Persephone; and the possession of Helen, as we shall see in the third act, is the reward of his intrepidity. But, though Faust seems now amply provided for, the phantasmal hubbub goes on. The Sirens and the Sphynxes again come to the front, singing and soliloquising as before; likewise the ants and the griffins; and to them presently are associated, Seismos (earthquake), the Pygmies or Lilliputians, and the Idæan Dactyles or Tom Thumbs of antiquity; with them--in honour of Schiller, we may suppose--the cranes of Ibycus; then Empusa the foul ass-footed blood-sucking hag, and troops of hideous Lamias to captivate the Gothic taste of Mephistopheles; but even these are not ugly enough for him; so he wanders on through the Fair, till he encounters the three daughters of Phorcys, who had only one eye and one tooth among them; and from one of these he borrows her hideous mask, that he may perform juggleries behind it in a future part of the play. Meanwhile Homunculus, in prosecution of his eager desire to be developed, has hunted out two philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales; and under the guidance of the latter, he proceeds through the peopled air to the adjacent bays of the Ægean Sea, where the marine gods and demi-gods are holding their revels. To this water-festival the scene finally changes; and forthwith a new swarm of vocal apparitions begins to buzz around us; among whom (besides the Sirens, whom we had before) Nereus and Proteus, the Telchins of Rhodes, the Cabiri of Samothrace, with troops of shell-blowing Tritons, and Nereids riding on dolphins and hippocampes, are the most remarkable. With these fair apparitions, and the pleasant aquatic sports in which they are engaged, Homunculus, under the appropriate teaching of Thales, the water-philosopher, seems vastly delighted; and mounting on the dolphin-back of Proteus, careers about from creek to creek, seeking anxiously for a just occasion of being fully developed. This desired consummation, accordingly, happens sooner perhaps than the little man had fancied, and in an unexpected fashion; for, as he bounds along from wave to wave gallantly, on the back of the multiform sea-god, the lovely Galatea, the fairest of the daughters of Doris, suddenly presents herself to his view, all radiant with marine beauty, like a sea-Venus, drawn in a shell-car. To stand unmoved at such a spectacle was not possible, as we may remember, even to ponderous Polypheme in the Ovidian ballad, much less to a nimble and highly excitable Homunculus. A commotion is immediately observed in the waters close to Galatea's car; the silver foam becomes red and glowing; the spark of Homunculus dilates itself into a blaze; a breaking of glass and a plashing of water is heard; and a bright illumination spreads itself widely over the festal waves. Hereupon breaks in full and symphonious the song of the Sirens.