I
Although in a manner retired from the world during the fifth and sixth
Christian centuries, the banished Gods did not neglect to keep an eye
on human affairs, interesting themselves in any movement which might
seem to afford them a chance of regaining their lost supremacy, or in
any person whose conduct evinced regret at their dethronement. They
deeply sympathised with the efforts of their votary Pamprepius to turn
the revolt of Illus to their advantage, and excused the low magical
arts to which he stooped as a necessary concession to the spirit of a
barbarous age. They ministered invisibly to Damascius and his
companions on their flight into Persia, alleviating the hardships under
which the frames of the veteran philosophers might otherwise have sunk.
It was not, indeed, until the burning of the Alexandrian library that
they lost all heart and lapsed into the chrysalis-like condition in
which they remained until tempted forth by the young sunshine of the
Renaissance.
Such a phenomenon for the fifth century as the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of
Panopolis could not fail to excite their most lively interest.
Forty-eight books of verse on the exploits of Bacchus in the age of
pugnacious prelates and filthy coenobites, of imbecile rulers and
rampant robbers, of the threatened dissolution of every tie, legal,
social, or political; an age of earthquake, war, and famine! Bacchus,
who is known from Aristophanes not to have excelled in criticism,
protested that his laureate was greater than Homer; and, though Homer
could not go quite so far as this, he graciously conceded that if he
had himself been an Egyptian of the fifth century, with a faint
glimmering of the poetical art, and encumbered with more learning than
he knew how to use, he might have written almost as badly as his modern
representative. More impartial critics judged Nonnus’s achievement more
favourably, and all agreed that his steadfastness in the faith deserved
some special mark of distinction. The Muses under Pallas’s direction
(being themselves a little awkward in female accomplishments)
embroidered him a robe; Hermes made a lyre, and Hephaestus forged a
plectrum. Apollo added a chaplet of laurel, and Bacchus one of ivy.
Whether from distrust of Hermes’ integrity, or wishing to make the
personal acquaintance of his follower, Phœbus volunteered to convey the
testimonial in person, and accordingly took his departure for the
Egyptian Thebaid.
As Apollo fared through the sandy and rugged wilderness under the
blazing sun of an African summer afternoon, he observed with surprise a
vast crowd of strange figures swarming about the mouth of a cavern like
bees clustering at the entrance to a hive. On a nearer approach he
identified them as a posse of demons besetting a hermit. Words cannot
describe the enormous variety of whatever the universe holds of most
heterogeneous. Naked women of surpassing loveliness displayed their
charms to the anchorite’s gaze, sturdy porters bent beneath loads of
gold which they heaped at his feet, other shapes not alien from
humanity allured his appetite with costly dishes or cooling drinks, or
smote at him with swords, or made feints at his eyes with spears, or
burned sulphur under his nose, or displayed before him scrolls of
poetry or learning, or shrieked blasphemies in his ears, or surveyed
him from a little distance with glances of leering affection; while a
motley crowd of goblins, wearing the heads of boars or lions, or
whisking the tails of dragons, winged, or hoofed, or scaled, or
feathered, or all at once, incessantly jostled and wrangled with each
other and their betters, mopping and mowing, grunting and grinning,
snapping, snarling, constantly running away and returning like gnats
dancing over a marsh. The holy man sat doggedly at the entrance of his
cavern, with an expression of fathomless stupidity, which seemed to
defy all the fiends of the Thebaid to get an idea into his head, or
make him vary his attitude by a single inch.
“These people did not exist in our time,” said Apollo aloud, “or at
least they knew their place, and behaved themselves.”
“Sir,” said a comparatively grave and respectable demon, addressing the
stranger, “I should wish your peregrinity to understand that these imps
are mere schoolboys—my pupils, in fact. When their education has made
further progress they will be more mannerly, and will comprehend the
folly of pestering an unintellectual old gentleman like this worthy
Pachymius with beauty for which he has no eyes, and gold for which he
has no use, and dainties for which he has no palate, and learning for
which he has no head. But _I’ll_ wake him up!” And waving his pupils
away, the paedagogic fiend placed himself at the anchorite’s ear, and
shouted into it—
“Nonnus is to be Bishop of Panopolis!”
The hermit’s features were instantly animated by an expression of envy
and hatred.
“Nonnus!” he exclaimed, “the heathen poet, to have the see of
Panopolis, of which _I_ was promised the reversion!”
“My dear sir,” suggested Apollo, “it is all very well to enliven the
reverend eremite; but don’t you think it is rather a liberty to make
such jokes at the expense of my good friend Nonnus?”
“There is no liberty,” said the demon, “for there is no joke. Recanted
on Monday. Baptized yesterday. Ordained to-day. To be consecrated
to-morrow.”
The anchorite poured forth a torrent of the choicest ecclesiastical
curses, until he became speechless from exhaustion, and Apollo,
profiting by the opportunity, addressed the demon:
“Would it be an unpardonable breach of politeness, respected sir, if I
ventured to hint that the illusions your pupils have been trying to
impose upon this venerable man have in some small measure impaired the
confidence with which I was originally inspired by your advantageous
personal appearance?”
“Not in the least,” replied the demon, “especially as I can easily make
my words good. If you and Pachymius will mount my back I will transport
you to Panopolis, where you can verify my assertion for yourselves.”
The Deity and the anchorite promptly consented, and seated themselves
on the demon’s shoulders. The shadow of the fiend’s expanded wings fell
black and vast on the fiery sand, but diminished and became invisible
as he soared to a prodigious height, to escape observation from below.
By-and-by the sun’s glowing ball touched earth at the extremity of the
horizon; it disappeared, the fires of sunset burned low in the west,
and the figures of the demon and his freight showed like a black dot
against a lake of green sky, growing larger as he cautiously stooped to
earth. Grazing temples, skimming pyramids, the party came to ground in
the precincts of Panopolis, just in time to avoid the rising moon that
would have betrayed them. The demon immediately disappeared. Apollo
hastened off to demand an explanation from Nonnus, while Pachymius
repaired to a neighbouring convent, peopled, as he knew, by a legion of
sturdy monks, ever ready to smite and be smitten in the cause of
orthodoxy.