Ah, what a medley of strangers the mirthful, crowded Dionysian festival

had allured! Yonder were jugglers and miracle-mongers, their faces

bronzed by wanderings in many lands, swallowing swords, or sending a

rain of fire from their mouths. There were Thessalian girls, executing

their sword-dance in the midst of a gaping crowd. No spectacle was

lacking, down to the itinerant puppet-shows, and gayly-dressed monkeys

dancing on ropes, that delighted the children.

Traders, too, had come from far and near, and set up their booths among

the crowd on the Agora, at the Piræeus, and by the Ilissus.

Throngs of country people mingled with the citizens and, sharing with

them the joy of the festival, gathered around their favorites, the

Theban fifers, who were in the habit of wandering through the rural

districts, or transferred to the city the favorite sport at their own

country Dionysian festival—leaping upon oiled wine-skins, in which each

person who, jumping with bare feet on the slippery ball tried to obtain

a firm stand, always slipped off with comical kicking, amid the

laughter of the spectators.

Pleasure ruled unrestrained in the city, as soon as darkness closed in.

The night-revellers wandered about, wearing wreaths and carrying bells

and torches, among them women in men’s clothes, and men in women’s

garments—clapping their hands as if keeping time with cymbals, to the

ringing of the bells and the singing.

Many wore masks. Some had merely smeared their faces with the dregs of

wine or vermilion, or disguised them with the leaves or bark of trees.

Others wore exquisitely-painted masks of grave or comical aspect. Here

wandered horned Actæon, yonder hundred-eyed Argus, farther on Euippe,

partly transformed into a horse; giants, Titans, centaurs, stamped on

the ground, Methe staggered, Peitho persuaded, Apate allured, Hybris

raged, and horrible forms sometimes mingled amid the ranks.

But the most frequent, nay the most prominent figures in the streets

were the hoofed satyrs and bald Sileni, the aged but still mirthful

satyrs, their heads wreathed with the evergreen ivy. There were also

throngs of Bacchantes, who often carried for a thyrsus only a

vine-shoot, twined with ivy.

Extravagant gayety, even intoxication, was considered a duty to the god

during these days and nights.

And the god, during this time, justified his surname of “liberator.”

Even the prisoners were released from their dungeons for the festival,

and wine was poured upon the graves of the dead. They wished to soothe

the shades, who surely could not be deprived of the pleasures of the

living without envy. The timid believed, that the souls of the dead

sometimes mingled in the crowd, and a fleshless skull was concealed

beneath many a satyr mask in the festal throng.

During these times Telesippe industriously chewed the leaves of the

hawthorn and had her doors smeared with tar, for thus alone could the

evil be averted, that at the great Dionysian festival, menaced the

living from the envious shades.

It was really almost ghostly to see the light of torches flash here and

there in the dark streets, and a fantastic train appear which rushed

noisily by.

A vast throng was now moving through the streets, that led from the

Lenaion to the theatre. The statue of Dionysus was borne from his

temple in the Lenaion, and placed in the midst of the festal assembly.

This statue was a work newly completed by the hand of impetuous

Alcamenes. As Phidias placed his new glittering statue beside the old

wooden image of Athena, Alcamenes’ superb new work was now placed in

the Lenaion beside the ancient unadorned statue of Dionysus. This was

the statue now borne into the festal assembly in the great theatre of

Dionysus. Throngs of Bacchantes surrounded it. But who were the mad

crew that bore a Phallus before the statue, and sang songs in honor of

Priapus? It was Alcibiades and his Ithyphallian society.

At the crossways and on the open squares the procession halted, to

offer libations or sacrifice victims.

The flat roofs of the houses were filled with spectators, many of whom

carried torches and lamps in their hands. There was no lack of women

among them, and jests and witticisms from the roofs mingled with the

unbridled revelry in the streets.

Alcibiades seemed to have reached the climax of his extravagant gayety,

and at the head of his society surpassed himself in wanton pranks.

“Consider,” he shouted to the Ithyphallians, “that we, who usually

revel and riot, are obliged to revel and riot doubly at the Dionysian

festival, if we don’t wish to be outdone and surpassed by the soberest

citizens of the Athenian city.”

Amid such exhortations, Alcibiades, knowing and known by all the

Athenians, rushed through the throng with his companions.

When night had closed in, he ordered torches to be carried before him

and, preceded by music, led his companions in a noisy procession to

serenade beautiful girls and boys. The musicians themselves were

principally players on the flute and lute, dressed as Mænads, and as

those who were greeted with music joined in the procession, it more and

more resembled a swarm of Bacchantes, gathered around the god Dionysus.

At last the saucy, intoxicated Alcibiades seized a young hetæra, named

Bacchis, whom he met wandering about, and forced her to join the train,

calling her his Ariadne and himself, her Bacchus.

On reaching Theodota’s house, he gave her also a noisy serenade and

entered with his companions.

Theodota had not seen the youth for a long time, and the torture of her

love had constantly grown more violent. She now beheld him once more;

but how far from pleasing was his entrance! He came intoxicated, at the

head of a noisy throng. This she might have forgiven; but he brought

with him a blooming young hetæra, whom he instantly presented as his

Ariadne, beginning to extol her charms in extravagant words.

A banquet was now arranged in the apartments of the reluctant Theodota,

who dared not openly object, though her heart was almost bursting with

sorrow. Alcibiades called upon her to be merry, extravagantly gay, and

in his drunkenness began to relate the pranks he had played that

evening, boasted of having kissed a young girl in the midst of the

festal assembly in the Lenaion, and praised the custom which, at the

feast of Dionysus, loosed the fetters from the hands of the Athenian

women. He spoke of Hipparete, Hipponicus’ charming daughter, the secret

love she cherished for him, her blush at the sight of him, at the same

time jesting about her reserved, embarrassed, girlish manner. He also

mentioned Cora the Arcadian shepherdess transported to Athens, the most

absurd and prudish creature imaginable, yet who must be his at any

cost. He would rather give up the radiant Simaitha, the new wondrous

star of beauty, than the stubborn Arcadian.

After these words, the excited youth reproached Theodota for her

silence and sorrowful manner.

“You have grown ugly, Theodota!” he exclaimed. “These melancholy looks

disfigure your face. Is this the way to receive an old friend like me?

Of what do you complain? My wantonness? Wasn’t it you yourself who

taught it to me? Do you no longer remember the joyous days and nights,

when I received your lessons in all kinds of beautiful gayety? And now?

What means this peevish manner? Why must I be different from what I was

at the time we pleased each other best, and spent the merriest hours?

Be sensible, Theodota! Remember the man who was so foolish as to fall

in love with you, whose melancholy adoration seemed so wearisome, and

whom you pitilessly thrust from your door! And now you want to become

an enthusiast yourself. Can the best principles, the most lovable

qualities be so disgracefully denied? Be gay and reckless again,

Theodota! Dance, I wish it, and so do we all! Let yourself be admired

again in all your splendor.”

But Theodota could no longer restrain her tears, and answered with

passionate reproaches, calling him insolent, faithless, profligate,

pitiless.

“Why do you accuse me,” replied Alcibiades, “if you have changed, grown

older, and lost the gayety of youth? Accuse time, which transforms us

all. I, too, must submit when at some future day I become, instead of a

young satyr, an old bald-headed Silenus. Even then I shall still be

gay. But you get angry and rage against me and fate, because you are no

longer a gay, blooming, bewitching girl, like Hipparete, or Simaitha,

or Bacchis here. If you want to grow young again, go to Argos. It is

rumored that there is a sanctuary there, with a spring, in which you

need only to bathe to emerge a maiden. Even Hera, the poets say, used

to visit this bath from time to time, to make herself charming to the

father of the gods. If even the old father of the gods knows how to

prize such things, why shouldn’t I, a blooming youth, one of the

Ithyphallians?”

The drunken Alcibiades jested on in this way, while Theodota answered

still more vehemently with words and tears, and even poured forth such

an outburst of rage against Bacchis, that she seemed like a fury.

“There’s my brave companion, Callias,” said Alcibiades, “his axiom is

never to make love to a woman more than once. And I—haven’t I returned

to your house often enough? Ay, by blissful Eros, haven’t I often come

in the evening, we three or with several more friends, the golden

apples of Dionysus in our bosoms, and in our hair the white poplar

wreaths of Heracles entwined with purple fillets? But it shall not

happen again. Never will I return, neither alone nor with others! Let

us go, my friends! Time hangs heavy here! Farewell, Theodota!”

Terrified by this threat, Theodota stopped the angry youth, and drying

her tears promised to do exactly as he wished.

“Well then,” cried Alcibiades, “do what I asked you before. Do honor to

your much-praised art again.”

“What shall I dance?” asked Theodota.

“Just now,” replied Alcibiades, “excited by the goad of your passion,

you were not unlike Io, who pursued by a gadfly sent by Hera, wandered

despairingly through all the countries of the world. Show us, if you

please, adorned by art, what you first displayed in rude, unpleasant

reality.”

Theodota silently prepared to dance Io.

Accompanied by the music of the flutes, she danced the story of the

daughter of Inachus, who was beloved by Zeus, persecuted by Hera, bound

and watched, at the latter’s command by Argus of the hundred eyes, and,

after her keeper had been killed, hunted through every land by the

sharp sting of implacable Hera’s gadfly.

At first Theodota had only fulfilled the request by putting strong

restraint upon herself, but gradually becoming more and more animated,

seemed to throw her whole soul into the part she was representing. Her

mimetic dancing obtained an artistic finish, a fervor of expression,

which enraptured all the spectators.

But when she began to depict Io’s sorrowful wanderings, fear of Hera’s

anger, and dread of the insect sent by the goddess, her gestures

assumed a wild, passionate haste, and as grief for the lost happiness

of her love seemed to blend with the terror of the fugitive, the fair

Corinthian’s features and whole manner gradually wore an almost

alarming aspect. She enacted with terrible fidelity to nature the

despairing, hunted, mad Io.

But she was no longer acting. Her eyes started and rolled horribly in

their sockets, her bosom heaved, foam appeared on her parted lips.

Her gestures became so fierce and impetuous, that Alcibiades and his

friends rushed up in terror to seize her and curb this unbridled

madness.

Io—Theodota began to grow calmer. She gazed around the group with dull

eyes, smiled confusedly, and addressed the by-standers by strange

names. Alcibiades himself she called Zeus, Callias, who was disguised

as a satyr, her father Inachus; but in Demos she fancied she beheld the

hundred-eyed Argus, and suddenly fixing her gaze upon Bacchis, again

burst into wild frenzy, and cursing the malicious Hera, was about to

rush upon the young girl—

Theodota had gone mad.

She now sank down exhausted, and in confused meaningless words uttered

whimpering lamentations.

A slight thrill of fear seized upon Alcibiades and his companions. But

they were intoxicated with wine, so leaving Theodota to her slaves,

they staggered out of her house into the street, where the noisy

bacchanal mirth drew them into its seething whirlpool.

The next day there was another procession, bearing the statue of

Dionysus. This time, however, it was the ancient one, brought from

Eleutheræ to Athens, that was carried from the Lenaion to a small

temple outside of the city, near the Academy, where it had been erected

in ancient times. Once a year, at the great Dionysian festival, the

statue was borne in a festal procession to the old place.

This now happened again.

The festal train accompanying the god was larger and more magnificent

than ever before, very unlike the former simple customs of the Athenian

forefathers. Every street through which it passed, and all the roofs

from which it could be seen, were thronged with spectators, who,

adorned with wreaths of violets, also wore a festal appearance.

In front of the procession walked throngs of satyrs and Sileni, clad in

red garments, with garlands of ivy twined around their bodies.

Then a wreathed altar was borne along, surrounded by boys attired in

purple robes, who carried frankincense, myrrh, and saffron in golden

vessels.

Then followed all kinds of masked dancers. First came an old man with a

double-faced mask, representing time, then the youthful blooming Hours,

bearing fruits, then a magnificently-adorned woman with the symbols of

the Dionysian festal season, and finally a handsome youth, whose mask

represented the joyous Dithyrambus.

Next came thirty musicians, who wore golden wreaths and played on

golden lyres.

