The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hypolympia, by Edmund Gosse

It is very ingenious of you to think of these things. But I suppose it would not be right to attempt to do it. In the first place it would encourage them to believe in my immortality——

Oh! but to believe is such a salutary discipline to the lower classes. That is the whole principle of religion, surely, Aphrodite? It is not for people like ourselves. You know how indolent Dionysus is, but he always attended the temple when he was hunting upon Nysa.

There is a great deal in that argument, no doubt. Only, what will be the result when they discover that it is all a mistake, and that I am a mortal like themselves?

You never can be a mortal like the barbarians, for you have been a force ruling the sea, and the flowers, and the winds, and twisting the blood of man and woman in your fingers like a living skein of soft red silk. They will always worship you. It may not be in temples any longer, not with a studied liturgy, but wherever the sap rises in a flower, or the joy of life swims up in the morning through the broken film of dreams, or a young man perceives for the first time that the girl he meets is comely, you will be worshipped, Aphrodite, for the essence of your immortality is the cumulative glow of its recurrent mortality.

Ah! you followed the youths and maidens to the little temple of our friend. Is it not beautiful?

I confess that I was for a long time uncertain, but on the whole I believe that it is.

That is the disappointment.... It is best to tell you at once that I see no evidence whatever that it is.

I am very much relieved. But could you not gather from the decoration of the interior to whom of us it is inscribed?

I could see no sculpture, except a sort of black tablet, with names upon it, and at the sides two of the youthful attendants of Eros—those that have wings, indeed, but cannot rest. These were exceedingly ill-carven in a kind of limestone. And I hardly like to tell you what I found behind the altar——

I am not easily shocked. My poor worshippers sometimes demand a very considerable indulgence.

Yes; very ugly, and still more incomprehensible. But nothing that could spring out of any misconception of the ritual of our friend. No; I hardly like to tell you. Well, a gaunt painted figure, with spines about the bleeding forehead——

Was it fastened to any symbol? Did you notice anything that explained the horror of it?

No. I did not observe it very closely. As I was glancing at it, the celebration or ritual, or whatever we are to call it, began, and I withdrew to the door, not knowing what frenzy might seize upon the worshippers.

There was a cannibal altar in Arcadia to Phœbus, so I have heard. He instantly destroyed it, and scattered the ignorant savages who had raised it.

There was a touch of desolate majesty about this figure. I fear that it portrays some blighting Power of suffering or of grief. [He shudders.]

There are certainly deities of whom we knew nothing in Olympus. Perhaps this is the temple of some Unknown God.

I admit that I thought, with this picture, and with their sinister garments of black and of blue, and with the bareness and harshness of the temple, that something might be combined which it would give me no satisfaction to witness. I placed myself near the door, where, in a moment, I could have regained the exquisite forest, and the odour of this carpet of woodruff, and your enchanting society. But nothing occurred to disconcert me. After genuflexions and liftings of the voice——

I absolutely failed to determine. Well, the priest—if I can so describe a man without apparent dedication, robed without charm, and exalted by no visible act of sacrifice—ascended a species of open box, and spoke to the audience from the upturned lid of it.

To tell you the truth, Circe, although I listened with what attention I could, and although the actual language was perfectly clear to me—you know I am rather an accomplished linguist—I formed no idea of what he said. I could not find the starting-point of his experience.

Depend upon it, it is not a temple at all. What Hermes was present at was unquestionably some gathering of local politicians. Poor these barbarians may be, but they could not excuse by poverty such a neglect of the decencies as he describes. No flowers, no bright robes, no music of stringed instruments, no sacrifice—it is quite impossible that the meanest of sentient beings should worship in such a manner. And as for the picture which you saw behind what you took to be the altar, I question not that it is used to keep in memory some ancestor who suffered from the tyranny of his masters. In the belief that he was assisting at a process of rustic worship, our poor Hermes has doubtless attended a revolutionary meeting.

Dreadful! But may its conflicts long keep outside the arcades of this delightful woodland!

VII

I propose to stay here for a little while. Are you moving on? [Each of them fixes eyes on the insect.]

I must beg you to leave me, or to remain perfectly motionless. I am excessively agitated.

