“No, no—it wasn’t ’im,” said Rippley impatiently. “T’other fellow.”
“Rippley,” said the languid poet, turning half-shut eyes of contempt upon him, “your originality staggers me.”
“Ra-ther!” said Rippley. “When I got that idea you could have knocked me down with the brains of a minor poet.”
Lovegood coughed:
“The Grecian gentleman who pushed the—er—hanking great stone up the hill,” said he with measured accent, “I have read somewhere, was called Sisyphus.”
Rippley bounced and clutched at the air.
“Sisyphus—that’s the chap!... Knew Aubrey was wrong about its being ’Erkyools.... Rummy things the old Greeks used to do! luckily for sculpture and the schoolmasters.” He bent his eyes on his idea again: “But what licks me is Fame!... Such a comical thing is Fame!... Now, look at this fellow Sisyphus: A great muscular chap pushes the dickens of a big stone up a hill, and keeps having to let it go again before he reaches the top. It ain’t much to build a reputation on. But Plato or some blanky poet comes along and writes it down—and that fellow goes pushing and heaving that stone up a hill through the ages. Then look at Aubrey—he works just as hard at his confounded rhymes; yet no one reads him, but everyone goes on talking about ’Omer.”
“Omar Khayyam?” asked Aubrey flippantly.
“Khayyam be damned!” said the shock-headed sculptor. “No—old ’Omer ’imself. A fine, hairy old fellow, with big workmanlike head! Good solid old poetry! None of your rhymes and jingles and frills and coloured neckties and long nails and modern——”
Lovegood tapped his glass on the arm of the judgment-seat: