h all these textures of the body?

PERSEPHONE.

One of our priests in Hades, I do remember, sang that silence was
a voice, and declared that even in the deserts of immensity the soul
was stunned and deafened by the chorus and anti-chorus of nature.

CHLORIS.

What did he mean? What is the soul?

MAIA.

I must confess that in this our humility, our corporeal
degradation, instead of feeling crushed, I am curiously conscious
of a wider range of sensibility. Perhaps that is the soul? Perhaps,
in the suppression of our immortality, something metallic,
something hermetical, has been broken down, and already we stand
more easily exposed to the influences of the spirit?

CHLORIS.

In that case, to slough the sheaths of the body, one by one, ought
to be to come nearer to the final freedom, and the last coronation
and consecration of existence may prove to be this very "death" we
dread so much.

PERSEPHONE.

I can fancy that such conjectures as these may prove to be one of
the chief sources of satisfaction in this new mortality of ours:
the variegated play of light and shadow thrown upon it. Well, the
less we know and see, the more exciting it ought to be to guess
and to peer.

MAIA.

And some of us, depend upon it, will be able to persuade ourselves
that we alone can use our eyesight in the pitch profundity of
darkness, and these will find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting
the others who have less confidence in their imagination.

[_They seat themselves, and are silent. Far away is once more
faintly heard the song, and then it dies away. A long
silence. Then, a confused hum of cries and voices is heard,
and approaches the terrace from below. The Goddesses start
to their feet. From the left appear_ SILVANUS, ALCYONE _and_
FAUNA, _bearing the body of_ CYDIPPE, _which they place very
carefully on the grass in front of the scene_.]

CHLORIS [_in an excited whisper_].

Is this our first experience of the mystery?

FAUNA _and_ ALCYONE.

She is dead! She is dead!

MAIA.

The first of the immortals to succumb to the burden of mortality!

SILVANUS.

Where is Aesculapius? Call him, call him!

MAIA.

He cannot bring back the dead.

PERSEPHONE.

What has happened? Cydippe is livid, her limbs are stark, her
eyes are wide open, and motionless, and unnaturally brilliant.

SILVANUS [_to_ CHLORIS].

She was gathering a little posy of your wild flowers--e