FullReads

‘Minerva will ask you to write in her album.’

‘Will she indeed! I am sorry to hear it, for I can scarcely scrawl my signature. I should think that Jove himself cared little for all this nonsense.’

‘Jove loves an epigram. He does not esteem Apollo’s works at all. Jove is of the classical school, and admires satire, provided there be no allusions to Gods and kings.’

‘Of course; I quite agree with him. I remember we had a confounded poet at Larissa who proved my family lived before the deluge, and asked me for a pension. I refused him, and then he wrote an epigram asserting that I sprang from the veritable stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha at the re-peopling of the earth, and retained all the properties of my ancestors.’

‘Ha, ha! Hark! there’s a thunderbolt! I must run to Jove.’

‘And I will look in on the musicians. This way, I think?’

‘Up the ruby staircase, turn to your right, down the amethyst gallery. Farewell!’

‘Good-bye; a lively lad that!’

The King of Thessaly entered the Hall of Music with its golden walls and crystal dome. The Queen of Heaven was reclining in an easy chair, cutting out peacocks in small sheets of note paper. Minerva was making a pencil observation on a manuscript copy of the song: Apollo listened with deference to her laudatory criticisms. Another divine dame, standing by the side of Euterpe, who was seated by the harp, looked up as Ixion entered. The wild liquid glance of her soft but radiant countenance denoted the famed Goddess of Beauty.

Juno just acknowledged the entrance of Ixion by a slight and haughty inclination of the head, and then resumed her employment. Minerva asked him his opinion of her amendment, of which he greatly approved. Apollo greeted him with a melancholy smile, and congratulated him on being mortal. Venus complimented him on his visit to Olympus, and expressed the pleasure that she experienced in making his acquaintance.

‘What do you think of Heaven?’ inquired Venus, in a soft still voice, and with a smile like summer lightning.

‘I never found it so enchanting as at this moment,’ replied Ixion.

‘A little dull? For myself, I pass my time chiefly at Cnidos: you must come and visit me there. ‘Tis the most charming place in the world. ‘Tis said, you know, that our onions are like other people’s roses. We will take care of you, if your wife come.’

‘No fear of that. She always remains at home and piques herself on her domestic virtues, which means pickling, and quarrelling with her husband.’

‘Ah! I see you are a droll. Very good indeed. Well, for my part, I like a watering-place existence. Cnidos, Paphos, Cythera; you will usually find me at one of these places. I like the easy distraction of a career without any visible result. At these fascinating spots your gloomy race, to whom, by-the-bye, I am exceedingly partial, appear emancipated from the wearing fetters of their regular, dull, orderly, methodical, moral, political, toiling existence. I pride myself upon being the Goddess of watering-places. You really must pay me a visit at Cnidos.’

‘Such an invitation requires no repetition. And Cnidos is your favourite spot?’

‘Why, it was so; but of late it has become so inundated with invalid Asiatics and valetudinarian Persians, that the simultaneous influx of the handsome heroes who swarm in from the islands to look after their daughters, scarcely compensates for the annoying presence of their yellow faces and shaking limbs. No, I think, on the whole, Paphos is my favourite.’

‘I have heard of its magnificent luxury.’

‘Oh! ’tis lovely! Quite my idea of country life. Not a single tree! When Cyprus is very hot, you run to Paphos for a sea-breeze, and are sure to meet every one whose presence is in the least desirable. All the bores remain behind, as if by instinct.’

‘I remember when we married, we talked of passing the honeymoon at Cythera, but Dia would have her waiting-maid and a bandbox stuffed between us in the chariot, so I got sulky after the first stage, and returned by myself.’