8
TEE HESPERIAN
!
4 r
.
f ul though. I suppose ho has given up weep
ing for Eurydice."
"Eurydice? which one wa3 she? She
must have been one of his old ones,
I have forgotten her. Yes, tenors never
weep long, it's bad for their voice. But
here comes Mars and Sweetie. Mars is
very much smitten."
Sweetie was just the same as of yore, and
as yet had her plumpness well under control.
Beside her walked a tall man in uniform,
with a face wonderfully like the Lieutenant's.
He was .leading a horse, and had his arm
through the bridle. As soon as I saw it I
recognized my new Platonian pony that I
had just bought last week, and groaned in
wardly. The pair strolled sweetly up center
together, and the matronly Diana skipped
gleefully bebind. She went up to the pony
and patted him and fed him sugar, and
Sweetie begged the Lieut, to give him back
to me, which censidoring all the mean things
I had thought about her teeth, was very kind
in her.
Half a dozen of them got to tho front of
the stage and began making love in the us
ual light opera fashion. When they had all
been affectionate, Sweetie danced her famous
fandango, which is tho only thing she really
does well. Then Neptune and the nymphs
came forward and began a most frantic and
furious ballet. Tbe cuitain fell just as Io
was kicking Zouso's hat off Neptune's trident.
Of course they got a curtain call, and all
smiled sweetly except nine rather ancient
, looking dancers on the stage right.
"They're the muses," explained tho Bol-
videre," they are always out of temper in
Anglo countries. It's all because of Shakes
peare of course. He was so much greater
than their little poets, and he would'nt have
anything to do with them, he would'nt in
voke them or even learn their divine lang
uage or burn incense to the second aorist,
and yet when he struck the lyre he just made
their little poets tremble and turn green in
their graves. They have never got over it.
On his account they hate the whole English
speaking world, and they sit apart on their
chilly disagreeable old mountain, tearing
their hair because their patent on poetry has
run out, and they can't control the world's
great inspirations any more.
"Do the Greek chaps know he outnum
bered them."
"Know it? why in Hades the Greek bards
hold poetic contests all the year round to find
a man worthy to be his cup bearer."
I was not a Shakesperian scholar myself,
and most of my Shakesperian knowledge
was of tho sort that one learns just across
tho street from tho Lansing, but tho fellow's
enthusiasm was so genuine that it touched
me.
"Apollo, do you ever drink?" I asked
solemnly.
"Tory often," he answered frankly.
"Then wo will go over to the Shakespeare
and drink to the shade of the great William
and thank the gods that we werei born after
him and not before him, and for the heri
tage that through him is ours."
And we went.
"Neptune and the Nymphs legem afrantio and furious lallet."
