elds and pointed brown fields, and the wild grey sky above. No;
it would be impossible for anything to be less like Cythera.

APHRODITE.

Yet it is like it. [_Gazing round._] How strange ... to be where
everything is not azure and gold and white--white land, gold houses
and blue sky and sea. What are these woods, Eros?

EROS.

Are they beech-woods?

APHRODITE.

I did not think that I could ever be happy again. I am not _happy_.
But I am not miserable. Now that my heart is quiet again, I am not
miserable. Oh! that sick tossing on the black sea, the nausea, the
aching, the dulness; that I, who sprang from the waves, could come
to hate them so. We will never venture on the sea, again?

EROS.

Then must we stay for ever here, since this is an island.

APHRODITE.

Yes, here for ever. For ever? We have no "for ever" now, Eros.

[_Enter, from the house_, CYDIPPE.]

APHRODITE.

Is all prepared for us, Cydippe?

CYDIPPE.

I have done my best. The barbarian people are kind and clean. They
have blue eyes. There is one, with marigold curls and a crisp
beard, who has brought up water and logs of wood. There are two
maidens, with hair like a wheat-field and rough red fingers. There
are others.... I know not. All seem civil and frightened. But your
Majesty will be wretched.

APHRODITE.

No, Cydippe, I think I shall be happy.

EROS [_walking to the parapet, and looking down_].

Our white ship still lies there, mother. Shall we start again?

APHRODITE.

On that leaden water, with the little cruel breakers like coriander
seeds? Never. And whither should we go, Eros? We have lost our
golden home, our only home. We have lost the old white world of
empire; any grey corner of the world of stillness is good enough
for us. I will eat, and lie down, and rest without that long,
awful heave of the intolerable ocean. Which way, Cydippe?

[APHRODITE _and_ CYDIPPE _enter the house_.]

EROS [_alone_].

This little milk-white flower, with the drop of wine in it.... It
is like the grass that grows on the slopes of Parnassus. It is the
only home-like thing here. Can that be grey wool that hangs in the
sky, and droops like a curtain over the opposite hills? How cold
the air is! Ah! it is raining over in the other island, and the
brown fields grow like the yellow fields, melt into a mere white
mist behind the slate-coloured sea. Here is one of the barbarians.

[POSEIDON _slowly appears at the top of the step