“That is a matter,” replied Protagoras, “which is somewhat difficult to

discuss. As Aspasia, from what you have told us of your previous

conversation with her, has already said, we consider a woman, who

without witnesses seeks a physician’s aid, immodest and coquettish, but

regard it as perfectly unobjectionable if the consultation takes place

before the husband’s eyes. Therefore it might be established, once for

all, that there is a method, in which the husband thinks a woman can

reveal her charms to a stranger’s eyes without dishonor.”

“Of course,” said Pericles, “this is the only way I could regard a

woman’s exhibition of her beauty, if made from force of circumstances

or for some great purpose. I hope you will also add the condition, that

the woman shall only give the sculptor what he requires for his art,

and that modesty shall retire to a certain point, but defend that

point, so to speak, to the last drop of blood. Yet, do you not remember

the story of that Eastern king, who enchanted with his wife’s charms,

had them displayed to a favorite? If I remember rightly, that monarch

lost throne, wife, and life, through the favorite who, enraptured by

these charms, never rested until he possessed them.”

“A sculptor,” replied Protagoras, “gazes at a beautiful figure with far

different thoughts and feelings from the effeminate favorite of an

Eastern king. The former, in beholding exquisitely-rounded limbs,

perceives so much to occupy an eye trained to observe symmetry of form,

such a wealth of information flows into his mind, that there is little

room for sensual emotions. Whatever might find space, he has learned to

control. Moreover, habit has rendered him obtuse to the grosser charm

of unveiled beauty. There is old Phidias—is he a man? No, he is a

divinely-inspired, sexless artist soul, which has a body, a hand merely

to guide the chisel—he is a person to whom everything in the world is

form, never substance.”

“We now know the opinion of Protagoras,” said Pericles. “Let us hear

what Socrates has to bring forward about the matter. What do you think,

Socrates? Is it allowable for a woman to lay aside her modesty, to

promote a great artistic purpose?”

“That seems to me to depend upon whether beauty ranks higher in the

world than goodness,” replied Socrates. “This, to the best of my

recollection, is the very question in whose solution we have been so

long engaged, and whose discussion was again broken off at Hipponicus’

banquet—”

“By all the Olympic gods,” interrupted Aspasia, laughing, “you will

greatly oblige me, my dear Socrates, if you will give up the discussion

of that question to-day, and also pardon me for not perceiving why

morality should have the preference over beauty. If it is a law, that

everything in the world ought to be good and moral, it is also a law

that everything in the world aspires towards beauty, and finds in it

the bloom of its existence, the goal of its development. Finally, both

of these laws must be a secret, self-given rule to men. There, I

believe, we can let the matter rest for to-day.”

“Certainly!” cried Protagoras. “As each individual calls truth only

what seems to him true, so the good and beautiful must be to each what

appears so to him. There is no fixed morality in and of itself, any

more than there is a fixed truth.”

Socrates’ good-natured face assumed a somewhat scornful expression, as

he said:

“You always assert, Protagoras, that there is no fixed truth, and yet

are the very man who can give the most brilliant and irrefutable

information about everything concerning which people may choose to

inquire.”

“To express one’s opinion openly,” replied Protagoras, “is better than

for a man to allege, with false modesty, that he knows nothing, and

then always pretend to know everything better than others.”

“I yearn for the knowledge I do not possess,” said Socrates. “But you

deny all possibility of its existence. Shall we give up the labor of

human thought as vain, when we have just commenced it?”

“Far better,” retorted Protagoras, “than to seek to destroy the

freshness and harmony of Hellenic life, by subtle and peevish

investigation.”

“I understand now,” replied Socrates, “that there are people, who as

they set little value on the profession of thought, cultivate the art

of speech still more brilliantly. For since, according to their own

confessions, the thoughts they express have no absolute value, it can

only be the brilliant words with which they expect to influence their

hearers.”

“There are also people,” rejoined Protagoras, “who neglect the art of

rhetoric, because they believe others will seek behind their feigned

simplicity profound thought, behind their stammering the wisdom of an

oracle, and behind their modest questions the condescension of a

superior mind.”

“It seems to me better to compel people to think, by asking questions

which disturb their comfort, than guide them to thoughtlessness by

hasty, ever-ready answers, agreeable to the inquirer,” said Socrates.

“Thoughtlessness is better,” replied Protagoras, “than, leaving the

firm ground of reality behind and riding in clouds and airy images, to

lose one’s self in boundless space. Yet such absorption in the world of

boundless thought is often intelligible. There are probably persons,

who were compelled to set out in pursuit of ideas, because the divine

gift of living, artistic creation was denied them—”

“There are also people,” retorted Socrates, “who dally with images,

because the gift of clear and pure ideas is denied them.”

“Those peevish investigators,” said Protagoras, “are the very men who

make virtue repulsive, by constantly reverting to it in words—”

“Those people are certainly more worthy of admiration,” rejoined

Socrates, “who cast virtue wholly aside, in order never to emerge from

the sphere of a pleasant and beautiful sensuality.”

“So long as sensuality is beautiful and pleasant,” retorted Protagoras,

“it is better than the enforced renunciation of those, who see the

weeds of anxious doubts in the fields of beauty and enjoyment, because

they themselves are not summoned to beauty and pleasure.”

“Such a man am I!” replied Socrates quietly. “But you, Protagoras, seem

to me to belong to the ranks of those, who wish to make free thought

what they are themselves, slaves of the senses!”

“I regret,” said Pericles, interrupting the disputants, “that you have

not come to any decision regarding the point in question by this

argument, but it seems to me have become heated with fruitless words.”

“I know I can be nothing but the vanquished party here,” said Socrates.

After this reply he quietly took his leave, without the slightest trace

of excitement on his features.

Protagoras soon withdrew also, but not without first having given vent

to his emotion in words.

“The two philosophers seem to be perfectly-matched foes,” said Pericles

to Aspasia. “They attacked each other like practised warriors, and it

is hard to tell which of the two should claim the honor of the

victory.”

Aspasia only smiled, and even when Pericles left her alone the smile

still hovered around her lips. She knew exactly what gave the dispute

between the two men so sharp a point, and mingled with it so many

cutting and bitter words, even on the part of the gentle Socrates. She

read the truth-seeker’s heart as plainly as the brilliant sophist’s,

who uttered no word which he was not sure would please the ear of the

beautiful Milesian.

This dispute between Socrates and Protagoras roused an increasing anger

in Aspasia’s mind against the former, and almost unconsciously a plan

arose by which, with feminine cunning, she might detract from the

wisdom of the man who boasted of “free thought,” and despised the

“slaves of the senses.”

CHAPTER III.

THE THESMOPHORIAN FESTIVAL.

“That is beauty itself!” cried the Athenians, when Phidias had finished

the new bronze statue of Pallas, ordered by the Lemnians, and revealed

it for the first time to the gaze of his fellow-citizens. A cry of

astonishment ran through all Athens.

“What did Phidias mean?” No Greek had ever imagined the goddess as his

last statue represented her.

She was without helm or shield. Waving locks floated unconfined around

the face, upturned with an expression full of dignity and sweetness.

The contour of this face was marvellous, the cheeks were chiselled with

incomparable delicacy. People fancied they could see them blush. The

bare arms, like the hands, were models of the most perfect and noble

symmetry. One upraised arm permitted part of the right side to be seen,

the robe was draped loosely about the hips, and here, as well as

everywhere else, disclosed the outlines of the figure with perfect

distinctness.

Unanimous as were the Athenians in praising this last creation of

Phidias, they were equally so in declaring that Aspasia must have been

the sculptor’s model.

Nor was the assertion wholly erroneous.

Indeed, though Theodota understood how to treat her figure as artistic

material, and by it give expression to the character of various female

divinities, while all Athens went to witness these performances,

Aspasia could practise the art in a still nobler and higher degree of

perfection. But the only spectators were Pericles and Phidias.

Grave Phidias went so far, as to admit for a moment that nature could

often approach the ideal.

Yet in Aspasia’s Pallas, Phidias no longer had simple nature before his

eyes. What he beheld was a creation of mimetic art, a physical

perfection born of the mind. Aspasia, with artistic knowledge,

impressed upon the natural material of her beauty a precise stamp, as

much as Phidias carved the marble block according to a precise idea and

design.

As Phidias transferred the fair and wise Aspasia’s charms to enduring

bronze, he was really fulfilling Pericles’ injunction to represent

wisdom in the enchanting, all-conquering garb of beauty.

Alcamenes had attained new and wonderful results, when permitted to

draw from the living fount of Aspasia’s beauty. Phidias performed the

same task, but like the great master of all, lofty and peerless.

What Phidias produced in his last Pallas was Aspasia, but elevated to a

height so pure and superhuman, that she appeared at the same time like

an ideal vision, the embodied dream of the noblest sculptor’s soul.

When Socrates saw the new statue, he said in his thoughtful way:

“The beautiful Aspasia might learn as much from Phidias, as Phidias has

learned from the beautiful Aspasia.”

It was strange, that the praises heaped by the Athenians upon his

Lemnian Pallas rendered the sculptor morose and gloomy. He did not like

to hear it mentioned, and perhaps valued the work less because he had

not created it solely from his own mind. He had apparently discharged,

with a residue of half unconscious displeasure the task imposed upon

him from without, and by whose performance he strove to shake off a

restlessness aroused by some alien spell.

Now he seemed to wish to retire still more completely into himself. He

wandered about more silent and grave than ever, absorbed in some

sublime vision gleaming in the hidden depths of his heart. He had

become himself again. He avoided Aspasia, scarcely held any intercourse

with Pericles, and one day left Athens quietly and secretly, to

realize, in a place sacred to all the Greeks, the loftiest idea of his

lofty soul.

Socrates remained the insatiable and unwearied observer of the Lemnian

Pallas. He seemed to transfer his love for the Milesian to Phidias’

goddess. The natural Aspasia never again seemed to him perfect, from

the moment he beheld her higher ideal embodied in bronze. Yet it might

have been said he divided his time between that Pallas and her living

original. His steps were daily bent towards Pericles’ house, even at

the risk of meeting the eloquent Protagoras.

How did it happen? When Socrates wandered thoughtfully, and, as he

thought, aimlessly through the streets of Athens, he at last found

himself unexpectedly before Pericles’ house. Like the labyrinth of

streets, he seemed to be walking through a labyrinth of feelings, from

which he found no exit, and which constantly brought him back to the

same spot.

So it was unintentional when Socrates directed his steps to that

dwelling. But what did he do there? Offer homage? Give signs of the

secret fire consuming him? Had he, like Protagoras, grown accustomed to

draw his wisdom from the eyes of others? No one of these things. He

argued with Aspasia. He taunted her; once even making in her presence

the remark—since frequently quoted, but which tradition ascribes to

Pericles, though he obtained it from Socrates—that the best woman was

the one least talked about. He made bitter speeches to her, and even

when seeming to flatter, was full of the subtle irony characteristic of

his character and conversation.

And Aspasia? She appeared to grow more gentle, conciliatory, amiable

and bewitching, as Socrates gave freer rein to his caprice. And vice

versa—the more gentle and winning Aspasia was, the more peevish and

eccentric became the wise Socrates.

What did these two strange natures desire of each other? Were they

fighting the old vexatious duel between wisdom and beauty? This

singular game had been carried on with special eagerness, ever since

the argument between Socrates and Protagoras in the presence of

Pericles and Aspasia.

Aspasia feigned to believe, that Socrates visited the house on account

of his favorite Alcibiades. Nay, she carried her teasing mood so far as

to address verses to him, in which she gave him counsel as if to a

lover. Socrates smilingly accepted all this without the slightest

objection, the least attempt to contradict his mischievous friend. He

never seemed to grow tired of the handsome boy, who still clung to him

with almost tender affection. To the lad he was frank, cheerful and

kind, without a trace of the whimsicality and irony, with which it

suited him to return the graceful advances of the loveliest of Hellenic

women.

Aspasia also still had frequent conversations with the woman-hater

Euripides, who had now won still greater distinction as a tragic poet.

The character of his Muse, which inclined to meditation, found

sympathy, and he soon became the favorite poet of a period, that was

advancing more and more from the direct and simple view of things to

thoughtful and enlightened observation. He had had rich experiences,

and the mental results of these experiences constantly overflowed from

his lips. Moreover he had a severe, unreserved temperament, which

allowed him to express what he thought frankly and boldly. He made

concessions to no one, not even the Athenian nation, which every one

considered himself obliged to flatter. When a verse, whose purport did

not please the Athenians, was once hissed, he came out on the open

stage to defend himself, and when the people shouted that the lines

must be omitted, replied that the populace must learn from the poets,

not the poets from the populace.

Neither did he flatter Aspasia, indeed no one else would have ventured

to talk with her about women in the tone he adopted.

He had cast off his first wife and married another, a fact Aspasia, as

has been already mentioned, craftily praised in a letter to Pericles as

an example of manly resolution.

