And my lips praise Thy wisdom infinite.
Thou tak’st my child — I bless Thee though Thou smite.
THEOGNIS.
Thy vow was rash, thy zeal had made thee blind.
But thou hast faith, and shalt salvation find.
To the East turn we the dead woman’s face.
HIPPIAS.
Hold! she is mine. I bear her from this place.
With her I fly before this ruin hurled;
Beauty and love have perished from the world.
Since all the earth is subject to strong Death,
I will seek light and life where none draws breath;
Fell the great pines and lay the woodland oak
That on one pyre our souls go up in smoke.
That we whom, while we meet the bright flame’s face,
The steadfast earth-flax nets in one embrace,
May flee on fiery wings these drear abodes,
And seek the bosom of the distant gods.
HIPPIAS of Thera,
Son of LAKON.
Passer, be glad. Sacred this earth laid even
On one who served the gods his twenty years.
Two Loves are on this rough-hewn column graven:
One takes from men the light the one has given,
But both are fair and both smile on our tears.
DAPHNE,
Daughter of HERMAS.
The Christian Daphne, by the times undone
Tastes in eternity, for her begun,
The joys of Jesus in the heavenly dawn.
Honey from bitter wormwood hath she drawn.
Her mortal part, to be reborn all pure,
Was laid by Christian kinsmen in this place.
If one profane disturb her sepulture,
May he perish, last of his race.
NOTE
IN the days of the first Cæsars a kind of delirium troubled all minds. Through the confused union of a tripartite world at once Roman, Hellenic, and Barbarian, the great roads opened by the legionaries gave passage to every sort of folly. There was free exchange of superstitions. Rome had long since picked up the morbid cults of the East. Prodigies from India, Thessalian enchantments, marvels of Africa, that fecund mother of monsters, and the Italiote practices of neo-pythagorism, were merged and confounded. From this was thrown off a curious haze which, spreading over the world, hid or mis-shaped all nature. The better minds were still ruled by a measure of education and knowledge. But a varied acquaintance and a subtle intelligence served them but to imagine wonders and multiply superstitions. Long voyages were willingly undertaken by the curious-minded. The roads were safe. A Roman citizen found sheltering institutions and well-disposed authorities in every town. Hosts to whom he had recommendation provided shelter and hearth according to ancient custom, whose exercise he facilitated by providing food for himself. On his way he visited ancient temples and sacred places, and let himself be initiated in the mysteries. Nothing less secret than such mysteries, nothing more fashionable than such initiation. And on very side rose wonders, oracles, and magic doings for willing ears and staring eyes. Sophists and rhetoricians, heard with avidity, contributed to the frenzy of men’s minds. Their every discourse, as was said of those of Dion, spread abroad a perfume as from a temple. Phlegon the Trallian was a child of his age. Born in Lydia, that home of mixed races and diverse customs, an educated slave and freed man of the Emperor, the Empire, in its entirety, was his fatherland. He wrote, as it happened, a description of Sicily. He was made historiographer to the Emperor Hadrian, and certainly was annalist to a Cæsar of inquiring mind. He compiled for a society mad on marvels and for a prince who was an astrologer, a book of marvellous things. These things were believed all the more willingly since they were utterly absurd. We have some remains of it, and notably a letter from a procurator to some official of the imperial aula. It is not hard to see that this letter is apocryphal. The first centuries of the Christian era abounded in pretended accounts. Forgers made Enoch speak, or Hermes. There was no criticism, and no suspicion. People wished to believe, and they believed.
Here is the letter which, so far as I know, has not before been translated into French. The beginning is lacking. One may, with Xylander, restore its substance in some manner.
Philinnion, daughter of Demostratos and of Kharito, though dead, secretly joins a guest of the family, Makhates. The nurse surprises them.
... She opens the door, enters the guest-room, and sees, by the light of her lamp, the young girl seated by Makhates. Unable to contain herself at this prodigious apparition, she runs to the mother, calls her with loud cries and presses Kharito and Demostratos to rise and follow her and see their daughter. She has seen her, alive, and, at the will of some god, seated with the guest in the entertainment room. Kharito, when she heard this incredible account, was at first overcome by the gravity of the news and by the nurse’s agitation, and was on the point of swooning. Then, the memory of her daughter supervening, she wept. Anyhow, she said that the nurse must be out of her mind, and bade her go away. But the nurse reproached her with losing, through such heedlessness, the chance of seeing her child. “For,” said the old servant, “I am not mad nor have I lost my wits.” At length Kharito, in spite of herself, half influenced by the nurse’s insistence, half by curiosity to know what truth there was in all this, came to the door of the guest-chamber. But some time had elapsed since the nurse had given warning, and those two who had been overseen were sleeping in the shadow. The mother, gazing earnestly, thought to recognize the dress and the outline of the face. As she had no means of verifying what she saw she went back to bed: she counted on rising early and surprising her daughter, or, if too late, on learning all from Makhates, who could never lie when asked about such a matter. She retired, then, without saying anything. At the first light of day the young girl, whether at the beckoning of some god, or by chance, withdrew, and disappointed her mother. The latter came and was chagrined not to find her. Thereupon she told all she knew to the young man, her guest. She embraced the knees of Makhates, she adjured him to conceal nothing and not to distort the truth. He, touched, and anxious of heart, could scarcely speak.
