THE PROPHET
Halmis liked to sit by the river, among reeds or beneath willows,
narrow-leaved and moving with the slenderest breath of Myr the
air-sprite. Near her brothers’ house, where she lived, there lay among
reeds, half drawn from the water, the ruin of a boat. It was a place to
sit and think, whether the sun shone or the clouds scudded. Halmis
possessed a stringed instrument of music, a thing akin to the lyre.
Sometimes she brought this with her to the boat, and played upon it
sitting there, hidden by the reeds. Sometimes she sang, her voice rising
from the reed bed like a voice of the earth.
Ramiki likewise could make a song and sing it.
Halmis could prophesy; Ramiki likewise.
Each had, beyond the common, perception, memory, imagination, and moving
gift of speech. When either recited certain things to the people of the
river country, and gave advice or promised good or threatened penalty,
it was called prophecy. When what they said came to pass they received
great honour; when it failed they said that the time was not yet, but
that the people would reach it. Halmis believed in her power. Ramiki
believed in his power. While that was so, either was capable at times of
inner doubt and unhappiness. But, very largely, they kept that to
themselves. That course, they thought, was undeniably wiser, in the
world as it was constituted. As for belief in each other’s powers, that
wavered.
Halmis dwelled by the water-side. Ramiki had his home upon rising land,
where he lived with his father in a well-built house guarding field and
pasture. The people still thought that the old chief would give the
house to Ramiki, keeping a corner for himself, and that Halmis would
leave her brothers by the riverside and come into Ramiki’s house. Surely
it would be advantageous to her to do so!
Halmis and Ramiki also thought, many times, that they would put hand in
hand before witnesses and become man and wife. But after each time that
they thought this, and before they could really speak of it to others,
they quarrelled.
“I believe not in your power!” said Halmis, and she said it with scorn.
“I believe not in your power!” said Ramiki, and he said it with
fierceness.
When they spoke thus each experienced ill-feeling toward the other and
wished for some occult gift of hurting. They did not observe that these
disbeliefs bubbled darkly from days when they did not believe in
themselves. Halmis went to her brothers’ house, Ramiki to his father’s
above the fields. The village talked, but old tradition gave it forth
that prophets might be allowed to differ from other folk.
Whether individuals loved or hated, the river-country people had
troubles of a collective nature. They had been long, long seated in a
plain, great enough and rich enough for the forefathers, not so great
nor so rich for the descendant swarm. Now it was crowded, now it was
being sucked dry. For a time there seemed help in being a terror to the
plain on the other side of a chain of hills, in organizing each bright
season a great raid to bring home wealth and provision for man and
beast. But that recourse was failing. Other plains, too, were crowded,
sucked dry, growing poor.... There was much exposure of children, almost
always female children. The old, too, were put to death. But all that
only partially helped.
People must move--at any rate, some people. There was an old song of the
plain which said that before the memory of man there had been a moving;
in short, that the plain-folk had moved from elsewhere into the plain.
It was hard to believe....
The chiefs and the elders consulted together. They applied for help to
all likely forces, including, well to the front, the supernatural.
A concourse was held, an assembly of the folk of the plain. Not so many
miles wide and long was the plain; it did not take thousands to make
living difficult. The most got within hearing of them who harangued from
the great flat stone that was the sacred or hallowed stone, alike of
speech and of sacrifice. Chiefs must be orators, elders must know how to
bring wisdom home, priest and prophet must be able to fix the
ridge-pole.... All was done in order, throughout a day of sun and
shadow.
Ramiki and Halmis stood together upon the stone that was wide as the
floor of a house. The day was advanced, the light gold-red; behind were
three great trees, before and to either hand the scimitar-shaped crowd
of the people, excited already by music and by passionate, persuasive
speech. The drums beat, the cymbals clanged, then silence, then right
posturing by prophet and prophetess, then words half spoken, half sung,
sent from the lips with force, ringing and reaching!
“Folk of the river-plain!”
chanted Ramiki.
“People of Arzan, the high god, the great god,
God of the gods!
For you I cried to Arzan.
‘O Arzan!
The people increase as it were the river in spring time!’”
Halmis the prophetess took the chant:--
“In the fresh green month there are two birds!
In the bright, flowering month, there are six.
I said to the god,
‘It is a weary thing,
This giving death to nestlings!
The old, too, often like to rest a little longer,
Watching the children!’
I said to the god!”
Ramiki chanted:--
“Arzan answered Ramiki the prophet,
‘Look, O man!
