A certain morning she dragged herself to the German docks with effort, and thinking that that was the last time, for to-morrow her strength would not be sufficient. She resolved not to beg, but to walk onto the first steamer sailing for Europe and hide somewhere quietly; when they sailed out and found her, they would not throw her into the water; if they should, well, let them do so. It is all the same to her how she dies, if die she must. But at the gangway leading to the steamer persons going on board are watched carefully, and the guard pushed her away at the first trial.
She sat on a post near the water, and thought to herself that fever might seize her. She began to laugh, and muttered, —
“I am an heiress, Yasko, but I kept faith with thee. Dost thou not know me?”
The hapless girl caught no fever, but insanity seized her. Thenceforward she went every day to the wharf to look for Yasko. People grew accustomed to her and gave her alms sometimes. She thanked them with humility, and laughed like a child. This lasted two months perhaps. One time, however, she did not go to the wharf, and was seen there no more. But the “Police Gazette” announced on the following morning that at the very end of the pier had been found the body of a dead girl, of unknown name and origin.
THE DECISION OF ZEUS.
ONE evening Apollo and Hermes met on the Pnyx, and, standing on the edge of the rock, looked at Athens.
The evening was wonderful; the sun had advanced from the Archipelago to the Ionian Sea, and was bringing his radiant head slowly into the smooth turquoise-colored liquid plain. But the summits of Hymettus and Pentelicus were gleaming yet, as if covered with molten gold. The brightness of evening was in the sky; and the whole Archipelago was sunk in the gleams of it. The white marbles of the Propyleus, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum seemed rosy, and as light as if the stone had lost all weight, or as if those buildings were a dream-vision. The point of the gigantic spear of Athene Promachus blazed in the gleam like a torch lighted above Attica.
In the sky floated, with outspread wings, a few falcons moving toward their night repose, to nests concealed in mountain cliffs.
People were returning in crowds from field labor to the city. Along the road from the Piræus passed mules and asses carrying panniers at their sides, full of olives or golden grapes; behind them, in ruddy clouds of dust, came flocks of crooked-horned goats, in front of each flock a white bearded he-goat, at the sides watchful dogs, behind herdsmen playing on bagpipes or slender whistles of thin oat-straw.
Among the flocks wagons bearing the divine barley moved slowly on drawn by sluggish oxen; here and there passed divisions of hoplites arrayed in brass armor, hastening to their night watch at the Piræus or in Athens.
Lower Athens was still seething with life. At the great fountain near the Poikile, young girls in white garments were drawing water, laughing loudly, or defending themselves against boys, who were throwing ivy or grapevine fetters over them. Others, who had taken water already, had amphoras on their shoulders, and, with arms raised upward, were moving toward their homes, graceful and charming, like immortal nymphs.
A mild breeze, blowing from the plain of Attica, brought to the ears of the two divinities sounds of laughter, singing, and kisses.
The Far-shooting Apollo, for whose eyes nothing under heaven was more precious than a woman, turned to the Slayer of Argus, and said, —
“O son of Maia, how beautiful are the women of Athens!”
“And virtuous, my Radiant One,” answered Hermes; “for they are under the tutelage of Pallas Athene.”
The god of the Silver-bow was silent, and looked, and continued to listen. Meanwhile the red of evening quenched slowly; movement stopped by degrees. Scythian slaves closed the gates, and finally all things were silent. Immortal night cast a dark curtain, dotted with stars, over the Acropolis, the city, and the region about.
But darkness did not last long. Soon pale Selene rose from the Archipelago, and sailed like a silver boat through the expanse of the sky. Again the marbles of the Acropolis shone, but this time with a light which was bright green, and they resembled still more a dream-vision.
“It must be confessed,” said the Far-shooter, “that Athene has chosen a marvellous abode.”
“Ha, she is wise! Who could choose better than she?” answered Hermes. “Besides, Zeus has a wonderful weakness for her. If she just begs him for something, strokes his beard; straightway he calls her his Tritogeneia, beloved daughter, promises and permits everything with a nod of his head.”
“Tritogeneia annoys me at times,” muttered the son of Latona.
