Hypolympia

RHEA.

We hear that you have already invented a means of amusing Zeus, Hermes? Is he prepared to forget his thunderbolt?

HERMES.

He has mentioned it only twice this morning, and I have set Hephæstus to work to make him another, of yew-tree wood. It will be less incommodious, more fitted to this place, and in a very short time Zeus will forget the original.

KRONOS [loudly, to himself].

Zeus gave me an orb and sceptre to console me. I used to play cup and ball with them behind his throne.

RHEA [in a solicitous aside to HERMES].

Oh! it is not true. Kronos' mind now wanders so strangely. He thinks that it is Zeus who has turned him out of Olympus.

HERMES [in the same tone].

Do not distress him, Rhea, by contradiction and explanation. I will find modes of amusing him a little every day, and, for the rest, let him doze in the sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth that it fails any