“NOBLESSE OBLIGE.”
Some fourteen or fifteen days have passed since the humiliation of
Athens was completed. To have come to the end, bitter as it was, was in
one way a relief. To know the worst always brings a certain comfort, and
that worst might have been, was, in fact, very near being far more
terrible than what actually happened. Then there was a great material
relief. The pressure of famine was removed. Supplies poured plentifully
into Athens, for the city, in spite of all its sacrifices and losses,
was still rich. If fever still remained--it always lingers a while after
its precursor, hunger, has departed--it was now possible to cope with it
effectually. And then, last not least, it was the delightful season of
spring. The Athenians could once more enjoy the delights of that country
life from which they had been shut out so long, but which they had never
ceased to love. Attica, indeed, had suffered sadly from the presence,
repeated year after year, of the invading host; but it had suffered less
than might have been expected. The olive yards in particular, had not
been touched. A religious feeling had forbidden any injury to a tree
which was supposed to be under the special protection of the patron
goddess of the land. The sacred groves also of the heroes, that were
scattered about the country, had not been harmed. Not a few houses with
their gardens had been saved by having served as residences for officers
high in command in the Peloponnesian army. And now Nature, the restorer,
was busy in the genial season of growth in healing or at least hiding
the wounds that had been made by the ravages of war.
“What do you say to a trip to Marathon?” said Hippocles one day, to his
daughter and Callias. “You both of you look as if a little fresh air
would do you good.”
“An excellent idea,” cried Hermione, clapping her hands, “it is years
since I have seen the place.”
“What say you, Callias?” said Hippocles, turning to the young man.
Callias was only too glad to join any expedition when he was to have the
company of Hermione. He did not give this reason, but he assented to the
proposal very heartily.
“But, father, how shall we go?” said Hermione. “There is scarcely a
horse to be found, I suppose.”
“Why not go by sea?” was her father’s reply. “I have a pinnace which
would just suit us. We will go to-morrow if the weather holds fine, stop
the first night at Sunium, and the second at Marathon. At Sunium there
is my villa, and at Marathon there is a little house of which I can get
the use, and which will serve us if we do not mind roughing it a little.
We can return the next day. Only we must take provisions, for except
such fish as we may catch in the Marathon stream, and possibly, some
goats’ milk, if all the goats have not been eaten up, we shall have
nothing but what we bring. That must be your care, Hermione.”
“Trust me, father,” cried the girl joyously. “If you have gone through
four months’ famine, depend upon it you shall not be starved now.”
The weather on the following day was all that could be desired. A warm
and gentle west wind was blowing. This served them very well as they
sailed southward to Sunium. In such good time did they reach the
promontory, that by unanimous vote they agreed to finish their journey
that same day. Sailing northward was as easy as sailing southward, and
the sun was still an hour from setting when they reached the northern
end of the plain, having travelled a distance of upwards of sixty miles.
This was about four times as far as they would have had to go, had they
made the journey by land. No one, however, regretted having followed
Hippocles’ suggestion. The voyage was indeed as delightful an excursion
as could have been devised. The deep blue sky overhead, the sea,
borrowing from the heavens a color as intense, and only touched here and
there with a speck of white where a little wave swelled and broke, sea
birds now flying high in the air, now darting for their prey into the
waters, the white cliffs tipped with the fresh green of spring that
framed the coast line, made a picture that the party intensely enjoyed,
although they did not put their enjoyment into words with the fluency
and ease which would have come readily to a modern. The ancients loved
nature, but, as a rule, they felt this love much more than they
expressed it.
The little house at Marathon was one that had escaped destruction by
having been occupied by a Spartan officer. It was bare indeed of
furniture, but it was habitable; and the party had brought with them
the few things that were absolutely necessary, far fewer, we must
remember, than what we now consider to be indispensable. Supper was felt
by all to be a most enjoyable meal. The room in which they sat was bare,
for, of course, the luxurious couches on which it was the fashion to
recline were absent. There was not even a table, and there was but one
broken chair, which was naturally resigned to Hermione. But it was
lightened with a cheerful fire, which was not unwelcome after seven or
eight hours’ exposure to a high wind. Happily the late occupant had left
a store of logs, which had been cut on the slopes of Pentelicus in the
previous autumn, and which now blazed up most cheerfully. The meal was
declared by both Hippocles and Callias to be good enough for a
State-banquet in the Prytaneum. One of the sailors had caught a
basketful of fish in the stream, and these Hermione had cooked with her
own hands. An Athenian who had plenty of fish, seldom wanted anything in
the way of flesh, and the provisions which Hermione, not liking to trust
to the skill or the luck of the anglers had brought with her, were not
touched. A cold maize pudding, some of the famous Attic figs, which had
been preserved through the winter, bread with honey from Hymettus, and
dried grapes completed the repast. Some of the goats, it turned out, had
survived, and a jug of their milk was forthcoming for Hermione. The two
men had a flask of wine which they largely diluted with water. When,
after the libation, Hippocles proposed the toast of the evening, as, in
consideration of the locality it might fairly be called, “To the memory
of the Heroes of Marathon,” Hermione honored it by putting her lips to
the cup. It was the first time that wine had ever passed them, but she
could not refuse this tribute to the chief glory of the city of her
adoption.
