THE ACTORS IN THE SCENE.
The voices that sung were sweet, thrillingly sweet, and the music to
which the verse was wedded of that dreamy, wandering kind which
approaches more nearly to the tones of an [AE]olian harp than to any
regular composition. It was, indeed, full of a wild and delicious
melody, which was sometimes solemn and sublime, sometimes low and
plaintive, and the same general theme might be heard running through
the whole; but often the air wandered wide, like a bird upon the wing,
and caught a note or two of a gladder or more joyous character, which
brightened the general solemnity of the strain, like hope breaking in
upon a life of grief. Music had not then reached that perfection which
it has since attained; but there was a touching beauty in its fresh
simplicity which is now but seldom found. It possessed the free
unfettered charms of a graceful nature, cultivated, but not stiffened,
by art, and it still went hand in hand with the sister spirit of
poetry, in the land where both had birth.
But the hymn which had just floated on the air derived peculiar
sweetness from the fine harmony of the voices which sung it. It seemed
the varied tones of one family, where each knew every note in the
voice of the other, and modulated his own to suit it, with that spirit
of love in the breasts of all, whereof the sweetest harmony that art
can compose is but the musical image. In the chorus, however, there
joined less cultivated singers; but, nevertheless, the voices were
generally fine, and there was an enthusiastic eagerness on the tongues
that repeated--
"Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again beautiful, blessing, and bless'd!"
which spoke of that happiness under the bright sun that was then
sinking slowly to the breast of ocean, which is the poetry and melody
of life.
Under the five tall cypresses, and partly reclining on the bank that
sloped to the bright Hyader, sat the group from which those sounds
proceeded. It was separated, indeed, into two distinct parts;
for--with a very short space of green turf between them and those they
served--lay stretched out in various attitudes, some raising the head
upon the hand, some reclining the chest upon the folded arms, some
supported on the elbow, eight or nine slaves of both sexes.
There was nothing, however, in the countenances of any there which
spoke of the bitterness of slavery. There were no signs in their faces
or their demeanour of the iron entering into their soul; and though,
perhaps, no portion of human nature is originally so debased, and no
condition of bondage can be rendered so gentle, that the chain will
not gall and the load will not oppress, yet the lot was then common,
and the accursed name of slave comprehended nearly, if not fully, one
half of the earth's denizens. In the faces of those who lay stretched
easily but not intrusively beside those to whom they were bound by
that inhuman tie, there might be traced a line of care--perhaps a
shade, it might be, of melancholy--gathered by long-preserved and
fruitless remembrances of scenes, and objects, and persons far away;
and on none, but the countenance of one white-teethed Nubian girl, and
a young glad boy, whose life was in the present hour, and to whose
mind the past and the future were but a vapoury cloud, was seen the
light and laughing merriment of a heart which has known no sorrows in
the past. With all the rest, contentment with their lot seemed
chastened by griefs experienced and gone by. They could smile, they
could sing when occasion called for mirth. Their minds were not
irresponsive to sights or sounds of joy; but with them it was from the
well, not the fountain, that the sweet waters of enjoyment sprung:
they sparkled not up spontaneously, but required to be drawn forth by
the hand of another.
Yet if one, remembering their bondage, turned to gaze upon the group
near which they sat, the condition of their feelings was easily
understood; for the forms and faces that were there--not in the
outward lineaments alone, but in the beaming forth of the divine
spirit, as much expressed in the air and movements of the whole body
as in the heart's interpreter, the face--told that the taskmasters
were of that kindly nobility of soul which, in after years, won for a
whole class (that did not always merit the distinction) that most
expressive name of _gentle_.
Under the cypresses, not exactly where the shade fell--for the sun,
near the horizon, had lost his meridian heat, and the western breeze
swept over the cool bright waters of the Adriatic--were seated three
women and a boy of some fourteen years of age. They were evidently of
the highest race of the land in which they lived; and had nothing else
bespoken their rank, the broad deep border of purple, of triple die,
which edged the snowy robe of the eldest of the party, would have
distinguished her as a Roman lady of patrician blood. She was scarcely
beyond the middle age; and time had treated her beauty leniently.
