E-text prepared by Bryan Ness, C. St. Charleskindt, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
_Verse by the Same Author_
ON VIOL AND FLUTE
KING ERIK
FERDAUSI IN EXILE
IN RUSSET AND SILVER
HYPOLYMPIA
Or
The Gods in the Island
_An Ironic Fantasy_
by
EDMUND GOSSE
London
William Heinemann
1901
PREFACE
_The scene of this fantasy is an island, hitherto inhabited by
Lutherans, in a remote but temperate province of Northern Europe.
The persons are the Gods of Ancient Greece. The time is early in
the Twentieth Century._
I
[_A terrace high above the sea, which is seen far below, through
vast masses of woodland. Steps lead down towards the water, from
the centre of the scene. To the left, a large, low country-house,
of unpretentious character, in the style of the late eighteenth
century. Gardens belonging to the same period, and now somewhat
neglected and overgrown, stretch on either side. The edge of the
terrace is marked by a stone balustrade, with a stone seat running
round it within. At the top of steps, ascending, appear_ APHRODITE
_and_ EROS.]
APHRODITE.
A moment, Eros. Let us sit here. What can this flutter at my girdle
be? I breathe with difficulty. Oh! Eros, can this be death?
EROS.
Death? Ah! no; you have roses in your cheeks, mother. Your lips are
like blood.
APHRODITE.
It must be weariness. Ever these new sensations, these odd,
exciting apprehensions! This must be mortality. I never breathed
the faster as I rose from terrace to terrace in Cythera.
EROS.
Yet this is like Cythera--a little like it. [_Looking round._] It
is not the least like it. These round billowy woods, that grey
strip of sea far below, the long smooth land with square yellow
fields and pointed brown fields, and the wild grey sky above. No;
it would be impossible for anything to be less like Cythera.
APHRODITE.
Yet it is like it. [_Gazing round._] How strange ... to be where
everything is not azure and gold and white--white land, gold houses
and blue sky and sea. What are these woods, Eros?
EROS.
Are they beech-woods?
APHRODITE.
I did not think that I could ever be happy again. I am not _happy_.
But I am not miserable. Now that my heart is quiet again, I am not
miserable. Oh! that sick tossing on the black sea, the nausea, the
aching, the dulness; that I, who sprang from the waves, could come
to hate them so. We will never venture on the sea, again?
EROS.
Then must we stay for ever here, since this is an island.
APHRODITE.
Yes, here for ever. For ever? We have no "for ever" now, Eros.
[_Enter, from the house_, CYDIPPE.]
APHRODITE.
Is all prepared for us, Cydippe?
CYDIPPE.
I have done my best. The barbarian people are kind and clean. They
have blue eyes. There is one, with marigold curls and a crisp
beard, who has brought up water and logs of wood. There are two
maidens, with hair like a wheat-field and rough red fingers. There
are others.... I know not. All seem civil and frightened. But your
Majesty will be wretched.
APHRODITE.
No, Cydippe, I think I shall be happy.
EROS [_walking to the parapet, and looking down_].
Our white ship still lies there, mother. Shall we start again?
APHRODITE.
On that leaden water, with the little cruel breakers like coriander
seeds? Never. And whither should we go, Eros? We have lost our
golden home, our only home. We have lost the old white world of
empire; any grey corner of the world of stillness is good enough
for us. I will eat, and lie down, and rest without that long,
awful heave of the intolerable ocean. Which way, Cydippe?
[APHRODITE _and_ CYDIPPE _enter the house_.]
EROS [_alone_].
This little milk-white flower, with the drop of wine in it.... It
is like the grass that grows on the slopes of Parnassus. It is the
only home-like thing here. Can that be grey wool that hangs in the
sky, and droops like a curtain over the opposite hills? How cold
the air is! Ah! it is raining over in the other island, and the
brown fields grow like the yellow fields, melt into a mere white
mist behind the slate-coloured sea. Here is one of the barbarians.
[POSEIDON _slowly appears at the top of the steps_.]
POSEIDON.
Ah, you here alone, Eros?
EROS [_aside_].
It is Poseidon! How old and bluff he looks! [_To_ POSEIDON.] My
mother is within. [_Smiling._] She was angry with you, Poseidon,
but her anger is fallen.
POSEIDON.
Adversity brings us all together. It was once I who burned with
anger against her. Why was she angry?
EROS.
The cruelty of your sea; it shook and sickened her.
POSEIDON.
It once was her sea, too. Now it is not even mine.... Rebellion
everywhere, everywhere the servant risen against the master,
everywhere our spells and portents broken. I rule the sea still,
but it is as a man holds in a wild horse with a hard rein: it obeys
with hatred, it would obey not one moment after the master's hand
was withdrawn.
EROS.
How cold it is. But I am not disconsolate. Nor should you be,
Poseidon, for you will have the sea to occupy your thoughts.
Hephaestus will help you to break it in. He at least should be
consoled, for in our fallen estate his magical ingenuity will
employ his brain.
POSEIDON.
We have never needed to be ingenious. It has been enough for us
to command, to wield the elements like weapons, to say it shall
be and to see it is.
EROS.
To see it is not, and yet to make it be, perhaps this may be a joy
in store for us. For Hephaestus, certainly; for you, if you are
wise; but for me, ah! what will there be? My arrows break against
old hearts, and now we all are old.
[PALLAS ATHENE _comes rapidly down the steps from the house
and speaks while still behind_ EROS.]
PALLAS.
I have brought with me the box which Epimetheus made for Pandora.
EROS [_turning suddenly_].
Ah! Pallas! What, you have brought that ivory box with you? Why
did you burden your hands with that?
PALLAS.
