Ganymedes. Were you not an eagle but just now, fellow, and did you not pounce down and carry me off from the midst of my flock? How then have those feathers fallen off from you entirely, and you have now come out in quite a different character ?

Zeus. But, my dear boy, you see neither a man nor an eagle: but it is I here, the king of all the gods, who have metamorphosed myself at the right moment.

Ganymedes. How? what, are you the great Pan? Then how haven't you a syrinx, or horns, and hairy legs ? 1

Zeus. Why, do you take him to be the only divinity? Ganymedes. Yes, and we sacrifice to him an uncastrated he-goat, bringing him to the grotto where the god stands. But as for you, you seem to me to be some kidnapping slave-dealer or other.

Zeus. Tell me, have you never heard the name of Zeus, nor seen on Gargarus an altar to the Rain-Sender, and Thunderer, and Lightener ?

Ganymedes. Do you say, fine Sir,3 that you are the same who but lately poured down on us that quantity of hail, who are said to live up above, who make such a din, to whom my father sacrificed a ram? Then, how have I wronged you that you have carried me off, O king of the Gods? Already, I doubt, will the wolves be falling upon my unprotected sheep and tearing them to pieces.

Zeus. What! Have you, who have been made immortal,

favourite eagle, carrying off his future cup-bearer; while others are content with the agency of the "royal bird." Ovid (Metam. x. 4) is among the former. Hesiod knows, or says, nothing of the story of the rapti Ganymedis honores. According to the Iliad, the rape of the handsome son of the Phrygian king is effected by all the gods in a body. (xx. 232-5). The scene, usually, is laid on Mt. Ida. Cicero (Tusc. Quæst. i. 26) will not listen to Homer on this matter.

1 The proper appendages, in the popular belief, of the rural divinity, as displayed in Theocritus and Virgil.

2 'Avoрaπodioτns. How flourishing a profession was that of the kidnapper in Greek society, may be seen in the Comedies of Plautus and Terence, who borrowed their plots from the Greeks. He makes a conspicuous figure, also, in the Greek Romances-in particular, in the Theagenes and Charikleia of Heliodorus. (See Bohn's Series.)

3 Q BEATίOTE. Translated feine Herr by Wieland, who remarks that the Greek expression has a certain comic force hardly to be conveyed in our language.

and who are to live with us here, still a regard for your sheep?

Ganymedes. How do you say? Then will you not this very day take me down home to Ida ?

Zeus. By no means. In that case, I should have changed from a God into an eagle to no purpose.

Ganymedes. My father, then, will certainly be looking for me, and be angry at not finding me, and I shall be whipped by and bye for having left my flock.

Zeus. Why, where will he see you?

Ganymedes. Don't keep me, please, for I am already longing to see him. And, if you will take me back, I promise you another ram shall be sacrificed by him as my ransom. We have the three-year-old one-that fine one, who leads the flock to pasture.

Zeus (aside). How simple and innocent is the child—a child yet all over, truly! But, my dear Ganymede, bid farewell to all those things and forget them, your flock, and Ida; and you from this place for you are now enrolled among the celestials-will do many services both to your father and to your country; and, instead of cheese and milk, you will eat ambrosia and drink nectar: this latter, indeed, you shall yourself pour out, and offer to the rest of

us.

But, what is more than all, you will no longer be mortal, but shall become immortal, and I will make your star shine very bright,' and, in a word, you shall be happy.

Ganymedes. And if I want to play, who will play with me? On Ida there were many of us, playmates of the

same age.

2

Zeus. Here, too, you have a playmate-Eros there, and any number of knuckle-bones. Only cheer up, and be bright, and don't hanker after any of the things down below there. Ganymedes. In what way, please, can I be of use to you? Must I look after flocks and herds here, too?

1 Under the name of 'Yoonxóos (Aquarius). Hemsterhuis observes that "Hadrian [the Emperor] very fairly imitated Jupiter, and claimed so much of the stars as his own by right as to insert his Ganymede, the dead Antinous, among them: indeed, he wished it to appear that he had discovered his new star." Cf. Suidas.

2

'Aorpayaλovs. (Lat. talos.) A favourite game, from very early times, with the Greek women and children. See Becker's Charicles.

Zeus. No, but you shall pour wine into the goblet, and you shall be placed in charge of the nectar, and shall have the care of the Banqueting-Hall.

Ganymedes. That's no hard matter, for I know how to pour in milk, and to pass about the milk-bowl.

Zeus (aside). There again he is thinking of his milk, and fancies that he will have to wait upon mortals.—But this is heaven here, and we drink, as I told you, the celestial

nectar.

Ganymedes. Is it sweeter than milk, Zeus ?

Zeus. You shall know for yourself shortly; and, when you have once tasted it, you will not again have any longing for your milk.

Ganymedes. But where shall I sleep at night? with my playfellow, Eros?

Zeus. No. I carried you off on this account-that we might sleep together.