I followed the being which is hanging downwards from that spray of blossom. Does it recall some one to you?

Not in its present position. But I will not pretend, Eros, that it is not the source of my agitation. Look at it now, as it flings itself round the stalk, and opens and waves its fans. Do you still not comprehend?

But those great coloured eyes, waxing and waning! Those moons of pearl! The copper that turns to crimson, the turquoise that turns to violet, the greenish, pointed head that swings and rolls its yoke of slender plumage! Ah! Eros, is it possible that you do not perceive that it is a symbol of my peacock, my bird translated into the language of this narrow and suppressed existence of ours? What a strange and exquisite messenger! My poor peacock, with a strident shriek of terror, fled from me on that awful morning, the flames singeing its dishevelled train, its wings helplessly flapping in the torrents of conflagration. It bade me no adieu, its clangour of despair rang forth, an additional note of discord, from the inner courts of my palace. And out of its agony, of its horror, it has contrived to send me this adorable renovation of itself, all its grace and all its splendour reincarnated in this tiny creature. But alas! how am I to capture, how to communicate with it?

I hesitate to disturb your illusion, Hera. But you are singularly mistaken. I have a far greater interest in this messenger than you can have; and if you dream its presence to be a tribute to your pride, I am much more tenderly certain that it is a reproach to my affections. See, those needlessly gaudy wings,—a mere disguise to bring it through the multitude of its enemies—are closed now, and it resumes its pendulous attitude, as aërial as an evening cloud, as graceful as sorrow itself, sable as the shadow of a leaf in the moonlight.

"Represent" is an inadequate word. I know it to be, in some transubstantiation, the exact nature of which I shall have to investigate, my adored and injured Psyche. You never appreciated her, Hera.

It was necessary in such a society as ours to preserve the hierarchical distinctions. She was a charming little creature, and I never allowed myself to indulge in the violent prejudice of your mother. When you presented her at last, I do not think that you had any reason to reproach me with want of civility.

We are in a curious dilemma. Unless we are to conceive that two of the lesser Olympians have been able to combine in adopting a symbolic disguise, either you or I have been deceived. That tantalising visitant can scarcely have been at the same time Psyche and my peacock.

I know not why; and for my part am perfectly willing to recognise its spots and moons to your satisfaction, if you will permit me to recognise my own favourite in the garb of grief.

Would you have me shriek and moan? Would you have me throw myself in convulsive ecstasy upon that ambiguous insect? You are not the first, Hera, who has gravely misunderstood my character. I am not, I have never been, a victim of the impulsive passions. The only serious misunderstandings which I have ever had with my illustrious mother have resulted from her lack of comprehension of this fact. She is impulsive, if you will! Her existence has been a succession of centrifugal adventures, in which her sole idea has been to hurl herself outward from the solitude of her individuality. I, on the other hand, leave very rarely, and with peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch the world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows penetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual armour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have always been graceful and inconspicuous in my attitudes. The image of Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a shaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would shudder to contemplate.

O do not call it "apparent." It was genuine and it was all-absorbing. But it was absolutely exceptional. Looking back, it seems to me that I must have been gazing at myself in a mirror, and have dismissed an arrow before I realised who was the quarry. It is not necessary to remind you of the circumstances——

As wholly exceptional. And could I be expected to prolong an ardour so foreign to my nature? The victim of passion cannot be a contemplator at the same moment, and I may frankly admit to you, Hera, that during the period of my infatuation for Psyche, there were complaints from every province of the universe. It was said that unless my attention could be in a measure diverted from that admirable girl, there would be something like a stagnation of general vitality. Phœbus remarked one day, that if the ploughman became the plough the cessation of harvests would be inevitable.

It was at that moment, I suppose, that you besought Zeus so passionately to confer upon Psyche the rank of a goddess?

You took that, no doubt, for an evidence of my intenser infatuation. An error; it was a proof that the arguments of the family were beginning to produce their effect upon me. I perceived my responsibility, and I recognised that it was not the place of the immortal organiser of languishment to be sighing himself. To deify my lovely Psyche was to recognise her claim, and—and——

It is that crudity of yours, Hera, which has before now made your position in Olympus so untenable. You lack the art of elegant insinuation.