Hermione, fatigued, it may be said, with all the delights of the day,
retired early to rest. Soon after she had gone Callias took the
opportunity of opening his heart to his companion on a subject which had
long occupied his thoughts.
“We have peace at last,” he said, “not such a peace as I had ever hoped
for, but still better than the utter ruin which lately I had begun to
fear. A good citizen may now begin to think of himself and of his own
happiness. You, sir, can hardly have failed to observe why I have begun
to look for that happiness. If your daughter will only consent to share
my life, I feel that I shall have to ask the gods for nothing more. She
is free as far as I know. And me you have known from my childhood. You
were my father’s friend and since he died you have stood in his place.
Can you give her to me?”
Hippocles caught his young companion’s hand, and gave it a hearty grasp.
“I will not pretend,” he said, “not to have observed something of what
you say; nor will I deny that I have observed it with pleasure. What
father would not be glad if Callias, the son of Hipponicus, loved his
daughter? Of Hermione’s feelings I say nothing, indeed I know nothing,
save that she has regarded you since childhood with a strong affection,
and that as you say she is free. But there are facts which neither you
nor I can forget; and the chief of them is this, that while you are
Callias, son of Hipponicus, an Eupatrid of the Eupatrids,[57] I am
Hippocles, the Alien. I am well-born in my own country, but that is
nothing here. I am wealthy--so wealthy that I care not a single drachma
whether my future son-in-law has a thousand talents for his patrimony or
one. I am, I hope and believe, not without honor in the city of my
adoption. But I am an alien, my child is an alien. Whether you have
thought of all that this means I know not--love is apt to hide these
difficulties from a man’s eyes--but the fact must be faced; you and my
daughter must face it. You speak of my giving her to you. But, if
Hermione is a Greek, she is also an Italian. The Italian women choose
for themselves. I could not if I would constrain her will. She must
decide, and she must answer.”
“There is nothing that I should desire better. But you do not tell me,
sir, what you yourself wish. Have I your consent and your good wishes?”
“Yes,” said Hippocles, “you have. I have thought over the difficulties,
for I foresaw that you would some day speak to me on this subject. As
far as I am concerned I am ready to waive them. But then, they do not
concern me in the first place.”
The two men sat in silence for some time after this conversation had
passed between them, buried each of them in his own thoughts. At last
Hippocles rose from his seat.
“It is time to sleep,” he said; “I will speak to my daughter to-morrow;
you shall not want my good word, but I can do nothing more. You must
speak to her yourself. That is, I think, what few fathers in Greece
would tell a suitor to do. But then Hermione is not as other maidens.”
Callias passed a restless night, and was glad to make his way into the
open air when the first streaks of dawn appeared on the Euboean hills,
which were in full view from the house. He shrank from meeting Hermione
till he could meet her alone, and ask the momentous question which was
occupying his whole mind. Partly to employ the time, partly to banish
thought, if it might be done by severe bodily exercise, he started to
climb the height of Pentelicus, which rose on the southern side of the
Marathonian plain. The excursion occupied him the whole morning. On his
way back he traversed the hills which skirted the western side of the
plain, and, following what was evidently a well-beaten track, came at
last in view of the mound under which reposed the Athenian dead who had
fallen in that great battle. His quick eye soon perceived a familiar
figure, conspicuous in its white garments among the monuments which
stood on the top of the mound. Hippocles had fulfilled his promise, and
had said all that he could to Hermione in favor of her suitor. He had
dwelt upon his noble birth, the reputation as a soldier which he had
already won, his culture and taste for philosophy, and his blameless
life. “As for wealth,” he ended by saying, “that is of little account
where my daughter is concerned. Yet a man should be independent of his
wife, and I may tell you as one who knows--and I have had charge of his
property for some years past--that Callias is one of the richest men in
Athens. That will not weigh with you I know, but I would have you know
all the circumstances.”
Hermione said nothing; she took her father’s hand and kissed it. A tear
dropped on it as she raised it to her lips. As she turned away,
Hippocles noticed that she was shaken by a sob.
An instinct in the girl’s heart told her that it was on the mound that
her lover would speak to her, and it was here that she wished to give
her answer to him. It was not the first time that she had visited it.
Indeed there was not a woman, and not many men in Athens who knew so
much about its records.
