Hypolympia Part 20

DIONYSUS [_rising to his feet_].

I shall do well, however, to go before she comes.

aeSCULAPIUS.

By no means. I should prefer your staying. Nike will prefer it, too. In the old days she always liked you to be her harbinger.

DIONYSUS.

Not always; sometimes my panthers turned and bit her. But my panthers and my vines are gone to keep her laurels and her palm-tree company. I think I will not stay, aesculapius. But what does Nike want with you?

[_Slowly and pensively descending from the upper woods_, NIKE _enters_.]

DIONYSUS.

I was excusing myself, Nike, to our learned friend here for not having paid my addresses to you earlier. You must have thought me negligent?

NIKE.

Oh! Dionysus, I a.s.sure you it is not so. Your temperament is one of violent extremes--you are either sparkling with miraculous rapidity of apprehension, or you are sunken in a heavy doze. These have doubtless been some of your sleepy days. And I ... oh! I am very deeply changed.

DIONYSUS.

No, not at all. Hardly at all. [_He scarcely glances at her, but turns to_ aeSCULAPIUS.] But farewell to both of you, for I am going down to the sea-board to watch for dolphins. That long melancholy plunge of the black snout thrills me with pleasure. It always did, and the coast-line here curiously reminds me of Naxos. Be kind to aesculapius, Nike.

[_He descends along the water-course, and exit._ NIKE _smiles sadly, and half holds out her arms towards_ aeSCULAPIUS.]

NIKE.

It is for you, O brother of Hermes, to be kind to _me_. How altered we all are! Dionysus is not himself.... As I came here, I pa.s.sed below the little grey precipice of limestone----

aeSCULAPIUS.

Where the marchantias grow? Yes?

NIKE.

And three girls in white dresses, with wreaths of flowers on their shoulders, were laughing and chatting there in the shade of the great yew-tree. Who do you suppose they were, these laughing girls in white?

aeSCULAPIUS.

Perhaps three of the Oceanides, bright as the pure foam of the wave?

NIKE.

aesculapius, they were not girls. They were the terrible and ancient Eumenides, black with the curdled blood of Ura.n.u.s. They were the inexorable Furies, who were wont to fawn about my feet, with the adders quivering in their tresses, tormenting me for the spoils of victory. What does it mean? Why are they in white? As we came hither in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled together at the prow, and their long black raiment hung overboard and touched the brine. They were mumbling and crooning hate-songs, and pointing with skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. What is it that has changed their mood? What is it that can have turned the robes of the Eumenides white, and enamelled their wrinkled flesh with youth?

aeSCULAPIUS.

Is it not because a like strange metamorphosis has invaded your own nature that you have come to meet me here?

NIKE [_after a pause_].

I am bewildered, but I am not unhappy. I come because the secrets of life are known to you. I come because it was you whom Zeus sent to watch over Cadmus and Harmonia when their dread and comfortable change came over them. They were weary with grief and defeat, tired of being for ever overwhelmed by the ever-mounting wave of mortal fate. I am weary----

aeSCULAPIUS [_slowly_].

Of what, Nike? Be true to yourself. Of what are you weary?

NIKE.

I come to you that you may tell. I know no better than the snake knows when his skin withers and bloats. I feel distress, apprehension, no pain, a little fear.

aeSCULAPIUS.

You speak of Cadmus and Harmonia; but is not your case the opposite of theirs? They were saved from defeat; is it not your unspoken hope to be saved from victory, saved from what was your essential self?

NIKE.

Can it be so? I find, it is true, that I look back upon my rush and blaze of battle with no real regret. What a vain thing it was, the perpetual clash and resonance of a victory that no one could withstand; the mockery that conquest must be to an immortal whom no one can ever really oppose;--no veritable difficulty to overcome, no genuine resistance to meet, nothing positively tussled with and thrown, nothing but ghostly armies shrinking and melting a little way in front of my advancing eagles! That can never happen again, and even through the pang of losing my laurel and my wings, I did not genuinely deplore it. Nothing but the sheer intoxication of my immortality had kept me at the pitch. And now that it is gone, oh wisest of the G.o.ds, it is for you to tell me how, in this mortal state, I can remain happy and yet be _me_.

aeSCULAPIUS.

You are on the high road to happiness; you see its towers over the dust, for you dare to know yourself.

NIKE.

Myself, aesculapius?

aeSCULAPIUS.

Yes; you have that signal, that culminating courage.

NIKE.

But it is because I do _not_ know my way that I come to you.

aeSCULAPIUS.

To recognise the way is one thing, it is much; but to recognise yourself is infinitely more, and includes the way.

NIKE.

Ah! I see. I think I partly see. The element of real victory was absent where no defeat could be.

aeSCULAPIUS [_eagerly_].

Dismal, sooty, raven-coloured robes of the Eumenides!