Ganymedes. Why, could you not sleep alone; but is it pleasanter to you to sleep with me?

Zeus. Yes, with such an one as you, Ganymede, so handsome as you are.

Ganymedes. Why, how will handsome looks give you pleasure, in respect to sleep?

Zeus They have a certain sweet charm, and bring it on more softly.

Ganymedes. Yet my father used to be annoyed with me, when I slept in the same bed with him, and used to tell me in the morning how I had taken away his sleep by my restlessness and kicking, and talking in my sleep for which reason he would generally send me to bed with my mother. If it was on that account, as you say, that you carried me off, it is high time for you to put me down on the Earth again; or you will be annoyed by being kept. awake, for I shall disturb you by my continual tossing about.

Zeus. In doing that very thing you will most please me -since I shall keep awake with you in frequent kisses and embraces.

Ganymedes. You would have to see to that yourself. As for me, while you are kissing me, I shall lull myself to sleep.

Zeus. We shall know what is to be done then.-But now take him away, Hermes; and when he has quaffed immortality,' bring him to us to be our cup-bearer, having, first of all, instructed him how he is to hand his cup.

V.

HERA UPBRAIDS ZEUS WITH HIS LOVE FOR GANYMEDES.

Hera and Zeus.

Hera. Ever since, Zeus, you carried off that Phrygian youth from Ida, and brought him up here, you pay me less.

attention.

Zeus. What, are you really jealous, Hera, already, about so simple and very innocent an affair as that? I thought you were hard only upon the women, who might happen to be intimate with me.

Hera. Your conduct not even in those matters is proper, or becoming to yourself-you, the liege lord of all the gods, to desert me, your lawful, wedded wife, and go down to Earth to intrigue in the shape of gold, or of a satyr, or of a bull. But, at least, those females of yours remain on Earth, while this youth from Ida you snatched up and flew off with, O most respectable of gods,' actually lives with us, put over my head; a cup-bearer, to be sure-in name. Were you so desperately at a loss for butlers, and have Hebe and Hephaestus really become worn out in the service? And you-you will not take the cup from him otherwise than first kissing him in the sight of us all; and the kiss is sweeter to you than nectar, and, on that account,

1 Cf. IX. i. 595-600. Apuleius, the contemporary of Lucian, concludes the story of Psyche with a similar scene, when the persecuted bride of Eros is admitted to the privilege of immortality and the society of the Celestials by drinking nectar. With the Pythagoreans, ambrosia and nectar were favourite metaphors for the highest spiritual and intellectual enjoyments. "If," says Iamblichus, "partaking of this divine food (of Knowledge) cannot make men immortal, at least it will make them acquainted with matters of eternal import."

2 Some MSS. have άɛтv, "most respectable of eagles."

you are constantly asking to drink, without even being thirsty. When, too, after just tasting it, you hand back the cup to him, and after he has drunk, you receive it from him again, you quaff off the remainder from the place where the boy has drunk from, and where he has applied his lips, that you may drink and kiss at one and the same moment. Nay, but just now you, the King and father of the universe, laid aside ægis and thunderbolt, and sat down to a game of knuckle-bones with him, with all that big beard you have grown. All these fine doings I see, so don't suppose you are unobserved.

Zeus. And what dreadful crime is it, Hera, to kiss so fair a youth between cups, and to derive pleasure from both the kiss and the nectar? If, believe me, I were to allow him to kiss you once even, you would never again blame me for thinking the kiss preferable to the nectar.

Hera. This is the talk of a pæderast! But, for my part, may I never be so mad as to offer my lips to this soft Phrygian boy, so completely effeminated as he is.

2

Zeus. Do not upbraid me, most admirable of goddesses, with loves of this sort: for this youth, effeminate, a foreigner, soft and girlish as he is, is more agreeable to me and more desirable than—but I have no wish to say it, not to further provoke you.

Hera. Would that you would even marry him, for my own sake! Don't forget, however, how offensively you

1 Here, as elsewhere, in his references to the personal appearance of the members of the Greek Pantheon, Lucian is describing the wellknown characteristics of the famous representations of them in Art. In the present instance, the Zeus of Pheidias at Olympia was, doubtless, especially in Lucian's mind, the most famous of the representations of the "Thunderer;' as the "Athena Parthenos" and "Athena Promachos" of the same eminent sculptor, on the Acropolis at Athens, and the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles were of Athena and Aphrodite.

2 Τοῖς παιδίκοις. Supply ἔρωσι. Lucian satirizes an unnatural vice especially prevalent in his time, and, probably, had in mind, in particular, the shameful attachment of the late Roman Emperor, Hadrian, for the famous Bithynian youth, Antinous, in whose honour, as is well known, temples and statues were erected throughout the Empire. Pausanias, the Greek traveller and antiquary of the second century, a contemporary of Antinous, informs us that Mantinea, in Arcadia, was especially rich in statues and paintings of the handsome favourite, whose death is involved in circumstances of so much mystery (viii. 9).