{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28270/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28270","id":"gutenberg_28270","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28270","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Gods, Greek -- Drama"],"text":"E-text prepared by Bryan Ness, C. St. Charleskindt, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\n  _Verse by the Same Author_\n\n    ON VIOL AND FLUTE\n    KING ERIK\n    FERDAUSI IN EXILE\n    IN RUSSET AND SILVER\n\n\n\nHYPOLYMPIA\n\nOr\n\nThe Gods in the Island\n\n_An Ironic Fantasy_\n\nby\n\nEDMUND GOSSE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLondon\nWilliam Heinemann\n1901\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n_The scene of this fantasy is an island, hitherto inhabited by\nLutherans, in a remote but temperate province of Northern Europe.\nThe persons are the Gods of Ancient Greece. The time is early in\nthe Twentieth Century._\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\n[_A terrace high above the sea, which is seen far below, through\n    vast masses of woodland. Steps lead down towards the water, from\n    the centre of the scene. To the left, a large, low country-house,\n    of unpretentious character, in the style of the late eighteenth\n    century. Gardens belonging to the same period, and now somewhat\n    neglected and overgrown, stretch on either side. The edge of the\n    terrace is marked by a stone balustrade, with a stone seat running\n    round it within. At the top of steps, ascending, appear_ APHRODITE\n    _and_ EROS.]\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nA moment, Eros. Let us sit here. What can this flutter at my girdle\nbe? I breathe with difficulty. Oh! Eros, can this be death?\n\nEROS.\n\nDeath? Ah! no; you have roses in your cheeks, mother. Your lips are\nlike blood.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nIt must be weariness. Ever these new sensations, these odd,\nexciting apprehensions! This must be mortality. I never breathed\nthe faster as I rose from terrace to terrace in Cythera.\n\nEROS.\n\nYet this is like Cythera--a little like it. [_Looking round._] It\nis not the least like it. These round billowy woods, that grey\nstrip of sea far below, the long smooth land with square yellow\nfields and pointed brown fields, and the wild grey sky above. No;\nit would be impossible for anything to be less like Cythera.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nYet it is like it. [_Gazing round._] How strange ... to be where\neverything is not azure and gold and white--white land, gold houses\nand blue sky and sea. What are these woods, Eros?\n\nEROS.\n\nAre they beech-woods?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI did not think that I could ever be happy again. I am not _happy_.\nBut I am not miserable. Now that my heart is quiet again, I am not\nmiserable. Oh! that sick tossing on the black sea, the nausea, the\naching, the dulness; that I, who sprang from the waves, could come\nto hate them so. We will never venture on the sea, again?\n\nEROS.\n\nThen must we stay for ever here, since this is an island.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nYes, here for ever. For ever? We have no \"for ever\" now, Eros.\n\n    [_Enter, from the house_, CYDIPPE.]\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nIs all prepared for us, Cydippe?\n\nCYDIPPE.\n\nI have done my best. The barbarian people are kind and clean. They\nhave blue eyes. There is one, with marigold curls and a crisp\nbeard, who has brought up water and logs of wood. There are two\nmaidens, with hair like a wheat-field and rough red fingers. There\nare others.... I know not. All seem civil and frightened. But your\nMajesty will be wretched.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nNo, Cydippe, I think I shall be happy.\n\nEROS [_walking to the parapet, and looking down_].\n\nOur white ship still lies there, mother. Shall we start again?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nOn that leaden water, with the little cruel breakers like coriander\nseeds? Never. And whither should we go, Eros? We have lost our\ngolden home, our only home. We have lost the old white world of\nempire; any grey corner of the world of stillness is good enough\nfor us. I will eat, and lie down, and rest without that long,\nawful heave of the intolerable ocean. Which way, Cydippe?\n\n    [APHRODITE _and_ CYDIPPE _enter the house_.]\n\nEROS [_alone_].\n\nThis little milk-white flower, with the drop of wine in it.... It\nis like the grass that grows on the slopes of Parnassus. It is the\nonly home-like thing here. Can that be grey wool that hangs in the\nsky, and droops like a curtain over the opposite hills? How cold\nthe air is! Ah! it is raining over in the other island, and the\nbrown fields grow like the yellow fields, melt into a mere white\nmist behind the slate-coloured sea. Here is one of the barbarians.\n\n    [POSEIDON _slowly appears at the top of the steps_.]\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nAh, you here alone, Eros?\n\nEROS [_aside_].\n\nIt is Poseidon! How old and bluff he looks! [_To_ POSEIDON.] My\nmother is within. [_Smiling._] She was angry with you, Poseidon,\nbut her anger is fallen.\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nAdversity brings us all together. It was once I who burned with\nanger against her. Why was she angry?\n\nEROS.\n\nThe cruelty of your sea; it shook and sickened her.\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nIt once was her sea, too. Now it is not even mine.... Rebellion\neverywhere, everywhere the servant risen against the master,\neverywhere our spells and portents broken. I rule the sea still,\nbut it is as a man holds in a wild horse with a hard rein: it obeys\nwith hatred, it would obey not one moment after the master's hand\nwas withdrawn.\n\nEROS.\n\nHow cold it is. But I am not disconsolate. Nor should you be,\nPoseidon, for you will have the sea to occupy your thoughts.\nHephaestus will help you to break it in. He at least should be\nconsoled, for in our fallen estate his magical ingenuity will\nemploy his brain.\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nWe have never needed to be ingenious. It has been enough for us\nto command, to wield the elements like weapons, to say it shall\nbe and to see it is.\n\nEROS.\n\nTo see it is not, and yet to make it be, perhaps this may be a joy\nin store for us. For Hephaestus, certainly; for you, if you are\nwise; but for me, ah! what will there be? My arrows break against\nold hearts, and now we all are old.\n\n    [PALLAS ATHENE _comes rapidly down the steps from the house\n        and speaks while still behind_ EROS.]\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI have brought with me the box which Epimetheus made for Pandora.\n\nEROS [_turning suddenly_].\n\nAh! Pallas! What, you have brought that ivory box with you? Why\ndid you burden your hands with that?\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI snatched it from the burning palace. There is something strange at\nthe bottom of it--something like an opal, with a violet flame in it.\n\nEROS.\n\nAlas! we have no great need of jewels here. This shining beech-leaf\nis the treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a little bough of it,\nbent just above the white enamel of your forehead. It will be as\ngreen as a beryl to-day, and red like copper to-morrow, and perhaps\nyou will need no third adornment.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nThere is something in the carven box which the shrieking oracle\ncommended to me. \"Take this,\" it said, \"take this, and it will turn\nthe blackness of exile into living light.\"\n\nEROS.\n\nPoor oracle, it became mad before it became dumb.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI was the only one of us all, Eros, who anticipated this change.\nHigh up above the glaciers of Olympus, where the warm crystal shone\nlike ice, and the faint cumuli rained jasmine on us, and the blue\nlight was like the cold acid of a fruit, in the midst of our\nincomparable felicity I pondered on the vicissitude of things.\n\nEROS.\n\nYou only, I remember, ever heeded the foolish screaming oracle\nthat moaned for mortals. You always had something of the mortal\ntemperament, Pallas. It jarred upon my mother that you seem to\nshudder even at the voluptuous turmoil of the senses. She said\nyou always looked old. You look younger now than she does,\nPallas.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI am neither old nor young. I know not what I am. But this grey\ncolour and those blowing woods are not unpleasing to me. I can\nbe _myself_, even here, on a beech-wood peak in the cold sea.\n\n    [_Enter up the steps_ ZEUS, _leaning heavily on_ GANYMEDE,\n        _and attended by many other Gods_.]\n\nEROS, POSEIDON, _and_ PALLAS.\n\nHail! father and king!\n\nZEUS.\n\nI can push on no farther. Why have I brought you here? [_Gazing\nround._] Nay, it is you who have brought me here. [_He moves up the\nscene._] I have a demon in my legs, that swells them, breaks them,\ncrushes me down. [_To_ GANYMEDE.] You are careless; stiffen your\nshoulder, it slopes like a woman's. I have lost my thunderbolt, I\nhave lost everything. Shall I be _bound_ upon this muddy, slippery\nrock? What is that horror in the sky?\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nIt is some dark bird of the north; it seeks a prey in the\nwoodlands.\n\nZEUS.\n\nI think it is a vulture. My eagle fled from me when the rebel\nwhistled to it. It perched beside him, and smoothed its crest\nagainst his elbow. All have left me, even my eagle.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nFather, we have not left you. We are about you here. One by one the\nalleys of the beech-wood will open, and one after one we shall all\ngather here, all your children, all the Olympians.\n\nZEUS.\n\nBut where is Olympus? I hardly know you. [_Gazing blankly about\nhim._] Are you my children? You [_to_ PALLAS] gaze at me with eyes\nlike those I hated most.\n\nEROS.\n\nWhose eyes, father and king?\n\nZEUS.\n\nI will not say. Are you sure [_to_ POSEIDON] that is not a vulture?\nI am torn, see, here under my beard, by a thorn. I can feel pain at\nlast, _I_, who could only inflict it.\n\nEROS.\n\nPallas has something in a box----\n\nZEUS [_vehemently_].\n\nThere is nothing in any box, there is nothing in any island, there\nis nothing in all the empty caskets of this world which can give\nme any happiness. Is it in this shanty that we must live? Lead me\non, Ganymede, lead me on into it, that I may sink down and sleep.\nWalk slowly and walk steadily, wretched boy.\n\n    [_He passes into the house, followed by all the others._]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n[_The terrace as before. Early morning, with warm sunshine. Enter_\n    CIRCE, _very carefully helping_ KRONOS _down the steps of the\n    house_. RHEA _follows, leaning on a staff_. CIRCE _places_ KRONOS\n    _in one throne, and sees_ RHEA _comfortably settled in another.\n    Then she sits on the ground between them, at_ RHEA'S _knees_.]\n\nCIRCE.\n\nThere! We are all comfortable now. How did Kronos sleep, Rhea?\n\nRHEA.\n\nHe has not complained this morning. [_Raising her voice._] Did\nyou sleep, Kronos?\n\nKRONOS [_vaguely_].\n\nYes, oh yes! I always sleep. Why should I not sleep?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nThese new arrangements--I was afraid they might disturb you.\n\nRHEA [_to_ CIRCE].\n\nHe notices very little. I do not think he recollects that there has\nbeen any change. Already he forgets Olympus. [_After a pause._] It\nis very thoughtful of you, Circe, to take so much trouble about us.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nI have been anxious about you both. All the rest of us ought to be\nable to console ourselves, but I am afraid that you will find it\nvery difficult to live in the new way.\n\nRHEA.\n\nKronos will soon have forgotten that there was an old way; and as\nfor me, Circe, I have seen so much and wandered in so many places,\nthat one is as another to me.\n\nKRONOS.\n\nIs it Zeus who has driven us forth?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nOh no! Zeus has led us hither. It was he who was attacked, it was\nagainst him that the rage of the enemy was directed.\n\nKRONOS [_to himself_].\n\nHe let me stay where I was. We were not driven forth before, Rhea,\nwere we? When I saw that it was hopeless, I did not struggle; I\nrose and took you by the hand....\n\nRHEA.\n\nYes; and we went half-way down the steps of the throne together....\n\nKRONOS [_very excitedly_].\n\nAnd we bowed to Zeus....\n\nRHEA.\n\nAnd he walked forward as if he did not see us....\n\nKRONOS.\n\nAnd then we came down, and I [_all his excitement falls from him_]\nI cannot quite remember. Did he strike us, Rhea?\n\nRHEA.\n\nOh! no, no! He swept straight on, and did not so much as seem to\nsee us, and in a moment he was up in the throne, and all the gods,\nthe new and the old, were bowing to him with acclamation.\n\nCIRCE [_looking up at_ RHEA, _with eager sympathy_].\n\nWhat did _you_ do, you poor dears?\n\nRHEA [_after a pause_].\n\nWe did nothing.\n\nKRONOS.\n\nZeus let us stay then. Why has he driven us out now?\n\nRHEA [_aside_].\n\nHe does not understand, Circe. It is very sweet of you to be so\nkind to us, but you must go back now to your young companions.\nWho is here?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nI think we are all here, or nearly all. I have not seen Iris, but\nsurely all the rest are here.\n\nRHEA.\n\nIs Zeus very much disturbed? On the ship I heard Aeolus say that\nit was impossible to go near him, he was so unreasonably angry.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nYes, he thought that our miseries were all the fault of Poseidon\nand Aeolus. But mortality will make a great change in Zeus; I think\nperhaps a greater change than in any of us. He has eaten a very\nsubstantial breakfast. Aesculapius says that as Zeus has hitherto\nconsidered the quality of his food so much, it is probable that\nin these lower conditions it may prove to be quantity which will\ninterest him most. He was greatly pleased with a curious kind of\naromatic tube which Hermes invented for him this morning.\n\nRHEA.\n\nDoes Zeus blow down it?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nNo; he puts fire to one end of it, and draws in the vapour. He is\ndelighted. How clever Hermes is, is he not, Rhea? What shall you\ndo here?\n\nRHEA.\n\nI must look after Kronos, of course. But he gives me no trouble.\nAnd I do not need to do much more. I am very tired, Circe. I was\ntired in my immortality. When Kronos and I were young, things were\nso very different in Olympus.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nHow were they different? Do tell me what happened. I have always\nlonged to know, but it was not considered quite nice, quite\nrespectful to Zeus, for us to ask questions about the Golden Age.\nBut now it cannot matter; can it, Rhea?\n\nRHEA [_after a pause_].\n\nThe fact is that when I look back, I cannot see very plainly any\nlonger. Do you know, Circe, that after the younger Gods invaded\nHeaven, although Zeus was very good-natured to us, and let us go\non as deities, something of our god-head passed away?\n\nKRONOS [_aloud, to himself_].\n\nI said to him, \"If I am unwelcome, I can go.\" And he answered,\n\"Pray don't discommode yourself.\" Just like that; very politely,\n\"Don't discommode yourself.\" And now he drives us away after all.\n\nCIRCE [_flinging herself over to_ KRONOS' _knees_].\n\nOh! Kronos, he does not drive you away! It is not he. It is our\nnew enemies, not of our own race, that have driven us. And we are\nall here--Pallas, Ares, Phoebus--we are all here. You like Hermes,\ndo you not, Kronos? Well, Hermes is here, and he will amuse you.\n\nKRONOS.\n\nI thought that Zeus had forgiven us. But never mind, never mind!\n\nRHEA.\n\nWe are tired, Circe. And what does the new life matter to us now?\nThe old life had run low, and we had long been prepared for\nmortality by the poverty of our immortality.\n\n    [_Enter_ HERMES _running_.]