There was more
certainly than the first breath of day in them. Was there [171] here
something of her person, her sensible presence, by way of direct
response to him in his early devotion, astir for her sake before the
very birds, nesting here so freely, the quail above all, in some
privileged connexion with her story still unfathomed by the learned
youth? Amid them he too found a voice, and sang articulately the
praises of the great goddess.
Those more dubious traits, nevertheless, so lightly disposed of by
Hippolytus (Hecate thus counting for him as Artemis goddess of
health), became to his mother, in the light of her sad experience,
the sum of the whole matter. While he drew only peaceful inducements
to sleep from that two-sided figure, she reads there a volume of
sinister intentions, and liked little this seemingly dead goddess,
who could but move among the living banefully, stealing with her
night-shade into the day where she had no proper right. The gods had
ever had much to do with the shaping of her fortunes and the fortunes
of her kindred; and the mortal mother felt nothing less than jealousy
from the hour when the lad had first delightedly called her to share
his discoveries, and learn the true story (if it were not rather the
malicious counterfeit) of the new divine mother to whom he has thus
absolutely entrusted himself.
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