One day Aspasia accidentally reverted to this matter in the presence of

her husband and Socrates. After commending his prompt decision, she

asked him about his newly-chosen wife.

“She’s exactly the opposite of the former one,” Euripides answered

morosely, “but no better for that—she merely has the opposite faults.

The first was a plain but honest woman, who wearied me by her

commonplace love; this one is a coquette, who drives me to desperation

by her frivolity and fickleness. I’ve come out of the frying-pan into

the fire. I am born under an evil star, and the gods give me every

bitter thing to taste in succession.”

“I heard that your wife is beautiful and amiable,” said Aspasia.

“Yes indeed, to everybody except myself,” replied Euripides. “She would

doubtless be so to me too, if I could resolve to look upon all her bad

qualities as so many virtues.”

“What are the bad qualities with which you reproach her?” asked

Aspasia.

“She neglects the housekeeping; the hens peck the yarn on the loom. She

dances and feasts with her female friends, and is so ill-bred as to

peep out of the house door into the street.”

“Is that all?” asked Aspasia.

“No!” replied Euripides. “She is fickle, whimsical, treacherous,

untruthful, full of deceit, false, malicious, spiteful, unjust, cruel,

revengeful, envious, stubborn, frivolous, silly, sly, jealous, fond of

dress, coquettish, unprincipled, heartless, brainless—”

“Enough!” interrupted Aspasia. “It might be hard for you to prove all

this in one individual.”

“All this and more!” replied Euripides.

“Perhaps you show your wife too little love, and thus render her averse

to you.”

“Why, of course!” cried Euripides, with a sneering laugh. “When such

wives are heard of, the husbands are always charged with want of love.

‘You have no heart, my friend, said the viper to the he-goat.’ But on

the contrary, I tell you, my unhappiness proceeds from not treating the

woman as most Athenians treat their wives, from allowing her too much

influence over me and my mind, permitting myself to be tormented by

her. Women are gentle as lambs, so long as they are held in check, but

grow overbearing if they have reason to think themselves indispensable.

Yes, there is only one way of securing a woman’s heart, love, esteem,

devotion; that is, to neglect her. Woe betide the man, who lets his

wife perceive he cannot do without her. She will set her foot on his

neck. To love a woman is to arouse the evil demon within her. But

whoever treats his wife with cool friendliness and goes on his own way,

whoever shows her that he can do without her, will be petted and

caressed, have his cheeks stroked and feel her hand laid on his

shoulder with the question: ‘What will you have to eat to-day, dear?’

He will be honored as the sacred shield and master of the family, will

receive eager thanks for the crumbs of favor he lets fall. But if the

same man showed he was pining with love for her, he would seem tiresome

in a week, be detested in a month, and tormented to death in a year.”

Pericles and Aspasia smiled as they listened to this peevish outburst

of feeling, but Euripides, with the same sullen earnestness and

emphasis, continued:

“Man’s destiny is woman. She it is who spins the thread of his

life—dark or golden.”

Pericles almost started at these words. Aspasia smiled.

“I cannot believe,” said Pericles, “that the husband is usually so

dependent on the wife.”

“He will become so, if he is not now,” replied Euripides. “I see the

future. Woman’s power is dangerously increasing. Do you not understand

the poets and sculptors, who from ancient times have brought forward

the fabulous sphinx, the mysterious woman with a soft bosom and sharp

claws. The sphinx is woman. She offers us the beautiful alluring face,

the beautiful alluring bosom, but the rest of her body is a beast with

tiger’s paws and deadly talons!”

“Will you not make the whole feminine sex proud,” said Aspasia, “if by

such comparisons you impress upon it so magnificent a character?”

“Magnificent crimes on the part of a man,” replied Euripides, “may

inspire admiration, but a woman with great vices is always repulsive. A

man’s sins may sometimes arise from an excess of noble qualities, but a

woman’s proceed from petty, exaggerated weaknesses.”

“Yet we see women triumph with these petty weaknesses!” said Aspasia.

“Not forever!” retorted Euripides. “The avenging day comes which, with

the fire of a healthy, lawful passion, extinguishes the flicker of a

sickly, feeble fancy. Women are strong, only so long as we men show

ourselves weak. Woman is a sphinx, it is true, but we need only cut the

great claws and she becomes harmless. With uncut claws she is a

tigress, when they are cut, only a cat. Our fathers did well to hold

woman in check. But we innovators are too tender-hearted—including

myself—we let the women’s claws grow. That is not well—”

Aspasia’s brow slightly contracted, as the peevish poet blusteringly

uttered these words. Socrates noticed it and said:

“Don’t forget, friend, that you are speaking to Aspasia.”

“To Aspasia,” replied Euripides, quickly recovering himself, “but not

of Aspasia. I am speaking of women. Aspasia is a woman, but women are

not Aspasias.”

Socrates, as has already been mentioned, did not lack asperity in his

conversations with Pericles’ wife. But he had never entered into

Euripides’ tone. It is proper to state, that Euripides in talking to

Aspasia, abused the whole feminine sex, but with ready courtesy

excepted her, while Socrates on the contrary discharged his arrows at

Aspasia personally, but willingly defended the sex in general.

Now, too, he took their part against the misogynist Euripides, by

saying:

“It seems to me a strange, but undeniable fact, that every man when he

speaks of woman, always means his own wife. Therefore I think only

bachelors should be allowed to discuss women in general. I boast of

being one; and however far my friend Euripides may surpass me in wisdom

in other respects, in regard to women, as he is married, I possess the

advantage of greater impartiality. Since Pericles is also married, and

Aspasia herself is a wife, I am the only person here who seems called

upon to take up the cause of the sex so persecuted by Euripides. True,

I lack eloquence, and might well wish for Protagoras. The latter would

not fail to praise woman as the giver of the sweetest joys, the

dispenser of the brightest happiness, the guardian of the divine

treasures of beauty and pleasures on earth, the delight of man’s eyes,

his rest from toil, his relief from pain. What a marvellous creation,

he would say, is a beautiful woman! She enraptures us with every atom

of her being. Her presence exhales bliss. Such would be Protagoras’

words. Euripides, on the contrary asserts: women are sphinxes; they

have lovely faces and tender bosoms, but sharp talons. Would it not be

allowable to say, vice versa: women, it is true, have sharp talons, but

lovely faces. Why should we not lay the principal stress on woman’s

good qualities, instead of her evil ones? Their claws must be cut, says

Euripides. But would this deprive their hostile feelings of all

possibility of doing harm? Would it not be more profitable to strive to

correct them? The claws would then become harmless of their own will.

How many virtues a woman can display! How many blessings she can

bestow, not only by what she gives, or says, or does, but by what she

is. Women are the natural champions of the beautiful; but as they make

every cause they uphold victorious, how glorious it would be if we

could henceforth make them champions of goodness and truth! So long as

the light of a wise discernment does not illumine women’s brains, they

will follow only the impulses of their physical nature, and these

impulses are always coarse and selfish. Perhaps in future the efforts

of men will be directed to rendering women, through clear perception,

priestesses not only of real beauty but of genuine goodness, instead of

servants of the dark instincts of nature.”

“Yes, the serpents still lack wings!” cried Euripides, with a scornful

smile. “Besides, this hope of woman’s improvement, by means of

knowledge, is not surprising on the part of a man who expects the

salvation of mankind to proceed from discernment and clear ideas. But I

tell you woman’s worth and nobleness does not depend upon the

cultivation of her perceptive faculties, but of her heart, her

feelings.”

“That will have its due proportion,” replied Socrates; “but it is

questionable whether the heart and its feelings can ever be cultivated

by themselves, whether the influence of a certain degree of knowledge

is not requisite.”

Pericles applauded Socrates’ words. Aspasia was silent and instantly

let the conversation drop; for much as part of what Socrates had said

harmonized with her own ideas, it seemed to her as if, under the mask

of modesty, he had again sought to cope with her, instruct her. She was

aware that she herself toiled for intellectual freedom, for the

elevation of her sex.

Had she not long since placed before her an unconcealed goal? Had she

not openly vowed to herself and her friends on the Acropolis, to strive

towards that goal with all her powers, after she became Pericles’ wife?

She had kept her word. To thoroughly transform the lives and positions

of women, had since that time been her bold aim.

But to accomplish this, she had been compelled to strive to obtain an

influence over the Athenian women, to play the part of leaven in this

indolent throng, to conciliate those hostile to the intruder and make

them adherents, pupils, friends.

Pericles had aided her designs, for he loved her and cheerfully

procured her every gratification. He introduced her, if this expression

is allowable, into Athenian society. The women of Athens were excluded

from intercourse with men, but they associated with each other. Aspasia

mingled in this society with apparent ease.

Among the beautiful and really clever women, who possess the power of

bewitching men, are some who, in spite of the envy, hatred, and

jealousy they arouse, also have the gift of attracting and winning

members of their own sex. Of course they do not attain this by an

excess of amiability, or by garrulous, intrusive advances, but rather

by the unassuming manner with which they seem to voluntarily subdue the

dangerous lustre of their charms, and by the most accurate knowledge of

the peculiarities and pretensions of those they seek to win. Aspasia

endeavored to inspire confidence. Unlike the foolish of her sex, she

knew that a beautiful woman generally allures men, as well as women, by

a sensible, quiet, dignified manner. She first saw that people were

forced to esteem her; to appear charming followed as a matter of

course.

When Aspasia had prepared the ground for her enterprises by this style

of conduct, which in her was not even the result of reflection, but

only a natural womanly impulse, she brought forward her plans and

designs more openly.

After a short time the Athenian women were divided by Pericles’ wife

into a number of parties.

There were the implacable ones, who hated her and fought against her

openly and secretly, with all the weapons of feminine hostility. There

were some, who did not refuse a sort of personal liking, but were of

the opinion that her efforts were too bold and unbridled, and others

who, while regarding her personally with disapproving eyes, were urged

by some secret impulse to follow the track of her efforts and imitate

her in many things. But there were also some, who had been completely

convinced and won, though all did not have courage to openly unite with

their leader in a battle for women’s rights.

Among Aspasia’s most implacable and dangerous enemies, as may be easily

supposed, were Pericles’ rejected wife and Cimon’s sister. The latter,

as it were, kept an account of Aspasia’s life and conduct, learned and

spread abroad the remarks she made about women, and it not unfrequently

happened that these remarks were so distorted in passing from mouth to

mouth, that they became well calculated to rouse the Athenians’ anger

against the wife of Pericles.

It happened one day, that Aspasia was talking with a newly-married wife

in her husband’s presence. The young couple asked her on what the

secure happiness of love and marriage depended.

Aspasia was seized with a desire to try Socrates’ method of expression.

“If your neighbor,” she said to the young wife, “has a handsomer dress

than you, which do you prefer, yours or hers?”

“Hers,” replied Hipparchia.

“And if your neighbor has a handsomer ornament than you,” continued

Aspasia, “which do you prefer?”

“Hers, of course,” answered the young wife.

“And if she has a better husband than you, to whom would you give the

preference, yours or hers?”

Hipparchia blushed at this unexpected, bold, perplexing question, but

Aspasia said smiling:

“In the natural course of things the wife will prefer the better

husband, the husband the better wife. So it seems there is no other

possible way of securing happiness in love and marriage, except by the

husband striving to seem to the wife the best of men, and the wife

trying to appear to the husband the best of women. Many demand love

from others as a duty, which is very unfair. We must seek to deserve

it, and constantly strive to foster it.”

The suggestion made to the young couple in these words was not without

excellent sense. But what did it become in the mouths of Elpinice and

those of the same mind? Aspasia’s conversation with the newly-wedded

pair went the round of Athens. But instead of reporting that Aspasia

had said the sole security of changeless conjugal happiness was, that

the husband should consider his wife the most charming of women, and

the wife think her husband the best of men, it was rumored that she had

told young Hipparchia, in her husband’s presence, to prefer a stranger

to her own spouse, if the former pleased her better.

Aspasia determined to give up the Socratian manner in her future

conversations, and be still more careful about the kind of people with

whom she talked. But her enemies went so far as to intentionally draw

her into conversations, in order, under the pretence of affection, to

lure from her remarks calculated to lower her in the opinion of the

Athenians. Aspasia easily penetrated such a design, and sometimes

succeeded in baffling their plans in a way which, besides the

satisfaction of attaining her object, afforded her a certain degree of

amusement.

Thus one day a certain Cleitagora approached her with feigned

admiration. But Aspasia knew Cleitagora belonged to the circle of the

friends of Telesippe and Elpinice.

Cleitagora asked Aspasia by what arts a wife could best bind her

husband.

“The most effectual of all the arts, by which a crafty woman can bind

her unsuspicious husband to herself and the domestic hearth,” replied

Aspasia with a very mysterious manner, “is that of cooking. I know a

woman, whose husband reverences her as if she were a goddess, merely on

account of the dainties she daily sets before him. Her masterpiece is

the light and delicate sesame porridge she makes by mixing sesame meal,

honey and oil in a pan. She takes barley, crushes it in a mortar,

shakes the meal in a vessel, adds oil to it, constantly stirs the

porridge while it slowly cooks, moistens it from time to time with

strong broth made of chicken, goat, or lamb, sees that it doesn’t get

overdone, and when boiling has it served up to him. Her hare-pasties,

and pies made of hedge-sparrows and other small birds, are also

excellent. What man would withdraw from the allurements of such things?