“’Tis she, ’tis Philinnion,” he said. And recounted how the union came about and the desires of the young girl who had said to him:— “I hide from my parents in order to come to you.” And that they might not doubt his words he opened a coffer and drew from it what she had left behind: a gold ring which he had had of her, and a strip of stuff that she had forgotten to knot round her bosom on the preceding night. Kharito, seeing these manifest signs, gave a loud cry, tore her garments, snatched the bands from her head, flung herself on the ground, and for the second time fell into great lamentation. Seeing everyone in the house in great grief and weeping, as though they must shortly bury Kharito, the guest, disturbed, set himself to console the mother, begged her to cease her laments, and promised to show her her daughter did she return. Kharito, moved by these words, was instant with him to be prompt in his promise, and returned to her dwelling. When night fell and the hour approached when Philinnion was used to come to the man she loved, all awaited her advent. She came. When she entered the chamber at the accustomed hour and when she was seated on the couch Makhates showed no surprise. He had no thought that he was consorting with a dead woman. The child had care to come to him at the time fixed; she ate and drank with him. He put no faith in what had been told to him. He supposed that someone among those whose business it was to bury the dead had taken from the sepulchre of Philinnion her garments and gold ornaments and had sold them to the father of the unknown girl who visited him. He sent a slave to summon Demostratos and Kharito. They came; they saw Philinnion. For the moment they stood dumb, overwhelmed, thunderstruck by such a prodigious sight. Then with loud outcry they embraced their daughter. Whereupon Philinnion said to them: “O father and mother mine, how unjustly do you grudge me the three days I may pass with this guest under the paternal roof, without undoing! Ye will weep afresh
on account of your curiosity. As for me, I return to the habitation assigned me.
It was not without the divine will that I came hither.” She spoke and fell dead. Her body reposed visibly on the bed. The father and mother embraced her. There was great tumult and lamentation throughout the household at a spectacle so terrible and irreparable, at so incredible a happening. The rumour of it spread quickly through the town and reached me. The same night I held back the crowd which flocked to the house, for I feared lest something extraordinary might be attempted on the making public of such tidings. That day the scene of events was crowded with the curious. When individual evidence had been taken of all the circumstances we agreed to go first of all to the tomb to satisfy ourselves if the corpse were in the coffin or whether it stood empty. When we had opened the vault where lay all the dead of this family we saw the other bodies stretched on their couch and the bones of those who had died long since. On the bed where Philinnion had been laid in her winding-sheet we found the guest’s iron ring and the golden cup she had received on the first day from Makhates.
Surprised, surprised even to stupor, we went straightway to Demostratos and into the guest-chamber to see whether the body of the young girl were really there. Having seen it, stretched on the ground, we returned to the Assembly, for what had come about was a great and incredible thing. The Assembly being in a tumult, and as it was almost impossible to get anything done, Hyttos, who passes with us not only for an excellent divinator but also for a great augur, and who has deeply studied everything concerning the art of divination, rose and ordered that the corpse of the young girl should be inhumed outside the precincts (far from burying her a second time in the midst of us). He ordered that Hermes of the underworld and the Erinnys be appeased. He prescribed purification for each and all, that the sacred vessels be laved with lustral water and sacrifice offered to the gods of the dead. He particularly laid upon me that I sacrificed to the Emperor, to the Republic, to Hermes, to Zeus the Harbourer, and to Ares, and to do all with rigour. Thus he said, and we did what he ordained. Makhates, the guest whom the spectre had visited, killed himself in grief. In addition to this, if you decide that the Emperor must be made acquainted with this affair, let me know by letter. I could even send some witnesses who were spectators of all this. Farewell.
The author of this recital wished it to be believed to the letter, and he omits no circumstance which could give authenticity to the character of his tale. To be beforehand with the suspicious, he shows that he was himself of their number. And, in spite of the minute exactitude of the narrator, we are touched by something vague and deep-reaching in his tale. There is a beauty which escapes him in what he recounts. He sets out to describe a fact: he lets us perceive a symbol. The young girl, dead but amorous, somehow betrays her Christianity. The Nazarene has touched her youth. Goethe, whose genius lighted everything he looked into, illuminated the dark places of the Trallian. He made us see in these lovers, separated by their parents and re-united by some mysterious force, victims of the battle of the gods which shook the world from Nero’s day to Constantine. He wrote Die Braut von Korinth.
I, in my turn, have taken up again and developed this old tale, for I have met nothing which better paints the decline of the gods of antiquity and the dawn of Christianity in a corner of Greece.
THE CHILD SOUL
(Ames obscures)
UNCHANGING Nature’s every trait
Is marvel to the children, and
Their dim souls’ unbidden way
Breaks into wonderland.
The shining of its magic dawn
Is caught and given in their glance;
Their every sense, by beauty drawn,
Trembles to utterance.
