AGATHON.
I cannot. I must go home; I have my little brother to care for.
JULIAN.
[_At the balustrade._] There they are weighing anchor.—A fair wind to
you, winged lion; Achilles follows in your wake.
[_Exclaims softly._]
Ah!
AGATHON.
What was that?
JULIAN.
Yonder fell a star.
ACT SECOND
_In Athens. An open place surrounded by colonnades. In the square,
statues and a fountain. A narrow street debouches in the left-hand
corner. Sunset._
_BASIL OF CAESAREA, a delicately-built young man, sits reading beside a
pillar. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS and other scholars of the University
stroll in scattered groups up and down the colonnades. A larger
band runs shouting across the square, and out to the right; noise
in the distance._
BASIL.
[_Looks up from his book._] What mean these wild cries?
GREGORY.
A ship has come in from Ephesus.
BASIL.
With new scholars?
GREGORY.
Yes.
BASIL.
[_Rising._] Then we shall have a night of tumult. Come, Gregory; let us
not witness all this unseemliness.
GREGORY.
[_Points to the left._] Look yonder. Is that a pleasanter sight?
BASIL.
Prince Julian——; with roses in his hair, his face aflame——
GREGORY.
Ay, and after him that reeling, glassy-eyed crew. Hear how the halting
tongues babble with wine! They have sat the whole day in Lykon’s tavern.
BASIL.
And many of them are our own brethren, Gregory; they are Christian
youths——
GREGORY.
So they call themselves. Did not Lampon call himself a Christian—he who
betrayed the oil-seller Zeno’s daughter? And Hilarion of Agrigentum, and
the two others, who did what I shudder to name——
PRINCE JULIAN.
[_Is heard calling without on the left._] Aha! See, see—the Cappadocian
Castor and Pollux.
BASIL.
He has caught sight of us. I will go; I cannot endure to see him in this
mood.
GREGORY.
I will remain; he needs a friend.
_BASIL goes out to the right. At the same moment, PRINCE JULIAN,
followed by a crowd of young men, enters from the narrow street.
His hair is dishevelled, and he is clad in a short cloak like the
rest. Among the scholars is SALLUST OF PERUSIA._
MANY IN THE CROWD.
Long live the light of Athens! Long live the lover of wisdom and
eloquence!
JULIAN.
All your flattery is wasted. Not another verse shall you have to-day.
SALLUST.
When our leader is silent, life seems empty, as on the morning after a
night’s carouse.
JULIAN.
If we must needs do something, let it be something new. Let us hold a
mock trial.
THE WHOLE CROWD.
Yes, yes, yes; Prince Julian on the judgment-seat!
JULIAN.
Have done with the Prince, friends——
SALLUST.
Ascend the judgment-seat, incomparable one!
JULIAN.
How could I presume——? There stands the man. Who is so learned in the
law as Gregory of Nazianzus?
SALLUST.
That is true!
JULIAN.
To the judgment-seat, my wise Gregory; I am the prisoner at the bar.
GREGORY.
I beg you, friend, let me stand out.
JULIAN.
To the judgment-seat, I say! To the judgment-seat. [_To the others_,]
What is my transgression?
SOME VOICES.
Yes, what shall it be? Choose yourself!
SALLUST.
Let it be something Galilean, as we of the ungodly say.
JULIAN.
Right; something Galilean. I have it. I have refused to pay tribute to
the Emperor——
MANY VOICES.
Ha-ha; well bethought! Excellent!
JULIAN.
Here am I, dragged forward by the nape of the neck, with my hands
pinioned——
SALLUST.
[_To GREGORY._] Blind judge—I mean since Justice is blind—behold this
desperate wretch; he has denied to pay tribute to the Emperor.
JULIAN.
Let me throw one word into the scales of judgment. I am a Greek citizen.
How much does a Greek citizen owe the Emperor?
GREGORY.
What the Emperor demands.
JULIAN.
Good; but how much—answer now as though the Emperor himself were in
court—how much has the Emperor a right to demand?
GREGORY.
Everything.
JULIAN.