\n\nHERMES [_in reply to a gesture of_ CIRCE].\n\nI cannot stay. I am trying to rouse Demeter from her dreadful state\nof depression. She sits in the palace heaving deep sighs, and doing\nabsolutely nothing else. It will affect her heart, Aesculapius say.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nShe has always been so closely wedded to the study of agriculture,\nand now....\n\nHERMES.\n\nPrecisely. And it has occurred to me that the way to rouse her\nwill be to send Persephone to her in a little country cart I have\ndiscovered. I have two mouse-coloured ponies already caught and\nharnessed--such little beauties. The only thing left to do is to\nsearch for Persephone.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nI will find her in a moment. [_Exit._]\n\nRHEA.\n\nWe hear that you have already invented a means of amusing Zeus,\nHermes? Is he prepared to forget his thunderbolt?\n\nHERMES.\n\nHe has mentioned it only twice this morning, and I have set\nHephaestus to work to make him another, of yew-tree wood. It will\nbe less incommodious, more fitted to this place, and in a very\nshort time Zeus will forget the original.\n\nKRONOS [_loudly, to himself_].\n\nZeus gave me an orb and sceptre to console me. I used to play cup\nand ball with them behind his throne.\n\nRHEA [_in a solicitous aside to_ HERMES].\n\nOh! it is not true. Kronos' mind now wanders so strangely. He\nthinks that it is Zeus who has turned him out of Olympus.\n\nHERMES [_in the same tone_].\n\nDo not distress him, Rhea, by contradiction and explanation. I will\nfind modes of amusing him a little every day, and, for the rest,\nlet him doze in the sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth that it\nfails any longer to catch in ideas as they flit against it. They\npass off, glide away. It is useless, Rhea, to torment Kronos.\n\nRHEA.\n\nI shall watch him, all day long. For I, too, am weary. Do not\npropose to me, with your restless energy, any fresh interests. Let\nme sit, with my cold hands folded in my lap, and look at Kronos,\nnodding, nodding. It is very kind of Circe, but we are too old for\nlove; and of you, but we are too old for amusement. Let us rest,\nHermes, rest and sleep; perhaps dream a little, dream of the\nfar-away past.\n\n    [CIRCE _and_ PERSEPHONE _enter from the left_.]\n\nPERSEPHONE [_to_ HERMES].\n\nMy mother requires so much activity of mind and body. You must not\nbelieve that I was neglecting her. But I went forth in despair this\nmorning to see what I could invent, adapt, discover, as a means\nof rousing her. I am stupid, I could think of nothing. I wandered\nthrough the woods, down the glen, along the sea-shore, up the side\nof the tarn and of the marsh, but I could think of nothing.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nAnd when I found Persephone she was lying, flung out among the\nflowers, with bees and butterflies leaping round her in the\nsunshine, and the beech-leaves singing their faint song of peace.\nIt was beautiful, it was like Enna--with, ah! such a difference.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nCirce does not tell you that I was so foolish as to be in tears.\nBut now it seems that you have invented an occupation for Ceres?\nYou are so divinely ingenious.\n\nHERMES.\n\nI hope it may be successful.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nTell me what it is.\n\nHERMES.\n\nI have found at the back of the palace a small rural waggon, and\nI have caught two ponies, with coats like grey velvet, and great\nantelopes' eyes--dear little creatures. I have harnessed them, and\nnow I want you to sit in this cart, while I am dressed like some\nherdsman of these barbarians, and lead the ponies, and we will go\ntogether to coax Demeter out into the fields.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nOh! Hermes, how splendid of you. Let us fly to carry out your plan.\nCirce, will you not come with us?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nOr shall I not rather go to prepare the mind of Demeter for an\nagreeable surprise? Shall you be happy by yourselves, Kronos and\nRhea?\n\nRHEA.\n\nQuite happy, for we desire to sleep.\n\n    [_Exit_ CIRCE _to right_, HERMES _and_ PERSEPHONE _to left_.]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n[_A ring of turf, in a hollow of the slope, surrounded by beech-trees,\n    except on one side, where a marsh descends to a small tarn. Over\n    the latter is rising the harvest moon._ PHOEBUS APOLLO _alone;\n    he watches the luminary for a long time in silence_.]\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\n  Selene! sister!--since that tawny shell,\n  Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy sighs,\n  Recalls thee still to mind--dost thou regard,\n  From some tumultuous covert of this woodland,\n  Thy whilom sphere and palace? Nun of the skies,\n  In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands\n  Repelled me when I sought to win thy lair,\n  Fraternal, with no thoughts but humorous ones;\n  And in thy chill revulsion, through thy skies,\n  At my advance thy crystal home would fade,\n  A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery dream.\n  Thou and thy moon were one. What is it now,\n  Thy phantom paradise of gorgeous pearl,\n  With sibilant streams and palmy tier on tier\n  Of wind-bewhitened foliage? Still it floats,\n  As when thy congregated harps and viols\n  Beat slow harmonious progress, light on light,\n  Across our stainless canopy of heaven.\n  Ah! but how changed, Selene! If thy form\n  Crouches among these harsher herbs, O turn\n  Thy withering face away, and press thine eyes\n  To darkness in the strings of dusty heather,\n  Since that loose globe of orange pallor totters,\n  Racked with the fires of anarchy, and sheds\n  The embers of thy glory; and the cradles\n  Of thy imperial maidenhood are foul\n  With sulphur and the craterous ash of hell.\n  O gaze not, sister, on the loathsome wreck\n  Of what was once thy moon. Yet, if thou must\n  With tear-fed eyes visit thine ancient realm,\n  Bend down until the fringe of thy faint lids\n  Hides all save what is in this tarn reflected--\n  Cold, pallid, swimming in the lustrous pool,\n  There only worthy of thy clear regard,\n  A vision purified in woe.\n\n    [_The reeds in the tarn are stirred, and there is audible a faint\n        shriek and a ripple of laughter. A shrouded figure rises from\n        the marsh, and, hastening by_ PHOEBUS _through the darkness,\n        is lost in the woods. It is followed closely by_ PAN, _who,\n        observing_ PHOEBUS, _pauses in embarrassment_.]\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nI thought I was alone.\n\nPAN.\n\nAnd so did we, sire.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nAm I to congratulate you on your distractions?\n\nPAN.\n\nI have a natural inclination to marshy places.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nThis is a ghastly night, Pan.\n\nPAN.\n\nI had not observed it, sire. Yes, doubtless a ghastly night.\nBut I was occupied, and I am no naturalist. This glen curiously\nreminded me of rushy Ladon. I am a great student of reeds, and\nI was agreeably surprised to find some very striking specimens\nhere--worthy of the Arcadian watercourses, as I am a deity. I\nshould say, _was_ a deity.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nThey will help, perhaps, to reconcile you to mortality. You can\nadd them to your collection.\n\nPAN.\n\nThat, sire, is my hope. The stems are particularly full and smooth,\nand the heads of the best of them rustle back with a profusion of\nflaxen flowerage, remarkably agreeable to the touch. I broke one as\nyour Highness approached. But the wind, or some goblin, bore it\nfrom me. This curious place seems full of earth-spirits.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nYou must study them, too, Pan. That will supply you with another\nobject.\n\nPAN.\n\nBut the marsh water has a property unknown to the Olympian springs.\nI suspect it of being poisoned. After standing long in it, I found\nmyself troubled with aching in the shank, from knee to hoof. If\nthis is repeated, my studies of reed-life will be made dolorously\ndifficult.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nIt must now be part of your pleasure to husband your enjoyments.\nYou have always rolled in the twinkle of the vine-leaves, hot\nenough and not too hot, with grapes--immense musky clusters--just\nwithin your reach. If you think of it philosophically----\n\nPAN.\n\nHow, sire?\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nPhilosophically.... Well, if you think of it sensibly, you will\nsee that there was a certain dreariness in this uniformity of\nsatisfaction. Rather amusing, surely, to find the cluster\noccasionally spring up out of reach, to find the polished waist\nof the reed slip from your hands? Occasionally, of course; just\nenough to give a zest to pursuit.\n\nPAN.\n\nAh! there was pursuit in Ladon, but it was pursuit which always\nclosed easily in capture. What I am afraid of is that here capture\nmay prove the exception. Your Highness ... but a slight family\nconnection and our adversities are making me strangely familiar....\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nSpeak on, my good Pan.\n\nPAN.\n\nYour Highness was once something of a botanist?\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nA botanist? Ah, scarcely! A little arboriculture, the laurel; a\nlittle horticulture, the sun-flower. Those varieties seem entirely\nabsent here, and I have no thought of replacing them.\n\nPAN.\n\nThe last thing I should dream of suggesting would be a _hortus\nsiccus_....\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nAnd I was never a consistent collector. There are reeds everywhere,\nyou fortunate goat-foot, but even in Olympus I was the creature of\na fastidious selection.\n\nPAN.\n\nThe current of the thick and punctual blood never left me liable\nto the distractions of choice.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nI congratulate you, Pan, upon your temperament, and I recommend\nto you a further pursuit of the attainable.\n\n    [PAN _makes a profound obeisance and disappears in the woodland_.\n        PHOEBUS _watches him depart, and then turns to the moon_.]\n\nPHOEBUS [_alone_].\n\nHis familiarity was not distasteful to me. It reminded me of days\nout hunting, when I have come suddenly upon him at the edge of the\nwatercourse, and have shared his melons and his conversation. I\nanticipate for him some not unagreeable experiences. The lower\norder of divinities will probably adapt themselves with ease\nto our new conditions. They despaired the most suddenly, with\nwringing of hands as we raced to the sea, with interminable\nbabblings and low moans and screams, as they clustered on the deck\nof that extraordinary vessel. But the science of our new life must\nbe to forget or to remember. We must live in the past or forego\nthe past. For Pan and his likes I conceive that it will largely\nresolve itself into a question of temperature--of temperature and\nof appetite. That orb is of a sinister appearance, but to do it\njustice it looks heated. My sister had a passion for coldness; she\nwould never permit me to lend her any of my warmth. I cannot say\nthat it is chilly here to-night. I am agreeably surprised.\n\n    [_The veiled figure flits across again, and_ PAN _once more\n        crosses in close pursuit_.]\n\nPHOEBUS [_as they vanish_].\n\nWhat an amiable vivacity! Yes; the lower order of divinities will\nbe happy, for they will forget. We, on the contrary, have the\nprivilege of remembering. It is only the mediocre spirits, that\ncannot quite forget nor clearly remember, which will have neither\nthe support of instinct nor the solace of a vivid recollection.\n\n    [_He seats himself. A noise of laughter rises from the marsh,\n        and dies away. In the silence a bird sings._]\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nNot the Daulian nightingale, of course, but quite a personable\nsubstitute: less prolongation of the triumph, less insistence upon\nthe agony. How curiously the note breaks off! Some pleasant little\nnorthern bird, no doubt. I experience a strange and quite\nunprecedented appetite for moderation. The absence of the thrill,\nthe shaft, the torrent is not disagreeable. The actual Phocian\nfrenzy would be disturbing here, out of place, out of time. I must\ncongratulate this little, doubtless brown, bird on a very\nconsiderable skill in warbling. But the moon--what is happening\nto _it_? It is not merely climbing higher, but it is manifestly\nclarifying its light. When I came, it was copper-coloured, now it\nis honey-coloured, the horn of it is almost white like milk. This\nlittle bird's incantation has, without question, produced this\nfortunate effect. This little bird, halfway on the road between\nthe nightingale and the cicada, is doubtless an enchanter, and one\nwhose art possesses a more than respectable property. My sister's\nattention should be drawn to this highly interesting circumstance.\nSelene! Selene!\n\n    [_He calls and waits. From the upper woods_ SELENE _slowly\n        descends, wrapped in long white garments_.]\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nSister, behold the throne that once was thine.\n\nSELENE.\n\nAnd now, a rocking cinder, fouls the skies.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nA magian sweeps its filthy ash away.\n\nSELENE.\n\nThere is no magic in the bankrupt world.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nNay, did'st thou hear this twittering peal of song?\n\nSELENE.\n\nSome noise I heard; this glen is full of sounds.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nFling back thy veil, and staunch thy tears, and gaze.\n\nSELENE.\n\nAt thee, my brother, not at my darkened orb.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nGaze then at me. What seest thou in mine eyes?\n\nSELENE.\n\nFoul ruddy gleams from what was lately pure.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nNay, but thou gazest not. Look up, look at me!\n\nSELENE.\n\nBut on thy sacred eyeballs fume turns fire.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nNay, then, turn once and see thy very moon.\n\nSELENE [_turning round_].\n\nAh! wonder! the volcanic glare is gone.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nThe wizard bird has sung the fumes away.\n\nSELENE.\n\nEmpty it seems, and vain; but foul no more.\n\nPHOEBUS [_approaching her, and in a confidential tone_].\n\nI will not disguise from you, Selene, my apprehension that the\nhideous colour may return. Your moon is divorced from yourself,\nand can but be desecrated and forlorn. But at least it should\nbe a matter of interest to you--yes, even of gratification, my\nsister--that this little bird, if it be a bird, has an enchanting\npower of temporarily relieving it and raising it.\n\n    [SELENE, _manifestly more cheerful, ascends to the wood on\n        the left_. PHOEBUS, _turning again to the moon_,]\n\nI have observed that this species of mysterious agency has a very\nsalutary effect upon the more melancholy of our female divinities.\nThey are satisfied if they have the felicity of waiting for\nsomething which they cannot be certain of realising, and which they\nattribute to a cause impossible to investigate. [_To_ SELENE,\n_raising his voice_.] Whither do you go, my sister?\n\nSELENE.\n\nI am searching for this little bird. I propose to discuss with\nit the nature of its extraordinary, and I am ready to admit its\ngratifying, control over the moon. I think it possible that I may\nconcoct with it some scheme for our return. You shall, in that\ncase, Phoebus, be no longer excluded from my domain.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nLet me urge you to do no such thing. The action of this little\nbird upon your unfortunate luminary is sympathetic, but surely\nvery obscure. It would be a pity to inquire into it so closely\nas to comprehend it.\n\n    [SELENE, _without listening to him, passes up into the woods,\n        and exit_.]\n\nPHOEBUS [_alone_].\n\nTo comprehend it might even be to discover that it does not exist.