kind of life. [_Rising and approaching_ MAIA.] Don't you think this
is indicated even by the song of these barbarians? Besides, our
stay here must be the ante-chamber to something wholly different.
MAIA.
We can hardly suppose that it can lead to nothing.
CHLORIS.
No; surely we shall put off more or less leisurely, with dignity or
without it, the garments of our sensuous existence, and discover
something underneath all these textures of the body?
PERSEPHONE.
One of our priests in Hades, I do remember, sang that silence was
a voice, and declared that even in the deserts of immensity the soul
was stunned and deafened by the chorus and anti-chorus of nature.
CHLORIS.
What did he mean? What is the soul?
MAIA.
I must confess that in this our humility, our corporeal
degradation, instead of feeling crushed, I am curiously conscious
of a wider range of sensibility. Perhaps that is the soul? Perhaps,
in the suppression of our immortality, something metallic,
something hermetical, has been broken down, and already we stand
more easily exposed to the influences of the spirit?
CHLORIS.
In that case, to slough the sheaths of the body, one by one, ought
to be to come nearer to the final freedom, and the last coronation
and consecration of existence may prove to be this very "death" we
dread so much.
PERSEPHONE.
I can fancy that such conjectures as these may prove to be one of
the chief sources of satisfaction in this new mortality of ours:
the variegated play of light and shadow thrown upon it. Well, the
less we know and see, the more exciting it ought to be to guess
and to peer.
MAIA.
And some of us, depend upon it, will be able to persuade ourselves
that we alone can use our eyesight in the pitch profundity of
darkness, and these will find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting
the others who have less confidence in their imagination.
[_They seat themselves, and are silent. Far away is once more
faintly heard the song, and then it dies away. A long
silence. Then, a confused hum of cries and voices is heard,
and approaches the terrace from below. The Goddesses start
to their feet. From the left appear_ SILVANUS, ALCYONE _and_
FAUNA, _bearing the body of_ CYDIPPE, _which they place very
carefully on the grass in front of the scene_.]
CHLORIS [_in an excited whisper_].
Is this our first experience of the mystery?
FAUNA _and_ ALCYONE.
She is dead! She is dead!
MAIA.
The first of the immortals to succumb to the burden of mortality!
SILVANUS.
Where is Aesculapius? Call him, call him!
MAIA.
He cannot bring back the dead.
PERSEPHONE.
What has happened? Cydippe is livid, her limbs are stark, her
eyes are wide open, and motionless, and unnaturally brilliant.
SILVANUS [_to_ CHLORIS].
She was gathering a little posy of your wild flowers--eyebright,
and crane's bills and small blue pansies, when----
FAUNA.
There glided out of the intertwisted fibres of the blue-berries
a serpent----
ALCYONE.
Grey, with black arrows down the spine, and a flat, diabolical
head----
FAUNA.
And Cydippe never saw it, and stretched out her hand again,
and--see----
SILVANUS.
The viper fixed his fangs here, in the blue division of the vein,
here in her translucent wrist. See, it swells, it darkens!
FAUNA.
And with a scream she fell, and swooned away, and died, turning
backwards, so that her hair caught in the springy herbage, and her
head rolled a little in her pain, so that her hair was loosened and
tightened, and look, there are still little tufts of blue-berry
leaves in her hair.
SILVANUS.
But here comes Aesculapius.
[_They all greet_ AESCULAPIUS, _who enters from the left, with
his basket of remedies_.]
PERSEPHONE.
Ah! sage master of simples, this is a problem beyond thy solution,
a case beyond thy cure.
AESCULAPIUS [_to the goddesses_].
You think that Cydippe is dead?
MAIA.
Unquestionably. The savage viper has slain her.
AESCULAPIUS.
Then prepare to behold what should seem a greater miracle to you
than to me. But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of clothing very
tightly round the upper part of her arm, for no more than we can
help of those treasonable messengers must fly posting from the
wound to Cydippe's heart.