How the river breaks its bonds and is at home in new lands!’”
Halmis chanted:--
“The god sang to Halmis--to Halmis who prophesies!--
‘Stay the birds in the tree where they nested?
_Lo_, at morn see the wings in the sky!’”
Ramiki made a great gesture. His voice soared and rang:--
“From the storm spoke Arzan: ‘Learn O prophet,
What my folk of the plain have forgotten!
Of old ye moved as ye grew,
Ye left ever the eaten land for the fresh land!’”
Halmis swayed in the wind of rapture.
“Two shall stay and two shall go,”
chanted Halmis.
“For some love the home tree and some love the new tree!
The new soon becomes the home tree.
The god smiles on both so we judge when to alter!”
Ramiki moved upon the stone. At the edge he stooped, he caught from one
below a drum, he beat upon it.
“I awaked in the morning!
Arzan who dwells in the mountain said, ‘Go!’”
Halmis took cymbals, she lifted her arms, there clashed forth sonorous
music.
“‘Part!’ saith the god.
‘Two nations where there was one.
And one it shall tarry, and one it shall wander!’--
‘Come!’ cries the earth, ‘for my arms they are wide,
And my breasts they are full, in the east and the west!’”
“Hai! we will divide!” cried the people; and would have done it that day
if the chiefs and the elders had allowed....
Halmis went down in the evening to the boat among the reeds and sat
there in the moonshine, her arms upon her knees and her head upon her
arms. Ramiki left the throng of chief men gathered in the chief house,
drinking there red juice of the vine. He walked up and down in the
moonlight. He was not calm within, nor triumphant because wisdom had
become the choice of the people. Something dark within was spreading and
staining the light within. The river-country people had many words for
jealousy, but usually these pointed to a forthright lover’s jealousy.
That was not the jealousy that Ramiki felt to-night. He spoke to the
skies. “Why should she prophesy, dividing the praise?”
Down in the needs Halmis rocked to and fro, making decisions.
When the wine had passed from their heads, in the favouring tide between
foaming enthusiasm and the back-drag to old levels, the elders and
chiefs pressed the partition of the people. Came to the river-plain
humming days of excitement, deeper, more sonorous and richly coloured
than any remembered. So many should fare forth, so many should rest
behind! These individuals would stay, these would go. An imaginary line
was drawn, and some stepped to the one side and some to the other. Heads
of families and owners of wealth chose for themselves and their
households, for women, youths, children, and bondfolk. So that they
might be distinguished, those staying painted across their foreheads a
band of blue, those going a band of red. A vast preparation of wagons
arose, a sorting of flocks and herds, a gathering of horses and strong
oxen, a filling of grain sacks, a heaping of weapons and implements.
Life took a quicker stride, had more life in its eyes. Every day there
was debating, every day choice.
Ramiki went down to the boat among the reeds. The sun was shining, the
wind was blowing, the reeds were moving. Halmis sat in the broken boat,
and Halmis had across her forehead a stripe of red. He halted, he
stared.... He had come to find Halmis, to speak of their taking hands
and faring forth with the migrating host--prophet and prophetess, and
the prophet the head of that household! And here, before he spoke, was
Halmis with her forehead marked for outfaring!
He stared.
“Ha, red-on-the-forehead!” said Halmis. “I had a dream last night! We
met rivers and mountains, but the wagons and the oxen swam like boats
and flew like eagles and we came to a golden house--”
Ramiki was often jealous of Halmis’s dreaming, but he did not think now
of that. All was lost in the fact of that red mark, made now, not after
he had taken Halmis’s hand in his, before witnesses!
He spoke, “Taru and Nardan, your brothers, stay in the plain. They have
marked their foreheads with blue, and Ina and Matar, their wives, are
marked with blue. All their household....”
“I leave their household,” answered Halmis. “I am going to seek it--the
golden house beyond the hills!”
“_My_ house?”
“I want to know what is there, beyond the hills! It was not your house,
Ramiki, in my dream, nor my house.” She lifted a reed in her hand. “It
was _the_ house.”
Ramiki moistened his lips. “A woman without a husband goes or stays as
goes or stays her father. If her father be dead, then she goes or stays
as goes or stays her brother or her nearest kinsman.”
“They made that rule. I am prophetess of Arzan. I rule for myself. I
have spoken to the chiefs and the elders. By the god-stone, many
watching, I put red paint upon my forehead!”
