ECRASIA.  Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.  Scorn!  That is what I feel for your revolting busts.

ARJILLAX.  Fool:  the busts are only the beginning of a mighty design.  Listen.

ACIS.  Go ahead, old sport.  We are listening.

Martellus stretches himself on the sward beside the altar.  The Newly Born sits on the temple steps with her chin on her hands, ready to devour the first oration she has ever heard.  The rest sit or stand at ease.

ARJILLAX.  In the records which generations of children have rescued from the stupid neglect of the ancients, there has come down to us a fable which, like many fables, is not a thing that was done in the past, but a thing that is to be done in the future.  It is a legend of a supernatural being called the Archangel Michael.

THE NEWLY BORN.  Is this a story?  I want to hear a story. [She runs down the steps and sits on the altar at Arjillax’s feet].

ARJILLAX.  The Archangel Michael was a mighty sculptor and painter.  He found in the centre of the world a temple erected to the goddess of the centre, called Mediterranea.  This temple was full of silly pictures of pretty children, such as Ecrasia approves.

ACIS.  Fair play, Arjillax!  If she is to keep silent, let her alone.

ECRASIA.  I shall not interrupt, Acis.  Why should I not prefer youth and beauty to age and ugliness?

ARJILLAX.  Just so.  Well, the Archangel Michael was of my opinion, not yours.  He began by painting on the ceiling the newly born in all their childish beauty.  But when he had done this he was not satisfied; for the temple was no more impressive than it had been before, except that there was a strength and promise of greater things about his newly born ones than any other artist had attained to.  So he painted all round these newly born a company of ancients, who were in those days called prophets and sybils, whose majesty was that of the mind alone at its intensest.  And this painting was acknowledged through ages and ages to be the summit and masterpiece of art.  Of course we cannot believe such a tale literally.  It is only a legend.  We do not believe in archangels; and the notion that thirty thousand years ago sculpture and painting existed, and had even reached the glorious perfection they have reached with us, is absurd.  But what men cannot realize they can at least aspire to.  They please themselves by pretending that it was realized in a golden age of the past.  This splendid legend endured because it lived as a desire in the hearts of the greatest artists.  The temple of Mediterranea never was built in the past, nor did Michael the Archangel exist.  But today the temple is here [he points to the porch]; and the man is here [he slaps himself on the chest].  I, Arjillax, am the man.  I will place in your theatre such images of the newly born as must satisfy even Ecrasia’s appetite for beauty; and I will surround them with ancients more august than any who walk through our woods.