Juppiter Tragoedus

Hermagoras Good; they areas quiet as if they were so many teachers of elocution. Now is the time for your speech; see, they are all hanging on your lips.

Zeus Why—there is something wrong with me—Hermes, my boy—I will be frank with you. You know how confident and impressive I always was as a public speaker?

Hermagoras I know; I used to bein such a fright; you threatened sometimes to let down your golden cord and heave up earth and sea from their foundations, Gods included.

Zeus But to-day, my child—it may be this terrible crisis— it may be the size of the audience—there is a vast number of Gods here, isn’t there—anyhow, my thoughts are all mixed, I shiver, my tongue seems tied, What is most absurd of all, my exordium is gone clean out of my head; and I had prepared it on purpose to produce a good impression at the start.

Hermagoras You have spoiled everything, Zeus. They cannot make out your silence; they are expecting to hear of some terrible disaster, to account for your delay.

Zeus What do you think? Reel off the exordium in Homer?

Hermagoras Which one?

Zeus Lend me your ears, Gods all and Goddesses.

Hermagoras Rubbish! you made quite exhibition enough of yourself in that vein in our cabinet council. However, you might, if you like, drop your metrical fustian, and adapt any one of Demosthenes’s Philippics with a few alterations. That is:the fashionable method with speakers nowadays.

Zeus Ah, that is a royal road to eloquence—simplifies matters very much for a man in difficulties.