only have Sophoclean dramas in a Sophoclean age; and
theirs was no more of one than ours is, and so the drama died a natural
death; and when that happens to man or thing, you may weep over it if
you will, but you must, after all, bury it, and get something else in
its place--except, of course, the worship of the gods.'

'I am glad that you except that, at least,' said Hypatia, somewhat
bitterly. 'But why not use the Amphitheatre for both spectacles?'

'What can I do? I am over head and ears in debt already; and the
Amphitheatre is half in ruins, thanks to that fanatic edict of the late
emperor's against gladiators. There is no time or money for repairing
it; and besides, how pitiful a poor hundred of combatants will look in
an arena built to hold two thousand! Consider, my dearest lady, in what
fallen times we live!'

'I do, indeed!' said Hypatia. 'But I will not see the altar polluted by
blood. It is the desecration which it has undergone already which has
provoked the god to withdraw the poetic inspiration.'

'I do not doubt the fact. Some curse from Heaven, certainly, has fallen
on our poets, to judge by their exceeding badness. Indeed, I am inclined
to attribute the insane vagaries of the water-drinking monks and nuns,
like those of the Argive women, to the same celestial anger. But I will
see that the sanctity of the altar is preserved, by confining the combat
to the stage. And as for the pantomime which will follow, if you would
only fall in with my fancy of the triumph of Aphrodite, Dionusos would
hardly refuse his altar for the glorification of his own lady-love.'

'Ah--that myth is a late, and in my opinion a degraded one.'

'Be it so; but recollect, that another myth makes her, and not without
reason, the mother of all living beings. Be sure that Dionusos will have
no objection, or any other god either, to allow her to make her children
feel her conquering might; for they all know well enough, that if we
can once get her well worshipped here, all Olympus will follow in her
train.'

'That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose symbol is the
tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity: not of that baser
Pandemic one.'

'Then we will take care to make the people aware of whom they are
admiring by exhibiting in the triumph whole legions of tortoises: and
you yourself shall write the chant, while I will see that the chorus is
worthy of what it has to sing. No mere squeaking double flute and