Then followed a superb triumphal chariot, which conveyed the statue of

Dionysus. The god was clad in a saffron robe and gold-embroidered

purple mantle. In his right hand he held aloft a golden beaker, filled

with sparkling wine. Beside him stood a huge gold mixing vessel, and

over his head was a canopy from which the foliage of the ivy and

grape-vine hung in rich green tendrils. The chariot itself was

completely entwined with garlands, and its upper edge adorned with

tragic and comic masks, which looked down upon the people with grave

dignity or droll grimaces.

The immediate attendants of the god were male and female Bacchantes

with dishevelled locks, their heads crowned with branches of the ivy,

grape-vine, or smilax.

This chariot was followed by another, in which stood a gilded

wine-press, filled with artificial grapes. Thirty satyrs stood around

it, apparently pressing the grapes to the melody of a merry

vintage-song, accompanied by the music of flutes, and pouring fragrant

liquor along the way from a skin made of green plover’s skin. Satyrs

and Sileni thronged around this, shouting noisily as they caught the

wine in up-raised beakers.

Then came a third chariot, upon which was a glittering ivy-grown grotto

formed of light stone, within which springs of all the Hellenic wines

gushed forth. Garlanded nymphs sat smiling beside these fountains,

doves fluttered around, darted in and out, and thrust their bills into

the green branches of the ivy. Satyrs and Sileni tried to catch these

doves, which took refuge in the bosoms of the nymphs.

Then followed groups of boys singing in chorus, then the procession of

aristocratic Athenians on their magnificent steeds, and youths, who

bore gold and silver vessels consecrated to the service of Dionysus.

Enthusiastic throngs joined the procession, Bacchantes and other

maskers, who with extravagant mirth, whimsically imitated the pageantry

of the festal train.

On reaching the Agora, a halt was made at the altar of the twelve

Olympic gods, and here choruses of men and boys sang the Dithyrambus,

while the choir at the same time moved with a rhythmic, dancing-step

around the altar.

These tones had scarcely died away and the Dionysian train moved on,

when a most singular scene attracted the attention of the Athenians.

At that time wandering mendicant priests of Cybele, called

Metragyrtans, apostles of the god Sabazius, who originally of the same

nature as Dionysus, had passed into mysticism, also enthusiasts who

boasted of reviving the mystic wisdom of Orpheus, had appeared in

Athens and begun to press their views.

The priests of Sabazius announced and worshipped a mighty savior, by

whom mankind would be rescued from all evil, and mortals might obtain

any desired happiness—this very Sabazius. They and the Metragyrtans

went in procession through the streets, with the statue of the god or

the mother of the god, and executed to the sound of cymbals and the

Asiatic tympan, dances in which they behaved as wildly as Corybantes.

They practised and recommended flagellation, and even self-mutilation,

like the priests of Cybele on the Tmolus. They wandered through the

country begging, a donkey carrying their sacred relics, they sold all

kinds of magic remedies, and even offered to soothe the anger of the

gods for money, nay to expiate the sins of the dead, and release them

from the tortures of Tartarus. They sold the favor of the gods, and

negotiated between them and mortals.

The Hellenic mind no longer remained wholly aloof from such fanaticism,

and here and there it began to take root in the minds of individuals.

No one regarded such attempts to transport from the East into cheerful

Hellas a gloomy and mystical worship of the gods, with more indignation

than Aspasia, and she resisted it by every means at her command. Gay

young Alcibiades, to whom gloomy fanaticism was no less

incomprehensible and horrible, aided her like a brave champion against

these jugglers.

The wandering Metragyrtans and priests of Sabazius thought the festival

of Dionysus would afford a favorable opportunity to win converts for

their god and savior, Sabazius, and his fanatical, horrible service.

They moved about, garlanded with poplar and fennel, carried in their

hands serpents which they swung over their heads, and, surrounded by

throngs of people, performed their frantic dance, the Sicinnis, amid

the corybantic roar of cymbals and tympans, flogging and wounding

themselves till the blood flowed.

One Metragyrtan had collected a large crowd about him and, with loud

outcries and vehement gestures, was preaching the savior Sabazius. He

spoke of secret consecration, and the highest, most pleasing deed of

the god’s service, self-mutilation.

While the crowd stood around the Metragyrtan listening, some with minds

not wholly unmoved, the drunken Ithyphallians suddenly came up and

heard the foreign fanatic speaking of the worship of Sabazius and

self-mutilation.

“What?” cried the reckless leader of the Ithyphallians, “dares any one

talk to us of self-mutilation, amid the exuberant gayety of

bacchanalian joy? No! Such words shall not be heard on Hellenic soil,

so long as there are Ithyphallians.”

With these words, the crowd of intoxicated, reckless youths rushed upon

the Metragyrtan, dragged him away, and mindful of the vengeance long

since sworn against men of his stamp, hurled him into the abyss of

Barathron.

The young girls under Aspasia’s care had also mingled among the female

Bacchantes, who thronged around the festal procession.

How could they, trained to freedom, help enjoying the liberty of these

days during which, even for those usually in bonds, all fetters burst

and all barriers fell.

They had even concealed the Arcadian girl, though she submitted

reluctantly, under the mask of a Bacchante, and dragged her away into

the ranks.

Alcibiades seemed to be very anxious that Cora should not absent

herself from the Bacchantes, who left Aspasia’s house.

The young girl was far less beautiful than her companions, but she was

coy, and her strange seriousness charmed the youth, and at last excited

him to audacity.

On Cora’s account he followed the young girls with his companions, who

were unrecognizable beneath their satyr masks. The bold plan he had

formed was no less than to lure the shy Arcadian away from her friends

or, failing in this, drag her by force to his house.

The satyrs, jesting gayly, mingled with the Bacchantes, Alcibiades

remained by Cora, but found her as obstinate as ever.

Suddenly, in a lonely spot favorable to the enterprise, Alcibiades made

a sign and rushed upon the girl with his companions, to bear her off

under the shelter of the gathering darkness.

But the Arcadian’s heart was full of the same courage with which she

had formerly put an assailing satyr to flight. As she then seized a

brand from the fire in the forest, to drive away the insolent intruder,

she now snatched a burning torch from the hands of one of her

companions and thrust it into the face of the disguised Alcibiades,

whose satyr mask taking fire, instantly flashed into flames, and he

retired in confusion. Cora profited by the momentary bewilderment to

fly with the speed of a hunted deer, and in a short time vanished from

her pursuer’s eyes.

She hurried swiftly through the streets with a throbbing heart, until

she reached Aspasia’s house.

Young Manes, Pericles’ foster-son, had been among the satyrs what Cora

was among the Bacchantes.

He too had been reluctantly obliged to wear a mask, he too was dragged

by Xanthippus and Paralus into the midst of the mad mummery. The tumult

that surrounded him seemed disagreeable, even alarming. The festal joy

appeared like unbridled license. Mad Menon behaved as shamelessly as

his dog. At last Manes perceived that he himself had become the

defenceless butt of the jesters. Naturally slow of wit, he did not

understand how to meet the jests with which the throng pressed upon

him.

“Beware!” cried some, “this mournful satyr is suspicious. Envious

shades from the nether world, or even Thanatos himself, or the plague,

have often stolen among the living under such a mask! Tear it off! Who

knows what horrible face we shall meet.”

The youth’s thoughts grew confused, his head began to ache, and forcing

a way through the crowd with his powerful arms he went towards home.

On reaching the house he slipped unobserved up to the roof, which at

this moment was entirely deserted, seated himself on a little stone

bench, took off the satyr mask from his face, laid it down beside him,

and became absorbed in thought.

His features had assumed an expression of deep melancholy, and he

seemed to bear some secret sorrow in his breast. When he retired from

the loud joyous tumult of the Dionysian festival, it was perhaps not

merely on account of his aversion to such things, but owing to the

perplexity that now overpowered his soul in consequence of a deep and

powerful impression.

Manes had sat a long time in this attitude, absorbed in thought, with

the satyr mask lying beside him. Suddenly Aspasia stood before him.

He looked up, startled. The mistress of the house gazed silently a few

moments at his troubled, gloomy face. Then she said kindly:

“How does it happen, Manes, that you disdain the pleasures enjoyed by

the companions of your own age? Do you feel no trace in your blood of

the impulse that urges others to enjoy the beautiful, fleeting,

never-returning time of youth?”

Manes gazed steadily at the ground, and made no reply.

“Does any grief oppress you?” continued Aspasia. “Are you dissatisfied

in this house, and would you prefer to live among others? Are you angry

with Pericles, for having brought you here from Samos and reared you

like his own son?”

At these words the youth involuntarily rose from his seat and, while

tears sprang into his eyes, with an eager gesture of denial protested

against such a supposition.

Aspasia continued to ask the cause of his sadness.

Manes sometimes answered with a faint sigh, sometimes with a blush. His

hand trembled slightly and he rarely ventured to look up; but when he

did his brown eyes had a sorrowful, almost pathetic expression.

The youth was so unyielding, so rude of nature, and yet there was

something gentle, almost girlish in his manner.

Aspasia gazed at him with the interest, which is the necessary result

of anything unusual, strange, and mysterious.

Every moment she found herself more and more strengthened in the

conjecture, that some secret sorrow was consuming the young man’s

heart.

It could not be love; for who could have aroused this hidden fire? No

one except one of the young girls in the house, and Manes had always

seemed confused in their presence and shyly kept aloof from them. Had

they not endeavored to draw him into their joyous circle, and always in

vain?

A thought flashed through Aspasia’s mind, a thought which at first was

somewhat comical, almost amused her.

But when the youth raised his expressive eyes to her face, the

ludicrousness of the idea diminished, and she found herself stirred by

an emotion of cordial sympathy in a way by no means usual with her.

She did not weary of gently reproaching him for his unmanly melancholy,

and encouraged him to gain the cheerfulness that beseemed his youth.

While Aspasia was thus occupied with Manes, Cora sat alone in the

deserted peristyle. On returning from the mad whirl of festal pleasure,

she had silently seated herself there, removed her mask and laid it

beside her, and was still remaining in the same place, lost in thought,

when Pericles accidentally returning to the house, passed through the

peristyle.

He was surprised to see the young girl sitting there so lonely and

thoughtful, with the Bacchante mask lying beside her.

Approaching Cora he asked the cause of her hasty return, and separation

from the companions with whom she had left the house.

Cora was silent. She held in her lap a wreath she had worn as a

Bacchante, and her hand played absently with the flowers. The floor was

strewn with the leaves she had plucked off.

The girl presented a singular spectacle at this moment. Her attitude,

the unconscious toying with the wreath, the earnestness of the pallid

face, formed a contrast to the garb and symbols of the Bacchante, which

almost provoked a smile.

Pericles, looking her steadily in the face, continued:

“I never remember having seen so sorrowful a Bacchante. It seems to me,

Cora, that you would far rather exchange the thyrsus-staff for the

shepherd’s crook. Is it not so? You don’t feel happy in this house? You

are longing for your native wooded mountains, your lambs and

tortoises?”

Cora raised her deer-like eyes to Pericles for a moment, and gazed at

him with an expression even more melancholy than before, yet with an

artless, childlike look, which seemed to utter the assent of an earnest

soul.

“Do you want us to send you home?” asked Pericles in a cordial tone,

well calculated to inspire confidence. “Say frankly what you desire and

need to make you happy in this house. There is surely something you

miss.” Pericles spoke very persuasively, fixing his eyes intently upon

the young girl, while awaiting her reply.

“Do you wish to leave this house?” he repeated.

Cora sorrowfully shook her head.

“So your melancholy seems causeless,” continued Pericles, “a sorrow

that attacks your mind like a sort of disease. Struggle against it, my

dear child! Don’t yield unresistingly to its power. The demon of sickly

moods would often fain seize upon me also, but I struggle against him.

Life must be cheerful and a source of pleasure to us: were it not so,

we could not help envying the dead. Don’t people all wish to be gay and

happy, and enjoy life together? Why do you seek solitude? Don’t you

desire to be gay and happy, too?”

Again Cora raised her eyes frankly to Pericles, and said slowly:

“I am happy when I am alone.”

“Strange child!” exclaimed Pericles.

He gazed silently and thoughtfully at Cora. She was not beautiful. The

spell of her girlish shyness had no sensual charm.