\nWhereas to come here night after night, in the fragrant darkness,\nto see the unhallowed lump of fire creep out of the lake, to\nlisten for the first clucks and shakes of the sweet little\npurifying song, and to watch the orb growing steadily more hyaline\nand lucent under its sway, how delicious! The absolute harmony and\nconcord of nature would be then patent and recurrent before us.\nMy poor sister! However, it is consoling to reflect that she is\nalmost certain not to be able to find that bird.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\n[_The same glen._ AESCULAPIUS _alone, busily arranging a great\n    cluster of herbs which he has collected. He sits on a large\n    stone, with his treasures around him_.]\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYew--an excellent styptic. Tansy, rosemary. Spurge and marsh\nmallow. The best pellitory I ever plucked out of a wall. The herbs\nof this glen are admirable. They surpass those of the gorges of\nCyllene. Is this lavender? The scent seems more acrid.\n\n    [_Enter_ PALLAS _and_ EUTERPE.]\n\nPALLAS.\n\nYou look enviably animated, Aesculapius. Your countenance is so\nfresh beneath that long white beard of yours, that the barbarians\nwill suppose you to be some mad boy, masquerading.\n\nEUTERPE.\n\nWhat will you do with these plants?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nThese are my simples. As we shot through the Iberian narrows on our\nfrantic voyage hither, my entire store was blown out of my hands\nand away to sea. The rarest sorts were flung about on rocks where\nnothing more valetudinarian than a baboon could possibly taste\nthem. My earliest care on arriving here was to search these woods\nfor fresh specimens, and my success has been beyond all hope. See,\nthis comes from the wet lands on the hither side of the tarn----\n\nEUTERPE.\n\nWhere Selene is now searching for the wizard who draws the smoke\naway from the moon's face at night.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nThis from the beck where it rushes down between the stems of\nmountain-ash, this from beneath the vast ancestral elm below the\npalace, this from the sea-shore. Marvellous! And I am eager to\ndescend again; I have not explored the cliff which breaks the\ndescent of the torrent, nor the thicket in the gully. There must\nbe marchantia under the spray of the one, and possibly dittany in\nthe peat of the other.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nWe must not detain you, Aesculapius. But tell us how you propose\nto adapt yourself to our new life. It seems to me that you are\ndetermined not to find it irksome.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nDoes it not occur to you, Pallas, that--although I should never\nhave had the courage to adopt it--thus forced upon us it offers\nme the most dazzling anticipations? Hitherto my existence has been\nall theory. What there is to know about the principles of health as\napplied to the fluctuations of mortality, I may suppose is known to\nme. You might be troubled, Pallas, with every conceivable malady,\nfrom elephantiasis to earache, and I should be in a position to\nanalyse and to deal with each in turn. You might be obscured by\nophthalmia, crippled by gout or consumed to a spectre by phthisis,\nand I should be able, without haste, without anxiety, to unravel\nthe coil, to reduce the nodosities, to make the fleshy instrument\nrespond in melody to all your needs.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nBut you have never done this. We knew that you _could_ do it, and\nthat has been enough for us.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nIt has never been enough for me. The impenetrable immortality of\nall our bodies has been a constant source of exasperation to me.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nIs it not much to know?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYes; but it is more to _do_. The most perfect theory carries a\nmonotony and an emptiness about with it, if it is never renovated\nby practice. In Olympus the unbroken health of all the inmates,\nwhich we have accepted as a matter of course, has been more\nadvantageous to them than it has been to me.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI quite see that it has made your position a more academic one than\nyou could wish.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nIt has made it purely academic, and indeed, Pallas, if you will\nreflect upon it, the very existence of a physician in a social\nsystem which is eternally protected against every species of bodily\ndisturbance borders upon the ridiculous.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nIt would interest me to know whether in our old home you were\nconscious of this incongruity, of this lack of harmony between your\nscience and your occasions of using it.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nNo; I think not. I was satisfied in the possession of exact\nknowledge, and not directly aware of the charm of application. It\nis the result, no doubt, of this resignation of immortality which\nhas startled and alarmed us all so much----\n\nPALLAS.\n\nMe, Aesculapius, it has neither alarmed nor startled.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nI mean that while we were beyond the dread of any attack, the\npleasure of rebutting such attack was unknown to us. I have\ndivined, since our misfortunes, that disease itself may bring an\nexcitement with it not all unallied to pleasure.... You smile,\nEuterpe, but I mean even for the sufferer. There is more in\ndisease than the mere pang and languishment. There is the sense\nof alleviation, the cessation of the throb, the resuming glitter\nin the eye, the restoration of cheerfulness and appetite. These,\nPallas, are qualities which are indissolubly identified with pain\nand decay, and which therefore--if we rightly consider--were wholly\nexcluded from our experience. In Olympus we never brightened, for\nwe never flagged; we never waited for a pang to subside, nor felt\nit throbbing less and less poignantly, nor, as if we were watching\nan enemy from a distance, hugged ourselves in a breathless ecstasy\nas it faded altogether; this exquisite experience was unknown to\nus, for we never endured the pang.\n\nEUTERPE.\n\nYou make me eager for an illness. What shall it be? Prescribe one\nfor me. I am ignorant even of the names of the principal maladies.\nLet it be a not unbecoming one.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nAh! no, Euterpe. Your mind still runs in the channel of your lost\nimpermeability. Till now, you might fling yourself from the crags\nof Tartarus, or float, like a trail of water-plants, on the long,\nblown flood of the altar-flame, and yet take no hurt, being\nimperishable. But now, part of your hourly occupation, part of your\nfaith, your hope, your duty, must be to preserve your body against\nthe inroads of decay.\n\nEUTERPE.\n\nYou present us with a tedious conception of our new existence,\nsurely.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nWhy should it be tedious? There was tedium, rather, in the\npossession of bodies as durable as metal, as renewable as wax,\nas insensitive as water. In the fiercest onset of the passions,\nprolonged to satiety, there was always an element of the unreal.\nWhat is pleasure, if the strain of it is followed by no fatigue;\nwhat the delicacy of taste, if we can eat like caverns and drink\nlike conduits without being vexed by the slightest inconvenience?\nYou will discover that one of the acutest enjoyments of the mortal\nstate will be found to consist in guarding against suffering. If\nyou are provided with balloons attached to all your members, you\nfloat upon the sea with indifference. It is the certainty that you\nwill drown if you do not swim which gives zest to the exercise. I\nclimb along yonder jutting cornice of the cliff with eagerness,\nand pluck my simples with a hand that trembles more from joy than\nfear, precisely because the strain of balancing the nerves, and\nthe certainty of suffering as the result of carelessness, knit\nmy sensations together into an exaltation which is not exactly\npleasure, perhaps, but which is not to be distinguished from it\nin its exciting properties.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nIs life, then, to resolve itself for us into a chain of\nexhilarating pangs?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nLife will now be for you, for all of us, a perpetual combat with a\nbrine that half supports, half drags us under; a continual creeping\nand balancing on a chamois path around the forehead of a precipice.\nA headache will be the breaking of a twig, a fever a stone that\ngives way beneath your foot, to lose the use of an organ will be\nto let the alpenstock slip out of your starting fingers. And the\nexcitement, and be sure the happiness, of existence will be to\nprotract the struggle as long as possible, to push as far as you\ncan along the dwindling path, to keep the supports and the\nalleviations of your labour about you as skilfully as you can,\nand in the fuss and business of the little momentary episodes of\nclimbing to forget as long and as fully as may be the final and\nabsolutely unavoidable plunge. [_A pause, during which_ EUTERPE\n_sinks upon the green sward_.]\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nI have unfolded before you a scheme of philosophical activity. Are\nyou not gratified?\n\nPALLAS.\n\nEuterpe will learn to be gratified, Aesculapius, but she had not\nreflected upon the plunge. If she will take my counsel, she will\ncontinue to avoid doing so. [EUTERPE _rises, and approaches_\nPALLAS, _who continues, to_ AESCULAPIUS.] I am with you in\nrecommending to her a constant consideration of the momentary\nepisodes of health. And now let us detain you no longer from the\nmarchanteas.\n\nEUTERPE.\n\nBut pray recollect that they grow where the rocks are both slippery\nand shelving.\n\n    [_Exit_ AESCULAPIUS. EUTERPE _sinks again upon the grass, with her\n        face in her hands, and lies there motionless_. PALLAS _walks\n        up and down, in growing emotion, and at length breaks forth\n        in soliloquy_.]\n\nPALLAS.\n\n  Higher than this dull circle of the sense--\n  Shrewd though its pulsing sharp reminders be,\n  With ceaseless fairy blows that ring and wake\n  The anvil of the brain--I rather choose\n  To lift mine eyes and pierce\n  The long transparent bar that floats above,\n  And hides, or feigns to hide, the choiring stars,\n  And dulls, or faintly dulls, the fiery sun,\n  And lacquers all the glassy sky with gold.\n  For so the strain that makes this mortal life\n  Irksome or squalid, chains that bind us down,\n  Rust on those chains which soils the reddening skin,\n  Passes; and in that concentrated calm,\n  And in that pure concinnity of soul,\n  And in that heart that almost fails to beat,\n  I read a faint beatitude, and dream\n  I walk once more upon the roof of Heaven,\n  And feel all knowledge, all capacity\n  For sovereign thought, all intellectual joy,\n  Blow on me, like fluttering and like dancing winds.\n  We are fallen, fallen!...\n  And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my veins,\n  And yet a sense of limpid happiness\n  And buoyancy and anxious fond desire\n  Quicken my being. It is much to see\n  The perfected geography of thought\n  Spread out before the gorged intelligence,\n  A map from further detail long absolved.\n  But ah! when we have tasted the delight\n  Of toilsome apprehension, how return\n  To that satiety of mental ease\n  Where all is known because it merely is?\n  Nay, here the joy will be to learn and learn,\n  To learn in error and correct in pain,\n  To learn through effort and with ease forget,\n  Building of rough and slippery stones a House,\n  Long schemed, and falling from us, and at the last\n  Imperfect. Knowledge not the aim, so much\n  As pleasure in the toil that leads to knowledge,\n  We shall build, although the house before our eyes\n  Crumble, and we shall gladden in the toil\n  Although it never leads to habitation--\n  Building our goal, though never a fabric rise.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\n[_The glen, down which a limpid and murmuring brook descends, with\n    numerous tiny cascades and pools. Beside one of the latter,\n    underneath a great beech-tree, and sitting on the root of it_,\n    APHRODITE, _alone. Enter from below, concealed at first by the\n    undergrowth_, ARES. _It is mid-day._]\n\nAPHRODITE [_to herself_].\n\nHere he comes at last, and from the opposite direction.... No!\nthat cannot be Phoebus.... Ah! it is you, then!\n\nARES.\n\nIs it possible? Your Majesty--and alone!\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nPhoebus offered me the rustic entertainment of gathering wild\nraspberries. We found some at length, and regaled ourselves. I\nwished for more, and Phoebus, with his usual gallantry, wandered\ndreamily away into the forest on the quest. He has evidently lost\nhis way. I sat me down on this tree and waited.\n\nARES.\n\nSurely it is the first time that you were ever abroad unattended.\nI am amazed at the carelessness of Phoebus. Aphrodite--without an\nattendant!\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThat is rather a fatuous remark, and from you of all people in\nthe world. My most agreeable reminiscences are, without exception,\nconnected with occasions on which I had escaped from my body-guard\nof nymphs. At the present moment you would do well to face the\nfact, Ares, that I have but a single maid, and that she has\ncollapsed under the burdens of novelty and exile.\n\nARES.\n\nIs that my poor friend Cydippe?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nYou have so many friends, Ares. Poor Cydippe, then, broke down this\nmorning in moaning hysterics after having borne up just long enough\nto do my hair. I really came out on this rather mad adventure after\nthe raspberries to escape the dolours of her countenance, and\nthe last thing I saw was her chlamys flung wildly over her head\nas she dived down upon the floor in misery. Such consolations as\nthis island has to give me will not proceed from what you call my\nattendant. You do not look well, Ares.\n\nARES.\n\nI am always well. I am still incensed.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nAh, you are oppressed by our misfortunes?\n\nARES.\n\nI can think of nothing else.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nYou do not, I hope, give way to the most foolish of the emotions,\nand endure the silly torture of self-reproach?\n\nARES.\n\nI have nothing to reproach myself with. Our forces had never been\nin smarter trim, public spirit in Olympus never more patriotic\nand national; and as to the personal bravery of our forces, it was\nsimply a portent of moral splendour.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nAnd your discipline?\n\nARES.\n\nIt was perfect. I had led the troops up to the point of cheerfully\nmarching and counter-marching until they were ready to drop with\nexhaustion, on the eve of each engagement; and at the ends of all\nour practising-grounds brick walls had been set up, at which every\nofficer made it a point of honour to tilt head-foremost once a day.\nThere was no refinement preserved from the good old wars of\nchivalry which was not familiar to our gallant fellows, and I had\nexpressly forbidden every species of cerebral exercise. Nothing,\nI have always said, is so hurtful to the temper of an army as for\nthe rank and file to suspect that they are led by men of brains.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThere every one must do you justice, Ares. I never heard even the\nvoice of prejudice raised to accuse you.\n\nARES.\n\nNo; I do not think any one could have the effrontery to charge me\nwith encouraging that mental effort which is so disastrous to the\nwork of a soldier. The same old practices which led our forefathers\nto glory--the courage of tigers; the firm belief that if any one\ntried to be crafty it must be because he is a coward; a bull-front\nset straight at every obstacle, whatever its nature; a proper\ncontempt for any plan or discovery made since the days of Father\nUranus--these are the principles in which I disciplined our troops,\nand I will not admit that I can have anything to reproach myself\nwith. The circumstances which we were unexpectedly called upon to\nface were such as could never have been anticipated.