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The Praise of Folly 29
when that chast Diana shall so far forget her
Sexe 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 humours they tumbled
him, together with Ate, Goddess of Mischief,
down headlong to the Earth, because his wisdom,
forsooth, unseasonably disturb’d their happiness.
Nor since that dares any mortal give him harbour,
though I must confess there wanted little but
that he had been receiv’d into the Courts of
Princes, had not my companion Flattery reign’d
in chief there, with whom and t’ 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 care¬
lessly,’ as says Father Homer, that is to say,
without any one to correct them. For what
ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of the
Fig-tree Priapus does not afford ’em ? what Tricks
and Legerdemains with which Mercury does
not cloak his thefts? what buffonry that Vulcan
pdoy dyovres,