“Diana Taurica - a priestess!” he shrieked. “Oh, ye gods, am I then here? It is no dream; thou art indeed Iole. Tortured spirit, pardon! I knew not of thy vows! I knew not that to love thee was a sin. Spirit of Iole, pardon!”
Erotion shuddered as she listened to these ravings.
“Stranger, I am not called Iole; I am Erotion, and never until now did mine eyes behold thee. Tell me who thou art, and why thou speakest thus wildly?”
“I am Tisamenes of Crete,” answered the stranger, in a calmer voice. “Seventeen years ago, the fatal wrath of the sea-gods threw me on this coast. I saw, wooed, and won a fair virgin, named Iole; I knew not her birth or fortunes, save that she loved me - oh, too well! Maiden, like thee she was a priestess of Diana. Her punishment was death. She betrayed me not; I escaped. Traitor that I was, who dared not die with Iole! But she was revenged; night and day the furies haunt me; and she too, O maiden - she stands and looks like thee - like thee; with her marble features, her dark floating hair, her mournful eyes. Off, off! look not at me with those eyes - they are the eyes of Iole!”
As Erotion listened, her stature dilated, and wild excitement shone in her countenance. She lifted up her arms in the moonlight, which grew broader and brighter as the storm passed away, and cried -
“O great Diana, pardon! The will of the gods be done.” Then she turned to the stranger, and said, in tones low and tremulous - “I never beheld father or mother. I was born in the temple sixteen years ago. They told me my mother was a priestess, who sinned and died; but I knew not her name till now. O stranger! O father! let me kiss thy garment’s hem, for I am surely Iole’s child.”
Chapter IV
Throughout the moonlight summer’s night which succeeded the tempest, the father and daughter sat together in the cave. Erotion bound up the bruised limbs of the shipwrecked man with her priestess’s veil; she dipped her long tresses in the cool water, and laid them on his brow; she called him by the sweet name which her lips had never uttered before - “Father, dear father!” and the madness passed away from the soul of Tisamenes of Crete. He sat with his daughter’s hand in his, looking into her calm sweet face, in which the wild enthusiasm of the vowed and inspired priestess had given place to an expression of tenderness and human love.
“Now thou lookest like Iole,” he would say: “not the fearful vision for which I first mistook thee, but like Iole in the days of our early love. I knew not but that the murderers destroyed the babe with the mother. The gods be praised, that through sorrow, shipwreck, and pain, I have found mine own child - the child of the dead Iole. I will stay here; I will never leave thee, Erotion, since that is thy name - but I can only call thee my daughter, my sweet daughter. We will not be parted more.”
As the morning dawned, Tisamenes tried to raise himself from the floor of the cave.
“I am faint, my child,” he said, feebly, - “faint from hunger. Take me with thee to the city, where I may find food.”
Erotion turned away and wept.
“Oh, my father!” she said,” I thought not of this in my joy; the gods have pity upon us! Dost thou not know that for these sixteen years, as an atonement for thy - oh, not thy sin, my father; never will my lips utter such word against thee; - but that since then, all strangers whom the sea casts on our shore are sacrificed to the vengeance of the goddess. Thou wilt be murdered; and I, how shall I save thee?”
“Is it even so?” murmured Tisamenes. “Then the fates have brought me hither, that the same hands which shed Iole’s blood may be imbrued in mine. I am content, since I have found thee, Erotion. Let me die.”
“Thou shalt not die, my father!” cried Erotion, in a voice of shrill agony, which startled the very birds that the first beams of daylight had awakened from their cavern-nook. They flew over the heads of father and daughter, uttering discordant screams.
Tisamenes buried his face in his robe, and spoke no more; but Erotion, after a thoughtful silence, said quickly and decisively -
“My father, thou must stay here. It is bright morning; I will go in search of food - not to the temple - let them think I have perished in the storm. If no man will give me food, I will beg; is it not for thee? Lie here in peace, my father; I will come again - thou shalt not die.”
