Now methought 'twas possible this fellow might be no such fool as he pretended, but might be serving me as I had served others in Hanau to escape from us the better: so I determined to put him in a passion, for in such plight it is easiest to know a real madman; and says I, "The reason I am come down from heaven is that I missed thee there, and so took Daedalus's wings and flew down to earth to seek thee. But when I came to ask for thee I found thee in all places but of ill repute; for Zoilus and Momus have throughout the world so slandered thee and all the other gods, and decried ye as wanton and stinking, that ye have lost all credit with mankind. Thyself, say they, beest a lousy, adulterous caperer after woman-kind; how canst thou then, punish the world for such vices? Vulcan they say is but a poltroon that let pass Mars's adultery without proper revenge; and how can that halting cuckold forge any weapons of note? Venus, too, is for her unchastity the most infamous baggage in the world: and how can she endow another with grace and favour? Mars they say is but a murderer and a robber; Apollo a shameless lecher; Mercury an idle chatterer, thief and pander; Priapus filth; Hercules a brainsick ruffian; and, in a word, the whole crew of the gods so ill famed that they should of right be lodged nowhere but in Augeas's stable, which even without them stinks in the nostrils of all the world." "Aha;" says Jupiter, "and who would wonder if I laid aside my graciousness and punished these wretched slanderers and blasphemous liars with thunder and lightning? How thinkest thou, my true and beloved Ganymede, shall I curse these chatterers with eternal thirst like Tantalus, or hang them up with that loose talker Daphitas on Mount Thorax, or grind them with Anaxarchus in a mortar, or set them in Phalaris's red-hot bull of Agrigent? Nay, nay, Ganymede: all these plagues and punishments together are too little: I will fill Pandora's box anew and empty it upon the rogues' heads: then Nemesis shall wake the furies and send them at their heels, and Hercules shall borrow Cerberus from Pluto and hunt those wicked knaves with him like wolves, and when I have in this wise chased and tormented them enough, then will I bind them fast with Hesiod and Homer to a pillar in hell and there have them chastised for ever without pity by the Furies."