ZEUS
But, Cyniscus, this eternity and infinity is blissful for us, and we live in complete happiness.
But, Cyniscus, this eternity and infinity is blissful for us, and we live in complete happiness.
CYNISCUS
Not all of you, Zeus; circumstances are different with you as with us, and there is great confusion in them. You yourself are happy, for you are king and can draw up the earth and the sea by letting down a well-rope, so to speak, but Hephaestus is a cripple who works for his living, a blacksmith by trade, and Prometheus was actually crucified once upon a time.
1
And why should I mention your father (Cronus), who is still shackled in Tartarus? They say too that you gods fall in love and get wounded and sometimes become slaves in the households of men, as did your brother (Poseidon) in the house of Laomedon and Apollo in the house of Admetus. This does not seem to me altogether blissful; on the contrary, some few of you are probably favoured by Fate and Fortune, while others are the reverse. I say nothing of the fact that you are carried off by pirates
2
even as we are, and plundered by temple-robbers, and from very rich become very poor in a second; and many have even been melted down before now, being of gold or silver; but of course they were fated for this.
Not all of you, Zeus; circumstances are different with you as with us, and there is great confusion in them. You yourself are happy, for you are king and can draw up the earth and the sea by letting down a well-rope, so to speak, but Hephaestus is a cripple who works for his living, a blacksmith by trade, and Prometheus was actually crucified once upon a time.
1
And why should I mention your father (Cronus), who is still shackled in Tartarus? They say too that you gods fall in love and get wounded and sometimes become slaves in the households of men, as did your brother (Poseidon) in the house of Laomedon and Apollo in the house of Admetus. This does not seem to me altogether blissful; on the contrary, some few of you are probably favoured by Fate and Fortune, while others are the reverse. I say nothing of the fact that you are carried off by pirates
2
even as we are, and plundered by temple-robbers, and from very rich become very poor in a second; and many have even been melted down before now, being of gold or silver; but of course they were fated for this.
Juppiter Confutatus. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
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