And Erotion, wrapping around her the fragments of her white robe, with her young face, no longer hidden by her priestess’s veil, now pale, now glowing with shame, as curious eyes were cast upon its beauty, passed through solitary and devious ways into the city. She heard a wailing from the temple, and saw a band of the sacred attendants come from the shore, with half-extinguished torches. As they passed her hiding-place, they talked, with low tones, of the lost priestess; of how, amidst the conflict of the elements, Diana had carried away her own. Then Erotion sprang up where she had nestled beside a vine-dresser’s cottage, tore the rich bunches of grapes that hung beside her, and sped away like a hunted deer.
Ere long, Erotion was beside her almost dying father, with his head on her knee, placing between his parched lips the cooling fruit, and weeping over him with a fullness of joy that was utterly regardless of future sorrow.
“We will stay here, my father,” she said, “until thou art recovered, and then, in the dead of night, we will go far away to the wild forest - I know it well. I will seek fruits for thee, and we will live with the birds and the flowers, and never know sorrow more.”
Tisamenes lifted up his eyes; he was helpless as a child.
“I will go anywhere with thee, my daughter. The gods have surely pardoned my sin, since they have sent thee to me, Erotion.”
As he spoke, a shadow darkened the mouth of the cave, and before them stood, stern, cold, and silent as a figure of stone, Iphigenia, the high-priestess of the temple. Not a word passed between her lips, as she looked on the father and daughter clinging to each other in mute despair. She waved her hand, and the cave was filled with the armed guards of Thoas the King. It was too late. Tisamenes was surrounded; rude hands untwined his daughter’s clinging arms; he was borne away; Erotion was left lying on the floor of the cavern, cold and speechless. The servants of the temple advanced to seize her, but Iphigenia stayed them.
“Touch her not!” said the stern tones of the daughter of Agamemnon; “she is the inspired of Diana. Shall I doom to death a child because she would fain preserve a father - I, who willingly had died for mine?”
The attendants silently departed, and the high-priestess was alone with Erotion.
“Arise, my daughter,” said Iphigenia, lifting the maiden up by the cold, powerless hand - “arise, and come with me.”
Erotion arose, and without a sigh or tear, as passively as one of those moving, golden statues with which, as Homer sings, the artificer-god supported his steps, the maiden followed the high-priestess to the temple.
Tisamenes was doomed: no power, no prayers could save the man who had done sacrilege to the shrine of Diana. His blood must be added to that of many a guiltless stranger which had been shed in vain atonement, until fate brought the rightful victim thither. So reasoned the kingly and priestly devotees, and night and day, until the day of sacrifice came, thankful libations were poured upon the shrine, and paeans were chanted in joy that the rightful sacrifice was come. Tisamenes lay in his prison, awaiting the time, calm, if not happy. Erotion, whose wild eyes gleamed with a yet wilder inspiration, so that none dared look upon her or stay her feet: Erotion went hither and thither at her own will, flitting about like a phantom - now in the city, now at the shrine, and then in the very prison where the captive lay. Sometimes she would look upon her father with eyes of fearful calmness, and then weep over him in frantic despair, repeating the agonized cry which had first rung in the fatal cave, “My father, my father, thou shalt not die!”
At last a sudden purpose seemed to give her strength and firmness. Some days before the yearly festival of Diana, whose midnight rites were to be crowned with a human sacrifice - the death of Tisamenes - Erotion, alone and unaided, passed from the prison doors t
o the palace of Thoas. The barbarian King of Taurica sat among his counsellors, when he was told that a maiden craved audience. In the midst of a throng of savage men the virgin priestess passed, until she stood like a vision of light before the throne of the King, and preferred her request - the prayer of a child for a father’s life.
“King,” she cried - all listening, for was she not the priestess Erotion, the chosen of Diana? “Remember, the very memory of the crime has passed away from earth: she who sinned was punished - oh, how sorely: and oceans of innocent blood have since then wiped out the stain. The goddess requires no more. O Thoas, be merciful!” and through the streaming hair the face of Erotion, beautiful as that of Venus herself, was lifted up to the monarch, as she knelt at the foot of the throne.
Alcinous, the son of Thoas, arose and knelt beside her.
“O King, O father, be merciful! hear the child who pleads for a father.” Erotion turned towards the youth her lovely face in thankfulness, and again repeated, “Be merciful.” But Thoas would not hear. Then the maiden rose up from her knees; her whole countenance was changed - she was no longer the weeping girl, but the inspired priestess, who, with gleaming eyes and uplifted arms, poured forth her dreaded denunciations.
