24–25
POSEIDON
For my part I am pretty much subaqueous, as you know, and live by myself in the depths, doing my best to rescue sailors, speed vessels on their course and calm the winds. Nevertheless I am interested in matters here too, and I say that this Damis should be put out of the way before he enters the dispute, either with a thunderbolt or by some other means, for fear that he may get the better of it in the argument; for you say, Zeus, that he is a plausible fellow. At the same time we'll show them how we punish people who say such things against us.
ZEUS
Are you joking, Poseidon, or have you completely forgotten that nothing of the sort is in our power, but the Fates decide by their spinning that one man is to die by a thunderbolt, another by the sword and another by fever or consumption? If it lay in my power, do you suppose I would have let the temple-robbers get away from Olympia the other day unscathed by my thunderbolt, when they had shorn off two of my curls weighing six pounds apiece? Or would you yourself at Geraestus have allowed the fisherman from Oreus to filch your trident? Besides, it will look as if we were getting angry because we have been injured, and as if we feared the arguments of Damis and were making away with him for that reason, without waiting for him to be put to the proof by Timocles. Shall we not seem, then, to be winning by default if we win in that way?
POSEIDON
Why, I supposed I had thought of a short cut to victory?
