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--eyebright, and crane's bills and small blue pansies, when---- FAUNA. There glided out of the intertwisted fibres of the blue-berries a serpent---- ALCYONE. Grey, with black arrows down the spine, and a flat, diabolical head---- FAUNA. And Cydippe never saw it, and stretched out her hand again, and--see---- SILVANUS. The viper fixed his fangs here, in the blue division of the vein, here in her translucent wrist. See, it swells, it darkens! FAUNA. And with a scream she fell, and swooned away, and died, turning backwards, so that her hair caught in the springy herbage, and her head rolled a little in her pain, so that her hair was loosened and tightened, and look, there are still little tufts of blue-berry leaves in her hair. SILVANUS. But here comes Aesculapius. [_They all greet_ AESCULAPIUS, _who enters from the left, with his basket of remedies_.] PERSEPHONE. Ah! sage master of simples, this is a problem beyond thy solution, a case beyond thy cure. AESCULAPIUS [_to the goddesses_]. You think that Cydippe is dead? MAIA. Unquestionably. The savage viper has slain her. AESCULAPIUS. Then prepare to behold what should seem a greater miracle to you than to me. But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of clothing very tightly round the upper part of her arm, for no more than we can help of those treasonable messengers must fly posting from the wound to Cydippe's heart. PERSEPHONE [_sententiously_]. It can receive no more such messages. AESCULAPIUS. I think you are mistaken. And now, Fauna, a few drops of water in this cup from the trickling spring yonder. That is well. Stand farther away from Cydippe, all of you. PERSEPHONE.