I snatched it from the burning palace. There is something strange at
the bottom of it--something like an opal, with a violet flame in it.
EROS.
Alas! we have no great need of jewels here. This shining beech-leaf
is the treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a little bough of it,
bent just above the white enamel of your forehead. It will be as
green as a beryl to-day, and red like copper to-morrow, and perhaps
you will need no third adornment.
PALLAS.
There is something in the carven box which the shrieking oracle
commended to me. "Take this," it said, "take this, and it will turn
the blackness of exile into living light."
EROS.
Poor oracle, it became mad before it became dumb.
PALLAS.
I was the only one of us all, Eros, who anticipated this change.
High up above the glaciers of Olympus, where the warm crystal shone
like ice, and the faint cumuli rained jasmine on us, and the blue
light was like the cold acid of a fruit, in the midst of our
incomparable felicity I pondered on the vicissitude of things.
EROS.
You only, I remember, ever heeded the foolish screaming oracle
that moaned for mortals. You always had something of the mortal
temperament, Pallas. It jarred upon my mother that you seem to
shudder even at the voluptuous turmoil of the senses. She said
you always looked old. You look younger now than she does,
Pallas.
PALLAS.
I am neither old nor young. I know not what I am. But this grey
colour and those blowing woods are not unpleasing to me. I can
be _myself_, even here, on a beech-wood peak in the cold sea.
[_Enter up the steps_ ZEUS, _leaning heavily on_ GANYMEDE,
_and attended by many other Gods_.]
EROS, POSEIDON, _and_ PALLAS.
Hail! father and king!
ZEUS.
I can push on no farther. Why have I brought you here? [_Gazing
round._] Nay, it is you who have brought me here. [_He moves up the
scene._] I have a demon in my legs, that swells them, breaks them,
crushes me down. [_To_ GANYMEDE.] You are careless; stiffen your
shoulder, it slopes like a woman's. I have lost my thunderbolt, I
have lost everything. Shall I be _bound_ upon this muddy, slippery
rock? What is that horror in the sky?
POSEIDON.
It is some dark bird of the north; it seeks a prey in the
woodlands.
ZEUS.
I think it is a vulture. My eagle fled from me when the rebel
whistled to it. It perched beside him, and smoothed its crest
against his elbow. All have left me, even my eagle.
PALLAS.
Father, we have not left you. We are about you here. One by one the
alleys of the beech-wood will open, and one after one we shall all
gather here, all your children, all the Olympians.
ZEUS.
But where is Olympus? I hardly know you. [_Gazing blankly about
him._] Are you my children? You [_to_ PALLAS] gaze at me with eyes
like those I hated most.
EROS.
Whose eyes, father and king?
ZEUS.
I will not say. Are you sure [_to_ POSEIDON] that is not a vulture?
I am torn, see, here under my beard, by a thorn. I can feel pain at
last, _I_, who could only inflict it.
EROS.
Pallas has something in a box----
ZEUS [_vehemently_].
There is nothing in any box, there is nothing in any island, there
is nothing in all the empty caskets of this world which can give
me any happiness. Is it in this shanty that we must live? Lead me
on, Ganymede, lead me on into it, that I may sink down and sleep.
Walk slowly and walk steadily, wretched boy.
[_He passes into the house, followed by all the others._]
II
[_The terrace as before. Early morning, with warm sunshine. Enter_
CIRCE, _very carefully helping_ KRONOS _down the steps of the
house_. RHEA _follows, leaning on a staff_. CIRCE _places_ KRONOS
_in one throne, and sees_ RHEA _comfortably settled in another.
Then she sits on the ground between them, at_ RHEA'S _knees_.]
CIRCE.
There! We are all comfortable now. How did Kronos sleep, Rhea?
RHEA.
He has not complained this morning. [_Raising her voice._] Did
you sleep, Kronos?
KRONOS [_vaguely_].
Yes, oh yes! I always sleep. Why should I not sleep?
CIRCE.
These new arrangements--I was afraid they might disturb you.
RHEA [_to_ CIRCE].
He notices very little. I do not think he recollects that there has
been any change. Already he forgets Olympus. [_After a pause._] It
is very thoughtful of you, Circe, to take so much trouble about us.
CIRCE.
I have been anxious about you both. All the rest of us ought to be
able to console ourselves, but I am afraid that you will find it
very difficult to live in the new way.
RHEA.
Kronos will soon have forgotten that there was an old way; and as
for me, Circe, I have seen so much and wandered in so many places,
that one is as another to me.
KRONOS.
Is it Zeus who has driven us forth?
CIRCE.
Oh no! Zeus has led us hither. It was he who was attacked, it was
against him that the rage of the enemy was directed.
KRONOS [_to himself_].
He let me stay where I was. We were not driven forth before, Rhea,
were we? When I saw that it was hopeless, I did not struggle; I
rose and took you by the hand....
RHEA.
Yes; and we went half-way down the steps of the throne together....
KRONOS [_very excitedly_].
And we bowed to Zeus....
RHEA.
And he walked forward as if he did not see us....
KRONOS.
And then we came down, and I [_all his excitement falls from him_]
I cannot quite remember. Did he strike us, Rhea?
RHEA.
Oh! no, no! He swept straight on, and did not so much as seem to
see us, and in a moment he was up in the throne, and all the gods,
the new and the old, were bowing to him with acclamation.
CIRCE [_looking up at_ RHEA, _with eager sympathy_].
What did _you_ do, you poor dears?
RHEA [_after a pause_].
We did nothing.
KRONOS.
Zeus let us stay then. Why has he driven us out now?
RHEA [_aside_].
He does not understand, Circe. It is very sweet of you to be so
kind to us, but you must go back now to your young companions.
