DELPHI AND OLYMPIA
There are two ways of going from Athens to Delphi: by sea from the
Piræus to Itea and thence by carriage; or by motor. Despite the rough
surfaces of the roads and the terrors of dust, I chose the latter; and I
was well rewarded. For the drive is a glorious one, though very long and
fatiguing, and it enabled me to see a grand monument which many
travelers miss--the Lion of Chæronea, which gazes across a vast plain in
a solitary place between Thebes and Delphi.
Leaving Athens early one morning, I followed the Via Sacra, left Eleusis
behind me, traversed the Thriasian plain, the heights of Mount Geraneia,
and the rich cultivated plain of Boeotia, passed through the village of
Kriekouki, and arrived at Thebes. There I halted for an hour. After
leaving Thebes, the journey became continually more and more interesting
as I drew near to Parnassus: over the plain of Livadia, through the
village and khan of Gravia, where one hundred and eighty Greeks fought
heroically against three thousand Turks in 1821, over the magnificent
Pass of Amblema, across the delightful olive-covered plain of Krissa,
and up the mountain to Delphi.
Throughout this wonderful journey, during which I saw country
alternately intimate and wild, genial and majestic, and at one point
almost savage, I had only one deception: that was on the Pass of
Amblema, which rises to more than eight thousand feet above the level of
the sea. Delphi, I felt, ought to be there. Delphi, I believed, must be
there, hidden somewhere among the rocks and the fir-woods, where wolves
lurk, and where the eagle circles and swoops above peaks which are cold
and austere. Only when we began to descend in serpentine curves, when I
saw far below me great masses of olive-trees, and the distant shining of
the sea, did I realize that I was mistaken, and that Delphi lay beyond,
in a region less tragically wild, more rustic, even more tender.
During this journey of, I believe, about three hundred kilometers or
more, I realized fully the loneliness that happily shadows a great part
of Greece. We seemed to be almost perpetually in the midst of a
delightful desolation, gloriously alone with nature, now far up on bare
flanks of the hills, now traveling through deserted pine-woods or
olive-groves, now upon plains which extended to shadowy ranges of
mountains, and which here and there reminded me of the plains of
Palestine. Strange it seemed to come upon an occasional village of
Greeks or Albanians, strayed, surely, and lost and forgotten in the
wilderness; stranger still to see now and then some tiny Byzantine
church, perhaps with a few cypresses about it, perched on a mountain
height that looked as if it never had been trodden by foot of man. The
breezes that met us were alive with a tingling purity of hilltop and
sea, or sweet and wholesome with the resinous odor of pine. And the
light that lay over the face of the land made nearly all things magical.
[Illustration: DELPHI--GULF OF CORINTH IN THE DISTANCE]
Again we met Turkish Gipsies. In Greece they have made the wild life
their own. No longer one hears of brigands, though only a few years ago
these highways were dangerous, and men traversed them armed and at their
own peril. Now the Gipsies are in happy possession, and travel from
place to place in small caravans, with their mules, donkeys, and dogs,
and their tiny peaked tents, telling the _bonne aventure_ to the
superstitious, and, so the Greeks declare, stealing whatever they can
lay their dark hands on. They look wild and smiling, crafty rather than
ferocious; and they greet you with loud cries in an unknown tongue, and
with gestures expressive of the perpetual desire to receive which seems
inherent in all true vagabonds. They pitch their tents usually on the
outskirts of the villages, staying for days or weeks, as the luck serves
them. And, so far as I could judge, people receive them with good
nature, perhaps grateful for the excitement they bring into lives that
know little variation as season follows season and year glides into
year. Just outside Thebes I found eleven of their tents set upon some
rough ground, the beasts tethered, the dogs on guard, the babies
toddling and sprawling, while their mothers were cooking some mysterious
compound, and the men were away perhaps on some nefarious errand among
the excited Thebans. For that day Greek officers were visiting the town,
and in front of the café, among the trees, and above the waterside,
where we stopped to lunch, there was a parade of horses, mules, and
donkeys from all the neighborhood. War was taking its toll of the
live-stock, and the whole population was abroad to see the fun.
