43–44
DAMIS
Don’t say a word about the oracles, my worthy friend, or else I'l ask you which of them you want to cite. The one that Apollo gave the Lydian, which was thoroughly double-edged and two-faced, like some of our Herms, which are double and just alike on both sides, whichever way you look at them; for what was there to show that Croesus by crossing the Halys would destroy his own kingdom rather than that of Cyrus? And yet the luckless Sardian had paid a. good many thousands for that ambidextrous verse.
MOMUS
Gods, the man keeps saying the very things that I most feared. Where is our handsome musician now? (Zo Arotto) Go down and defend yourself to him against these charges!
5
ZEUS
You are boring us to extinction, Momus, with yout untimely eriticism.
TIMOCLES
Take care what you are doing, Damis, you miscreant! You are all but upsetting the very temples of the gods with your arguments, and their altars too.
DAMIS
Not all the altars, as far as I am concerned, Timocles; for what harm do they do if they are full of incense and sweet savour? But I should be glad to see the altars of Artemis among the’ Tauvians turned: completely upside down, those on which the maiden goddess used to enjoy such horrid feasts.
ZEUS
Where did he get this insufferable stuff that he is pouring out on us? He doesn’t spare any of the gods, but speaks out like a fishwife andTakes first one, then the other, the guiltless along with the guilty. Iliad 15, 137.