Who is here?
CIRCE.
I think we are all here, or nearly all. I have not seen Iris, but
surely all the rest are here.
RHEA.
Is Zeus very much disturbed? On the ship I heard Aeolus say that
it was impossible to go near him, he was so unreasonably angry.
CIRCE.
Yes, he thought that our miseries were all the fault of Poseidon
and Aeolus. But mortality will make a great change in Zeus; I think
perhaps a greater change than in any of us. He has eaten a very
substantial breakfast. Aesculapius says that as Zeus has hitherto
considered the quality of his food so much, it is probable that
in these lower conditions it may prove to be quantity which will
interest him most. He was greatly pleased with a curious kind of
aromatic tube which Hermes invented for him this morning.
RHEA.
Does Zeus blow down it?
CIRCE.
No; he puts fire to one end of it, and draws in the vapour. He is
delighted. How clever Hermes is, is he not, Rhea? What shall you
do here?
RHEA.
I must look after Kronos, of course. But he gives me no trouble.
And I do not need to do much more. I am very tired, Circe. I was
tired in my immortality. When Kronos and I were young, things were
so very different in Olympus.
CIRCE.
How were they different? Do tell me what happened. I have always
longed to know, but it was not considered quite nice, quite
respectful to Zeus, for us to ask questions about the Golden Age.
But now it cannot matter; can it, Rhea?
RHEA [_after a pause_].
The fact is that when I look back, I cannot see very plainly any
longer. Do you know, Circe, that after the younger Gods invaded
Heaven, although Zeus was very good-natured to us, and let us go
on as deities, something of our god-head passed away?
KRONOS [_aloud, to himself_].
I said to him, "If I am unwelcome, I can go." And he answered,
"Pray don't discommode yourself." Just like that; very politely,
"Don't discommode yourself." And now he drives us away after all.
CIRCE [_flinging herself over to_ KRONOS' _knees_].
Oh! Kronos, he does not drive you away! It is not he. It is our
new enemies, not of our own race, that have driven us. And we are
all here--Pallas, Ares, Phoebus--we are all here. You like Hermes,
do you not, Kronos? Well, Hermes is here, and he will amuse you.
KRONOS.
I thought that Zeus had forgiven us. But never mind, never mind!
RHEA.
We are tired, Circe. And what does the new life matter to us now?
The old life had run low, and we had long been prepared for
mortality by the poverty of our immortality.
[_Enter_ HERMES _running_.]
HERMES [_in reply to a gesture of_ CIRCE].
I cannot stay. I am trying to rouse Demeter from her dreadful state
of depression. She sits in the palace heaving deep sighs, and doing
absolutely nothing else. It will affect her heart, Aesculapius say.
CIRCE.
She has always been so closely wedded to the study of agriculture,
and now....
HERMES.
Precisely. And it has occurred to me that the way to rouse her
will be to send Persephone to her in a little country cart I have
discovered. I have two mouse-coloured ponies already caught and
harnessed--such little beauties. The only thing left to do is to
search for Persephone.
CIRCE.
I will find her in a moment. [_Exit._]
RHEA.
We hear that you have already invented a means of amusing Zeus,
Hermes? Is he prepared to forget his thunderbolt?
HERMES.
He has mentioned it only twice this morning, and I have set
Hephaestus to work to make him another, of yew-tree wood. It will
be less incommodious, more fitted to this place, and in a very
short time Zeus will forget the original.
KRONOS [_loudly, to himself_].
Zeus gave me an orb and sceptre to console me. I used to play cup
and ball with them behind his throne.
RHEA [_in a solicitous aside to_ HERMES].
Oh! it is not true. Kronos' mind now wanders so strangely. He
thinks that it is Zeus who has turned him out of Olympus.
HERMES [_in the same tone_].
Do not distress him, Rhea, by contradiction and explanation. I will
find modes of amusing him a little every day, and, for the rest,
let him doze in the sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth that it
fails any longer to catch in ideas as they flit against it. They
pass off, glide away. It is useless, Rhea, to torment Kronos.
RHEA.
I shall watch him, all day long. For I, too, am weary. Do not
propose to me, with your restless energy, any fresh interests. Let
me sit, with my cold hands folded in my lap, and look at Kronos,
nodding, nodding. It is very kind of Circe, but we are too old for
love; and of you, but we are too old for amusement. Let us rest,
Hermes, rest and sleep; perhaps dream a little, dream of the
far-away past.
[CIRCE _and_ PERSEPHONE _enter from the left_.]
PERSEPHONE [_to_ HERMES].
My mother requires so much activity of mind and body. You must not
believe that I was neglecting her. But I went forth in despair this
morning to see what I could invent, adapt, discover, as a means
of rousing her. I am stupid, I could think of nothing. I wandered
through the woods, down the glen, along the sea-shore, up the side
of the tarn and of the marsh, but I could think of nothing.
CIRCE.
And when I found Persephone she was lying, flung out among the
flowers, with bees and butterflies leaping round her in the
sunshine, and the beech-leaves singing their faint song of peace.
It was beautiful, it was like Enna--with, ah! such a difference.
PERSEPHONE.
Circe does not tell you that I was so foolish as to be in tears.
But now it seems that you have invented an occupation for Ceres?
You are so divinely ingenious.
HERMES.
I hope it may be successful.
PERSEPHONE.
Tell me what it is.
HERMES.
I have found at the back of the palace a small rural waggon, and
I have caught two ponies, with coats like grey velvet, and great
antelopes' eyes--dear little creatures. I have harnessed them, and
now I want you to sit in this cart, while I am dressed like some
herdsman of these barbarians, and lead the ponies, and we will go
together to coax Demeter out into the fields.
