158 ARIS TOPHANES.

Iris. “What other way can we fly from heaven to
earth?” ;

Plaus. “That I can’t say ; you are not going to
fly this way. Do you know that it would serve you ~
right if you were put to death?”

fris. “Put to death! But I am an Immortal.”

Plaus. “That makes no difference. It would be a
terrible state of things, if, while everybody else sub-
mits to us, you gods are rebellious, and won’t under-
stand that we are your masters. But tell me, where
were you flying to?”

Iris, “1? J was flying from Father Zeus to tell
men that they must sacrifice sheep and oxen as usual
to the Olympian gods.”

Plaus. “What gods do you say?”

Iris. “What gods? The gods in heaven, of
course,” Op gua

Plaus. “Do you call yourselves gods?”

/vis.. What others are there?”

Plaus. “The birds are now gods. It is to. them
that sacrifice must be made, not, by Zeus! to Zeus.”

| Tris, “F ool, fool, stir not the gods’ most awful wrath,
Lest Justice, wielding Zeus’s strong pickaxe, smite
Thy race to utter ruin, and the bolt, :
Descending in the lightnings’ lurid flame,
Thee and thy dwelling’s last recess consume.”

FPlaus. “Listen thyself. Cease now thy vaporous. threats ;
Be silent; think not that in me thou seest
Some Lydian slave or Phrygian whom the sound |
Of bombast hyperbolical may scare.