THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE
watch the doings of mankind in the hours of night time. But,” Mr. Aeneas added, with a smile, “his bright countenance made light all the darkness. Men rose from their couches or from their revels, wondering that day was so soon come, and went to their work. And Apollo sank weeping into the sea. ‘Surely,’ he cried, ‘it is a bitter thing that I alone, of all the gods, may not watch the world in the hours of night time. For in those hours, as I am told, men are even as gods are. They spill the wine and are wreathed with roses. Their daughters dance in the light of torches. They laugh to the sound of flutes. On their long couches they lie down at last and sleep comes to kiss their eyelids. None of these things may I see. Wherefore the brightness of my beauty is even as a curse to me and I would put it from me.’ And as he wept, Vulcan said to him, ‘I am not the least cunning of the gods, nor the least pitiful. Do not weep, for I will give you that which shall end your sorrow. Nor need you put from you the brightness of your beauty.’ And Vulcan made a mask of dull silver and fastened it across his brother’s face. And that night, thus masked, the sun-god rose from the sea and watched the doings of mankind in the night time. Nor any
23
