It will not raise mine; for all of you, Eros, have been immortals from the beginning, and your mortality is a new and pungent flavour on the moral palate. But the taste of it was known of old to me, and I am not its dupe. It simply carries me back to the ancient weary round of ceaseless struggle, unending battle, incessant renascence of the sprouting heads of Hydra; to all that from which the windless Olympus was a refuge. Hope is presented--to one who has tasted it and who knows that it is futile--without reawakening, under such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure. The jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality; it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal. [_Sounds of laughter are heard, and steps ascending from the shore._] EROS [_to_ HERACLES]. Draw your lion's skin about you less negligently, Heracles; I hear visitants approaching. You are not in the woodways of OEta. [_The_ OCEANIDES _rush in from the lower woodlands. They are carrying torches, and arrive in a condition of the highest exhilaration._ EROS _proceeds a step or two to meet them, with a smile and a mock reverence_. HERACLES, _brooding over his knees, does not even raise his eyes at their clamorous entry_.] EROS. Are you proceeding to set our Father Zeus on fire, or do you intend to repeat on our unwilling Heracles the rites of canonisation? Have a care with those absurd flambeaux; you will put all the underwood aflame. What are you doing with torches? AMPHITRITE. It was Hephaestus who gave them to us to hold. He is in a cave down there by the sea, making the most ingenious things in the darkness. He called us in to hold these lights---- DORIS. And oh, Eros, we had such fun, teasing him---- PITHO. He was quite angry at last---- AMPHITRITE. And threatened to nail us to the cliff---- PITHO. And off we ran, and left him in the dark. DORIS. He is coming after us. I never felt so frightened. AMPHITRITE. I never enjoyed myself anywhere so much. PITHO. Come away, come away! If he is going to pursue, let us give him a long chase, and leave him panting at last! [_The_ OCEANIDES _escape, in a tumult of laughter, through the upper woods, as_ HEPHAESTUS, _limping heavily, and much out of breath, appears from below_.] HEPHAESTUS The rogues, the rogues! EROS. What a cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, Hephaestus, that you do not escape, even here, from the echoes of the laughter of heaven. HERACLES [_savagely_]. Follow them, and strike them down. Take my club, Hephaestus, if you have lost your hammer. HEPHAESTUS. Strike them! Strike the darling rogues? I would as soon wrap your too-celebrated tunic about a little playful marmozet. What is the matter with you, Heracles? HERACLES.