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI do not see that you could have done otherwise than, as you did,\nto refuse with dignity to anticipate anything so revolutionary.\n\nARES.\n\nThere are certain things which one seems to condone by merely\nacknowledging their existence. That employment of mobile\nmechanisms, for instance----\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nDo not speak of it! I could never have believed that the semblance\nof the military could be made so excessively distasteful to me.\n\nARES.\n\nCan I imagine myself admitting the necessity of guarding against\nsuch an ungentlemanlike form of attack?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nYour friends are all aware, Ares, that if the conditions were\nto return, you would never demean yourself and them by guarding\nagainst anything of the kind. But I advise you not to brood upon\nthe past. Your figure will suffer. You must keep up your character\nfor solid and agile exercises.\n\nARES.\n\nIt will not be easy for me to occupy myself here. I am accustomed,\nas you know, to hunting and slaying. I thought I might have enjoyed\nsome sport with the barbarian islanders, and I selected one for the\npurpose. But Zeus intervened, with that authority which even here,\nin our shattered estate, we know not how to resist.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nDid he give any reason for preventing the combat?\n\nARES.\n\nYes; and his reasons (I was bound to admit) carried some weight\nwith them. He said, first, that it was wrong to kill those who had\nreceived us with so generous a hospitality; and secondly, that, as\nI am no longer immortal, this brawny savage, with hair so curiously\ncoiled and matted over his brain-pan, might kill me; and thirdly,\nthat the whole affair might indirectly lead to his, Zeus', personal\ninconvenience. Here then is enjoyment by one door quite shut out\nfrom me.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nAre there not deer in these woods, and perhaps wolves and boars?\nThere must be wild duck on the firth, and buzzards in the rocks.\nInstead of challenging the barbarians to a foolish trial of\nstrength, why not make them your companions, and learn their\naccomplishments?\n\nARES.\n\nIt is possible that I shall do so. But for the present, anger\ngushes like an intermittent spring of bitter water in my bosom. I\nforget for a moment, and the fountain falls; and then, with a rush,\nmemory leaps up in me, a column of poison. I say to myself, It cannot\nbe, it shall not be; but I grow calm again and find that it is.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThe worst of the old immortality was the carelessness of it. We\nwere utterly unprepared for anything bordering on catastrophe, and\nbehold, without warning, we are swept away in a complete cataclysm\nof our fortunes. I see, Ares, that it will be long before you can\nrecover serenity, or take advantage of the capabilities of our new\nexistence. They will appeal to you more slowly than to the rest\nof us, and you will respond more unwillingly, because of your\nlack--your voluntary and boasted lack--of all intellectual\nsuppleness.\n\nARES.\n\nIt is not the business of a soldier to be supple.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nSo it appears. And you will suffer for it. For, stiff and blank as\nyou may determine to be, circumstances will overpower you. Under\ntheir influences you will not be able to avoid becoming softer and\nmore redundant. But you will resist the process, I see, and you\nwill make it as painful as you can.\n\nARES.\n\nYou discuss my case with a cheerful candour, Aphrodite. Are you\nsure of being happier yourself?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nNot _sure_; but I have a reasonable confidence that I shall be\nfairly contented. For I, at least, am supple, and I court the\ninfluences which you think it a point of gallantry to resist.\n\nARES.\n\nYou will continue, I suppose, to make your main business the\nstimulating and the guiding of the affections? Here I admit that\nsuppleness, as you call it, is in place.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nUnfortunately, even here, immortality was no convenient prelude\nto our present state. We did not, indeed, neglect the heart----\n\nARES.\n\nIf I forget all else, there must be events----\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nAlas! we loved so briefly and with so facile a susceptibility, that\nI am tempted to ask myself whether in Olympus we really loved at all.\n\nARES [_with ardour_].\n\nThere, at least, memory supplies me with no sort of doubt----\n\nAPHRODITE [_coldly_].\n\nLet us keep to generalities. Looking broadly at our experience, I\nshould say that the misfortune of the gods, as a preparation for\ntheir mortality, was that in their deathless state the affections\nfell at the foot of the tree, like these withered leaves. We should\nhave fastened the branches of life together in long elastic wires\nof the thin-drawn gold of perdurable sentiment.\n\nARES.\n\nThe rapture, the violence, the hammering pulse, the bursting\nheart,--I see no resemblance between these and the leaves that\nflutter at our feet.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThese leaves had their moment of vitality, when the sap rushed\nthrough their veins, when their tissue was like a ripple of\nsparkling emerald on the face of the smiling sky. But they could\nnot preserve their glow, and they are the more hopelessly dead\nnow, because they burned in their green fire so fiercely.\n\nARES.\n\nWe felt no shadow of coming disability strike across our pleasures.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nNo; but that was precisely what made our immortality such an ill\npreparation for a brief existence on this island. In Olympus the\nsentiment of yesterday was forgotten, and we realised the passion\nof to-day as little as the caprice of to-morrow. Perhaps this\nfragmentary tenderness was the real chastisement of our implacable\nprosperity.\n\nARES [_in a very low voice_].\n\nCan we not resume in this our exile, and with more prospect of\ncontinuity, the emotions which were so agreeable in our former\nstate? So agreeable--although, as you justly say, too ephemeral\n[_coming a little closer_]. Can you not teach us to moderate and\nto prolong the rapture?\n\nAPHRODITE [_rising to her feet_].\n\nIt may be. We shall see, Ares. But one thing I have already\nperceived. In this mortal sphere, the heart needs solitude, it\nneeds silence. It must have its questionings and its despairs. The\ntriumphant supremacy of the old emotions cannot be repeated here.\nFor we have a new enemy to contend with. Even if love should\nprosecute its conquests here in all the serenity of success, it\nwill not be able to escape from an infliction worse than any which\nwe dreamed of when we were immortals.\n\nARES.\n\nAnd what is that, Aphrodite?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThe blight of indifference.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\n[APHRODITE _and_ CIRCE _are seated on the grass in a little dell\n    surrounded by beechwoods. Far away a bell is heard._]\n\nCIRCE.\n\nWhat is that curious distant sound? Is it a bird?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nCydippe tells me that there is a temple on the hill beyond these\nwoods. I wonder to whom amongst us it is dedicated?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nI think it must be to you, Aphrodite, for now it is explained that\non coming hither I met a throng of men and maidens, sauntering\nslowly along in twos, exactly as they used to do at Paphos.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nWere they walking apart, or wound together by garlands?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nThey were wound together by the arm of the boy coiled about the\nwaist of the girl, or resting upon it, a symbol, no doubt, of your\ncestus.\n\nAPHRODITE [_eagerly_].\n\nWith any animation of gesture, Circe?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nWith absolutely none. The maidens were dressed--but not all of\nthem--in robes of that very distressing electric blue that bites\ninto the eye, that blue which never was on sky or sea, and which\nwas absolutely banished from every colour-combination in Olympus.\nIt was employed in Hades as a form of punishment, if you recollect.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nNo doubt, then, this procession was a penitential one, and its\nobject to appease my offended deity. But what a mistake, poor\nthings! No one ever regained my favour by making a frump of herself.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nAfter these couples, came, in a very slow but formless moving\ngroup, figures of a sombre and spectral kind, draped, both males\nand females, in dull black, with little ornaments of gold in their\nhands. It was with the utmost amazement that, on their coming\ncloser, I recognised some of the faces as those of the ruddy,\ngentle barbarians to whom we owe our existence here. You cannot\nthink how painful it was to see them thus travestied. In their\nwell-fitting daily dress they look very attractive in a rustic\nmode; there is one large one that labours in the barn, who\nreminds me, when his sleeves are turned up, of Ulysses. But, oh!\nAphrodite, you must contrive to let them know that you pardon\ntheir shortcomings, and relieve them from the horrors of this\nremorseful costume. I know not which is more depressing to\nthe heart, the blue of the young or the black of the aged.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI expect that at this distance from the centre of things, all\nmanner of misconception has crept into my ritual. Of course, I\ncannot now demand any rites, and that the dear good people should\npay them at all is very touching.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nDon't you think that it would be delightful to introduce here a\npurer form of liturgy? It is very sad to see your spirit so little\nunderstood.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nWell, I hardly know. It is kind of you, Circe, to suggest such a\nthing. No doubt it would be very pleasant. But I feel, of course,\nthe hollowness of the whole concern. We must be careful not to\ndeceive the barbarians.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nCertainly ... oh! yes, certainly. But ... I am sure it would be so\ngood for them to have a ritual to follow. We should not absolutely\nassert to them that you still exist as an immortal, but I do not\nsee why we should insist on tearing every illusion away from them.\nSuppose I could persuade them that you were no longer displeased\nwith them, and that you were quite willing to let them wear pink\nand white robes again, and plenty of flowers in their hair; and\nsuppose I encouraged them to sacrifice turtle-doves on your altar,\nand arrange garlands of wild roses in the proper way, don't you\nthink you could bring yourself to make a concession?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nWhat do you mean by a \"concession\"?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nWell, for instance, when they were all assembled in the temple, and\nhad sung a hymn, and the priest had gone up to the altar, could you\nnot suddenly make an appearance, voluminous and splendid, and smile\nupon them? Could you not shower a few champak-blossoms over the\ncongregation?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nIt is very ingenious of you to think of these things. But I suppose\nit would not be right to attempt to do it. In the first place it\nwould encourage them to believe in my immortality----\n\nCIRCE.\n\nOh! but to _believe_ is such a salutary discipline to the lower\nclasses. That is the whole principle of religion, surely,\nAphrodite? It is not for people like ourselves. You know how\nindolent Dionysus is, but he always attended the temple when he\nwas hunting upon Nysa.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThere is a great deal in that argument, no doubt. Only, what will\nbe the result when they discover that it is all a mistake, and\nthat I am a mortal like themselves?\n\nCIRCE.\n\nYou never can be a mortal like the barbarians, for you have been a\nforce ruling the sea, and the flowers, and the winds, and twisting\nthe blood of man and woman in your fingers like a living skein of\nsoft red silk. They will always worship you. It may not be in\ntemples any longer, not with a studied liturgy, but wherever the\nsap rises in a flower, or the joy of life swims up in the morning\nthrough the broken film of dreams, or a young man perceives for\nthe first time that the girl he meets is comely, you will be\nworshipped, Aphrodite, for the essence of your immortality is the\ncumulative glow of its recurrent mortality.\n\nHERMES [_entering abruptly_].\n\nYou will be disappointed----\n\nCIRCE.\n\nAh! you followed the youths and maidens to the little temple of\nour friend. Is it not beautiful?\n\nHERMES.\n\nIt is hideous.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nAre you sure that it is a temple at all?\n\nHERMES.\n\nI confess that I was for a long time uncertain, but on the whole\nI believe that it is.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nBut is it dedicated to me?\n\nHERMES.\n\nThat is the disappointment.... It is best to tell you at once\nthat I see no evidence whatever that it is.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nI am very much disappointed.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI am very much relieved. But could you not gather from the\ndecoration of the interior to whom of us it is inscribed?\n\nHERMES.\n\nIt is not decorated at all: whitewashed walls, wooden benches,\nnaked floors.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nBut what is the nature of the sculpture?\n\nHERMES.\n\nI could see no sculpture, except a sort of black tablet, with\nnames upon it, and at the sides two of the youthful attendants of\nEros--those that have wings, indeed, but cannot rest. These were\nexceedingly ill-carven in a kind of limestone. And I hardly like\nto tell you what I found behind the altar----\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI am not easily shocked. My poor worshippers sometimes demand a\nvery considerable indulgence.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nNothing very ugly, I hope?\n\nHERMES.\n\nYes; very ugly, and still more incomprehensible. But nothing that\ncould spring out of any misconception of the ritual of our friend.\nNo; I hardly like to tell you. Well, a gaunt painted figure, with\nspines about the bleeding forehead----\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nWas it fastened to any symbol? Did you notice anything that\nexplained the horror of it?\n\nHERMES.\n\nNo. I did not observe it very closely. As I was glancing at it,\nthe celebration or ritual, or whatever we are to call it, began,\nand I withdrew to the door, not knowing what frenzy might seize\nupon the worshippers.\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThere was a cannibal altar in Arcadia to Phoebus, so I have\nheard. He instantly destroyed it, and scattered the ignorant\nsavages who had raised it.\n\nHERMES.\n\nThere was a touch of desolate majesty about this figure. I fear\nthat it portrays some blighting Power of suffering or of grief.\n[_He shudders._]\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nThere are certainly deities of whom we knew nothing in Olympus.\nPerhaps this is the temple of some Unknown God.\n\nHERMES.\n\nI admit that I thought, with this picture, and with their sinister\ngarments of black and of blue, and with the bareness and harshness\nof the temple, that something might be combined which it would\ngive me no satisfaction to witness. I placed myself near the door,\nwhere, in a moment, I could have regained the exquisite forest, and\nthe odour of this carpet of woodruff, and your enchanting society.