Answered as though the Emperor were present indeed! But now comes the
knotty point; for it is written: Render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s—and unto God the things that are God’s.
GREGORY.
And what then?
JULIAN.
Then tell me, oh sagacious judge—how much of what is mine belongs to
God?
GREGORY.
Everything.
JULIAN.
And how much of God’s property may I give to the Emperor?
GREGORY.
Dear friends, no more of this sport.
THE SCHOLARS.
[_Amid laughter and noise._] Yes, yes; answer him.
JULIAN.
How much of God’s property has the Emperor a right to demand?
GREGORY.
I will not answer. This is unseemly both towards God and the Emperor.
Let me go.
MANY VOICES.
Make a ring round him!
JULIAN.
Hold him fast! What, you most luckless of judges, you have bungled the
Emperor’s cause, and now you seek to escape? You would flee? Whither,
whither? To the Scythians? Bring him before me! Tell me you servants
that-are-to-be of the Emperor and of wisdom—has he not attempted to
elude the Emperor’s power?
THE SCHOLARS.
Yes, yes.
JULIAN.
And what punishment do you award to such a misdeed?
VOICES.
Death! Death in a wine-jar!
JULIAN.
Let us reflect. Let us answer as though the Emperor himself were
present. What limit is there to the Emperor’s power?
SOME OF THE CROWD.
The Emperor’s power has no limits.
JULIAN.
So I should think. But to want to escape from the infinite, my friends,
is not that madness?
THE SCHOLARS.
Yes, yes; the Cappadocian is mad!
JULIAN.
And what, then, is madness? How did our forefathers conceive of it? What
was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests? And what says Maximus the
Mystic and the other philosophers of the East? They say that the divine
enigma reveals itself in the brainsick. Our Gregory—in setting himself
up against the Emperor—is thus in special league with Heaven.—Make
libations of wine to the Cappadocian; sing songs to our Gregory’s
praise;—a statue of honour for Gregory of Nazianzus!
THE SCHOLARS.
[_Amid laughter and glee._] Praise to the Cappadocian! Praise to the
Cappadocian’s judge!
_The PHILOSOPHER LIBANIUS, surrounded by disciples, comes across
the square._
LIBANIUS.
Ah, see—is not my brother Julian dispensing wisdom in the open
market-place?
JULIAN.
Say folly, dear friend; wisdom has departed the city.
LIBANIUS.
Has wisdom departed the city?
JULIAN.
Or is on the point of departing; for are not you also bound for the
Piraeus?
LIBANIUS.
I, my brother? What should I want at the Piraeus?
JULIAN.
Our Libanius, then, is the only teacher who does not know that a ship
has just arrived from Ephesus.
LIBANIUS.
Why, my friend, what have I to do with that ship?
JULIAN.
It is loaded to the water’s edge with embryo philosophers——
LIBANIUS.
[_Scornfully._] They come from Ephesus!
JULIAN.
Is not gold equally weighty whencesoever it may come?
LIBANIUS.
Gold? Ha-ha! The golden ones Maximus keeps to himself; he does not let
them go. What sort of scholars is Ephesus wont to send us? Shopkeepers’
sons, the first-born of mechanics. Gold say you, my Julian? I call it
lack of gold. But I will turn this lack of gold to account, and out of
it I will mint for you young men a coin of true and weighty metal. For
may not a precious lesson in life, set forth in ingenious and attractive
form, be compared to a piece of full-weighted golden currency?—
Hear then, if you have a mind to. Was it not said that certain men had
rushed eagerly down to the Piraeus? Who are they, these eager ones? Far
be it from me to mention names; they call themselves lovers and teachers
of wisdom. Let us betake ourselves in thought to the Piraeus. What is
passing there at this moment, even as I stand here in this circle of
kindly listeners? I will tell you what is passing. Those men who give
themselves out as lovers and dispensers of wisdom, are crowding upon the
gangway, jostling, wrangling, biting, forgetting all decorum, and
throwing dignity to the winds. And why? To be the first in the field,—to
pounce upon the best dressed youths, to lead them home, to entertain
them, hoping in the end to make profit out of them in all possible ways.
