"I have left far behind me stony Delos, so pure that all now there seems dead; and I must strive to reach Delphi ere its inspiring vapour be wholly lost. The mules browse in its laurel groves. The Pythoness has wandered away, and cannot be found.
"By a stronger concentration of my power, I will obtain sublime hymns, eternal monuments; and all matter will be penetrated by the vibrations of my cithara!"
(_He strikes the strings of the instrument. They burst, lashing his face with their broken ends. He flings the cithara away; and furiously whipping his quadriga, cries_):
"No! enough of forms!--Further, higher!--to the very summit!--to the realm of pure thought!"
(_But the horses back, rear, dash the chariot to pieces. Entangled by the harness, caught by the fragments of the broken pole, he falls head foremost into the abyss._
[Illustration: ... he falls head foremost into the abyss.]
"Once with my girdle I made all the horizon of Hellas.
"Her fields glowed with the roses of my cheeks; her shores were outlined after the fashion of my lips; and her mountains, whiter than my doves, palpitated beneath the hands of the statuaries. My spirit's manifestation was found in the ordinances of the festivals, in the arrangement of coiffures, in the dialogues of philosophers, in the constitution of republics. But I have doted too much upon men! It is Love that has dishonoured me!"
"This world is abominable;--there is no air for me to breathe!
"O Mercury, inventor of the lyre, conductor of souls, take me away!"
(_She places one finger upon her lips, and describing an immense parabola, falls into the abyss._
_Nothing is now visible. The darkness is complete._
_Only, that from the eyes of Hilarion escape two flashes, two rays of lurid light._)
ANTHONY (_begins at last to notice his immense stature_):
"Already several times, while thou wert speaking, it seemed to me thou wert growing taller; and it was no illusion! How? Explain to me ... Thy aspect terrifies me!"
(_Then, under a pale beam of moonlight, Anthony distinguishes an interminable caravan defiling over the summit of the rocks;--and each voyager, one after the other, falls from the cliff into the gulf below._
_First comes the three great gods of_ Samothrace,--AXIEROS, AXIOKEROS, AXIOKERSA,--_united together as in a fascia, purple-masked, all with hands uplifted._