Then Hercules said, "Hear me, stop being a fool. You have come here where the mice gnaw iron. Quickly tell me the truth, lest I shake the dumbness out of you." And with which he was more terrible, he donned the tragic mask and said:
"Set forth immediately by what abode you say your origin,
lest having been slain by this trunk you fall towards the earth:
this club has often murdered savage kings.
What now do you sound with the uncertain utterance of your voice?
What fatherland, what race brought up your mobile head?
Speak! Certainly seeking the far-off kingdom
of the triform king, whence I brought forth the noble herd
from the Western sea to the Inachian city,
I saw a ridge hanging over two rivers,
which Phoebus always sees with his opposing ascent,
where the vast Rhone flows in a rushing current
and the Arar, hesitating where it drives its course,
silent it washes upon the shores with quiet shallows.
Is that land the nurse of your spirit?"
This he said boldly and courageously enough, by no less he was not of his own mind and he feared the blow of a fool. Claudius, as he saw the strong man, forgetful of his trifles, knew that no one was equal to him in Rome, in that place he did not have the same grace: a rooster has the most power on his own dunghill. And thus as much as he could be understood, he seemed to say this: "I hope that you, Hercules the strongest of the gods, would be present for me before others, and if any had asked me for a noter, I would have nominated you, who have known me best. For, if you look back in memory, it was I who used to speak the law before your temple on all days in the months of July and August. You know how many miserable people I brought together there, when I heard pleaders day and night. If you had fallen into that, however strong you seem to be to yourself, you would have preferred to cleanse the sewers of Augeas: I drained out more shit by far. But since I want...
Hercules talking of the mice gnawing iron seems to relate to a proverb of sorts in Antiquity. The meaning of it is pretty overt: "in this place we call home, everything is better than you and scarier at that. Even the mice gnaw iron."
ReplyDeletePhoebus Apollo's opposing ascent to the rock face is explained by the Sun rising every morning to the east facing rock wall.
The blow of a fool (μωροῦ πληγήν) is a play on the blow of a God (Θεοῦ πληγήν) a saying commonly associated with misfortune and seen in Greek tragedy (Euripides, Sophocles, etc).
A "Gallum in suo sterquilino plurimum posse" is a pun here playing off of Gallus (Gaul) and gallus (rooster). Sterquilinus is a term coined here which carries the connotation of 'shitheap'.
The end of this section begin a large lacuna of text that is of unknown size but clearly lays out the rest of the court precedings as well as the journey to the Curia (senate house) that begins section 9.