PERSEPHONE [_sententiously_].
It can receive no more such messages.
AESCULAPIUS.
I think you are mistaken. And now, Fauna, a few drops of water
in this cup from the trickling spring yonder. That is well. Stand
farther away from Cydippe, all of you.
PERSEPHONE.
What are those pure white needles you drop into the water? How
quickly they dissolve. Ah! he lays the mixture to Cydippe's wound.
She sighs; her eyelids close; her heart is beating. What is this
magic, Aesculapius?
AESCULAPIUS.
Do not tell your husband, Persephone, or he will complain to Zeus
that I am depriving him of his population. But if there is magic
in this, there is no miracle. [_To the others._] Take her softly
into the house and lay her down. She will take a long sleep, and
will wake at the end of it with no trace of the poison or
recollection of her suffering.
[_They carry_ CYDIPPE _forth_. PERSEPHONE, MAIA, _and_
AESCULAPIUS _remain_.]
MAIA.
Then--she was not dead?
AESCULAPIUS.
No; it was but the poison-swoon, which precedes death, if it be
not arrested.
MAIA.
How rejoiced I am!
PERSEPHONE.
One would say your joy had disappointed you.
MAIA.
No, indeed, for I am attached to Cydippe, but oh! Persephone, it
is strange to be at the very threshold of the mystery----
PERSEPHONE.
And to have the opening door shut in our faces? Perhaps ... next
time ... they may not be able to find Aesculapius.
IX
[_The terrace, as in the first scene_; ZEUS _enters from the house,
conducted by_ HEBE _and several of the lesser divinities_.]
HEBE.
Will your Majesty be pleased to descend to the lower boskage?
ZEUS.
No! Place my throne here, out of the wind, in the sun, which seems
to have very little fire left in it, but some pleasant light still.
The sea down there is bright again to-day; the carrying of our
unfortunate person upon its surface was probably the source of
immense alarm to it. It quaked and blackened continuously. Now we
are removed, it regains something of its normal quiescence. I trust
that the land hereabouts is dowered with a less painful
susceptibility.
GANYMEDE.
A priest, sire, the only one who saved his musical instrument
through our calamities, stands within. Is your Majesty disposed to
be sung to?
ZEUS.
No, certainly not. Which is he? [_The_ PRIEST _is pointed out_.]
What an odd-looking person! Yes, he may give me a specimen of his
art--a short one.
[_The_ PRIEST _comes forward; he is dressed in wild Thessalian
raiment. He approaches with uncouth gestures, and a mixture
of servility and self-consciousness. On receiving a nod
from_ ZEUS, _he tunes his instrument and sings as follows_:]
_Wild swans winging
Through the blue,
Spiders springing
To a clue,
Till the sparkling drops renew
All that ever
Youth's endeavour
Had determined to undo.
White and blue are hoards of treasure,
For the panting hands of pleasure
To go dropping, dropping, dropping,
Without measure
Through and through._
ZEUS.
Very pretty, I must say. Would you repeat it again?
[PRIEST _repeats it again_.]
ZEUS.
What does it ... exactly _mean_? I think it quite pretty, you
understand.
PRIEST.
Does your Majesty receive any impression from it?
ZEUS.
Well, I don't know that I could precisely parse it. But it is very
pretty. Yes, I think I gain a certain impression from it.
PRIEST.
Do you not feel, sire, a peculiar sense of flush, of spring-tide--a
direct juvenile ebullience?
ZEUS.
Ah, no doubt, no doubt. And a kind of nostalgia, or harking-back to
happier days, a sense of their rapid passage, and their
irrecoverability. Is that right?
PRIEST.
It is a positive divination!
ZEUS.
I am conscious of the agreeable recollection of an incident----
PRIEST [_with rapture_].
Ah!----
ZEUS.
A little event?----
PRIEST.
You make my heart beat so high, sire, that I can hardly speak.