The Unknown assumes them, the Unknown,
Deep waters of the abyss!
In vain you ask, insist — they own
Another world than this.
Their limpid eyes, those grave wide eyes,
Fill with the dreams they hold.
O children, out of Paradise,
Lost in this world so old!
The lightly carried head and rapt
Knows, not our mental strife,
But, thrill on thrill, and overlapt,
The freshening waves of Life.
LIGHT
(A La Lumière)
FROM out the starry swarm’s uncertain sheen
Thou, the first-born, as of right,
Nurse of the flowers and of all fruits, O Light,
White Mother of things seen
Down comest from the sun, ‘cross softest bars
Of aery vapour floating, still;
Life stirs and wakes, and smiles to thy clear thrill,
O daughter of the stars!
Hail! For ere Thee were neither things nor days.
Hail! Sweetness and all might!
Hail! Candid guide and giver of my sight,
And keeper of my ways!
From Thee is colour, and all form divine,
Thou shapest all we love;
From Thee the glint on snow-peaks far above, —
The valley’s flushed decline.
Under blue skies thy jewelled birds rejoice
In perfumes and in dews,
A grace on all things falls where fall thy hues,
On all things of thy choice.
Joyous is morning for thy dear caress,
The night thou leavest sweet
To woodland shadows, where in soft retreat
Our lovers meet and press.
The deep sea’s living blooms look up to heaven,
Her sirens break in gold.
Thy rays entangled in the rain-drop’s hold,
Lend it the colours seven.
Thou lendest Woman all thy glorious guise,
Light, ’tis Thou mak’st her fair!
And ever new the joy thy bounties spare
From out her radiant eyes.
Her very ear shall make Thee throne to climb,
And dazzle in a gem.
Where’er Thou shinest Thee will I acclaim,
Virgin as at the prime.
Be Thou my strength, O Light, may my thought be
Lucid and fair as Thou.
Thy grace and peace direct its forward flow,
Still rhythmical with Thee.
Grant me to see until my days be told,
Steeped in all joy and calm,
Beauty move queen-like over scattered palm,
Crowned with Thy virgin gold.
When Nature to her breast resume what is,
And shape her future dream,
Suffuse again, oh, lave with torrent stream,
My metamorphosis!
THE DANCE OF DEATH
(La Danse des Morts)
IN days of faith — when faith began to age —
The Dance of Death was oftentimes set out
Upon the charnel wall, or missal-page.
I think its edifying tale devout
Let in a little hope on deep despair;
That poor folk had as little fear as doubt.
Not that they looked to death to ease their care —
The devil grabs them once beneath the soil;
Hence from grey grief to utter dark they fare —
But that the master-painter, whose grave toil
Limned them this image, praying, on his knees,
Was monk, and breathed his peace on earthly broil.
Beneath the dancers’ feet Hell’s-mouth one sees,
Rattle of bones and live souls o’er the pit:
Grim: — but our Nothing did not menace these.
Sulphur enough — one gets the smell of it: —
And piteous to see abysmal darkness ope
For the poor suffering soul whose flesh is lit.
Yet in this pictured story’s ample scope
Speaks God’s communion with each human soul;
One is aware of faith, and love, and hope.
Here is the mourning love
that can console;
Sad are these dying, but make no complaint;
Death leads the flock nor uses hard control.
None breaks the ranks, they go with self-constraint,
They catch a wail of music, coaxing, thin,
Marking their step, moving with dolour faint.
Death goes before and plucks a mandolin,
And, wooer-like, that no man may him heed,
Hides his bowed ivory sconce his hat within.
Or, of his tribe, one holds a rustic reed
Against his white teeth grinning to the gaze,
Or strikes with bony hand the tabor’s brede.
A female death of unaffected traits
Wakens the keyboard to her bony touch,
Even as St. Cecily, throned in a haze.
Their low-toned orchestra is scarcely such
As plays live men to church: it’s quick’ning sound
Satan were wrong to envy overmuch.
For here, mark you, God’s world may still be found,
Here Pope and Emperor still hold their sway,
And all the people led in peace profound.
Great lords believe even as labourers may,
In all that David or the Sibyl sung;
Their way is straight: — and horror lights the way.
But the Maid starts, and when, with arm loose-hung,
Her waist the Spectre circles, lover-wise,
Wakes to the touch her body fair and young.
Drooping her gaze before those hollow eyes,
Her wedding hymn she murmurs, closely prest,
For she is vowed to Bridegroom of the skies.
A marvellous dame rewards the Knightly quest.
Hangs on her open ribs, as on a grill,
A scrap of skin that once was woman’s breast.
But he has vision of a woodland still,
His duchess riding in the month of May,
Whom he will see again: — God grant he will!
The Page, his youth’s fair flower sere and grey,
Dances his road to Hell with steadfast mien.
Full well he knows his soul is damned alway.
The sightless Pedlar’s steps had clumsy been,
But that Death, stepping soft with sober face,
Cuts the dog’s cord with gentle hand unseen.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 407