t he. It is our
new enemies, not of our own race, that have driven us. And we are
all here--Pallas, Ares, Phoebus--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, Aesculapius 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
Hephaestus 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 ve