Book 11
1
Have you seen how bonny Maia’s newborn baby Hermes. For the subject-matter, cf. Homeric Hymn to Hermes and Sophocles’ Ichneutae. is, Apollo, and what a nice smile it has for everyone? You can see already it’ll be a real treasure.
1
That baby a real treasure, Hephaestus? Why, it’s already older than Iapetus Cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 134, and note on p. 263. when it comes to mischief.
1
What harm could it do? It was born only the other day.
1
Ask Poseidon—it stole his trident—or Ares—it filched his sword out of his scabbard—not to mention myself—it disarmed me of my bow and arrows.
2
What? That newborn infant, which can hardly stand up, and is still in its baby-clothes?
2
You’ll see for yourself, my dear fellow, if he gets near you.
2
But he’s already been near me.
2
And what happened? Still got all your tools? None gone?
2
All present and correct, Apollo.
2
All the same, have a really good look.
2
Good heavens, I can’t see my tongs.
2
No, you’ll see them in his baby-clothes.
2
Can he have been practising stealing in his mother’s womb, that he’s so light-fingered?
3
Well, haven’t you heard him speaking? He already has a glib and fluent tongue. And he wants to be our message boy. And yesterday he challenged Eros to wrestle with him, and in no time at all took his feet from under him somehow and had him on the ground. When they were still congratulating him and Aphrodite gave him a hug for winning, he stole her girdle, and, before Zeus had stopped laughing, his sceptre into the bargain; and if his thunderbolt hadn’t been too heavy and scorching hot, he’d have had that too and nobody any the wiser.
3
The child’s too sharp for words, by your account.
3
Yes, and he’s already shown he’s musical.
3
How can you tell that?
