fine horses wherever you like. But it is not the same with me. Such
is my miserable fate that I cannot bear the poets too great a grudge
for their gross impertinence in having, by an unjust law, which they
wish to retain in force, given a separate conveyance to each God,
for his own use, and left me to go on foot: me, like a village
messenger, though, as everyone knows, I am the famous messenger of
the sovereign of the Gods, on the earth and in the heavens. Without
any exaggeration, I need more than any one else the means of being
carried about, because of all the duties he puts upon me.

NIGHT. What can one do? The poets do what pleases them. It is not
the only stupidity we have detected in these gentlemen. But surely
your irritation against them is wrong, for the wings at your feet
are a friendly gift of theirs.

MERC. Yes; but does going more quickly tire oneself less?

NIGHT. Let us leave the matter, Seigneur Mercury, and learn what is wanted.

MERC. Jupiter, as I have told you, wishes the dark aid of your cloak
for a certain gallant adventure, which a new love affair has
furnished him. His custom is not new to you, I believe: often does
he neglect the heavens for the earth; and you are not ignorant that
this master of the Gods loves to take upon himself the guise of man
to woo earthly beauties. He knows a hundred ingenious tricks to
entrap the most obdurate. He has felt the darts of Alcmene's eyes;
and, whilst Amphitryon, her husband, commands the Theban troops on
the plains of Boeotia, Jupiter has taken his form, and assuaged his
pains, in the possession of the sweetest of pleasures. The condition
of the couple is propitious to his desire: Hymen joined them only a