There are men too, who go into raptures over the so-called Cappadocian

cakes. It is best to knead them with honey and cut the dough into thin

sheets, which roll up at the mere sight of the pan. These little rolls

are then dipped in wine, but must come to the table very hot.”

In this manner Aspasia continued to dilate upon the rules of delicate

cookery, to the amazement of part of her listeners and the vexation of

others, who found nothing in these explanations that could be used to

lower her in the opinion of the public, and strengthen the reports of

her frivolity and dangerous principles.

The disagreeable opposition Aspasia’s efforts encountered among the

Athenian women, made her all the more gladly seize the opportunity

afforded her to adopt the orphaned daughters of her older sister, who

had died at Miletus. In these delicate young girls, Drosis and Prasina,

one fifteen, the other only a year older, Aspasia believed she would

find pliant material for the realization of her ideas about the

cultivation of the Hellenic woman to intellectual and personal freedom.

They might be expected to do honor to the school from which they came,

and help win the victory for Aspasia’s cause, which was at the same

time the cause of the whole female sex.

Meantime Aspasia was impatient, capable of forming extensive plans,

that in their nature could only ripen slowly, but also not averse to

bold, hasty strokes.

Such a stroke she now attempted, in order, if possible, to gather, once

for all, the reins of guidance over her sex into her own hands.

Among the numerous religious festivals of the Athenians, was one

exclusively celebrated by women, which no man was permitted to attend

on pain of severe punishment. This was the Thesmophorian festival in

honor of Demeter, worshipped not only as the goddess of agriculture but

also of marriage, on account of the connection between the ideas of

growing and producing, harvest and birth.

The sacred rites of this festival were performed not only by appointed

priestesses, but women chosen each time from the different families.

These women were compelled to prepare to take part in the ceremonies by

practising abstemiousness for a certain period. They slept on herbs, to

which were attributed the virtue of cooling the blood and promoting

abstinence. Among these were the agnus castus and a certain species of

nettle. The festival itself consisted of processions, assemblies in the

Thesmophorian temple, and traditional customs, in whose seriousness

blended jest and merriment.

The festival lasted four days. On the first, they went to the seaport

of Halimus, and there celebrated certain mysteries in a temple

consecrated to Demeter. On the second they returned to Athens. The

third day the women were assembled from early dawn till evening in the

Thesmophorian sanctuary. Demeter, Proserpina and other divinities were

invoked, and dances were performed in their honor. In the pauses the

women sat on agnus castus and other herbs of the kind mentioned,

entertaining each other with conversation and jests customary on this

occasion. During their stay in the temple, they took no food, but made

up for this abstemiousness by the joyous sacrificial banquet, with

which the whole ceremony closed on the following day.

Imagine the women of Athens, usually shut within the narrow limits of

their households, under their husbands’ eyes, left to themselves for

four days with the men rigidly excluded, united in a vast throng,

holding festal processions, then assembled in the temple, sitting down

on the sacred herbs to rest, and talking with perfect freedom—imagine

this buzzing feminine assembly, and it will be understood that it was

well adapted to unbridle not only women’s tongues, but also their

minds, and rouse them to defy the restraints of custom.

The Thesmophorian festival had returned.

Again the Athenian women sat on the agnus castus in the Thesmophorian

temple, chatting together during the intervals between the songs and

dances. Again a confused hum of voices arose. What were the subjects

discussed among the various groups of women sitting on the floor? Some

were talking about the bad habits of their husbands, others of the

faults of their slaves, or saying that children were far more saucy and

unruly than in former days; some were arguing about the best way of

making sesame cakes, some telling each other of magic spells, or giving

their younger companions advice about preparing love potions. Some told

ghost stories or tales of Thessalian witches, or the newest family

secrets. Some talked of Aspasia, and this conversation gradually became

the most animated one in the temple.

“Aspasia is right,” said a pretty young wife, whose blooming face was

most advantageously set off by the withered, rouged countenances of

most of the women around her. “She is right, we must compel the men to

treat us as Pericles treats Aspasia.”

“That we will!” cried several of the Milesian’s adherents. “We must

force them to arrange our domestic and married life, as Pericles does

his with Aspasia.”

“I’ve already made a beginning with my husband,” exclaimed a vivacious

little lady named Chariclea. “My Diagoras has already become accustomed

to kiss me whenever he leaves the house or returns to it, as Pericles

does Aspasia.”

“Do you also receive visits from philosophers, and serve sculptors as a

model?” scornfully asked one of the women in the group, one of those

whose cheeks were most withered and painted.

“Why shouldn’t Aspasia and Chariclea do so, if their husbands permit

it?” cried another. “We’ll do so too, and compel our husbands to allow

it.”

“Every man isn’t born so lenient,” said the first speaker, with a

malicious smile.

“Do you mean to say,” exclaimed Chariclea angrily, placing herself

before this woman, with arms akimbo, “do you mean to say I betray my

husband?”

“I won’t say it of you,” replied the other, “but perhaps your mistress,

Aspasia, will teach you this too!”

As the insolent words were uttered, a slender, exquisitely-formed

woman, closely veiled, suddenly stepped forward from among the group

who had listened to this conversation, passed directly in front of the

sharp-tongued speaker, threw back her veil and gazed at her with

flashing eyes.

“Aspasia!” exclaimed several of the spectators, and the name ran

quickly through the temple, causing an excitement which was

communicated to the most distant groups. The whole temple was in an

uproar. “What is it?” cried those most distant. “Has a man slipped in?”

“Aspasia!” echoed the reply. “Aspasia is here.”

At this news all the women pressed forward, and Aspasia soon found

herself the centre of the whole assembly.

She had come, surrounded by her adherents, amidst whom, veiled beyond

the possibility of recognition, she had remained concealed from the

eyes of the throng.

Even now these followers encompassed her like a body-guard, as she

stood with her figure drawn up to its full height, gazing angrily at

her insolent opponent.

While Aspasia thus confronted her foe, one of her companions pressed in

front of her, exclaiming contemptuously:

“You are right! Every man isn’t born so lenient. You must be well aware

of that. I know you! You are Crytilla, whose first husband, Xanthias,

cast off because he discovered you met your lover at night before the

door, beside the laurel-tree that shades the altar of Apollo, protector

of streets.”

A dull red flush crimsoned Crytilla’s face, she started up and made a

movement as if to seize her foe. But she was forced back by Aspasia’s

adherents, and the latter herself began:

“This woman has defamed my husband—defamed him only because he, the

first of all the Athenians, honors the dignity of woman in his wife,

and does not degrade her to the level of a slave. If men like Pericles

have to endure mockery and abuse, not merely from the mouths of men,

but even from women themselves, on account of the love and reverence

they pay their wives, how can you hope that your husbands will resolve

to follow the example of the noblest of men?”

“That is true!” said the women, looking at each other, “Crytilla has

done wrong to abuse Pericles and Diagoras. Would to the gods all

husbands were like them.”

“Husbands are what you deserve to have them,” replied Aspasia. “Try for

once to use the power, the irresistible influence bestowed upon the

female sex. You have hitherto neglected to develop this power, nay,

seem never to have known of it. Your slavery is a voluntary one. You

boast of the title of mistresses of the house, and are kept under more

rigid government than the female slaves—for slaves are permitted to

show themselves freely in the streets or at the market. You are

prisoners! Is it not so?”

“It is indeed!” cried one of the women in the group. “My husband, when

he was going away on a journey for a few days, once locked me into the

women’s apartment and sealed its door with his signet.”

“Mine,” exclaimed another, “has procured a huge Molossian dog, which

keeps guard at the door, that no lover may slip in during his absence.”

“Even the housekeeping is not entrusted to you without control!”

continued Aspasia.

“Quite true!” eagerly interposed another woman, “my husband carries the

keys of the store-room about with him.”

“Don’t they go to market themselves, to buy meat and vegetables?”

exclaimed a second.

“Yes, and in time of war,” cried a third, “when the men go about armed,

they can be seen in the market in suits of mail with Gorgon shields on

their arms, bargaining for eggs and vegetables, or bringing meat home

in a brazen helmet.”

“Since they don’t even allow you to assert your authority by the

domestic hearth,” said Aspasia, “it is not surprising they don’t permit

you to utter a word about public affairs. When they come from the Pnyx,

where the question of peace or war has been discussed, are you even

permitted to inquire what was decided there?”

“No indeed!” cried the women. “‘What is it to you?’ they say. ‘Keep to

your distaff and be silent.’”

“And if you are not silent?”

“Then matters are worse!”

“My husband,” said one of the women, “repeats till I am fairly sick,

the foolish old proverb: ‘Oh! woman, woman’s fairest ornament is

silence.’”

“We know the proverb too! It’s in every man’s mouth,” ran through the

circle.

“Why do we have tongues?” asked one, and added: “Merely to be kissed

and caressed, and talk folly.”

The women laughed, but Aspasia continued:

“They wish you to be spiritless and dull; for only then can they rule

you. The moment you become clever and intelligent, conscious of the

power given to women over man, that moment their tyranny would be over.

You think you have done everything if you keep the house clean, wash

and nurse your children, see that moths don’t gnaw the woollen

garments, and the hens don’t tangle the yarn on the loom. If one of you

does more and seeks to please her husband, she imagines she can gain

this object with the help of a crocus-yellow robe, pointed shoes,

perfume boxes, and a little cinnabar. But physical beauty and fine

clothes are dangerous weapons against men only in the hands of those,

who also possess a little intellect. Where could you get what I call a

little intellect, except by having freer intercourse with the world,

from which men shut you out as if by a brazen wall? You must in future

be allowed to purify and refresh your dull minds with the vivifying

atmosphere of freedom, be influenced by the external world, and

receiving impressions from what is occurring there, exert a counter

influence on the world and life, with the ennobling liberty of the

developed feminine soul. Woman’s intellect must exert an equal

influence upon the world with man’s. Then only will marriage and the

whole domestic life be transformed, the arts reach their fullest

development, war and all rudeness vanish from mankind. Let us form a

league, a peaceful conspiracy, and take a mutual vow to do all in our

power, to battle for the rights our sex requires in order to freely

exert the sovereignty to which it is called.”

Eager assent greeted Aspasia’s words from the greater portion of the

assembly; but so loud and confused a roar of voices followed, that

nothing could be distinctly heard, for the women began to vehemently

discuss the subject together, all speaking at once. It seemed as if a

wandering flock of twittering, screaming birds, had suddenly entered

the Thesmophorian temple.

At last a slender, but energetic figure elbowed its way through the

dense throng towards the centre of the group where Aspasia stood. The

white kerchief that covered her head also concealed a portion of her

face, so that she could not be instantly recognized. But as she now

paused, fixing her eyes maliciously on Aspasia, all distinguished the

sharp masculine features of Cimon’s sister.

Elpinice was dreaded throughout Athens, feared by all the members of

her own sex. She ruled by the power of her tongue, her almost masculine

strength of will, the wide extent of her connections. So a timid

silence fell upon the whole circle, while Cimon’s sister attacked

Aspasia with the words:

“By what right is the stranger allowed to speak among native Athenian

women?”

Elpinice’s question instantly made a deep impression, and many eagerly

nodded, wondering why this scruple had not at once occurred to them.

The former continued: “How does this Milesian venture to teach us? Does

she dare make herself one of our circle? Has she shared our customs,

our rules, our manners, our sacred rites from childhood? We are

Athenians: at eight years old we wore the holy garb of the Arrephori,

at ten we ground the sacrificial meal in the temple of Artemis, we were

consecrated as blooming maidens to the same goddess, walked together as

basket-bearers in the Panathenaic procession. And this woman? She came

from a foreign country, without the guidance or blessing of the gods, a

profligate, crafty adventuress, and now seeks to force herself among us

because she succeeded in beguiling an Athenian, till contrary to law

and custom, he received her into his house?”

Quietly, yet not without a sarcastic smile, Aspasia answered:

“You are right! I did not grow up in the dull solitude of an Athenian

women’s apartment; I did not attend your Brauronia [8] in a saffron

robe, did not carry a basket on my head and wear a string of withered

figs around my neck in your Panathenaic procession, did not wail upon

the roofs at your Adonis festival. I have not spoken as an Athenian to

Athenians, but as a woman to women.”

“Corrupter of men! Ally of the godless!” cried Elpinice still more

furiously, “dare you enter our temple, profane our sanctuaries with

your presence?”

These words were impetuously uttered, the short hairs on Elpinice’s

upper lip fairly bristled with indignation. Her friends, who had

gathered around, assumed a threatening attitude towards the Milesian.

