3
Well then, how about Destiny and Fortune? They are also very much talked of. Who are they, and what power has each of them? Equal power with the Fates, or even somewhat more than they? I hear everyone saying that there is nothing more powerful than Fortune and Destiny.
3
It is not permitted you to know everything, Cyniscus. But why did you ask me that question about the Fates?
4
Just tell me something else first, Zeus. Are you ods under their rule too, and must you needs be ttached to their thread?
4
We must, Cyniscus. But what made you smile?
4
I happened to think of those lines of Homer in hich he described you making your speech in the sembly of the gods, at the time when you threatied them that you would hang the universe upon a rd of gold. You said, you know, that you would t the cord down from Heaven, and that the other ds, if they liked, might hang on it and try to Il you down, but would not succeed, while you, lenever you chose, could easily draw them all up, nd the earth and the sea along with them.”Iliad 8, 24. At at time it seemed to me that your power was wontful, and I shuddered as I heard the lines; but I now that in reality you yourself with your cord and your threats hang by a slender thread, as you admit. In fact, I think that Clotho would have a better right to boast, inasmuch as she holds you, even you, dangling from her spindle as fishermen hold fish dangling from a rod.
5
I don’t know what you are driving at with these questions.
