er 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 Hephaestus 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_ HEPHAESTUS, _limping heavily, and much out
of breath, appears from below_.]

HEPHAESTUS

The rogues, the rogues!

EROS.

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

HEPHAESTUS.

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, Hephaestus, go back and be ashamed.

HEPHAESTUS.

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 muc