_Aphrodite. Selene_
_Aph_. What is this I hear about you, Selene? When your car is over
Caria, you stop it to gaze at Endymion sleeping hunter-fashion in the
open; sometimes, they tell me, you actually get out and go down to him.
_Sel_. Ah, Aphrodite, ask that son of yours; it is he must answer for
it all.
_Aph_. Well now, what a naughty boy! he gets his own mother into all
sorts of scrapes; I must go down, now to Ida for Anchises of Troy, now
to Lebanon for my Assyrian stripling;—mine? no, he put Persephone in
love with him too, and so robbed me of half my darling. I have told him
many a time that if he would not behave himself I would break his
artillery for him, and clip his wings; and before now I have smacked
his little behind with my slipper. It is no use; he is frightened and
cries for a minute or two, and then forgets all about it. But tell me,
is Endymion handsome? That is always a comfort in our humiliation.
_Sel_. _Most_ handsome, _I_ think, my dear; you should see him when he
has spread out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his
left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards,
making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless
slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake
and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the
rest? I am dying of love, that is all.