Nike.
Can it be so? I find, it is true, that I look back upon my rush and blaze of battle with no real regret. What a vain thing
it was, the perpetual clash and resonance of a victory that no one could withstand; the mockery that conquest must be to an immortal whom no one can ever really oppose;—no veritable difficulty to overcome, no genuine resistance to meet, nothing positively tussled with and thrown, nothing but ghostly armies shrinking and melting a little way in front of my advancing eagles! That can never happen again, and even through the pang of losing my laurel and my wings, I did not genuinely deplore it. Nothing but the sheer intoxication of my immortality had kept me at the pitch. And now that it is gone, oh wisest of the gods, it is for you to tell me how, in this mortal state, I can remain happy and yet be me.
Æsculapius.
You are on the high road to happiness; you
see its towers over the dust, for you dare to know yourself.
Nike.
Myself, Æsculapius?
Æsculapius.
Yes; you have that signal, that culminating courage.