On the top of this tumulus, which still rises thirty feet above the
surrounding plain, and which was then, it is probable, considerably
higher, there stood in those days eleven stone columns inscribed with
the names of those who had fallen in the great battle. Each of the ten
Athenian tribes had its own peculiar column, while the eleventh
commemorated the gallant men of Plataea, Plataea, which alone among the
cities of Greece, had sent her sons on that day to stand shoulder to
shoulder with the soldiers of Athens.
Hermione was apparently engrossed in the task of deciphering the names,
now grown somewhat obliterated by time, which were engraved on one of
the columns. So intent was she on this occupation that she did not
notice the young man’s approach. Turning suddenly round, she faced him.
At that moment, though she had expected him to come, his actual coming
was a surprise, and the hot blood crimsoned her face and neck.
“Hermione,” he said, “I have spoken to your father, and he bids me speak
to you. You can hardly have failed to read my heart, and if I have not
spoken to you before, it has been because I have not presumed. You know
all that needs be known about me, and though I do not think myself
worthy of you, I need not be ashamed of my fathers or of myself.”
The brilliant color had faded from the girl’s cheek, her hand trembled,
her bosom heaved. Twice she opened her lips; twice the voice seemed to
fail her. At last she spoke.
“You speak of your fathers. You are, I think, of the tribe of Pandion?”
“I am,” said Callias.
“And this is the column of their tribe, and this”--she pointed as she
spoke--“the name of an ancestor of yours?”
“Yes,” replied the young man, “this Hipponicus whose name you see
engraved here was my great grandfather.”
“He had been Archon at Athens the year before the great battle. You
see,” she added with a faint smile, “I know something of your family
history.”
“It was so.”
“And his son, a Callias like yourself, was Archon general many
times--held, in fact, every honor that Athens could bestow?”
“Yes, there was no more distinguished man in the city than he.”
“And your father; he died, I think I have heard, in early manhood; but
he was already far advanced in the career of honor?”
“Doubtless had he lived he would not have been inferior in distinction
to my grandfather.”
“And you have started well in the same course? I need not ask you that.
We all know it better, perhaps, than you know it yourself, and we are
proud of it. My dear brother,” the girl’s voice which hitherto had been
clear and even commanding in its tones, faltered at the mention of the
dead, “my dear brother used to say that there was nothing that you might
not hope for, nothing to which you might not rise.”
“You speak too well of me; but I hope that I am not altogether unworthy
of my ancestors.”
The girl paused for a while. She seemed unable to utter what she had
next to say. The flush mounted again to her cheek, and she stood silent
and with downcast eyes.
Meanwhile the young man stood in utter perplexity. He had heard nothing
from the girl’s lips but what might have made any man proud to hear. She
knew, as she had said, the history of his race, and she believed him to
be not unworthy of it. Yet this was not the way in which he had hoped to
hear her speak. He was conscious that there was something behind that
did not promise well for his hopes.
At last she went on. Her voice was low but distinct, her eyes were still
bent on the ground.
“And what your fathers have been in Athens, what you hope to be
yourself, you would have your son to be after you?”
“Surely,” he answered without thinking of what he was admitting.
“Could it be so if I--” she altered the phrase--“if a woman not of
Athenian blood were his mother?”
He was struck dumb. So this was the end she had before her when she
enumerated the honors and distinctions of his race.
“Mind,” she said, “I do not say that my race is unworthy of yours. I am
not ashamed of my ancestors. They were chiefs; they were good men. I am
proud to be their daughter. But here in Athens their goodness and their
nobility goes for nothing. I am Hermione, the daughter of Hippocles, the
Alien. Marrying me you shut out, not perhaps yourself, but your children
from the career which is their inheritance. I am too proud,”--and here
the girl dropped her voice to a whisper,--“and I love you too well for
that.”
“What is my career to your love?” cried the young man passionately; “I
am ready to give up country and all for that.”
“That,” said Hermione, “is the only unworthy thing that I ever heard you
say. Your better thoughts will make you withdraw it. Athens has fallen;
the gods know that it has wrung my heart to see it. But she needs all
the more such sons as you are. She has little now to offer. It is a
thankless office, perhaps, to command her fleets and armies. All the
more honor to those who cling to her still and cherish her still. You
must not leave her or betray her. I should think foul shame of myself if
I tempted you for a moment to waver in your loyalty to her. I may not
love you--that the gods have forbidden me--but you will let me be proud
of you.”
The young man turned away. The final word, he knew, had been spoken.
This resolution was not to be shaken by indignant reproaches or by
tender pleadings. All that remained was to forget, if that was possible.
He would not see Hippocles or his daughter again till the wound of this
bitter disappointment had had time to heal. Returning to the house,
which he found empty but for a single attendant, he snatched a hasty
meal, and then set out to return over-land to Athens.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] The class name of the Athenian nobility.