“I, too, have noticed that she becomes annoying,” answered Hermes.
“As an old peripatetic, and besides she is disgustingly virtuous, just like Artemis, my sister.”
“Or like her own wards, the women of Athens.”
The Radiant Apollo turned to the Slayer of Argus:
“Thou speakest a second time, as if purposely, of the virtue of Athenian women. Are they in truth so unbending?”
“Fabulously so, O son of Latona!”
“Is it possible!” said Apollo. “But thinkest thou that there is even one in this city who could resist me?”
“I think there is.”
“Resist me, Apollo?”
“Thee, O Radiant Divinity.”
“Me, the god who subdues by poetry, who charms by music and song?”
“Thee, O Radiant One!”
“If thou wert an honest god, I should be willing to wager with thee. But, Slayer of Argus, if thou lose, thou wilt fly off at once with thy sandals and staff, and that is the last that I shall see of thee!”
“No. I will put one hand on the earth, the other on the sea, and swear by Hades. This oath is respected not only by me but even by the magistrates of Athens.”
“Well, thou art exaggerating again! But I agree! If thou lose, thou must bring to me, in Thrinacia, a herd of long-horned oxen, which thou wilt steal from whomever thou wishest, as thou didst steal, in thy time, when a boy, my herds in Pieria.”
“Agreed. But what shall I get if I win?”
“Make thy own choice.”
“Listen to me, Far-shooter, I will be outspoken, which, as thou knowest, does not happen with me often. Once sent by Zeus, I do not remember on what errand, I was flying over thy Thrinacia, and I saw Lampetia with Phæthusa, who was guarding thy cattle there. From that moment I have had no peace. Lampetia does not leave my eyes, does not leave my memory; I love her, and sigh night and day to her. If I win, if in Athens there be found a woman so virtuous as to resist thee, thou shalt give me Lampetia. I ask nothing more.”
He of the Silver-bow nodded.
“Very gladly, since love can fix itself even in the heart of the patron of merchants. I will give thee Lampetia, the more readily since now she cannot agree with Phæthusa; I may say, in parenthesis, that both are in love with me, and, therefore, are quarrelling.”
Great joy shot from the eyes of the Slayer of Argus.
“The wager is made, then,” said he. “But one thing, — I will select for thee the woman on whom thou art to try thy divine power.”
“If she is beautiful.”
“She will be worthy of thee.”
“Confess that thou hast already selected one.”
“I confess.”
“A maiden, a wife, or a widow?”
“Of course a wife. Thou mightst influence a maiden or a widow by a promise of marriage.”
“What is her name?”
“Eriphyle, she is the wife of a baker.”
“Of a baker?” asked the bright god, with a wry face; “that pleases me less.”
“What dost thou wish? I move most frequently in those circles. Eriphyle’s husband is not at home now; he has gone to Megera. The woman is the most beautiful person that has ever walked mother earth.”
“I am curious.”
“One condition more, my Silver-bowed. Promise me that thou wilt use only means worthy of thee, and that thou wilt not act, for inst
ance, like that boor, Ares, or even, speaking among ourselves, like our common father, the Cloud-compeller.”
“For whom dost thou take me?” asked Apollo.
“Then all the conditions are accepted, and I can show thee Eriphyle.”
The air bore away immediately both gods from the Pnyx, and soon they were hanging over a house at some distance from the Stoa. The Slayer of Argus raised the whole top of the house with his powerful hand, as easily as a female, cooking food, might raise a pot-lid; and, pointing out a woman sitting in a shop, closed from the street by a copper grating and a woollen curtain, he said, —
“Look!”
Apollo looked, and was petrified.
Never had Attica, never had the Grecian land, given forth a more beautiful flower than that woman. She was sitting at the light of a triple lamp, bent over a table, and was writing something diligently on marble tablets. Her long, drooping lashes cast a shadow on her cheeks; at times she raised her head and eyes as if pondering and calling to mind what she had to write yet; and then her marvellous eyes could be seen, — so blue, that, compared with them, the turquoise surface of the Archipelago would have seemed pale and faded. It was simply the face of Kypris, — white as sea-foam, rosy as the morning dawn, with lips of the color of Syrian purple, and golden waves of hair, — beautiful, the most beautiful on earth, beautiful as a flower, as light as a song.
