Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods, 18 “Hera and Leto”

Translation by H.D. Macleod, Loeb Classical Library

 

Hera: My dear Leto, the children you’ve given to Zeus are beautiful too.

 

Leto: My dear Hera, we can’t all have children like Hephaestus.

 

Hera: Cripple though he is, he’s certainly useful; he’s an excellent craftsman, and has done a fine job of work on our heaven; what’s more, he’s married to Aphrodite, and she thinks the world of him, but as for your children — the girl’s far too much of a tomboy and roamer of the mountains, and now, to cap it all, she’s gone off to Scythia, and everyone knows about her diet there, how she murders visitors and eats them, just like the Scythian cannibals themselves; while Apollo pretends to know everything, be it archery, harping, medicine or prophecy, and has set up prophecy factories in Delphi, Claros, Colophon and Didyma, deceiving his customers by giving crooked replies, hedging between two possible answers, so that there’s no risk of a slip-up. He gets rich in this way, for there are plenty of fools as willing victims of his quackery. However, the more intelligent people see through most of his mystery-mongering. The prophet himself didn’t know he was going to kill his darling [Hyacinthus] with that quoit, and didn’t foretell that Daphne would run away from him, for all his beauty and fine hair. So I can’t see why you thought you had better children than Niobe.

 

Leto: Anyway, I know how it vexes you to see my children among the gods, murderer and false prophet though you call them — particularly when they praise my daughter for her beauty, and all admire my son for his harp-playing at dinner.

 

Hera: You make me laugh, Leto. Who could admire one that Marsyas would have beaten at music and skinned alive with his own hands, if the Muses had chose to judge fairly? But as it was, he was tricked and wrongly lost the vote, poor fellow, and had to die. And your pretty maid is so pretty that, when she found out that Actaeon had seen her, she was afraid the young fellow would tell everyone how hideous she was, and set her hounds on him. I won’t bother pointing out she could never have been a midwife, if she were a virgin herself.

 

Leto: Living with Zeus and sharing his throne has swollen your head, Hera, and so you don’t mind how you insult others. But it won’t be long before I see you in tears again — the next time he leaves you and goes down to earth as a bull or swan.