Timon

TIMON Ho, Zeus, you Protector of Friends and Guests and Comrades, Keeper of the Hearth, Lord of the Lightning, Guardian of Oaths, Cloud-Compeller, Loud-thunderer and whatever else crazy poets call you, above all when they are in trouble with their verses, for then to help them out you assume a multitude of names and so shore up the weak spots in their metre and fill up the gaps in their rhythm! Where now is your pealing levin, your rolling thunder and your blazing, flashing, horrid bolt? All that has turned out to be stuff and nonsense, pure poetic vapour except for the resonance of the names. That famous, far-flying, ready weapon of yours has been completely quenched in some way or other and is cold, not even retaining a tiny spark of resentment against wrong doers.

Indeed, anyone who should undertake to commit perjury would be more afraid of a guttering rushlight than of the blaze of your all-conquering thunderbolt. What you menace them with is such a mere firebrand, they think, that they do not fear flame or smoke from it and expect the only harm they will get from the stroke is to be covered with soot.