|
The Gods Play the Fool
But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals?
View heaven round, and let him that will reproach me with my name if
he find any one of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible
were he not made acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is
always a stripling, and bushy haired? but because he is mad, and
drunk, and spends his life in drinking, dancing, revels, and
May-games, not having so much as the least society with Pallas. And
lastly, he is so far from desiring to be accounted wise that he
delights to be worshiped with sports and gambols; nor is he displeased
with the proverb that gave him the surname of fool, "A greater fool
than Bacchus"; which name of his was changed to Morychus, for that
sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton country people were
wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of scoffs, what not,
have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish god, say
they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father's thigh! And
yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever
young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's
Jupiter with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan
with his hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or
even Pallas herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear
and a countenance like bullbeef?
Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he is a
very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober?
Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me?
Witness that color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence
she is called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give
any credit to the poets, or their followers the statuaries. What deity
did the Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora, the
foundress of all pleasure?
Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of the most sour
and morose of the gods out of Homer and the rest of the poets, you
would find them all but so many pieces of Folly. And to what purpose
should I run over any of the other gods' tricks when you know enough
of Jupiter's loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so far forget
her sex as to be ever hunting and ready to perish for Endymion? But
I had rather they should hear these things from Momus, from whom
heretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their
angry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief,
down headlong to the earth, because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably
disturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give him
harbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been
received into the courts of princes, had not my companion Flattery
reigned in chief there, with whom and the other there is no more
correspondence than between lambs and wolves.
From whence it is that the gods play the fool with the greater
liberty and more content to themselves "doing all things
carelessly," as says Father Homer, that is to say, without anyone to
correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of
the fig-tree Priapus does not afford them? What tricks and
legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What
buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his polt-foot,
another with his smutched muzzle, another with his impertinencies,
he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with
his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops hammers,
the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while Pan
makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had
rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are
well whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these
gods do when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I
myself can hardly refrain laughter. But in these matters 'twere better
we remembered Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take
us whispering that which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at
length.
|