h 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 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_ 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 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.

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 m