APHRODITE

Why is it, Eros, that though you’ve triumphed over all the other gods, Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Rhea and myself, your mother, you make an exception of Athena and keep clear of her, and for her your torch has no fire, your quiver no arrows, and you no bow or sense of aim?

EROS

I’m afraid of her, mother. She scares me with her flashing eyes, and she’s terribly like a man. Why, when I string my bow and go after her, I get terrified at the first shake of her crest, and start trembling and dropping my arrows from my hands.

APHRODITE

Well, didn’t you find Ares more frightening? Yet you disarmed him and conquered him.

EROS

No. He’s glad to welcome and encourage me, but Athena always glowers at me. Once I just flew past with my torch near her, and says she, “If you come near me, as sure as I’m Zeus’ daughter, I’ll run my spear through you, or catch you by the foot and throw you into Tartarus, or I’ll tear you to bits with my own hands and then”—she hurled many threats like that at me. Besides she stares at me so grimly and, oh, she’s got on her breast that terrible face with the snaky hair—that’s what scares me most of all. It gives me the creeps and makes me run the moment I see it.

APHRODITE

Do you mean to tell me you’re afraid of Athena and her Gorgon, though you don’t fear the thunderbolt of Zeus? But why do you leave the Muses unwounded? Why are they safe from your arrows? Do they too have tossing plumes and Gorgons on display?

EROS

I have respect for them, mother; they’re so solemn, always with something to think about or busy with their music; I often stand beside them, bewitched by their melodies.

APHRODITE

Never mind them, then, seeing that they’re so solemn; but why don’t you wound Artemis?

EROS

It’s quite impossible to catch her; she’s always running away over the mountains. Besides, she’s now got a love of her own.

APHRODITE

And its object, my child?

EROS

Hunting deer and fawn, chasing them and catching them, or shooting them down; that’s all she cares about. But that brother of hers, though he’s an archer too and a long shot—

APHRODITE

I know, my boy, you’ve hit him often enough with your arrows.

Hermes

Mother, I am the most miserable god in Heaven.

Maia

Don’t say such things, child.

Hermes

Am I to do all the work of Heaven with my own hands, to be hurried from one piece of drudgery to another, and never say a word? I have to get up early, sweep the dining-room, lay the cushions and put all to rights: then I have to wait on Zeus and take his messages, up and down, all day long:- and I am no sooner back again (no time for a wash) than I have to lay the table; and there was the nectar to pour out, too, till this new cup-bearer was bought. And it really is too bad, that when every one else is in bed, I should have to go off to Pluto with the Shades, and play the usher in Rhadamanthus’s court. It is not enough that I must be busy all day in the wrestlingground and the Assembly and the schools of rhetoric, the dead must have their share in me too.

Hermes

Leda’s sons take turn and turn about betwixt Heaven and Hades—I have to be in both every day. And why should the sons of Alcmena and Semele, paltry women, why should they feast at their ease, and I—the son of Maia, the grandson of Atlas—wait upon them? And now here am I only just back from Sidon, where he sent me to see after Europa, and before I am in breath again—off I must " go to Argos, in quest of Danae, ‘and you can take Boeotia on your way,’ says father, ‘and see Antiope.’ I am half dead with it all. Mortal slaves are better off than I am: they have the chance of being sold to a new master; I wish I had the same!

Maia

Come, come, child. You must do as your father bids you, like a good boy. Run along now to Argos and Boeotia; don’t loiter, or you will get a whipping. Lovers are apt to be hasty.