As soon as I had descended from the car and begun to unpack my
provisions, an elderly man came up, asked whether we were from Athens,
and then put the question that is forever on the lips of the Greek,
"What is the news?" Every Greek has a passion for the latest news.
Often, when I was traveling through the country, people I passed on the
way called out to me, "What is the news?" or, "Can you give us a
newspaper?"
Thebes, where, according to legend, Hercules was born; where the stones
gathered themselves together when Amphion struck his lyre; where blind
Tiresias prophesied; and, seated upon a block of stone, the Sphinx asked
her riddle of the passers-by and slew them; where Oedipus ruled and
suffered his hideous fate; where the Epigoni took their vengeance; and
Epaminondas showed how one man can lift a city and set it on a throne
above all the cities of its fatherland--Thebes, where letters were first
brought into use among the Greeks, and where weak-voiced Demosthenes by
his eloquence persuaded the people to march to their glorious death
against Philip of Macedon, is now just a busy village on the flank of a
hill. Frequently devastated by earthquakes, which are the scourge of
this region, it looks newly built, fairly clean and neat. It dominates
the plain in which Plutarch was born, and the murmur of its waters is
pleasant to the ear in a dry and thirsty land. But though Thebes is not
specially interesting, below it, in that plain once celebrated for its
flowers,--iris and lily, narcissus and rose,--beyond all sound of the
voices of chattering peasants or determined soldiers, solitary in its
noble rage and grief, is that most moving of monuments, the Lion of
Chæronea.
I came upon it unexpectedly. If I had not happened to be looking toward
the left my chauffeur would have driven me on without pause to
Parnassus, the mighty flanks of which were already visible in the
distance. When he pulled up we were already almost out of sight of the
lion. And I was glad as I walked back alone, still more glad when I
stood before it in solitude, surrounded by the great silence of the
plain.
There where the lion sits, raised now on a high pedestal and with
cypresses planted about him, was fought the great battle of Chæronea
between the Greeks and Philip of Macedon; and there the Greeks lost
much, but not their honor. Had it been otherwise, would the lion be
there now after so many centuries, testifying to the grief of men long
since dead, to their anger, even to their despair, but not to their
cowardice or shame? I have heard people say that the face of the lion
does express shame. It seems to me nobly passionate, loftily angry and
sad, but not ashamed. The Thebans raised it to commemorate those of
their comrades in arms who died on the battle-field. What shame can
attach to such men? For long years the lion lay broken in pieces and
buried in the earth. Only in 1902 were the fragments fitted together,
though long before that they had lain above ground, where many noted
travelers had seen them. The restoration has been splendidly successful,
and has given to Greece one of the most memorable manifestations in
marble of a state of soul that exists not merely in Greece, but in
the world. Lion-hearted men are superbly commemorated by this lion.
[Illustration: THE LION OF CHÆRONEA, THE ACROPOLIS AND MOUNT PARNASSUS]
The height of the statue from the top of the pedestal is about twenty
feet. The material of which it is made, marble of Boeotia, was once, I
believe, blue-gray. It is now gray and yellow. The lion is sitting, but
in an attitude that suggests fierce vitality. Both the huge front paws
seem to grasp the pedestal almost as if the claws were extended in an
impulse of irresistible anger. The head is raised. The expression on the
face is wonderful. There is in it a savage intensity of feeling that is
rarely to be found in anything Greek. But the savagery is ennobled in
some mysterious way by the sublime art of the sculptor, is lifted up and
made ideal, eternal. It is as if the splendid rage in the souls of all
men who ever have died fighting on a losing side had been gathered up by
the soul of the sculptor, and conveyed by him whole into his work. The
mysterious human spirit, breathed upon from eternal regions, glows in
this divine lion of Greece.
Various writers on the scenery of Greece have described it as "alpine"
in character. One has even used the word in connection with some of the
mountain-ranges that may be seen from the plain of Attica. Such
distracting visions of Switzerland did not beset my spirit as I traveled
through a more beautiful and far more romantic land, absolutely
different from the contented republic which has been chosen by Europe as
its playground. But there were moments, as we slowly ascended the Pass
of Amblema, when I thought of the North. For the delicate and romantic
serenity of the Greek landscape did here give way to something that was
almost savage, almost spectacular. The climbing forests of dark and
hardy firs made me think of snow, which lies among them deep in winter.
