fates no longer mean anything to them.
Tell me Euparchus, my learned friend,
were they any better in chaos, when
the first of them were formed out
of the void of nothingness? I think
you once told me that when their
sickness became notable, clever
Hermes, the messenger, came down to
fetch up the great physician Hippo–
crates, hoping that he could diag-
nose and cure the divine ones.
Hippocrates examined a number of
them, male and female . He was
appalled at what he discovered.
In his Medical Aphorisms he set
down the following illnesses:
lientery, anasarca, stangury
various suppurations, phrenitis,
putrid eructations, erysipelas,
dysuria, pustules of scabies,
quartan fever, empyema, ileus,
bloody £lux, sphacelus, and
other diseases which he had
never encountered before.
Euparchus, I asked, with all
these terrible plagues why are
all the gods not dead?
The gods are immortal, Euparchus'
answered, how can they die when
they are immortal. Unless the
world ends they will go on tor–
menting us forever.
Is there nothing we can do to
protect ourselves from their
vindictive malice?