Deign, sire, to recall that incident.
ZEUS [_with extreme affability_].
It was hardly an incident.... I merely happened, while you were
reciting your song, to remember an occasion on which--on which
Iris, at the rampart of our golden wall, bending back, was caught
by the wind, and--and the contours were delicious.
PRIEST.
Oh! the word, the word!
ZEUS [_with slight hauteur_].
I do not follow you. Her rainbow----
PRIEST.
Ah! yes, sire, the rainbow, the rainbow! O what an art of
incontestable divination!
ZEUS [_much animated_].
But you did not say anything about a rainbow, nor describe one,
nor ever mention the elements of such a bow.
PRIEST.
Ah! no, sire. That is the art of the New Poetry. It names nothing,
it describes nothing. All that it designs to do is to place the
mind of the listener--of the august and perspicacious listener--in
such an attitude as that the unnamed, the undescribed object rises
full in vision. The poet flings forth his melody, and to the gross
ear it seems a mere tinkle of inanity. That is simply because the
crowd who worship at the shrine of the Sminthean Apollo have been
accustomed by an old-fashioned and ridiculously incompetent
priesthood to look for an instant and mechanical relation between
sound and sense. I would not exaggerate, sire; but the kind of
poetry lately cultivated, not only at Delphi, but in Delos also,
is simply obsolete.
ZEUS [_suspiciously_].
Again I am not sure that I quite follow you.
PRIEST.
To your Majesty, at least, the New Poetry opens its casket as
widely as the rose-bud does to the zephyr.
ZEUS.
I can follow that--but it rather reminds me of the Old Poetry.
PRIEST.
It was intended to do so. What promptitude of mind! What divine
penetration!
ZEUS [_affably_].
I have always believed that if I had enjoyed leisure from public
life, I should have excelled in my judgment of the fine arts. [_To
the_ PRIEST, _with gravity_.] You are a gifted young man. Be sure
that you employ your talents with discretion. Such an intellect as
yours carries responsibility with it. I shall be quite pleased to
permit you to recite "The Rainbow" to me again. [_The_ PRIEST
_prepares to recite it_.]
ZEUS.
Oh, not now! Some other time! [_Graciously dismisses the_ PRIEST.]
ZEUS [_after a long pause_].
The attitude of my family, in these ambiguous circumstances,
is everything that could be desired. My original feeling of
irritability has passed away. I should have supposed it to be
what Pallas calls "fatigue," a confusion or discord of the
nerve-centres, which she tells me is incident to mortality.
What Pallas can possibly know about it is more than I can guess,
especially, as there were not infrequent occasions on Olympus
itself on which my Supreme Godhead was disturbed by flashes of
what I should be forced to describe as exasperation, states of
mind in which I formed--and indeed executed--the sudden project
of breaking something. These were, I believe, simply the result
of an excessive sense of responsibility. I am not one of those
who conceive that the duty of deity is to sit passive beside the
cup of nectar. Here on this island, in the permanent absence of
that refreshment, I reflect (I perceive that I shall have very
frequent opportunities for reflection) that I was perhaps only
too anxious to preserve the harmony of heaven. My sense of
decorum--may it not have been excessive? From below, as I
imagine, from the stations occupied--I will not say by the
inanimate or half-animate creation, such as insects, or men, or
minerals--but by the demi-gods, I take it that the dignity and
orbic beauty of our court appeared sublimely immaculate. In the
inner circle, alas! no one knows better than I do that there
were--well, dissensions. I will go further, in candour to myself,
and admit that these occasionally led to excesses. I cannot
charge my recollection with my having done anything to excuse
or encourage these. The personal conduct of the Sovereign
was always, I cannot but believe, above reproach. But the
eccentricities--if I may style them so--of certain of my children
were sometimes regrettable. I wonder that they did not age me;
they would do so immediately in my present condition. But in this
island, where we are to swarm like animalcules in a drop of
water, I shall be relieved of all responsibility. Where there
is no one to notice that errors are committed, no errors _are_
committed. As the person of most experience in the whole world,
I do not mind stating my ripe opinion that a fault which has no
effect upon political conditions is in no sensible degree a fault
at all. Pallas would contend the point, I suppose, but I am at
ease. I shall not allow the conduct of my children, except as it
shall regard myself, to affect my good-humour in the slightest
degree.