The naked peaks, the severe uplands, the precipices, the dim ravines,
bred gloom in the soul. There was sadness combined with wildness in the
scene, which a premature darkness was seizing, and the cold wind seemed
to go shivering among the rocks.
It was then that I thought of Delphi, and believed that we must be
nearing the home of the oracle. As we climbed and climbed, and the cold
increased, and the world seemed closing brutally about us, I felt no
longer in doubt. We must be close to Delphi, old region of mysteries and
terror, where the god of the dead was thought to be hidden, where Apollo
fought with Python, where men came with fear in their hearts to search
out the future.
[Illustration: PLACE OF THE FAMOUS ORACLE, DELPHI]
But presently we began to descend, and I learned that we were still a
long way from Delphi. The sun set, and evening was falling when we were
once more down on the sea-level, traversing one of the most delightful
and fertile regions of Greece, the lovely plain of Krissa, which
extends to the sea. The great olive-gardens stretch away for miles on
every hand, interspersed here and there with plane-trees,
mulberry-trees, medlars, cypresses, and the wild oleander. Many battles
have been fought in that sylvan paradise, which now looks the home of
peace, a veritable Garden of Eden lying between mountains and sea.
Pilgrims traveling to Delphi were forced to pay toll there, and
eventually the extortion became so intolerable that it led to war. That
evening, as we drove along a road cut straight through the heart of the
olive-woods, the whole region seemed sunk in a dream. We met no one; we
heard no traffic, no voices, no barking of dogs. The thousands of
splendid trees, planted symmetrically, were moved by no breeze. Warmth
and an odorous calm pervaded the shadowy alleys between them. Here and
there a soft beam of light shone among the trees from the window of a
guardian's dwelling. And once we stopped to take Turkish coffee under a
vine-trimmed arbor, solitary and lost in the sweet silence, in the
silver dusk of the forest. A lodge in the wilderness! As I looked at the
dark, bright-eyed man who served us, I, perhaps foolishly, envied him
his life, his strange little home, remote, protected by his only
companions, the trees.
In this plain camels are used for transport, and, I believe, for plowing
and other work. They are to be found nowhere else in Greece. I saw none
that night; but one morning, after leaving Delphi, I met a train of them
pacing softly and disdainfully along the dusty road, laden with bales
and with mysterious bundles wrapped round with sacking.
In the dark we began to climb up once more. At last we were actually on
Parnassus, were approaching the "navel of the earth." But I was not
aware of any wildness, such as that of Amblema, about us. The little I
could see of the landscape did not look savage. I heard goat-bells
tinkling now and then not far off. Presently some lights beamed out
above us, as if in welcome. We passed through a friendly village street,
came out on the mountain-side, and drew up before a long house, which
stood facing what was evidently a wide view, now almost entirely hidden,
though a little horned moon hung in the sky, attended by the evening
star. The village was Kastri; the long house was the "Hôtel d'Apollon
Pythien."
Delphi is memorable, but not because of wildness or terror. In
retrospect it rises in my mind as a lonely place of light, gleaming on
volcanic rocks and on higher rocks that are gray; of a few mighty
plane-trees, pouring a libation of green toward olive-trees on the
slopes beneath them; of a perpetual sweet sound of water. And beside the
water travelers from the plain of Krissa, and travelers from Arachova,
that wonderfully placed Parnassian village, renowned for its beautiful
women, are pausing. They get down from their horses and mules to lave
their hands and to drink. They cross themselves before the little
Christian shrine under the trees by the roadside. They sit down in the
shadows to rest.
It is very sweet to rest for long hours by the Castalian fountain of
Delphi, remote from all habitations upon the great southern slope of
Parnassus, under the tree of Agamemnon; to listen to the voice of the
lustral wave. There, in the dead years, the pilgrims piously sprinkled
themselves before consulting the oracle; there, now, the brown women of
the mountains chatter gaily as they wash their clothes. The mountain is
bare behind the shrine, where perhaps is a figure of Mary with Christ in
her arms, or some saint with outspread wings. Its great precipices of
rock are tawny. They bloom with strong reds and yellows, they shine with
scars of gold. Among the rocks the stream is only a thread of silver,
though under the bridge it flows down through the olive-gardens, a broad
band of singing happiness.
