'BUT this may not be. Age is shrouding you down into death, pitiless age that on all men someday will come, loathed by the very gods, crushing and wearisome. Henceforth among the immortal gods I must bend, because of you, in a shame that knows no end. Till now my beguiling jests and laughter they dreaded, and one and all with women of earth I bedded; for though they struggled, yet my will was stronger. But now my mouth will possess this power no longer in heaven, for I have been mad. I have fallen the prey of a mastering magick, which drove my wits astray. Under my girdle a man and his seed I have taken. But when the time comes for the child in the light to awaken, the Nymphs will rear him suckled at their deep breasts, the Nymphs of the mountain, that haunt these holy crests. Neither gods, wholly, are they, nor of mortal breed, but long with the earth they live and on heaven they feed, and with the immortals the dances of beauty they trace, and the Sileni hug them in warm embrace, and quick-eyed Hermes, in caverns of cool surprise; and when they are born, from the childing earth arise pinetrees or oaks that spread out their branches on high, beautiful mountain-trees that mix with the sky, -- the abode of immortal spirits (so all men declare) unscathed by the woodman; for none brings iron there. But when the fate of death looms close at hand, the beautiful trees must shrivel away where they stand; the bark is scabby, on earth all the foliage lies, and out of the sunlight a tree and a spirit dies. 'These Nymphs will rear up our baby, and when at length he gains the loveliness of boyhood's strength, the goddesses will bring him that you may see; and then, to tell you my thoughts of destiny, in the fifth year I'll return and fetch the boy; and that bough of our grafted flesh will give you joy when you see how godlike he is. Then I'll bid you begone away at once to windy Ilion. But if you should ever be asked by a man of earth under whose girdle your son was brought to birth, answer as I bid you, recall my power. Say he was got on a Nymph with a body like a flower, a Nymph who dwells in a covert of the mountain-side. But if you answer, mad in your boastful pride, that you lay in bed and the crowned Cythereia lay under, Zeus will slash you with a bolt of smoking thunder. Now you have heard me. Remember well each word. Speak not my name, or wrath of gods will be stirred.' |