Apocolocyntosis | Page 4

goodly cattle to the Argive town,
There I
beheld a mountain looking down
Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies

Right opposite each day he doth arise.
Hence, mighty Rhone, thy

rapid torrents flow,
And Arar, much in doubt which way to go,

Ripples along the banks with shallow roll.
Say, is this land the nurse
that bred thy soul?"
These lines he delivered with much spirit and a bold front. All the same,
he was not quite master of his wits, and had some fear of a blow from
the fool Claudius, seeing a mighty man before him, saw things looked
serious and understood that here he had not quite the same
pre-eminence as at Rome, where no one was his equal: the Gallic cock
was worth most on his own dunghill. So this is what he was thought to
say, as far as could be made out: "I did hope, Hercules, bravest of all
the gods, that you would take my part with the rest, and if I should need
a voucher, I meant to name you who know me so well. Do but call it to
mind, how it was I used to sit in judgment before your temple whole
days together during July and August. You know what miseries I
endured there, in hearing the lawyers plead day and night. If you had
fallen amongst these, you may think yourself very strong, but you
would have found it worse than the sewers of Augeas: I drained out
more filth than you did. But since I want..."
(Some pages have fallen out, in which Hercules must have been
persuaded. The gods are now discussing what Hercules tells them).
"No wonder you have forced your way into the 8 Senate House: no bars
or bolts can hold against you. Only do say what species of god you
want the fellow to be made. An Epicurean god he cannot be: for they
have no troubles and cause none. A Stoic, then? How can he be
globular, as Varro says, without a head or any other projection? There
is in him something of the Stoic god, as I can see now: he has neither
heart nor head. Upon my word, if he had asked this boon from Saturn,
he would not have got it, though he kept up Saturn's feast all the year
round, a truly Saturnalian prince. A likely thing he will get it from Jove,
whom he condemned for incest as far as in him lay: for he killed his
son-in-law Silanus, because Silanus had a sister, a most charming girl,
called Venus by all the world, and he preferred to call her Juno. Why,
says he, I want to know why, his own sister? Read your books, stupid:
you may go half-way at Athens, the whole way at Alexandria. Because

the mice lick meal at Rome, you say. Is this creature to mend our
crooked ways? What goes on in his own closet he knows not;[Footnote:
Perhaps alluding to a mock marriage of Silius and Messalina.] and now
he searches the regions of the sky, wants to be a god. Is it not enough
that he has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to
him as a god, so that they may find a fool [Footnote: Again [GREEK:
morou] for [GREEK: theou] as in ch. 6.] to have mercy upon them?"
At last it came into Jove's head, that while strangers 9 were in the
House it was not lawful to speak or debate. "My lords and gentlemen,"
said he, "I gave you leave to ask questions, and you have made a
regular farmyard [Footnote: Proverb: meaning unknown.] of the place.
Be so good as to keep the rules of the House. What will this person
think of us, whoever he is?" So Claudius was led out, and the first to be
asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been made consul elect for
the afternoon of the next first of July,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to
the shortening of the consul's term, which was done to give more
candidates a chance of the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you
could find on a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and
behind. [Footnote 8: II, iii, 109; alluding here to Janus's double face.]
He made an eloquent harangue, because his life was passed in the
forum, but too fast for the notary to take down. That is why I give no
full report of it, for I don't want to change the words he used. He said a
great deal of the majesty of the gods, and how the honour ought not to
be given away to every Tom, Dick, or Harry. "Once," said he, "it was a
great thing to become a god; now you