ALICE. This Is the banks of the Styx. That is ... Oh, I said that before.
HIPPONAX. Ferry! Hie! Ferry!
[He rings and rings, but only the black cliffs echo back the hollow
sound of the bell.
HIPPONAX. So I was right! There is no ferryman; there are no gods. But
yet, though I died of brain fever yesterday afternoon, here still, in some
sense, am I. Which confirms the fact that I am an extraordinary man. In the
last world I proved that there were no gods because, said I ... it was very
simple ... I have never seen them. And in this world ... if by any means I
can get across that river ... I'll prove in a second volume that there are
none here either.
[And now comes Mercury, who is as beautiful and as calm as the statue
of him that rests--as if but for a moment--on its black plinth in the
Naples Museum. If that statue could move like a faun, that is what
Mercury should be; so it isn't easy to find an actor to play him. And
his voice must be clear and sweet. Not loud. But his words mus
like the telling of the hours--as befits a god.
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