What a shamefaced, empty awakening, as after a debauch, if it should
presently appear—ha-ha-ha!—that these youths have scarcely brought with
them the wherewithal to pay for their supper of welcome! Learn from
this, young men, how ill it becomes a lover of wisdom, and how little it
profits him, to run after good things other than the truth.
JULIAN.
Oh, my Libanius, when I listen to you with closed eyes, I seem lapped in
the sweet dream that Diogenes has once more arisen in our midst.
LIBANIUS.
Your lips are princely spendthrifts of praise, beloved of my soul!
JULIAN.
Far from it. And yet I had almost interrupted your homily for in this
case, one of your colleagues will scarce find himself disappointed.
LIBANIUS.
My friend is jesting.
JULIAN.
Your friend assures you that the two sons of the governor, Milo, are on
board.
LIBANIUS.
[_Grasping his arm._] What do you say?
JULIAN.
That the new Diogenes who secures them as his pupils will scarce need to
drink out of the hollow of his hand for poverty.
LIBANIUS.
The sons of the Governor Milo! That noble Milo, who sent the Emperor
seven Persian horses, with saddles embroidered with pearls——?
JULIAN.
Many thought that too mean a gift for Milo.
LIBANIUS.
Very true. Milo ought to have sent a poem, or perhaps a well-polished
speech, or a letter. Milo is a nobly-endowed man; all Milo’s family are
nobly-endowed.
JULIAN.
Especially the two young men.
LIBANIUS.
No doubt, no doubt. For the sake of their beneficent and generous
father, I pray the gods that they may fall into good hands. After all,
then, you were right, my Julian; the ship brought real gold from
Ephesus. For are not intellectual gifts the purest of gold? But I cannot
rest; these young men’s welfare is, in truth, a weighty matter; so much
depends on who first gains control of them. My young friends, if you
think as I do, we will hold out a guiding hand to these two strangers,
help them to make the wisest choice of teacher and abode, and——
SALLUST.
I will go with you!
THE SCHOLARS.
To the Piraeus! To the Piraeus!
SALLUST.
We will fight like wild boars for Milo’s sons!
[_They all go out, with LIBANIUS, to the right; only PRINCE
JULIAN and GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS remain behind in the
colonnade._
JULIAN.
[_Following them with his eyes._] See how they go leaping like a troop
of fauns. How they lick their lips at the thought of the feast that
awaits them this evening. [_He turns to GREGORY._] If there is one thing
they would sigh to God for at this moment, it is that he would empty
their stomachs of their breakfasts.
GREGORY.
Julian——
JULIAN.
Look at me; I am sober.
GREGORY.
I know that. You are temperate in all things. And yet you share this
life of theirs.
JULIAN.
Why not? Do you know, or do I, when the thunderbolt will fall? Then why
not make the most of the bright and sunlit day? Do you forget that I
dragged out my childhood and the first years of my youth in gilded
slavery? It had become a habit, I might almost say a necessity to me, to
live under a weight of dread. And now? This stillness as of the grave on
the Emperor’s part;—this sinister silence! I left Pergamus without the
Emperor’s permission; the Emperor said nothing. I went of my own will to
Nicomedia; I lived there, and studied with Nikokles and others; the
Emperor gave no sign. I came to Athens, and sought out Libanius, whom
the Emperor had forbidden me to see;—the Emperor has said nothing to
this day. How am I to interpret this?
GREGORY.
Interpret it in charity, Julian.
JULIAN.
Oh, you do not know——! I hate this power without me, terrible in action,
more terrible when at rest.
GREGORY.
Be frank, my friend, and tell me whether it is this alone that has led
you into all these strange ways?
JULIAN.
What mean you by strange ways?
GREGORY.
Is the rumour true, that you pass your nights in searching out the
heathen mysteries in Eleusis?
JULIAN.
Oh, pooh! I assure you there is little to be learnt from those
riddle-mongering dreamers. Let us talk no more about them.
GREGORY.
Then it is true! Oh, Julian, how could you seek such shameful
intercourse?
