Hypolympia Part 18

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 as an immortal; the ambrosia melted between my charred lips; I rose up amongst you all, immaculate and fresh.

But when, or how, or wherefore I have never known. And now I shall never care to know.

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 the reputation of shrinking, in the pursuit of pleasure, from no fantastic disguise, but I never sat spinning in the garments of a servant-maid. You must have looked a strange daughter of the plough, Heracles. I blush for you to think of it.

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 pa.s.ses beyond all bounds. You cannot have been shown the singularly cheerful little jewel which Pallas has brought with her? It raises every one's spirits.

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 l.u.s.tre whatever for a backsliding mortal.

[_Sounds of laughter are heard, and steps ascending from the sh.o.r.e._]

EROS [_to_ HERACLES].

Draw your lion's skin about you less negligently, Heracles; I hear visitants approaching. You are not in the woodways of OEta.

[_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 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.