Yet there was something in this maidenly diffidence, this childishness,

this strange mood of feeling, that aroused a special interest in noble

natures.

Pericles had found in Aspasia the embodiment of every feminine charm

and grace. Now womanhood suddenly stood before him in a new,

unsuspected form. What he saw embodied in Cora was wholly unlike

anything hitherto beheld, admired, and loved.

The new phase of feminine character appeared to him neither lovable nor

charming, but an emotion seized upon him as new and strange as that

which aroused it. He laid his hand on the Arcadian’s head, and

recommended her sick heart to the protection of the heavenly powers.

“Shall we not seek Aspasia?” he then asked, and, hearing from a slave

that his wife had gone upon the roof, took the girl kindly by the hand

to lead her to the mistress of the house.

Strange coincidence! At the same moment that Pericles, with a feeling

of sympathy, laid his hand, in the peristyle, on the grieving

Arcadian’s head, Aspasia, who had finished her conversation with Manes

on the roof, rested her hand on the head of the melancholy youth.

It seemed as if her fingers touched his brown locks with almost

maternal tenderness, her eyes rested almost affectionately on the young

original’s features.

Yet cheerful ease was enthroned upon her free, proud brow, and she

greeted Pericles with a quiet smile as he approached, leading the young

girl by the hand.

“I bring Cora to you,” said Pericles, “she seems to need your friendly

consolation no less than Manes.”

The statesman had noticed the affectionate gaze with which Aspasia’s

eyes rested on the youth.

She obeyed his nod, and he led her to a distant part of the roof, where

a couch was placed under blossoming vines.

Here Aspasia related her conversation with Manes, and Pericles his with

the Arcadian girl.

At last Pericles said with quiet earnestness:

“You have tried sympathetic looks, nay even caressing gestures to cheer

the youth’s sorrowful heart!”

“And does this suggest the thought that he might be dear to me?” asked

Aspasia. “No,” she continued, as Pericles remained silent, “I do not

love him, for he is almost ugly. His heavy cheek-bones offend my eye.

But some fleeting emotion, I know not of what nature, seized upon me.

Perhaps it was compassion.”

“Do you know so exactly what love is, and what it is not?” asked

Pericles.

“What love is?” cried Aspasia laughing. “Are you too beginning to

torment me with that foolish question? Love is a thing not to be

rebuffed when it comes, and not to be held back when it goes.”

“And you can say nothing else of it?” asked Pericles.

“Nothing except what I have often said,” replied Aspasia. “It is a

feeling that may degenerate into tyranny, by making the loved one a

mere weak tool. This impulse to degeneration must be repressed. Love

must be a joyous bond of the heart, formed and maintained by freedom!”

“Whenever you have repeated this to me,” replied Pericles, “it has

always seemed unanswerable. My mind, after calm reflection, is as

firmly convinced of it now as on the day when we ourselves formed such

a bond of the heart in perfect liberty. Love must renounce the

tyrannical impulse to destroy the freedom of that which it loves, but

the question: Can this be love? remains unsolved in my mind. Is love

ever able to victoriously resist this impulse?”

“It can,” replied Aspasia, “for it must be able to do so.”

“Love is not to be detained when it goes, you said!” continued Pericles

thoughtfully after a pause. “What will become of us, Aspasia, if its

beautiful fire dies in our breasts also?”

“Then we will say, that we have together enjoyed the highest earthly

happiness,” replied the Milesian. “We have not lived in vain. We have

emptied the cup of joy in the full vigor of love and life, on the

highest summit of existence.”

“Emptied—emptied—” replied Pericles in a hollow tone. “You uttered a

word that makes me shudder.”

“It is the fate of beakers to be emptied,” replied Aspasia, “the fate

of flowers to wither, and the fate of all living creatures apparently

to disappear, but really to revive in perpetual transformations. It is

the business of a mortal to look, with the cheerful composure of true

wisdom, upon all these changes and vicissitudes occurring around and

within him. It would be foolish to cling to the heels of what is

vanishing. A time will come for cheerfully flinging the beaker into the

abyss, from which the waves of pleasure have foamed. Everything strives

upward to a summit, to descend again the scale of existence to

destruction. Everything follows the course of nature.”

As Pericles and Aspasia finished these words, they prepared to go into

the house, and approaching the spot where they had left Cora and Manes

found them engaged in conversation.

Aspasia had transformed the flat roof into a sort of garden. There were

arbors to afford protection from the sun, and tall blossoming bushes

growing in pots filled with earth.

One of these bushes concealed the husband and wife from the youth and

maiden, who were, however, too deeply absorbed in conversation to

notice their approach.

Pericles and Aspasia involuntarily paused a moment, perplexed at the

sight. They had never noticed that Manes and Cora talked together, or

that one sought the other’s society.

They had been as silent and reserved towards each other, as towards the

rest of the world.

The spectacle of a melancholy satyr and a sorrowful Bacchante talking

together was in itself well calculated to attract attention.

Cora was telling the youth about her Arcadian home, the beautiful

forest-clad mountains, the tortoises, the god Pan, the Stymphalian

birds, the hunting of wild beasts.

Manes listened with quiet interest.

“You are very fortunate, Cora,” he said at last, “to have all this so

clearly before your mind, and be continually able to recall it. When I

am awake, I can remember nothing about my home and childhood. Only in

dreams do I sometimes find myself transported to deep rustling forests,

or see rude men clad in the shaggy skins of animals, riding fleet

steeds over the plains. I am always sad all day long after having had

such dreams, and feel as if I were attacked by a kind of homesickness,

although I have no home and should not know whither to bend my steps,

if I wished to seek one. I only understand that I must go northward,

always northward, and often dream I am wandering into infinite

distance. Surely you must be doubly sorrowful, that you cannot return

to your home, Cora, because you know it and your parents, and might

easily find them again. Tell me if you wish to go, and I will secretly

guide you there, for I am still young and strong. Why shouldn’t I live

with the Arcadians, and hunt wild beasts?”

“No, Manes,” said the young girl, “you ought not to go to Arcadia,

because your longing draws you towards the north. No, I could not bear

to have you settle in Arcadia, for you would surely always be yearning

for your home. You must journey towards the Hellespont and then keep on

towards the north, surely you must find your home, and perhaps a

kingdom.”

“I would gladly journey towards the north,” replied Manes, “but I

should be sorrowful when I thought that you were here vainly longing

for Arcadia.”

Cora gazed thoughtfully at the ground then, after a short pause, said:

“I don’t know why it is, Manes, that I should be just as willing to go

towards the north as to Arcadia, if we went together. It seems to me,

as if every place to which we journeyed would be Arcadia.”

Manes flushed at the young girl’s words and his hand trembled, as it

always did when overpowered by some strong emotion. At first he was

unable to speak at all, but after a pause, began:

“But surely, Cora, you would far rather go to Arcadia, to your own

family! I will gladly accompany you, and become a shepherd. It seems to

me as if, wherever I went with you, I should again find my home and

even a kingdom.”

Here he hesitated, flushing deeply again. Up from the streets rose the

loud tumult of a passing throng of Bacchantes. Torches blazed, joyous

songs echoed on the air, pleasure exulted in unbridled freedom—while

above the youth and maiden, the satyr and Bacchante, stood before each

other with heavy hearts, pale, silent, and confused, neither daring to

take the other’s hand, or raise the eyes bent timidly on the floor.

“They love each other!” said Pericles to Aspasia. “Those two love each

other, but apparently with a strange kind of love! It seems as if they

loved only with their souls. They speak of nothing but the mutual

sacrifices they would willingly make.”

“Indeed,” replied Aspasia, “those two love each other with a sort of

feeling only Manes and Cora could devise. They have lost all their

cheerfulness, are pale, sick and sorrowful, and though they know they

love, have no pleasure in their mutual affection, for they don’t even

venture to clasp hands, far less kiss each other.”

“It is a shamefaced love,” replied Pericles, “a chaste, sad, unselfish,

sacrificing love. Perhaps its constancy and beautiful symmetry supplies

the lack of rapturous delight. Perhaps it is less subject to the blind

course of nature, which you asserted ruled all love.”

“This melancholy love is a disease!” cried Aspasia. “Woe betide the day

it was first discovered. This new pale-cheeked Aphrodite, wreathed with

white roses, arose from no sea crimsoned by the kiss of sunrise, but

from the waters of the Arcadian Styx. This sorrowful, passionate love

is as bad for mankind as war, pestilence and hunger. I saw this kind of

love at Eleusis, among the attendants of Thanatos, and this thought was

the only one that pleased me in the Eleusinian vaults!”

Then the husband and wife came forward, and Aspasia took the Arcadian

girl into the house.

On the evening of the same day Pericles gave a little banquet, as was

the custom with all Athenian citizens during the Dionysian festival.

Several guests were present, among them Callimachus, with Philandra and

Pasikompsa.

On this occasion they had not assembled in the usual dining-room of the

house, but in the cooler and more spacious peristyle, where the breezes

of the mild spring night might blow with refreshing coolness.

Pericles, according to his habit, withdrew early.

Suddenly Alcibiades arrived with several of his friends. In his

extravagant gayety, he almost burst open the doors of the house and,

pressing in with his companions, took his seat among the assembled

company.

Cora instantly fled to the interior of the dwelling.

When Alcibiades perceived this, he sought compensation from the

charming Simaitha, but the young girl proudly repelled him. She

despised him for having humbled himself so far as to attempt to seize

the Arcadian shepherdess. The other young girls rebuffed him for the

same reason. He strove a long time to conciliate the angry beauties,

but in vain.

“What?” he cried at last, “Cora runs away from me stiff as a

torch-thistle, when the hot summer dries it—Simaitha turns her back

upon me—Aspasia’s whole school look grave and frown like old

Anaxagoras—well then, if you all reject me, I’ll cling to lovely

Hipparete, Hipponicus’ modest, diffident, blooming little daughter.”

“Do so!” said Simaitha.

“I will!” cried Alcibiades; “you shall not have challenged me in vain,

Simaitha! Alcibiades doesn’t allow himself to be trifled with. I shall

go to Hipponicus early to-morrow morning and ask him for his little

daughter. I’ll marry, turn virtuous, renounce all foolish pleasures,

and spend my time in conquering Sicily and making the Athenians dance

to my pipe.”

“Hipponicus won’t give you his daughter!” cried Callias; “he thinks you

too worthless a fellow!”

The rest of his companions chimed in: “Hipponicus won’t give you his

daughter, you’re too worthless a fellow.”

“Hipponicus will give me his daughter!” exclaimed Alcibiades

emphatically, “even if I have boxed his ears just before. Will you make

a wager? I’ll promise to box Hipponicus’ ears, and then ask him for his

daughter. And he’ll give her to me.”

“You are a braggart!” cried his friends.

“The wager!” replied Alcibiades. “A thousand drachmæ, if you choose.”

“Done!” cried Callias and Demos.

Alcibiades held out his hand to his friends, and they clasped it. The

bet was for a thousand drachmæ.

“Why shouldn’t I turn virtuous,” cried Alcibiades, “when so many

mournful signs and marvels are happening around me? Isn’t it enough

that Cora flees from me, Simaitha casts me off, Theodota has gone mad?

Must I also lose my oldest and best friend? He has broken his faith

with me and married.”

“Of whom are you talking?” asked several.

“Whom but Socrates?” replied Alcibiades.

“What? Has Socrates married?” asked Aspasia.

“Even so!” replied Alcibiades. “He secretly took a wife. Give him

up—you’ll never see him again.”

“How did it happen?” asked Aspasia. “I have heard nothing of it.”

“It is probably about two weeks,” said Alcibiades, “since I was

standing in one of the quietest streets beyond the Ilissus, talking

with a friend I happened to meet. Suddenly the flower-wreathed door of

a house opened, and a procession of flute-players and singers, wearing

garlands and carrying torches in their hands, came out. These were

followed by a veiled bride, walking between the bridegroom and the

bridesman. The trio entered a vehicle drawn by mules, which stood

before the house. Then the bride’s mother followed with the torch, with

which she intended to light the fire on the new hearth, and joined the

rest of the white-robed, garlanded train. The carriage began to move,

and was accompanied down the street to the bridegroom’s house, with the

music of flutes, songs, and joyous shouts and bounds. The bridegroom

was Socrates, Aspasia’s friend, and his bridesman Euripides, the

woman-hater.”