Ramiki breathed hard. There was a Ramiki who was going to speak, and
somewhere else there was another Ramiki. Both lived, but the one who had
the word was of great size.
“It is unheard of!” said Ramiki.
He turned away, he left the shining sun, the blowing wind, the moving
reeds. He went away in a heated darkness to his house and sat there upon
his bed. Like the beating of a drum in his head, over and over,
resounded words he had overheard.
Had said one of the old wise men to another: “The god is greater in
Halmis than in Ramiki!”
Now Ramiki did not believe that saying, and now he experienced an
agonizing doubt, and now he turned to proving to himself and to others
that it was not so. That had been yesterday.... In the night he had
waked, and there had poured over him like the river in flood another
feeling for Halmis.... At the height of the tide he had not cared that
she had so much of the god. If it was so, it was well so!... The tide
was a wonderful tide; it held an hour, and then it began to ebb. But
when morning came there was yet a fulness that sent him through the
shining sun and the blowing wind and the waving reeds to Halmis. Then
the tide had sunk with a harsh and dreadful noise.
Ramiki sat upon his bed and listened to the drum beat in his head. “One
said to the other, ‘The god is greater in Halmis than in Ramiki!’ One
said to the other, ‘The god is greater in Halmis than in Ramiki!’” His
heart was bitter within him, bitter as a root he knew in the forest.
His father came into the house, and, sitting down, began to feather
arrows.
Said Ramiki at last: “I found Halmis with a band of red upon her
forehead.... She goes like a young man, walking alone!”
“That should not be,” said his father. “If one woman does a thing like
that, another woman will want to do so too.”
“She is prophetess.”
“She has breasts all the same,” said the arrow-featherer.
That night, in the night-time, staring from his mat into the velvet
darkness, he did not want to keep her from going, for was not he,
Ramiki, going? Then in the morning, with the sound of the crowing of the
cocks, that sense of oneness fell again in two. He ceased to love
Halmis. He felt again enmity and jealousy, and a great, oh, a great
concern for himself. “Arzan! Arzan!” he cried. “Am I not man? Am I not
the greater prophet?”
That day all the people saw him go away into a deep wood that yet was
left upon the plain. He went with some ostentation of folded arms and
brooding forehead. “The god will visit the prophet!” they said. In the
evening Ramiki might stand upon the god-stone and break into rhapsody
while all who were not preoccupied gathered to hear.
But though Ramiki returned at eve, it was not to the god-stone. He found
Halmis in the glow, watching boys and girls who moved in a dance. He and
Halmis went away together, down to the boat, for that was the quietest
place.
“What did you do in the wood?” asked Halmis. “Sit all day and look at
your shadow?”
It was evident that she was willing to quarrel. She was no less capable
than Ramiki of formulating the notion that where there was not room for
two one must be pushed away. She looked at Ramiki, and Ramiki, rightly
or wrongly, suddenly believed that she wished there was blue paint upon
his forehead. The thought was as unexpected as an earthquake and
well-nigh as devastating.
They parted the reeds and stepped down to the boat. They sat there and
looked blackly at each other.
“No, I did not,” said Ramiki, “sit all day and look at my shadow.... I
praised Arzan.... Then I heard his voice from the clouds.”
Halmis shivered slightly. “What talk did he make to you?”
“His speech was about women,” said Ramiki fiercely.
“Oh--ah!”
“It was as though I were in his mountain. He told me many things--great
and wonderful things. To-morrow I am going again to the wood--to praise
Arzan again and listen again.”
“Then you will stand upon the god-stone and sing his words?”
“So!” said Ramiki. “In a great song. To which the folk will listen as I
listened to Arzan.”
Halmis looked at him in silence. When she spoke it was in a whisper. She
bent forward, her hand touched his knee. “Ramiki.... Did Arzan really
speak? Perhaps it was only you--speaking to yourself?”
Her words had behind them at least an amount of comprehension. If it had
been that way she could match it from her own experience!... Sometimes
she thought that she really had seen the god or had heard the voice. At
other times she thought blackly that it was only that Halmis who seemed
a negligible thing. But she did not confide these doubts to the folk
before whom she prophesied. Nor would Ramiki. Nor did she see how any
could be brought to question Arzan in him.
Nevertheless, she ached to take the tall bright feather from Ramiki’s
headdress--to take it at least for a time! In fact, she felt much as
Ramiki felt. Where he had Halmis before him, she had before her Ramiki.
When it came to that jealousy, there was small difference between them.
