ZEUS
I don’t know what you are driving at with these questions.
I don’t know what you are driving at with these questions.
CYNISCUS
This, Zeus—and I beg you by the Fates and by Destiny not to hear me with exasperation or anger when I speak the truth boldly. If all this is so, and the Fates rule everything, and nobody can ever change anything that they have once decreed, why do we men sacrifice to you gods and make you great offerings of cattle, praying to receive blessings from you? I really don’t see what benefit we can derive from this precaution, if it is impossible for us through our prayers either to get what is bad averted or to secure any blessing whatever by the gift of the gods.
This, Zeus—and I beg you by the Fates and by Destiny not to hear me with exasperation or anger when I speak the truth boldly. If all this is so, and the Fates rule everything, and nobody can ever change anything that they have once decreed, why do we men sacrifice to you gods and make you great offerings of cattle, praying to receive blessings from you? I really don’t see what benefit we can derive from this precaution, if it is impossible for us through our prayers either to get what is bad averted or to secure any blessing whatever by the gift of the gods.
Juppiter Confutatus. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
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