"These plead for the fruitful earth. I plead for the fruitless sea. Fair as a maiden in its grace, fierce as a mænad in its rage. Unchanging, ever-changing, pitiful and pitiless, kind and cruel, ceaselessly beautiful. Surely you will not surrender companionship with the sight and the sound and the savor of the sea." So Poseidon spoke, arrogant, and was silent, and it seemed to the sleeper that from afar, from the side of the sea, there rose unearthly music as from the breath of the sea-people blown through the curling conch. And the next to speak was the divine one with the crested head, she that carries a lance and bears the face of Medusa on her shield, Pallas Athena, protector of Athens. A wise owl rode on her shoulder and made as if it whispered in her ear. And Pallas Athena spoke to Argathona, and said: "It is better to be wise in the wisdom of the woodlands than wise in the wisdom of mortals, for mortal man is born to trouble, and mortal woman is born to travail, and the life of each is like the puff of breath that an infant spends in a cry. The child of the wildwood lives idly, divinely, knowing neither cark nor care, and day succeeds day, delicious, and shall succeed till the new order changes and the gods return again." And so she was silent, and the owl on her shoulder ruffled its neck-feathers and winked its eyes benignly at the sleeping child. And the next to speak was Hermes, the subtle contriver, the crafty, with the living wings upon his heels and the twisting snakes upon his staff, and he spoke to Argathona, and his voice entreated wheedlingly, and it had the persuasion of music rippling from the stringed shell of the tortoise. And Hermes spoke to her, and said: "My kinswoman, put no faith in the words of man, for the lips that praised us yesterday praise another lord to-day, and who knows what such fluctuant minds may praise to-morrow. Mortal man is guileful and his speech is a snare, but thou, being warned, be wily and deny him and let him die." So he spoke and was silent, and the wings on his heels ceased to quiver and the snakes stiffened about his rod. Then the girl-goddess Artemis glided over the grass, short-kirtled, the comely huntress, with her bow and arrows upon her, and some stray locks of her pale hair floating on her neck. And Artemis spoke to Argathona as she slept, and said: "Sweet sister, living the life I loved to live in the dear woodways with the citizens of the wood, take heed to my speech and be cheered. Shun the love of mortal, for your lover will die as Endymion died, and you will remember him for a while and weep, as I remembered and wept for Endymion. But time can sweeten the grief that wrings for a season the deathless heart, wherefore be wise with time betimes, and abide our coming though it be long delayed; for while you wait you have endless pleasure in the changing days and the shifting seasons and the swelling years, in the sunshine and the moonshine and the shining of the stars."