HYPOLYMPIA Or The Gods in the Island An Ironic Fantasy - Edmund Gosse (important of reading books TXT) 📗

blinded and numbed me. The next moment, as it seemed--perhaps it was the next day--I was hustled up through the æther 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 Hephæstus 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 HEPHÆSTUS, limping heavily, and much out of breath, appears from below.]

HEPHÆSTUS

The rogues, the rogues!

EROS.

What a cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, Hephæstus, 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, Hephæstus, if you have lost your hammer.

HEPHÆSTUS.

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, Hephæstus, go back and be ashamed.

HEPHÆSTUS.

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.

HEPHÆSTUS.

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, Hephæstus. 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.

HEPHÆSTUS.

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 ÆSCULAPIUS.]

ÆSCULAPIUS [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.

ÆSCULAPIUS [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.

ÆSCULAPIUS.

What song has the missel-thrush?

DIONYSUS.

It does not sing at all. Nor do trout.

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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?

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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.

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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.

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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.

DIONYSUS [rising to his feet].

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

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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, Æsculapius. 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 assure 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 ÆSCULAPIUS.] 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 Æsculapius, Nike.

[He descends along the water-course, and exit. NIKE smiles sadly, and half holds out her arms towards ÆSCULAPIUS.]

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 passed below the little grey precipice of limestone----

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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?

ÆSCULAPIUS.

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

NIKE.

Æsculapius, they were not girls. They were the terrible and ancient Eumenides, black with the curdled blood of Uranus. 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