Whence knowest thou these
stories?
Longfellow
Love! love!
EPIMETHEUS.
Hark! listen! Hear how sweetly overhead
The feathered flute-players pipe their songs of love,
And echo answers, love and only love.
CHORUS OF BIRDS.
Every flutter of the wing,
Every note of song we sing,
Every murmur, every tone,
Is of love and love alone.
ECHO.
Love alone!
EPIMETHEUS.
Who would not love, if loving she might be
Changed like Callisto to a star in heaven?
PANDORA.
Ah, who would love, if loving she might be
Like Semele consumed and burnt to ashes?
EPIMETHEUS.
Whence knowest thou these stories?
PANDORA.
Hermes taught me;
He told me all the history of the Gods.
CHORUS OF REEDS.
Evermore a sound shall be
In the reeds of Arcady,
Evermore a low lament
Of unrest and discontent,
As the story is retold
Of the nymph so coy and cold,
Who with frightened feet outran
The pursuing steps of Pan.
EPIMETHEUS.
The pipe of Pan out of these reeds is made,
And when he plays upon it to the shepherds
They pity him, so mournful is the sound.
Be thou not coy and cold as Syrinx was.
PANDORA.
Nor thou as Pan be rude and mannerless.
PROMETHEUS (without).
Ho! Epimetheus!
EPIMETHEUS.
'T is my brother's voice;
A sound unwelcome and inopportune
As was the braying of Silenus' ass,
Once heard in Cybele's garden.
PANDORA.