The difference between them was a matter of the status of men and the
status of women--of hunters’ stations. And this hunter may have a coign
of vantage and, in security, bring down the game he wishes to bring
down, and that hunter may be placed disadvantageously and the matter end
quite differently.
Ramiki’s eyes burned. He looked over Halmis’s head at the many-shaped
and tinted clouds. “Arzan spoke--Arzan! He told me things about women
that I had not thought of before!”
Halmis sat in silence. Before her, between her and Ramiki, formed a
picture of the god-stone and the three trees behind it, and the people
pressing close, and Ramiki chanting greatly to them what Arzan had told
him--making them believe. At his best Ramiki was a great prophet....
What _had_ Arzan told him?
She raised her eyes. “What did Arzan tell you?”
Ramiki laughed fiercely. “He told me why it was that women go or stay
only as men say it!”
“Why is it, Ramiki?”
Ramiki looked at her, and now there was trader’s cunning mixed with the
prophet strain. “Arzan has not yet given me the right words!--It may be
four or five days before I sing to the people.”
“Four or five days,” thought Halmis, but she thought it to herself. She
nursed her knees and looked at the bowing reeds.
“In all ways,” said Ramiki fiercely, “men are stronger than women!”
“Ha!” said Halmis. “The fountains of milk! The beings that he draws from
himself!”
“Four things are _tabu_ for women! Noble hunting, noble warring, noble
owning, noble choosing!”
“O great man who is noble throughout! Cold does not chill him! Wet does
not wet him! Thirst does not parch him, and those he binds are not
shaped like him!”
“Arzan wither your tongue!” said Ramiki.
The sun carried its torch underground. The plain darkened, the wind
sighed in the reeds. “Why do we quarrel so?” asked Halmis. “Now, I like
Ramiki, and Ramiki likes me. And then I would kill Ramiki, and he me.
And then I like Ramiki again, and am sorry.... Ramiki!”
She moved nearer to him. “Ramiki!”
Ramiki cried out. “O Arzan! still she befools me!”
He had cried so loudly that his words appeared still to sound over the
marsh and the river. Halmis stood still, then, turning, stepped from the
boat upon the reedy riverbank. “Thou fool! not to know when!” said
Halmis.
Ramiki rose from his mat at dawn, drank milk and ate barley cakes, and
passed through the fields to the thick wood. After wandering for some
time he found a tree that liked him. It was huge of trunk and spreading
of branch, and near by, in a round basin, a spring murmured. Ramiki sat
down beneath the tree. At first he looked at the boughs and the leaves
and the birds, and at the sky between the boughs. Then he looked at the
spring, and it made a centre for him--a small, bright, round pool, shot
at by the arrows of the sun. The wood was still, and had a manifold
fragrance. Ramiki felt still likewise.
Ramiki spent the day in the wood. He had barley cakes with him in a
wallet. Now and again he moved about, once he slept a little. When he
waked he saw a serpent drinking. About midday a great cloud mounted into
the sky. At top it was dazzling white, but underneath and in hollows
shadow-dark. Ramiki watched it until it sank again beneath the wood and
there was only clear and open heaven. He watched it very intently,
swaying his body back and forth as he watched. When it was gone his gaze
returned to the spring.... He had a good day, a balmy, idea-flowing day!
It was so prosperous, his spirit was at once so fluent and so soothed,
that earth and life, and Halmis in both, grew more than tolerable.
Ramiki sat cross-legged in the wood and stared at the cloud or at the
spring, until the god had given him the song he should sing. When he had
it he relaxed, and resting against the tree let his mind go doze and
play. The god had spoken and gone, but Ramiki would remember! After a
time he sat upright again, and finding at hand a bit of wood, drew his
knife from the sheath, and began to whittle an arrow. As he worked he
hummed to himself. Once or twice he laughed. It slipped into his mind,
from where he knew not, that that was a fine boulder to throw into the
camp of women!... He felt so balm-bathed and free that he lost for a
time any grudge against the camp of women, any grudge against Halmis.
The light began to weaken in the wood. Ramiki, moreover, was hungry. He
rose from beneath the tree, and retraced his steps to the village. The
sun was sinking as he came near. A red and gold light caressed the
river-plain. He heard blow one of the long trumpets, and presently saw
that folk were gathering to the central place where stood the god-stone.
A boy passed him, running from the fields. Ramiki called after him.
“What is doing?”
