5
Priest First, then, is the common story true? used you to eat the children Rhea bore you? and did she steal away Zeus, and give you a stone to swallow for a baby? did he when he grew to manhood make victorious war upon you and drive you from your kingdom, bind and cast you into Tartarus, you and all the powers that ranged themselves with you?
5
Cronus Fellow, were it any but this festive season, when ’tis lawful to be drunken, and slaves have licence to revile their lords, the reward for thy question, for this thy rudeness to a grey-haired aged God, had been the knowledge that wrath is yet permitted me.
5
Priest It is not my story, you know, Cronus; it is Homer’s and Hesiod’s; I might say, only I don’t quite like to, that it is the belief of the generality.
6
Cronus That conceited shepherdHesiod.? you do not suppose he knew anything worth knowing about me? Why, think. Is a man conceivable—let alone a God—who would devour his own children?—wittingly, I mean; of course he might be a Thyestes and have a wicked brother; that is different. However, even granting that, I ask you whether he could help knowing he had a stone in his mouth instead of a baby; I envy him his teeth, that is all, The fact is, there was no war, and Zeus did not depose me; I voluntarily abdicated and retired from the cares of office. That I am not in fetters or in Tartarus you can see for yourself, or you must be as blind as Homer.
7
Priest But what possessed you to abdicate?