Delphi has a mountain charm of remoteness, of lofty silence; it has also
a seduction of pastoral warmth and gentleness and peace. Far up on the
slope of gigantic Parnassus, it faces a narrow valley, or ravine, and a
bare, calm mountain, scarred by zigzag paths, which look almost like
lines sharply cut in the volcanic soil with an instrument. In the
distance, away to the right, the defile opens out into the plain of
Krissa, at the edge of which lies a section of sea, like a huge uncut
turquoise lying in a cup of the land. Beyond are ranges of beautiful,
delicate mountains.
The ruins of Delphi lie above the highroad to the left of it, between
Kastri and the Castalian fountain, unshaded, in a naked confusion, but
free from modern houses and in a fine loneliness. Once, and not very
long ago, the village of Kastri stood close to the ruins, and some of it
actually above them. But when excavations were undertaken seriously, all
the houses were pulled down, and set up again where they stand to-day.
Like the ruins at Eleusis and Olympia, the remains at Delphi are
fragmentary. The ancient Hellenes believed that the center of the earth
was at a certain spot within the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the
eagles of Zeus, flying from the two ends of the earth, had met. The
foundations, and some portions of the walls of this celebrated shrine,
in which two golden eagles stood, may be visited, but very little of it
remains. On the foundation has been set up a large Roman column, upon
which once stood a statue. The fallen blocks of Doric columns are
gigantic, and from them it is possible to gain some faint idea of the
temple's immense size and massiveness. In the midst of a pit of
stone, not far from the columns, I found a solitary fig-tree growing. It
is interesting to notice that the huge outer wall of the temple was
constructed of quantities of blocks, each one differing in shape from
its neighbors. These were ingeniously fitted close together without the
aid of any joining material. Although it is impossible not to wonder at
and admire the cleverness shown in this wall, it produced on my mind an
impression of confusion that was almost painful. The multitudes of
irregular lines distressed my eyes. There is little repose in a puzzle,
and this wall is like a mighty puzzle in stone.
[Illustration: VIEW OF MOUNT PARNASSUS]
Among the masses of broken fragments which cover much of the hillside
stands out a small, solid building of Parian marble, very pure, very
clean, almost shining under the rays of the sun. It resembles a great
marble casket in which something very precious might be placed and
sealed up. This is the treasury of the Athenians, which has been
reconstructed since Kastri was moved from the fragments of the original
temple. It is, in fact, a tiny Doric temple. The marble, of a beautiful
yellow-white color, is mingled here and there with limestone. This
little temple stands on a platform, with the clearly defined Sacred Way
winding up the hill beside it. The front of it is approached by two
steps, and it has two Doric columns, containing, however, only two
blocks of the original marble, brown, with touches of old gold. The
remaining blocks of these columns are of white Poros marble, brought
from a distance, and they look rough and almost glaring. Poros marble
may always be recognized by the minute shining grains, like specks of
gold, that are scattered through it. Although a fine substance, it looks
vulgar when placed beside Parian marble.
The semicircular places in which the priests of Delphi used to sit may
still be seen, facing a fine view. The sea is hidden by a shoulder of
the mountain, but the rolling slopes beyond the road are covered thickly
with olive-trees, among which the goat-bells chime almost perpetually;
and on the far side of the narrow valley the bare slopes, with their
tiny, red paths, lead calmly toward rocky summits. To the left the
highroad turns sharply round a rock in the direction of the Castalian
fountain.
In the fairly well-preserved theater to the northwest, quantities of
yellow flowers were growing, with some daisies. Among the gray limestone
blocks of the orchestra I found a quantity of excellent blackberries.
Where once was the stage, there are now brown grasses dried up by the
sun. This theater is very steep, and above it towers a precipice. Near
by, between the theater and the stadium, Parnassus gives back to your
cry a swift and sharp echo. The gold, red-gold, and gray stadium, which
lies farther up the mountain than the theater, is partly ruined, but in
parts is well preserved. As I stood in it, thinking of the intellectual
competitions that used to take place there, of the poems recited in it,
of the music the lyre gave forth, and of the famous Pythian games,
which, later, used to be celebrated in this strange mountain fastness, I
saw eagles wheeling over me far up in the blue, above the wild gray and
orange peaks.
