s_.]

POSEIDON.

Ah, you here alone, Eros?

EROS [_aside_].

It is Poseidon! How old and bluff he looks! [_To_ POSEIDON.] My
mother is within. [_Smiling._] She was angry with you, Poseidon,
but her anger is fallen.

POSEIDON.

Adversity brings us all together. It was once I who burned with
anger against her. Why was she angry?

EROS.

The cruelty of your sea; it shook and sickened her.

POSEIDON.

It once was her sea, too. Now it is not even mine.... Rebellion
everywhere, everywhere the servant risen against the master,
everywhere our spells and portents broken. I rule the sea still,
but it is as a man holds in a wild horse with a hard rein: it obeys
with hatred, it would obey not one moment after the master's hand
was withdrawn.

EROS.

How cold it is. But I am not disconsolate. Nor should you be,
Poseidon, for you will have the sea to occupy your thoughts.
Hephaestus will help you to break it in. He at least should be
consoled, for in our fallen estate his magical ingenuity will
employ his brain.

POSEIDON.

We have never needed to be ingenious. It has been enough for us
to command, to wield the elements like weapons, to say it shall
be and to see it is.

EROS.

To see it is not, and yet to make it be, perhaps this may be a joy
in store for us. For Hephaestus, certainly; for you, if you are
wise; but for me, ah! what will there be? My arrows break against
old hearts, and now we all are old.

[PALLAS ATHENE _comes rapidly down the steps from the house
and speaks while still behind_ EROS.]

PALLAS.

I have brought with me the box which Epimetheus made for Pandora.

EROS [_turning suddenly_].

Ah! Pallas! What, you have brought that ivory box with you? Why
did you burden your hands with that?

PALLAS.

I snatched it from the burning palace. There is something strange at
the bottom of it--something like an opal, with a violet flame in it.

EROS.

Alas! we have no great need of jewels here. This shining beech-leaf
is the treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a little bough of it,
bent just above the white enamel of your forehead. It will be as
green as a beryl to-day, and red like copper to-morrow, and perhaps
you will need no third adornment.

PALLAS.

There is something in the carven box which the shrieking oracle
commended to me. "Take this," it said, "take this, and it will turn
the blackness of exile into living light."

EROS.

Poor oracle, it became mad befo