Where the marchantias grow? Yes?
Nike.
And three girls in white dresses, with wreaths of flowers on their shoulders, were laughing and chatting there in the shade of the great yew-tree. Who do you
suppose they were, these laughing girls in white?
Æsculapius.
Perhaps three of the Oceanides, bright as the pure foam of the wave?
Nike.
Æsculapius, they were not girls. They were the terrible and ancient Eumenides, black with the curdled blood of Uranus. They were the inexorable Furies, who were wont to fawn about my feet, with the adders quivering in their tresses, tormenting me for the spoils of victory. What does it mean? Why are they in white? As we came hither in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled together at the prow, and their long black raiment hung overboard and touched the brine. They were mumbling and crooning hate-songs, and pointing with skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. What
is it that has changed their mood? What is it that can have turned the robes of the Eumenides white, and enamelled their wrinkled flesh with youth?
Æsculapius.