1–3
APOLLO
That baby a real treasure, Hephaestus? Why, it’s already older than Iapetus Cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 134, and note on p. 263. when it comes to mischief.
HEPHAESTUS
What harm could it do? It was born only the other day.
APOLLO
Ask Poseidon—it stole his trident—or Ares—it filched his sword out of his scabbard—not to mention myself—it disarmed me of my bow and arrows.
HEPHAESTUS
What? That newborn infant, which can hardly stand up, and is still in its baby-clothes?
APOLLO
You’ll see for yourself, my dear fellow, if he gets near you.
HEPHAESTUS
But he’s already been near me.
APOLLO
And what happened? Still got all your tools? None gone?
HEPHAESTUS
All present and correct, Apollo.
5
APOLLO
All the same, have a really good look.
HEPHAESTUS
Good heavens, I can’t see my tongs.
APOLLO
No, you’ll see them in his baby-clothes.
HEPHAESTUS
Can he have been practising stealing in his mother’s womb, that he’s so light-fingered?
APOLLO
Well, haven’t you heard him speaking? He already has a glib and fluent tongue. And he wants to be our message boy. And yesterday he challenged Eros to wrestle with him, and in no time at all took his feet from under him somehow and had him on the ground. When they were still congratulating him and Aphrodite gave him a hug for winning, he stole her girdle, and, before Zeus had stopped laughing, his sceptre into the bargain; and if his thunderbolt hadn’t been too heavy and scorching hot, he’d have had that too and nobody any the wiser.
HEPHAESTUS
The child’s too sharp for words, by your account.
APOLLO
Yes, and he’s already shown he’s musical.
HEPHAESTUS
How can you tell that?
