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 have made
it a farce. Therefore, that you may not think I am speaking against one
person instead of the general custom, I propose that from this day forward
the godhead be given to none of those who eat the fruits of the earth, or
whom mother earth doth nourish. After this bill has been read a third time,
whosoever is made, said, or portrayed to be god, I vote he be delivered
over to the bogies, and at the next public show be flogged with a birch
amongst the new gladiators." The next to be asked was Diespiter, son of
Vica Pota, he also being consul elect, and a moneylender; by this trade he
made a living, used to sell rights of citizenship in a small way. Hercules
trips me up to him daintily, and tweaks him by the ear. So he uttered his
opinion in these words: "Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius is akin to the