“And the bride?” asked many.

“The plain daughter of a plain citizen,” replied Alcibiades, “but she

instantly seized the reins of the household with an iron grasp, and

understands the art of managing the remnant of Socrates’ patrimony.

Socrates married! The poor truth-seeker! He sought truth, and found—a

woman. I repeat, signs and miracles are occurring. The old world seems

to be getting out of joint. Socrates married, the gay Theodota mad, and

moreover, it is said several cases of the plague, that has long been

lurking in Egypt, have occurred at Ægina and Eleusis, and a suspicious

satyr mask was seen in the Agora to-day, beneath which it is supposed

Thanatos, or the plague, or some other horrible shape has slipped in.

Taking all these things together, you must confess that it threatens to

become very tiresome in the city of the Athenians. If, in addition, I

marry Hipponicus’ daughter, the Hellenic sky will grow as gray as an

ash-heap. But we’ll be merry to-day—by Eros with the thunder-bolt!

Don’t sulk any longer, girls! Let us begin a gay war against the

mournful powers that threaten us! Let us snap our fingers at all signs

and wonders! If joyous mirth has deserted all the rest of Hellas, it

must surely still linger in this circle. Am I not right, Aspasia?”

“Yes,” replied Aspasia, “we will be allies in the conflict against

melancholy.”

She ordered new beakers to be brought, the delicious wine again foamed

in the mixing vessel, the sparkling goblets were emptied again and

again. Gay jests, laughter and songs of joy echoed through the

peristyle, and Alcibiades showered sparks of Dionysian wit.

Midnight came. Suddenly a door leading into the peristyle opened and,

with closed eyes like a ghost, Manes slowly entered—Manes, the

sleep-walker! He had absented himself from the banquet and sought his

quiet couch, but his strange disease robbed his pillow of repose.

At the sight of the somnambulist walking with closed eyes through the

peristyle, the jocund revelry was silenced and all, seized with a

thrill of fear, gazed mutely after the ghostly wanderer.

Passing through the peristyle, he turned towards the stairs leading to

the flat roof of the house, ascended them with a steady step, and

instantly vanished from the revellers’ gaze. When the first thrill of

terror had been conquered, most of the guests determined to follow him.

“Thus Dionysus punishes those who rebel against his gay service!” cried

Alcibiades. “We’ll convert the despiser of the gods. Come! We’ll wake

him and drag him down to our banquet by force.”

The greater portion of the revellers rose and went to the roof, but on

reaching it, beheld a spectacle that again filled them with horror.

Manes was walking along a high sloping projection of the roof, close to

the extreme verge, a spot where only the somnambulist, with closed

eyes, could move without turning giddy and falling to the ground.

The other inmates of the house had hurried up, on hearing the news that

Manes was walking in his sleep.

Pericles also appeared.

He, too, shuddered when he saw the youth, saying:

“If he wakes now, he will surely fall, but it is impossible to approach

that spot and rescue him.”

Just as he uttered the words, Cora rushed up.

Terrified, deadly pale, her large round eyes dilated, her face

half-covered by her dishevelled locks, the young girl gazed at the

somnambulist. On hearing Pericles’ words, she shivered an instant, then

darted as if on wings towards the spot where Manes was walking, swung

herself over the high projection, walked with a firm tread several

steps down the perilous descent, seized the youth’s hand and dragged

him back from the outermost verge of the pinnacle to where both had

firm footing.

Not until Manes was safe did giddiness overpower her. Then she fell

fainting.

It was now Manes who, opening his eyes, anxiously seized the young girl

and bore her onwards in his arms, till she regained her consciousness

and half-frightened, half-confused, ran blushing away.

The revellers had watched this scene with amazement. Now they

surrounded Manes and amid gay, cheering words, led him down into the

peristyle.

Pericles lingered a moment with Aspasia.

“How sorry I am,” said the former, “that Socrates did not witness this

scene.”

“Why do you regret it?” asked Aspasia.

“He would at last believe he had beheld what love is.”

Aspasia gazed silently at Pericles a moment. “And you?”

“This couple perplex and shame me a little,” he replied. “It seems as

if they wished to say: ‘Withdraw from the stage and make room for us.’”

Again Aspasia gazed intently at Pericles’ grave, thoughtful face. Then

she replied:

“You are no longer a Greek!”

The words exchanged were few in number, but full of meaning. They fell

heavily into the scales of fate.

With them something like a secret rift occurred between two souls, once

so beautifully and tenderly united.

A long prepared entrance into Pericles’ soul of new, dark, sorrowful

powers, doubt and secret dissension was accomplished.

The slow, noiseless fracture of something lofty, beautiful, and noble,

ended with this trifling altercation.

Uttering the words; “you are no longer a Greek,” Aspasia turned away,

with an expression of mingled anger and compassion on her face.

Both went silently down stairs, Pericles to his room, Aspasia to the

guests.

Meantime the revellers had vainly endeavored to detain Manes at the

banquet and convert him to a fitting worship of the god of pleasure. He

broke from them, and retired to the inner rooms of the house.

The conversation now turned for some time on Cora. All admired her

courage, or rather the strange power of a feeling, a mood, a passion,

under whose influence she had acted, by which she had been blindly,

unconsciously borne along, and which to almost all bore the impress of

an insoluble mystery.

Alcibiades also began to express his regret, that Socrates had not

witnessed this scene.

“What a feast it would have been to the eyes of the truth-seeker, who

ponders over the most commonplace things, and would doubtless never

rest until he had discovered the inmost meaning of this strange event.

He’s a sort of somnambulist himself, attacked by the lunacy of

philosophy, who shuts his eyes that he may think better, and wanders

astray on giddy heights. Only no Cora appears to lead him back with

gentle hand from the gulfs of thought. Well, I’ll go and tell him about

the whole affair, though it’s almost dangerous to visit Socrates in his

own house. Xanthippe, its young mistress, is always afraid I shall

corrupt her husband, and looks upon me with unfriendly eyes. When I

went with a few friends to visit the newly-wedded pair, we were greatly

embarrassed, for the little woman began to bewail and lament that she

could not suitably entertain such distinguished people. ‘Never mind,’

said Socrates, ‘if they are good men they will be content; if wicked,

we need not trouble ourselves about them!’ But these words only enraged

Xanthippe still more. I instantly perceived that she ruled the house.

By way of a joke, I began to talk with her husband in the frankest way,

and load him with friendly caresses. Since that time she has been

furiously angry with me and when, a short time ago, I sent a dainty

cake to Socrates, went so far as to throw it out of the basket and

trample it under her feet. And Socrates? He only ventured to say: ‘What

is the matter? If you hadn’t crushed the nice cake, you might have

eaten it.’ Alas! it seems as if the wisest men in Athens no longer

understood how to treat their wives. By my Demon,” continued

Alcibiades, after draining his beaker, “I repeat, the world is out of

joint! Delos shaken, Theodota mad, the sages scolded by their wives, I

myself on the point of wooing Hipponicus’ daughter, priests of Sabazius

in the streets, somnambulists on the roofs, the Peloponnesus in arms,

the plague at Lemnos and Ægina.”

“Don’t forget the eclipse of the sun,” interrupted Demos, “besides, it

is said that a ghost wanders about Hipponicus’ house—”

“Is that true?” all asked Hipponicus’ son, Callias, who happened to be

present.

“Yes, it is really so!” replied the latter, and told the company that a

ghost actually did wander about his father’s house, and Hipponicus had

grown pale, thin, and thoughtful, the daintiest morsels no longer

pleased him, nightmare oppressed his dreams.

“There it is,” cried Alcibiades—“eclipses of the sun, and ghosts in the

houses of merry old gluttons. Deuce take the world, if it’s beginning

to grow so gloomy. Once more, friends, cheer up and fight against the

dreariness of the times!”

“Does it need a challenge?” cried young Callias. “By Heracles! Haven’t

we done our duty, during this whole festival, better than ever before?

Didn’t we throw the Metragyrtan into the gulf of Barathron? Didn’t we

behave as might have been expected from the merry Ithyphallians? And

hadn’t we all the Athenian youth behind us? Was there ever a gayer

Dionysian festival at Athens, than the present one? Have you ever seen

the populace so wild and reckless? Did the wine ever flow in more

abundant streams? Did a larger number of priestesses of joy ever swarm

in Athens and were they ever more eagerly sought? What do you mean by

dreary times, Alcibiades? This is a merry time, say I. The world is

advancing in jollity, not receding, as you think, and whatever may

threaten will only grow still gayer. That’s as it should be. Long live

pleasure!”

“Long live pleasure!” again resounded and the beakers clashed together.

“Let me embrace you, worthy Callias!” cried Alcibiades, kissing his

friend. “That’s the way I want to hear you all talk! Long live

pleasure! And that it may forever live, flourish, and thrive among the

Athenian people, the Ithyphallians must work with the school Aspasia

has founded. The Ithyphallians and Aspasia’s school must be the

stronghold of gayety, charming extravagance, and all joyous mirth. So

don’t sulk, Simaitha! Don’t rebuff me, Prasina! Don’t make a face at

Alcibiades, Drosis! Smile again, Simaitha! You have never been more

charming than to-day. By Zeus! For one bewitching smile from your lips,

I’ll lose the thousand drachmæ I have wagered and let Hipponicus’

little daughter wait awhile.”

All now turned to Simaitha, and begged her to be reconciled to

Alcibiades.

Aspasia herself joined in the entreaties. “Don’t bear Alcibiades

ill-will any longer!” said she. “He may be right in saying that

Aspasia’s school must maintain friendly terms with the Ithyphallians,

but only in so far as the Ithyphallians’ recklessness must be tamed and

curbed by women’s hands. We must receive these Ithyphallians, in order

to impose upon them the curb of correct and beautiful moderation, that

the bright realm of pleasure may not sink into sadness and

dissipation.”

“We will submit to you!” cried Alcibiades. “We’ll choose Simaitha queen

of the realm of pleasure, with unlimited power.”

“That we will!” echoed around the circle. “Why shouldn’t the

Ithyphallians allow themselves to be curbed by so charming a little

hand?”

Amid extravagant gayety, the smiling, lovely Simaitha was proclaimed

queen of the banquet, victorious ruler of the realm of pleasure.

A beautiful throne, richly garlanded with flowers, was erected; she was

clad in purple robes, a golden diadem was pressed upon her curls, and

wreaths of roses and violets were twined around her body.

She shone in the peerless magic of her youth and beauty—a true queen.

Even Aspasia’s eyes rested on her admiringly.

“Aspasia ruled the present,” exclaimed Alcibiades, “to you, Simaitha,

belongs the future.”

The beakers were filled with wine, and drained in honor of the radiant

queen of pleasure.

“Ruled by this sovereign,” cried the youths, “the kingdom of joy will

spread throughout the whole world.”

“Take your thousand drachmæ, Callias and Demos!” cried Alcibiades.

“I’ll give up the wager as lost. I shall not go to Hipponicus

to-morrow. The prince of the Ithyphallians will form a new bond with

the queen of beauty and pleasure! Thank the gods! She is smiling again,

and her teeth glitter like one of the rows of marble pillars in the

Parthenon.”

With these words the reckless youth, excited by wine and love,

approached the royally-adorned maiden and, amid the cheers of his

companions, threw his arm around her and tried, with a kiss, to seal

the bond just concluded.

At this moment all who were looking at Simaitha, noticed a vivid flush

suffuse her face.

Waving Alcibiades back with her out-stretched hand, she complained that

a sudden burning heat had attacked her head.

At the same time her parched lips seemed to long for some refreshment.

A beaker filled with wine was offered, she thrust it back, asked for

water, and emptied goblet after goblet of the cooling fluid; but they

seemed like mere drops falling on a mass of glowing metal.

It was now noticed that her eyes were growing red and bloodshot.

The girl’s tongue grew heavy—her voice sounded harsh and hoarse—and she

began to complain of swelling of the mouth, throat and tongue.

At the same time a feeling of terror showed itself, her whole body

trembled, a thin cold perspiration covered her limbs.

