[PALLAS ATHENE _comes rapidly down the steps from the house and speaks while still behind_ EROS.] PALLAS. I have brought with me the box which Epimetheus made for Pandora. EROS [_turning suddenly_]. Ah! Pallas! What, you have brought that ivory box with you? Why did you burden your hands with that? PALLAS. I snatched it from the burning palace. There is something strange at the bottom of it--something like an opal, with a violet flame in it. EROS. Alas! we have no great need of jewels here. This shining beech-leaf is the treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a little bough of it, bent just above the white enamel of your forehead. It will be as green as a beryl to-day, and red like copper to-morrow, and perhaps you will need no third adornment. PALLAS. There is something in the carven box which the shrieking oracle commended to me. "Take this," it said, "take this, and it will turn the blackness of exile into living light." EROS. Poor oracle, it became mad before it became dumb. PALLAS. I was the only one of us all, Eros, who anticipated this change. High up above the glaciers of Olympus, where the warm crystal shone like ice, and the faint cumuli rained jasmine on us, and the blue light was like the cold acid of a fruit, in the midst of our incomparable felicity I pondered on the vicissitude of things. EROS. You only, I remember, ever heeded the foolish screaming oracle that moaned for mortals. You always had something of the mortal temperament, Pallas. It jarred upon my mother that you seem to shudder even at the voluptuous turmoil of the senses. She said you always looked old. You look younger now than she does, Pallas. PALLAS. I am neither old nor young. I know not what I am. But this grey colour and those blowing woods are not unpleasing to me. I can be _myself_, even here, on a beech-wood peak in the cold sea. [_Enter up the steps_ ZEUS, _leaning heavily on_ GANYMEDE, _and attended by many other Gods_.] EROS, POSEIDON, _and_ PALLAS. Hail! father and king! ZEUS. I can push on no farther. Why have I brought you here? [_Gazing round._] Nay, it is you who have brought me here. [_He moves up the scene._] I have a demon in my legs, that swells them, breaks them, crushes me down. [_To_ GANYMEDE.] You are careless; stiffen your shoulder, it slopes like a woman's. I have lost my thunderbolt, I have lost everything. Shall I be _bound_ upon this muddy, slippery rock? What is that horror in the sky? POSEIDON. It is some dark bird of the north; it seeks a prey in the woodlands. ZEUS. I think it is a vulture. My eagle fled from me when the rebel whistled to it. It perched beside him, and smoothed its crest against his elbow. All have left me, even my eagle. PALLAS. Father, we have not left you. We are about you here. One by one the alleys of the beech-wood will open, and one after one we shall all gather here, all your children, all the Olympians. ZEUS.