PERSEPHONE.
Oh! Hermes, how splendid of you. Let us fly to carry out your plan.
Circe, will you not come with us?
CIRCE.
Or shall I not rather go to prepare the mind of Demeter for an
agreeable surprise? Shall you be happy by yourselves, Kronos and
Rhea?
RHEA.
Quite happy, for we desire to sleep.
[_Exit_ CIRCE _to right_, HERMES _and_ PERSEPHONE _to left_.]
III
[_A ring of turf, in a hollow of the slope, surrounded by beech-trees,
except on one side, where a marsh descends to a small tarn. Over
the latter is rising the harvest moon._ PHOEBUS APOLLO _alone;
he watches the luminary for a long time in silence_.]
PHOEBUS.
Selene! sister!--since that tawny shell,
Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy sighs,
Recalls thee still to mind--dost thou regard,
From some tumultuous covert of this woodland,
Thy whilom sphere and palace? Nun of the skies,
In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands
Repelled me when I sought to win thy lair,
Fraternal, with no thoughts but humorous ones;
And in thy chill revulsion, through thy skies,
At my advance thy crystal home would fade,
A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery dream.
Thou and thy moon were one. What is it now,
Thy phantom paradise of gorgeous pearl,
With sibilant streams and palmy tier on tier
Of wind-bewhitened foliage? Still it floats,
As when thy congregated harps and viols
Beat slow harmonious progress, light on light,
Across our stainless canopy of heaven.
Ah! but how changed, Selene! If thy form
Crouches among these harsher herbs, O turn
Thy withering face away, and press thine eyes
To darkness in the strings of dusty heather,
Since that loose globe of orange pallor totters,
Racked with the fires of anarchy, and sheds
The embers of thy glory; and the cradles
Of thy imperial maidenhood are foul
With sulphur and the craterous ash of hell.
O gaze not, sister, on the loathsome wreck
Of what was once thy moon. Yet, if thou must
With tear-fed eyes visit thine ancient realm,
Bend down until the fringe of thy faint lids
Hides all save what is in this tarn reflected--
Cold, pallid, swimming in the lustrous pool,
There only worthy of thy clear regard,
A vision purified in woe.
[_The reeds in the tarn are stirred, and there is audible a faint
shriek and a ripple of laughter. A shrouded figure rises from
the marsh, and, hastening by_ PHOEBUS _through the darkness,
is lost in the woods. It is followed closely by_ PAN, _who,
observing_ PHOEBUS, _pauses in embarrassment_.]
PHOEBUS.
I thought I was alone.
PAN.
And so did we, sire.
PHOEBUS.
Am I to congratulate you on your distractions?
PAN.
I have a natural inclination to marshy places.
PHOEBUS.
This is a ghastly night, Pan.
PAN.
I had not observed it, sire. Yes, doubtless a ghastly night.
But I was occupied, and I am no naturalist. This glen curiously
reminded me of rushy Ladon. I am a great student of reeds, and
I was agreeably surprised to find some very striking specimens
here--worthy of the Arcadian watercourses, as I am a deity. I
should say, _was_ a deity.
PHOEBUS.
They will help, perhaps, to reconcile you to mortality. You can
add them to your collection.
PAN.
That, sire, is my hope. The stems are particularly full and smooth,
and the heads of the best of them rustle back with a profusion of
flaxen flowerage, remarkably agreeable to the touch. I broke one as
your Highness approached. But the wind, or some goblin, bore it
from me. This curious place seems full of earth-spirits.
PHOEBUS.
You must study them, too, Pan. That will supply you with another
object.
PAN.
But the marsh water has a property unknown to the Olympian springs.
I suspect it of being poisoned. After standing long in it, I found
myself troubled with aching in the shank, from knee to hoof. If
this is repeated, my studies of reed-life will be made dolorously
difficult.
PHOEBUS.
It must now be part of your pleasure to husband your enjoyments.
You have always rolled in the twinkle of the vine-leaves, hot
enough and not too hot, with grapes--immense musky clusters--just
within your reach. If you think of it philosophically----
PAN.
How, sire?
PHOEBUS.
Philosophically.... Well, if you think of it sensibly, you will
see that there was a certain dreariness in this uniformity of
satisfaction. Rather amusing, surely, to find the cluster
occasionally spring up out of reach, to find the polished waist
of the reed slip from your hands? Occasionally, of course; just
enough to give a zest to pursuit.
PAN.
Ah! there was pursuit in Ladon, but it was pursuit which always
closed easily in capture. What I am afraid of is that here capture
may prove the exception. Your Highness ... but a slight family
connection and our adversities are making me strangely familiar....
PHOEBUS.
Speak on, my good Pan.
PAN.
Your Highness was once something of a botanist?
PHOEBUS.
A botanist? Ah, scarcely! A little arboriculture, the laurel; a
little horticulture, the sun-flower. Those varieties seem entirely
absent here, and I have no thought of replacing them.
PAN.
The last thing I should dream of suggesting would be a _hortus
siccus_....
PHOEBUS.
And I was never a consistent collector. There are reeds everywhere,
you fortunate goat-foot, but even in Olympus I was the creature of
a fastidious selection.
PAN.
The current of the thick and punctual blood never left me liable
to the distractions of choice.
PHOEBUS.
I congratulate you, Pan, upon your temperament, and I recommend
to you a further pursuit of the attainable.
[PAN _makes a profound obeisance and disappears in the woodland_.
PHOEBUS _watches him depart, and then turns to the moon_.]
PHOEBUS [_alone_].