\nBut nothing occurred to disconcert me. After genuflexions and\nliftings of the voice----\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nWhat was the object of these?\n\nHERMES.\n\nI absolutely failed to determine. Well, the priest--if I can so\ndescribe a man without apparent dedication, robed without charm,\nand exalted by no visible act of sacrifice--ascended a species of\nopen box, and spoke to the audience from the upturned lid of it.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nWhat did he say? Did he explain the religion of his people?\n\nHERMES.\n\nTo tell you the truth, Circe, although I listened with what\nattention I could, and although the actual language was perfectly\nclear to me--you know I am rather an accomplished linguist--I\nformed no idea of what he said. I could not find the starting-point\nof his experience.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nTo whom can this temple be possibly dedicated?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nDepend upon it, it is not a temple at all. What Hermes was present\nat was unquestionably some gathering of local politicians. Poor\nthese barbarians may be, but they could not excuse by poverty such\na neglect of the decencies as he describes. No flowers, no bright\nrobes, no music of stringed instruments, no sacrifice--it is quite\nimpossible that the meanest of sentient beings should worship in\nsuch a manner. And as for the picture which you saw behind what you\ntook to be the altar, I question not that it is used to keep in\nmemory some ancestor who suffered from the tyranny of his masters.\nIn the belief that he was assisting at a process of rustic worship,\nour poor Hermes has doubtless attended a revolutionary meeting.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nDreadful! But may its conflicts long keep outside the arcades of\nthis delightful woodland!\n\nHERMES.\n\nAnd still we know not to which of us the mild barbarians pray!\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\n    [_The same scene, but no one present. A butterfly flits across\n        from the left, makes several pirouettes and exit to the\n        right._ HERA _enters quickly from the left_.]\n\nHERA.\n\nCould I be mistaken? What is this overpowering perfume? Is it\nconceivable that in this new world odours take corporeal shape?\nAnything is conceivable, except that I was mistaken in thinking\nthat I saw it fly across this meadow. It can only have been\nbeckoning me. [_The butterfly re-enters from the right, and, after\ntowering upwards, and wheeling in every direction, settles on a\ncluster of meadow-sweet. It is followed from the right by_ EROS.\n_He and_ HERA _look at one another in silence_.]\n\nHERA.\n\nYou are occupied, Eros. I will not detain you.\n\nEROS.\n\nI propose to stay here for a little while. Are you moving on?\n[_Each of them fixes eyes on the insect._]\n\nHERA.\n\nI must beg you to leave me, or to remain perfectly motionless. I\nam excessively agitated.\n\nEROS.\n\nI followed the being which is hanging downwards from that spray\nof blossom. Does it recall some one to you?\n\nHERA.\n\nNot in its present position. But I will not pretend, Eros, that\nit is not the source of my agitation. Look at it now, as it flings\nitself round the stalk, and opens and waves its fans. Do you still\nnot comprehend?\n\nEROS.\n\nI see nothing in it now. I am disappointed.\n\nHERA.\n\nBut those great coloured eyes, waxing and waning! Those moons of\npearl! The copper that turns to crimson, the turquoise that turns\nto violet, the greenish, pointed head that swings and rolls its\nyoke of slender plumage! Ah! Eros, is it possible that you do not\nperceive that it is a symbol of my peacock, my bird translated\ninto the language of this narrow and suppressed existence of ours?\nWhat a strange and exquisite messenger! My poor peacock, with a\nstrident shriek of terror, fled from me on that awful morning, the\nflames singeing its dishevelled train, its wings helplessly\nflapping in the torrents of conflagration. It bade me no adieu, its\nclangour of despair rang forth, an additional note of discord, from\nthe inner courts of my palace. And out of its agony, of its horror,\nit has contrived to send me this adorable renovation of itself, all\nits grace and all its splendour reincarnated in this tiny creature.\nBut alas! how am I to capture, how to communicate with it?\n\nEROS.\n\nI hesitate to disturb your illusion, Hera. But you are singularly\nmistaken. I have a far greater interest in this messenger than you\ncan have; and if you dream its presence to be a tribute to your\npride, I am much more tenderly certain that it is a reproach to my\naffections. See, those needlessly gaudy wings,--a mere disguise to\nbring it through the multitude of its enemies--are closed now, and\nit resumes its pendulous attitude, as aerial as an evening cloud,\nas graceful as sorrow itself, sable as the shadow of a leaf in the\nmoonlight.\n\nHERA.\n\nWhom do you suppose it to represent, Eros?\n\nEROS.\n\n\"Represent\" is an inadequate word. I know it to be, in some\ntransubstantiation, the exact nature of which I shall have to\ninvestigate, my adored and injured Psyche. You never appreciated\nher, Hera.\n\nHERA.\n\nIt was necessary in such a society as ours to preserve the\nhierarchical distinctions. She was a charming little creature, and\nI never allowed myself to indulge in the violent prejudice of your\nmother. When you presented her at last, I do not think that you\nhad any reason to reproach me with want of civility.\n\n    [_The butterfly dances off._]\n\nHERA _and_ EROS _together_.\n\nIt is gone.\n\n        [_A pause._]\n\nHERA.\n\nWe are in a curious dilemma. Unless we are to conceive that two\nof the lesser Olympians have been able to combine in adopting a\nsymbolic disguise, either you or I have been deceived. That\ntantalising visitant can scarcely have been at the same time Psyche\nand my peacock.\n\nEROS.\n\nI know not why; and for my part am perfectly willing to recognise\nits spots and moons to your satisfaction, if you will permit me to\nrecognise my own favourite in the garb of grief.\n\nHERA.\n\nMy bird was ever a masquerader--it may be so.\n\nEROS.\n\nPsyche, also, was not unaccustomed to disguises.\n\nHERA.\n\nYou take the recollection coolly, Eros.\n\nEROS.\n\nWould you have me shriek and moan? Would you have me throw myself\nin convulsive ecstasy upon that ambiguous insect? You are not the\nfirst, Hera, who has gravely misunderstood my character. I am\nnot, I have never been, a victim of the impulsive passions. The\nonly serious misunderstandings which I have ever had with my\nillustrious mother have resulted from her lack of comprehension\nof this fact. _She_ is impulsive, if you will! Her existence has\nbeen a succession of centrifugal adventures, in which her sole\nidea has been to hurl herself outward from the solitude of her\nindividuality. I, on the other hand, leave very rarely, and with\npeculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch\nthe world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows\npenetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual\narmour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have\nalways been graceful and inconspicuous in my attitudes. The image\nof Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a\nshaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would\nshudder to contemplate.\n\nHERA.\n\nThen what was the meaning of your apparent infatuation for Psyche?\n\nEROS.\n\nO do not call it \"apparent.\" It was genuine and it was\nall-absorbing. But it was absolutely exceptional. Looking back, it\nseems to me that I must have been gazing at myself in a mirror, and\nhave dismissed an arrow before I realised who was the quarry. It is\nnot necessary to remind you of the circumstances----\n\nHERA.\n\nYou would, I suppose, describe them as exceptional?\n\nEROS.\n\nAs wholly exceptional. And could I be expected to prolong an\nardour so foreign to my nature? The victim of passion cannot be\na contemplator at the same moment, and I may frankly admit to you,\nHera, that during the period of my infatuation for Psyche, there\nwere complaints from every province of the universe. It was said\nthat unless my attention could be in a measure diverted from that\nadmirable girl, there would be something like a stagnation of\ngeneral vitality. Phoebus remarked one day, that if the ploughman\nbecame the plough the cessation of harvests would be inevitable.\n\nHERA.\n\nIt was at that moment, I suppose, that you besought Zeus so\npassionately to confer upon Psyche the rank of a goddess?\n\nEROS.\n\nYou took that, no doubt, for an evidence of my intenser\ninfatuation. An error; it was a proof that the arguments of the\nfamily were beginning to produce their effect upon me. I perceived\nmy responsibility, and I recognised that it was not the place of\nthe immortal organiser of languishment to be sighing himself. To\ndeify my lovely Psyche was to recognise her claim, and--and----\n\nHERA.\n\nTo give you a convenient excuse for neglecting her?\n\nEROS.\n\nIt is that crudity of yours, Hera, which has before now made your\nposition in Olympus so untenable. You lack the art of elegant\ninsinuation.\n\nHERA.\n\nAm I then to believe that you were playing a part when you seemed\na little while ago so anxious to recognise Psyche in the drooping\nbutterfly?\n\nEROS.\n\nOh! far from it. The sentiment of recognition was wholly genuine\nand almost rapturously pleasurable. It is true that in the\nconfusion of our flight I had not been able to give a thought to\nour friend, who was, unless I am much mistaken, absent from her\npalace. Nor will I be so absurd as to pretend that I have, for a\nlong while past, felt at all keenly the desire for her company. She\nhas very little conversation. There are certain peculiarities of\nmanner, which----\n\nHERA.\n\nI know exactly what you mean. My peacock has a very peculiar voice,\nand----\n\nEROS [_impatiently_].\n\nYou must permit me to protest against any comparison between Psyche\nand your worthy bird. But I was going to say that the moment I\nsaw the brilliant little discrepancy which led us both to this\nspot--and to which I hesitate to give a more definite name--I\nwas instantly and most pleasantly reminded of certain delightful\nepisodes, of a really charming interlude, if I may so call it.\nI cannot be perfectly certain what connection our ebullient\nhigh-flyer has with the goddess whose adorer I was and whose\nfriend I shall ever be. But the symbol--if it be no more than a\nsymbol--has been sufficient to awaken in me all that was most\nenjoyable in our relations. I shall often wander in these woods,\namong the cloud-like masses of odorous blossom, in this windless\nharbour of sunlight and the murmur of leaves, in the hope of\nfinding the little visitant here. She will never fail to remind me,\nbut without disturbance, of all that was happiest in a series of\nrelations which grew at last not so wholly felicitous as they once\nhad been. One of the pleasures this condition of mortality offers\nus, I foresee, is the perpetual recollection of what was delightful\nin the one serious liaison of my life, and of nothing else.\n\nHERA.\n\nAphrodite would charge you with cynicism, Eros.\n\nEROS.\n\nIt would not be the first time that she has mistaken my philosophy\nfor petulance.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\n[_On the terrace beside the house are seated_ PERSEPHONE, MAIA,\n    _and_ CHLORIS. _The afternoon is rapidly waning, and lights are\n    seen to twinkle on the farther shore of the sea. As the twilight\n    deepens, from just out of sight a man's voice is heard singing\n    as follows_:]\n\n  _As I lay on the grass, with the sun in the west,\n  A woman went by me, a babe at her breast;\n      She kissed it and pressed it,\n      She cooed, she caressed it,\n  Then rocked it to sleep in her elbow-nest._\n\n  _She rocked it to rest with a sad little song,\n  How the days were grown short, and the nights grown long;\n      How love was a rover,\n      How summer was over,\n  How the winds of winter were shrill and strong._\n\n  _We must haste, she sang, while the sky is bright,\n  While the paths are plain and the town's in sight,\n      Lest the shadows that watch us\n      Should creep up and catch us,\n  For the dead walk here in the grass at night._\n\n    [_The voice withdraws farther down the woods, but from a lower\n    distance, in the clear evening, the last stanza is heard repeated.\n    The_ GODDESSES _continue silent, until the voice has died away_.]\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nRude words set to rude music; but they seem to penetrate to the\nvery core of the heart.\n\nMAIA.\n\nAre you sad to-night, Chloris?\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nNot sad, precisely; but anxious, feverish, a little excited.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nHark! the song begins again.\n\n    [_They listen, and from far away the words come faintly back:_\n\n_For the dead walk here in the grass at night._]\n\nMAIA.\n\nThe dead! Shall we see them?\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nWhy not? These barbarians appear to avoid them with an invincible\nterror, but why should we do so?\n\nMAIA.\n\nI do not feel that it would be possible for the dead to \"catch\" me,\nsince I should be instantly and keenly watching for them, and much\nmore eager to secure their presence than they could be to secure\nmine.\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nWe do not know of what we speak, for it may very well be that the\nbarbarians have some experience of these beings. Their influence\nmay be not merely malign, but disgusting.\n\nMAIA.\n\nHow ignorant we are!\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nSurely, Persephone, you must be able to give us some idea of the\ndead. Were they not the sole occupants of your pale dominions?\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nIt is very absurd of me, but really I do not seem to recollect\nanything about them.\n\nMAIA.\n\nI suppose you disliked living in Hades very much?\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nWell, I spent six months there every year, to please my husband.\nBut a great deal of my time was taken up in corresponding with my\nmother. She was always nervous if she did not hear regularly from\nme. I really feel quite ashamed of my inattention.\n\nMAIA.\n\nYou don't even recall what the inhabitants of the country were\nlike?\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nI recollect that they seemed dreadfully wanting in vitality. They\ncame in troops when I held a reception; they swept by.... I cannot\nremember what they were like----\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nIt must have been dreary for you there, Persephone.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nWell, we had our own interests. I believe I did my duty. It seemed\nto me that I must be there if Pluto wished it, and I was pleased\nto be with him. But--if you can understand me--there was a sort of\na dimness over everything, and I never entered into the political\nlife of the place. As to the social life, you can imagine that\nthey were not people that one cared to know. At the same time,\nof course, I feel now how ridiculous it was of me to hold that\nposition and not take more interest.\n\nMAIA.\n\nDemeter, of course, never encouraged you to make any observation of\nthe manners and customs of Hades.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nOh, no! that was just it. She always said: \"Pray don't let me hear\nthe least thing about the horrid place.\" You remember that she very\nstrongly disapproved of my going there at all----\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nYes; I remember that Arethusa, when she brought me back my\ndaffodils, told me how angry Demeter was----\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nAnd yet she was quite nice to my husband when once Zeus had decided\nthat I had better go.