An Epigram From Homer

Pay me my price, potters! and I will sing. Attend, O Pallas! and with lifted arm Protect their oven; let the cups and all The sacred vessels black well, and, baked With good success, yield them both fair renown And profit, whether in the market sold Or streets, and let no strife ensue between us. But, oh ye potters! if with shameless front Ye falsify your promise, then I leave No mischief uninvoked to avenge the wrong. Come, Syntrips, Smaragus, Sabactes, come, And Asbetus, nor let your direst dread, Omodamus, delay! Fire seize your house, May neither house nor vestibule escape, May ye lament to see confusion mar And mingle the whole labor of your hands, And may a sound fill all your oven, such As of a horse grinding his provender, While all your pots and flagons bounce within. Come hither, also, daughter of the sun, Circe the sorceress, and with thy drugs Poison themselves, and all that they have made Of centaurs, as well those who died beneath The club of Hercules, as who escaped, And stamp their crockery to dust; down fall Their chimney; let them see it with their eyes And howl to see the ruin of their art, While I rejoice; and if a potter stoop To peep into his furnace, may the fire Flash in his face and scorch it, that all men Observe, thenceforth, equity and good faith.