But Aspasia’s friends also drew nearer to their leader, ready to

protect her, and the number of those who still remained by Pericles’

wife was by no means small.

The buzz of eager voices again rose, and many a violent altercation

threatened to cause a passionate quarrel between the parties.

At last Cimon’s resolute sister again obtained a hearing, to play her

strongest trump.

“Remember Telesippe!” she cried. “Remember how this foreign

adventuress, this Milesian hetæra drove an Athenian wife from her

hearth, from her children, from her husband! Which of you can believe

herself secure from this woman’s wiles, if she takes it into her head

to bewitch other women’s husbands? Before you listen to this serpent’s

hiss, remember that she has poison in her mouth.”

“Look,” continued Elpinice, glancing towards a corner of the temple,

“look at Telesippe! See her shrouded in her grief—see her pale face—see

the tears roll down her cheeks at the mention of her children!”

All the women, following Elpinice’s eyes, turned towards Pericles’

rejected wife, who was standing at some distance, gazing, pallid with

wrath and anger, at Aspasia.

Elpinice went on:

“Do you know what she thinks of us Athenians? Need I say it? Has she

not told you herself? She thinks us foolish, ignorant, inexperienced,

unworthy a husband’s love, and graciously condescends to teach us,

securely conscious, in her secret pride, that we can never become like

her, the fair, wise, peerless, bewitching Milesian, with whom even the

loveliest of you all can never vie.”

These words produced an almost incredible influence upon the assembly.

The mood of all suddenly changed, even in the hearts of those who had

hitherto favored Aspasia.

Elpinice continued:

“Do you know what your friends, Pericles’ companions, say of her, what

all the men of Athens are repeating? ‘Aspasia is the most charming

woman in Athens—nay, the only charming woman in Athens—people must go

to Miletus if they wish to find lovely and bewitching women.’”

At these words the humiliation and craftily-kindled rage of the women

burst forth. They pressed upon Aspasia with fierce outcries and

upraised arms. She stood erect and calm, white with anger, yet with a

look of unspeakable contempt, saying:

“Hush, you beet, parsley, caraway-seed women! Hush, you apple, cheese,

butter women! Do you mean to scratch and bite?”

The few remaining faithful followers of Aspasia threw themselves before

her, a wild tumult, almost a scuffle, arose. Some of Elpinice’s

companions gesticulated as if they intended to scratch Aspasia’s eyes

out with their nails, others drew the sharp clasp pins from their

garments and threatened their enemy with them. Aspasia, under the

protection of those who still closed bravely around her, hastily left

the Thesmophorian temple.

Thus ended the attempt to free the women of Athens, by the power of the

mind.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARCADIAN GIRL.

Several years had passed. Aspasia had battled bravely, but could not

boast of having conquered. The stormy scene in the Thesmophorian temple

had become known throughout the city, and she was compelled to endure

the mortification, that under all circumstances, is connected with

defeat. Some few persons clung to her, but the greater part of her sex,

through envy, blindness, and the malicious reports disseminated by her

enemies, had become enraged against her.

A feeling of melancholy sometimes overmastered Pericles. He thought of

the unclouded happiness he had enjoyed with the Milesian during their

brief, but blissful seclusion on the strand of Ionia. It seemed at

times as if he must again tear himself away from his daily anxieties,

fly from noisy Athens, where his best happiness was destroyed by the

many-tongued expressions of animosity buzzing like a swarm of bees

about his head.

When the news reached Athens, that Phidias had completed in Elis his

gold and ivory statue of the Olympic Zeus, the most sublime and

magnificent of all his works, what a tempting opportunity it seemed to

Pericles to take a short excursion to the land of the Dorians. But the

journey through the mountain region of Argos and Arcadia appeared too

toilsome for Aspasia, and the idea of such an expedition, when first

mentioned between the two, was only regarded as a pleasant jest.

The Athenian nation had gradually taken that sort of aversion to

Aspasia, with which beautiful, influential women, whose fate is

connected with that of a man in high position, always have to contend.

They continued to attribute Pericles’ plans and enterprises to her

secret influence, and assert that she was inciting him to make himself

ruler of all Hellas. The gay authors of comedies, at their head

Cratinus, the friend of Polygnotus, who had been enraged against the

Milesian at Hipponicus’ banquet, put sharper and sharper points to the

arrows directed against her. The Attic Muse resembled the bee-hive—it

dripped with virgin honey, but carried a sharp sting.

Pericles became indignant, and attempted to restrain the insolence of

the comedy.

Every one attributed the effort to Aspasia’s influence.

“Do they take me for an old lion, whose teeth have dropped out and who

can only drivel?” said Cratinus.

In his next comedy, he fearlessly hurled an insulting epithet at

Aspasia before the assembled Athenians.

Cratinus’ invective was unboundedly insolent, terribly wounding, almost

crushing. In it culminated the ill-will of Aspasia’s secret and open

enemies. The mirth-loving crowd seized upon and repeated it. The soil

of Athens was beginning to burn under the Milesian’s feet.

From that day the journey to Elis was a settled fact between Pericles

and Aspasia. It now seemed less difficult to the angry pair, to tread

the rough ground of the peninsula of Pelops, than to linger on the

glowing soil of Athens.

In Athens the Milesian’s life was divided among many, who basked in the

light of her intellect and beauty. In the still, quiet meadows of

Argos, on the idyllic heights of Arcadia, even amid the tumult of

Olympia, they would again live wholly for themselves and their own

happiness.

The preparations for the journey were quickly made, and soon Cimon’s

sister, who was first to know everything that happened, could tell

loquacious Athens that Pericles was about to go to Olympia, and the

effeminate hero could not do without his beloved Aspasia, who however

did wisely to escape from the disgrace that covered her in Athens.

There were many, who jested about the inseparableness of the pair.

There were many also, who secretly envied them.

A light carriage conveyed the two inseparables to the Isthmus. Slaves

and mules had been sent forward to Corinth, to be used on the journey

over the rough paths of the Peloponnesus.

What a sigh of relief both uttered, when they had left Athens, once so

beloved, behind them.—They knew not, that in flying from the city they

did not retard, but hastened the fate appointed.

From the magnificent, ever-changing views of land and sea constantly

presented to their eyes, down to the monuments along the roads, the

statues of Hermes and altars of Hecate at the cross-roads, everything

was charming and significant to the pair, who had once more regained

their happiness.

They found the broad road from Eleusis full of travellers. Devout and

philanthropic people were placing fruits and other food before the

statues and temples of the way-side gods, that poor and starving

wanderers might refresh themselves. Here and there trees were planted

by the side of the road, whose fruit was also common property to all

who were thirsty. Nor was there any lack of shelter.

“We Hellenes are fond of travelling,” said Pericles to Aspasia.

“Generous hospitality and joyous festivals lure us from place to place.

And as you see, provision is made for the wanderer.”

Many a spring leaped from the mountain slopes along the road, and many

a traveller resting beside the huge trunks of the poplars that shaded

them, had carved, in token of his gratitude, a proverb or a verse, or

hung an offering on them.

Flourishing cities and hamlets, adorned with temples and columns,

attracted the eyes of the wedded pair. First Eleusis, the sacred city

of the mysteries, where at Pericles’ suggestion a superb new temple for

the celebration was rising under Ictinus’ hands. Then Megara, the

Dorian city, which awakened unpleasant memories in Aspasia’s mind. Her

fair face clouded; she was silent, but unforgotten sorrow and unavenged

disgrace forced tears from her eyes. Pericles understood her and said:

“Be comforted. Your enemies are mine. Megara will atone for her crime.”

On reaching crowded Corinth, Pericles went to the house of his friend

Amynias, who received him and his wife with great honors.

The height of Acrocorinthus, the Acropolis of the city of Corinth, a

cliff densely overgrown with flowers and plants, sloping abruptly down

towards the city, a watch-tower of Hellas, beckoned alluringly to the

new comers. On its summit gleamed the famous temple of the goddess of

love. As intellectual Athens was under the protection of reflecting

Pallas Athena, the rich, pleasure-loving commercial city placed herself

under the guardianship of joy-giving Aphrodite. Like Pallas Athena in

Athens, Aphrodite was here the ruler of the citadel, and stood armed

within her sanctuary. From the highest peak the pinnacles of her temple

shone far over the sea, she too was a sign to mariners. A thousand

hieroduli, servants of the goddess, charming and complaisant daughters

of pleasure, dwelt within the temple precincts on the mountain height,

which by terraces, porticos, gardens, groves and baths had been

transformed into a doubly charming Eden.

From this height, standing in the centre of the Hellenic countries and

seas, Pericles and Aspasia overlooked all the oddly-shaped peaks,

glowing in a peculiar magic of tints. In the north they beheld the

snow-capped summit of Parnassus, farther eastward Helicon, greeted the

mountains of Attica, and with no little pleasure even saw the familiar

cliff of the Athenian Acropolis glimmering through the pure air in the

distance. Towards the south their eyes wandered over the heights of

Northern Arcadia. Amid the countless mountains and valleys they saw the

sparkling bays and coasts, the sea-islands—either green or with

glittering white cliffs, all steeped in the charm of a peerless

atmosphere.

Pericles and Aspasia were somewhat disturbed in their enjoyment of this

lovely scene, by the crowd of hieroduli wandering through the porticos

and groves near the temple precincts.

“You have no such worship in Athens,” said the Corinthian host, who had

accompanied the pair, to Pericles, “and are perhaps not disposed to see

in these priestesses sacred persons. With us such a priesthood has long

been held in high and honorable esteem. These gay, hospitable girls,

who, presiding over the service of Aphrodite, strive towards the spirit

of the mother of love, are present at the sacrifices and other

religious ceremonies, take part in the festal processions of the

citizens, and while so doing sing the pæan to Aphrodite. We apply to

them for their intercession with the goddess, the guardian divinity of

our city. You smile? Well, you Athenians may think you owe more to

Pallas Athena. With you the community is rich and powerful, with us it

is the individual citizen. Each is a Crœsus, a king in himself, and

enjoys the good things of life, obtained by trade and commerce. We do

not strive for power and wealth in Greece; we do not lavish our

treasures on building fortifications or navies and similar things, but

live comfortably, and believe that after all only the individual

exists, the community is a mere idea. Be this as it may, even though

you Athenians still look down upon us so scornfully, you have entered

the path that brings us nearer to each other. You love and foster the

beautiful, with which a love for the pleasant things of life always

makes its appearance.”

The Corinthian’s words made a deep impression on Pericles, though he

did not seem to heed them. He gazed across at the mountains of the

Peloponnesus, and after a pause, turned with a fleeting smile to

Aspasia, saying:

“It is significant that here, on the threshold of the grave, stern

Peloponnesus, we meet Hellenic life developed to the climax of

luxuriousness. Who would imagine, on coming from bright, art-loving,

intellectual Athens, or standing in joyous Corinth on the summit

crowned by Aphrodite’s temple, surrounded by throngs of hieroduli, that

so short a distance away, on the other side of the isthmus and yonder

gloomy mountains, unspoiled shepherd folk live in primitive simplicity

on the heights of Arcadia, that opposite to these abodes of beautiful,

delightful leisure, on the farther side of those mountains, the rude

Spartan and morose Messenian, like the fierce lions and wolves, destroy

each other in savage conflicts amid the horrible ravines or dark

forests. What a wrestling ground of fierce, heroic power that region

behind the lofty mountains has been from ancient times. From citadels

reared of rocks piled one above another, the Argive princes went forth

against Ilium. Along the paths of the Peloponnesus, Heracles and

Perseus went their heroic way, strangled lions, battled with the brood

of serpents in the marshes, and the flocks of noxious birds in the air.

Even at the present day, does not manly vigor strive for the prize on

the meadows, on the isthmus at Nemea, at Olympia? Do not men, longing

for the laurel that crowns heroic strength, flock thither from all

Hellas? This Peloponnesus seems gloomy, rude, and threatening, and the

waters of the Styx do not wash its dark mountain shores in vain. But we

will defy its terrors, we will venture into the lions’ dens, and if we

have grown too effeminate, steel ourselves with fresh strength in these

harsher airs.”

“Since when has Pericles admired, nay even envied the rude and simple

men on the other side of the isthmus?” asked Aspasia, smiling. “Cheer

up, my friend! Let them strive and fight as they choose. The victorious

light of Pallas Athena does not shine on their mountain peaks, as on

the Acropolis of Athens.”

The travellers left Corinth the next morning with a large escort, and

set out in high spirits for the journey across the Argolian mountains

into the land of the Dorians. Aspasia usually disdained the litter

Pericles, with affectionate solicitude, had had prepared for her use,

and which could be carried by slaves or mules across the most rugged

portion of the hilly region. She preferred to ride on a mule by her

husband’s side. Thus, engaged in familiar conversation, they travelled

through the rustling mountain forests, following the course of the

streams that rushed through the ravines, passing over steep ascents and

wooded peaks to broad open plateaus, then through narrow passes and

valleys, where the oleander and wild pear-tree intertwined their shady

branches over the dark path.

