Heracles
Do you suppose we do not know how to account for your annoyance?
Zeus
Thou knowst not; else thy wailings had been loud.
Heracles
Don’t tell me; it’s a love affair; that’s what’s the matter with you. However, you won’t have any ‘wailings’ from me; I am too much hardened to neglect, I suppose you have discovered some new Danae or Semele or Europa whose charms are troubling you; and so you are meditating a transformation into a bull or satyr, or a descent through the roof into your beloved’s bosom as a shower of gold; all the symptoms—your groans and your tears and your white face—point to love and nothing else.
Zeus
Happy ignorance, that sees not what perils now forbid love and such toys!
Heracles
Is your name Zeus, or not? and, if so, what else can possibly annoy you but love?
Juppiter Tragoedus. Lucian. Henry Watson Fowler (Translator), Francis George Fowler (Translator). Medford, MA, USA. 2023-08-01.
Sponsored by Tufts University.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.