They wished to lead her to her room, her couch; but, as if pursued by

some terrible fear, she wanted to plunge into a well, into deep cool

water, tried to rush away like a lunatic, and was only restrained by

force.

Pericles was summoned.

He appeared, saw the young girl’s condition, and turned pale.

“Go!” he said to the revellers.

Their brains were still half clouded by bacchanalian intoxication.

“Why does the young girl’s state alarm you so much?” they cried. “If

you know her disease, speak!”

“Go!” repeated Pericles.

“What is it, what is it!” exclaimed Alcibiades.

“The plague!” said Pericles, in a low, hollow tone.

Quietly as the word was uttered, it fell upon the assembly like a

thunder-bolt.

All were silent, turned pale, and dispersed.

The young girls began to lament—Aspasia herself turned deadly pale, and

trembling violently, strove to relieve her lost favorite.

Simaitha was borne away. The revellers silently began to retire.

Alcibiades alone, the most intoxicated of all, maintained his

composure.

“Must we then yield to the gloomy powers?” he cried, seizing a beaker.

“Has our struggle been vain? If you all despair and shamefully

acknowledge yourselves conquered, I will not yield! I defy the plague

and all the terrors of Hades!”

He continued to talk in this tone, until he at last perceived that he

was standing alone in the deserted peristyle, amid scattered garlands

and half-emptied or overturned beakers.

He looked around him with glassy eyes. “Ho! where are you, merry

Ithyphallians?”

“Alone!” he continued—“all alone! They have all abandoned me—all! The

kingdom of pleasure is deserted—the gloomy powers conquer!”

“Be it so!” he cried at last, hurling the beaker from him. “Farewell,

beautiful pleasures of youth! I will go to Hipponicus!”

CHAPTER XI.

THE SATYR AND THE BACCHANTE.

On the eventful night, when Simaitha was crowned queen of pleasure at

the joyous banquet in Pericles’ house, and the torches of thronging

Bacchantes glittered in every street in Athens, a bird of evil omen,

one of the gloomy owls perched on the shadowed frieze of the Parthenon,

upon the silent, lonely Acropolis, repeatedly uttered its awful, boding

cry.

The festal tumult arose in a subdued hum from the city streets,

blending strangely with the nocturnal cry of the owl from the frieze of

the Parthenon, which echoed from the heights of the Acropolis like a

message of death.

It was indeed a note of doom.

At the very moment Alcibiades and his companions, in the climax of

reckless mirth, raised their beakers at the banquet at Pericles’ house,

and drank the health of the radiant queen of pleasure—at that very

moment Phidias was dying in prison; the immortal master of the

Parthenon, who some time before had been attacked by a wasting disease,

gave up his great soul.

But at the very hour the loftiest soul among the Greeks, the most

famous centre of Athenian creative genius passed from earth amid the

gloom of a dungeon, and Aspasia exclaimed: ‘You are no longer a

Greek’—in that hour it seemed as if a rent passed not only through the

bond that united Pericles and Aspasia, but through the heart of the

Hellenic world—as if its star darkened; and with the victorious cry of

the owl on the Parthenon blended the malicious laughter of evil demons

hovering in the air around the height of the Acropolis.

The priest of Erechtheus woke at the owl’s cry. To him, it seemed to

say:

“Cheer up, your time has come.”

The demons whispered to each other: “At last power to burst forth is

given us. Let us swoop down on Athens, on Hellas!”

At the head of these ranks of demons flew discord and the plague.

The latter spread its black pinions and, in advance of all the rest,

soared over the city of Athens, shrouded in the darkness of night, but

resounding with bacchanalian mirth.

The fiend was searching for the spot where the festal gayety foamed

most brightly—found it, and darted like a vulture upon the radiant

young queen of pleasure in Pericles’ house.

The fairest of the young Hellenic women, to whom, as Alcibiades said,

the future belonged, was the first prey of the demon.

There are times when great physical evil is added to secret corruption,

revolutions of the moral nature, perplexities and degeneration, when

the harmony and order of the spiritual and physical world are disturbed

at the same time.

Such a period now dawned for Athens—for all Hellas.

To the secret corruptions of the community, slowly and gradually

prepared by increasing luxury and pleasure-seeking, by the numbers of

reckless demagogues, and especially by the natural course of human

affairs, which necessarily leads from full bloom to decay and

degeneration—to this secret corruption were added the outbreak of

bloody feuds among the various nations of Hellas, from which none

emerged as victor, while they gradually destroyed the prosperity and

welfare of all, and the horrors of the plague, the destroying

pestilence.

The Hellenic “Kalokagathia” was to be shaken—no longer could Hellenic

life boast of “a sound mind in a sound body.”

The news of the first case of plague in Pericles’ house had spread

through the whole city of the Athenians, and reckless bacchanalian

festivity instantly gave way to pallid fear and paralyzing anxiety.

Other fatal shafts of the death-angel followed, and in a few days the

plague was raging violently, unfolding all its horrors.

As had happened with Simaitha, the disease broke out with intense heat

in the head, together with inflammatory swelling in the throat. Bloody

matter was discharged from the jaws, the mouth, and even the tongue.

Then the chest was attacked, and violent coughing expelled a little

thin saliva. A loud roaring in the ears followed, convulsive twitching

of the hands, trembling of the whole body, feelings of fear and

restlessness increasing to madness, consuming thirst, internal fever so

great that it drove many to the cisterns. Sometimes, descending to the

bowels, the disease caused severe vomiting. The skin was flushed, at

times turned dark-blue, ulcers and pimples broke out; yet it seems as

if this, like other pestilential diseases mentioned by the ancients,

lacked the boils, recognized as the most prominent symptom of the

dreaded scourge of the nations known in later times under the name of

the Eastern plague.

The sickness usually lasted a week, then came death with hollow eyes,

sharpened nose, and cold body, very harsh to the touch. Even those who

recovered did not escape easily; for the corruption often spread to the

very ends of the limbs—the feet, hands, and other members were

withered, paralyzed, or blighted. Sight was often lost. Memory and

reason suffered; convalescents frequently became idiotic, and some on

rising from their sick-beds did not remember their own names.

All remedies were ineffectual. By Hippocrates’ advice large fires were

lighted, as it had been noticed that smiths, working constantly near

the fire, were rarely ill.

But the power of the disease only increased. As knowledge proved

powerless, people sought aid from superstition. Never were the

countless ceremonies of expiations, purifications, conjurations, at the

command of the Greeks, so zealously practised. During the first weeks

the city resounded with lamentations for the dead, and was filled with

funeral processions following to graves or funeral pyres those snatched

away by the plague.

But when the number of deaths increased, and the contagion emanating

from the sick or corpses spread terror and consternation, many died

alone in deserted houses, or even in the streets, and the sacred rights

were neglected. The obolus for the ferryman of the nether world was no

longer placed in the dead man’s mouth, the cake to quiet Cerberus no

longer put in his hand, he was no longer bathed and rubbed with

fragrant ointment, no longer handsomely clothed, garlanded with ivy,

and laid on a couch in the peristyle of the house. Wailing mourners no

longer preceded the funeral train, the corpse was no longer honored by

a long procession of mourners, funeral banquets, funeral sacrifices,

and the sombre garments usually worn by the survivors. Hurriedly,

noiselessly, almost without followers, the countless corpses were borne

out, buried in graves, or laid on funeral pyres. At last even this duty

to the dead, long considered by the Hellenes the most sacred of all,

was neglected. The bodies lay corrupting in heaps. Corpses were found

in empty temples, whither the sick had perhaps dragged themselves to

implore the help of the gods; many were also discovered near the

fountains to which, consumed by inward fever, they had crawled to

moisten their parched lips; and to realize the extremity of horror,

dead bodies were even found in the cisterns themselves, into which the

delirious, burning with internal fever, had plunged. Soon the

refreshing water of the wells was regarded with suspicion and terror—it

might be defiled by the abomination of corruption.

The streets were piled with the corpses of those who had dragged

themselves there, been borne lifeless from the houses and hastily

thrown down, or hurled themselves from the roofs in desperate fear.

When these corpses were collected, the Hellenes’ aversion to touching

dead bodies, mingled with the fear of infection, so confused their

minds, that in frantic haste the dying were thrown among the dead, the

unconscious among the rotting.

Where relations had erected a funeral pile to burn a dead body, others

pressed forward with other corpses and tried to throw them into the

flames, until the fire was stifled by the number of bodies, and a

fierce conflict arose around the burning pyre.

People thought they noticed, that not even birds of prey and wild

beasts would touch the unburied bodies of those who died by the plague.

If they did, they quickly fell victims to the disease and perished.

This also frequently happened to dogs.

The fear of contagion estranged men. The Agora was deserted, the

gymnasia were empty, the people no longer ventured to assemble on the

Pnyx. The doors of the houses were either firmly locked to prevent all

approach, or stood wide open because the interior was deserted. Terror

even loosened the ties of blood. Many saw themselves abandoned to their

slaves, who now avenged themselves for former oppression by

disobedience, defiance, theft, and insolent plunder.

In the minds of some, irritation alternated with dull resignation. Not

a few sought to deaden their senses by reckless dissipation and the

unbridled enjoyment of pleasure. Courage or forgetfulness was sought in

intoxication.

Mad Menon stood forth as a fearless, laughing despiser of peril, and

was to be found wherever the horrors of the pestilence were greatest.

He seemed to be most fond of lingering among corpses, and was often

seen sitting on a heap of dead bodies, as if enjoying the misery, and

jeering at the cowards who fled from the dead and him, the infected

one. When it was seen that he, who with drunken insolence defied

danger, was spared, the number of those who did the same increased.

Soon the streets and squares were abandoned to intoxicated vagabonds,

who pledged Queen Plague and defied her terrors. These were the people,

who for gold would carry the dead out of the houses or pick them up in

the streets and take them to be buried or burned. They practised their

trade with the rude temerity of men, who will not risk their lives

gratis. They demanded and received whatever they chose, robbed and

practised every kind of violence in the houses into which their calling

led them. There was no fear of the law for the activity of the courts

had long since ceased, and the criminal thought that the pestilence

would either snatch away those who might accuse him, or spare him the

necessity of defending himself.

But it was not merely poor men, who gave themselves up to dissipation,

the rich did the same, especially young men, who tried in this way to

arm themselves against the horrors which surrounded them. Many saw

themselves suddenly made rich by inheriting the property of their

parents, brothers and sisters or relations. But as they could not help

fearing that they might suffer the same fate as those from whom they

obtained their wealth, they tried to enjoy the gifts of fortune as much

as possible, and squandered them in dissolute pleasure. The sight of

these persons so speedily enriched, aroused in others the expectation

of rejoicing in a similar destiny; expectation gave birth to hope and

criminal wishes.

Thus moral restraints were gradually loosened, and the survivors

rejoiced in the advantages which fell to them from the excess of

universal death.

But if the pestilence and its results appeared to increase the longing

for pleasure in many hearts, here as well as everywhere else the rule

asserted itself that contrasts appear side by side or blend with each

other. With unbridled acts and the dissolution of all restraints,

gloomy superstition extended its reign farther and farther. Those who

still avoided intoxication and excesses, sought a new safeguard and

consolation in exaggerated piety, superstitious reverence for the gods.

Men like Diopeithes came forward, who represented the misfortune sent

upon Athens as a punishment for the contempt of the gods hitherto

displayed, and directed the fury of the populace against those pointed

out by the priest of Erechtheus and his companions, as the principal

causes of the divine wrath.

The mystic worship of Sabazius was again remembered and the

Metragyrtan, who was hurled into the gulf of Barathron by the saucy,

drunken Ithyphallians. Many now thought they had perhaps been wrong in

rejecting this savior Sabazius, the deliverer from all misfortunes, and

believed the crime committed upon the innocent Metragyrtan was the real

cause of the wrath of the gods, and especially the vengeance of the

insulted Sabazius. To reconcile him, they said, was now the first duty

and the only remedy for the destroying plague. A foreign woman named

Ninos, living in Athens, who understood all sorts of charms and

mysterious things, proclaimed herself a priestess of Sabazius. To be

consecrated to this god, was soon regarded as a means of sanctification

and deliverance. The initiation was accompanied by strange rites:

deer-skins were hung around the persons to be consecrated, a sacred

potion handed them to drink, they were rubbed with mud and clay, and a

serpent was drawn over their bosoms. During this time they sat on the

ground and, when the ceremony was ended, rose with the exclamation: “I

escaped evil and gained the good.” A nocturnal festival blended gloomy

rites with sensual orgies. Thus the excesses and superstition, to which

the distress caused by the plague urged bewildered minds, were united

in the worship of Sabazius. Processions in honor of Cybele and Sabazius

were frequently seen. There were many who followed the example of the

Metragyrtans, danced the Sicinnis, scourged and mutilated themselves.

