Hypolympia Part 17

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 prompt.i.tude 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 att.i.tude of my family, in these ambiguous circ.u.mstances, is everything that could be desired. My original feeling of irritability has pa.s.sed 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 G.o.dhead 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 pa.s.sive 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-G.o.ds, 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 att.i.tude 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 surpa.s.sing 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 G.o.ddesses 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 G.o.d. G.o.ds 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.