_Zeus_. What I say: crack my skull. Any insubordination, now, and you shall taste my resentment; it will not be the first time. Come, a good lusty stroke, and quick about it. I am in the pangs of travail; my brain is in a whirl. _Heph_. Mind you, the consequences may be serious: the axe is sharp, and will prove but a rough midwife. _Zeus_. Hew away, and fear nothing. I know what I am about. _Heph_. H'm. I don't like it: however, one must obey orders…. Why, what have we here? A maiden in full armour! This is no joke, Zeus. You might well be waspish, with this great girl growing up beneath your _pia mater_; in armour, too! You have been carrying a regular barracks on your shoulders all this time. So active too! See, she is dancing a war-dance, with shield and spear in full swing. She is like one inspired; and (what is more to the point) she is extremely pretty, and has come to marriageable years in these few minutes; those grey eyes, even, look well beneath a helmet. Zeus, I claim her as the fee for my midwifery. _Zeus_. Impossible! She is determined to remain a maid for ever. Not that _I_ have any objection, personally. _Heph_. That is all I want. You can leave the rest to me. I'll carry her off this moment. _Zeus_. Well, if you think it so easy. But I am sure it is a hopeless case. F. XI _Aphrodite. Selene_ _Aph_. What is this I hear about you, Selene? When your car is over Caria, you stop it to gaze at Endymion sleeping hunter-fashion in the open; sometimes, they tell me, you actually get out and go down to him. _Sel_. Ah, Aphrodite, ask that son of yours; it is he must answer for it all. _Aph_. Well now, what a naughty boy! he gets his own mother into all sorts of scrapes; I must go down, now to Ida for Anchises of Troy, now to Lebanon for my Assyrian stripling;—mine? no, he put Persephone in love with him too, and so robbed me of half my darling. I have told him many a time that if he would not behave himself I would break his artillery for him, and clip his wings; and before now I have smacked his little behind with my slipper. It is no use; he is frightened and cries for a minute or two, and then forgets all about it. But tell me, is Endymion handsome? That is always a comfort in our humiliation. _Sel_. _Most_ handsome, _I_ think, my dear; you should see him when he has spread out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards, making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake and startle him—but there, you know all about it; why tell you the rest? I am dying of love, that is all. H. XII _Aphrodite. Eros_