The devotees of the Phrygian god also boasted of healing the plague,

placed the sick in chairs, and danced around them with a wild uproar.

To mingle in these circles was considered a safeguard against the

disease.

To such a point had the Athenian nation come.

What Aspasia feared and thought she could prevent, happened—strange,

gloomy ideas entered the bright and beautiful world of Greece, ideas

which, though they did not instantly obtain an entire victory, served

to indicate in what way the Hellenic nation was to be obscured, like a

bright star by gloomy clouds.

While the terrible pestilence was spreading dull despair and gloomy

delusions, and paving the way for foreign superstition, by no means

harmless like the native one, but which gnawed the roots of healthy

life, terrors of another kind lurked around the Attic country.

War had recently broken out. The Peloponnesians attacked the rural

districts of Attica and forced its population into the city, but a

strong fleet, this time commanded by Pericles, set sail, and its

successes on the coast of the Peloponnesus again compelled the Spartan

king to hastily return home. But Potidæa still resisted, Corinth must

be besieged, and the fires of insurrection blazed forth here and there

in the colonies and allied cities.

To remove Aspasia and his two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, from the

most perilous place, Pericles had assigned his country-house to them

for a residence during the time of his absence. Aspasia moved there

with her whole household, but evil pursued her. After Simaitha’s death,

Drosis and Prasina were also snatched away from the seminary of grace

animated by intellect. They had been released from imprisonment at

Megara by the victorious Pericles, only to fall victims, in their

youthful bloom, to the destroying angel of the plague at Athens.

Whoever had power to do so fled from the infested city to the rural

districts, like Aspasia and her companions, or to the neighboring

islands, where the danger seemed less.

Aspasia’s circle of friends was broken up. Euripides had previously

left Athens. He had become a misanthrope, lived at Salamis in complete

seclusion and preferred to spend his time in the grotto on the shore,

where amid the wild roar of battle he had first seen the light of the

world. Here he sat alone, pursuing his meditations, with his eyes fixed

upon the sea, desiring to hear nothing of Athens, except what was

whispered by the waves, which rolling thence broke in foam at his feet.

Sophocles still lived in his rural retirement on the shores of the

Cephissus, untouched by the scourge fate swung over the Athenians.

Cheerful wisdom remained faithful to him and taught him to escape

Pericles’ destiny, by allowing nothing to become too dear to his heart,

or permitting the seriousness of life to obtain too much power over his

mind.

The scourge also spared Socrates’ head, although he did not leave the

brooding place of the pestilence, but fearlessly walked through the

streets of Athens, did not avoid his fellow-men, and rendered help

wherever he could.

Meantime Alcibiades had married Hipponicus’ daughter, the blooming

Hipparete.

He too, with his old insolence, defied the terrors of the plague,

though he saw that the wrath of the gods did not spare the

Ithyphallians, and the pestilence snatched from his side one of his

favorite companions, young Demos, Pyrilampes’ son. When Pericles

departed with the fleet, Alcibiades accompanied him. Thus the priests

of Sabazius could pursue their proselyting, without fearing the wild

Ithyphallians and the gulf of Barathron.

The plague yielded a little, but only enough to make individuals

remember the commonwealth, and permit the Athenians to turn their eyes

from what immediately affected them to the troubles threatening at a

greater distance. The renewed peril of war found cowardly hearts; the

number of men capable of bearing arms was diminished by the plague,

which also prevailed on the fleet before Potidæa. Pericles was

successful with his fleet on the Peloponnesian coast. But when all

Hellas, divided into parties, was gradually drawn into the confusion,

what did it avail if the battle died out in one place, since it was

renewed in another, everywhere engaging not only the two enemies, but

also their allies, while these alliances themselves constantly wavered

and altered. It was no longer possible for one individual to command;

what was gained at one place was lost at a more distant spot, nowhere

did the enemy make a stand for a decisive battle, the great Hellenic

war was divided into countless individual conflicts.

At the news that the cowardly population of Athens had entered into

negotiations with Sparta, Pericles hastened his return. He expected to

encourage them and prevent disgraceful despair; but the Athenians,

wearied by the heavy visitation of fate, received the secret plans of

Diopeithes and the demagogues more favorably than ever.

The priest of Erechtheus had been attacked by the plague and recovered.

Since that time his fanatical zeal had increased, for he saw in this

deliverance from mortal peril a direct sign from the gods.

One day a group of citizens chanced to be assembled around a man in the

Agora, for they had gradually ventured to approach each other, though a

short time before one shrank from another, as they fled from the plague

itself.

The person who stood in the midst of the little throng of listeners,

was one of the bold free-thinkers, whose tongues seemed to have been

unloosed again. He not only ventured to denounce the demagogues and

eagerly support Pericles, but also to condemn the superstition to which

the Athenians had fallen victims. As there were many adherents of

Diopeithes and Cleon among his auditors, a violent dispute arose and

the free-thinker was finally seized and maltreated by his opponents.

At this moment the priest of Erechtheus came up, accompanied by a

number of his friends and followers.

When he heard that the assaulted man had defended Pericles and called

the Athenians’ confidence in their gods petty superstition, the

priest’s features assumed an expression of menacing, gloomy excitement.

He rolled his eyes upward for some time, as if spiritually holding

intercourse with the divine powers, then turning to the people, began:

“Know, Athenians, that last night the gods sent me a dream, and have

now led me to this spot just at the right time. During a long series of

years, sin has been heaped on sin at Athens. Sophists and deniers of

the gods have deluded you, hetæræ have ruled you, temples and statues

of the gods have been erected, not in honor of the gods, but for empty

display and the destruction of simple modes of thought and the pious

manners of our ancestors. You are now suffering the punishment of your

degeneration, denial of the gods, and luxury. It is not the first time

that the wrath of the gods has been visited on the Hellenes, and you

well know in what way their anger was appeased in our forefathers’

time. You know that the gods could sometimes be conciliated only by the

greatest of all propitiatory sacrifices, a human victim. Seize this

denier of the gods—his life is forfeit according to the law, for his

criminal blasphemy. He is a criminal, condemned to death. But instead

of suffering his punishment by the hand of the executioner, let him

according to the ancient, half-forgotten custom, be offered as a

propitiatory sacrifice, conducted through the streets with songs and

music, burned and transformed to ashes, scattered to the winds.”

More and more persons had collected while the priest was talking. Among

them was Pamphilus. The latter, on hearing that a friend and defender

of Pericles was to be killed, instantly supported the plan.

“The funeral pyres on which the bodies of those who die by the plague

are consumed, burn night and day on the opposite bank of the Ilissus.

Room can be found for this man on one of the piles of wood blazing so

merrily.”

With these words he was the first to seize the culprit, and a number of

the fiercest among his companions prepared to help him drag the

unfortunate man away.

Pericles now entered the Agora on the way to the Bouleuterion, saw the

tumult, and asked its cause.

The excited crowd loudly replied that the gods demanded a propitiatory

sacrifice, and they were preparing to offer one in the person of

Megillus, the blasphemer and denier of the gods.

Pericles, with a restraining gesture, forced his way into the crowd,

but Diopeithes confronted him.

For the first time the two men, on whom rested the guidance of the

great battle fought at Athens for years, and whose decision was

constantly growing nearer, stood personally face to face, as if in a

duel.

“Back, Alcmæonid!” cried the priest of Erechtheus. “Do you even now

seek to deprive the gods of what is their due, a due they imperiously

demand? Do you wish to prevent the Athenian nation from seeking

propitiation for their sins and final deliverance from the woe into

which no one but yourself has plunged it? Do you not see whither your

blindness has led this people, once so beloved by the gods? It is your

work if they have turned from the old pious customs, yearned for

wealth, luxury, and idle display, followed a false light and listened

to the words of the despisers of the gods.”

“And you, Diopeithes?” replied Pericles with grave but calm resolution;

“whither do you mean to lead the Athenian people? To the fanatical

murder of citizens—to the renewal of savage, inhuman abominations, from

which, maturing to a purer morality, the Hellenic mind turned with

horror centuries ago.”

“Thank the gods, Pericles!” cried Diopeithes, “that they have delivered

this man into our hands—thank the gods if they are willing, for the

present, to be content with this man’s blood. For if they demanded of

us the real criminal, the guiltiest man in the Athenian nation, do you

know whom we should be compelled to seize and commit to the flames? As

the prophet Teresias once cried to the boastful Œdipus, we should be

obliged to say to you, Alcmæonid, you are the criminal, you are the

cause of the wrath of the gods! An ancient curse rests upon your race!

Through you, through your companions and friends Athens has become

impious, through you the trouble of war has burst upon us, and the

worst scourge in the hands of the gods, the plague, can be averted by

no other atonement than your blood.”

“If it is as you say,” replied Pericles quietly, “release yonder man,

and sacrifice him who seems to you most guilty.”

With these words Pericles released the condemned man from Pamphilus’

grasp. The latter, grinning with satisfaction, freed his former victim

and, delighted by the exchange, did not neglect to seize the hated

strategus.

“Why do you delay?” said Pericles to the perplexed, mute, motionless

Athenians. “Do you suppose I merely offer myself to be spared by you?

Believe me, men of Athens, it seems almost a matter of indifference

whether you spare me or drag me to death! I meant to guide Athens to

the fairest happiness, the brightest renown, the full light of truth

and freedom, and I now perceive that a change ordained by the gods—or

is it a primeval curse that clings to the whole course of nature?—again

seizes upon us and leads us back to darkness and confusion; that it is

not only external calamity, which is bursting over Hellas, but gloomy

powers are also conquering those of light within us! I shall thank the

gods, if I do not survive the splendor and bloom of my native land!

Kill me!”

The Athenians still stood silent and motionless. Pamphilus became

impatient.

A man now stepped forth from the crowd, and making a movement to

depart, said:

“If you want to kill Pericles, do it without me. I won’t see it. When I

was sorely wounded at Thrace, he dragged me away with his own hands,

while all the others fled before the greatly superior number of

assailants and wanted to leave me in the enemy’s power.”

“I’ll go too,” said a second. “He pardoned me in the Samian war, when

the other strategi wanted to sentence me to death for a slight crime.”

“I’ll have nothing to do with the matter either,” said a third;

“Pericles aided me by his intercession, when I couldn’t get my just

rights from the magistrates of Athens.”

“Nor I! Nor I!” echoed from the throng, and the number of men who

separated from the crowd constantly grew larger.

“No Athenian ever put on mourning through any intentional fault of

Pericles!” resounded on all sides. Pamphilus clung convulsively to his

victim, who threatened to escape him.

“Let Pericles go, Pamphilus!” cried several. Others joined in the

shout, and at last the call echoed in a loud chorus:

“Let Pericles go, Pamphilus!”

Even in their worst moments, the Athenians could not attack this man.

“You have conquered again!” cried Diopeithes scornfully. “But perhaps

this is the last of your triumphs. I shall cast the guilt on your head,

if the gods remain unappeased and continue to scourge us.”

A short time after this event, Pericles’ two sons, Xanthippus and

Paralus, were attacked by the plague and fell victims to it.

The priest of Erechtheus pointed with satisfaction to the public curse

of the gods, who had at last destroyed the race of the Alcmæonidæ.

The pestilence again increased. Diopeithes and his followers constantly

reminded the people of the neglected propitiatory sacrifice, and

Pericles, who had prevented it. The offence and the wrath of the gods

seemed credible, after the misfortune that appeared to have been sent

to this man by the divinities.

The Athenians’ minds were more darkened than ever, and the field was

left to Pericles’ enemies.

The latter, who after so much calamity, was now shaken by the sudden

death of his offspring and the ruin of his family, allowed matters,

with a sort of indifference, to take their course. The moment of

dealing the blow long prepared by his enemies, had arrived.

