50
Things are going finely for Damis now, and he is driving under full sail to victory.
50
Your figure is apt, Momus. Yet Timocles can’t think of anything valid, but launches at him these commonplace, every-day arguments one after another, all of them easy to capsize.
51
Well then, as my comparison of the ship did not seem to you very valid, attend now to my sheetanchor, as they call it, which you can’t by any possibility cut away.
51
What in the world is he going to say?
51
See whether I frame this syllogism logically, and whether you can capsize it in any way. If there are altars, there are also gods; but there are altars, ergo there are also gods. What have you to say to that?
51
After I have laughed to my heart’s content I'll tell you.
51
Well, it looks as if you would never stop laughing; tell me, though, how you thought what I said was funny.
51
Because you do not see that your anchor is attached to a slender string—and it’s your sheetanchor at that! Having hitched the existence of gods to the existence of altars, you think you have made yourself a safe mooring. So, as you say you have no better sheet-anchor than this, let's be going.
52
You admit your defeat, then, by going away first?
52
Yes, Timocles, for like men threatened with violence from some quarter or other, you have taken refuge at the altars. Therefore I vow by the sheetanchor, I want to make an agreement with you now, right at the altars, not to dispute any more on this topic.
52
Are you mocking me, you ghoul, you miscreant, you abomination, you gallows-bird, you scum of the earth? Don’t we know who your father was, and how your mother was a courtesan, and that you strangled your brother and you run after women and corrupt the young, you height of all that’s lewd and shameless? Don’t run away! Take a thrashing from me before you go! Ill brain you right now with this brickbat, dirty miscreant that you are!
