Hercules,—why, he's my son, and earned his immortality by very hard work; so say no word against him.
Mom. Well, I'll hold my tongue, Jupiter, though I could say a good deal. They're both as black as cinders still, from the fire. If you would only give me leave to speak my mind freely, I've a good deal to say about you.
Jup. Oh, pray speak out, as far as I am concerned! Perhaps you charge me with being a foreigner too?
Mom. Well, in Crete they do say that, you know; and more than that, they show the place where you were buried. I don't believe them myself—any more than I do what the people of Ægium say,—that you are a changeling. But I do say this, that you've brought in too many of your illegitimate children here.
Momus goes on to tell the royal chairman some home truths, which Jupiter hears with great equanimity. Then he inveighs against the monstrous forms introduced from Eastern mythology; Phrygians and Medes like Atthis and Mithras, who cannot even talk Greek; the dog-faced Anubis, and the spotted bull from Memphis, apes and ibises from Egypt. And how can Jupiter himself have allowed them to put ram's horns on his head at Ammon? No wonder that mortals learn to despise him.
A solemn decree is drawn up by Momus, in strict legal form, beginning ag follows: "Whereas divers aliens, not only Greeks but Barbarians, who are in no wise entitled to the freedom of our community, have got themselves enrolled as gods, and so crowded heaven
