeus or Hera or Athene or other God substituted in its place and his city shall provide him with a tomb and set up a pillar in lieu of his altar and against any person refusing to appear before the Commissioners in accordance with the proclamation judgement shall be given by default.
That, gentlemen, is the Bill.
Zeus. And a very equitable one it is, Momus. All in favour of this Bill hold up their hands! Or no: our opponents are sure to be in a majority. You may all go away now, and when Hermes makes the proclamation, every one must come, bringing with him complete particulars and proofs, with his father's and mother's names, his tribe and clan, and the reason and circumstances of his deification. And any of you who fail to produce your proofs will find it is no use having great temples on the Earth, or passing there for Gods; that will not help you with the Commissioners.
F.