“Halmis-who-prophesies,” spoke the boy over his shoulder, “will tell the
folk who go what they shall find!” He ran on.
The balm flowed away from Ramiki.
He turned to the river, and there was Halmis coming up from the
water-side. He waited for her. She came even with him, and the red
sunlight made burning and bright the red upon her forehead and the red
in her hair.
Ramiki choked. “The large things of the people are for a man’s thinking
upon and handling--”
“O Ramiki!” said Halmis, “how can I help thinking upon and handling my
own?”
She moved on toward the god-stone where the people were gathered. Ramiki
kept her company. At first they moved with an equal step, then Ramiki
quickened his. Halmis looked aside at him. His frame was drawn to great
height, his feet seemed hardly to touch the sunburned earth. He seemed
to move in quivering air; the inrush of force was evident. “The god is
in him! The god is in him!” thought Halmis. Quickening her step she came
even with him again. But now Ramiki uttered a shout and began to run....
He came to the massed people; crying aloud, he pursued his way. “Arzan!
Arzan!” he cried. “I have been with Arzan in the wood! O people of the
river-plain, Arzan has given it to me to say!”
The gathered folk were tow to flame, wax to the moment’s sharp
impression. The crisis in their affairs had lifted them, shaken them
awake. Now they were ready constantly for new excitement, craved the
new, or the old made new. It had been good that Halmis the prophetess
should prophesy of what the going stream might find! It was good that
there should arrive the fresher alarum of Ramiki the prophet--Ramiki
returning from an immediate interview with Over-Knowledge, Over-Power!
“Arzan the great maker!” shouted Ramiki. “I have talked with Arzan! You
have sinned before him, and I will show you how!”
All turned from prophetess to prophet. All saw Ramiki, but all had a
sense of the overshadowing Energy. “Arzan!” cried the people, and
“Hearken to the prophet!”
Ramiki came to the god-stone. He mounted to the place of the prophet. He
turned, he faced the chiefs and the elders and the people, men and
women. The wind blew his garment and lifted his hair; they thought that
they saw around him the red light of Arzan. They turned, every one, from
Halmis, they centred on Ramiki.
Halmis leaned against a tree. Her heart beat heavily. At first she had
felt only rage. She thought she would come to the god-stone and dispute
it with that usurper, and then had come fear to halt her. She hated
fear, she fought it as with fire. But it was a great beast that, beaten
away, came again! To-day she tried to fight fear with scorn, scorn being
an arrow always in her quiver. But it failed to-day. Halmis looked at
the women about her and farther away in the throng. There were many
women, but that did not seem to help.... Men held better by all men.
Women held better by the children, but the men by one another.... Halmis
felt alone and afraid. Ramiki was speaking for Arzan. Arzan was a
terrible deity and an eloquent! Halmis thought that a mist was rising
around her....
Ramiki was not telling what the people marked with red should find or
do, out of the river country, beyond the heaven-propping hills. He was
not telling how plentifully now would be fed the folk marked with blue,
the folk staying in the ancient land. He was not telling--or at least it
did not yet appear that he was telling--why the wreath was given to man.
He was not telling--or at least not yet telling--how, in this moment,
the folk were sinning against Arzan. He was telling how the world was
made, telling old things that they knew already, and perhaps new things.
Sometimes Ramiki spoke and sometimes he sang, passing from saying into
singing, from singing into saying. To a great part of the listening
throng what he said or sang was the literal word of Arzan. Imaginings
and making to see and touch the Not-There were the Works of Arzan--when
they were not the works of Izd, who, with the river-country people,
meant darkness and demon....
Passion sustained Ramiki the prophet. He was a strong man to-night, a
dancer, a hunter, a chief with hawk wings bound upon his head. The red
sunset passed into dusk, the dusk into night, bondmen lighted torches,
the people slanted toward the god-stone. Ramiki sang the battles of
Arzan and Izd--Arzan and his hosts and Izd and her hosts--Izd the
monstrous serpent, Izd the ancient dragon! That was old story, but the
river-country people did not easily tire of old stories. And Ramiki was
singing with power, and there were new things that he was telling. In
especial they learned feats of Izd that they had not known. They knew
her slaying breath and the injuries she did to Arzan, and the keen knife
with which Arzan slew her and made of her body the sky and the earth!
But the prophet gave them new detail and incident--new and exciting--and
all to them seemed clothed in beauty and terror, and all was
true--sublimely true!
