that Mercury and I use in the celestial courts, but we can do without them.

r

Atlas. A likely thing indeed! So that your father seeing our game, may make a third, and with his thunderbolt precipitate us both I do not know where, as he did Phaeton into the Po!

Hercules. That might be, if, like Phaeton, I were the son of a poet, and not his own son; and if there were not this difference between us, that whereas poets formerly peopled cities by the melody of their art, I could depopulate heaven and earth by the power of my club. And as for Jove's bolt, I would kick it hence to the farthest quarter of the empyrean. Be assured that even if I wished to appropriate five or six stars for the sake of a game, or to make a sling of a comet, taking it by the tail, or even to play at ball with the sun, my father would make no objection. Besides, our intention is to do good to the world, whereas Phaeton simply wished to show off his fleetness before the Hours, who held the steps for him when he mounted his chariot. He also wanted to gain reputation as a skilful coachman, in the eyes of Andromeda, Callisto, and the other beautiful constellations, to whom, it is said, he threw, in passing, lustre bonbons, and comfits of light; and to make a fine parade of himself before the celestial gods during his journey that day, which chanced to be a festival. In short, don't give a thought to the possibility of my father's wrath. In any case, I will bear all the blame; so throw off your cloak, and send me the ball.

Atlas. Willingly or not, I must do as you wish; since you are strong and armed, whereas I am old and defenceless. But do take care lest it fall, in which case it will have fresh swellings, or some new fracture, like that which separated Sicily from Italy, and Africa from Spain. And if it should get chipped in any way, there might be a war about what men would call the detachment of a province or kingdom.

B

Hercules. Rely on me.

Atlas. Then here goes. See how it quivers on account of its altered shape!

Hercules. Hit a little harder; your strokes scarcely reach me.

Atlas. It is the fault of the ball. The south-west wind catches it, because of its lightness.

Hercules. It is its old failing to go with the wind. Atlas. Suppose we were to inflate the ball, since it has no more notion of a bounce than a melon.

Hercules. A new shortcoming!

leap and dance like a young goat.

Formerly it used to

Atlas. Look out! Run quickly after that. For Jove's sake, take care lest it fall! Alas! it was an evil hour when you came here.

Hercules. You sent me such a bad stroke that I could not possibly have caught it in time, even at the risk of breaking my neck. Alas, poor little one! . . . How are you? Do you feel bad anywhere? I don't hear a sigh, nor does a soul move. They are all still asleep.

Atlas. Give it back to me, by all the horns of the Styx, and let me settle it again on my shoulders. And you, take your club, and hasten to heaven to excuse me with Jove for this accident, which is entirely owing to you.

Hercules. I will do so. For many centuries there has been in my father's house a certain poet, named Horace. He was made court poet at the suggestion of Augustus, who has been deified by Jove for his augmentation of the Roman power. In one of his songs, this poet says that the just man would stir not, though the world fell. Since the world has now fallen, and no one has moved, it follows that all men are just.

Atlas. Who doubts the justice of men? But do not lose time; run and exculpate me with your father, else I shall momentarily expect a thunderbolt to transform me from Atlas into Etna.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN FASHION

AND DEATH.

Fashion. Madam Death, Madam Death!

Death. Wait until your time comes, and then I will appear without being called by you.

Fashion. Madam Death!

Death. Go to the devil. I will come when you least expect me.

Fashion. As if I were not immortal!

Death. Immortal?

"Already has passed the thousandth year,"

since the age of immortals ended.

Fashion. Madam is as much a Petrarchist as if she were an Italian poet of the fifteenth or eighteenth century.

Death. I like Petrarch because he composed my triumph, and because he refers so often to me. But I must be moving.

Fashion. Stay ! For the love you bear to the seven cardinal sins, stop a moment and look at me.

Death. Well. I am looking.

Fashion. Do you not recognise me?

Death. You must know that I have bad sight, and am without spectacles. The English make none to suit me; and if they did, I should not know where to put them. Fashion. I am Fashion, your sister.

Death. My sister?

Fashion. Yes. Do you not remember we are both born of Decay?

Death. As if I, who am the chief enemy of Memory, should recollect it!

Fashion. But I do.

I know also that we both equally profit by the incessant change and destruction of things here below, although you do so in one way, and I in another.

Death. Unless you are speaking to yourself, or to some one inside your throat, raise your voice, and pronounce your words more distinctly. If you go mumbling between your teeth with that thin spider-voice of yours, I shall never understand you; because you ought to know that my hearing serves me no better than my sight.

Fashion. Although it be contrary to custom, for in France they do not speak to be heard, yet, since we are sisters, I will speak as you wish, for we can dispense with ceremony between ourselves. I say then that our common nature and custom is to incessantly renew the world. You attack the life of man, and overthrow all people and nations from beginning to end; whereas I content myself for the most part with influencing beards, head-dresses, costumes, furniture, houses, and the like. It is true, I do some things comparable to your supreme action. I pierce ears, lips, and noses, and cause them to be torn by the ornaments I suspend from them. impress men's skin with hot iron stamps, under the pretence of adornment. I compress the heads of children with tight bandages and other contrivances; and make it customary for all men of a country to have heads of the same shape, as in parts of America and Asia. I torture and cripple people with small shoes. I stifle women with stays so tight, that their eyes start from their heads; and I play a thousand similar pranks. I also frequently persuade and force men of refinement to bear daily numberless fatigues and discomforts, and

I

often real sufferings; and some even die gloriously for love of me. I will say nothing of the headaches, colds, inflammations of all kinds, fevers-daily, tertian, and quartan-which men gain by their obedience to me. They are content to shiver with cold, or melt with heat, simply because it is my will that they cover their shoulders with wool, and their breasts with cotton. In fact, they do everything in my way, regardless of their own injury.

Death. In truth, I believe you are my sister; the testimony of a birth certificate could scarcely make me surer of it. But standing still paralyses me, so if you can, let us run; only you must not creep, because I go at a great pace. As we proceed you can tell me what you want. If you cannot keep up with me, on account of our relationship I promise when I die to bequeath you all my clothes and effects as a New Year's gift.

Fashion. If we ran a race together, I hardly know which of us would win. For if you run, I gallop, and standing still, which paralyses you, is death to me. So let us run, and we will chat as we go along.

Death. So be it then. Since your mother was mine, you ought to serve me in some way, and assist me in my business.

Fashion. I have already done so-more than you imagine. Above all, I, who annul and transform other customs unceasingly, have nowhere changed the custom of death; for this reason it has prevailed from the beginning of the world until now.

Death. A great miracle forsooth, that you have never done what you could not do!

Fashion. Why cannot I do it? You show how ignorant you are of the power of Fashion.

Death. Well, well: time enough to talk of this when you introduce the custom of not dying. But at present, I want you, like a good sister, to aid me in rendering