Jupiter, may my leeks and onions flourish and increase!" "Grant
Jupiter, that my father may die soon!" "Grant I may survive my
wife!" "Grant I may not be discovered, whilst I lay wait for my
brother!" "Grant that I may get my cause!" "Grant that I may be
crowned at Olympia!" One sailor asked for a north wind, another for
a south; the husbandman prayed for rain, and the fuller for
sunshine. Jupiter heard them all, but did not promise everybody--

"--some the just request,
He heard propitious, and denied the rest." {185a}

Those prayers which he thought right and proper he let up through
the hole, and blew the wicked and foolish ones back, that they might
not rise to heaven. One petition, indeed, puzzled him a little; two
men asking favours of him directly contrary to each other, at the
same time, and promising the same sacrifice; he was at a loss which
to oblige; he became immediately a perfect Academic, and like
Pyrrho, {185b} was held in suspense between them. When he had done
with the prayers, he sat down upon the next chair, over another
hole, and listened to those who were swearing and making vows. When
he had finished this business, and destroyed Hermodorus, the
Epicurean, for perjury, he removed to the next seat, and gave
audience to the auguries, oracles, and divinations; which having
despatched, he proceeded to the hole that brought up the fume of the
victims, together with the name of the sacrificer. Then he gave out
his orders to the winds and storms: "Let there be rain to-day in
Scythia, lightning in Africa, and snow in Greece; do you, Boreas,
blow in Lydia, and whilst Notus lies still, let the north wind raise
the waves of the Adriatic, and about a thousand measures of hail be
sprinkled over Cappadocia."

When Jupiter had done all his business we repaired to the feast, for
it was now supper-time, and Mercury bade me sit down by Pan, the
Corybantes, Attis, and Sabazius, a kind of demi-gods who are
admitted as visitors there. Ceres served us with bread, and Bacchus
with wine; Hercules handed about the flesh, Venus scattered myrtles,
and Neptune brought us fish; not to mention that I got slyly a
little nectar and ambrosia, for my friend Ganymede, out of good-
nature, if he saw Jove looking another way, would frequently throw
me in a cup or two. The greater gods, as Homer tells us {187a}
(who, I suppose, had seen them as well as myself,) never taste meat
or wine, but fe