JULIAN.
I must live, Gregory,—and this life at the university is no life at all.
This Libanius! I shall never forgive him the great love I once bore him!
At my first coming, how humbly and with what tremors of joy did I not
enter the presence of this man, bowing myself before him, kissing him,
and calling him my great brother.
GREGORY.
Yes, we Christians all thought that you went too far.
JULIAN.
And yet I came here in exaltation of spirit. I saw, in my fancy, a
mighty contest between us two,—the world’s truth in pitched battle
against God’s truth.—What has it all come to? Libanius never seriously
desired that contest. He never desired any contest whatever; he cares
only for his own interest. I tell you, Gregory—Libanius is not a great
man.
GREGORY.
Yet all enlightened Greece proclaims him great.
JULIAN.
A great man he is not, I tell you. Once only have I seen Libanius great:
that night in Constantinople. Then he was great, because he had suffered
a great wrong, and because he was filled with a noble wrath. But here!
Oh, what have I not seen here? Libanius has great learning, but he is no
great man. Libanius is greedy; he is vain; he is eaten up with envy. See
you not how he has writhed under the fame which I—largely, no doubt,
owing to the indulgence of my friends—have been so fortunate as to
acquire? Go to Libanius, and he will expound to you the inward essence
and the outward signs of all the virtues. He has them ready to hand,
just as he has the books in his library. But does he exercise these
virtues? Is his life at one with his teaching? He a successor of
Socrates and of Plato—ha-ha! Did he not flatter the Emperor, up to the
time of his banishment? Did he not flatter me at our meeting in
Constantinople, that meeting which he has since attempted, most
unsuccessfully, to present in a ludicrous light! And what am I to him
now? Now he writes letters to Gallus, to Gallus Caesar, to the Emperor’s
heir, congratulating him on his successes against the Persians, although
these successes have as yet been meagre enough, and Gallus Caesar is not
distinguished either for learning or for any considerable eloquence.—And
this Libanius the Greeks persist in calling the king of the
philosophers! Ah, I will not deny that it stirs my indignation. I should
have thought, to tell the truth, that the Greeks might have made a
better choice, if they had noted a little more closely the cultivators
of wisdom and eloquence, who of late years——
BASIL OF CAESAREA.
[_Entering from the right._] Letters! Letters from Cappadocia!
GREGORY.
For me too?
BASIL.
Yes, here; from your mother.
GREGORY.
My pious mother!
[_He opens the paper and reads._
JULIAN.
[_To BASIL._] Is it your sister who writes to you?
BASIL.
[_Who has entered with his own letter open._] Yes, it is Makrina. Her
news is both sad and strange.
JULIAN.
What is it? Tell me.
BASIL.
First of your noble brother Gallus. He rules sternly in Antioch.
JULIAN.
Yes, Gallus is hard.—Does Makrina write “sternly.”
BASIL.
[_Looking at him._] Makrina writes “bloodily”——
JULIAN.
Ah, I thought as much! Why did the Emperor marry him to that dissolute
widow, that Constantina?
GREGORY.
[_Reading._] Oh, what unheard-of infamy!
JULIAN.
What is it, friend?
GREGORY.
[_To BASIL._] Does Makrina say nothing of what is happening in Antioch?
BASIL.
Nothing definite. What is it? You are pale——
GREGORY.
You knew the noble Clemazius, the Alexandrian?
BASIL.
Yes, yes; what of him?
GREGORY.
He is murdered, Basil!
BASIL.
What do you say? Murdered?
GREGORY.
I call it murdered;—they have executed him without law or judgment.
JULIAN.
Who? Who has executed him?
GREGORY.
Yes, who? How can I say who? My mother tells the story thus: Clemazius’s
mother-in-law was inflamed with an impure love for her daughter’s
husband; but as she could not move him to wrong, she gained some
back-stairs access to the palace——
JULIAN.
What palace?
GREGORY.
My mother writes only “the palace.”
JULIAN.
Well? And then——?
GREGORY.
It is only known that she presented a very costly jewel to a great and
powerful lady to procure a death-warrant——
JULIAN.
