the caverns, or
supporting the stones on their shoulders, huge bodies chained. These are
the Titans, the Giants, the Hecatonchires, and the Cyclops.

A voice rises, indistinct and formidable,--like the murmur of the waves,
like the sound heard in woods during a storm, like the roaring of the
wind down a precipice:

"We knew it, we of all others! The gods were doomed to die. Uranus was
mutilated by Saturn, and Saturn by Jupiter. He will be himself
annihilated. Each in its turn. It is destiny!"

And, by degrees, they plunge into the mountain, and disappear.

Meanwhile, the roof of the palace of gold flies away.

Jupiter descends from his throne. The thunder at his feet smokes like a
brand that is almost extinguished; and the eagle, stretching its neck,
gathers with its beak its falling plumes.

"So, then, I am no longer the master of things, all-good, all-powerful,
god of the phratriae and of the Greek peoples, ancestor of all the kings,
the Agamemnon of Heaven!

"Eagle of the apotheoses, what breath of Erebus has driven thee to me?
or, flying from the Campus Martius, dost thou bring to me the soul of
the last of the Emperors?

"I no longer desire those of men! Let the earth guard them, and let them
be moved on a level with its baseness. They now have hearts of slaves;
they forget injuries, ancestors, oaths; and everywhere the folly of
mobs, the mediocrity of the individual, and the hideousness of races
reign supreme!"

His respiration makes his sides swell even to bursting, and he writhes
with his hands. Hebe in tears presents a cup to him. He seizes it:

"No! no! As long as there will be, no matter where, a head enclosing
thought which hates disorder and realises the idea of Law, the spirit of
Jupiter will live!"

But the cup is empty. He turns it around slowly on his finger-nail.

"Not a drop! When ambrosia fails, there is an end of the Immortals!"

It slips out of his hand, and he leans against a pillar, feeling that he
is dying.

_Juno_--"There was no need of so many loves! Eagle, bull, swan, golden
shower, cloud and flame, thou hast assumed every form, scattered thy
light in every element, hidden thy head on every couch! This time the
divorce is irrevocable--and our sway, our very existence, is dissolved!"

She rushes away into the air!

Minerva no longer has her spear; and the ravens, which nestled in the
sculptures of the frieze, whirl round her, and bite at her helmet.

"Let me see whether m