The She-Ancient looks at the Newly Born critically; feels her bumps like a phrenologist; grips her muscles and shakes her limbs; examines her teeth; looks into her eyes for a moment; and finally relinquishes her with an air of having finished her job.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. She will do. She may live.
They all wave their hands and shout for joy.
THE NEWLY BORN [indignant] I may live! Suppose there had been anything wrong with me?
THE SHE-ANCIENT. Children with anything wrong do not live here, my child. Life is not cheap with us. But you would not have felt anything.
THE NEWLY BORN. You mean that you would have murdered me!
THE SHE-ANCIENT. That is one of the funny words the newly born bring with them out of the past. You will forget it tomorrow. Now listen. You have four years of childhood before you. You will not be very happy; but you will be interested and amused by the novelty of the world; and your companions here will teach you how to keep up an imitation of happiness during your four years by what they call arts and sports and pleasures. The worst of your troubles is already over.
THE NEWLY BORN. What! In five minutes?
THE SHE-ANCIENT. No: you have been growing for two years in the egg. You began by being several sorts of creatures that no longer exist, though we have fossils of them. Then you became human; and you passed in fifteen months through a development that once cost human beings twenty years of awkward stumbling immaturity after they were born. They had to spend fifty years more in the sort of childhood you will complete in four years. And then they died of decay. But you need not die until your accident comes.
THE NEWLY BORN. What is my accident?
THE SHE-ANCIENT. Sooner or later you will fall and break your neck; or a tree will fall on you; or you will be struck by lightning. Something or other must make an end of you some day.
THE NEWLY BORN. But why should any of these things happen to me?
THE SHE-ANCIENT. There is no why. They do. Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. And with us there is eternity.
THE NEWLY BORN. Nothing need happen. I never heard such nonsense in all my life. I shall know how to take care of myself.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. So you think.
THE NEWLY BORN. I don't think: I know. I shall enjoy life for ever and ever.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. If you should turn out to be a person of infinite capacity, you will no doubt find life infinitely interesting. However, all you have to do now is to play with your companions. They have many pretty toys, as you see: a playhouse, pictures, images, flowers, bright fabrics, music: above all, themselves; for the most amusing child's toy is another child. At the end of four years, your mind will change: you will become wise; and then you will be entrusted with power.
THE NEWLY BORN. But I want power now.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. No doubt you do; so that you could play with the world by tearing it to pieces.
THE NEWLY BORN. Only to see how it is made. I should put it all together again much better than before.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. There was a time when children were given the world to play with because they promised to improve it. They did not improve it; and they would have wrecked it had their power been as great as that which you will wield when you are no longer a child. Until then your young companions will instruct you in whatever is necessary. You are not forbidden to speak to the ancients; but you had better not do so, as most of them have long ago exhausted all the interest there is in observing children and conversing with them. [She turns to go].
THE NEWLY BORN. Wait. Tell me some things that I ought to do and ought not to do. I feel the need of education. They all laugh at her, except the She-Ancient.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. You will have grown out of that by tomorrow. Do what you please. [She goes away up the hill path].
The officials take their paraphernalia and the fragments of the egg back into the temple.
ACIS. Just fancy: that old girl has been going for seven hundred years and hasnt had her fatal accident yet; and she is not a bit tired of it all.
THE NEWLY BORN. How could anyone ever get tired of life?
ACIS. They do. That is, of the same life. They manage to change themselves in a wonderful way. You meet them sometimes with a lot of extra heads and arms and legs: they make you split laughing at them. Most of them have forgotten how to speak: the ones that attend to us have to brush up their knowledge of the language once a year or so. Nothing makes any difference to them that I can see. They never enjoy themselves. I don't know how they can stand it. They don't even come to our festivals of the arts. That old one who saw you out of your shell has gone off to moodle about doing nothing; though she knows that this is Festival Day?
THE NEWLY BORN. What is Festival Day?
ACIS. Two of our greatest sculptors are bringing us their latest masterpieces; and we are going to crown them with flowers and sing dithyrambs to them and dance round them.
THE NEWLY BORN. How jolly! What is a sculptor?
ACIS. Listen here, young one. You must find out things for yourself, and not ask questions. For the first day or two you must keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut. Children should be seen and not heard.
THE NEWLY BORN. Who are you calling a child? I am fully a quarter of an hour old [She sits down on the curved bench near Strephon with her maturest air].
VOICES IN THE TEMPLE [all expressing protest, disappointment, disgust] Oh! Oh! Scandalous. Shameful. Disgraceful. What filth! Is this a joke? Why, theyre ancients! Ss-s-s-sss! Are you mad, Arjillax? This is an outrage. An insult. Yah! etc. etc. etc. [The malcontents appear on the steps, grumbling].
ACIS. Hullo: whats the matter? [He goes to the steps of the temple].
The two sculptors issue from the temple. One has a beard two feet long: the other is beardless. Between them comes a handsome nymph with marked features, dark hair richly waved, and authoritative bearing.
THE AUTHORITATIVE NYMPH [swooping down to the centre of the glade with the sculptors, between Acis and the Newly Born] Do not try to browbeat me, Arjillax, merely because you are clever with your hands. Can you play the flute?
ARJILLAX [the bearded sculptor on her right] No, Ecrasia: I cannot. What has that to do with it? [He is half derisive, half impatient, wholly resolved not to take her seriously in spite of her beauty and imposing tone].
ECRASIA. Well, have you ever hesitated to criticize our best flute players, and to declare whether their music is good or bad? Pray have I not the same right to criticize your busts, though I cannot make images anymore than you can play?
ARJILLAX. Any fool can play the flute, or play anything else, if he practises enough; but sculpture is a creative art, not a mere business of whistling into a pipe. The sculptor must have something of the god in him. From his hand comes a form which reflects a spirit. He does not make it to please you, nor even to please himself, but because he must. You must take what he gives you, or leave it if you are not worthy of it.
ECRASIA [scornfully] Not worthy of it! Ho! May I not leave it because it is not worthy of me?
ARJILLAX. Of you! Hold your silly tongue, you conceited humbug. What do you know about it?
ECRASIA. I know what every person of culture knows: that the business of the artist is to create beauty. Until today your works have been full of beauty; and I have been the first to point that out.
ARJILLAX. Thank you for nothing. People have eyes, havnt they, to see what is as plain as the sun in the heavens without your pointing it out?
ECRASIA. You were very glad to have it pointed out. You did not call me a conceited humbug then. You stifled me with caresses. You