Somewhat of the elastic grace, and all the slight pliant outline of
early youth, was gone, but in contour and dignity much, too, had been
gained; and the eye, more calm and fixed, was as bright and lustrous,
the teeth as white and perfect, as ever. The hair, drawn up and
knotted on the crown of the head, was still full and luxuriant; but,
meandering through its dark and wavy masses, might here and there be
seen a line of silver gray; while the cheek, which had once been as
warm and glowing as the morning dawn of her own radiant land, sorrows
calmly borne, but not the less deeply felt, had rendered as pale as
the twilight of the evening just ere night reigns supreme.
Her dress was plain and unadorned, of the finest materials and the
purest hues; but the gems and ornaments then so common were altogether
absent. The consciousness of beauty, which she might once have felt,
was now altogether forgotten; its vanity she had never known. As much
grace as health, perfect symmetry of form, and noble education from
infancy could give, she displayed in every movement; but it was the
calm and matronly grace, where all is ease, and tranquillity, and
self-possession. The same placid charm reigned in the expression of
her countenance. She seemed to look with benevolence on all. Nay,
more, as if the sorrows which had reached her in her high station had
taught her that in every bosom, however well concealed, there is, or
will be, some store of grief, some memory, some regret, some
disappointment, there mingled with the gentleness of her aspect an
expression of pity, or, perhaps, its better name were sympathy, which
existed really within, and formed a tie between her heart and that of
every other human thing.
She was, indeed, to use the beautiful words of the poet, "kind as the
sun's bless'd influence."[2] Yet the bright dark eye, the proud
arching lip, and the expansive nostrils, seemed to speak of a nature
originally less calm, of days when the spirit was less subdued. Time
and grief, however, are mighty tamers of the most lion-like heart; and
it was with that look of pity, mingling with tender pleasure, that she
gazed down upon a beautiful girl of, perhaps, thirteen years of age,
who, leaning fondly on her knees, as the hymn concluded, looked up in
her face for sympathetic feelings, while the sweet sounds still
trembled on her full rosy lips.
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[Footnote 2: Cowley.]
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Between the matron and the girl there was little resemblance, except
inasmuch as each was beautiful; and though the lineaments, perhaps,
regarded as mere lines, took in some degree the same general form, yet
there were too many shades of difference to admit the idea that those
two fair beings stood in the dear relationship of mother and child,
although the fond, relying, clinging affection displayed in the looks
of the younger, and the tender anxiety of the matron's smile as she
gazed down upon her companion's face, argued affections no less strong
between them than such a tie might have produced.
Eudochia--for so was the younger called--offered a lovely specimen of
that sort of beauty which, however rare in Italy even now, when the
native blood of the children of the land has been mingled with that of
many of the fair-haired nations of the north, we find from the
writings of Petronius to have been not uncommon in his days. Her hair
was of a light brown, with a golden gleam upon it, as if, wherever it
bent in its rich wavy curls, it caught and shone in the bright rays of
the sun. Her eyes were of a soft hazel, though the long, sweeping
black lashes made them look darker than they were: but her skin was of
that brilliant fairness which did indeed exceed the
"Expolitum ebur indicum;"
and the rose glowed through it on the cheeks, as pure and clear as in
those lands where the veiled sun shines most soft and tenderly. Her
features were, indeed, more Greek than Roman; but her complexion
spoke, and not untruly, of a mixture in her veins of what was then
called barbarian blood by the proud children of the empire. Her mother
had been the daughter of a German prince in alliance with Rome; but
the Romans of that day had learned to envy the noble Paulinus his
success with the beautiful child of the wealthy and powerful barbarian
chief. Too short a time, indeed, had their union lasted; for though
Eudochia had drawn her first nourishment from her mother's bosom, yet,
six months after her birth, the fair wife of Paulinus had left him to
mourn her death with two motherless children. He had continued to hold
her memory in solitary affection, filling up, as is so common with
man, the vacant place left by love in the shrine of his heart with the
darker and sterner form of ambition; and while he led forward his son
Theodore in the same path, he left his daughter on the Dalmatian
shore, with one whose kindred blood and generous nature ensured to the
fair girl all a mother's tenderness and a mother's care. For her alone
the lips of Eudochia had learned to pronounce those sweetest of words,
_my mother_--for her alone had her heart learned to feel the thrill of
filial love.