Ah, but they did not get it!
GREGORY.
They got it, Julian.
JULIAN.
Oh, Jesus!
BASIL.
Horrible! And Clemazius——?
GREGORY.
The death-warrant was sent to the governor, Honoratus. That weak man
dared not disobey so high a command. Clemazius was thrown into prison
and executed early next morning, without being suffered, my mother
writes, to open his lips in his own defence.
JULIAN.
[_Pale, in a low voice._] Burn these dangerous letters; they might bring
us all to ruin.
BASIL.
Such open violence in the midst of a great city! Where are we; where are
we?
JULIAN.
Aye, you may well ask where we are! A Christian murderer, a Christian
adulteress, a Christian——!
GREGORY.
Denunciations will not mend this matter. What do you intend to do?
JULIAN.
I? I will go no more to Eleusis; I will break off all dealings with the
heathen, and thank the Lord my God that he spared me the temptations of
power.
GREGORY.
Good; but then?
JULIAN.
I do not understand you——
GREGORY.
Then listen. The murder of Clemazius is not all, believe me. This
unheard-of infamy has descended like a plague on Antioch. All evil
things have awakened, and are swarming forth from their lairs. My mother
writes that it seems as though some pestilent abyss had opened. Wives
denounce their husbands, sons their fathers, priests the members of
their own flock——
JULIAN.
This will spread yet further. The abomination will corrupt us all.—— Oh,
Gregory, would I could fly to the world’s end——!
GREGORY.
Your place is at the world’s navel, Prince Julian.
JULIAN.
What would you have me do?
GREGORY.
You are this bloody Caesar’s brother. Stand forth before him—he calls
himself a Christian—and cast his crime in his teeth; smite him to the
earth in terror and remorse——
JULIAN.
[_Recoiling._] Madman, of what are you thinking?
GREGORY.
Is your brother dear to you? Would you save him?
JULIAN.
I once loved Gallus above all others.
GREGORY.
_Once_——?
JULIAN.
So long as he was only my brother. But now——; is he not Caesar?
Gregory,—Basil,—oh, my beloved friends,—I tremble for my life, I draw
every breath in fear, because of Gallus Caesar. And you ask me to defy
him to his face, me, whose very existence is a danger to him?
GREGORY.
Why came you to Athens? You gave out loudly in all quarters that Prince
Julian was setting forth from Constantinople to do battle with
philosophy, falsely so called—to champion Christian truth against
heathen falsehood. What have you done of all this?
JULIAN.
Ah, ’twas not here that the battle was to be.
GREGORY.
No, it was not here,—not with phrase against phrase, not with book
against book, not with the idle word-fencing of the lecture-room! No,
Julian, you must go forth into life itself, with your own life in your
hands——
JULIAN.
I see it; I see it!
GREGORY.
Yes, as Libanius sees it! You mocked at him. You said he knew the
essence and the outward signs of all the virtues, but his doctrine was
only a doctrine to him. How much of _you_ belongs to God? How much may
the Emperor demand?
JULIAN.
You said yourself it was unseemly——
GREGORY.
Towards whom? Towards God or the Emperor?
JULIAN.
[_Quickly._] Well then: shall we go together?
GREGORY.
[_Evasively._] I have my little circle; I have my family to watch over.
I have neither the strength nor the gifts for a larger task.
JULIAN.
[_Is about to answer; suddenly he listens towards the right, and calls
out._] To the bacchanal!
BASIL.
Julian!
JULIAN.
To the bacchanal, friends!
[_GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS looks at him a moment; then he goes off
through the colonnade to the left. A large troop of
scholars, with the newcomers among them, rushes into the
square, amid shouts and noise._
BASIL.
[_Coming nearer._] Julian, will you listen to me!
JULIAN.
See, see! They have taken their new friends to the bath, and anointed
their hair. See how they swing their cudgels; how they yell and thump
the pavement! What say you, Pericles? Methinks I can hear your wrathful
shade——
BASIL.
Come, come!
JULIAN.
