Juppiter Tragoedus

Lucian of Samosata

Selections from Lucian. Smith, Emily James, translators. New York; Harper Brothers, 1892.

But who is this hasty - comer-bronze, wellformed, with a good outline and an obsolete coiffure? It must be your brother, Hermes, the one that stands in the market-place near the Porch. At all events, his hollows are full of pitch from having impressions of him taken daily by the statuaries. Why, my child, do you come to us at racing speed? Have you, perhaps, some fresh news from earth?

Hermagoras Great news, Zeus, and calling for the greatest attention.

p.41

Zeus Speak, then, if some new trouble has arisen unknown to us.

Hermagoras

  • It chanced that even now the brass-workers
  • Were smearing me with pitch on breast and back.
  • A breastplate modelled by the mimic's art
  • Hung round me ludicrous. It was beat out
  • Merely to take th' impression of my bronze.
  • But I beheld a crowd approaching. Two
  • Pale, screaming, quibbling, verbal prize-fighters,
  • One Damis and the other-

    • Zeus Drop the iambics, there's a good fellow. I know whom you mean. But tell me this, whether they have already joined battle.

    Hermagoras Not yet. They were still skirmishing and attacking each other from afar with the javelins of abuse.

    Zeus What is there left for us to do now, deities, but bend down and listen to them? So let the Hours draw the bolt immediately and chase away the clouds and throw open the gates of heaven.