In the museum, which stands in a splendid position on the mountain-side,
with a terrace before it, there are many fine things. Delphi in the time
of its greatness contained thousands of statues, great numbers of which
were in bronze. Nero, Constantine, and others carried hundreds of them
away. One which they left, a bronze charioteer in a long robe, faces you
as you enter the museum. It is marvelously alive, almost seems to glow
with vitality. The feet should be specially noticed. They are bare, and
are miracles of sensitiveness. Farther on there is a splendid Antinous,
robust, sensual, egoistic, a type of muscular beauty and crude
determination, without heart or any sparkle of intellect. Two other
statues which I thought exceptionally interesting are of a sturdy,
smiling child and of a headless and armless woman. The latter, numbered
1817 in the catalogue, is very gracious and lovely. The back of the
figure and the drapery, especially that part of it which flows from
under the left arm to the heel of the right foot, are exceptionally
beautiful.
There is a very fine view from the terrace. Toward evening it becomes
wonderfully romantic. Far off, the village of Arachova, perched on its
high ridge, bounds the horizon. It is a view closed in by mountains yet
not oppressive; for there is width between the two ranges, and the large
volcanic slopes are splendidly spacious. Here and there on these slopes
are large wine-colored splashes such as you see often on the mountains
of Syria, and these splashes give warmth to the scene. Above the
Castalian fountain the two peaks of the Phædriadæ, a thousand feet high,
stand up magnificently. Between them is the famous cleft from which the
cold stream issues, to flow down through the olive-groves.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI]
When evening falls, follow the winding white road a little way toward
Arachova. From the soft dusk of the defile that spreads out into the
plain of Krissa the goat-bells still chime melodiously. I have heard
them even very late in the night. The section of sea that was turquoise
now looks like solid silver. Behind it the mountains, velvety and black,
flow away in delicate shapes. They are dreamlike, but beyond them rise
other ethereal ranges which seem to you, as you gaze on them,
impalpable, fluid almost, like a lovely imagination of mountains
summoned up in your mind. Black-green is the plain. Under the tree of
Agamemnon glows a tiny light, like an earth-bound star. Where once the
pilgrims gathered who knew only the gods, Christian hands have tended
the lamp before the holy picture. And a little farther on, among the
foliage of the olive-trees, shines another of these Christian stars,
which, in the darkness of Delphi's solitudes, shed their light, faintly
perhaps, but faithfully, upon a way once often trodden by pagans who now
sleep the last long sleep. To what changes in the human soul do these
earth-bound stars bear witness! I sat beneath Agamemnon's tree,
listening to the cry of the fountain, watching the little lights, till
the night was black about me.
I must always think of Olympia as the poetic shrine of one of the most
poetic statues in the world. As the Parthenon seems to be the soul of
Athens, so the Hermes of Praxiteles seems to be the soul of Olympia,
gathering up and expressing its aloofness from all ugly things, its
almost reflective tenderness, its profound calm, and its far-off freedom
from any sadness. When I stayed there I was the only traveler. Never did
I see any human being among the beautiful ruins, or hear any voice to
break their silence. Only the peasants of that region passed now and
then on the winding track below the hill of Cronus, to lose themselves
among the pine-trees. And I heard at a distance the wonderful sound,
eternity's murmur withdrawn, that the breeze makes among their branches,
as I sat by the palace of Nero.
Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her
pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where
the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the
stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of that
cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping child,
palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the chariots.
All the glory of men has departed, but something remains which is better
than glory--peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of lasting things
beyond.