The affection, however, of the Lady Flavia--for so was called the
elder of whom we have spoken--was divided. For the love of man, woman
has but one place in her heart, but maternal tenderness has many; and
the agony of Niobe was not less for every child that died than if she
had had but one. Flavia looked upon Eudochia as her child, and loved
her as such; but the two others, of whom we have said that group was
composed, were in reality her children.
Ammian, the boy, was like his mother in features and complexion, but
not in character. More of his dead father's nature had descended to
him, more of the wild and daring spirit which, sporting with perils
and dangers, contemning pain, and laughing at fear, found food for a
bright and eager imagination in scenes and circumstances which, to
others, were full of nothing but horror and dismay. His pastime, as a
boy, was to climb the mountains, and spring from rock to rock across
the yawning chasms; to stand gazing down over the dizzy side of the
precipice, and to drink in the sublimity of the scene below; to dash
through the wild waves when the southwest wind rolled them in
mountains on the shore, or to mingle with the pagan inhabitants, which
still filled many of the villages near, and to watch without taking
part in those sacrifices which were prohibited under pain of death by
the Christian emperors, but which often took place even in the open
face of day. His mother put no check upon his hazardous pleasures, for
she was Roman enough to wish that her children might never know the
name of fear. But yet her heart sometimes sunk with a chilly dread
when she witnessed his wild exploits; for though the qualities which
prompted them were those for which she had loved his father, yet she
could not forget that the same daring spirit had led that father to
death, by barbarian hands, in the wilds of Pannonia.
There was one more in the group under the cypresses, and one that must
not be passed over in silence. She, like Eudochia, was reclining by
her mother's side; but had the great Florentine sought two lovely
models from which to depict night and day, none could have been found
equal to these two beautiful girls. Ildica,[3] however, was fully two
years older than Eudochia, and those two years made a great
difference. Eudochia was a child; Ildica was no longer so. Eudochia
was the violet, but Ildica was the rose. Her form, too, spoke it;
youth was in every trace: but there was the rounded contour, the
graceful sweeping lines, which tell that nature's brightest effort to
produce beauty is full and complete. She was at that age when the
causeless blush comes frequent, and the unbidding sigh is first known;
when the cheek will sometimes glow as if with shame at the innocent
consciousness of loveliness; and her heart tells woman that she was
created for others. Through the transparent cheek of the Dalmatian
girl the eloquent blood played apparent at every word, and the long,
lustrous, deep black eyes, the very eyelids of which seemed flooded
with light, spoke of feelings within that snowy bosom which were yet
to acquire intensity and fire. And yet Ildica fancied herself still a
child. So gradual, so calm, had as yet been the transition, as their
years passed away in that remote spot without any of the cares, the
turmoils, the passions, and the follies of courts and of cities
breaking the tranquil current of their days, that she hardly knew the
two years which had effected so great a change in her being had passed
otherwise than in infancy. She had never very eagerly sought the light
sports and pastimes of Eudochia, and others of the happy age: she had
always shown a disposition to meditation and to feeling. It was not
that she wanted cheerfulness; far from it; but it was, that through
her very gayety was seen a train of deeper thought. There was a
character of greater intensity in all she did than is usual in early
youth. She loved music, she loved poetry, she loved every art; and her
mother saw her own mind reflected in that of her daughter, with a
shade, perhaps, of more passionate energy derived from the character
of her father.
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[Footnote 3: The learned reader will perceive that I have changed the
last syllable of this name, for the sake of a more regular feminine
termination than the original gives, in sound at least, to an English
ear. Let me acknowledge at once, also, that I have followed the same
bold plan throughout, changing everything that did not suit my purpose.]
