The Chimera. "I gallop in the corridors of the Labyrinth—I hover above the mountains—I graze the waves in my flight—I yelp at the bottom of precipices—I suspend myself with my mouth from the skirts of clouds—I sweep the shores with my dragging tail; and the curves of the hills have taken their form from the shape of my shoulders! But thee I find perpetually immobile, or perhaps making strange designs with thy claws upon the sand."
The Sphinx. "It is because I keep my secret;—I dream and calculate.
"The sea returns to its bed; the wheat bends back and forth in the wind; the caravans pass by; the dust flies; cities crumble; and yet my gaze, which naught can deviate, remains fixed, gazing through all intervening things, upon a horizon that none may reach."
The Sphinx: ... and yet my gaze, which naught can deviate, remains fixed, gazing through all intervening things, upon a horizon that none may reach. The Chimera: I am light and joyous!
The Chimera. "I am light and joyous! I offer to the eyes of men dazzling perspectives with Paradise in the clouds above, and unspeakable felicity afar off. Into their souls I pour the eternal madnesses; projects of happiness, plans for the future, dreams of glory and vows of love, and all virtuous resolutions.
"I urge men to perilous voyages and great enterprises. I have chiselled with my claws the wonders of architecture. It was I who suspended the little bells above the tomb of Porsenna, and surrounded the quays of Atlantis with a wall of orichalcum.
"I seek for new perfumes, for vaster flowers, for pleasures never felt before. If I perceive in any place a man whose mind reposes in wisdom, I fall upon him, and strangle him."