His familiarity was not distasteful to me. It reminded me of days
out hunting, when I have come suddenly upon him at the edge of the
watercourse, and have shared his melons and his conversation. I
anticipate for him some not unagreeable experiences. The lower
order of divinities will probably adapt themselves with ease
to our new conditions. They despaired the most suddenly, with
wringing of hands as we raced to the sea, with interminable
babblings and low moans and screams, as they clustered on the deck
of that extraordinary vessel. But the science of our new life must
be to forget or to remember. We must live in the past or forego
the past. For Pan and his likes I conceive that it will largely
resolve itself into a question of temperature--of temperature and
of appetite. That orb is of a sinister appearance, but to do it
justice it looks heated. My sister had a passion for coldness; she
would never permit me to lend her any of my warmth. I cannot say
that it is chilly here to-night. I am agreeably surprised.
[_The veiled figure flits across again, and_ PAN _once more
crosses in close pursuit_.]
PHOEBUS [_as they vanish_].
What an amiable vivacity! Yes; the lower order of divinities will
be happy, for they will forget. We, on the contrary, have the
privilege of remembering. It is only the mediocre spirits, that
cannot quite forget nor clearly remember, which will have neither
the support of instinct nor the solace of a vivid recollection.
[_He seats himself. A noise of laughter rises from the marsh,
and dies away. In the silence a bird sings._]
PHOEBUS.
Not the Daulian nightingale, of course, but quite a personable
substitute: less prolongation of the triumph, less insistence upon
the agony. How curiously the note breaks off! Some pleasant little
northern bird, no doubt. I experience a strange and quite
unprecedented appetite for moderation. The absence of the thrill,
the shaft, the torrent is not disagreeable. The actual Phocian
frenzy would be disturbing here, out of place, out of time. I must
congratulate this little, doubtless brown, bird on a very
considerable skill in warbling. But the moon--what is happening
to _it_? It is not merely climbing higher, but it is manifestly
clarifying its light. When I came, it was copper-coloured, now it
is honey-coloured, the horn of it is almost white like milk. This
little bird's incantation has, without question, produced this
fortunate effect. This little bird, halfway on the road between
the nightingale and the cicada, is doubtless an enchanter, and one
whose art possesses a more than respectable property. My sister's
attention should be drawn to this highly interesting circumstance.
Selene! Selene!
[_He calls and waits. From the upper woods_ SELENE _slowly
descends, wrapped in long white garments_.]
PHOEBUS.
Sister, behold the throne that once was thine.
SELENE.
And now, a rocking cinder, fouls the skies.
PHOEBUS.
A magian sweeps its filthy ash away.
SELENE.
There is no magic in the bankrupt world.
PHOEBUS.
Nay, did'st thou hear this twittering peal of song?
SELENE.
Some noise I heard; this glen is full of sounds.
PHOEBUS.
Fling back thy veil, and staunch thy tears, and gaze.
SELENE.
At thee, my brother, not at my darkened orb.
PHOEBUS.
Gaze then at me. What seest thou in mine eyes?
SELENE.
Foul ruddy gleams from what was lately pure.
PHOEBUS.
Nay, but thou gazest not. Look up, look at me!
SELENE.
But on thy sacred eyeballs fume turns fire.
PHOEBUS.
Nay, then, turn once and see thy very moon.
SELENE [_turning round_].
Ah! wonder! the volcanic glare is gone.
PHOEBUS.
The wizard bird has sung the fumes away.
SELENE.
Empty it seems, and vain; but foul no more.
PHOEBUS [_approaching her, and in a confidential tone_].
I will not disguise from you, Selene, my apprehension that the
hideous colour may return. Your moon is divorced from yourself,
and can but be desecrated and forlorn. But at least it should
be a matter of interest to you--yes, even of gratification, my
sister--that this little bird, if it be a bird, has an enchanting
power of temporarily relieving it and raising it.
[SELENE, _manifestly more cheerful, ascends to the wood on
the left_. PHOEBUS, _turning again to the moon_,]
I have observed that this species of mysterious agency has a very
salutary effect upon the more melancholy of our female divinities.
They are satisfied if they have the felicity of waiting for
something which they cannot be certain of realising, and which they
attribute to a cause impossible to investigate. [_To_ SELENE,
_raising his voice_.] Whither do you go, my sister?
SELENE.
I am searching for this little bird. I propose to discuss with
it the nature of its extraordinary, and I am ready to admit its
gratifying, control over the moon. I think it possible that I may
concoct with it some scheme for our return. You shall, in that
case, Phoebus, be no longer excluded from my domain.
PHOEBUS.
Let me urge you to do no such thing. The action of this little
bird upon your unfortunate luminary is sympathetic, but surely
very obscure. It would be a pity to inquire into it so closely
as to comprehend it.
[SELENE, _without listening to him, passes up into the woods,
and exit_.]
PHOEBUS [_alone_].
To comprehend it might even be to discover that it does not exist.
Whereas to come here night after night, in the fragrant darkness,
to see the unhallowed lump of fire creep out of the lake, to
listen for the first clucks and shakes of the sweet little
purifying song, and to watch the orb growing steadily more hyaline
and lucent under its sway, how delicious! The absolute harmony and
concord of nature would be then patent and recurrent before us.
My poor sister! However, it is consoling to reflect that she is
almost certain not to be able to find that bird.
IV
[_The same glen._ AESCULAPIUS _alone, busily arranging a great
cluster of herbs which he has collected. He sits on a large
stone, with his treasures around him_.]
AESCULAPIUS.
Yew--an excellent styptic. Tansy, rosemary. Spurge and marsh
mallow. The best pellitory I ever plucked out of a wall. The herbs
of this glen are admirable. They surpass those of the gorges of
Cyllene. Is this lavender? The scent seems more acrid.