In such gloomy ravines, Aspasia cast many an anxious glance into the

bushes, in search of the dark form of some lurking robber. Pericles

smiled, and glancing at the troop of well-armed men, familiar with

every path, whom he had obtained for an escort through the mountains,

said:

“Fear nothing, Aspasia! The savage giants long since vanished from

these defiles, even the malicious tyrant Sinis, the pine-bender. We

need only guard against the serpents that infest these hills and

valleys; for you doubtless remember, what happened close by the Nemean

plain, when the nurse laid the little boy down to fetch a drink of

water, at request of the seven passing towards Thebes.”

After a toilsome day’s journey, the travellers reached the threshold of

the plain of Inachus, and saw between the grey mountain peaks

Agamemnon’s city, famed in legend, the ancient guardian of this

mountain road, the citadel of Mycenæ, lying watchfully in its rocky

nook—“in the corner of Argos,” according to the words of the Homeric

song. At the right rose the bare cone-shaped mountain, with the ancient

citadel of Larisa, the Acropolis of the city of Argos, which extended

over a wide portion of the plain at the foot of the mountain, still

flourishing and no less densely populated than Athens. Beyond the long

sea-beach sparkled the blue waves of the bay of Nauplia;

mountain-chains, steeped in sunset hues, here towered in jagged peaks

towards the sky, and yonder ran in sweeping curves to the sea. On the

opposite side of the glittering gulf appeared the dim outlines of

mighty mountains.

A strange emotion took possession of the travellers. Their eyes rested

on the grey height of Mycenæ, seeking some traces of the royal palace

of the Pelopidæ, and all the other indestructible remains of the

Cyclopian treasuries, graves, walls, and arches of former days.

When they reached Mycenæ itself, darkness had closed in. They stood on

the rocky height, where the grey masonry, built of huge but

regularly-hewn blocks of stone, and overgrown with moss and ivy,

produced a dismal, almost ghastly impression in the gloom. Yet they

scorned to go down to the houses of the few Mycenæans, who still lived

in the ruined, deserted city of the Atridæ. Pericles and Aspasia

determined to spend the warm summer night in a tent near this venerable

relic of the past. But the moon rose, flooding with her white, radiant

light the masonry, the height itself, all the mountain peaks of Argos

and the plain between to the distant sea. Though weary, Pericles and

Aspasia could not resist the temptation of this bewitching moonlight,

and drew fresh strength from the strange excitement of their minds. A

few days ago noisy Athens surrounded them, and now, in the starry

night, they stood thrilled with awe on the ruins of Mycenæ, amid the

death-like stillness of the Argolian mountains. The spirit of Homer

seized upon them. In the sighing of the wind, the rustling of the

tree-tops, they heard a faint echo of the immortal heroic song. The

full moonlight, shining upon the peaks of the mountains of Argos,

reminded them of the fire that had once flashed from one summit to

another, bearing the message of the Greek conquest of Troy over sea and

mountain to Agamemnon’s citadel, where the fierce Clytemnestra,

secretly sharpening the murderous steel, with her lover Ægisthus by her

side, awaited the return of the victorious Greek commander. And within

the deserted ruins that lay before them, in the silent, night-shrouded

solitude, that dagger flashed. Behind those walls echoed the

death-rattle of the ruler.

Pericles and Aspasia walked along the mighty wall, which, with many

turns and angles, followed the edge of the rugged mountain. They

reached the famed lion-gate, the ancient entrance to the citadel of the

Atridæ, above which rose the oldest piece of sculpture in the world.

Through this gate-way they entered the stronghold, and stood before the

inner walls, behind which the Atridæ lived in security; but only the

foundations showed them the position of the royal apartments. They

continued their walk, and farther on, not on the summit of the

mountain, but its slope, reached the venerable, still uninjured

circular building, which was at once a treasury and the tomb of the

Pelopidæ.

As Pericles and Aspasia approached this building, they were startled by

the figure of a gigantic man lying before the door, who raised himself

to a sitting posture as the strangers came up. He recalled the huge

forms of Homer, that hurled blocks of stone, whose weight the men of

later generations could not have raised from the ground. Pericles

accosted him, and after a short conversation perceived that he had

encountered one of the beggars wandering through the mountains of

Argos. His limbs were scantily covered with rags; his bronzed face

seemed worn by wind and weather. So perhaps looked the patient wanderer

Ulysses, when he escaped from his wrecked ship to land, after

struggling with the waves for days, while the salt tide gnawed his

limbs.

The weird, gigantic, gray-haired beggar said that he was guarding the

treasure of Atreus, and no one should approach the door of the treasury

without his consent. Then he began to babble of vast stores of gold,

which still lay concealed in these rock-chambers, and would make the

finder the richest of all mortals, a leader and king in Hellas, the

heir and successor of the Hellenic prince Agamemnon.

Pericles smiled and said to Aspasia: “Mycenæ was famed in ancient times

as the richest of the Hellenic cities; but I think her gold has long

since flowed to Athens, and we need not seek it here. Yet this

wonderful rock-tomb irresistibly allures me.”

“Guide us into the treasury, you guard,” he continued, turning to the

giant. “We are Athenians, and have come into the mountains of Argos, to

show our reverence for the dust of the divine Atridæ.”

He then ordered several slaves to light torches. The beggar, over whom

Pericles’ manner seemed to exert a certain influence, silently prepared

to act as guide. Exerting his gigantic strength, he pushed aside with

his strong hand a piece of rock that lay before the entrance,

completely barring it. Even then it was not easy to make their way over

the rubbish and stones, that almost choked the door, into the vault,

which extended far into the earth.

Through the entrance, formed of huge blocks of stone, Pericles and

Aspasia reached the lofty, gloomy vault, whose walls were not erected

in the usual manner—the layers of stone were placed one above another

in ever-narrowing circles, and finished with a conical arch. Traces of

a metal lining were on the walls, a favorite ornament in the days of

which Homer writes. How the smooth, polished metal walls of the royal

apartments must have sparkled in the light of blazing torches! But here

the metal plates had been violently torn away, and the gray stone

masses of the huge circles, piled one above another, stared nakedly

down upon the spectators.

Pericles and Aspasia passed from the circular room, through a narrow

door, into a chamber hewn in a square form from the solid rock.

They stood absorbed in thought. The dim light of the burning torches

feebly illumined the gloomy stone vault.

“It would be a bold idea,” said Pericles, “to take shelter for the

night in this stone vault, which seems pervaded with a strange horror.”

Aspasia shuddered, but the next instant smiled, and could not resist

the spell exerted by the terrible, yet tempting thought of spending a

night in the tomb of the Pelopidæ, which had endured a thousand years,

resting above the dust of Atreus and Agamemnon.

Many objections were raised, but at last they resolved to execute the

daring idea. The slaves spread carpets and prepared a couch on the

stone floor of the smaller rock-chamber. The gigantic beggar stretched

himself out in the vaulted room to sleep, the servants lay around the

outer entrance.

Pericles and Aspasia now found themselves alone in the awful, rock-hewn

chamber. The uncertain light of the torch, fastened on the floor,

flickered with a ghostly glimmer over the gray, windowless walls. A

death-like stillness reigned. The repose of a sepulchre surrounded

them.

“On this night and in this place,” said Pericles, “the thought of

corruption and annihilation confronts me almost in bodily form, with

Titanic power. How delicate, variable and perishing every living thing

appears, and how stubbornly and tenaciously that, which we are

accustomed to call dead, defies the teeth of time. Atreus and Agamemnon

perished long ago, and we are perhaps inhaling the invisible atoms of

their dust with every breath we draw. But the lifeless walls, which

towered above those men, surround us now, and will perhaps rise over

those who will absorb our dust a thousand years hence.”

“I do not think, like you, Pericles,” replied Aspasia, “that this

fleeting human existence has any reason to envy the indestructible life

of the dead. The falling block of stone buries the flowers, but they

return with every spring and twine their shoots about the rock, which

after centuries crumbles away, but the flowers are always here. So life

lies buried under the ruins of cities, but secretly creeps forth again

and surrounds the masonry that boasts of its duration: its shoots even

grow through and burst the rock, and thus at last only what is

apparently fleeting and perishable becomes eternal.”

“You are right,” said Pericles, “life would soon become weary and

disgusted with itself, if allotted the changelessness of the dead.

Changelessness is synonymous with death, and change is life.”

“Is not the heroic soul of Agamemnon renewed in a thousand heroes?”

said Aspasia. “Does not the love of Paris and Helen live on forever in

a thousand lovers?”

“Yes, life comes and goes,” replied Pericles, “and returns in perpetual

transformations. But are we sure, that in this coming and going some

portion of its original strength is not at last lost? Must not the

grandeur in the world slightly resemble the stone circles in the arch

of this vault, which it is true repeat themselves towards the top, but

constantly grow smaller? Agamemnon’s heroic spirit seems to have

returned, and we have defeated the Persians, but it seems to me we have

shrivelled a little in comparison with Homer’s heroes.”

“Many things may become weaker in returning,” answered Aspasia, “but do

you not perceive, that many are still more vigorous and beautiful? The

art that perished with these ruins has returned, and carved the

sculptured marble ornaments of the Parthenon!”

“But,” said Pericles, “when these sculptured marble ornaments have also

some day crumbled into ruins—if perhaps Pallas’ magnificent team of

four horses, falling from the pediment of the Parthenon, is shattered

with a thundering crash upon the rocky slope, are you sure that art

will only return in a more glorious form? Or will a time come, whose

glory will merely exist upon the reflection from the immortal ruins?”

“Let later generations trouble themselves about that,” replied Aspasia.

“You have also spoken of the love of the handsomest couple of ancient

times,” continued Pericles, “and how it is revived in countless pairs.”

“Do you doubt it?” said Aspasia.

“No,” cried Pericles, “and I believe that love, and love alone, always

returns with the same power, the same freshness, the same bliss.”

“Love and pleasure!” said Aspasia smiling.

“Even so!” repeated Pericles. “True, I must wander through this place

with shame, and perhaps am not worthy to rest even one night above the

dust of Homeric heroes. But if, with sorrowful envy, I must renounce

the heroic fame of Achilles, I share the happiness of Paris—the

possession of the fairest Hellenic woman.”

The expression with which Pericles said this, was not wholly in harmony

with the words themselves. He looked as if he doubted whether it was

seemly for a man to renounce the fame of Achilles, and be content with

the happiness of Paris.

But Aspasia understood how to soothe the thoughts stirring in Pericles’

mind, by exerting the spell at the command of the most beautiful woman

in Greece. Her eyes shed a magical light through the gloomy

rock-chamber, the rose-hue on her cheek seemed diffused through the

whole vault. The torch, which but now had flickered so dimly, perhaps

like those that had once burned here at the interment of the buried

Agamemnon, suddenly appeared to blaze up cheerily like a hymeneal

taper. The light of beauty, shining in the gloomy tomb, seemed to

transform the dark vault to a bridal-chamber, and the eternal freshness

of life and love gained the mastery over the horror of death and

corruption, the dust of the Atridæ that had lain mouldering for a

thousand years.

When Pericles and Aspasia left the sepulchre and emerged from the

rock-hewn vault, the dewy light of morning was shining on all the

fields and slopes. Yet, even in the brilliant radiance of day, the

ruins of the citadel of the Atridæ were no less lonely and silent. Only

a vulture, with outspread pinions, hovered high in the blue air above

Mycenæ.

While the travellers breakfasted on the provisions brought with them,

and some wine carried by a slave in a skin, Pericles asked Aspasia if

she had had no dream during her slumber in the tomb of the Atridæ.

“Yes,” replied Aspasia, “a dream really did transport me to the camp

before Ilium. I saw Achilles in bodily form, and he still hovers before

my eyes—a youthful figure, fiercely beautiful, of almost unearthly

aspect, tall and slender, the face of the purest oval, framed by dark

waving locks, the eyes, black as coals and almost circular in shape,

which, despite the nobility of the features, gave the face a somewhat

Gorgan-like, terrible expression; the mouth was unusually small, but

the lips wore an impress of power; everywhere youthful beauty was

blended with fierce, almost superhuman, heroic strength. So I saw him

standing on the ship, his battle shout alone spreading terror within

the walls of Ilium.”

“A dream bore me also into the Homeric world,” said Pericles, “but

strangely enough, not among the heroes. I saw Penelope, yet stranger

still, not as Homer describes her, the faithful wife waiting for

Ulysses, but as the youthful bride in the light of a legend, which

charms me more than all Homer has sung of her. You surely know the

story of Ulysses’ courtship—how the Spartan king Icarius consented to

give his daughter to Ulysses, hoping to induce the latter to settle in

Lacedæmon, but when he did not succeed in this, sought to estrange his

beloved child from the suitor; nay when Ulysses took away his bride to

Ithaca, followed the carriage with his paternal pleadings, until

Ulysses asked the maiden to say whether she accompanied him willingly,

or would rather return to Sparta with her father. Penelope made no

reply, but timidly veiled her face; upon which Icarius let her go and

erected a statue of virgin modesty in the spot where this occurred.