[PHOEBUS _enters, slowly pacing across the terrace_.]
ZEUS.
Your planet seems to have recovered something of its tone,
Phoebus.
PHOEBUS.
If, father, you regard--as you have every right to do--your
venerable person as the centre of my interests, I rejoice to allow
that this seems to be the case.
ZEUS [_with a touch of reserve_].
I meant that the sun shows a tendency to return to its forgotten
orbit. It is quite warm here out of the wind. [_More genially._]
But as to myself, I admit a great recovery in my spirits. I have
given up fretting for Iris, who was certainly lost on our way here,
and Pallas has been showing me a curious little jewel she brought
with her, which has created in me a kind of wistful cheeriness. I
do not remember to have experienced anything of the kind before.
PHOEBUS.
I declare I believe that you will adapt yourself as well as the
rest of us to this anomalous existence.
ZEUS.
We shall see; and I shall have so much time now, that I may
even--what I am sure ought to gratify you, Phoebus,--be able to
give my attention to the fine arts. A fallen monarch can always
defy adversity by forming a collection of curiosities.
PHOEBUS.
If you make the gem of which Pallas is so proud the nucleus of
your cabinet, I feel convinced that it will give you lasting
satisfaction. And we are so poor now that it can never be complete,
and therefore never become tiresome. But what was it that the
oracle of Nemea amused and puzzled us by saying, "To form a
collection is well, yet to take a walk is better"? I will attend
your Majesty to your apartments, and then wander in these extensive
woods.
[_Exeunt._
X
[_A dell below the house, with a white poplar-tree growing
alone. Under it_ HERACLES _sits, in an attitude of deep
dejection, his club fallen at his feet, a horn empty at
his side. To him enters_ EROS.]
EROS.
I have been congratulating our friends on their surpassing
cheerfulness. Even Zeus is displaying a marvellous longanimity in
his adverse state, and Pallas is positively frivolous. We must have
disembarked, however, upon the island of Paradox, for everything
goes by contraries; here I find you, Heracles, commonly so serene
and uplifted, sunken in the pit of depression. You should squeeze
the breath out of your melancholy, as you did out of Hera's snakes
so long ago.
HERACLES.
That was a foolish tale. Do you not recollect that I am not as the
rest of you?
EROS.
Come, man, brighten up! You look as sulky as you did when I broke
your bow and arrows, and set Aphrodite laughing at you. But I have
learned manners, and the goddesses only smile now. Cheer up! How is
your destiny a whit different from ours?
HERACLES.
That rude old story about Alcmena, Eros--it is impossible that you
can be the dupe of that? When I hunted lions on Cithaeron--that
really _was_ a gentlemanlike sport, my friend--when I hunted lions
I was not a god. Gods don't hunt lions, Eros; I have not gone
a-hunting since that curious affair on Mount OEta. You remember it?
EROS.
I have preferred to forget it.
HERACLES.
Only an immortal can afford wilfully to forget, and I--well, you
know as well as I do that I am only a mortal canonised. I never
understood the incident, I confess. I lay down among the ferns
to sleep, after an unusually heavy day's bag of monsters. It was
sultry weather; I woke to an oppressive sense of singeing, I found
myself enveloped in a blaze of leaves and brushwood.... But I bore
you, and what does it matter now? What does anything matter?
EROS.
No, no; pray continue! I am excessively interested. You throw a
light on something that has always puzzled me, something that----
HERACLES.
