Hypolympia Part 19

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 sh.o.r.e 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 gra.s.s_].

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.

I have not seen her since we arrived on this island.

aeSCULAPIUS.

You have seen her, but you have not recognised her. She goes about in a perpetual incognito. Poor thing, in our flight from Olympus she lost all her attributes--her wings dropped off, her laurel was burned, she flung her armour away, and her palm-tree obstinately refused to up-root itself.

DIONYSUS.

No doubt at this moment it is obsequiously rustling over the odious usurper.

aeSCULAPIUS.

It was always rather a poor palm-tree. What Nike misses most are her wings. She was excessively dejected when we first arrived, but Pallas very kindly allowed her to take care of the jewel for half an hour. Nike--if still hardly recognisable--is no longer to be taken for Niobe.