\n\n    [_There is a pause._ MAIA _rises and leans on the parapet, over the\n        woods, now drowned in twilight, to the sea, which still faintly\n        glitters. She turns and comes back to the other two, standing\n        above them._]\n\nMAIA.\n\nI, too, might have observed something as I went sailing over the\npurpureal ocean. But I was always talking to my sisters. The fact\nis we all of us neglected to learn anything about death.\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nWe thought of it as of something happening in that world of Hades\nwhich could never become of the slightest importance to us. Who\ncould have imagined that we should have to take it into practical\naccount?\n\nMAIA.\n\nWell, now we shall have to accept it, to be prepared for its\ntremendous approach.\n\nCHLORIS [_after a pause_].\n\nPerhaps this famous \"death\" may prove after all to be only another\nkind of life. [_Rising and approaching_ MAIA.] Don't you think this\nis indicated even by the song of these barbarians? Besides, our\nstay here must be the ante-chamber to something wholly different.\n\nMAIA.\n\nWe can hardly suppose that it can lead to nothing.\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nNo; surely we shall put off more or less leisurely, with dignity or\nwithout it, the garments of our sensuous existence, and discover\nsomething underneath all these textures of the body?\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nOne of our priests in Hades, I do remember, sang that silence was\na voice, and declared that even in the deserts of immensity the soul\nwas stunned and deafened by the chorus and anti-chorus of nature.\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nWhat did he mean? What is the soul?\n\nMAIA.\n\nI must confess that in this our humility, our corporeal\ndegradation, instead of feeling crushed, I am curiously conscious\nof a wider range of sensibility. Perhaps that is the soul? Perhaps,\nin the suppression of our immortality, something metallic,\nsomething hermetical, has been broken down, and already we stand\nmore easily exposed to the influences of the spirit?\n\nCHLORIS.\n\nIn that case, to slough the sheaths of the body, one by one, ought\nto be to come nearer to the final freedom, and the last coronation\nand consecration of existence may prove to be this very \"death\" we\ndread so much.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nI can fancy that such conjectures as these may prove to be one of\nthe chief sources of satisfaction in this new mortality of ours:\nthe variegated play of light and shadow thrown upon it. Well, the\nless we know and see, the more exciting it ought to be to guess\nand to peer.\n\nMAIA.\n\nAnd some of us, depend upon it, will be able to persuade ourselves\nthat we alone can use our eyesight in the pitch profundity of\ndarkness, and these will find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting\nthe others who have less confidence in their imagination.\n\n    [_They seat themselves, and are silent. Far away is once more\n        faintly heard the song, and then it dies away. A long\n        silence. Then, a confused hum of cries and voices is heard,\n        and approaches the terrace from below. The Goddesses start\n        to their feet. From the left appear_ SILVANUS, ALCYONE _and_\n        FAUNA, _bearing the body of_ CYDIPPE, _which they place very\n        carefully on the grass in front of the scene_.]\n\nCHLORIS [_in an excited whisper_].\n\nIs this our first experience of the mystery?\n\nFAUNA _and_ ALCYONE.\n\nShe is dead! She is dead!\n\nMAIA.\n\nThe first of the immortals to succumb to the burden of mortality!\n\nSILVANUS.\n\nWhere is Aesculapius? Call him, call him!\n\nMAIA.\n\nHe cannot bring back the dead.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nWhat has happened? Cydippe is livid, her limbs are stark, her\neyes are wide open, and motionless, and unnaturally brilliant.\n\nSILVANUS [_to_ CHLORIS].\n\nShe was gathering a little posy of your wild flowers--eyebright,\nand crane's bills and small blue pansies, when----\n\nFAUNA.\n\nThere glided out of the intertwisted fibres of the blue-berries\na serpent----\n\nALCYONE.\n\nGrey, with black arrows down the spine, and a flat, diabolical\nhead----\n\nFAUNA.\n\nAnd Cydippe never saw it, and stretched out her hand again,\nand--see----\n\nSILVANUS.\n\nThe viper fixed his fangs here, in the blue division of the vein,\nhere in her translucent wrist. See, it swells, it darkens!\n\nFAUNA.\n\nAnd with a scream she fell, and swooned away, and died, turning\nbackwards, so that her hair caught in the springy herbage, and her\nhead rolled a little in her pain, so that her hair was loosened and\ntightened, and look, there are still little tufts of blue-berry\nleaves in her hair.\n\nSILVANUS.\n\nBut here comes Aesculapius.\n\n    [_They all greet_ AESCULAPIUS, _who enters from the left, with\n        his basket of remedies_.]\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nAh! sage master of simples, this is a problem beyond thy solution,\na case beyond thy cure.\n\nAESCULAPIUS [_to the goddesses_].\n\nYou think that Cydippe is dead?\n\nMAIA.\n\nUnquestionably. The savage viper has slain her.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nThen prepare to behold what should seem a greater miracle to you\nthan to me. But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of clothing very\ntightly round the upper part of her arm, for no more than we can\nhelp of those treasonable messengers must fly posting from the\nwound to Cydippe's heart.\n\nPERSEPHONE [_sententiously_].\n\nIt can receive no more such messages.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nI think you are mistaken. And now, Fauna, a few drops of water\nin this cup from the trickling spring yonder. That is well. Stand\nfarther away from Cydippe, all of you.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nWhat are those pure white needles you drop into the water? How\nquickly they dissolve. Ah! he lays the mixture to Cydippe's wound.\nShe sighs; her eyelids close; her heart is beating. What is this\nmagic, Aesculapius?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nDo not tell your husband, Persephone, or he will complain to Zeus\nthat I am depriving him of his population. But if there is magic\nin this, there is no miracle. [_To the others._] Take her softly\ninto the house and lay her down. She will take a long sleep, and\nwill wake at the end of it with no trace of the poison or\nrecollection of her suffering.\n\n    [_They carry_ CYDIPPE _forth_. PERSEPHONE, MAIA, _and_\n        AESCULAPIUS _remain_.]\n\nMAIA.\n\nThen--she was not dead?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nNo; it was but the poison-swoon, which precedes death, if it be\nnot arrested.\n\nMAIA.\n\nHow rejoiced I am!\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nOne would say your joy had disappointed you.\n\nMAIA.\n\nNo, indeed, for I am attached to Cydippe, but oh! Persephone, it\nis strange to be at the very threshold of the mystery----\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nAnd to have the opening door shut in our faces? Perhaps ... next\ntime ... they may not be able to find Aesculapius.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\n[_The terrace, as in the first scene_; ZEUS _enters from the house,\n    conducted by_ HEBE _and several of the lesser divinities_.]\n\nHEBE.\n\nWill your Majesty be pleased to descend to the lower boskage?\n\nZEUS.\n\nNo! Place my throne here, out of the wind, in the sun, which seems\nto have very little fire left in it, but some pleasant light still.\nThe sea down there is bright again to-day; the carrying of our\nunfortunate person upon its surface was probably the source of\nimmense alarm to it. It quaked and blackened continuously. Now we\nare removed, it regains something of its normal quiescence. I trust\nthat the land hereabouts is dowered with a less painful\nsusceptibility.\n\nGANYMEDE.\n\nA priest, sire, the only one who saved his musical instrument\nthrough our calamities, stands within. Is your Majesty disposed to\nbe sung to?\n\nZEUS.\n\nNo, certainly not. Which is he? [_The_ PRIEST _is pointed out_.]\nWhat an odd-looking person! Yes, he may give me a specimen of his\nart--a short one.\n\n    [_The_ PRIEST _comes forward; he is dressed in wild Thessalian\n        raiment. He approaches with uncouth gestures, and a mixture\n        of servility and self-consciousness. On receiving a nod\n        from_ ZEUS, _he tunes his instrument and sings as follows_:]\n\n      _Wild swans winging\n        Through the blue,\n      Spiders springing\n        To a clue,\n    Till the sparkling drops renew\n      All that ever\n      Youth's endeavour\n    Had determined to undo.\n  White and blue are hoards of treasure,\n  For the panting hands of pleasure\n  To go dropping, dropping, dropping,\n        Without measure\n      Through and through._\n\nZEUS.\n\nVery pretty, I must say. Would you repeat it again?\n\n[PRIEST _repeats it again_.]\n\nZEUS.\n\nWhat does it ... exactly _mean_? I think it quite pretty, you\nunderstand.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nDoes your Majesty receive any impression from it?\n\nZEUS.\n\nWell, I don't know that I could precisely parse it. But it is very\npretty. Yes, I think I gain a certain impression from it.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nDo you not feel, sire, a peculiar sense of flush, of spring-tide--a\ndirect juvenile ebullience?\n\nZEUS.\n\nAh, no doubt, no doubt. And a kind of nostalgia, or harking-back to\nhappier days, a sense of their rapid passage, and their\nirrecoverability. Is that right?\n\nPRIEST.\n\nIt is a positive divination!\n\nZEUS.\n\nI am conscious of the agreeable recollection of an incident----\n\nPRIEST [_with rapture_].\n\nAh!----\n\nZEUS.\n\nA little event?----\n\nPRIEST.\n\nYou make my heart beat so high, sire, that I can hardly speak.\nDeign, sire, to recall that incident.\n\nZEUS [_with extreme affability_].\n\nIt was hardly an incident.... I merely happened, while you were\nreciting your song, to remember an occasion on which--on which\nIris, at the rampart of our golden wall, bending back, was caught\nby the wind, and--and the contours were delicious.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nOh! the word, the word!\n\nZEUS [_with slight hauteur_].\n\nI do not follow you. Her rainbow----\n\nPRIEST.\n\nAh! yes, sire, the rainbow, the rainbow! O what an art of\nincontestable divination!\n\nZEUS [_much animated_].\n\nBut you did not say anything about a rainbow, nor describe one,\nnor ever mention the elements of such a bow.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nAh! no, sire. That is the art of the New Poetry. It names nothing,\nit describes nothing. All that it designs to do is to place the\nmind of the listener--of the august and perspicacious listener--in\nsuch an attitude as that the unnamed, the undescribed object rises\nfull in vision. The poet flings forth his melody, and to the gross\near it seems a mere tinkle of inanity. That is simply because the\ncrowd who worship at the shrine of the Sminthean Apollo have been\naccustomed by an old-fashioned and ridiculously incompetent\npriesthood to look for an instant and mechanical relation between\nsound and sense. I would not exaggerate, sire; but the kind of\npoetry lately cultivated, not only at Delphi, but in Delos also,\nis simply obsolete.\n\nZEUS [_suspiciously_].\n\nAgain I am not sure that I quite follow you.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nTo your Majesty, at least, the New Poetry opens its casket as\nwidely as the rose-bud does to the zephyr.\n\nZEUS.\n\nI can follow that--but it rather reminds me of the Old Poetry.\n\nPRIEST.\n\nIt was intended to do so. What promptitude of mind! What divine\npenetration!\n\nZEUS [_affably_].\n\nI have always believed that if I had enjoyed leisure from public\nlife, I should have excelled in my judgment of the fine arts. [_To\nthe_ PRIEST, _with gravity_.] You are a gifted young man. Be sure\nthat you employ your talents with discretion. Such an intellect as\nyours carries responsibility with it. I shall be quite pleased to\npermit you to recite \"The Rainbow\" to me again. [_The_ PRIEST\n_prepares to recite it_.]\n\nZEUS.\n\nOh, not now! Some other time! [_Graciously dismisses the_ PRIEST.]\n\nZEUS [_after a long pause_].\n\nThe attitude of my family, in these ambiguous circumstances,\nis everything that could be desired. My original feeling of\nirritability has passed away. I should have supposed it to be\nwhat Pallas calls \"fatigue,\" a confusion or discord of the\nnerve-centres, which she tells me is incident to mortality.\nWhat Pallas can possibly know about it is more than I can guess,\nespecially, as there were not infrequent occasions on Olympus\nitself on which my Supreme Godhead was disturbed by flashes of\nwhat I should be forced to describe as exasperation, states of\nmind in which I formed--and indeed executed--the sudden project\nof breaking something. These were, I believe, simply the result\nof an excessive sense of responsibility. I am not one of those\nwho conceive that the duty of deity is to sit passive beside the\ncup of nectar. Here on this island, in the permanent absence of\nthat refreshment, I reflect (I perceive that I shall have very\nfrequent opportunities for reflection) that I was perhaps only\ntoo anxious to preserve the harmony of heaven. My sense of\ndecorum--may it not have been excessive? From below, as I\nimagine, from the stations occupied--I will not say by the\ninanimate or half-animate creation, such as insects, or men, or\nminerals--but by the demi-gods, I take it that the dignity and\norbic beauty of our court appeared sublimely immaculate. In the\ninner circle, alas! no one knows better than I do that there\nwere--well, dissensions. I will go further, in candour to myself,\nand admit that these occasionally led to excesses. I cannot\ncharge my recollection with my having done anything to excuse\nor encourage these. The personal conduct of the Sovereign\nwas always, I cannot but believe, above reproach. But the\neccentricities--if I may style them so--of certain of my children\nwere sometimes regrettable. I wonder that they did not age me;\nthey would do so immediately in my present condition. But in this\nisland, where we are to swarm like animalcules in a drop of\nwater, I shall be relieved of all responsibility. Where there\nis no one to notice that errors are committed, no errors _are_\ncommitted. As the person of most experience in the whole world,\nI do not mind stating my ripe opinion that a fault which has no\neffect upon political conditions is in no sensible degree a fault\nat all. Pallas would contend the point, I suppose, but I am at\nease. I shall not allow the conduct of my children, except as it\nshall regard myself, to affect my good-humour in the slightest\ndegree.\n\n    [PHOEBUS _enters, slowly pacing across the terrace_.]\n\nZEUS.\n\nYour planet seems to have recovered something of its tone,\nPhoebus.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nIf, father, you regard--as you have every right to do--your\nvenerable person as the centre of my interests, I rejoice to allow\nthat this seems to be the case.\n\nZEUS [_with a touch of reserve_].\n\nI meant that the sun shows a tendency to return to its forgotten\norbit. It is quite warm here out of the wind. [_More genially._]\nBut as to myself, I admit a great recovery in my spirits. I have\ngiven up fretting for Iris, who was certainly lost on our way here,\nand Pallas has been showing me a curious little jewel she brought\nwith her, which has created in me a kind of wistful cheeriness. I\ndo not remember to have experienced anything of the kind before.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nI declare I believe that you will adapt yourself as well as the\nrest of us to this anomalous existence.\n\nZEUS.\n\nWe shall see; and I shall have so much time now, that I may\neven--what I am sure ought to gratify you, Phoebus,--be able to\ngive my attention to the fine arts. A fallen monarch can always\ndefy adversity by forming a collection of curiosities.