Then Ramiki sang how Izd, though she was cut into sky and earth, yet
made evil, and Arzan made good--Izd and her helpers and Arzan and his
helpers. He sang the making of great waters, and the beasts of wood and
field, and the making of trees and of grain, and it was all well known
to the river-country people and often recited. He came to the making of
people--of the great father-man and mother-woman, ancestors of the
river-plain--and here he had brought from the wood new wisdom.
The river country had not had it before, but, dimly or clearly, it had
been aware of that vast unexplained. Why? And why--and why? It had put
forward groping and tentative answers to its own questions, but those
answers had not really explained. The air held the answer diffused. Now
it was coming together like the rich cloud that on summer days rose
behind the mountain where Arzan dwelt.
Why were men here, and women there? Why, when a man entered his house,
did he stamp with his foot to show mastership?...
Ramiki had used a great strain, a wide-flowing, deep-rushing chant. Now
he changed. This to come was a story within a story. He made a pause, he
regarded the deep night above, he altered posture and manner. The
village, marked with blue and marked with red, drew breath for new
things. There was a company of youths who, when prophet or prophetess
spoke, were wont to band themselves at one side of the god-stone. These
repeated loudly word or line wanting that stress, or in silences came in
with refrains of their own, or merely shouted approbation of the god in
the singer. Now while Ramiki watched the dark, they shouted, “Arzan in
the prophet!”
Halmis heard them where she leaned against the tree, decked to sing and
not singing, here to prophesy from the god-stone and not prophesying,
come from the river with a high heart and now knowing fear. It
was like a spell upon her, a slow, cold poison in her veins.
Ramiki--Ramiki--Ramiki only was singing to the people.... She heard him,
and though she tried not to believe what he sang, at last in great part
she believed. How could she else, being of the river-plain and so very
like Ramiki who himself believed?... She was very capable of a sense of
sin--and perhaps it all had come about that way. Arzan had his
favourite--no doubt of that! There must be reasons for favour and
disfavour.... Ramiki--Ramiki--Ramiki was singing. As she stood under the
tree she seemed to herself, for one strange moment, to have a child in
her arms.... Ramiki sang:--
“On the mountain-top stood the stone of Arzan,
Arzan-stone where Arzan dwelled.
Izd came and coiled around the mountain.
Izd said to her daughters, ‘Yet shall we win!’
Arzan had nothing to do that day.
He was ready for work he had dreamed about.
By the sacred river stood the sacred tree.
He broke a bough that was shaped to his mind.
Arzan sat on the stone and carved,
Arzan carved the bough of the tree.
Arzan cut from the bough a man!
Fair was the man, and tall and brave!
‘My man,’ said Arzan, and gave him blood,
Piercing the arm that shook the god-spear,
Pouring the drops in the veins of the man.
‘My man,’ said Arzan, and gave him warmth,
Held to his side within the god-robe.
‘My man,’ said Arzan, and gave him breath,
Putting his mouth to the first man’s mouth.
‘My man,’ said Arzan, and gave him speech:
‘Arja!’ said the god. Said Arja, ‘Arzan!’”
The river-plain that was descended from Arja clapped hands and rocked
itself. The band of young men shouted to the sky:--
“_‘Arja!’ said the god. Said Arja, ‘Arzan!’_”
Ramiki pursued his story, and while he chanted he acted.
“Izd heard them talking, the evil Izd!
Izd and her daughters were coiled below.
Arja lived happy, Arja alone.
Arzan spoke from the sacred mount.
‘To make more blissful, I will give you sons.’
Arzan shook leaves from the sacred tree.
They fell in a throng around the god-stone.
They fell down as leaves, they rose up as men,
Sons of Arja.”
“_Sons of Arja!_” the youths shouted. “_Arja’s sons!_”
“Ten moons of Arzan, a thousand years,
Arja lived happy, he and his sons.
They had golden bows and golden arrows,
Antlered deer to make them food.
When they put in wheat it came up thick.
When they planted barley it never failed.
Arzan breathed on the grass that grew around,
So were sheep and oxen and horses bred,
And all were the best that ever were seen!
The fish in the river loved the net.
They made a boat with a thought from a tree.
Their houses were large and filled with goods.
Arzan from pebbles formed bondmen,
Made them strong to take and bring,
Gave them heart-love for the Arzan-men,
So that they wrought and never rebelled.
The grapes grew in clusters twice that big!
Winter was not, nor was parching heat.
Rain came at their call and went at their wish.
Arzan made a herb named Love-among-friends.
They planted it thick, and tended it well.
