DEM. Ye simple creatures, I need not these things, And stand above your pity. Think ye me A woman of the earth derang'd with grief? Nay, nay: but I have pity on your pity, 480 And for your kindness I will ease the trouble Wherewith it wounds your gentleness: attend! Ye see this jewel here, that from my neck Hangs by this golden chain. [_They crowd near to see._ Look, 'tis a picture, 'Tis of Persephone. CH. How?--Is that she?-- A crown she weareth.--She was never wont Thus ...--nor her robe thus--and her countenance Hath not the smile which drew us from the sea. DEM. Daedalus cut it, in the year he made The Zibian Aphrodite, and Hephaestus 490 O'erlookt and praised the work. I treasure it Beyond all other jewels that I have, And on this chain I guard it. Say now: think ye It cannot fall loose until every link Of all the chain be broken, or if one Break, will it fall? CH. Surely if one break, Lady, The chain is broken and the jewel falls. DEM. 'Tis so. Now hearken diligently. All life Is as this chain, and Zeus is as the jewel. The universal life dwells first in the Earth, 500 The stones and soil; therefrom the plants and trees Exhale their being; and on them the brutes Feeding elaborate their sentient life, And from these twain mankind; and in mankind A spirit lastly is form'd of subtler sort Whereon the high gods live, sustain'd thereby, And feeding on it, as plants on the soil, Or animals on plants. Now see! I hold, As well ye know, one whole link of this chain: If I should kill the plants, must not man perish? 510 And if he perish, then the gods must die. CH. If this were so, thou wouldst destroy thyself. DEM. And therefore Zeus will not believe my word. CH. Nor we believe thee, Lady: it cannot be That thou shouldst seek to mend a private fortune By universal ruin, and restore Thy daughter by destruction of thyself.