The motion to deprive him of his office of strategus, and all other

dignities conferred upon him, was proposed with insolence and malice in

a thinly-attended popular assembly and carried in dull bewilderment.

Was Pericles, after decades of glorious government, to again become a

simple Athenian citizen? Was Diopeithes at last victorious?

Come on then, men who talk so grandiloquently to the people, Cleon,

Lysicles, Pamphilus, loquacious orators and counsellors on the

Pnyx—place yourselves at the head of the fleet and army! Seize the

reins that have escaped from the hands of the imperious Pericles!

In the Agora, the unwearied Pamphilus, gathering a throng of the people

around him, eagerly vaunted his friend Cleon’s vocation for the command

of the people, and praised his courage, intellect and talents.

After a long and eager conversation with those assembled, a poor man of

strange, half-savage appearance suddenly stepped forward, and eagerly

began to proclaim his opinions.

“Fellow citizens!” he cried, “we have deposed Pericles, we, the

Athenian people. This was well, in so far that Pericles might perceive

we still have popular government in Athens. So far, I say, it was well.

But in other respects it’s a very queer thing to saw off a leg, when on

the point of running races at Olympia—and after we have jumped out of

the frying-pan into the fire, and the ox, as the saying goes, is to be

had for a song, and sausage-makers want us to believe they have bird’s

milk to sell.”

“A cur should rend you, you scoundrel!” angrily interrupted the man

from the dregs of the people. “Will you be quiet?”

“No, I won’t!” replied the half-savage man. “I’m as much an Athenian

citizen as anybody, and fear no one. I’m a man from Halimus. I was a

ribbon-dealer, and have seen better days; but after my wife and

children died of the plague and I barely escaped from my sick-bed, I

left everything and engaged myself as a corpse-bearer, that is, I help

carry the bodies of those who have died of the plague to the funeral

pyres.”

At this remark all shrank timidly away, and held aloof from any contact

with his person.

The ex-ribbon-dealer was not at all disturbed, but continued:

“I boast of being a man of experience in political affairs. Fifteen

years ago I was on the Pnyx, among those who determined upon the

building of the Parthenon, and granted the judges’ pay and the money

for the plays. I’ve always done my duty as a citizen and had an eye

upon the welfare of the community, and I tell you the Peloponnesians

are no cattle and sheep, to let Cleon the tanner dress their hides

without ceremony. And if Pericles’ two sons died of the plague, we

ought to pity the unfortunate man, the childless father, instead of

humiliating him and looking upon the matter as if he ought to be

insulted and persecuted, as one marked out for the anger of the gods.”

“Enough of Pericles,” shrieked Pamphilus, again interrupting the

ribbon-dealer. “We want to hear no more about Pericles. He’s good for

nothing. He’s ill, we hear. What use is a sick man to us?”

“Take care, Pamphilus!” cried the other; “they say a sick lion’s remedy

is to eat a baboon.”

“Do you mean to insult me?” cried the sausage-maker, raising his foot

as if to kick his enemy.

“Come on!” cried the ribbon-dealer, “I’ll beat you till your skin is

purple—I’ll tear the lungs out of your body and twist your giblets!”

Pamphilus timidly shrunk back from the corpse-bearer’s touch.

“Back!” he cried, “back! Don’t dare to lay your poisonous hands on the

body of an Athenian citizen! Back, scoundrel! Wretch, most miserable of

men!”

“Why?” cried the corpse-bearer, grinning. “Perhaps you’ll be obliged to

let me touch you! I hope to get dozens of such fellows as you in my

cart! But for the rest, I repeat: it was well to depose Pericles, that

he may see we can dispose him if we choose; but after he has perceived

it, the best thing we can do is to appoint him again and give him the

fleet, for we can’t do without him, I say—there’s nobody like him, and

every one who carries a club is by no means a hero.”

It was a difficult matter to contest the logic of the words uttered in

his queer, but honest fashion, by the half-crazed peddler from Halimus.

In fact, whoever in Athens desired war, could not help wishing also for

Pericles. Potidæa had fallen at last—hope again stirred, though only

with a feeble flutter of the wings. The mood of the volatile Athenian

populace quickly changed again.

The next day the Athenians flocked to the Pnyx and reappointed Pericles

to his offices and dignities.

They thought it was the old Pericles, to whom they were confiding

themselves, but they were mistaken.

Sophocles was the first, who brought his friend tidings of the people’s

new resolution.

“The Athenians have restored everything to you!” said the poet,

congratulating him.

“Everything,” replied Pericles, smiling bitterly, “except confidence in

them, in the prosperity of Athens, and in myself!

“Diopeithes still triumphs!” he continued. “He is apparently vanquished

again, but we are really the conquered party in Athens. True,

Diopeithes and his party did not reach their nearest goal, but the work

at which he and his adherents have long labored was not lost on the

Athenian people.”

“Banish these sad forebodings from your heart!” cried Sophocles.

“Athens and Hellas are still at the apex of their splendor: they will

yet mature many a noble thing, win many a wreath of fame. We, who have

been permitted to see the rarest flower unfold, ought not to complain—”

“But we also perceived the worm within this fairest flower!” replied

Pericles. “The evil days have not yet arrived, but a dark future casts

its shadow far in advance. We strove to reach a lofty summit of joyous

liberty, beauty and knowledge. The dream of beauty has been

realized—but the others are melting away in darkness and confusion. The

spring of a nation’s life, it seems, is short, and its blossoms wither

ere they are fully open.”

Such were the words uttered by Pericles to the noblest of his friends,

on the day of his reappointment.

Again the ravages of the destroying plague increased.

At the change of the moon the night was gloomy and tempestuous. A chill

wind blew over Attica from the ravines and peaks of the Pindus. The

waves beat sullenly against the stone dykes at the Piræeus. The ships

in the harbor rocked, the beams creaked, their oars rattled. The winds

wandered like ghosts through the deserted streets of Athens, playing

with the open doors of abandoned dwellings, and wailing through the

empty peristyles. Sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between

the howling and moaning of the gale, or the sighs and lamentations of

mourning mothers. Black clouds swept over the pinnacles, pediment, and

marble statues of the Parthenon. The shields, hung as offerings on the

architrave, beat against it with a clanking sound. Nocturnal birds

shrieked. The huge statue of Athena Promachus, armed with spear and

helm, trembled on its granite pedestal.

On this dark stormy night, when every one remained in-door and the

streets were entirely deserted, a man urged by a strange restlessness,

wandered through the streets. This man was Socrates. The old habit of

wandering about at night, while eagerly pursuing a train of thought,

had not become unfamiliar to him—though he was rather pursued by the

thoughts, than following them. So on this evening also he wandered

blindly, as if impelled towards some unknown goal.

He found himself on the desolate shore of the Ilissus, where lay the

charred remains of funeral pyres, and mad Menon crouched amid mounds of

ashes and glimmering embers. The lunatic grinned, fanned the coals with

his breath, and warmed himself at them, sometimes taking a sip from a

flask of noble Chian, stolen from a house depopulated by the plague,

whose provisions easily became the prey of vagabonds.

Here and there, as Socrates hurried onward through the darkness, his

foot struck against half-burned, blackened limbs.

Again he aimlessly pursued his way, until the perfume of violets

suddenly attracted him. He approached it, and found a fountain wreathed

with violets in the Athenian fashion. The flowers had a strange odor.

Socrates stooped to cool his burning brow, and his parched lips sought

the refreshing water. But here also death confronted him, and the

strange odor blended with the fragrance of the violets was soon

explained. The sullied waters bore a corpse, one of the unfortunates,

whose terrible longing for cooling drink urged them, even in the death

agony, to the fountains.

Shuddering, Socrates started back, then calming himself plucked one of

the violets, gazed thoughtfully at it a long time, and said:

“Oh, ye Attic violets, who will henceforth praise ye and the

violet-wreathed Athenians, if your famed spicy fragrance is so horribly

mingled with the odor of corruption?”

He rushed on farther through the streets, where doors were banging in

the gale, and mothers seemed to be vying with the wind in bitter

wailing. Gazing up at the Acropolis, he saw the black, jagged clouds

that, like spirits of evil, flitted with the hovering night-birds

around the gigantic statue of Athena Promachus.

Socrates dashed along as if the evil spirits he fancied he beheld, had

descended and were pursuing him. Suddenly he found himself before

Pericles’ house.

He stood still. How often he had crossed this threshold, and what a

long time had now elapsed since he entered the dwelling!

Involuntarily, almost unconsciously he approached the door, and noticed

that it was not closed, but seemed forgotten, neglected, without a

porter.

He went into the entrance-hall, but it was deserted. No sound reached

him from within. The stillness that surrounded him was horrible.

The dim light of a few flickering lamps streamed from the peristyle.

A shiver ran through his frame, he knew not why, yet some unknown power

urged him onward.

In the centre of the peristyle was a couch piled with purple cushions,

on which lay a lifeless form wrapped in gleaming white robes—the brow

wreathed with the green tendrils of the ivy.

By the couch sat a woman with bowed head, pale and silent as a marble

statue.

Socrates stood at the back of the peristyle as if spellbound. His eyes

rested fixedly, like those of a person who had lost his senses, upon

the corpse and the woman beside it.

This pallid, motionless woman was Aspasia; the garlanded corpse on the

purple couch, Pericles the Olympian.

Lifeless lay the Alcmæonid, the leader of the immortal band of lofty

spirits that glorified Greece forever—the hero of a golden age of

mankind, which still bears his name, which he had fostered in Hellas,

and with whose decline he passed away.

The body of the heroic man, felled by the shaft of the destroying

angel, looked even taller and more stately than before. But, as in

life, an expression of gentleness rested upon the face. Even the plague

had not marred his noble features. It seemed as if death had not

overthrown and crushed the Olympian, but restored the enfeebled man to

his full grandeur. The features of the corpse beamed with the cheerful

repose that the living man had recently lost, the discord that had

stolen into the soul of Aspasia’s husband seemed soothed.

What were the pallid Aspasia’s thoughts beside Pericles’ bier?

A brilliant succession of lofty, noble, beautiful memories was passing

through her mind.

She recalled the moment in Phidias’ studio, when this man’s fiery

glance met hers for the first time, where after a manly, earnest

struggle for the grandeur and power of Athens, beauty threw her fetters

around him.

His image hovered before her, now as he stood on the orator’s platform

upon the Pnyx and carried the people with him—now, as full of

enthusiasm, he walked with her over the height of the Acropolis,

rejoicing in the glorious work rising before his eyes—now, as again

seized by the longing for action, he strove for new laurels at

Samos—now, as inspired with glowing ardor at Miletus, fulfilling the

fairest human destiny, he drained the intoxicating beaker of joy with

her on the flowery summit of life—now, as he formed their marriage-bond

on the Acropolis, in the presence of newly-completed, immortal

creations, his soul filled with lofty thoughts and hopes—

He hovered before her mind in his noble grandeur, his bewitching power

over men, his susceptibility and fervor, his manly dignity—at once

gentle, wise, heroic—the ideal of the true Hellene, too full of mind

and soul to develop into rude heroism, and yet also too full of

animation, too energetic to find entire satisfaction in effeminate

pleasure, in the magic spell of love and beauty.

Then his image hovered before her memory as he walked by her side

through the fields of the Peloponnesus, while light shadows of

earnestness flitted more and more frequently over his brow, as thrilled

by the most secret life and web of advancing time, foreboding a new,

graver, sorrowful future, he silently concealed his deepest feelings

till he ceased to be a Greek, in the mind and opinion of the beautiful

woman with whom he had formed the gay, joyous bond of love, and after

having experienced in his own soul the course of development of

Hellenic life, overpowered by sorrowful presentiments, sank with the

power and grandeur of his native land.

As Aspasia’s eyes rested on the face of the lifeless Pericles, Socrates

fixed his gaze on her pale countenance.

She seemed to him like an embodied Hellas, sitting mournfully beside

the bier of her noblest son.

How pallid and earnest were the features of this beautiful woman, this

once joyous Hellas!

Aspasia now raised her eyes, met Socrates’ gaze, and exchanged a long,

long look with him.

