5
This first: whether what we often hear about you is true, that you ate up Rhea’s children, but she put Zeus out of the way, substituting a stone for you to swallow down instead of the child; then, when he grew up, he beat you in war and drove you from the sovereignty; he took you to Tartarus, put fetters on you and all the allies who sided with you, and threw you in.
5
If it were not festival-time, my man, and if you weren’t allowed to get drunk and cheek your masters with impunity, you would have found out that I’m allowed to be angry at any rate—asking such questions and showing no respect for a grey-haired old god like me!
5
Now I don’t say this on my own, Cronus. Hesiod and Homer say so; I’m not sure that I should tell you that the rest of mankind too believes pretty much the same about you.
6
Do you imagine that that shepherd, that impostor, has any sound knowledge of me? Look at it this way: would any man (I will not say god) put up with eating his own children of his own free will, unless he were some Thyestes who unluckily had an impious brother? Suppose he were as mad as this; then how would he fail to recognise he was eating a stone and not a child, unless he had no feeling in his teeth? No, there was no fighting, nor does Zeus rule his empire by force; I handed it to him and abdicated quite voluntarily. That I am neither in chains nor in Tartarus I suppose you see for yourself, unless you are as blind as Homer.
7
Why ever did you let the sovereignty go, Cronus?