What a charming picture is this silent, blushing Penelope, veiling her

face in maidenly embarrassment. And in that virginal form I saw her

last night in my dream.”

Thus Pericles and Aspasia related the visions that had fallen to their

lot, while resting on the dust of the Atridæ, and wondered half in

jest, half in earnest, whether they concealed any omen or secret

meaning.

Casting one more glance from the ruined citadel of Mycenæ upon the

plain of Inachus and ancient Argos, they continued their journey, and

began to cross the Argolian mountains into the Arcadian chain.

Pericles and Aspasia enjoyed walking for long distances over the paths

of the wooded heights, engaged in familiar conversation.

Aspasia had hitherto been accustomed to rest only on cushions and

carpets; she now learned that it was possible to recline on green turf,

moss, herbs, and pine needles. Sometimes, when they sat down in a

pleasant spot, a slave, at a sign from Pericles, brought one of the

rolls of MS., containing Homer’s poetry, and Aspasia, at her husband’s

request, read aloud to him in her clear, sweet voice. They had not

wished to visit the remains of the ancient kingdom of the Atridæ

without the poet, and indeed, since seeing these ruins, the bard

appeared to them in all his reality.

From time to time a passing difference of opinion arose, when Pericles

praised the patriarchal heroic days too enthusiastically, while Aspasia

preferred to seek the ideal of human life in the present or even the

future.

“I find a remarkable lesson in Homer,” Pericles said—“namely that men

were once animals, and gradually became human beings. We see in his

writings, especially in the Odyssey, how the transformation gradually

took place. Everywhere he lays special stress upon the victory of

humanity over what is rude and animal. Everywhere we see this struggle

of humanity against the still unconquered remnants of brutishness. He

shows us in the savage Læstrygones and Cyclopes, what we once were. He

describes these fierce barbarians in contrast with noble human

feelings, compares the cannibals with the hospitable Phæacians, and to

guard mankind from any relapse into brutishness, associates it as

closely as possible with the divine nature. Pallas Athena, the goddess

of wise human judgment, energy ennobled by humanity, is the constant

companion and guide of his heroes. Humanity is what he preaches,

humanity in contrast with brutishness. With him pure humanity is coined

into pure poesy. Every object floats in a pure, clear atmosphere. Lofty

simplicity never spoke more eloquently from any lips.”

Here Aspasia interrupted Pericles’ praise.

“Pardon me,” she said, “a word has escaped you, which I cannot let

pass, and you perhaps will gladly retract. Homer is neither plain nor

simple, at least not in the sense that some of the sculptors were, who

preceded Phidias. With Homer, to use an old comparison, poetry sprang

fully matured from the brain of Zeus. His language is broad, rich,

sonorous. His descriptions are sometimes as pompous as they are vivid,

and there are passages in the Iliad and Odyssey whose rhetorical

magnificence of expression no later poet will surpass. And his

eloquence! Are not the speeches with which the angry Achilles is

persuaded to return to the battle, and the answer he makes,

masterpieces? Not merely in consequence of their vigor; by their

arrangement and striking force of demonstration they will remain models

of perfect oratory.”

“What you say is true!” said Pericles. “Yet Homer, in a certain sense,

possesses what I call sublime simplicity. Perhaps it is the secret of

the highest art, to permit this lofty simplicity to echo through the

cultivated magnificence of style, and blend primeval freshness with the

maturity of the present.”

After a journey of several days, the travellers found themselves in the

midst of the rough mountainous portion of Arcadia. They were

accompanied through the hilly region by native shepherds, who not only

acted as guides but, armed with clubs and spears, served also for

guards. Amid the solitude of the mountains they saw eagles circling in

the clouds above them, beheld other birds with sharp talons and crooked

beaks fighting and screaming on the jagged rocks, saw flocks of cranes,

starlings, and daws flying before the hawks that darted down upon them

from the peaks. Here and there the blows of axes and the crash of

ancient trees, falling under the hands of wood-cutters, resounded from

the forest depths. Not one of the carnivorous animals, which usually

only emerge from their dens at night, crossed their path, but they

found the ground in the Arcadian woods covered with bright-eyed

tortoises, creeping clumsily among the plants and stones, or basking in

the sun.

Thus Pericles and Aspasia wandered through the quiet country, and while

supposing that they calmly regarded everything new and strange as a

temporary and chance event, all these things had a momentous secret

influence, fitted into their lives like a previously-ordained link, and

without perceiving or suspecting it, they were going forward to meet

changes, transformations, decisions in their future destiny.

Passing over lofty plateaus near the clouds, the travellers often

obtained wonderful views of Hellas, and sometimes saw the peaks of

snow-clad mountains glittering on the most distant horizons. One day

they set out before dawn, and traversed summits still veiled in

darkness.

“Are you shivering in the chill mountain air?” Pericles asked the

shuddering Aspasia.

“No, I am trembling in the presence of this dark, dreary, mountain

solitude,” she replied. “It seems as if we were no longer on Hellenic

soil, and had been deserted by all the Hellenic gods.”

At this moment Pericles’ eye rested on a tiny golden cloud visible in

the extreme north. He directed Aspasia’s attention to it. The cloud

grew larger, but remained in the same spot and stood forth in wonderful

relief against the monotonous grey of the rest of the night sky.

Gradually the upper surface gained remarkable distinctness and firmness

of outline, which no longer resembled a cloud. It looked like a far

golden meadow, where happy gods wandered. Indeed, when morning dawned

and the lines of more distant mountain ranges appeared, this light

spread downward, and the travellers perceived that they had beheld no

motionless cloud, but the snow-clad peak of a distant mountain in the

north, illumined by the rays of the still invisible sun.

“That, I believe, is the summit of the Thracian Olympus, the mountain

of the gods!” said Pericles gaily. “Do you see, the Hellenic gods have

not abandoned us. From the spot, where they sit throned in endless

bliss, they send through a cleft in the mountain a greeting to this

cheerless solitude.”

“They want to tell us not to forget them and all other beauty in the

gloomy Dorian country!” replied Aspasia smiling.

The travellers soon passed from the bare lofty plateaus into the

tree-shaded western portion of Arcadia, filled with bubbling springs.

Here countless little streams, now dashing swiftly, now murmuring

gently, flowed down from the wooded slopes. Even in the heat of summer,

the luxuriant vegetation on the meadows was always fresh and

unscorched. Elms, beeches, plane-trees and oaks towered towards the

sky. The valleys resounded with the lowing of cattle. Everywhere the

travellers perceived that they were in the domain of the rude god, who

flung about his shoulders the red skin of the lynx, and to whom on all

these heights, the sacrificial blood foamed from the shaggy breasts of

rams.

Everywhere his statue, carved from the wood of the elm-tree, was

erected; everywhere traces of him appeared. Here they saw a shaggy wild

boar skin, hung on a plane-tree in his honor, yonder the antler of a

stag, nailed to a beech-tree, in token of gratitude. Beside the springs

were statues of nymphs, erected by the shepherds: offerings hung near

them.

Pericles and Aspasia wandered through lofty oak forests, flooded with

golden light by the rising or setting sun. Sometimes a sunbeam glowed

through the boughs of a tree like a carbuncle, scattering around it

long shafts of light, that seemed as if they might be grasped in the

hands. All this was new and strange to them; they had never seen

anything like it.

One day the pilgrims, while passing through a forest that shaded their

path for miles, noticed an unusually loud rustling in the branches.

“I remember having heard of an Arcadian oak forest called Pelagos, the

sea, on account of the loud rustling of its countless tree-tops, which

resembled the surges of the ocean,” said Pericles. “Perhaps it is the

very wood through which we are walking.”

But the native guides replied, that this rustling in the heart of the

forest was unusual, and predicted a storm, at the same time pointing to

the sky, which a short time before had been perfectly clear, but had

now grown lustreless, like tarnished steel. The travellers quickened

their pace to reach the spot where they intended to spend the night,

before the tempest burst. But the rustling of the trees soon changed

into a wild roar, and the tops began to crack. A few small black

clouds, heavy with rain and lashed by the wind, swept over the misty

gray sky. The sun, a short time before so radiant in its golden light,

stood like a sulphurous yellow ball above the mountains, whose peaks

ever and anon were illumined by a livid glare. The hurricane bowed the

trees almost to the ground, sweeping leaves, sand, and little twigs

whirling before it. Single drops began to fall, and a few minutes after

a torrent of rain, mixed at first with hailstones, came pouring down.

The travellers hastily took refuge under the branches of a mighty oak.

Suddenly a peal of thunder shook the mountains, flash followed flash,

clap followed clap, and the winds from all quarters of the heavens

seemed to meet. The blue flashes of lightning appeared to cross each

other over the heads of the terrified travellers, and the thunder found

an echo in a hundred valleys and ravines. Meanwhile the rain poured

incessantly, the wind raved, birds of prey shrieked, and from the

distance the howl of a wolf was heard.

The travellers gazed anxiously from their shelter under the leafy roof

of the oak out into the tempest surrounding them on all sides.

Suddenly a flash of lightning, darting from a black cloud that hung

over the crest of a jagged mountain, struck one of the tallest trees in

the forest. In terrible splendor, the giant trunk burst into a red

blaze, and in an instant was wrapped in flames from top to bottom; a

shower of sparks flew from the crackling boughs, and a smell of sulphur

pervaded the air. From the burning oak the flames leaped to other

trees, and already threatened the travellers’ shelter. The Arcadians

promised to guide the fugitives to the nearest settlement, where they

could spend the night, and hurrying over the pathless ground, they

followed them downward.

After a time the force of the rain abated; but they heard the dull roar

of the swollen torrents rushing from the heights into the valleys.

Pebbles, sand, broken boughs, and fragments of rock were washed away by

the waters and hurried down into the depths.

Meantime evening had closed in, but while the travellers hastened

through the wooded region, the storm ceased. The clouds were soon

dispersed by the wind, and the moon smiled calmly above the forest,

where the fierce battle of the elements had just raged.

The fugitives now reached a large opening in the trees, a hill covered

with vegetation, stretching down over a gentle slope. A singular

panorama was disclosed in the stillness of the night. On every side the

jagged mountain peaks towered upward in the light of the moon, which

sometimes shone brightly from the clear sky, sometimes dimly through

floating clouds. The eye had a wide prospect to grasp, and the weary

pilgrims walked on as if in a waking dream. In the centre of the

clearing were the enclosures and buildings of a shepherd’s farm. As the

travellers approached an armed man, dressed in skins, who evidently

guarded the premises against the attacks of wild beasts, came forward

to meet them. Two huge dogs ran barking by his side.

The Arcadian guides quickly explained matters to him, and asked

hospitality for the Athenian travellers. The watchman, driving away the

barking dogs by throwing stones at them, led the strangers behind a

wall, protected by a hawthorn hedge, which enclosing the farm-house

formed a spacious court-yard, where a fire was burning. The owner of

the farm, a simple shepherd, came out, welcomed the guests without

asking their origin, names, or the goal of their journey, and ordered a

wether to be killed and roasted for their entertainment.

After thus refreshing the travellers, he gave the slaves quarters for

the night in the barns, but he and his wife resigned their own chamber

to Pericles and Aspasia, preparing a fresh couch for them by strewing

small branches and dried herbs on the floor, and spreading soft fleeces

over them. For coverlids he gave them several goat-skins, and his own

cloak.

The changing incidents, little adventures, and even the discomfort of a

journey increase instead of lessening the enjoyment of travellers. The

mere change of scenes and occurrences charms, and the pure breezes of

heaven bestow on the weary not only strength and refreshment, but

cheerful spirits.

Pericles never felt happier than in the shepherd’s hut, before the

wretched couch. Aspasia’s silvery laughter blended strangely with the

idyllic lowing of the cattle from the stalls.

“How many wonderful things the gods, in whom we trust while travelling,

bestow!” said Pericles. “A few days ago we had an ancient royal

sepulchre for a sleeping room, and to-day it seems as if we were about

to experience the adventures of Ulysses. Homer’s spirit has hovered

around us since we crossed the isthmus; I believe we shall become

transformed during our wanderings, and when we return never suit the

refined, almost effeminate Athenians!”

When Pericles and Aspasia, roused by the barking of the dogs and the

prolonged lowing of the cattle, rose from their couch and went out into

the spacious court-yard, they saw the rude shepherd lads going to the

stalls. A large shaggy dog was playing with a tortoise he had found in

the wet grass. Barking and leaping, he seized it sometimes by the paw

and sometimes by the snout, and dragged it around until it lay dead.

Another dog was fighting or rather playing with a ram. The ram struck

at him with his horns, but the dog snapped at the ram’s beard or tried

to bite his muzzle. A naked child sat by the spring, throwing pebbles

at the sun’s disk, reflected in the water.

