‘I really cannot say. I know my wife always said I had a bad heart and worse head; but what she meant, upon my honour I never could understand.’
‘Minerva will ask you to write in her album.’
‘Will she indeed! I am sorry to hear it, for I can scarcely scrawl my signature. I should think that Jove himself cared little for all this nonsense.’
‘Jove loves an epigram. He does not esteem Apollo’s works at all. Jove is of the classical school, and admires satire, provided there be no allusions to Gods and kings.’
‘Of course; I quite agree with him. I remember we had a confounded poet at Larissa who proved my family lived before the deluge, and asked me for a pension. I refused him, and then he wrote an epigram asserting that I sprang from the veritable stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha at the re-peopling of the earth, and retained all the properties of my ancestors.’
‘Ha, ha! Hark! there’s a thunderbolt! I must run to Jove.’
‘And I will look in on the musicians. This way, I think?’
‘Up the ruby staircase, turn to your right, down the amethyst gallery. Farewell!’
The King of Thessaly entered the Hall of Music with its golden walls and crystal dome. The Queen of Heaven was reclining in an easy chair, cutting out peacocks in small sheets of note paper. Minerva was making a pencil observation on a manuscript copy of the song: Apollo listened with deference to her laudatory criticisms. Another divine dame, standing by the side of Euterpe, who was seated by the harp, looked up as Ixion entered. The wild liquid glance of her soft but radiant countenance denoted the famed Goddess of Beauty.
Juno just acknowledged the entrance of Ixion by a slight and haughty inclination of the head, and then resumed her employment. Minerva asked him his opinion of her amendment, of which he greatly approved. Apollo greeted him with a melancholy smile, and congratulated him on being mortal. Venus complimented him on his visit to Olympus, and expressed the pleasure that she experienced in making his acquaintance.
‘What do you think of Heaven?’ inquired Venus, in a soft still voice, and with a smile like summer lightning.
‘I never found it so enchanting as at this moment,’ replied Ixion.
‘A little dull? For myself, I pass my time chiefly at Cnidos: you must come and visit me there. ‘Tis the most charming place in the world. ‘Tis said, you know, that our onions are like other people’s roses. We will take care of you, if your wife come.’