---------------
Thus sat they by the bright stream of the Hyader, whose clear water
served to mingle with the wine of their light evening meal, enjoying,
with sweet tranquillity of heart, the loveliness of a scene which,
remembered from his earliest days, had lured Diocletian thither, some
century before, from all the charms of power and empire, to spend his
latter hours in a remote province and a private station. Simple as
that meal was, consisting of nothing but light cakes of a fine flour,
with some dried fruits and some early strawberries, it was more
delicious to those who ate it, in that fair scene and that happy hour,
than all the innumerable dishes of a Roman supper. Still there seemed
something wanting; for--as the last stanza of the hymn was sung, and
Eudochia lay reclining on the Lady Flavia's lap, and gazing up in her
expressive face--the eyes of Ildica had followed the course of the
Hyader down towards the sea, and rested with a longing, anxious look
upon the boat that, with slow and easy motion, as the light but steady
wind impelled it over the waters, steered onward, for some time,
towards that part of the bay near which stood the little village of
Aspalathus, a sort of appendage to the palace of Diocletian. Ammian,
her brother, had remarked it too, and watched it also; but in a few
minutes its course was changed, and its prow turned towards one of the
islands. Ildica said not a word, but she bent down her eyes on the
grass, and plucked one of the purple crocuses which checkered the
green whereon she sat.
"He will not come to-day," said her brother, as if quite sure that the
same thoughts were in his bosom and his sister's at that moment; "and,
besides, he would not appear in a solitary boat like that. Ten such
boats would not have held the gorgeous train which followed him when
he came last year to take Theodore away."
"But remember, Ammian, my son," said Flavia, smiling at the eager
looks of her two children, "remember, when last he came, our cousin
Paulinus was sent to Dalmatia on the emperor's service, as count of
the offices, and now he comes but as a private man to see his
daughter. He is not one of those degraded Romans who in the present
day never travel without an army of domestics. See, the boat has
changed its course again. It did but bear up against the current of
wind between the islands. Eudochia, my sweet child, it is perhaps your
father after all."
As she spoke, the boat, catching the favourable breeze, came more
rapidly towards the land, and in a moment after was hidden from their
eyes by the wavy ground which lay between them and the Adriatic. "Run,
Aspar, run," cried Flavia to one of the slaves; "run and see where the
boat lands. Shall we return homeward, Eudochia? we may meet him
sooner."
Ildica exclaimed, "Oh, yes!" but Eudochia and Ammian reminded their
mother that they had promised to meet Paulinus on the spot where they
had parted from him, even where they then sat; and, while they waited
in the heart-beating moments of expectation, the light-footed slave
again appeared upon the upland, which he had cleared like a hunted
deer, and stood waving his hand, as if to tell that their hopes were
verified.
For a moment or two he paused, looking back towards the sea, and then,
running forward to the cypress, he said, "Yes, lady, yes! they have
reached the shore, and are coming hither. I saw them spring from the
boat to the landing-place of the palace; and while several ran up
towards the portico bearing baggage, four took the path between the
rocks which leads up hither by the field of Eusebius, the gardener."
"Was my brother there, good Aspar?" cried Eudochia, eagerly; "was my
brother there too?"
"I could not distinguish, sweet one," replied the slave; "the distance
was too long for my sight, and the sun was directly in my eyes; but
the one that came first was slight in form, and seemed more like your
brother than the Count Paulinus himself. There was the lightness of
youth, too, in his step, as he bounded up over the rocks like a fawn
towards its doe!"
Flavia smiled, and Ildica smiled too; but as she did so there was a
slight, a very slight change of colour in her cheek. It grew paler;
but it was not the paleness of either apprehension or disappointment;
it only spoke of some intense feelings busy at her heart, though what
they were she herself knew not. At that moment the slave exclaimed,
"Lo, lo! he comes!" and all eyes were turned towards the upland.