[_Enter_ PALLAS _and_ EUTERPE.]
PALLAS.
You look enviably animated, Aesculapius. Your countenance is so
fresh beneath that long white beard of yours, that the barbarians
will suppose you to be some mad boy, masquerading.
EUTERPE.
What will you do with these plants?
AESCULAPIUS.
These are my simples. As we shot through the Iberian narrows on our
frantic voyage hither, my entire store was blown out of my hands
and away to sea. The rarest sorts were flung about on rocks where
nothing more valetudinarian than a baboon could possibly taste
them. My earliest care on arriving here was to search these woods
for fresh specimens, and my success has been beyond all hope. See,
this comes from the wet lands on the hither side of the tarn----
EUTERPE.
Where Selene is now searching for the wizard who draws the smoke
away from the moon's face at night.
AESCULAPIUS.
This from the beck where it rushes down between the stems of
mountain-ash, this from beneath the vast ancestral elm below the
palace, this from the sea-shore. Marvellous! And I am eager to
descend again; I have not explored the cliff which breaks the
descent of the torrent, nor the thicket in the gully. There must
be marchantia under the spray of the one, and possibly dittany in
the peat of the other.
PALLAS.
We must not detain you, Aesculapius. But tell us how you propose
to adapt yourself to our new life. It seems to me that you are
determined not to find it irksome.
AESCULAPIUS.
Does it not occur to you, Pallas, that--although I should never
have had the courage to adopt it--thus forced upon us it offers
me the most dazzling anticipations? Hitherto my existence has been
all theory. What there is to know about the principles of health as
applied to the fluctuations of mortality, I may suppose is known to
me. You might be troubled, Pallas, with every conceivable malady,
from elephantiasis to earache, and I should be in a position to
analyse and to deal with each in turn. You might be obscured by
ophthalmia, crippled by gout or consumed to a spectre by phthisis,
and I should be able, without haste, without anxiety, to unravel
the coil, to reduce the nodosities, to make the fleshy instrument
respond in melody to all your needs.
PALLAS.
But you have never done this. We knew that you _could_ do it, and
that has been enough for us.
AESCULAPIUS.
It has never been enough for me. The impenetrable immortality of
all our bodies has been a constant source of exasperation to me.
PALLAS.
Is it not much to know?
AESCULAPIUS.
Yes; but it is more to _do_. The most perfect theory carries a
monotony and an emptiness about with it, if it is never renovated
by practice. In Olympus the unbroken health of all the inmates,
which we have accepted as a matter of course, has been more
advantageous to them than it has been to me.
PALLAS.
I quite see that it has made your position a more academic one than
you could wish.
AESCULAPIUS.
It has made it purely academic, and indeed, Pallas, if you will
reflect upon it, the very existence of a physician in a social
system which is eternally protected against every species of bodily
disturbance borders upon the ridiculous.
PALLAS.
It would interest me to know whether in our old home you were
conscious of this incongruity, of this lack of harmony between your
science and your occasions of using it.
AESCULAPIUS.
No; I think not. I was satisfied in the possession of exact
knowledge, and not directly aware of the charm of application. It
is the result, no doubt, of this resignation of immortality which
has startled and alarmed us all so much----
PALLAS.
Me, Aesculapius, it has neither alarmed nor startled.
AESCULAPIUS.
I mean that while we were beyond the dread of any attack, the
pleasure of rebutting such attack was unknown to us. I have
divined, since our misfortunes, that disease itself may bring an
excitement with it not all unallied to pleasure.... You smile,
Euterpe, but I mean even for the sufferer. There is more in
disease than the mere pang and languishment. There is the sense
of alleviation, the cessation of the throb, the resuming glitter
in the eye, the restoration of cheerfulness and appetite. These,
Pallas, are qualities which are indissolubly identified with pain
and decay, and which therefore--if we rightly consider--were wholly
excluded from our experience. In Olympus we never brightened, for
we never flagged; we never waited for a pang to subside, nor felt
it throbbing less and less poignantly, nor, as if we were watching
an enemy from a distance, hugged ourselves in a breathless ecstasy
as it faded altogether; this exquisite experience was unknown to
us, for we never endured the pang.
EUTERPE.
You make me eager for an illness. What shall it be? Prescribe one
for me. I am ignorant even of the names of the principal maladies.
Let it be a not unbecoming one.
AESCULAPIUS.
Ah! no, Euterpe. Your mind still runs in the channel of your lost
impermeability. Till now, you might fling yourself from the crags
of Tartarus, or float, like a trail of water-plants, on the long,
blown flood of the altar-flame, and yet take no hurt, being
imperishable. But now, part of your hourly occupation, part of your
faith, your hope, your duty, must be to preserve your body against
the inroads of decay.
EUTERPE.
You present us with a tedious conception of our new existence,
surely.
AESCULAPIUS.
Why should it be tedious? There was tedium, rather, in the
possession of bodies as durable as metal, as renewable as wax,
as insensitive as water. In the fiercest onset of the passions,
prolonged to satiety, there was always an element of the unreal.
What is pleasure, if the strain of it is followed by no fatigue;
what the delicacy of taste, if we can eat like caverns and drink
like conduits without being vexed by the slightest inconvenience?
You will discover that one of the acutest enjoyments of the mortal
state will be found to consist in guarding against suffering. If
you are provided with balloons attached to all your members, you
float upon the sea with indifference. It is the certainty that you
will drown if you do not swim which gives zest to the exercise. I
climb along yonder jutting cornice of the cliff with eagerness,
and pluck my simples with a hand that trembles more from joy than
fear, precisely because the strain of balancing the nerves, and
the certainty of suffering as the result of carelessness, knit
my sensations together into an exaltation which is not exactly
pleasure, perhaps, but which is not to be distinguished from it
in its exciting properties.