When she dropped her eyes, she seemed calm and sweet; when she raised them in thought, inspired. The divine legs began to tremble under the Radiant Apollo; all at once he rested his head on the shoulder of Hermes, and whispered, —
“Hermes, I love her! This one, or none!”
Hermes smiled shrewdly, and would have rubbed his palms under the folds of his robe, had he not held his staff in the right hand.
Meanwhile the golden-haired woman took a new tablet, and began to write on it. She opened her divine lips, and her voice whispered, like the sound of a lyre, —
“Melanocles, a member of the Areopagus, for bread during two months, forty-five drachmae and four oboli; for the sake of round numbers let us write forty-six drachmae. By Athene! let us write fifty; my husband will be satisfied. Ah, Melanocles, if thou wert not able to fasten onto us for false weights, I would not give thee credit. But one must be on good terms with that locust.”
Apollo did not hear the words; he only intoxicated himself with the sound of her voice, the charm of her figure, and whispered, —
“That one, or none!”
The golden-haired woman wrote on, ——
“Alcibiades, for unleavened cake on honey from Hymettus, for the hetæra Chrysalis, three minæ. He never verifies accounts, besides, he slapped me on the shoulder once in the Stoa; we will write down, then, four minæ. If he is a fool, let him pay. And this Chrysalis, too! She feeds, I suppose, her carp in the pond with cakes, or, maybe, Alcibiades is fattening her purposely to sell her afterward to Phoenician merchants for ivory rings to put on his harness.”
Apollo did not hear the words; he was intoxicated with the voice, and whispered to Hermes, —
“That one, or none!”
But Maia’s son covered the house on a sudden, and the wonderful vision disappeared. To the Radiant god, it seemed that the stars were vanishing, the moon blackening, and the whole world hiding under the darkness of Cimmerian regions.
“When is the wager to be decided?” inquired Hermes.
“To-day, immediately!”
“During her husband’s absence, she sleeps in the shop. Thou mayst stand on the street before the grating. If she pushes the curtain aside, and opens the grating, I have lost my wager.”
“Thou hast lost!” cried the Far-shooting Apollo.
And not so swiftly does summer lightning pass at night from the east to the west, as he shot over the salt waves of the Archipelago. There, when he had begged Amphitrite for an empty turtle-shell, he fastened on it sun rays, and returned to Athens with a finished lyre.
In the city all was perfectly silent; the lights were extinguished; only houses and temples stood white in the gleam of the moon, which was sailing high in the heavens.
The shop was situated in a gap of the wall; and in it, behind the grating and a curtain, slept the most beautiful Eriphyle. The Radiant Apollo, halting on the street, began to touch the strings of his lyre. Wishing to rouse his beloved gently, he played at first as low as the song of mosquitoes in a spring evening above the Ilissus. But the song rose gradually, like a mountain stream when divine rain is falling, and more and more powerful, sweeter, more entrancing; it filled the whole air, which now quivered voluptuously. Athene’s mysterious bird flew in silent flight from the direction of the Acropolis, and sat motionless on a column near by.
Then a bare arm worthy of Phidias or Praxiteles, whiter than the marble of Pentelicus, pushed the curtain aside. The heart in the Radiant god quivered from emotion.
But the voice of Eriphyle was heard, —
“What wretched fellow is that, dragging about in the night and thrumming. It is not enough that one works to weariness in the day; they won’t let us sleep at night!”
“Eriphyle! Eriphyle!” cried the Bearer of the Silver-bow. And he sang, —
“From Parnassus of lofty peaks,
Where, in light, amid azure,
Inspired muses circle
And sing inspired songs to me,
I, divine, adored light,
Have descended. Open thy arms,
A moment on thy bosom, Eriphyle,
Will to me be eternity.”
