Zeus
Not at all; but the Fates work through us.
Not at all; but the Fates work through us.
Cyniscus
I see: you are their servants, their underlings. But that comes to the same thing: it is still they who design; you are only their tools, their instruments.
I see: you are their servants, their underlings. But that comes to the same thing: it is still they who design; you are only their tools, their instruments.
Zeus
How do you make that out?
How do you make that out?
Cyniscus
I suppose it is pretty much the same as with a carpenter’s adze and drill: they do assist him in his» work, but no one would describe them as the workmen; we do not say that a ship has been turned out by such and such an adze, or by such and such a drill; we name the shipwright. In the same way, Destiny and the Fates are the universal shipwrights, and you are their drills and adzes; and it seems to me that instead of paying their respects and their sacrifices to you, men ought to sacrifice to Destiny, and implore ber favours; though even that would not meet the case, because I take it that things are settled once and for all, and that the Fates themselves are not at liberty to chop and change. If some one gave the spindle a turn in the wrong direction, and undid all Clotho’s work, Atropus would have something to say on the subject.
I suppose it is pretty much the same as with a carpenter’s adze and drill: they do assist him in his» work, but no one would describe them as the workmen; we do not say that a ship has been turned out by such and such an adze, or by such and such a drill; we name the shipwright. In the same way, Destiny and the Fates are the universal shipwrights, and you are their drills and adzes; and it seems to me that instead of paying their respects and their sacrifices to you, men ought to sacrifice to Destiny, and implore ber favours; though even that would not meet the case, because I take it that things are settled once and for all, and that the Fates themselves are not at liberty to chop and change. If some one gave the spindle a turn in the wrong direction, and undid all Clotho’s work, Atropus would have something to say on the subject.
Juppiter Confutatus. Lucian. Henry Watson Fowler (Translator), Francis George Fowler (Translator). Medford, MA, USA. 2023-08-01.
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Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.