Arzan took from each man a red drop of blood,
Mixed it with earth and made the bull, Courage.
Arzan took from each man a thought while he slept,
Drew all through his hands and made the rope, Wisdom.
A thousand years lived Arja there,
On the mountain sides, near the Arzan-stone.
Izd and her daughters coiled below,
Cried Izd to her daughters, ‘Yet shall we win!’
Arzan looked down from the Arzan-stone.
‘Are you there, Izd? The man is mine!’”
Shouted the youths,--
“‘_Are you there, Izd? The man is mine!_’”
The strong sound smote the night. The flame of the torches appeared to
leap. The god-stone was lighted, and the figure of the prophet. The
crowd, seated or standing, bent like vines to the sun. Interest was
carried to a point, and through the point, on the other side of the
point, seemed to be space and new landscapes. The mind of the
river-plain was ready for explanation--so that the explanation did not
offend its sense of probabilities, so that it seemed godly and kingly,
so that it was a boat that could sail the river....
“Izd said naught, but she set to work,
Izd and her daughters set to work.
Over their heads they wove a roof,
Wide-long as earth and black as soot.
Arzan looked down from the mountain-top,
But Izd was hidden under her roof.
Izd took black mire, a reed and fire,
Izd took white flint and a cherry stone,
Izd took dawn-mist and sunset-red,
Izd took false-dreams and ill-delight,
And out of them all Izd made a shape.
She gave it breasts and a beardless face.
Izd and her daughters lived in the shape.
Arja sat in the vineyard deep.
Izd tore the cloud-roof vast and black.
Beneath the rent she set the shape.
Arja said, ‘I see down there,
In a wild, bright light a thing most strange.’
Arja said, ‘From that to me
Runs like a stream, a deep, deep wish.’
Arja turned to the Arzan-stone,
‘Arzan, O Arzan, maker of me!
Down there is that that would climb to me!’
Arzan looked through Izd’s torn roof.
Arzan was angry with Izd the snake.
He made a storm and thatched the place,
So that ever it thundered there and burned,
And the Arzan-man could not see the shape.
Then Arja pined, though he could not die.
‘O Arzan, make me a thing like that,
To keep me company in Arja-land!’
Then Arzan frowned and shook the mount.
Arja hid his head and Arja feared.
‘I am naught,’ said Arja, ‘but thou art god!’”
“_We are naught!_” cried the people, “_but he is god_!” The drum-players
and the long trumpets were come to the stone.
“Arzan took a bough from the sacred tree,
Less was it at once than the Arja-bough!
Arzan sat by the river and wrought with the bough.
A shape Arzan made, like and not like to a man.
Smooth-faced he made it and gave it breasts.
_Woman_, said Arzan, and wrought it fair.
And gave her to Arja in the grove.
‘Live!’ said Arzan, ‘Be wise and good,
Tend Arja-land without sorrow and pain,
And give to me praise who made all well!’
Then Arzan took of the reeds of the land,
He spake his word and they stood up fair,
Daughters of men, with streaming hair.
Izd and her daughters wept with rage.
There rose a spring on the mountain side.
It made a pool like a silver shield.
The clouds saw themselves and the trees around.
It drew from a spring by the Arzan-stone.
‘Touch it not!’ said Arzan. ‘It is mine alone.’
Izd and her daughters coiled below.
Said Izd to her daughters, ‘Yet shall we win!’”
The music beat and blared. The women of the village looked aslant at the
men, and the men at the women. Whatever there might be of old, old woes,
terrors, mistakes, jealousies, sins, conflicts, emulations, tyrannies
seemed, for one moment, to come up through the past, burst into fire,
and stream and fork.
“The Arja-woman walked by herself.
The pool made a gleaming among the trees.
Said the Arja-woman, ‘Were that water mine,
Surely it would give me strange wealth and bliss!’
The Arja-woman looked around,
The Arja-woman moved through the thick trees.
The Arja-woman sat by the spring.
The water bubbled and the water shone.
‘Why is’t forbid?’ said that lately-made.
Izd, below heard the word she said.
Izd tore the roof so the woman might see.
And under the rent she set the shape.
‘I see down there a strange, fair thing.
I wish it were come more near to me!’
Up rose the shape and clasped her knee.
‘Put your arms around and draw me close,
And wish it to be and it will be.
And we who are two will then be one,
And we shall drink of the Arzan spring!’
The Arja-woman put her arms around,
And drew her close and wished it to be.