Among the ruins of Nero's palace I watched white butterflies flitting
among feathery, silver grasses and red and white daisies. Lizards basked
on the altar of Zeus. At the foot of the Heræum, the most ancient temple
that may be seen in Greece at this time, a jackal whined in its
dwelling. Sheep-bells were sounding plaintively down the valley beyond
the arch leading to the walled way by which the great stadium, where the
games took place, was entered. When I got up presently to stroll among
the ruins, I set my foot on the tiny ruts of an uneven pavement,
specially constructed so that the feet of contending athletes should not
slip upon it.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF HERA AT OLYMPIA]
The ruins lie in a sheltered and remote valley far away from the sea,
and surrounded by gentle hills, woods, and delightful pastoral country.
At some distance is the last railway station of the Peloponnesian
railway line, which connects with the main line at Pyrgos. Between the
station and the low hill on which stand the hotel and the museum is
strung out a small, straggling hamlet of peasants' houses. It is very
difficult to realize that this remote sanctuary, hidden away in the
green glades and amid the pastures of Elis, where the waters of Cladeus
and Alpheus glide among reeds and rushes, was ever crowded with people
from all parts of Greece; that emperors dwelled there; that there the
passions of the mob were roused to intense expression; that there men
gained the desire of their hearts or were exposed to the sneers and
opprobrium of their fellows. For Olympia to-day looks like an ideal home
for the great god Pan.
I have called the ruins beautiful, and I think them so, partly because
of their situation, with which they seem to me to combine harmoniously,
and partly because of nature's collaboration with them, which is lacking
from the ruins at Eleusis and even at Delphi. At Olympia many trees grow
among the remains of the temples. A river runs by them. Excavations,
though usually interesting, are often both dusty and ugly. At Olympia
they are pastoral. Dryads might love them. Pan might sit happily on
almost any bit of the walls and play his pipe. They form a unique sylvan
paradise, full of wonderful associations, in which one is tempted to
rest for hours, whereas from many ruins one wishes only to get away once
they have been examined. And yet Olympia is so fragmentary that many
persons are bitterly disappointed with what they find there, as the
visitors' book in the little hotel bears witness.
In all the mass of remains, and they cover a very large extent of
ground, I think I saw only four complete columns standing. Two of these
were columns of the Heræum, in which the Hermes of Praxiteles was found
lying among the remnants. They are golden-brown in color, and are of
course Doric, very massive and rather squat. The temple, the base of
which is very clearly marked, must have looked very powerful, but, I
should think, heavy rather than really majestic. I cannot imagine the
wonderfully delicate Hermes standing within it. It is believed that the
original columns of the Heræum were of wood, and that when they began to
rot away the stone columns were put up in their places. Much of the
temple was made of brick. The Hermes stood between two of the columns.
It will be evident to any one who examines carefully all that is left of
the Temple of Zeus that it must have been very grand. Fragments of the
shafts of its columns, which are heaped in confusion on the ground, are
enormous. One block, which I found poised upright on its rounded edge,
was quite six feet high. This temple was made of limestone, which is now
of a rather dreary, almost sinister, gray color. Exposure to the weather
has evidently darkened it. The foundations are terrific. They suggest
titanic preparations for the bearing up of a universe of stone. It seems
to me that from what is left of this celebrated building, which stands
in the middle of the sacred precinct, and which once contained Phidias's
statue of Zeus, about forty feet high, one can gather something of what
was the builders' conception of the chief of all the gods of Olympus. To
them he must surely have been simply the Thunderer, a deity terrific and
forbidding, to whose worship must be raised a temple grand but probably
almost repellent. Legend relates that when Phidias had completed his
great statue of Zeus, and it had been placed in position, Zeus sent down
a thunderbolt which struck the ground close to the statue. The Greeks
considered the thunderbolt to be the god's characteristic expression of
content. Instead of the eagles of Zeus, I saw hovering over, and
perching upon, this ruin black and white birds, with long tails, not
unlike magpies. The statue of Zeus has disappeared. It is known to have
been taken to Constantinople, and in that tempestuous city it vanished,
like so much else. In the time of Olympia's glory the temple was
elaborately decorated, with stucco, painting, gilding, marble tiles,
shields, and vases, as well as with many statues. But despite this, I
think it must have been far less satisfying than the calm and glorious
Parthenon, in which seems to dwell rather the spirit of a goddess than
the spirit of any human builders.