The herds of cattle now came out of the stalls; first, rejoicing in

their strength, the draught oxen; the calves bounded bleating around

their mothers. Two men, bearing crooked shepherds’ staffs, followed

them, accompanied by two powerful dogs. Then, driven by boys, came the

bleating goats. A shepherd caught the he-goat at the head by its long

beard, and caressed it. “This good fellow,” he said to Pericles and

Aspasia, “always gives warning on dark nights when a wolf or lynx

creeps into the farm-yard, even if the dogs are asleep and neglect to

drive the creature away.”

The lambs gathered around a brown-skinned girl, whose face was shaded

by a broad-brimmed hat, and who held a crook in her hand. There was

something about this maiden, which even at the first glance attracted

attention, produced an impression which could not instantly be

understood. But on looking more closely, scanning her figure and the

miserable dress in which she was clad, she seemed like a shepherdess,

scarcely distinguishable from any other, save by her braids of fair

hair and the strange expression of her eyes. They were remarkably deep

and dreamy, and seemed to be gazing, with a sort of childish surprise,

even at the familiar world which surrounded her.

The lambs pressed bleating around and leaped upon her. One of the

youngest, a snow-white little creature, licked the young girl’s

out-stretched hand.

When the flock of lambs, led by the girl, had passed out through the

gate of the court-yard, the hospitable shepherd approached Pericles and

Aspasia, who learned from him that she was his daughter, his only

child, and was named Cora. Then, assisted by his wife, Glycaina, he set

before them various provisions from his country store.

Pericles asked his host if he would allow him and his party to remain a

day in his house, as they greatly needed rest after the exertions of

the last week.

The shepherd gladly consented, ran to his wife and said mysteriously:

“Glycaina, I shall always believe that the two strangers, who have come

to our farm, are no common mortals. In their dignity and beauty of

form, they seem like gods in disguise, as the divinities have often

come to poor shepherds. Besides, they scarcely touch the food set

before them.”

“And the slaves,” said Glycaina, “do you take them for gods too?”

“No,” replied her husband, “they eat and drink like human beings. But

those two—well, no matter! Only entertain them as well as you can.”

The shepherd returned to his guests, led them about everywhere, showed

them his stables, his store-rooms for fruit, his smoothly-polished

milk-pails, bowls filled to the brim with whey, and hampers bursting

with cheeses. Then he took them to see the white-toothed sows and

sucking-pigs, praised their flesh, and fed them with acorns and

cornels. When Aspasia looked as if she were tired and would like to sit

down, the shepherd was instantly at hand to spread a spotted

chamois-skin on the ground for her, smiling slily meanwhile, as if he

wanted them to perceive he knew what treatment disguised goddesses

expected from mortals.

Skins and heads of slaughtered wild beasts hung on the enclosure of the

court-yard and the trees surrounding it, and after Pericles and Aspasia

had looked at these, they went out into the open country and were left

to themselves, breathing more freely in the spicy air of the hill-side.

The mountains glittered in their robes of green, as if washed clean by

the rain. The dewy blades of grass sparkled in the sun like polished

swords. A flock of crows flew over the meadows as if absorbed in

business, alighted on a solitary tree, and in a few minutes hastily

rose again and were lost in the blue air. Shepherds with their flocks

were seen wandering over the distant mountains. The valleys between

were filled with white mist and vaporous fog, that floated like the

waves of the sea, and in which the flocks descending from the heights

seemed to plunge and vanish. Lambs and cattle were grazing in all the

low-lands, and nimble goats climbed the rocky slopes. Ever and anon the

music of reed-pipes and song, the shepherd’s pastime, echoed from the

distance. The two loiterers heard from a certain spot sounds whose

sweetness allured them. They turned in that direction, and found a

group of shepherds listening to the best performer on the shepherd’s

flute. But soon some one emerged from the circle of listeners to cope

with him. As Pericles and Aspasia approached, the rival musicians took

the reed-pipes from their mouths and almost dropped them, while all the

shepherds looked amazed at the appearance of strangers. But when

Pericles kindly invited them to continue their contest, and told them

that he and his wife were Athenians, detained by a violent thunderstorm

on their way to Elis, the shepherds resumed their contest with still

greater zeal, and begged the Athenian and his wife to act as umpire.

Pericles and Aspasia were delighted with the music of the shepherds’

flutes, and wondered that among such rude, untaught people as these

mountaineers, any art, however insignificant, could have been

cultivated to such perfection.

Aspasia asked the shepherds if they did not understand how to vie with

each other in pantomimic dances. They pointed to the youngest, a

slender boy, who, at Pericles’ request, came forward, and with blended

drollery and grace executed a rural dance, in which he imitated various

occupations of country life.

“Couldn’t you try a dance in pairs?” asked Aspasia.

“If Cora would,”—he answered almost sadly, gazing mournfully into the

distance.

“Cora?” cried the other shepherds laughing. “Foolish boy! Why do you

talk of Cora? Cora cares nothing for you.”

The boy sighed and slipped away.

Walking farther on, Pericles and Aspasia reached the lambs’ pasture, a

pleasant forest meadow surrounded with trees. Here they found Cora

sitting among her flock. Some of the little white-fleeced ones forgot

to graze, and preferred to rest, with their heads lying on her lap.

Cora herself sat with bowed head, absorbed in gazing at a tortoise,

which lay on her knee and seemed to answer the glance of the girl’s

beautiful eyes.

“Where did you find that creature?” asked Pericles, who had approached

with Aspasia. The girl had been so absorbed in her dreamy reverie, that

she did not notice the two strangers until they stood before her. Then

she looked up, measured them with a glance from her round, childlike

eyes, and said:

“These creatures come creeping up to me of their own accord from the

neighboring woods. This one, in particular, always returns, and has so

little fear, that instead of hiding its neck and head when I touch

them, it stretches them out as far as possible, and looks at me with

its bright eyes. Old Baubo says Pan sometimes conceals himself under

the form of a tortoise. I think,” the girl softly continued—“there is

something mysterious about this one, for since it has constantly come

out of the forest and spent the day with me and the lambs, the herd

increases and thrives in a wonderful way.”

After being induced to talk, the Arcadian girl was easily led, by

Aspasia’s questions, to continue her strange, childlike prattle.

Charming to hear was her story of Pan, the woodland and shepherd god,

how wonderfully the music of his flute echoed from the distance in the

lonely mountains, how he was sometimes gracious, sometimes malicious.

She also told of the goat-footed satyrs, who wandered through the

woods, teasing with their mischievous pranks not only the nymphs, but

the shepherdesses. One of them had once laid in wait for her, but she

drove him away with a brand snatched from the watch-fire lighted in the

forest. Then she spoke of the nymphs, who like the satyrs lived in the

forest, and sometimes met mortals in the moonlight, which was a great

misfortune, for whoever met a nymph in the depths of the woods was

seized with madness, and could never be cured.

The young girl’s mind was filled with the marvellous legends and tales

of her Arcadian native land. She spoke of wild swamps and horrible

ravines, lakes cursed by the gods, in whose waters no fish thrived, of

caves where evil spirits lurked, of strange sanctuaries of Pan on

lonely mountain heights. The more horrible the girl’s stories became,

the wider she opened her childlike, frightened eyes.

“In Stymphalus,” she said, “under the temple roof, hang the dead

Stymphalian birds the hero Heracles slew. My father has seen them

himself. And behind the temple stand marble statues of maidens with

birds’ feet. The dead Stymphalian birds are as large as cranes, and

when they were alive flew at men, hacked their heads with their beaks,

and eat them. Their beaks were so strong that they could bite metal.”

From the lakes cursed by the gods, in which no fish could live, and

into which even the birds that chanced to fly over them fell dead, Cora

went on to the horrible waters of the Styx, which drip from desolate

rocks in the most terrible mountain ravine of Arcadia. From the

dreadful waters she spoke of the wild beasts in the mountain forests,

and the hunts of the Arcadians for them. Then her eyes lost their

timid, childlike expression, and a brave spirit sparkled in their

depths. She told them how the shepherds, when a wild beast appeared

near the farm, were compelled to watch out of doors through many a

rainy night, how bright fires were kept burning in the yards, how the

hungry roars of the beasts were heard from the forest in the stillness

of the night, how all set out to follow its trail, or lurked in some

hiding-place, and when it tried to leap over the wall of the enclosure,

suddenly rushed out upon it with spears, fragments of rock, and

firebrands until it succumbed, overpowered by the number of its

assailants. Pericles and Aspasia were surprised at the expression of

daring courage, that flashed in the shepherdess’ eyes while relating

these tales, though her mind seemed to have no room for anything beyond

the legend-fostered superstitions of her native land.

“It seems as if you yourself would not be unwilling to take part in

such conflicts!” said Aspasia.

“Oh! I would do so gladly!” cried Cora. “Besides the malicious satyr, I

have twice driven away with firebrands a wolf, that endeavored to

approach my flock.”

“This girl reminds me,” said Pericles, “as she stands before us at this

moment, of that famous daughter of Arcadia, Atalanta, who cast off by

her father when a child, because he wanted sons only, was nursed by a

she-wolf, reared by hunters and then, armed with spear and bow, lived

in the Arcadian woods, a terror to wild beasts, a bold virginal

huntress, who would yield to no tender emotion.”

“Are you always alone here with the lambs?” asked Aspasia. “Is there

nothing you love, and would gladly have with you always?”

“Oh! Yes indeed,” said Cora, looking into her questioner’s face with

the old expression of childlike wonder in her eyes. “I love the

tortoise, that always gazes at me with its bright glance, and will

perhaps suddenly be transformed and speak to me, for I sometimes dream

of it at night, and then it always talks. I love the lambs too, and

these well-known rustling trees, to whose murmur I listen for hours. I

love the sunshine; but I also like the rain that comes plashing on the

leaves, and the thunder that rolls so beautifully among the mountains.

I love the birds, the larger ones, the eagles and cranes that fly over

my head, as well as the smaller which sing among the branches. But most

of all I love the mountains, especially in the evening when they glow

with crimson hues, or at night when all is still, perfectly still, and

their peaks stand so calmly in the white light.”

Pericles and Aspasia smiled. “We were mistaken,” said the former, “in

supposing a shepherd maiden, who loves so many things, incapable of all

tender emotions.”

Aspasia drew him aside, saying:

“How this simple Arcadian girl, who sits with the tortoise in her lap,

waiting for it to change into the god Pan, would stare if she were

suddenly transported to Athens. How drolly she would behave, if I

placed her with the two young maidens I have adopted, and whom the

Athenians have already begin to call my school.”

“She would appear like a raven among doves!” replied Pericles.

Yet they were both attracted by the girl’s prattle, which revealed an

unusual degree of imagination and a peculiar phase of feeling. But

Aspasia soon began to change places with the Arcadian, becoming

narrator, instead of listener. She began to tell the shepherd girl

about Athens, until Pericles broke off the conversation by asking her

to continue their walk. They soon lost themselves in the forest.

Noonday had come, the sun had dried the morning dampness and warming

the depths of the woods, released all their spicy odors. In the meadows

and clearings stood tall blooming plants, whose fragrance, blending

with the aroma of the resin, made the mountain air refreshing, almost

intoxicating. Cicadas chirped in the thickets under the scorching sun.

When they sat down to rest in the seclusion of the forest, the

tortoises Cora loved crept up to them also; the large birds flew over

their heads, and the smaller ones sang in the branches, the rustle of

the leaves to which Cora listened for hours, murmured above, and Cora’s

beloved sunshine played around them.

“The deep rustle of these Arcadian mountain forests,” said Pericles,

“which seem to come from an infinite distance and die away again in

endless space, fills me with strange awe. I never felt anything like

it. I have never listened to the voices of a forest, carelessly passed

by things which now suddenly seem to wish to say something to me. Look

at the delicate threads shining in the sunlight, stretched from the tip

of the wild-oats to the top of the blue bell-flower; have you noticed

the wondrously fine silvery work of the spider? This Arcadian girl

teaches us, that we can admire and learn to love things usually

scarcely noticed, and which we enjoy unconsciously and therefore

ungratefully, as we breathe.”

“Your mind opens too easily to new impressions, Pericles,” replied

Aspasia. “An Arcadian child has infected you with a novel and

unprecedented kind of love, a love for trees, passing clouds, and

flying birds, and the perfume of the Arcadian mountain herbs perhaps

already seems sweeter, than the fragrance of the Milesian rose-hedges.”

“Only admit,” said Pericles, “that this aromatic forest fragrance

invigorates the heart, but amid the heavy odor of roses the mind at

last becomes enfeebled. I really feel a breath of renewed life. When we

once stood in the grotto of Pan on the Acropolis, and you despised the

shepherd god, we did not suspect he would afterwards receive us so

kindly as his guests, entertain us so hospitably. Peaceful happiness

surrounds us here, and when I mentally transport myself from this

primeval solitude to noisy Athens, the impetuous haste and restlessness

of its citizens seem almost frivolous, compared with the divine repose

of these shepherds on their lovely mountain slopes.”

