her offering a cup, and the third
brandishing a bow.

And these gods, these goddesses multiply, become tenfold. On their
shoulders rise arms, and at the ends of their arms are hands holding
banners, axes, bucklers, swords, parasols and drums. Fountains spring
from their heads, grass hangs from their nostrils.

Riding on birds, cradled on palanquins, throned on seats of gold,
standing in niches of ivory, they dream, travel, command, drink wine
and inhale flowers. Dancing-girls whirl around; giants pursue monsters;
at the entrances to the grottoes, solitaries meditate. Myriads of stars
and clouds of streamers mingle in an indistinguishable throng. Peacocks
drink from the streams of golden dust. The embroidery of the pavilions
blends with the spots of the leopards. Coloured rays cross one another
in the blue air, amid the flying of arrows and the swinging of censers.
And all this unfolds itself, like a lofty frieze, leaning with its base
on the rocks and mounting to the very sky.

_Antony_, dazzled--"What a number of them there are! What do they wish?"

_Hilarion_--"The one who is scratching his abdomen with his elephant's
trunk is the solar god, the inspirer of wisdom. That other, whose six
heads carry towers and fourteen handles of javelins, is the prince of
armies, the fire-devourer. The old man riding on a crocodile is going to
bathe the souls of the dead on the seashore. They will be tormented by
this black woman with rotten teeth, the governess of hell. The chariot
drawn by red mares, which a legless coachman is driving, is carrying
about in broad daylight the master of the sun. The moon-god accompanies
him in a litter drawn by three gazelles. On her knees, on the back of a
parrot, the goddess of beauty is presenting her round breast to Love,
her son. Here she is farther on; she leaps with joy in the prairies.
Look! look! With a radiant mitre on her head, she runs over the
cornfields, over the waves, mounts into the air, and exhibits herself
everywhere. Between these gods sit the genii of the winds, of the
planets, of the months, of the days, and a hundred thousand others! And
their aspects are multiplied, their transformations rapid. Here is one
who from a fish has become a tortoise, he assumes the head of a wild
boar, the stature of a dwarf!"

_Antony_--"For what purpose?"

_Hilarion_--"To establish equilibrium, to combat evil. Life is
exhausted, its forms are used up; and it is necessary to progress by
meta