Nonnus sat in his study, wrinkling his brow as he polished his verses
by the light of a small lamp. A large scroll lay open on his knees, the
contents of which seemed to afford him little satisfaction. Forty-eight
more scrolls, resplendent with silver knobs and coquettishly tied with
purple cord, reposed in an adjoining book-case; the forty-eight books,
manifestly, of the Panopolitan bard’s Dionysiaca. Homer, Euripides, and
other poets lay on the floor, having apparently been hurriedly
dislodged to make room for divers liturgies and lives of the saints. A
set of episcopal robes depended from a hook, and on a side table stood
half-a-dozen mitres, which, to all appearance, the designated prelate
had been trying on.
“Nonnus,” said Phœbus, passing noiselessly through the unresisting
wall, “the tale of thy apostasy is then true?”
It would be difficult to determine whether surprise, delight, or dismay
preponderated in Nonnus’s expression as he lifted up his eyes and
recognised the God of Poetry. He had just presence of mind to shuffle
his scroll under an enormous dictionary ere he fell at Apollo’s feet.
“O Phœbus,” he exclaimed, “hadst thou come a week ago!”
“It is true, then?” said Apollo. “Thou forsakest me and the Muses. Thou
sidest with them who have broken our statues, unroofed our temples,
desecrated our altars, and banished us from among mankind. Thou
rejectest the glory of standing alone in a barbarous age as the last
witness to culture and civilisation. Thou despisest the gifts of the
Gods and the Muses, of which I am even now the bearer. Thou preferrest
the mitre to the laurel chaplet, and the hymns of Gregory to the epics
of Homer?”
“O Phœbus,” replied Nonnus, “were it any God but thou, I should bend
before him in silence, having nought to reply. But thou art a poet, and
thou understandest the temper of a poet. Thou knowest how beyond other
men he is devoured by the craving for sympathy. This and not vulgar
vanity is his motive of action; his shaft is launched in vain unless he
can deem it embedded in the heart of a friend. Thou mayest well judge
what scoffings and revilings my Dionysiac epic has brought upon me in
this evil age; yet, had this been all, peradventure I might have borne
it. But it was not all. The gentle, the good, the affectionate, they
who in happier times would have been my audience, came about me,
saying, Nonnus, why sing the strains against which we must shut our
ears? Sing what we may listen to, and we will love and honour thee. I
could not bear the thought of going to my grave without having awakened
an echo of sympathy, and weakly but not basely I have yielded, given
them what they craved, and suffered them, since the Muses’ garland is
not theirs to bestow, to reward me with a mitre.”
“And what demanded they?” asked Apollo.
“Oh, a mere romance! Something entirely fabulous.”
“I must see it,” persisted Apollo; and Nonnus reluctantly disinterred
his scroll from under the big dictionary, and handed it up, trembling
like a schoolboy who anticipates a castigation for a bad exercise.
“What trash have we here?” cried Phœbus—
“Αχρονος ην, ακιχητος, εν αρρητω Λογος αρχη,
’Ισοφυης Γενετηρος όμηλικος Τιος αμητωρ,
Και Λογος αυτοφυτοιο Θεου, φως, εκ φαεος φως.
“If it isn’t the beginning of the Gospel of John! Thy impiety is worse
than thy poetry!”
Apollo cast the scroll indignantly to the ground. His countenance wore
an expression so similar to that with which he is represented in act to
smite the Python, that Nonnus judged it prudent to catch up his
manuscript and hold it shield-wise before his face.
“Thou doest well,” said Apollo, laughing bitterly; “that rampart is
indeed impenetrable to my arrows.”
Nonnus seemed about to fall prostrate, when a sharp rap came to the
door.
“That is the Governor’s knock,” he exclaimed. “Do not forsake me
utterly, O Phœbus!” But as he turned to open the door, Apollo vanished.
The Governor entered, a sagacious, good-humoured-looking man in middle
life.
“Who was with thee just now?” he asked. “Methought I heard voices.”
“Merely the Muse,” explained Nonnus, “with whom I am wont to hold
nocturnal communings.”
“Indeed!” replied the Governor. “Then the Muse has done well to take
herself off, and will do even better not to return. Bishops must have
no flirtations with Muses, heavenly or earthly—not that I am now
altogether certain that thou _wilt_ be a bishop.”
“How so?” asked Nonnus, not without a feeling of relief.
“Imagine, my dear friend,” returned the Governor, “who should turn up
this evening but that sordid anchorite Pachymius, to whom the see was
promised indeed, but who was reported to have been devoured by vermin
in the desert. The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be
feared that sufficient pains were not taken to verify it—cannot have
been, in fact; for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as
he affirms, through the air by an angel. Little would it have signified
if he had come by himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks
carrying cudgels, who threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated
on the spot. My friend the Archbishop and I are at our wits’ end: we
have set our hearts on having a gentleman over the diocese, but we
cannot afford to have tumults reported at Constantinople. At last,
mainly through the mediation of a sable personage whom no one seems to
know, but who approves himself most intelligent and obliging, the
matter is put off till to-morrow, when them and Pachymius are to
compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not yet settled, but
which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every one’s
satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don’t run away in any case.
I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee
but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if
thou art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius.”
With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the
poor poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing
alone somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of
the Gods lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a
friendly power might yet be watching over him.