“I only half share your enjoyment of the pleasures prepared for us by

the hospitality of the shepherd god,” replied Aspasia. “These people

are plain and coarse, the distant snow-capped peaks of the mountains

chill me, and the nearer ones make me timid, as if they were about to

fall upon me. The solemn, monotonous rustling of these lofty firs

affects me unpleasantly, and seems adapted to awaken a gloomy,

thoughtful, fanatical spirit in the human mind. I love open sunny

plains, blooming meadows, shores with a wide view of the sea. I like

the places where a cheerful spirit develops in beautiful maturity. You

would apparently like to stay here with these shepherds, I on the

contrary would fain take them all away with me, to make men of them.

Well, do as Apollo did, when he once took a fancy to join the shepherds

and tend flocks. Stay here! You can live like a cicada: be wise,

passionless, bloodless. If you sometimes long for activity, you can

weave snares for crickets, or push lime-twigs through the trees to

catch birds, or drive the starlings and cranes from the grain fields,

with stones hurled from a sling. Or, you can watch the lambs for Cora,

who will accompany me to Athens.”

Pericles smiled. “So you really mean to take Cora away with you.”

“Of course I do,” replied Aspasia, “and hope you will not refuse your

consent.”

Pericles was surprised. “My consent will not be withheld. But what is

your object in the matter?”

“A jest,” replied Aspasia. “This comical Arcadian will serve to amuse

me. It makes me laugh, whenever I look into her big, round, timid

eyes.”

It was precisely as Aspasia said. She wanted to amuse herself with the

young girl, see how oddly the superstitious, inexperienced shepherd

maiden would behave, if suddenly transported into the midst of the

super-refined life of Athens.

The illness of one of his slaves induced Pericles to remain the

shepherd’s guest another day.

This was spent principally in the society of the brown-skinned

shepherdess. Again Cora prattled, told shepherd tales, nay even sang

some strange childish songs, composed by herself, like the following:

Down from the cliff the little brook,

Plunges in merry play,

Casting the while a laughing look,

Where the deer, grazing, stray.

Sprinkling the flowers with its foam,

The beasts it doth entice

To slake their thirst. Let winter come,

And it is pure, clear ice.

She also related the story of the love-sick Daphne, who pined away in

sorrow and melancholy, and for whom all the animals mourned. But the

sad tale did not find favor with Aspasia; she listened with a scornful

smile on her rosy lips.

If in walking they came to one of the springs, surrounded by luxuriant

herbage, which formed a clear crystal basin, and Aspasia wanted to look

in, Cora anxiously pulled her back, saying that a person who looked

into a spring sometimes saw the reflection of another image, that of a

nymph, looking over her shoulder, and was then hopelessly lost.

When the sun stood in the zenith, and the notes of a reed-pipe were

heard in the brooding noontide stillness, Cora said: “Pan will be angry

again; he doesn’t like to be roused from slumber at noon, when he is

resting, by the sound of a pipe or other instruments.” The music came

from the shepherd lad, who requested by Pericles and Aspasia, had

performed a rural dance the day before. He was well aware that Pan did

not like the notes of a pipe at noon, yet always played when he saw

Cora near, because he hoped to please her. But she reproached the poor

fellow. Still, she had a kind heart, for she compassionately rescued a

cicada, that had become entangled in a spider’s web.

The young girl listened earnestly, when Aspasia began to tell her about

Athens.

During the conversations the former held with Cora, she intentionally

described the life of the Athenian city in the most tempting colors.

She disturbed the peace of this idyllic nature, awakened discord in the

harmonious world of the child’s heart. Finally she invited her to

accompany her to Athens. Cora made no reply, but seemed absorbed in

thought.

Aspasia appealed to Cora’s estimable parents, and told them she would

take their daughter to Athens, where she might expect a happy fate.

“If it please the gods!” said the honest shepherd. “If it please the

gods!” replied the shepherdess. But they did not say yes. No matter how

often Aspasia renewed her request for their consent, they only said:

“If it please the gods!”

The father and mother could not easily resolve to part from their only

child, even if she had the happiest fate.

On the evening of the same day, Cora was suddenly missed after

returning with her flock of lambs, and they searched for her a long

time in vain. At last Pericles and Aspasia, who were standing near the

entrance of the court-yard, saw the young girl coming up the slope. Her

attitude and bearing were very singular, for she held both hands

pressed firmly over her ears. A group of Pericles’ slaves stood outside

the court-yard at some distance. When the girl had approached very near

them, she suddenly removed her hands from her ears, seemed to be

listening to their words, then started back, pressed her hand on her

breast, and stood as if rooted to the earth.

The Athenians approached and asked the cause of her confusion.

“I asked Pan, whether it was the will of the gods that I should go with

you to Athens,” she replied.

“How did you do that?” both inquired.

“Down in the valley,” said the girl, “is a grotto-sanctuary of Pan. The

god’s statue, carved from oak, stands in the cave. All the shepherds go

there, when they want to ask anything secret. They whisper the question

in the god’s ear, cover their own with their hands until they come near

people who are talking together, and then suddenly remove them. The

first word heard is Pan’s reply, the god’s answer to the question

whispered in his ear.”

“And what word did you hear first among those slaves?” asked Aspasia.

“Athens!” replied Cora, trembling with excitement.

“So it is Pan’s will, that I shall go to Athens,” she continued

sighing.

“He will permit you to take your favorite tortoise,” said Aspasia

smiling.

Cora’s parents came up.

“Pan wills that I shall go to Athens!” said the young girl in a

sorrowful, but resolute tone. And she repeated the story of the oracle,

for which she had gone to Pan’s grotto.

The shepherd and shepherdess heard the tale, looked at each other in

perplexity, and then repeated, no less sadly than the young girl:

“Pan wills, that Cora shall go with the strangers to Athens.”

Then they went up to the weeping girl and kissed her.

“Cora will be rewarded for her obedience to the god!” said Aspasia.

“She will often send messengers to bring you news and gifts, and when

you have grown old, summon you to spend the rest of your days with

her.”

“An omen happened in the house yesterday,” said the shepherd, “a snake

that stole into the swallow’s nest on the roof, fell down on the hearth

through the vent-hole for the smoke.”

Aspasia continued to speak encouraging, consoling words, and the father

and mother at last yielded to the will of the gods, though with sore

distress.

Mournfully the notes of the shepherd lover’s pipe echoed from the

distance, while the shadows gathered more deeply around the quiet paths

across the country.

All went into the court-yard together, to spend the night, which to

Pericles and Aspasia was their last among the Arcadian mountains. They

intended to set out at daybreak and continue their journey to Elis,

where more important events awaited them, than in the quiet country of

the shepherds.

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW GOD AND HIS LIGHTNING.

Pericles and Aspasia had not wandered to Elis, to see the Olympian

racers dart towards the goal, the wrestlers and pugilists struggle over

the sand, or to hear the loud shouts, with which the Hellenes greeted

the victors. Their hearts yearned towards their friend Phidias, when

amid the radiance of a dewy morning, they reached the famous plain of

Olympia, watered by the waves of the sacred stream Alpheus. They found

all the roads leading to Elis from the Arcadian mountains, the south of

the Peloponnesus across Messenia, or the north across Achaia, crowded

with travellers; but especially the so-called sacred holiday road, that

ran along the Alpheus; even across the western sea they saw garlanded

galleys coming from the Italian and Sicilian coasts.

They mingled in the throng of festal caravans, festal embassies, which

no large community in Hellas neglected to send to the great, peaceful

Hellenic contest in Olympia. Wherever such a caravan passed, the stream

of other travellers on foot and horseback divided, and all gazed at the

members of the procession, who, clad in festal robes and crowned with

wreaths, sat in garlanded chariots, at the chariots themselves, which

were not unfrequently adorned with paintings, gilded, and hung with

tapestry, the magnificent beasts for sacrifices, costly sacrificial

vessels, and numerous attendants.

Not far from the rows of shops and booths, almost opposite to the

entrance of the sacred grove, was a sculptor’s studio. Here Phidias had

toiled for years; here with Alcamenes and some of his other pupils he

had labored in the seclusion of the lowlands of Elis, whose quiet was

interrupted only once in five years by the gay tumult of the Olympic

festival, to complete the noblest and most magnificent of all his

statues. Having escaped the spell of joyous Athens, shaken off all the

influences that sought to bind his sublime thoughts to earth with

flowery chains, he created in this solitude, fanned by mountain breezes

and soothed by the waters of the sacred stream, his Olympic Zeus.

Two men came out of Phidias’ studio and walked up the bank of the

Alpheus.

One was the impetuous Alcamenes. His companion might be recognized as

the much-praised Polycleitus of Argos, whose statues in bronze and

marble vied with the great Athenian’s. Yet, with the quiet, sober

temperament of the Peloponnesian, he endeavored to comprehend humanity

solely as such, especially the masculine sex, which he liked best to

embody in statues of athletes. His school was Olympia; here he trained

and saturated eyes and mind with the living contours of harmoniously

powerful figures.

The difference between Phidias’ art and that of his Argive rival,

caused a secret hostility. While the Athenian thought people were

beginning to value the Argive’s unaspiring art too highly, the latter

was secretly offended because, passing over the Peloponnesian artist,

the Athenian and his pupils had been summoned to execute the largest

and most superb piece of sculpture on Peloponnesian soil. This was one

of the Athenian triumphs Aspasia had predicted, when she tried to prove

to Pericles, that a community can surpass its rivals by fostering the

beautiful.

Therefore Polycleitus, during his stay in Olympia, had held no

intercourse with Phidias and his companions, except Alcamenes, whose

frank, cheerful, vivacious temper always triumphed over petty scruples,

and who had now on the occasion of a chance meeting, entered into an

unembarrassed conversation with his Argive brother artist.

Polycleitus, a sensible, circumspect man, who even in his hostility to

Phidias and his school felt no passionate bitterness, inquired for

Agoracritus, and asked why he had not accompanied his master to help

finish his glorious work, as he did on the Acropolis.

“You may well wonder,” replied Alcamenes, “that the master’s favorite

pupil is absent, while I, who since the victory won over him by my

Aphrodite, can scarcely venture to boast of Phidias’ personal regard,

followed him here and continue to work by his side. When people live

and labor together, it doesn’t depend upon whether they love each other

more or less, but whether they have peaceable dispositions. I could

have endured Agoracritus’ companionship, though he is ill-disposed

towards me; but he could not bear mine, and since the completion of the

Parthenon has gone his own way merely to escape the sight of my hated

face. Meantime, he undertook to carve a Zeus for Coroneia. But, as when

he intended to make an Aphrodite he produced a Nemesis, so people

supposed his Zeus, when finished, to be a god of the nether world. Thus

he becomes more and more absorbed in melancholy, and as my style of art

constantly progresses in the contrary direction, we have reached a

degree of opposition, in which we are certainly no longer fit to labor

side by side at the same task.”

“Your impetuous spirit, Alcamenes,” replied Polycleitus, “urges you to

take long strides in your art, which your companions cannot easily

follow.”

“I could move more freely here, than among the works on the Acropolis,”

said Alcamenes. “There the master’s mind held everything created in

strict unity, according to a fixed plan; here he left the external

decoration of the temple entirely to Pæonius and myself, while he

remained completely absorbed in his Olympian ruler of the gods.”

As Alcamenes uttered these words, he suddenly fixed his eyes upon a

distant part of the crowd surging along the bank of the Alpheus. He

seemed to have recognized some one, and his manner betrayed unusual

excitement. Turning to Polycleitus, he said:

“Do you see that stately, dignified man, trying to make his way through

the throng, beside a closely-veiled woman with a charming figure? That

is Pericles from Athens, accompanied by his wife, the beautiful

Milesian, Aspasia.”

“I recognize Pericles,” said Polycleitus. “I saw him years ago at

Athens. But the beautiful woman is a stranger to me.”

“A woman as dangerous and crafty, as she is beautiful,” replied

Alcamenes. “You cannot love without hating her, or hate without loving

her.”

When Pericles and Aspasia saw Alcamenes and Polycleitus, they

approached each other, and after the Athenians had exchanged cordial

greetings with the two sculptors, Pericles instantly asked for Phidias.

“We arrived at Olympia late last evening,” said he, “not to witness the

games, which for me have long since lost the charm of novelty, and my

wife as a woman is prohibited from attending, but merely to see Phidias

and his god, about which marvellous things have been told recently. We

are just looking for the master and you, Alcamenes, will doubtless

gladly direct us to him.”

“He is in the sacred grove,” replied Alcamenes, “in the newly-finished

temple of Zeus, He shut himself up there with his assistants and

workmen, and will admit no one, partly in order not to be disturbed,

and partly because he doesn’t wish to expose his statue to the eyes of

spectators until it is in its place, erected in its full splendor. The

temple will not be opened until the games are over. Rigidly as the

reserved and almost misanthropic man secludes himself from every one, I

will try to enter the closed temple and announce guests, whom he surely

will not fail to receive with joy.”