“Since thou hearest not prayers, tyrant, hear the words of one in whom the spirit of the divinity speaks. How darest thou defile the pure shrine of Diana with human blood? How darest thou make her whom the goddess saved at Aulis, the high-priestess of a rite as murderous as that to which she herself was once doomed? Hear, O King! I see in the dim future the end of all this - I see the victim saved - the shrine deserted - the sacred statue borne away - the fane dishonoured; and all this shall surely be seen by thine own eyes likewise, if thou dost not hearken unto me.”
A dead silence pervaded the assembly. Thoas looked on the maiden whose passionate prophecies had struck terror into all hearts, and he quailed beneath her heroic gaze.
“Priestess,” he said, and his tone was like a suppliant, not a king, “take off thy curse; thy father’s blood shall not be on my hands. He shall depart to a far country; and may he, and such as he, never more come nigh the shrine of Diana Taurica!”
Without a word of acknowledgment, but with the air of one who had discharged a prophetic mission, Erotion glided from the presence-chamber. Many eyes followed her retreating form, so graceful in its youthful dignity; but the longest and most lingering gaze was that of the young and noble warrior, Alcinous.
Chapter V
It was once again the high festival in honour of Diana Taurica. The young novices, the priestesses, even Iphigenia herself, had donned their green tunics, and were celebrating in the forest the rites of the huntress-queen. Green leaves danced, and sunbeams glimmered among the trees, through glades where Pan might have piped to the Hamadryads, or Silenus presided at the revels of the young Bacchus and the Fauns. The virgins of the temple felt the beauty of the spot, and songs of delight rose up from the lonely wood.
Erotion was among the band; but her heart was too full to sympathize with their joyous sports: she seemed weighed down by excess of happiness, and sought to be alone, to realize the blissful certainty that her father would not die.
The King had pledged his royal word that the horrible sacrifice should not take place; that at midnight the prisoner should be conveyed to the sea-shore, placed in a boat, and left to the mercy of the same ocean deities, who had wafted him to Taurica. More than this Erotion dared not implore - but she feared little the wrath of the waters, compared to that terrible doom which had seemed hanging over Tisamenes. Her heart was no longer oppressed - this new and beloved tie had weaned her thoughts from those imaginings which had haunted her from childhood, causing her to be looked upon as one inspired. Earthly affections had sprung up within her young bosom; she clung to life, for the world was no more solitary; she forgot even her mysterious dream in the devotion of filial love.
Erotion quitted her companions, and wandered to a lonely and quiet dell, which no human foot save her own had ever entered: only the hind came hither with her fawns, and the nightingale broke the stillness with her music. As Erotion entered, she heard her name breathed in tones low and tender as those which wooed Ariadne on the shore of Naxos. She turned, and beside her stood a youth, so beautiful in face, so graceful in form, that Apollo when keeping the flocks of Admetus was not fairer. It was Alcinous, the prince of Taurica.
Grateful tears came to the eyes of Erotion, as she remembered how he had knelt before his father’s throne, and joined his prayer to hers; and then she trembled - for even to the King’s son it was death to be found in the sacred wood.
“I bless thee - I will ever remember thee, gentle and noble prince,” cried Erotion; “but stay not here.”
He heard her words as if understanding them not; but gazed on her as if it were a deity whom he beheld.
“Erotion - beautiful Erotion - hast thou ever seen a shadow following thy footsteps day after day, haunting thee in the temple, in the forest, to the very prison-doors - and knewest not that it was I? Erotion, I say not that I love thee - I worship thee, I adore thee - I kneel before thee now as thou dost kneel before thy goddess. I would die for thee, and yet I dare not ask of thee one answering word - Erotion, I dare not say, ‘Love me!’”
The young girl listened to these new and strange words, as if she heard them in a dream: no blush dyed her cheek, no maidenly shame bent her head.
“Why sayest thou that I love thee not?” she answered, calmly; “I love all that is good and beautiful on earth: the birds, the trees - why should I not love thee? Thou, too, didst entreat for my father, whom I love best of all.”