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nIf you make the gem of which Pallas is so proud the nucleus of\nyour cabinet, I feel convinced that it will give you lasting\nsatisfaction. And we are so poor now that it can never be complete,\nand therefore never become tiresome. But what was it that the\noracle of Nemea amused and puzzled us by saying, \"To form a\ncollection is well, yet to take a walk is better\"? I will attend\nyour Majesty to your apartments, and then wander in these extensive\nwoods.\n\n            [_Exeunt._\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\n    [_A dell below the house, with a white poplar-tree growing\n        alone. Under it_ HERACLES _sits, in an attitude of deep\n        dejection, his club fallen at his feet, a horn empty at\n        his side. To him enters_ EROS.]\n\nEROS.\n\nI have been congratulating our friends on their surpassing\ncheerfulness. Even Zeus is displaying a marvellous longanimity in\nhis adverse state, and Pallas is positively frivolous. We must have\ndisembarked, however, upon the island of Paradox, for everything\ngoes by contraries; here I find you, Heracles, commonly so serene\nand uplifted, sunken in the pit of depression. You should squeeze\nthe breath out of your melancholy, as you did out of Hera's snakes\nso long ago.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nThat was a foolish tale. Do you not recollect that I am not as the\nrest of you?\n\nEROS.\n\nCome, man, brighten up! You look as sulky as you did when I broke\nyour bow and arrows, and set Aphrodite laughing at you. But I have\nlearned manners, and the goddesses only smile now. Cheer up! How is\nyour destiny a whit different from ours?\n\nHERACLES.\n\nThat rude old story about Alcmena, Eros--it is impossible that you\ncan be the dupe of that? When I hunted lions on Cithaeron--that\nreally _was_ a gentlemanlike sport, my friend--when I hunted lions\nI was not a god. Gods don't hunt lions, Eros; I have not gone\na-hunting since that curious affair on Mount OEta. You remember it?\n\nEROS.\n\nI have preferred to forget it.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nOnly an immortal can afford wilfully to forget, and I--well, you\nknow as well as I do that I am only a mortal canonised. I never\nunderstood the incident, I confess. I lay down among the ferns\nto sleep, after an unusually heavy day's bag of monsters. It was\nsultry weather; I woke to an oppressive sense of singeing, I found\nmyself enveloped in a blaze of leaves and brushwood.... But I bore\nyou, and what does it matter now? What does anything matter?\n\nEROS.\n\nNo, no; pray continue! I am excessively interested. You throw a\nlight on something that has always puzzled me, something that----\n\nHERACLES.\n\nA dense black smoke blinded and numbed me. The next moment, as it\nseemed--perhaps it was the next day--I was hustled up through the\naether to Olympus, and dumped down at the foot of Zeus' throne.\nPerhaps you remember?\n\nEROS.\n\nYes, for I was there.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nAll of you were there. And Zeus came down and took me by the\nwrist. Olympus rang with shouts and the clapping of hands. I was\nhailed with unanimity as an immortal; the ambrosia melted between\nmy charred lips; I rose up amongst you all, immaculate and fresh.\nBut when, or how, or wherefore I have never known. And now I shall\nnever care to know.\n\nEROS.\n\nYou are a strange mixture, Heracles; strangely contradictory. You\nnever quailed before any scaly horror, you never spared a truculent\nrobber or a noisome beast, nor avoided a laborious act----\n\nHERACLES.\n\nThese might be quoted, I should have thought, as instances of my\nconsistency.\n\nEROS.\n\nYes, but then (you must really forgive me) your weakness in the\nmatter of Omphale did seem, to those who knew you not, like want\nof self-respect. I have the reputation of shrinking, in the pursuit\nof pleasure, from no fantastic disguise, but I never sat spinning\nin the garments of a servant-maid. You must have looked a strange\ndaughter of the plough, Heracles. I blush for you to think of it.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nIt was odd, certainly. Yet if _you_ cannot comprehend it, Eros, I\ndespair of explaining it to anybody. I should never do it again.\nYou must admit I showed no want of firmness afterwards in dealing\nwith Hebe, but then, she never interested me. Is she here? But do\nnot reply, I am not anxious to learn.\n\nEROS.\n\nYour dejection passes beyond all bounds. You cannot have been\nshown the singularly cheerful little jewel which Pallas has brought\nwith her? It raises every one's spirits.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nIt will not raise mine; for all of you, Eros, have been immortals\nfrom the beginning, and your mortality is a new and pungent flavour\non the moral palate. But the taste of it was known of old to me,\nand I am not its dupe. It simply carries me back to the ancient\nweary round of ceaseless struggle, unending battle, incessant\nrenascence of the sprouting heads of Hydra; to all that from which\nthe windless Olympus was a refuge. Hope is presented--to one who\nhas tasted it and who knows that it is futile--without reawakening,\nunder such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure.\nThe jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality;\nit has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal.\n\n    [_Sounds of laughter are heard, and steps ascending from the\n        shore._]\n\nEROS [_to_ HERACLES].\n\nDraw your lion's skin about you less negligently, Heracles; I hear\nvisitants approaching. You are not in the woodways of OEta.\n\n    [_The_ OCEANIDES _rush in from the lower woodlands. They are\n        carrying torches, and arrive in a condition of the highest\n        exhilaration._ EROS _proceeds a step or two to meet them, with\n        a smile and a mock reverence_. HERACLES, _brooding over his\n        knees, does not even raise his eyes at their clamorous entry_.]\n\nEROS.\n\nAre you proceeding to set our Father Zeus on fire, or do you intend\nto repeat on our unwilling Heracles the rites of canonisation?\nHave a care with those absurd flambeaux; you will put all the\nunderwood aflame. What are you doing with torches?\n\nAMPHITRITE.\n\nIt was Hephaestus who gave them to us to hold. He is in a cave down\nthere by the sea, making the most ingenious things in the darkness.\nHe called us in to hold these lights----\n\nDORIS.\n\nAnd oh, Eros, we had such fun, teasing him----\n\nPITHO.\n\nHe was quite angry at last----\n\nAMPHITRITE.\n\nAnd threatened to nail us to the cliff----\n\nPITHO.\n\nAnd off we ran, and left him in the dark.\n\nDORIS.\n\nHe is coming after us. I never felt so frightened.\n\nAMPHITRITE.\n\nI never enjoyed myself anywhere so much.\n\nPITHO.\n\nCome away, come away! If he is going to pursue, let us give him\na long chase, and leave him panting at last!\n\n    [_The_ OCEANIDES _escape, in a tumult of laughter, through the\n        upper woods, as_ HEPHAESTUS, _limping heavily, and much out\n        of breath, appears from below_.]\n\nHEPHAESTUS\n\nThe rogues, the rogues!\n\nEROS.\n\nWhat a cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, Hephaestus, that\nyou do not escape, even here, from the echoes of the laughter of\nheaven.\n\nHERACLES [_savagely_].\n\nFollow them, and strike them down. Take my club, Hephaestus, if\nyou have lost your hammer.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n\nStrike them! Strike the darling rogues? I would as soon wrap your\ntoo-celebrated tunic about a little playful marmozet. What is the\nmatter with you, Heracles?\n\nHERACLES.\n\nWhat change, indeed, has come over _you_, you sulky artificer?\nTime was when your pincers would have met in the flesh of maid or\nman who disturbed you in your work. Have you left your forge to\ncool for the mere pleasure of clambering after these ridiculous\nchildren! Go back to it, Hephaestus, go back and be ashamed.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n\nYou do not seem deeply engaged yourself. You look sourer and idler\nthan the lion's head that dangles at your shoulder. The days are\nlong here, though not too long. My handicraft will spare me for\nhalf an hour to sport with these exquisite and affable fragilities.\nI rather enjoy being laughed at. On Olympus I was rarely troubled\nby such teasing attentions. The little ones seem to enjoy\nthemselves in their exile, and, to say true, so do I. My work\nwas carried on, I admit, much more smoothly and surely than it\ncan be here, and my hand, I am afraid, in crossing the sea, has\nlost much of its infallible cunning. But I enjoy the exercise,\nand I look onward to the art as I never did before, and I seem\nto have more leisure. Can you explain it, Eros?\n\nEROS.\n\nI do not attempt to do so, but I feel a similar and equally\nsurprising serenity. Heracles is insensible to it, it seems, and\nhe gives me a sort of reason.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n\nWhat is it?\n\nEROS.\n\nWell ... I am not sure that.... Perhaps I ought to leave him to\nexplain it.\n\nHERACLES.\n\nYou would not be able to comprehend me. I am not sure that I\nmyself----\n\n    [_Two of the_ OCEANIDES _re-enter, much more seriously than\n        before, and with an eager importance of gesture_.]\n\nAMPHITRITE.\n\nWe are not playing now. We have a message from Zeus, Hephaestus. He\nsays that he is waiting impatiently for the sceptre you are making\nfor him.\n\nDORIS.\n\nYes, you must hurry back to your cave. And we are longing to see\nwhat ornament you are putting on the sceptre. Let us come with\nyou. We will hold the torches for you as steadily as if we were\nmade of marble.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n\nCome, then, come. Let us descend together. I hope that my science\nhas not quitted me. We will see whether even on this rugged shore\nand with these uncouth instruments, I cannot prove to Zeus that I\nam still an artist. Come, I am in a hurry to begin. Give me your\nhands, Amphitrite and Doris.\n\n            [_Exeunt._\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\n[_The glen, through which the stream, slightly flooded by a night's\n    rain, runs faintly turbid._ DIONYSUS, _earnestly engaged in\n    angling, does not hear the approach of_ AESCULAPIUS.]\n\nAESCULAPIUS [_in a high, voluble key_].\n\nIt is not to me but to you, O ruddy son of Semele, that the crowds\nof invalids will throng, if you cultivate this piscatory art so\neagerly, since to do nothing, serenely, in the open air, without\nbecoming fatigued, is to storm the very citadel of ill-health,\nand----\n\nDIONYSUS [_testily, without turning round_].\n\nHush! hush!... I felt a nibble.\n\nAESCULAPIUS [_in a whisper, flinging himself upon the grass_].\n\nIt was in such a secluded spot as this that Apollo heard the trout\nat Aroanius sing like thrushes.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nHow these poets exaggerate! The trout sang, I suppose, like the\nmissel-thrush.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nWhat song has the missel-thrush?\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nIt does not sing at all. Nor do trout.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYou are sententious, Dionysus.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nNo, but closely occupied. I am intent on the subtle movements of my\nrod, round which my thoughts and fancies wind and blossom till they\nhave made a thyrsus of it. Now, however, I shall certainly catch no\nmore fish, and so I may rest and talk to you. Are you searching for\nsimples in this glen?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nTo tell you the plain truth, I am waiting for Nike. She has given\nme an appointment here.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nI have not seen her since we arrived on this island.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYou have seen her, but you have not recognised her. She goes about\nin a perpetual incognito. Poor thing, in our flight from Olympus\nshe lost all her attributes--her wings dropped off, her laurel was\nburned, she flung her armour away, and her palm-tree obstinately\nrefused to up-root itself.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nNo doubt at this moment it is obsequiously rustling over the odious\nusurper.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nIt was always rather a poor palm-tree. What Nike misses most are\nher wings. She was excessively dejected when we first arrived, but\nPallas very kindly allowed her to take care of the jewel for half\nan hour. Nike--if still hardly recognisable--is no longer to be\ntaken for Niobe.\n\nDIONYSUS [_rising to his feet_].\n\nI shall do well, however, to go before she comes.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nBy no means. I should prefer your staying. Nike will prefer it,\ntoo. In the old days she always liked you to be her harbinger.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nNot always; sometimes my panthers turned and bit her. But my\npanthers and my vines are gone to keep her laurels and her\npalm-tree company. I think I will not stay, Aesculapius. But what\ndoes Nike want with you?\n\n    [_Slowly and pensively descending from the upper woods_, NIKE\n        _enters_.]\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nI was excusing myself, Nike, to our learned friend here for not\nhaving paid my addresses to you earlier. You must have thought me\nnegligent?\n\nNIKE.\n\nOh! Dionysus, I assure you it is not so. Your temperament is one of\nviolent extremes--you are either sparkling with miraculous rapidity\nof apprehension, or you are sunken in a heavy doze. These have\ndoubtless been some of your sleepy days. And I ... oh! I am very\ndeeply changed.\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nNo, not at all. Hardly at all. [_He scarcely glances at her, but\nturns to_ AESCULAPIUS.] But farewell to both of you, for I am going\ndown to the sea-board to watch for dolphins. That long melancholy\nplunge of the black snout thrills me with pleasure. It always did,\nand the coast-line here curiously reminds me of Naxos. Be kind to\nAesculapius, Nike.\n\n    [_He descends along the water-course, and exit._ NIKE _smiles\n        sadly, and half holds out her arms towards_ AESCULAPIUS.]\n\nNIKE.\n\nIt is for you, O brother of Hermes, to be kind to _me_. How altered\nwe all are! Dionysus is not himself.... As I came here, I passed\nbelow the little grey precipice of limestone----\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nWhere the marchantias grow? Yes?\n\nNIKE.\n\nAnd three girls in white dresses, with wreaths of flowers on their\nshoulders, were laughing and chatting there in the shade of the\ngreat yew-tree. Who do you suppose they were, these laughing girls\nin white?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nPerhaps three of the Oceanides, bright as the pure foam of the wave?\n\nNIKE.\n\nAesculapius, they were not girls. They were the terrible and ancient\nEumenides, black with the curdled blood of Uranus. They were the\ninexorable Furies, who were wont to fawn about my feet, with the\nadders quivering in their tresses, tormenting me for the spoils\nof victory. What does it mean? Why are they in white? As we came\nhither in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled together at the\nprow, and their long black raiment hung overboard and touched the\nbrine. They were mumbling and crooning hate-songs, and pointing\nwith skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. What is it that has\nchanged their mood? What is it that can have turned the robes of\nthe Eumenides white, and enamelled their wrinkled flesh with youth?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nIs it not because a like strange metamorphosis has invaded your own\nnature that you have come to meet me here?\n\nNIKE [_after a pause_].\n\nI am bewildered, but I am not unhappy. I come because the secrets\nof life are known to you. I come because it was you whom Zeus sent\nto watch over Cadmus and Harmonia when their dread and comfortable\nchange came over them. They were weary with grief and defeat, tired\nof being for ever overwhelmed by the ever-mounting wave of mortal\nfate. I am weary----\n\nAESCULAPIUS [_slowly_].