whereas that is the most valuable of all metals. You must make up your mind, therefore, to make room for him, and not be vexed about it; a god with a great gold nose like that must needs take precedence.
(Enter Venus.)—Ven. (coaxingly to Mercury). Now then, Mercury dear, take and put me in a good place, please; I'm golden, you know.
Merc. Not at all, so far as I can see. Unless I'm very blind, you're cut out of white marble—from Pentelicus, I think—and it pleased Praxiteles to make a Venus of you, and hand you over to the people of Cnidus.
Ven. But I can produce a most unimpeachable witness—Homer himself. He continually calls me "golden Venus" all through his poems.
Merc. Yes; and the same authority calls Apollo "rich in gold" and "wealthy;" but you can see him sitting down there among the ordinary gods. He was stripped of his golden crown, you see, by the thieves, and they even stole the strings of his lyre. So you may think yourself well off that I don't put you down quite amongst the crowd.
(Enter the Colossus of Rhodes.)—Col. Now, who will venture to dispute precedence with me—me, who am the Sun, and of such a size to boot? If it had not been that the good people of Rhodes determined to construct me of extraordinary dimensions, they could have made sixteen golden gods for the same price.[1] Therefore I must be ranked higher, by the rule of
- ↑ Sixteen was the recognised number of legitimate gods.