Alcinous looked at her, and saw that in that pure and heavenly mind there was no trace of a love like that which consumed him. He dashed himself on the ground at her feet, and cried in passionate tones -
“Erotion, this is not love like mine for thee; thou must love me - me only - as thy mother loved thy father. Thou must leave all for my sake, as I for thine - home, father, country. Oh, maiden, this is love.”
She turned on him her calm, soft eyes, and said -
“Alcinous, the love of which thou speakest, is not for me. I am a priestess - I have never felt thus. Rise, dear prince, and talk no more of such love. Do not grieve,” she continued, in sweet and compassionate tones, as Alcinous lifted from the grass his face, bedewed with burning tears. “Do no grieve - I pity thee - I love thee with the only love I can give; but I am vowed to heaven and to my father - he is saved, and I am happy.”
Again the youth burst forth impetuously -
“Erotion, dost thou believe that false oath? - Thy father must perish - his freedom is but a stratagem - no power can save him from death.”
The young priestess grew cold as marble, but she stood immovable before her lover. He went on rapidly -
“Tisamenes must die - a subtle and lingering poison will be administered in the farewell cup of Chian wine; then pretended liberty will be given to him, when already bound in the iron fetters of slow but certain death.”
“Is there no hope?” said Erotion, in a tone so deadly calm, that it was terrible to hear.
“None; for the guards are sworn to see that the poison-cup has been drained before the prisoner is set free.”
A light from the setting sun illumined the face of Erotion. It became radiant with joy, until it was all but divine. Alcinous saw it not: with bowed head he pursued his vows and prayers -
“Erotion, thou wilt be left alone - thy father will die; oh, let me be thy comforter - let me teach thee to love as I love thee. Come, my beloved.”
“Not yet - not yet,” murmured Erotion, in a strangely altered voice; “the goddess must be obeyed; I see it now - I hear the mystic song - it is destiny. Yes, Alcinous, I come.”
Wild with rapturous joy, Alcinous pressed her hand to his lips, his breast, his brow, and then vanished through the trees, as the singing train of priestesses was heard approaching nearer.
When the moon had r
isen, and the choral hymn to Cynthia was yet pealing through the city, Erotion came to the gate of the prison where Tisamenes of Crete, now freed from the chains which had bound his limbs, waited for the blessed time of liberty. His daughter stood beside him, and kissed his hands, his robe, with a rapturous expression of joy.
“The hour is almost come, my father,” she cried, “and thou wilt be free. We shall depart hence, I and thou; far over the sea we will sail together. Ay,” she continued, “this night I shall cross it - the wild, wild sea - the desert shore - I remember all.”
And then a shivering came over the maiden, and her words sank in broken murmurings.
“Thou art not afraid, my child,” said Tisamenes, “not even of the gloomy ocean, when I am with thee.”
“No, no,” hastily cried Erotion; “I think but of thee - I am happy, most happy, O my father.”
As she spoke, her eyes glanced anxiously round the prison, and rested on a goblet of carved wood, filled to the brim with Chian wine.
“I thirst, I thirst, my father,” said Erotion, in low tones, as her head drooped upon his shoulder; “I have been on a weary journey in the forest this day; wilt thou give me to drink?”
Tisamenes placed the cup in his daughter’s hand.
“The gods have been good to us this day; it is meet we should acknowledge their benefits,” she said. “O thou, whom we worship as Diana Triformis, accept the offering I bring thee now - a libation not unworthy of thee.” And lifting upwards her calm eyes, Erotion poured on the floor of the dungeon a few drops from the goblet; then putting it to her lips she drained it to the dregs.
“My father, my father,” she cried, throwing herself on the breast of Tisamenes, as the guard of Thoas entered. “The will of Diana is accomplished; thou art indeed saved!”
Chapter VI
Beneath the silence of the midnight moon, a boat put off from the shore of Taurica. In it were only an old man and a girl, Tisamenes of Crete and his daughter. The little vessel had scarcely spread its hoary wings, when a dark figure sprang from behind a rock, and plunging into the sea, pursued the boat. Soon from the waves that revelled around its prow, rose the head of Alcinous; his golden locks dripping with brine, and his eyes eagerly fixed where Erotion sat, silent and calm, by her father’s side. Tisamenes drew the youth into the boat.
The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy Page 19