A dense black smoke blinded and numbed me. The next moment, as it
seemed--perhaps it was the next day--I was hustled up through the
aether to Olympus, and dumped down at the foot of Zeus' throne.
Perhaps you remember?
EROS.
Yes, for I was there.
HERACLES.
All of you were there. And Zeus came down and took me by the
wrist. Olympus rang with shouts and the clapping of hands. I was
hailed with unanimity as an immortal; the ambrosia melted between
my charred lips; I rose up amongst you all, immaculate and fresh.
But when, or how, or wherefore I have never known. And now I shall
never care to know.
EROS.
You are a strange mixture, Heracles; strangely contradictory. You
never quailed before any scaly horror, you never spared a truculent
robber or a noisome beast, nor avoided a laborious act----
HERACLES.
These might be quoted, I should have thought, as instances of my
consistency.
EROS.
Yes, but then (you must really forgive me) your weakness in the
matter of Omphale did seem, to those who knew you not, like want
of self-respect. I have the reputation of shrinking, in the pursuit
of pleasure, from no fantastic disguise, but I never sat spinning
in the garments of a servant-maid. You must have looked a strange
daughter of the plough, Heracles. I blush for you to think of it.
HERACLES.
It was odd, certainly. Yet if _you_ cannot comprehend it, Eros, I
despair of explaining it to anybody. I should never do it again.
You must admit I showed no want of firmness afterwards in dealing
with Hebe, but then, she never interested me. Is she here? But do
not reply, I am not anxious to learn.
EROS.
Your dejection passes beyond all bounds. You cannot have been
shown the singularly cheerful little jewel which Pallas has brought
with her? It raises every one's spirits.
HERACLES.
It will not raise mine; for all of you, Eros, have been immortals
from the beginning, and your mortality is a new and pungent flavour
on the moral palate. But the taste of it was known of old to me,
and I am not its dupe. It simply carries me back to the ancient
weary round of ceaseless struggle, unending battle, incessant
renascence of the sprouting heads of Hydra; to all that from which
the windless Olympus was a refuge. Hope is presented--to one who
has tasted it and who knows that it is futile--without reawakening,
under such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure.
The jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality;
it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal.
[_Sounds of laughter are heard, and steps ascending from the
shore._]
EROS [_to_ HERACLES].
Draw your lion's skin about you less negligently, Heracles; I hear
visitants approaching. You are not in the woodways of OEta.
[_The_ OCEANIDES _rush in from the lower woodlands. They are
carrying torches, and arrive in a condition of the highest
exhilaration._ EROS _proceeds a step or two to meet them, with
a smile and a mock reverence_. HERACLES, _brooding over his
knees, does not even raise his eyes at their clamorous entry_.]
EROS.
Are you proceeding to set our Father Zeus on fire, or do you intend
to repeat on our unwilling Heracles the rites of canonisation?
Have a care with those absurd flambeaux; you will put all the
underwood aflame. What are you doing with torches?
AMPHITRITE.
It was Hephaestus who gave them to us to hold. He is in a cave down
there by the sea, making the most ingenious things in the darkness.
He called us in to hold these lights----
DORIS.
And oh, Eros, we had such fun, teasing him----
PITHO.
He was quite angry at last----
AMPHITRITE.
And threatened to nail us to the cliff----
PITHO.
And off we ran, and left him in the dark.
DORIS.
He is coming after us. I never felt so frightened.
AMPHITRITE.
I never enjoyed myself anywhere so much.
PITHO.
Come away, come away! If he is going to pursue, let us give him
a long chase, and leave him panting at last!
[_The_ OCEANIDES _escape, in a tumult of laughter, through the
upper woods, as_ HEPHAESTUS, _limping heavily, and much out
of breath, appears from below_.]
HEPHAESTUS
The rogues, the rogues!
EROS.
What a cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, Hephaestus, that
you do not escape, even here, from the echoes of the laughter of
heaven.