PALLAS.
Is life, then, to resolve itself for us into a chain of
exhilarating pangs?
AESCULAPIUS.
Life will now be for you, for all of us, a perpetual combat with a
brine that half supports, half drags us under; a continual creeping
and balancing on a chamois path around the forehead of a precipice.
A headache will be the breaking of a twig, a fever a stone that
gives way beneath your foot, to lose the use of an organ will be
to let the alpenstock slip out of your starting fingers. And the
excitement, and be sure the happiness, of existence will be to
protract the struggle as long as possible, to push as far as you
can along the dwindling path, to keep the supports and the
alleviations of your labour about you as skilfully as you can,
and in the fuss and business of the little momentary episodes of
climbing to forget as long and as fully as may be the final and
absolutely unavoidable plunge. [_A pause, during which_ EUTERPE
_sinks upon the green sward_.]
AESCULAPIUS.
I have unfolded before you a scheme of philosophical activity. Are
you not gratified?
PALLAS.
Euterpe will learn to be gratified, Aesculapius, but she had not
reflected upon the plunge. If she will take my counsel, she will
continue to avoid doing so. [EUTERPE _rises, and approaches_
PALLAS, _who continues, to_ AESCULAPIUS.] I am with you in
recommending to her a constant consideration of the momentary
episodes of health. And now let us detain you no longer from the
marchanteas.
EUTERPE.
But pray recollect that they grow where the rocks are both slippery
and shelving.
[_Exit_ AESCULAPIUS. EUTERPE _sinks again upon the grass, with her
face in her hands, and lies there motionless_. PALLAS _walks
up and down, in growing emotion, and at length breaks forth
in soliloquy_.]
PALLAS.
Higher than this dull circle of the sense--
Shrewd though its pulsing sharp reminders be,
With ceaseless fairy blows that ring and wake
The anvil of the brain--I rather choose
To lift mine eyes and pierce
The long transparent bar that floats above,
And hides, or feigns to hide, the choiring stars,
And dulls, or faintly dulls, the fiery sun,
And lacquers all the glassy sky with gold.
For so the strain that makes this mortal life
Irksome or squalid, chains that bind us down,
Rust on those chains which soils the reddening skin,
Passes; and in that concentrated calm,
And in that pure concinnity of soul,
And in that heart that almost fails to beat,
I read a faint beatitude, and dream
I walk once more upon the roof of Heaven,
And feel all knowledge, all capacity
For sovereign thought, all intellectual joy,
Blow on me, like fluttering and like dancing winds.
We are fallen, fallen!...
And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my veins,
And yet a sense of limpid happiness
And buoyancy and anxious fond desire
Quicken my being. It is much to see
The perfected geography of thought
Spread out before the gorged intelligence,
A map from further detail long absolved.
But ah! when we have tasted the delight
Of toilsome apprehension, how return
To that satiety of mental ease
Where all is known because it merely is?
Nay, here the joy will be to learn and learn,
To learn in error and correct in pain,
To learn through effort and with ease forget,
Building of rough and slippery stones a House,
Long schemed, and falling from us, and at the last
Imperfect. Knowledge not the aim, so much
As pleasure in the toil that leads to knowledge,
We shall build, although the house before our eyes
Crumble, and we shall gladden in the toil
Although it never leads to habitation--
Building our goal, though never a fabric rise.
V
[_The glen, down which a limpid and murmuring brook descends, with
numerous tiny cascades and pools. Beside one of the latter,
underneath a great beech-tree, and sitting on the root of it_,
APHRODITE, _alone. Enter from below, concealed at first by the
undergrowth_, ARES. _It is mid-day._]
APHRODITE [_to herself_].
Here he comes at last, and from the opposite direction.... No!
that cannot be Phoebus.... Ah! it is you, then!
ARES.
Is it possible? Your Majesty--and alone!
APHRODITE.
Phoebus offered me the rustic entertainment of gathering wild
raspberries. We found some at length, and regaled ourselves. I
wished for more, and Phoebus, with his usual gallantry, wandered
dreamily away into the forest on the quest. He has evidently lost
his way. I sat me down on this tree and waited.
ARES.
Surely it is the first time that you were ever abroad unattended.
I am amazed at the carelessness of Phoebus. Aphrodite--without an
attendant!
APHRODITE.
That is rather a fatuous remark, and from you of all people in
the world. My most agreeable reminiscences are, without exception,
connected with occasions on which I had escaped from my body-guard
of nymphs. At the present moment you would do well to face the
fact, Ares, that I have but a single maid, and that she has
collapsed under the burdens of novelty and exile.
ARES.
Is that my poor friend Cydippe?
APHRODITE.
You have so many friends, Ares. Poor Cydippe, then, broke down this
morning in moaning hysterics after having borne up just long enough
to do my hair. I really came out on this rather mad adventure after
the raspberries to escape the dolours of her countenance, and
the last thing I saw was her chlamys flung wildly over her head
as she dived down upon the floor in misery. Such consolations as
this island has to give me will not proceed from what you call my
attendant. You do not look well, Ares.
ARES.
I am always well. I am still incensed.
APHRODITE.
Ah, you are oppressed by our misfortunes?
ARES.
I can think of nothing else.
APHRODITE.
You do not, I hope, give way to the most foolish of the emotions,
and endure the silly torture of self-reproach?
ARES.
I have nothing to reproach myself with. Our forces had never been
in smarter trim, public spirit in Olympus never more patriotic
and national; and as to the personal bravery of our forces, it was
simply a portent of moral splendour.
APHRODITE.
And your discipline?
ARES.