Ah, look at the man they are driving naked among them. Now come the
dancing-girls. Ah, do you see what——!
BASIL.
Fie! Fie!—turn your eyes away!
[_Evening has fallen. The whole troop settles down in the square
beside the fountain. Wine and fruits are brought. Painted
damsels dance by torchlight._
JULIAN.
[_After a short silence._] Tell me, Basil, why was the heathen sin so
beautiful?
BASIL.
You are mistaken, friend; beautiful things have been said and sung of
this heathen sin; but it was not beautiful.
JULIAN.
Oh, how can you say so? Was not Alcibiades beautiful when, flushed with
wine, he stormed at night like a young god through the streets of
Athens? Was he not beautiful in his very audacity when he insulted
Hermes and battered at the citizens’ doors,—when he summoned their wives
and daughters forth, while within the women trembled, and, in
breathless, panting silence, wished for nothing better than to——?
BASIL.
Oh listen to me, I beg and entreat you.
JULIAN.
Was not Socrates beautiful in the symposium? And Plato, and all the
joyous revellers? Yet they did such things, as, but to be accused of
them, would make those Christian swine out there call down upon
themselves the curse of God. Think of Oedipus, Medea, Leda——
BASIL.
Poetry, poetry; you confound fancies with facts.
JULIAN.
Are not mind and will in poetry subject to the same laws as in fact? And
then look at our holy scriptures, both the old and new. Was sin
beautiful in Sodom and Gomorrah? Did not Jehovah’s fire avenge what
Socrates shrank not from?—Oh, as I live this life of revel and riot, I
often wonder whether truth is indeed the enemy of beauty!
BASIL.
And in such an hour can you sigh after beauty? Can you so easily forget
what you have just heard——?
JULIAN.
[_Stopping his ears._] Not a word more of those horrors! We will shake
off all thoughts of Antioch——
Tell me, what does Makrina write further? There was something more; I
remember, you said——; what was it you called the rest of her news?
BASIL.
Strange.
JULIAN.
Yes, yes;—what was it?
BASIL.
She writes of Maximus in Ephesus——
JULIAN.
[_Eagerly._] The Mystic?
BASIL.
Yes; that inscrutable man. He has appeared once more; this time in
Ephesus. All the region around is in a ferment. Maximus is on all lips.
Either he is a juggler or he has made a baleful compact with certain
spirits. Even Christians are strangely allured by his impious signs and
wonders.
JULIAN.
More, more; I entreat you!
BASIL.
There is no more about him. Makrina only writes that she sees in the
coming again of Maximus a proof that we are under the wrath of the Lord.
She believes that great afflictions are in store for us, by reason of
our sins.
JULIAN.
Yes, yes, yes!—Tell me, Basil: your sister is surely a remarkable woman.
BASIL.
She is, indeed.
JULIAN.
When you repeat to me passages from her letters, I seem to be listening
to something full and perfect, such as I have long sighed for. Tell me,
is she still bent on renouncing this world, and living in the
wilderness?
BASIL.
That is her steadfast intent.
JULIAN.
Is it possible? She on whom all gifts seem to have been lavished? She
who, ’tis known, is both young and beautiful; she, who has riches in
prospect, and in possession such learning as is very rare in a woman! Do
you know, Basil, I long to see her? What has _she_ to do in the
wilderness?
BASIL.
I have told you how her affianced lover died. She regards him as her
expectant bridegroom, to whom she owes her every thought, and whom she
is pledged to meet unsullied.
JULIAN.
Strange how many feel the attraction of solitude in these times.—When
you write to Makrina, you may tell her that I too——
BASIL.
She knows that, Julian; but she does not believe it.
JULIAN.
Why not? What does she write?
BASIL.
I pray you, friend, spare me——
JULIAN.
If you love me, do not hide from me one word she writes.
BASIL.
[_Giving him the letter._] Read, if you must—it begins there.
JULIAN.
[_Reads._] “Whenever you write of the Emperor’s young kinsman, who is
your friend, my soul is filled with a great and radiant joy——” O Basil!
lend me your eye; read for me.
BASIL.