Am I then to believe that you were playing a part when you seemed a little while ago so anxious to recognise Psyche in the drooping butterfly?

Oh! far from it. The sentiment of recognition was wholly genuine and almost rapturously pleasurable. It is true that in the confusion of our flight I had not been able to give a thought to our friend, who was, unless I am much mistaken, absent from her palace. Nor will I be so absurd as to pretend that I have, for a long while past, felt at all keenly the desire for her company. She has very little conversation. There are certain peculiarities of manner, which——

You must permit me to protest against any comparison between Psyche and your worthy bird. But I was going to say that the moment I saw the brilliant little discrepancy which led us both to this spot—and to which I hesitate to give a more definite name—I was instantly and most pleasantly reminded of certain delightful episodes, of a really charming interlude, if I may so call it. I cannot be perfectly certain what connection our ebullient high-flyer has with the goddess whose adorer I was and whose friend I shall ever be. But the symbol—if it be no more than a symbol—has been sufficient to awaken in me all that was most enjoyable in our relations. I shall often wander in these woods, among the cloud-like masses of odorous blossom, in this windless harbour of sunlight and the murmur of leaves, in the hope of finding the little visitant here. She will never fail to remind me, but without disturbance, of all that was happiest in a series of relations which grew at last not so wholly felicitous as they once had been. One of the pleasures this condition of mortality offers us, I foresee, is the perpetual recollection of what was delightful in the one serious liaison of my life, and of nothing else.

It would not be the first time that she has mistaken my philosophy for petulance.

VIII

As I lay on the grass, with the sun in the west, A woman went by me, a babe at her breast; She kissed it and pressed it, She cooed, she caressed it, Then rocked it to sleep in her elbow-nest.

She rocked it to rest with a sad little song, How the days were grown short, and the nights grown long; How love was a rover, How summer was over, How the winds of winter were shrill and strong.

We must haste, she sang, while the sky is bright, While the paths are plain and the town's in sight, Lest the shadows that watch us Should creep up and catch us, For the dead walk here in the grass at night.

[The voice withdraws farther down the woods, but from a lower istance, in the clear evening, the last stanza is heard repeated. The Goddesses continue silent, until the voice has died away.]

Rude words set to rude music; but they seem to penetrate to the very core of the heart.

Why not? These barbarians appear to avoid them with an invincible terror, but why should we do so?

I do not feel that it would be possible for the dead to "catch" me, since I should be instantly and keenly watching for them, and much more eager to secure their presence than they could be to secure mine.

We do not know of what we speak, for it may very well be that the barbarians have some experience of these beings. Their influence may be not merely malign, but disgusting.

Surely, Persephone, you must be able to give us some idea of the dead. Were they not the sole occupants of your pale dominions?

It is very absurd of me, but really I do not seem to recollect anything about them.

Well, I spent six months there every year, to please my husband. But a great deal of my time was taken up in corresponding with my mother. She was always nervous if she did not hear regularly from me. I really feel quite ashamed of my inattention.

I recollect that they seemed dreadfully wanting in vitality. They came in troops when I held a reception; they swept by.... I cannot remember what they were like——

Well, we had our own interests. I believe I did my duty. It seemed to me that I must be there if Pluto wished it, and I was pleased to be with him. But—if you can understand me—there was a sort of a dimness over everything, and I never entered into the political life of the place. As to the social life, you can imagine that they were not people that one cared to know. At the same time, of course, I feel now how ridiculous it was of me to hold that position and not take more interest.

Demeter, of course, never encouraged you to make any observation of the manners and customs of Hades.

Oh, no! that was just it. She always said: "Pray don't let me hear the least thing about the horrid place." You remember that she very strongly disapproved of my going there at all——

Yes; I remember that Arethusa, when she brought me back my daffodils, told me how angry Demeter was——

And yet she was quite nice to my husband when once Zeus had decided that I had better go.

[There is a pause. Maia rises and leans on the parapet, over the woods, now drowned in twilight, to the sea, which still faintly glitters. She turns and comes back to the other two, standing above them.]

I, too, might have observed something as I went sailing over the purpureal ocean. But I was always talking to my sisters. The fact is we all of us neglected to learn anything about death.