It was perfect. I had led the troops up to the point of cheerfully
marching and counter-marching until they were ready to drop with
exhaustion, on the eve of each engagement; and at the ends of all
our practising-grounds brick walls had been set up, at which every
officer made it a point of honour to tilt head-foremost once a day.
There was no refinement preserved from the good old wars of
chivalry which was not familiar to our gallant fellows, and I had
expressly forbidden every species of cerebral exercise. Nothing,
I have always said, is so hurtful to the temper of an army as for
the rank and file to suspect that they are led by men of brains.
APHRODITE.
There every one must do you justice, Ares. I never heard even the
voice of prejudice raised to accuse you.
ARES.
No; I do not think any one could have the effrontery to charge me
with encouraging that mental effort which is so disastrous to the
work of a soldier. The same old practices which led our forefathers
to glory--the courage of tigers; the firm belief that if any one
tried to be crafty it must be because he is a coward; a bull-front
set straight at every obstacle, whatever its nature; a proper
contempt for any plan or discovery made since the days of Father
Uranus--these are the principles in which I disciplined our troops,
and I will not admit that I can have anything to reproach myself
with. The circumstances which we were unexpectedly called upon to
face were such as could never have been anticipated.
APHRODITE.
I do not see that you could have done otherwise than, as you did,
to refuse with dignity to anticipate anything so revolutionary.
ARES.
There are certain things which one seems to condone by merely
acknowledging their existence. That employment of mobile
mechanisms, for instance----
APHRODITE.
Do not speak of it! I could never have believed that the semblance
of the military could be made so excessively distasteful to me.
ARES.
Can I imagine myself admitting the necessity of guarding against
such an ungentlemanlike form of attack?
APHRODITE.
Your friends are all aware, Ares, that if the conditions were
to return, you would never demean yourself and them by guarding
against anything of the kind. But I advise you not to brood upon
the past. Your figure will suffer. You must keep up your character
for solid and agile exercises.
ARES.
It will not be easy for me to occupy myself here. I am accustomed,
as you know, to hunting and slaying. I thought I might have enjoyed
some sport with the barbarian islanders, and I selected one for the
purpose. But Zeus intervened, with that authority which even here,
in our shattered estate, we know not how to resist.
APHRODITE.
Did he give any reason for preventing the combat?
ARES.
Yes; and his reasons (I was bound to admit) carried some weight
with them. He said, first, that it was wrong to kill those who had
received us with so generous a hospitality; and secondly, that, as
I am no longer immortal, this brawny savage, with hair so curiously
coiled and matted over his brain-pan, might kill me; and thirdly,
that the whole affair might indirectly lead to his, Zeus', personal
inconvenience. Here then is enjoyment by one door quite shut out
from me.
APHRODITE.
Are there not deer in these woods, and perhaps wolves and boars?
There must be wild duck on the firth, and buzzards in the rocks.
Instead of challenging the barbarians to a foolish trial of
strength, why not make them your companions, and learn their
accomplishments?
ARES.
It is possible that I shall do so. But for the present, anger
gushes like an intermittent spring of bitter water in my bosom. I
forget for a moment, and the fountain falls; and then, with a rush,
memory leaps up in me, a column of poison. I say to myself, It cannot
be, it shall not be; but I grow calm again and find that it is.
APHRODITE.
The worst of the old immortality was the carelessness of it. We
were utterly unprepared for anything bordering on catastrophe, and
behold, without warning, we are swept away in a complete cataclysm
of our fortunes. I see, Ares, that it will be long before you can
recover serenity, or take advantage of the capabilities of our new
existence. They will appeal to you more slowly than to the rest
of us, and you will respond more unwillingly, because of your
lack--your voluntary and boasted lack--of all intellectual
suppleness.
ARES.
It is not the business of a soldier to be supple.
APHRODITE.
So it appears. And you will suffer for it. For, stiff and blank as
you may determine to be, circumstances will overpower you. Under
their influences you will not be able to avoid becoming softer and
more redundant. But you will resist the process, I see, and you
will make it as painful as you can.
ARES.
You discuss my case with a cheerful candour, Aphrodite. Are you
sure of being happier yourself?
APHRODITE.
Not _sure_; but I have a reasonable confidence that I shall be
fairly contented. For I, at least, am supple, and I court the
influences which you think it a point of gallantry to resist.
ARES.
You will continue, I suppose, to make your main business the
stimulating and the guiding of the affections? Here I admit that
suppleness, as you call it, is in place.
APHRODITE.
Unfortunately, even here, immortality was no convenient prelude
to our present state. We did not, indeed, neglect the heart----
ARES.
If I forget all else, there must be events----
APHRODITE.
Alas! we loved so briefly and with so facile a susceptibility, that
I am tempted to ask myself whether in Olympus we really loved at all.
ARES [_with ardour_].
There, at least, memory supplies me with no sort of doubt----
APHRODITE [_coldly_].
Let us keep to generalities. Looking broadly at our experience, I
should say that the misfortune of the gods, as a preparation for
their mortality, was that in their deathless state the affections
fell at the foot of the tree, like these withered leaves. We should
have fastened the branches of life together in long elastic wires
of the thin-drawn gold of perdurable sentiment.
ARES.
The rapture, the violence, the hammering pulse, the bursting
heart,--I see no resemblance between these and the leaves that
flutter at our feet.
APHRODITE.
These leaves had their moment of vitality, when the sap rushed
through their veins, when their tissue was like a ripple of
sparkling emerald on the face of the smiling sky. But they could
not preserve their glow, and they are the more hopelessly dead
now, because they burned in their green fire so fiercely.
ARES.
We felt no shadow of coming disability strike across our pleasures.
APHRODITE.