No words could express the emotion that found vent in that long,

earnest gaze.

Not a syllable, only this one look, was exchanged between the pair;

then Socrates vanished. He had appeared like a ghostly shade—and

noiselessly vanished. Aspasia, motionless and pale as marble, again sat

alone beside the death-bed of the great Hellene.

Socrates, deeply moved, continued his nocturnal walk, hurrying

aimlessly through the streets without any note of time.

The force of the wailing, moaning gale had lessened. The nocturnal

pilgrim found everything still more silent and lonely. It was long

after midnight, and an almost imperceptible streak of grey in the east

announced the approach of dawn, though darkness, the darkness of night,

still rested upon the streets of Athens. A few setting stars twinkled

through the torn clouds.

Suddenly a man apparently ready for travelling, appeared before

Socrates, accompanied by a slave. The expression of his features was

harsh, stern, almost gloomy. He gazed intently at Socrates.

The truth-seeker looked up as the other stopped his progress, and

recognized Agoracritus.

“Where are you going this dark night?” the latter asked his former

companion in Phidias’ studio.

“Pressing business summoned me to Athens,” he continued, as Socrates

made no reply; “but I am hurrying to get out of the infected city. I

shall go to Rhamnus to do what has been asked of me for so many

years—provide my goddess erected there with the external symbols, that

will transform her from an Aphrodite to a Nemesis. I have delayed

long—but now something urges me to gratify people. The men of Athens

must no longer doubt that Nemesis really stands among them, instead of

smiling Aphrodite. I owe a debt of gratitude to this goddess, who moves

with slow, but steady tread! Has she not avenged me on the woman I

hate? The goddess of retribution has taken up her abode with Pericles

and Aspasia. I even heard a few days ago, that the plague had attacked

Pericles and thrown him on a sick-bed—”

Socrates looked up into Agoracritus’ face and said in a low tone:

“He is dead.”

Agoracritus was silent in amazement.

Both walked side by side for a time without speaking.

“Dead?” asked Agoracritus.

“I saw him myself,” replied Socrates in a hollow tone.

Again both were silent.

At last Agoracritus began:

“You have seen Pericles dead; it has fallen to my lot to see Phidias

perish before my eyes in prison. I was with him in his last hours; for

on hearing that he was seriously ill I hurried to him. People told me

that he disdained all medicine, and every kind of aid. Pericles sent

Hippocrates to him; but he began to talk with the physician about the

proportions of the forms and lines of the human body. Even on his

sick-bed, his mind was solely occupied with what had formerly been his

only care.

“When I came, those who were about him in the prison told me that he

frequently raved in the delirium of fever, and rarely recognized any

one. I went in and found him dying. At first he knew me, but gradually

his thoughts became confused by feverish visions. He talked continually

of vast temples, gold and ivory statues, and marble friezes—gave

directions to his pupils as if he were still in his studio, urged them

to work, scolded the idlers, gave precise directions about how they

should do this or that thing, and was angry if they did not work

exactly as he desired. Often he expressly named me or Alcamenes. At

last he seemed to be entirely alone with his shining statues, and his

gods and goddesses; Pallas Athena and his Olympic Zeus made themselves

manifest to him. It appeared as if, while he was dying, the deities of

Olympus all descended and stood around his couch, visible to him alone,

for he looked about him with a radiant face, hailed them, and addressed

them by their names. Finally, Pallas Athena seemed to remain alone with

him and beckon to him, for he suddenly said: ‘Whither dost thou wish to

lead me? I come!’ Then he raised himself a little, as if to go with

her, but sank back and his eyes grew dim. [10]

“He died in the midst of his feverish dream; a beautiful death, like a

Hellene, while the fairest light of Hellas shone around him, and the

gods snatched him away from earth to Olympus, at the very moment when

the night of woe was closing over Athens, so that he saw nothing of it,

but passed away with unshadowed mind.

“At first it caused me deep grief to see this man lie dying in prison;

for after he had created the Athena Promachus on the citadel, the

Athena Parthenos, the Parthenon itself, the Olympic Zeus at Olympia,

and so many magnificent works no one has ever surpassed and no one ever

will excel, whereby Hellas is principally glorified, his reward from

men was to die dishonored and alone, amid the gloom of his dungeon.

“But when I saw him die, I felt an emotion not unmingled with

consolation and, after closing the master’s eyes and kissing his brow,

walked silently away and only pitied Hellas, and all of us who are left

behind, after the best and greatest have departed.”

After Agoracritus had finished his tale, the two men walked on

thoughtfully side by side for some time, then parted.

Agoracritus went northward toward Rhamnus, but Socrates, urged by his

secret emotion, continued his walk, and ere he had advanced many paces

saw a blazing funeral pyre, on which numerous bodies had been thrown,

among which he beheld mad Menon lying.

The man, senseless from intoxication, had been found lying asleep among

the dead bodies by the corpse-bearers, who had flung the apparently

lifeless form on a pile of wood, where the flames were already

surrounding him.

A dog circled, whining, around the funeral pyre.

The flames now reached the madman. At this moment, the dog also sprang

upon the pile of wood, and was burnt with its master.

A strange feeling took possession of Socrates. “Now you are free,

Menon!” said he.

“Now you are free!” he repeated several times, as with burning brow he

continued his way. “Will a time ever come when all slaves are made

free?” he thought—“or all freedmen slaves?” he added reflectively.

He now wandered through distant streets, no longer within the precincts

of the city itself, but where the country residences of the Athenians

and gardens alternated with open fields.

A swallow flying upward announced the dawn of day.

Socrates, as if guided by his demon, reached a house pervaded by a

certain tumult.

Many persons were coming and going.

It was the residence of Ariston, a noble Athenian.

Socrates stood still and heard from those passing in and out, that a

little son had been born to Ariston during the night. After so many

images of death, there was a birth, an awakening life.

Again some mysterious impulse stirred in Socrates breast. He entered

his friend’s house.

The child was in the peristyle, lying in its nurse’s arms. An elderly

man, who looked like a seer or priest, had just bent his snow-white

head over it and was gazing attentively at it. Socrates also looked at

the infant, which had a broad beautiful brow, a thinker’s brow, and

whose face seemed irradiated with a mild, lofty earnestness by no means

childlike.

Suddenly a bee flew in—a bee from Hymettus—one of the much-praised

Attic bees, buzzed around the child and brushed its lips, but lightly

and harmlessly, as if kissing it, then flitted away again.

At this spectacle the gray-headed seer said:

“The kiss of a Hymettus bee is a sign from the gods. Words alluring as

virgin honey will one day drip from this infant’s lips.”

The sight of the child impressed Socrates strangely. He could not

interpret the emotion that filled his breast, but the future will bring

its explanation.

The boy, who lay before the eyes of the restless truth-seeker, was to

proclaim a new message when he had matured in to a youth.

His lips dripped with Attic virgin honey. With the sweetest eloquence

he will preach the bitterest doctrines.

He will teach that the body is the prison of the soul and the soul,

releasing itself, must soar upward into the spiritual world. He will

teach that Eros despises the earth, and must ascend into the bright

realm of eternal ideas, shining in changeless beauty—

And this lesson will find an echo on near and distant strands, become

the watchword of a new time, and conquer the world on the lips of a

Galilean.

But with it, in a new meaning, will also triumph the teachings of the

priests of Sabazius and the Metragyrtans, the gloomy doctrine of

self-torture and self-mutilation.

Socrates, absorbed in thought, left Ariston’s house and reached a

height from which he beheld Attica and the sea, steeped in the light of

morning.

A vessel was sailing towards Sunium and, lost in meditation, he

unconsciously gazed steadily at it.

This ship bore the “Satyr” and the “Bacchante”—bore Manes and Cora

northward towards a new home.

They set forth, holding in their breasts the germ of a future allotted

to the effort to erect a kingdom of goodness upon the ruins of beauty.

They set forth, blessed by their earnest love.

From the bay they looked back, gazing for the last time at the city of

the Athenians, as they left it forever.

A thin, light cloud was rising into the pure, clear morning air, not

far from the Acropolis. It came from the funeral pyre, which was

consuming the lifeless body of Pericles into sacred ashes.

This little cloud rose and hovered around the pinnacles of the

Acropolis.

Manes and Cora followed it with their eyes, as it floated about the

white marble brow of the sacred citadel of Pallas.

But the tiny cloud melted away, and the pinnacles and pediment of the

Parthenon and newly-finished Propylæ stood forth with marvellous

distinctness in the clear light.

The immortal coronet of the mountain towered high above the chaos and

confusion of the Athenian city, and the children of men.

From the ruins of the perishable an imperishable work, victorious in

eternal serenity, rose in Hellas. It seemed to say:

“I am raised above the changeful destiny of men, and their petty

misery. I shall shine through the centuries. I shall be always here. I

shall be like the magical light upon the mountains of Hellas, and the

eternal glitter of the waters in her gulfs.”

Nations aspire towards the good and the beautiful.

The good is human and noble—but the beautiful is divine and immortal.

END.

NOTES

[1] A commander of military forces on land and sea.

[2] For most of the quotations from Sophocles’ plays the translator is

indebted to Franklin’s version.

[3] The details of this description of the naval battle of Tragia are

purely imaginary, solely intended to serve the necessities of the

romance by displaying the character of Pericles, when engaged in

energetic action.

[4] Scorpio, a military engine.—Smith’s Dicty. Greek and Roman

Antiquities.

[5] Charis, (Χάρις), the personification of Grace and Beauty, which the

Roman poets translate by Gratia, and we after them by Grace.—Smith’s

Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog. and Myth.

[6] Phallus, the symbol of the fertility of nature. (Smith’s Dictionary

of Greek and Roman Antiquities.)

[7] Agones (ἀγῶνες), the general term among the Greeks for the contests

at their great national games.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman

Antiquities.

[8] Brauronia (βραυρώνια), a festival celebrated in honor of Artemis

Brauronia, in the Attic town of Brauron (Herod, vi. 138), where,

according to Pausanias (i. 23. § 9, 33. § 1, iii. 16. § 6, viii. 46. §

2), Orestes and Iphigeneia, on their return from Tauris, were supposed

by the Athenians to have landed, and left the statue of the Taurian

goddess. (See Müller, Dor. i. 9. § 5 and 6.) It was held every fifth

year, under the superintendence of ten ἱεροποιοί (Pollux, viii. 9, 31);

and the chief solemnity consisted in the circumstance that the Attic

girls between the ages of five and ten years, dressed in

crocus-coloured garments, went in solemn procession to the sanctuary

(Suidas, s. v. Ἄρκτος; Schol. on Aristoph. Lysistr. 646), where they

were consecrated to the goddess. During this act the ἱεροποιοί

sacrificed a goat and the girls performed a propitiatory rite in which

they imitated bears.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[9] The functions of the βασιλεύς, or King Archon, were almost all

connected with religion: his distinguishing title shows that he was

considered a representative of the old kings in their capacity of high

priest, as the Rex Sacrificulus was at Rome. Thus he presided at the

Lenæan, or older Dionysia; superintended the mysteries and the games

called λαμπαδηφορίαι, and had to offer up sacrifices and prayers in the

Eleusinium, both at Athens and Eleusis. Moreover, indictments for

impiety, and controversies about the priesthood were laid before him;

and, in cases of murder, he brought the trial into the court of the

Areopagus, and voted with its members. His wife, also, who was called

βασίλισσα or βασίλιννα, had to offer certain sacrifices, and therefore

it was required that she should be a citizen of pure blood, without

stain or blemish.—Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

[10] A: “Egeria” (Eger, 1875) as well as the collection of epic poems

entitled “Orient and Occident” by K. V. von Hansgirg contain a poem

called “Phidias,” in which, as in “Aspasia,” Pallas Athena appears to

the dying sculptor. Hansgirg himself, in the latter volume, page 79,

names 1874 as the date of the composition of this poem. My narration of

the death of Phidias, on the contrary, was written in 1873, and as the

entire romance was lying in the office of the Vienna “Neuen freien

Presse,” I can appeal to the testimony of those who had the work in

their hands, to prove that though many alterations were subsequently

made in the MS. of “Aspasia” this particular scene then existed word

for word precisely as it now appears in print, so that no suggestion

can have been obtained from Hansgirg’s poem.