HERACLES [_savagely_].
Follow them, and strike them down. Take my club, Hephaestus, if
you have lost your hammer.
HEPHAESTUS.
Strike them! Strike the darling rogues? I would as soon wrap your
too-celebrated tunic about a little playful marmozet. What is the
matter with you, Heracles?
HERACLES.
What change, indeed, has come over _you_, you sulky artificer?
Time was when your pincers would have met in the flesh of maid or
man who disturbed you in your work. Have you left your forge to
cool for the mere pleasure of clambering after these ridiculous
children! Go back to it, Hephaestus, go back and be ashamed.
HEPHAESTUS.
You do not seem deeply engaged yourself. You look sourer and idler
than the lion's head that dangles at your shoulder. The days are
long here, though not too long. My handicraft will spare me for
half an hour to sport with these exquisite and affable fragilities.
I rather enjoy being laughed at. On Olympus I was rarely troubled
by such teasing attentions. The little ones seem to enjoy
themselves in their exile, and, to say true, so do I. My work
was carried on, I admit, much more smoothly and surely than it
can be here, and my hand, I am afraid, in crossing the sea, has
lost much of its infallible cunning. But I enjoy the exercise,
and I look onward to the art as I never did before, and I seem
to have more leisure. Can you explain it, Eros?
EROS.
I do not attempt to do so, but I feel a similar and equally
surprising serenity. Heracles is insensible to it, it seems, and
he gives me a sort of reason.
HEPHAESTUS.
What is it?
EROS.
Well ... I am not sure that.... Perhaps I ought to leave him to
explain it.
HERACLES.
You would not be able to comprehend me. I am not sure that I
myself----
[_Two of the_ OCEANIDES _re-enter, much more seriously than
before, and with an eager importance of gesture_.]
AMPHITRITE.
We are not playing now. We have a message from Zeus, Hephaestus. He
says that he is waiting impatiently for the sceptre you are making
for him.
DORIS.
Yes, you must hurry back to your cave. And we are longing to see
what ornament you are putting on the sceptre. Let us come with
you. We will hold the torches for you as steadily as if we were
made of marble.
HEPHAESTUS.
Come, then, come. Let us descend together. I hope that my science
has not quitted me. We will see whether even on this rugged shore
and with these uncouth instruments, I cannot prove to Zeus that I
am still an artist. Come, I am in a hurry to begin. Give me your
hands, Amphitrite and Doris.
[_Exeunt._
XI
[_The glen, through which the stream, slightly flooded by a night's
rain, runs faintly turbid._ DIONYSUS, _earnestly engaged in
angling, does not hear the approach of_ AESCULAPIUS.]
AESCULAPIUS [_in a high, voluble key_].
It is not to me but to you, O ruddy son of Semele, that the crowds
of invalids will throng, if you cultivate this piscatory art so
eagerly, since to do nothing, serenely, in the open air, without
becoming fatigued, is to storm the very citadel of ill-health,
and----
DIONYSUS [_testily, without turning round_].
Hush! hush!... I felt a nibble.
AESCULAPIUS [_in a whisper, flinging himself upon the grass_].
It was in such a secluded spot as this that Apollo heard the trout
at Aroanius sing like thrushes.
DIONYSUS.
How these poets exaggerate! The trout sang, I suppose, like the
missel-thrush.
AESCULAPIUS.
What song has the missel-thrush?
DIONYSUS.
It does not sing at all. Nor do trout.
AESCULAPIUS.
You are sententious, Dionysus.
DIONYSUS.
No, but closely occupied. I am intent on the subtle movements of my
rod, round which my thoughts and fancies wind and blossom till they
have made a thyrsus of it. Now, however, I shall certainly catch no
more fish, and so I may rest and talk to you. Are you searching for
simples in this glen?
AESCULAPIUS.
To tell you the plain truth, I am waiting for Nike. She has given
me an appointment here.
DIONYSUS.