did you do, you poor dears?
Rhea [after a pause].
We did nothing.
Kronos.
Zeus let us stay then. Why has he driven us out now?
Rhea [aside].
He does not understand, Circe. It is very sweet of you to be so kind to us, but you must go back now to your young companions. Who is here?
Circe.
I think we are all here, or nearly all. I have not seen Iris, but surely all the rest are here.
Rhea.
Is Zeus very much disturbed? On the ship I heard Æolus say that it was impossible to go near him, he was so unreasonably angry.
Circe.
Yes, he thought that our miseries were all the fault of Poseidon and Æolus. But mortality will make a great change in Zeus; I think perhaps a greater change than in any of us. He has eaten a very substantial breakfast. Æsculapius says that as Zeus has hitherto considered the quality of his food so much, it is probable that in these lower conditions it may prove to be quantity which will interest him most. He was greatly pleased with a curious kind of aromatic tube which Hermes invented for him this morning.
Rhea.
Does Zeus blow down it?
Circe.
No; he puts fire to one end of it, and draws in the vapour. He is delighted. How clever Hermes is, is he not, Rhea? What shall you do here?
Rhea.
I must look after Kronos, of course. But he gives me no trouble. And I do not need to do much more. I am very tired, Circe. I was tired in my immortality. When Kronos and I were young, things were so very different in Olympus.
Circe.
How were they different? Do tell me what happened. I have always longed to know, but it was not considered quite nice, quite respectful to Zeus, for us to ask questions about the Golden Age. But now it cannot matter; can it, Rhea?
Rhea [after a pause].
The fact is that when I look back, I cannot see very plainly any longer. Do you know, Circe, that after the younger Gods invaded Heaven, although Zeus was very good-natured to us, and let us go on as deities, something of our god-head passed away?
Kronos [aloud, to himself].
I said to him, "If I am unwelcome, I can go." And he answered, "Pray don't discommode yourself." Just like that; very politely, "Don't discommode yourself." And now he drives us away after all.
Circe [flinging herself over to Kronos' knees].
Oh! Kronos, he does not drive you away! It is not he. It is our new enemies, not of our own race, that have driven us. And we are all here – Pallas, Ares, Phœbus – we are all here. You like Hermes, do you not, Kronos? Well, Hermes is here, and he will amuse you.
Kronos.
I thought that Zeus had forgiven us. But never mind, never mind!
Rhea.
We are tired, Circe. And what does the new life matter to us now? The old life had run low, and we had long been prepared for mortality by the poverty of our immortality.
[Enter Hermes running.]
Hermes [in reply to a gesture of Circe].
I cannot stay. I am trying to rouse Demeter from her dreadful state of depression. She sits in the palace heaving deep sighs, and doing absolutely nothing else. It will affect her heart, Æsculapius say.
Circe.
She has always been so closely wedded to the study of agriculture, and now…
Hermes.
Precisely. And it has occurred to me that the way to rouse her will be to send Persephone to her in a little country cart I have discovered. I have two mouse-coloured ponies already caught and harnessed – such little beauties. The only thing left to do is to search for Persephone.
Circe.
I will find her in a moment. [Exit.]
Rhea.
We hear that you have already invented a means of amusing Zeus, Hermes? Is he prepared to forget his thunderbolt?
Hermes.
He has mentioned it only twice this morning, and I have set Hephæstus to work to make him another, of yew-tree wood. It will be less incommodious, more fitted to this place, and in a very short time Zeus will forget the original.
Kronos [loudly, to himself].
Zeus gave me an orb and sceptre to console me. I used to play cup and ball with them behind his throne.
Rhea [in a solicitous aside to Hermes].
Oh! it is not true. Kronos' mind now wanders so strangely. He thinks that it is Zeus who has turned him out of Olympus.
Hermes [in the same tone].
Do not distress him, Rhea, by contradiction and explanation. I will find modes of amusing him a little every day, and, for the rest, let him doze in the sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth that it fails any longer to catch in ideas as they flit against it. They pass off, glide away. It is useless, Rhea, to torment Kronos.
Rhea.
I shall watch him, all day long. For I, too, am weary. Do not propose to me, with your restless energy, any fresh interests. Let me sit, with my cold hands folded in my lap, and look at Kronos, nodding, nodding. It is very kind of Circe, but we are too old for love; and of you, but we are too old for amusement. Let us rest, Hermes, rest and sleep; perhaps dream a little, dream of the far-away past.
[Circe and Persephone enter from the left.]
Persephone [to Hermes].
My mother requires so much activity of mind and body. You must not believe that I was neglecting her. But I went forth in despair this morning to see what I could invent, adapt, discover, as a means of rousing her. I am stupid, I could think of nothing. I wandered through the woods, down the glen, along the sea-shore, up the side of the tarn and of the marsh, but I could think of nothing.
Circe.
And when I found Persephone she was lying, flung out among the flowers, with bees and butterflies leaping round her in the sunshine, and the beech-leaves singing their faint song of peace. It was beautiful, it was like Enna – with, ah! such a difference.
Persephone.
Circe does not tell you that I was so foolish as to be in tears. But now it seems that you have invented an occupation for Ceres? You are so divinely ingenious.
Hermes.
I hope it may be successful.
Persephone.
