[The glen, through which the stream, slightly flooded by a night's rain, runs faintly turbid. Dionysus, earnestly engaged in angling, does not hear the approach of Æsculapius.]

Æsculapius [in a high, voluble key].

It is not to me but to you, O ruddy son of Semele, that the crowds of invalids will throng, if you cultivate this piscatory art so eagerly, since to do nothing, serenely, in the open air, without becoming fatigued, is to storm the very citadel of ill-health, and——

Dionysus [testily, without turning round].

Hush! hush!... I felt a nibble.

Æsculapius [in a whisper, flinging himself upon the grass].

It was in such a secluded spot as this that Apollo heard the trout at Aroanius sing like thrushes.

Dionysus.

How these poets exaggerate! The trout sang, I suppose, like the missel-thrush.

Æsculapius.

What song has the missel-thrush?

Dionysus.

It does not sing at all. Nor do trout.

Æsculapius.

You are sententious, Dionysus.

Dionysus.

No, but closely occupied. I am intent on the subtle movements of my rod, round which my thoughts and fancies wind and blossom till they have made a thyrsus of it. Now, however, I shall certainly catch no more fish, and so I may rest and talk to you. Are you searching for simples in this glen?

Æsculapius.

To tell you the plain truth, I am waiting for Nike. She has given me an appointment here.

Dionysus.

I have not seen her since we arrived on this island.

Æsculapius.

You have seen her, but you have not recognised her. She goes about in a perpetual incognito. Poor thing, in our flight from Olympus she lost all her attributes—her wings dropped off, her laurel was burned, she flung her armour away, and her palm-tree obstinately refused to up-root itself.

Dionysus.

No doubt at this moment it is obsequiously rustling over the odious usurper.

Æsculapius.

It was always rather a poor palm-tree. What Nike misses most are her wings. She was excessively dejected when we first arrived, but Pallas very kindly allowed her to take care of the jewel for half an hour. Nike—if still hardly recognisable—is no longer to be taken for Niobe.

Dionysus [rising to his feet].

I shall do well, however, to go before she comes.

Æsculapius.

By no means. I should prefer your staying. Nike will prefer it, too. In the old days she always liked you to be her harbinger.

Dionysus.

Not always; sometimes my panthers turned and bit her. But my panthers and my vines are gone to keep her laurels and her palm-tree company. I think I will not stay, Æsculapius. But what does Nike want with you?

[Slowly and pensively descending from the upper woods, Nike enters.]

Dionysus.

I was excusing myself, Nike, to our learned friend here for not having paid my addresses to you earlier. You must have thought me negligent?

Nike.

Oh! Dionysus, I assure you it is not so. Your temperament is one of violent extremes—you are either sparkling with miraculous rapidity of apprehension, or you are sunken in a heavy doze. These have doubtless been some of your sleepy days. And I ... oh! I am very deeply changed.

Dionysus.

No, not at all. Hardly at all. [He scarcely glances at her, but turns to Æsculapius.] But farewell to both of you, for I am going down to the sea-board to watch for dolphins. That long melancholy plunge of the black snout thrills me with pleasure. It always did, and the coast-line here curiously reminds me of Naxos. Be kind to Æsculapius, Nike.

[He descends along the water-course, and exit. Nike smiles sadly, and half holds out her arms towards Æsculapius.]

Nike.

It is for you, O brother of Hermes, to be kind to me. How altered we all are! Dionysus is not himself.... As I came here, I passed below the little grey precipice of limestone——

Æsculapius.

Where the marchantias grow? Yes?

Nike.

And three girls in white dresses, with wreaths of flowers on their shoulders, were laughing and chatting there in the shade of the great yew-tree. Who do you suppose they were, these laughing girls in white?

Æsculapius.

Perhaps three of the Oceanides, bright as the pure foam of the wave?

Nike.

Æsculapius, they were not girls. They were the terrible and ancient Eumenides, black with the curdled blood of Uranus. They were the inexorable Furies, who were wont to fawn about my feet, with the adders quivering in their tresses, tormenting me for the spoils of victory. What does it mean? Why are they in white? As we came hither in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled together at the prow, and their long black raiment hung overboard and touched the brine. They were mumbling and crooning hate-songs, and pointing with skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. What is it that has changed their mood? What is it that can have turned the robes of the Eumenides white, and enamelled their wrinkled flesh with youth?

Æsculapius.

Is it not because a like strange metamorphosis has invaded your own nature that you have come to meet me here?

Nike [after a pause].

I am bewildered, but I am not unhappy. I come because the secrets of life are known to you. I come because it was you whom Zeus sent to watch over Cadmus and Harmonia when their dread and comfortable change came over them. They were weary with grief and defeat, tired of being for ever overwhelmed by the ever-mounting wave of mortal fate. I am weary——

Æsculapius [slowly].

Of what, Nike? Be true to yourself. Of what are you weary?

Nike.

I come to you that you may tell. I know no better than the snake knows when his skin withers and bloats. I feel distress, apprehension, no pain, a little fear.

Æsculapius.

You speak of Cadmus and Harmonia; but is not your case the opposite of theirs? They were saved from defeat; is it not your unspoken hope to be saved from victory, saved from what was your essential self?

Nike.

Can it be so? I find, it is true, that I look back upon my rush and blaze of battle with no real regret. What a vain thing it was, the perpetual clash and resonance of a victory that no one could withstand; the mockery that conquest must be to an immortal whom no one can ever really oppose;—no veritable difficulty to overcome, no genuine resistance to meet, nothing positively tussled with and thrown, nothing but ghostly armies shrinking and melting a little way in front of my advancing eagles! That can never happen again, and even through the pang of losing my laurel and my wings, I did not genuinely deplore it. Nothing but the sheer intoxication of my immortality had kept me at the pitch. And now that it is gone, oh wisest of the gods, it is for you to tell me how, in this mortal state, I can remain happy and yet be me.

Æsculapius.

You are on the high road to happiness; you see its towers over the dust, for you dare to know yourself.

Nike.

Myself, Æsculapius?

Æsculapius.

Yes; you have that signal, that culminating courage.

Nike.

But it is because I do not know my way that I come to you.

Æsculapius.

To recognise the way is one thing, it is much; but to recognise yourself is infinitely more, and includes the way.

Nike.

Ah! I see. I think I partly see. The element of real victory was absent where no defeat could be.

Æsculapius [eagerly].

Dismal, sooty, raven-coloured robes of the Eumenides!

Nike.

And it may be present even where no final conquest can ensue?

Æsculapius.

Ah! how white they grow! How the serpents drop out of their tresses.

Nike.

I am feeling forward with my finger-tips, like a blind woman searching.... And the real splendour of victory may consist in the helpless mortal state; may blossom there, while it only budded in our immortality?

Æsculapius.

May consist, really, of the effort, the desire, the act of gathering up the will to make the plunge. This will be victory now, it will be the drawing of the bow-string and not the mere cessation of the arrow-flight.

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