HEPHAESTUS

Have you seen how bonny Maia’s newborn baby ¹ is, Apollo, and what a nice smile it has for everyone? You can see already it’ll be a real treasure.

APOLLO

That baby a real treasure, Hephaestus? Why, it’s already older than Iapetus ² when it comes to mischief.

HEPHAESTUS

What harm could it do? It was born only the other day.

APOLLO

Ask Poseidon—it stole his trident—or Ares—it filched his sword out of his scabbard—not to mention myself—it disarmed me of my bow and arrows.

HEPHAESTUS

What? That newborn infant, which can hardly stand up, and is still in its baby-clothes?

APOLLO

You’ll see for yourself, my dear fellow, if he gets near you.

HEPHAESTUS

But he’s already been near me.

APOLLO

And what happened? Still got all your tools? None gone?

HEPHAESTUS

All present and correct, Apollo.

APOLLO

All the same, have a really good look.

HEPHAESTUS

Good heavens, I can’t see my tongs.

APOLLO

No, you’ll see them in his baby-clothes.

HEPHAESTUS

Can he have been practising stealing in his mother’s womb, that he’s so light-fingered?

APOLLO

Well, haven’t you heard him speaking? He already has a glib and fluent tongue. And he wants to be our message boy. And yesterday he challenged Eros to wrestle with him, and in no time at all took his feet from under him somehow and had him on the ground. When they were still congratulating him and Aphrodite gave him a hug for winning, he stole her girdle, and, before Zeus had stopped laughing, his sceptre into the bargain; and if his thunderbolt hadn’t been too heavy and scorching hot, he’d have had that too and nobody any the wiser.

HEPHAESTUS

The child’s too sharp for words, by your account.

APOLLO

Yes, and he’s already shown he’s musical.

HEPHAESTUS

How can you tell that?

APOLLO

He picked up a dead tortoise somewhere, and made himself a musical instrument out of it; he’s fitted arms to it, with a yoke across, then driven in pegs, fitted a bridge, and stretched seven strings across; he plays a dainty melody with it, Hephaestus, well in tune, so that even I am green with envy for all my years of practice on the harp. Even at night, Maia was telling me, he wouldn’t stay in heaven, but would go all the way down to Hades out of curiosity—to steal something from there, I’ve no doubt. He has wings on his feet, and has had someone make him a rod with marvellous powers, and with it leads down the souls of the dead.

HEPHAESTUS

I gave him that for a toy.

APOLLO

Well, he’s paid you back for that good and proper—the tongs, you know.

HEPHAESTUS

Thanks for reminding me. I’ll go and get them back, if they’re to be found, as you say, in his baby-clothes.

Aphrodite

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.

Selene

Ah, Aphrodite, ask that son of yours; it is he must answer for it all.

Aphrodite

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.

Aphrodite

But tell me, is Endymion handsome? That is always a comfort in our humiliation.

Selene

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.