  [A dell below the house, with a white poplar-tree growing alone. Under it Heracles sits, in an attitude of deep dejection, his club fallen at his feet, a horn empty at his side. To him enters Eros.] Eros. I have been congratulating our friends on their surpassing cheerfulness. Even Zeus is displaying a marvellous longanimity in his adverse state, and Pallas is positively frivolous. We must have disembarked, however, upon the island of Paradox, for everything goes by contraries; here I find you, Heracles, commonly so serene and uplifted, sunken in the pit of depression. You should squeeze Heracles. That was a foolish tale. Do you not recollect that I am not as the rest of you? Eros. Come, man, brighten up! You look as sulky as you did when I broke your bow and arrows, and set Aphrodite laughing at you. But I have learned manners, and the goddesses only smile now. Cheer up! How is your destiny a whit different from ours? Heracles. That rude old story about Alcmena, Eros—it is impossible that you can be the dupe of that? When I hunted lions on Cithaeron—that really was a gentlemanlike Eros. I have preferred to forget it. Heracles. Only an immortal can afford wilfully to forget, and I—well, you know as well as I do that I am only a mortal canonised. I never understood the incident, I confess. I lay down among the ferns to sleep, after an unusually heavy day's bag of monsters. It was sultry weather; I woke to an oppressive sense of singeing, I found myself enveloped in a blaze of leaves and brushwood.... But I bore you, and what does it matter now? What does anything matter? Eros. No, no; pray continue! I am excessively interested. You throw a light on something that has always puzzled me, something that—— Heracles. A dense black smoke blinded and numbed me. The next moment, as it seemed—perhaps it was the next day—I was hustled up through the Æther to Olympus, and dumped down at the foot of Zeus' throne. Perhaps you remember? Eros. Yes, for I was there. Heracles. All of you were there. And Zeus came down and took me by the wrist. Olympus rang with shouts and the clapping of hands. I was hailed with unanimity Eros. You are a strange mixture, Heracles; strangely contradictory. You never quailed before any scaly horror, you never spared a truculent robber or a noisome beast, nor avoided a laborious act—— Heracles. These might be quoted, I should have thought, as instances of my consistency. Eros. Yes, but then (you must really forgive me) your weakness in the matter of Omphale did seem, to those who knew you not, like want of self-respect. I have Heracles. It was odd, certainly. Yet if you cannot comprehend it, Eros, I despair of explaining it to anybody. I should never do it again. You must admit I showed no want of firmness afterwards in dealing with Hebe, but then, she never interested me. Is she here? But do not reply, I am not anxious to learn. Eros. Your dejection passes beyond all bounds. You cannot have been shown the singularly cheerful little jewel which Pallas Heracles. It will not raise mine; for all of you, Eros, have been immortals from the beginning, and your mortality is a new and pungent flavour on the moral palate. But the taste of it was known of old to me, and I am not its dupe. It simply carries me back to the ancient weary round of ceaseless struggle, unending battle, incessant renascence of the sprouting heads of Hydra; to all that from which the windless Olympus was a refuge. Hope is presented—to one who has tasted it and who knows that it is futile—without reawakening, under such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure. The jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality; it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal. [Sounds of laughter are heard, and steps ascending from the shore.] Eros [to Heracles]. Draw your lion's skin about you less negligently, Heracles; I hear visitants approaching. You are not in the woodways of Œta. [The Oceanides rush in from the lower woodlands. They are carrying torches, and arrive in a condition of the highest exhilaration. Eros proceeds a step or two to meet them, with a smile and a mock reverence. Heracles, brooding over his knees, does not even raise his eyes at their clamorous entry.] Eros. Are you proceeding to set our Father Zeus on fire, or do you intend to repeat on our unwilling Heracles the rites of canonisation? Have a care with those absurd Amphitrite. It was HephÆstus 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 HephÆstus, limping heavily, and much out of breath, appears from below.] HephÆstus. The rogues, the rogues! Eros. What a cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, HephÆstus, 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, HephÆstus, if you have lost your hammer. HephÆstus. 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, HephÆstus. 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 Eros. I do not attempt to do so, but I feel a similar and equally surprising serenity. Heracles is insensible to it, it seems, and he gives me a sort of reason. HephÆstus. What is it? Eros. Well ... I am not sure that.... Perhaps I ought to leave him to explain it. Heracles. You would not be able to comprehend me. I am not sure that I myself—— [Two of the Oceanides re-enter, much more seriously than before, and with an eager importance of gesture.] Amphitrite. We are not playing now. We have a message from Zeus, HephÆstus. He says that he is waiting impatiently for the sceptre you are making for him. Doris. Yes, you must hurry back to your cave. And we are longing to see what ornament you are putting on the sceptre. Let us come with you. We will hold the torches for you as steadily as if we were made of marble. HephÆstus. Come, then, come. Let us descend together. I hope that my science has not quitted me. We will see whether even on this rugged shore and with these uncouth instruments, I cannot prove to Zeus that I am still an artist. Come, I am in a hurry to begin. Give me your hands, Amphitrite and Doris. [Exeunt. |
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