We thought of it as of something happening in that world of Hades which could never become of the slightest importance to us. Who could have imagined that we should have to take it into practical account?

Well, now we shall have to accept it, to be prepared for its tremendous approach.

Perhaps this famous "death" may prove after all to be only another kind of life. [Rising and approaching Maia.] Don't you think this is indicated even by the song of these barbarians? Besides, our stay here must be the ante-chamber to something wholly different.

No; surely we shall put off more or less leisurely, with dignity or without it, the garments of our sensuous existence, and discover something underneath all these textures of the body?

One of our priests in Hades, I do remember, sang that silence was a voice, and declared that even in the deserts of immensity the soul was stunned and deafened by the chorus and anti-chorus of nature.

I must confess that in this our humility, our corporeal degradation, instead of feeling crushed, I am curiously conscious of a wider range of sensibility. Perhaps that is the soul? Perhaps, in the suppression of our immortality, something metallic, something hermetical, has been broken down, and already we stand more easily exposed to the influences of the spirit?

In that case, to slough the sheaths of the body, one by one, ought to be to come nearer to the final freedom, and the last coronation and consecration of existence may prove to be this very "death" we dread so much.

I can fancy that such conjectures as these may prove to be one of the chief sources of satisfaction in this new mortality of ours: the variegated play of light and shadow thrown upon it. Well, the less we know and see, the more exciting it ought to be to guess and to peer.

And some of us, depend upon it, will be able to persuade ourselves that we alone can use our eyesight in the pitch profundity of darkness, and these will find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting the others who have less confidence in their imagination.

[They seat themselves, and are silent. Far away is once more faintly heard the song, and then it dies away. A long silence. Then, a confused hum of cries and voices is heard, and approaches the terrace from below. The Goddesses start to their feet. From the left appear Silvanus, Alcyone and Fauna, bearing the body of Cydippe, which they place very carefully on the grass in front of the scene.]

What has happened? Cydippe is livid, her limbs are stark, her eyes are wide open, and motionless, and unnaturally brilliant.

She was gathering a little posy of your wild flowers—eyebright, and crane's bills and small blue pansies, when——

The viper fixed his fangs here, in the blue division of the vein, here in her translucent wrist. See, it swells, it darkens!

And with a scream she fell, and swooned away, and died, turning backwards, so that her hair caught in the springy herbage, and her head rolled a little in her pain, so that her hair was loosened and tightened, and look, there are still little tufts of blue-berry leaves in her hair.

[They all greet Æsculapius, who enters from the left, with his basket of remedies.]

Ah! sage master of simples, this is a problem beyond thy solution, a case beyond thy cure.

Then prepare to behold what should seem a greater miracle to you than to me. But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of clothing very tightly round the upper part of her arm, for no more than we can help of those treasonable messengers must fly posting from the wound to Cydippe's heart.

I think you are mistaken. And now, Fauna, a few drops of water in this cup from the trickling spring yonder. That is well. Stand farther away from Cydippe, all of you.

What are those pure white needles you drop into the water? How quickly they dissolve. Ah! he lays the mixture to Cydippe's wound. She sighs; her eyelids close; her heart is beating. What is this magic, Æsculapius?

Do not tell your husband, Persephone, or he will complain to Zeus that I am depriving him of his population. But if there is magic in this, there is no miracle. [To the others.] Take her softly into the house and lay her down. She will take a long sleep, and will wake at the end of it with no trace of the poison or recollection of her suffering.

No, indeed, for I am attached to Cydippe, but oh! Persephone, it is strange to be at the very threshold of the mystery——

And to have the opening door shut in our faces? Perhaps ... next time ... they may not be able to find Æsculapius.

A priest, sire, the only one who saved his musical instrument through our calamities, stands within. Is your Majesty disposed to be sung to?

No, certainly not. Which is he? [The Priest is pointed out.] What an odd-looking person! Yes, he may give me a specimen of his art—a short one.

[The Priest comes forward; he is dressed in wild Thessalian raiment. He approaches with uncouth gestures, and a mixture of servility and self-consciousness. On receiving a nod from Zeus, he tunes his instrument and sings as follows:]

VII

VIII

IX