“By the sacred, sacrificial flour!” called the baker’s wife, “that scapegrace is singing to me, and wants to turn my head. But wilt thou not go home, thou torment!” Apollo, wishing to convince her that he was no common mortal, shone all at once so that from the light of him the earth and the air became radiant; but Eriphyle seeing that, exclaimed, —
“The good-for-nothing has hidden a lantern under his skirt, and gives himself out as some god! — O daughter of mighty Zeus! they know how to torment us with taxes, but keep not even a Scythian guard in the city to take giddy heads like this one to prison.”
Apollo did not own himself beaten yet, and sang on, —
“Ah, open thy white arms!
I will give endless glory,
Thy name shall be heard through the world,
Above every goddess of the sky.
Thou shalt have immortality;
I will adorn thee, O beautiful,
Through the power of a divine word,
So that no Grecian queen Will have the like homage.
“Ah, open, open thy arms!
I will rob the sea of its azure,
The dawn of its purple and gold,
The stars of their sparks, the dew of its flowers,
And of this brilliant web I will make for my only one
The rainbow robes worn by Kypris.”
The voice of the god of poetry sounded so marvellously that it called forth a miracle. There, in the immortal night, the golden spear quivered in the hands of Athene as she stood on the Acropolis, and the marble head of the gigantic statue turned somewhat toward the lower city, to hear the words of the song more distinctly. Heaven and earth listened; the sea ceased to roar, and lay in silence at its shores; even pale Selene (the moon) stopped her night journey through the sky, and halted over Athens, immovable.
When Apollo ceased, a light breeze rose and bore the song through all Greece, and wherever a child in the cradle heard even one note of it, that child became a poet.
But before Latona’s son had finished, the angry Eriphyle screamed loudly, —
“What a fool! He wishes to traffic here in stars and dew. Because my husband is not at home, thou thinkest that everything is permitted. Ei! a scandal that my servants are not here, I would teach thee sense! But I will break thee, O soap, of straggling in the night with thy music!”
Then, she seized a kneading-bowl with acid for making yeast, and throwing the liquid through the grati
ng, she covered the bright face of Apollo, his radiant shoulders, his radiant robe and lyre with it.
Apollo groaned, and, covering his inspired head with the skirt of his wet robe walked away abashed and angry.
Hermes, who was waiting on the Pnyx, seized his sides from laughter, stood on his head, and brandished his staff with delight. But when the suffering son of Latona approached him, the cunning guardian of merchants feigned sympathy, and said, —
“I grieve that thou has lost, O Far-shooter.”
“Be off, thou rascal!” answered Apollo, in anger.
“I will go only when thou givest Lampetia.”
“May Cerberus rend thy calves! I will not give Lampetia; and I say, be off, or I will break thy staff on thy own head!”
The Slayer of Argus knew that when Apollo was angry, there were no jokes with him, so he pushed aside, with forethought, and said, —
“If thou wish to deceive me, be Hermes in future, and I will become Apollo. I know that thou art more powerful than I, and canst do me wrong; but happily there is one above thee, and he will judge us. I summon thee, Apollo, to the court of the son of Chronos! Come with me!”
Apollo was frightened at mention of the son of Chronos (Zeus); he dared not refuse, and they went.
Meanwhile, it had begun to dawn. Attica was emerging from the shade. Rosy-fingered Aurora had appeared in the sky in the direction of the Archipelago.
Zeus had passed the night on the summit of Ida; but whether he had slept, or had not slept, or what he was doing there, no one knew, for the Mist-gatherer had sheltered himself with a cloud so dense that Hera herself could not see him.
Hermes trembled a little as he drew near the father of gods and men.
“Justice is on my side,” thought he; “but suppose Zeus wastes up angry, suppose before hearing the case that he takes each of us by a leg, whirls us above his head, and hurls us about three hundred Athenian stadia. He has some regard for Apollo; but with me he will make no ceremony, though I am his offspring.”
But the fears of Maia’s son were vain. Zeus was sitting on the ground, gladsome, since for him the night had passed pleasantly; and in cheerful glory he was enjoying the circle of the earth with gleaming eyes. The earth, delighted under the father of gods and men, produced beneath him the bright grass of May, and young hyacinths. He leaned on his arms, passed his fingers over the curling flowers, and rejoiced in his lofty heart.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 738