HYPOLYMPIA Or The Gods in the Island An Ironic Fantasy, Edmund Gosse [classic literature list .txt] 📗

ZEUS.

A vast rainbow from the three white vessels to this island!... And behold, a figure steps from it. She is robed to the feet in palest watchet blue, and her face is like a rosy star, and she waves her violet wings in the incommunicable speed of her ascent. My children, it is Iris, our lost daughter, our ineffable messenger. Let us await in silence the tidings which she brings.

[ZEUS seats himself, and the Gods take their places as before. The air is now translucent, the sky cloudless, while the beechwoods flash with the lustre of dew, and the sea beyond the white ships is like a floor of turquoise. IRIS is seen to rise from the shore, through the gorge in the woods. She approaches, half flying, half climbing, with incredible velocity. She appears, in her splendour, at the top of the stairs, and looks round upon the Gods. Without exception, in the magnificence of her presence they look grey and old and dim. She hesitates a moment, and then kneels before the throne of ZEUS.]

IRIS.

Father and lawgiver! Imperial Master of Heaven! The rebellion in Olympus is over. The usurper has fallen under the weight of his own presumption, lower than the lowest chasms of Hades, chained for all eternity by the fetters of his own insolence and madness. It is not needful for you, Zeus, to punish or to be clement. Under the inevitable rebound of his impious frenzy, himself has sealed his doom for ever and ever. It is now for the Father of Heaven, and these his children, to resume their immortality and to regain their incomparable abodes. Be it my reward for the joyous labour of bringing the good news, to be the first to kiss these awful and eternal feet.

[IRIS flings herself before ZEUS in adoration, and folds her wings about her face. As she touches him, his deity blazes forth from him. When IRIS rises again, she glances round at the Gods with gratified astonishment, for all of them have become brilliant and young.]

ZEUS.

Lead the way, Iris. This is no longer a place for us. Lead on and we will follow. Lead on, that we may resume our immortality.

[IRIS flies down to the sea, and ZEUS descends the steps. He is followed by all the other deities.]

CIRCE.

Were we really happy among these trees? I can scarcely credit it, they seem so common and so frail.

NIKE.

Ha, my palm and my laurel and my wings. How can I have breathed without them for an hour?

APHRODITE [to EROS].

Shall we recollect this little episode when we walk up the golden street presently to our houses?

EROS.

I cannot think so, mother. That refinement of memory of which Phoebus was speaking will seem the most ridiculous of illusions there.

PHOEBUS.

Yes; to cultivate illusion, to live in the past, to resuscitate experience, may be the amusements of mortality, but they mean nothing now to us. When Selene re-enters her orb, she will not disquiet herself about the disorders of its interregnum.

PALLAS [hastily reascending].

I have left Pandora's jewel behind me. I must fetch it.

HERMES [the last to descend].

Let me confess that I took it from you. One of the barbarians was weeping, and I wished, I cannot tell why, to see her smile. I gave your jewel to her.

PALLAS.

It is of no moment. It would be an inconspicuous ornament in that blaze of the heart's beauty to which the white ships are about to carry us.

HERMES.

Come, then, Pallas, and let us linger here no more.

[They descend and disappear.]

Publication Date: 01-17-2015

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