HERMES

To think, Apollo, that a poor cripple and mere artisan like him has married the two fairest of the fair, Aphrodite and Charis! ¹

APOLLO

That’s just good luck, my dear fellow; but what does surprise me is that they can stand living with him, especially when they see him bathed in sweat, bending over his furnace, with soot all over his face. And yet they embrace a creature like that and kiss him and sleep with him.

HERMES

That annoys me too, and makes me jealous of Hephaestus. You can show off your fine hair, Apollo, and play on your harp, and be proud of your beauty, and I of my fine physique and my lyre, but when it comes to bedtime, we’ve got to sleep alone.

APOLLO

I’m Generally unlucky in love; at least I lost my two special sweethearts, Daphne and Hyacinthus. Daphne so loathes and shuns me that she’s chosen to turn into a tree rather than share my company, and Hyacinthus was killed by that quoit. All that’s left of them for me is wreaths.

HERMES

And I once with Aphrodite—but I mustn’t boast.

APOLLO

I know. They say she presented you with Hermaphroditus. But tell me, if you can, why Aphrodite and Charis are not jealous of each other.

HERMES

Because, my dear fellow, Charis keeps company with him in Lemnos, and Aphrodite in heaven. Besides, Aphrodite is most wrapped up in Ares, and in love with him, and so doesn’t trouble much about this blacksmith fellow.

APOLLO

Do you think Hephaestus knows of this?

HERMES

Of course he does, but what can he do when he sees Ares is such a fine strapping young fellow, and a man of war? So he keeps quiet. But he’s threatening to invent some sort of trap ² for them, and to catch them in a net on the bed.

APOLLO

That’s news to me; but I know I’d like to be destined to fall into that trap myself.

Hera

I must congratulate you, madam, on the children with whom you have presented Zeus.

Leto

Ah, madam; we cannot all be the proud mothers of Hephaestuses.

Hera

My boy may be a cripple, but at least he is of some use. He is a wonderful smith, and has made Heaven look another place; and Aphrodite thought him worth marrying, and dotes on him still. But those two of yours!—that girl is wild and mannish to a degree; and now she has gone off to Scythia, and her doings there are no secret; she is as bad as any Scythian herself,—butchering strangers and eating them! Apollo, too, who pretends to be so clever, with his bow and his lyre and his medicine and his prophecies; those oracle-shops that he has opened at Delphi, and Clarus, and Dindyma, are a cheat; he takes good care to be on the safe side by giving ambiguous answers that no one can understand, and makes money out of it, for there are plenty of fools who like being imposed upon,—but sensible people know well enough that most of it is clap-trap. The prophet did not know that he was to kill his favourite with a quoit; he never foresaw that Daphne would run away from him, so handsome as he is, too, such beautiful hair! I am not sure, after all, that there is much to choose between your children and Niobe’s.

Leto

Oh, of course; my children are butchers and impostors. I know how you hate the sight of them. You cannot bear to hear my girl complimented on her looks, or my boy’s playing admired by the company.

Hera

His playing, madam!—excuse a smile;—why, if the Muses had not favoured him, his contest with Marsyas would have cost him his skin; poor Marsyas was shamefully used on that occasion; 'twas a judicial murder.—As for your charming daughter, when Actaeon once caught sight of her charms, she had to set the dogs upon him, for fear he should tell all he knew: I forbear to ask where the innocent child picked up her knowledge of obstetrics.

Leto

You set no small value on yourself, madam, because you are the wife of Zeus, and share his throne; you may insult whom you please. But there will be tears presently, when the next bull or swan sets out on his travels, and you are left neglected.