touch of it. No wonder if Salmoneus challenged you to a
thundering-match; he was reasonable enough when he backed his
artificial heat against so cool-tempered a Zeus. Of course he was;
there are you in your opiate-trance, never hearing the perjurers nor
casting a glance at criminals, your glazed eyes dull to all that
happens, and your ears as deaf as a dotard's.

When you were young and keen, and your temper had some life in it, you
used to bestir yourself against crime and violence; there were no
armistices in those days; the thunderbolt was always hard at it, the
aegis quivering, the thunder rattling, the lightning engaged in a
perpetual skirmish. Earth was shaken like a sieve, buried in snow,
bombarded with hail. It rained cats and dogs (if you will pardon my
familiarity), and every shower was a waterspout. Why, in Deucalion's
time, hey presto, everything was swamped, mankind went under, and just
one little ark was saved, stranding on the top of Lycoreus and
preserving a remnant of human seed for the generation of greater
wickedness.

Mankind pays you the natural wages of your laziness; if any one offers
you a victim or a garland nowadays, it is only at Olympia as a
perfunctory accompaniment of the games; he does it not because he
thinks it is any good, but because he may as well keep up an old
custom. It will not be long, most glorious of deities, before they
serve you as you served Cronus, and depose you. I will not rehearse
all the robberies of your temple--those are trifles; but they have
laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you
had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely
they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they
had finished packing up the swag. But there sat the bold Giant-slayer