better of them would never suit me as a neighbour.




XXVI

THE SCULPTOR AND THE STATUE OF JUPITER

(BOOK IX.--No. 6)


Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with
its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it
was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make
of it? Shall it be a god, a table, or a basin? It shall be a god. And I,
myself, shall ordain that the god shall poise a thunderbolt in his hand.
So tremble, mortals, and worship! Behold the lord of the earth!"

The artist set to work and expressed so powerfully the attributes of the
god that those who saw it averred that it only lacked speech to be
Jupiter himself. It is said that the sculptor had scarcely completed the
statue when he became so overawed as to fear and tremble before the work
of his own hands.

The poet of old, likewise, greatly dreaded the hate and the wrath of the
gods he himself created: a weakness which left little to choose between
him and the sculptor.