Ζεὺς Τραγῳδός

Lines

1 – 2 2 – 5 5 – 6 6 – 7 8 – 10 11 – 13 13 – 15 15 – 15 16 – 16 17 – 17 18 – 19 19 – 20 21 – 22 23 – 25 25 – 26 27 – 29 29 – 30 30 – 32 32 – 32 33 – 34 35 – 36 37 – 38 38 – 39 40 – 41 41 – 42 42 – 43 43 – 46 46 – 47 48 – 49 50 – 52 53 – 53

İngilizce İngilizce İngilizce Yunanca

41 Why, Timocles, you doughtiest of philosophers, if the playwrights have convinced you by doing this, you must needs believe either that Polus and Aristodemus and Satyrus are gods for the nonce, or that the very masks representing the gods, the buskins, the trailing tunics, the cloaks, gauntlets, padded paunches and all the other things with which they make tragedy grand are divine; and that is thoroughly ridiculous. I assure you when Euripides, following his own devices, says what he thinks without being under any constraint imposed by the requirements of his plays, you will hear him speaking frankly then: Dost see on high this boundless sweep of air That lappeth earth about in yielding arms? Hold this to be Zeus, and believe it God. From a lost play. These verses are translated by Cicero (Nat. Deor. ii, 25, 65). And again: 'Twas Zeus, whoever Zeus is, for I know Him not, except by hearsay. From the lost Melanippe the Wise. The line was unfavourably received and subseqnently changed (Plut. Mor. 756 c). and so on.

42 Well ‘then, all men and all nations have been mistaken in believing in gods and celebrating festivals?