“He is sleeping, O Psyche,” whispers Lupa, timidly.
“The prize this day, my father, was a large one,” says Gyges to Alcmaeon, as they gather around the stone bench in the peristyle. “When the racing-season is over, we will all go to Corinth.”
“A schoolmaster cannot leave his duties.”
“Ay; Macro will find another position for thee when thou returnest.”
“Ah! shall we all really see the city of our ancestors?” asked Alcmaeon. “Shall we again see Corinth, the eye of Greece, old, ’tis true, but still undimmed in lustre? Breathing the divine air from the sublime heights of Corinth, shall we see the living words of the Iliad? Shall we see the country that stirred the sainted soul of Homer?”
“I shall be glad to lose the sight of cruel Rome,” says Hera.
“Ah, my wife,” exclaims the happy father, with his old enthusiasm for his wonderful country, “the Greek has conquered the Roman this day. The Greek has thrown Sejanus from his lofty seat. Did I not say, my children, that physical strength is overmatched by intellectual power? Have we accomplished our ends with blaring trumpets? In the silence of Aldo there was more power than in all the vaunted greatness of the infamous Sejanus. If the lad had uttered but a word at that crucial moment, the history of Rome would have been changed.”
“Thou speakest truly, O father,” says Gyges.
“The Greeks are thought to be weak, O my son, but they were once the greatest nation that ever lived. Ay, in the shadows of divine mountains, in the soft light of sacred valleys, has the truth entered into the souls of our countrymen. While our ancestors were clanging their swords against the sacred ones suspended over the doors of our columned temples, in order to make themselves invincible in battle; while the seeds of our heroes were ripening on Iliadic plains; while the words of Aeschylus—the heroic Son of a Divinity—were being sung in white theatres to the Hellenes, frenzied with religious dithyrambics,—what were the Romans doing? They were worshipping terra-cotta figures; they were living in huts; they knew neither poetry nor philosophy.”
“Thou fillest our souls with love for our Fatherland, O my sire,” exclaims Psyche, moved by the words of Alcmaeon.