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Asklepius. By Zeus, yes, for I am certainly the better

man.

Herakles. How, you thunderstruck fellow,' is it pray, because Zeus knocked you on the head with his bolt for your unlawful actions, and because now, out of mere pity, by way of compensation, you have got a share of immortality?

Asklepius. What! Have you, for your part, Herakles, altogether forgotten your having been burned to ashes on Mt. Eta, that you throw in my teeth this fire you talk of? Herakles. We have not lived at all an equal or similar sort of life—I who am the son of Zeus, and have undergone so many and great labours, purifying human life, contending against and conquering wild beasts, and punishing insolent and injurious men; whereas you are a paltry herbdoctor and mountebank, skilful, possibly, in palming off your miserable drugs upon sick fools, but who have never given proof of any noble, manly disposition.

Asklepius. You say well, seeing I healed your burns when you came up but now half-burned, with your body all marred and destroyed by the double cause of your deaththe poisoned shirt and, afterwards, the fire. Now I, if I have done nothing else, at least, have neither worked like a slave, as you have, nor have I carded wool in Lydia,* dressed in a fine purple gown; nor have I been beaten by that Omphale of yours, with her golden slipper-no, nor did I, in a mad fit, kill my children and my wife."

"recline higher up" on the kλívn, dining-couch. For a lively quarrel of this kind, see Lucian, Zvμóσiov ĥ ▲áñilai, ix.

The

1 Εμβρόντητε. A favourite and forcible expression of Lucian's (see eg. Timon) implying mental as well as physical injury. insulting epithet was literally applicable to Asklepius, who, just before his promotion to the skies, had been killed by a thunderbolt from the hand of Zeus, for cheating Pluto of his due number of subjects by means of his very singular medical skill.

2 See Ov. Met. ix. 2; Seneca, Her. Etæus.

3 'Emilýσ v pappáкwv. Partitive Genitive, used contemptuously. 'Emilεow has been proposed as a more usual construction. Herb-doctor, in the Greek poróμoç, lit. “a root-cutter." Mountebank, ayýprns, lit. one who collects crowds" (ayɛipe) to sell his quack-medicines. Sophokles wrote a drama with the title of 'Pioróμoç, as a satire on the medical world of his day.

66

4 See the Epistola Deianiræ of Ovid.

5 Incited to madness by the jealous Hera, the son of Alkmena had killed his wife Megara, daughter of Kreon, king of Thebes, with her

Herakles. If you don't stop at once your ribald abuse of me, you shall very speedily learn your immortality will not much avail you: for I will take and pitch you head first out of Heaven, so that not even the wonderful Pæon1 himself shall cure you and your broken skull.

Zeus. Have done, I say, and don't disturb the harmony of the company, or I will pack both of you off from the supper-room; although, to speak the truth, Herakles, it is fair and reasonable Asklepius should have precedence of you at table, inasmuch as he even took precedence of you in death.

XIV.

APOLLO RECOUNTS TO HERMES THE MANNER OF THE DEATH OF HYAKINTHUS, AND HIS GRIEF FOR THE SAME.

Hermes and Apollo.

Hermes. Why so gloomy and dejected, my dear Apollo? Apollo. Because, Hermes, I am unhappy in my love affairs. Hermes. Such misfortune is, indeed, worthy occasion for grief: but in what affair is it you are unfortunate? Does that business of Daphne' still affect you ?

Apollo. Not at all. No, I mourn for my favourite, the Laconian, the son of balus.3

Hermes. What! tell me, is Hyakinthus dead?
Apollo. Too surely.

Hermes. By whose hands, my dear Apollo? Could there be any one so unloving as to kill that handsome youth ?

children (whom he threw into the fire), and also two of his nephews. See Seneca, Her. Furens, Apollod. ii. 4, 12.

1 Pæeon, or Pæan, physician in ordinary to the Court of Olympus, in later Greek theology was identified with Apollo, the divine Healer. See IX. v. 395-402 for his successful treatment of the wounds of Aïdes inflicted by Herakles.

2 Ov. Metam. i. 12. Diodorus (B3. Iσr.), Pausanias, and the rest of the authorities vary, as usual, in the relation of the story of the Nymph of the laurel-tree. Pausanias relates that Daphne, in place of being the victim, with her attendant nymphs shot with arrows her too daring lover, who had disguised himself in female dress, and followed her to the bath.

3 Hyakinthus. Ov. Metam. x. 5, Philost. Eixoves. Upon the tomb of Hyakinthus, Pausanias informs us, was sculptured the figure of his involuntary slayer.

Apollo. It was my own doing.

Hermes. Were you, then, out of your senses, Apollo ? Apollo. No, but it was a species of ill-luck—an involuntary deed.

Hermes. How? For I am anxious to hear the manner of it.

Apollo. He was learning to play with the quoit, and I was playing with him. Well, that most cursed of winds, Zephyrus, himself was in love with him, from a long time past; and being neglected, and not able to endure his superciliousness (while I threw my quoit up into the air, as we are accustomed to do), blowing down from Taygetus, bore the disc along and caused it to fall on the head of the youth, so that blood flowed from the wound in large quantity, and the boy died immediately. However, I at once avenged myself on Zephyrus by shooting at him with my arrows, pursuing him in his flight as far as the mountain. And to the boy I had a tomb raised at Amykla, where the quoit struck him down; and from his blood I caused the ground to send up a flower, the sweetest, Hermes, and the gayestcoloured of all flowers, having, moreover, letters mourning' for the dead imprinted on it. Do I appear to you to have been grieved unreasonably?

Hermes. Yes, my dear Apollo: for you knew that you had made a mere mortal the object of your particular affection. So, pray, don't vex yourself about his death.

1 'Eπaιálovтα. Lit. "crying ai, ai." Cf. Bion, Eid. i. (the Dirge of Adonis), Αίαζω τὸν "Αδωνιν—κ.τ.λ., Moschus (Dirge on Bion, 40), Ον. Metam. x. 215. What is this famous flower, which thus immortalizes the fate of Hyakinthus, is matter of dispute with the commentators. See Lehmann's Hemsterhuis, and compare Palæphatus.

XV.

HERMES AND APOLLO ENVY THE DEFORMED HEPHASTUS THE POSSESSION OF HIS BEAUTIFUL WIVES.

Hermes and Apollo.

Hermes. But the fact, Apollo, that, though he is both lame, and a mere brazier by trade, he has married the most beautiful wives of us all, Aphrodite and Charis ! 1

1

Apollo. A mere piece of good luck, my dear Hermes. But this I do wonder at-that they tolerate having anything to do with him; most especially when they see him running down with perspiration, as he stoops laboriously over his furnace, and with a quantity of soot upon his face. And yet, though he is such a figure, they embrace him, and kiss him, and sleep with him!

Hermes. This, too, I feel indignant about, and envy Hephaestus-whereas you wear long, flowing, hair, and play on the cithara, and pride yourself greatly on your good looks, and I upon my vigour and good habit of body and my lyre, straightway, when we have to go to bed, we shall sleep all alone.

2

Apollo. Besides, too, as far as I am concerned, I have no fortune in my affaires de cœur, and two, at all events, whom I especially loved, Daphne and Hyakinthus-well, Daphne hated me to such a degree that she chose to become a tree rather than have my embraces; while Hyakinthus I killed with that quoit, and now, in place of them, I have to be content with garlands.3

Hermes. And as for me, Aphrodite I some time since— but one must not brag.

Apollo. I know, and she is said to have presented you with Hermaphroditus. But tell me this, if you know at

1 See 'IX. xviii. 382. She was one of the Charites or "Graces." 2 'Avappodirós és rà ¿pwriкà. Lit. "unfavoured by Aphrodite in my love affairs." Lat. invenustus. Cf. Andria, i. 5 (the lament of Pamphilus)::-"Adeon' hominem'sse in venustum aut infelicem quemquam, ut ego sum!"

3 The garlands heaped upon his altars by his votaries.

all, how is it Aphrodite is not jealous of Charis or Charis jealous of her?

Hermes. Because, my dear Apollo, the former lives with him in Lemnos,1 and Aphrodite in Heaven. And besides, the latter is, for the most part, taken up with Arês, and is in love with him, so that she cares little for this brazier fellow. Apollo. And do you suppose that Hephæstus knows this? Hermes. He knows well enough: but what could he do, when he sees a fine youth, and that, too, a soldier? So he keeps quiet. However, he threatens, at all events, that he will devise some kind of fetters for them, and catch them together by throwing a net over their bed.

Apollo. I don't know, but I would devoutly pray that I myself might be the one to be caught in her company.

XVI.

HERA AND LETO DISPUTE ABOUT THE MERITS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CHILDREN.

Hera and Leto.

Hera. Fine creatures, indeed, are the children you have presented to Zeus, Leto!2

Leto. It's not all of us, Hera, who can produce such progeny as your Hephæstus.

Hera. But this same cripple is, at all events, of some use. He is an excellent workman, and has decorated Heaven for us in a thoroughly artistic fashion,3 and he married Aphrodite, and is made much of by her; 4 while

1 This island of the N. Ægean sea, was the favourite terrestrial abode of Hephaestus, and some authorities place his forge there.

2 The abrupt beginning of the Dialogue implies antecedent conversation. The jealous Hera may be supposed to have begun with some such ironical observation as 66 you may well be proud of your good looks," or "you may well be proud of your position among us." The relative is sometimes omitted in familiar conversation in Greek as in conversational English.

3 See ПIɛpi Ovoiwv ("On Sacrifices "), one of Lucian's finest pieces of satire; and IX. xviii.

4 Σπουδάζεται πρὸς αὐτῆς. e. A. xvii.

Scarcely borne out by the facts. Cf.

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