yebright,
and crane's bills and small blue pansies, when----

FAUNA.

There glided out of the intertwisted fibres of the blue-berries
a serpent----

ALCYONE.

Grey, with black arrows down the spine, and a flat, diabolical
head----

FAUNA.

And Cydippe never saw it, and stretched out her hand again,
and--see----

SILVANUS.

The viper fixed his fangs here, in the blue division of the vein,
here in her translucent wrist. See, it swells, it darkens!

FAUNA.

And with a scream she fell, and swooned away, and died, turning
backwards, so that her hair caught in the springy herbage, and her
head rolled a little in her pain, so that her hair was loosened and
tightened, and look, there are still little tufts of blue-berry
leaves in her hair.

SILVANUS.

But here comes Aesculapius.

[_They all greet_ AESCULAPIUS, _who enters from the left, with
his basket of remedies_.]

PERSEPHONE.

Ah! sage master of simples, this is a problem beyond thy solution,
a case beyond thy cure.

AESCULAPIUS [_to the goddesses_].

You think that Cydippe is dead?

MAIA.

Unquestionably. The savage viper has slain her.

AESCULAPIUS.

Then prepare to behold what should seem a greater miracle to you
than to me. But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of clothing very
tightly round the upper part of her arm, for no more than we can
help of those treasonable messengers must fly posting from the
wound to Cydippe's heart.

PERSEPHONE [_sententiously_].

It can receive no more such messages.

AESCULAPIUS.

I think you are mistaken. And now, Fauna, a few drops of water
in this cup from the trickling spring yonder. That is well. Stand
farther away from Cydippe, all of you.

PERSEPHONE.

What are those pure white needles you drop into the water? How
quickly they dissolve. Ah! he lays the mixture to Cydippe's wound.
She sighs; her eyelids close; her heart is beating. What is this
magic, Aesculapius?

AESCULAPIUS.

Do not tell your husband, Persephone, or he will complain to Zeus
that I am depriving him of his population. But if there is magic
in this, there is no miracle. [_To the others._] Take her softly
into the house and lay her down. She will take a long sleep, and
will wake at the end of it with no trace of the poison or
recollection of her suffering.

[_They carry_ CYDIPPE _forth_. PERSEPHONE, MAIA, _and_
AESCULAPIUS _remain_.]

MAIA.

Then--she was not dead?

AESCULAPIUS.

No; it was