\n\nOf what, Nike? Be true to yourself. Of what are you weary?\n\nNIKE.\n\nI come to you that you may tell. I know no better than the snake\nknows when his skin withers and bloats. I feel distress,\napprehension, no pain, a little fear.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYou speak of Cadmus and Harmonia; but is not your case the opposite\nof theirs? They were saved from defeat; is it not your unspoken hope\nto be saved from victory, saved from what was your essential self?\n\nNIKE.\n\nCan it be so? I find, it is true, that I look back upon my rush\nand blaze of battle with no real regret. What a vain thing it was,\nthe perpetual clash and resonance of a victory that no one could\nwithstand; the mockery that conquest must be to an immortal whom no\none can ever really oppose;--no veritable difficulty to overcome,\nno genuine resistance to meet, nothing positively tussled with and\nthrown, nothing but ghostly armies shrinking and melting a little\nway in front of my advancing eagles! That can never happen again,\nand even through the pang of losing my laurel and my wings, I did\nnot genuinely deplore it. Nothing but the sheer intoxication of my\nimmortality had kept me at the pitch. And now that it is gone, oh\nwisest of the gods, it is for you to tell me how, in this mortal\nstate, I can remain happy and yet be _me_.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYou are on the high road to happiness; you see its towers over\nthe dust, for you dare to know yourself.\n\nNIKE.\n\nMyself, Aesculapius?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nYes; you have that signal, that culminating courage.\n\nNIKE.\n\nBut it is because I do _not_ know my way that I come to you.\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nTo recognise the way is one thing, it is much; but to recognise\nyourself is infinitely more, and includes the way.\n\nNIKE.\n\nAh! I see. I think I partly see. The element of real victory was\nabsent where no defeat could be.\n\nAESCULAPIUS [_eagerly_].\n\nDismal, sooty, raven-coloured robes of the Eumenides!\n\nNIKE.\n\nAnd it may be present even where no final conquest can ensue?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nAh! how white they grow! How the serpents drop out of their\ntresses.\n\nNIKE.\n\nI am feeling forward with my finger-tips, like a blind woman\nsearching.... And the real splendour of victory may consist in the\nhelpless mortal state; may blossom there, while it only budded in\nour immortality?\n\nAESCULAPIUS.\n\nMay consist, really, of the effort, the desire, the act of\ngathering up the will to make the plunge. This will be victory\nnow, it will be the drawing of the bow-string and not the mere\ncessation of the arrow-flight.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\n    [_The main terrace, soon after dawn. In the centre_ ZEUS _sits\n        alone, throned and silent. One by one the Gods come out of\n        the house, and arrange themselves in a semicircle, to the\n        left and right, each as he passes making obeisance to_ ZEUS.\n        _It is a perfectly still morning, and a dense white mist\n        hangs over the woods, completely hiding the sea and the\n        farther shore. When all are seated._]\n\nZEUS [_in a very slow voice_].\n\nMy children, since we came here I have not been visited until\nto-night by even a shadow of those forebodings which, in the form\nof divine prescience, illuminated my plans and your fortunes in\nOlympus. [_A pause, while the gods lean towards him in deepest\nattention._] But a dream came close to my pillow last night and\nwhispered to me strange, disquieting words.... I have no longer the\nart of clairvoyance, but I find I am not wholly dark. Still can I\nfaintly divine the forms of the future, as we may all divine the\nroll of the woods before us, and the cleft which leads down to the\nshore, although this impalpable vapour shrouds our world.... And,\nfrom the dream, or from my faint perceptions, I am made aware that\nanother mighty change is approaching us.\n\n        [_A silence._]\n\nHERACLES.\n\nCan you indicate to us the nature of this change? [_Looking round\nthe semicircle._] If it is permitted to us to do so we would\nrepudiate it. [_The gods in silence signify their assent._]\n\nZEUS [_not replying to_ HERACLES].\n\nWhen we fled hither from the consuming malignity of the traitor,\nit was communicated to me that this island on the very uttermost\nborder of the world was left us as a home from which we should\nnever be dislodged. Here we were to dwell in peace, and here ... to\ngrow old, and ... die. Here, in the meantime, new interests, humble\nwishes, cheerful curiosities have already twined about us, and we\nhave gazed upon Pandora's jewel, and are no more the same.\n\nPERSEPHONE.\n\nAre we to be driven hence still farther towards the confines of\nimmensity, father?\n\nZEUS.\n\nI know not.\n\nKRONOS.\n\nMore journeys, more weary, weary journeys?\n\nZEUS.\n\nI know but what I tell you ... that I foresee a change. [_A\nsilence._] How breathless is the air. Not the outline of a leaf is\nshaken against the sky.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nBut the mist grows thinner, and high up in it I see a faint\nblueness.\n\nZEUS.\n\nI do not--nothing but the bewildering woolly whiteness, that chills\nmy eyeballs.... [_With a sudden vivacity._] Ah! yes ... it is the\nsea! Is Poseidon here?\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nI went down to the shore very early indeed this morning, before\nthere was an atom of mist in the air. I called upon the glassy,\noily sea, and I could not but fancy that, although there was little\nmotion in the wave, it did roll faintly to my foot, and fawn at me\nin its reply. To me also, father, it seemed as though my element\nwas burdened with a secret which it knew not how to convey to me.\n\n[_A silence._]\n\nAPHRODITE [_aside to_ PALLAS].\n\nIf we must be driven forth again, let us at least cling to such\nnew gifts as we have secured here.\n\nPALLAS [_in an eager whisper_].\n\nI should like to know what you consider them to be. Do you hold\nintrospection as one of them?\n\nAPHRODITE.\n\nI certainly do. The analysis of one's own feelings, and the sense\nof watching the fluctuating symptoms of one's individuality, form\none of the principal consolations of our mortal state.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI think I should give it another name.\n\nHERMES [_who has come up behind them, and bending forward has\n    overheard the conversation_].\n\nMy name for it would be the indulgence of personal vanity.\n\nAPHRODITE [_speaks louder, while the conversation becomes general,\n    except that_ ZEUS _takes no part in it_].\n\nYou may call it so, if you please, but it is a source of genuine\npleasure to us.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nIgnorance is doubtless another of these consolations--ignorance\nchemically modified by a few drops of the desire for knowledge....\n[_Enthusiastically._] And all the chastened forms of recollection,\nhow delightful they are, and how they add to our satisfaction here!\n\nNIKE.\n\nIt would be interesting to me to understand what you mean by\nchastened forms of recollection. I don't think that is my\nexperience.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nI conceive memory as a pure, unbiased emotion, an image of past\nlife cast upon an unflawed mirror. Why do you say \"chastened\"?\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nThat memory which is nothing but a plain reproduction on the mirror\nof the mind is a tame concern, Pallas. It transfers, without\nmodification, all that is dull, and squalid, and unessential. The\nonly memory which is worthy of those who have tasted immortality is\nthat which has in some degree been fortified. To recollect with\nenjoyment is to select certain salient facts from an experience and\nto be oblivious of the rest; or else it is to heighten the exciting\nelements of an event out of all proportion with historic fact; or\nit even is to place what should be in the seat of what precisely\nwas.... But this must be done firmly, logically, with no timidity\nin reminiscence, so that the mind shall rest in a perfectly\nartistic conviction that what it recollects is all the truth and\nnothing but the truth. This is chastened, or, if you prefer it,\ncivilised memory. But Zeus is about to speak.\n\n    [_The Gods resume their seats in silence._ ZEUS _rises from his\n        throne, and the Gods perceive that the mist has now almost\n        entirely evaporated around them, and that the entire scene\n        is luminous with morning radiance. All the Gods lean forward\n        to gaze on_ ZEUS, _who gazes over and beyond them to the sea_.]\n\nZEUS.\n\nThe whole bay heaves in one vast wave of unbroken pearl.... And in\nthe east something flashes ... something moves ... approaches.\n\n    [_All the Gods, except_ KRONOS _and_ RHEA, _rise and follow with\n        their gaze the extended hand of_ ZEUS. POSEIDON _steps forward\n        to the front of the scene and shouts_.]\n\nPOSEIDON.\n\nSee! Three huge white ships are coming out of the east, and the\nwaves glide away at their wake in widening glassy hues. How they\nspeed! How they speed, without oar or sail!\n\nKRONOS.\n\nNo rest, no sleep for us. Leave us here behind you, Zeus. We never\nhave any rest.\n\nRHEA.\n\nYes; do not drag us farther in the wearisome train of your\nmisfortunes.\n\nZEUS [_benignly, turning to them._]\n\nBe not afraid, Rhea and Kronos. But we must not abandon you. For\nthe old sakes' sake we will hold together to the end.\n\nARES.\n\nShall we not collect our forces in unison, mortal as they are,\nand die together in resisting this invasion?\n\nDIONYSUS.\n\nThe kind barbarians are with us. They will fight at our side.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n\nYes, let us fight and die.\n\nZEUS.\n\nYou have no forces to collect, my sons. We cannot take toll of the\nblood of the barbarians. We cannot resist, we can but submit and\nwithdraw.... The ships fleet closer. They are like monstrous fishes\nof living silver. I confess this is not what I anticipated. This\nis not what my faint dream seemed to indicate. What inspires the\nimplacable destroyer to pursue us, and with this imposing and\nmiraculous navy, to the shore of that harmless exile in which we\nwere endeavouring to forget his existence, I know not. But let us\nat least preserve that dignity which has survived our deity.\nWhatever may be now in store for us--if the worst of all things\nbe now hurrying to complete our annihilation--let us meet it with\nsimplicity. Let us meet it with an even mind.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nOh, see! what are those filaments of blue and violet and grassy\ngreen which flutter in the cordage of the three ships?\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nThey leap forward, though no wind is blowing.\n\nCIRCE.\n\nThey are arranged in order, and they bend upwards and now outwards.\n\nHERA.\n\nThe colours of them are those which adorn my bird.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nAh! wonder of wonders! These have joined one another, see, and now\nthey shoot forward together in a vibrating ribband of delicious\nlustre, and now it is arched to our shore, and descends at the\nlowest of these our woodland stairs.\n\nZEUS.\n\nA vast rainbow from the three white vessels to this island!... And\nbehold, a figure steps from it. She is robed to the feet in palest\nwatchet blue, and her face is like a rosy star, and she waves her\nviolet wings in the incommunicable speed of her ascent. My\nchildren, it is Iris, our lost daughter, our ineffable messenger.\nLet us await in silence the tidings which she brings.\n\n    [ZEUS _seats himself, and the Gods take their places as before.\n        The air is now translucent, the sky cloudless, while the\n        beechwoods flash with the lustre of dew, and the sea beyond\n        the white ships is like a floor of turquoise._ IRIS _is seen\n        to rise from the shore, through the gorge in the woods. She\n        approaches, half flying, half climbing, with incredible\n        velocity. She appears, in her splendour, at the top of the\n        stairs, and looks round upon the Gods. Without exception, in\n        the magnificence of her presence they look grey and old and\n        dim. She hesitates a moment, and then kneels before the\n        throne of_ ZEUS.]\n\nIRIS.\n\nFather and lawgiver! Imperial Master of Heaven! The rebellion in\nOlympus is over. The usurper has fallen under the weight of his\nown presumption, lower than the lowest chasms of Hades, chained for\nall eternity by the fetters of his own insolence and madness. It\nis not needful for you, Zeus, to punish or to be clement. Under\nthe inevitable rebound of his impious frenzy, himself has sealed\nhis doom for ever and ever. It is now for the Father of Heaven, and\nthese his children, to resume their immortality and to regain their\nincomparable abodes. Be it my reward for the joyous labour of\nbringing the good news, to be the first to kiss these awful and\neternal feet.\n\n    [IRIS _flings herself before_ ZEUS _in adoration, and folds her\n        wings about her face. As she touches him, his deity blazes\n        forth from him. When_ IRIS _rises again, she glances round\n        at the Gods with gratified astonishment, for all of them\n        have become brilliant and young_.]\n\nZEUS.\n\nLead the way, Iris. This is no longer a place for us. Lead on and\nwe will follow. Lead on, that we may resume our immortality.\n\n    [IRIS _flies down to the sea, and_ ZEUS _descends the steps.\n        He is followed by all the other deities._]\n\nCIRCE.\n\nWere we really happy among these trees? I can scarcely credit it,\nthey seem so common and so frail.\n\nNIKE.\n\nHa, my palm and my laurel and my wings. How can I have breathed\nwithout them for an hour?\n\nAPHRODITE [_to_ EROS].\n\nShall we recollect this little episode when we walk up the golden\nstreet presently to our houses?\n\nEROS.\n\nI cannot think so, mother. That refinement of memory of which\nPhoebus was speaking will seem the most ridiculous of illusions\nthere.\n\nPHOEBUS.\n\nYes; to cultivate illusion, to live in the past, to resuscitate\nexperience, may be the amusements of mortality, but they mean\nnothing now to us. When Selene re-enters her orb, she will not\ndisquiet herself about the disorders of its interregnum.\n\nPALLAS [_hastily reascending_].\n\nI have left Pandora's jewel behind me. I must fetch it.\n\nHERMES [_the last to descend_].\n\nLet me confess that I took it from you. One of the barbarians was\nweeping, and I wished, I cannot tell why, to see her smile. I gave\nyour jewel to her.\n\nPALLAS.\n\nIt is of no moment. It would be an inconspicuous ornament in that\nblaze of the heart's beauty to which the white ships are about to\ncarry us.\n\nHERMES.\n\nCome, then, Pallas, and let us linger here no more.\n\n    [_They descend and disappear._]\n\n\n\n\n            THE END.\n\n\n\n\nPrinted by\nBALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.\nLondon & Edinburgh\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note\n\nVariant spellings in this ebook have been retained to match the\noriginal document.\n\nThe use of an ae-ligature in the name 'Hephaestus' has been\nregularized. The oe-ligature is represented by 'oe' in the text\nversion of this ebook, and retains the oe-ligature in the HTML\nversion. Ellipses have been regularized.\n\nThe original text contained duplicate headers for Acts; these\nduplications have been omitted in this ebook.\n\nThe following typographical corrections were made to this text:\n\n   Page 16: Added missing period (EROS.)\n\n   Page 16: Changed em-dash to long dash to match style of text\n\n   Page 16: Changed casket to caskets (all the empty caskets)\n\n   Page 28: Added missing comma (he answered, \"Pray don't)\n\n  Page 101: Changed 'o' to 'of' (It is kind of)\n\n  Page 132: Added missing period (CHLORIS.)\n\n  Page 140: Changed 'o' to 'of' (degradation, instead of)","title":"Hypolympia; Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20519}