The shape entered in; the two were one.
The shape was evil, the shape was Izd.
The Arja-woman grew more fair,
But evil of heart, and a bringer of ill.
Arjaya stooped to the Arzan spring.
She drank the water, she washed therein.
The tabu-water, the sacred spring!”
“_Ahhh!_” breathed the river-country people, men and women. It was so.
They had known it must be so.
“She took a pitcher and drew it full.
On her head she bore it through the grove.
Arja sat in the pleasant shade,
And feathered his arrows bright of hue.
Arja sat by the vineyard edge,
And sang to himself with a merry heart.
He saw Arjaya and he felt a thirst.
She came to Arja through the grove.
‘Arja, hail! Will you have to drink?’
She lowered the pitcher to his hand.
Arzan thundered from the Arzan-stone.”
“_Arzan! Give us protection!_” cried the rhythmically moving
river-country people.
“‘Whence drew you the water?’ asked the Arzan-man.
She stood with anklets of silver fine.
She stood with armlets of burning gold.
She stood with a frontlet starry bright.
She stood in a robe as thin as mist.
And she had within her that witchcraft shape.
She bent herself and she kissed his mouth.
‘Good is the water. I drank. Drink thou!’
Then Arja drank the tabu-water.
Arzan darkened from the mountain-top.”
Arja and Arjaya, and how and when the Golden Age went down.... The
river-country people beheld the form of that of which they had long
heard rumours, old speech-of-things, passing from people to people,
changing shape but keeping substance as it passed! The river-country
people both remembered and freshly imagined. “Arzan! Arzan! The
sin--the sin!” cried the river-plain. Men believed and women believed.
“He poured down fire and bitter smoke,
The vineyards were blasted, the barley, the wheat.
Day-night, week-month fell fire and ashes.
The flocks and the herds went down to death.
The antlered deer ran out of the earth.
The fish drank the fire, the river sank.
Arzan threw stones from the mountain-top.
They fell like rain, they smote and slew
The sons and daughters, the leaf-wrought folk,
And the pebble-bondmen who drudged for love.
Arja and Arjaya hid under a hill.
Arzan ceased to thunder and pour down fire.
But the land was a withered and briery place.
Arja and Arjaya crept from the cave.
And Arja had sorrow for that great sin.
But Arjaya had Izd coiled round her heart.
Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.
‘For vineyard and wheat that grow of themselves,
For golden bow and golden dart,
For antlered deer that never fail,
For ox and horse of a mighty breed,
For shining fish that love the net,
For boats adorned that are never lost,
For houses large and heaps of goods,
For sons of Arja who live in bliss,
For work-folk strong who are glad of toil,
For always-spring, for life all sweet,
Arja, O Arja! tarry and see
What shall fall to you from out my mount,
Because you drank of the tabu-water,
Because you held my power so light,
Because Izd came between you and me!’
Arzan thundered and Arja feared.
Arjaya kneeled upon the ground.
Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.
‘Woman I made from the lesser bough,
And gave for help and gave for play.
Now woman shall have the greater pain!
Hers is the sin of the tabu-water,
She turned to Izd and made her her god,
Half Izd she is, that evil snake,
And Arja she harmed, the Arzan-man,
And shut him from the blissful land!
Now take from her her anklets bright,
And take from her her armlets gold.
And take from her her frontlet of stars,
And mark her brow with the mark I show.
In all that is done man shall be head,
Man shall rule and woman serve,
Man shall speak and woman be mute,
Man shall own and woman own not.
Folk shall she bear to fill the land.
The sons shall rule, the daughters serve,
The sons shall speak, the daughters be mute,
The sons shall own, the daughters not.
For the sons are Arzan, the daughters Izd!’”
Ramiki ceased his singing. His heart was freed, and he felt relief and
escape, and a cheerful largeness of mood. The anger against Halmis was
fallen. There even stole again over his being a fondness for that
prophetess. The energy that had boiled within, thick and murky red, had
been beautifully worked off by the late improvisation. Diffused and
expanded through quite vast ranges, it was no longer an aching and
concentrated desire to pay Halmis back and to make evident his own
superiority. He became conscious of a tranquillity, of something like
vision above vision.... Through this pushed suddenly up, for all the
world like a lily in a pond, a willingness, a desire, that Halmis should
keep the red band upon her forehead, that she should go, if she would,
like a young man, walking alone! But he had made it too late for that!
The people of the river-plain thought it best that women should break no
more tabus....