Dialogues of the Sea-gods: (10.1-12.2)

Iris Posidon: you know that floating island, that was torn away from Sicily, and is still drifting about under water; you are to bring it to the surface, Zeus says, and fix it well in view in the middle of the Aegean; and mind it is properly secured; he has a use for it.

Posidon Very good. And when I have got it up, and anchored it, what is he going to do with it?

Iris Leto is to lie in there; her time is near.

Posidon And is there no room in Heaven? Or is Earth too small to hold her children?

Iris Ah, you see, Hera has bound the Earth by a great oath not to give shelter to Leto in her travail. This island, however, being out of sight, has not committed itself.

Posidon I see.—Island, be still! Rise once more from the depths; and this time there must be no sinking. Henceforth you are terra firma; it will be your happiness to receive my brother’s twin children, fairest of the Gods.—Tritons, you will have to convey Leto across. Let all be calm.—As to that

serpent who is frightening her out of her senses, wait till these children are born; they will soon avenge their mother.—You can tell Zeus that all is ready. Delos stands firm: Leto has only to come.

Xanthus O Sea, take me to you; see how horribly I have been treated; cool my wounds for me.

Sea What is this, Xanthus? who has burned you?

Xanthus Hephaestus. Oh, I am burned to cinders! oh, oh, oh, I boil!

Sea What made him use his fire upon you?

Xanthus Why, it was all that son of your Thetis. He was slaughtering the Phrygians; I tried entreaties, but he went raging on, damming my stream with their bodies; I was so sorry for the poor wretches, I poured down to see if I could make a flood and frighten him off them. But Hephaestus happened to be about, and he must have collected every particle of fire he had in Etna or anywhere else; on he came at me, scorched my elms and tamarisks, baked the poor fishes and eels, made me boil over, and very nearly dried me up altogether. You see what a state I am in with the burns.

Sea Indeed you are thick and hot, Xanthus, and no wonder; the dead men’s blood accounts for one, and the fire for the other, according to your story. Well, and serve you right; assaulting my grandson, indeed! paying no more respect to the son of a Nereid than that!

Xanthus Was I not to take compassion on the Phrygians? they are my neighbours.

Sea And was Hephaestus not to take compassion on Achilles? he is the son of Thetis.

Doris Crying, dear?

Thetis Oh, Doris, I have just seen a lovely girl thrown into a chest by her father, and her little baby with her; and he gave the chest to some sailors, and told them, as soon as they were far enough from the shore, to drop it into the water; he meant them to be drowned, poor things.

Doris Oh, sister, but why? What was it all about? Did you hear?

Thetis Her father, Acrisius, wanted to keep her from marrying. And, as she was so pretty, he shut her up in an iron room. And I don’t know whether it’s true—but they say that Zeus turned himself into gold, and came showering down through the roof, and she caught the gold in her lap,—and it was Zeus all the time. And then her father found out about it—he is a horrid, jealous old man—and he was furious, and thought she had been receiving a lover; and he put her into the chest, the moment the child was born.

Doris And what did she do then?

Thetis She never said a word against her own sentence; she was ready to submit: but she pleaded hard for the child’s life, and cried, and held him up for his grandfather to see; and there was the sweet babe, that thought no harm, smiling at the waves. I am beginning again, at the mere remembrance of it.

Doris You make me cry, too. And is it all over?

Thetis No; the chest has carried them safely so far; it is by Seriphus.

Doris Then why should we not save them? We can put the

chest into those fishermen’s nets, look; and then of course they will be hauled in, and come safe to shore.

Thetis The very thing. She shall not die; nor the child, sweet treasure!