Earthquakes are frequent at Olympia, and have been so since the most
ancient times. One destroyed the greater part of Zeus's temple about
four hundred years after Christ. By that time the Olympic games had
ceased to be held, and no doubt the place was beginning to fall into the
neglect which, with the lapse of the centuries, has become so romantic.
After it was forgotten by men, nature began to remember and love it.
Very little of the famous stadium has been excavated. I found flocks of
sheep and goats feeding peacefully above it, and near by a small,
barefooted boy, with a little gun, out after quail.
On the first day of my visit to Olympia, after spending a few hours
alone among the ruins I crossed the river, where I saw some half-naked
men dragging for fish with hand-nets, and mounted the hill to the
museum, which looks out over the delicious valley, and is attended by
some umbrella-pines. It was closed, but the keeper came smiling from
his dwelling close by to let me in. He did not follow me far, but sat
down in the vestibule among the Roman emperors.
[Illustration: OLYMPIA--ENTRANCE TO THE ATHLETIC FIELD]
On my right I saw the entrance to what seemed a small gallery, or
perhaps a series of small rooms. In front of me was a large, calm,
well-lighted hall, with a wooden roof and walls of a deep, dull red,
round which were ranged various objects. My eyes were attracted
immediately to one figure, a woman apparently almost in flight,
radiantly advancing, with thin draperies floating back from an
exquisitely vital form--the celebrated "Victory" of Pæonius, now more
than two thousand years old. Beyond this marvel of suggested motion I
saw part of another room very much smaller than the hall and apparently
empty. It drew me on, as in certain Egyptian temples the dim holy of
holies draws the wanderer onward with an influence that may not be
resisted. I took no more heed of the "Victory," of Hercules winning the
apples of the Hesperides, or of anything else, but walked forward, came
into the last room, and found myself alone with the Hermes of Olympia.
The room in which the Hermes stands--alone save for the little child on
his arm--is exactly opposite the distant entrance of the museum. The
keeper, when letting me in, had left the big door wide open. In my heart
I thanked him, but not at that moment, for just then I did not notice
it. I was looking at the Hermes.
A great deal of sad nonsense is talked in our day by critics of art,
music, and literature about "restraint." With them the word has become a
mere parrot cry, a most blessed word, like Mesopotamia. They preach
restraint very often to those who have little or nothing to restrain.
The result is nullity. In striving to become "Greek," too many unhappy
ones become nothing at all. Standing before the Hermes of Olympia, one
realizes as never before the meaning, the loveliness, of restraint, of
the restraint of a great genius, one who could be what he chose to be,
and who has chosen to be serene. This it is to be Greek. Desire of
anything else fails and lies dead. In the small and silent room, hidden
away from the world in the green wilderness of Elis, one has found that
rare sensation, a perfect satisfaction.
Naked the Hermes stands, with his thin robe put off, and flowing down
over the trunk of a tree upon which he lightly leans. He is resting on
his way to the nymphs, but not from any fatigue. Rather, perhaps,
because he is in no haste to resign his little brother Dionysus to their
hands for education. Semele, the mother, is dead, and surely this
gracious and lovely child, touching because of his innocent happiness,
his innocent eagerness in pleasure, looks to Hermes as his protector. He
stretches out one soft arm in an adorable gesture of desire. The other
clings to the shoulder of Hermes. And Hermes watches him with an
expression of divine, half-smiling gentleness, untouched by sadness, by
any misgiving, such as we often feel about the future of a little child
we love; Hermes watches him, contemplative, benign, celestial.
There is a pause in the hurry, in the sorrow, of this travailing world;
there is a hush. No more do the human cries sound in the midst of that
darkness which is created by our misunderstanding. No longer do the
frantic footfalls go by. The golden age has returned, with its knowledge
of what is not needed--a knowledge that we have lost.
I looked up from Hermes and the little brother, and, in the distance,
through the doorway of the museum, I saw a tiny picture of Elis bathed
in soft, golden light; a calm hillside, some green and poetic country,
and, in the foreground, like a message, a branch of wild olive.
That is what we need, what secretly we desire, our branch, perhaps our
crown, of wild olive. And all the rest is as nothing.
IN CONSTANTINOPLE
[Illustration: THE GRAND BAZAAR IN CONSTANTINOPLE]