Winged Pharaoh

by Joan Grant

  We do not carve a statue so that men should think there is breath in the stone nostrils, we do not carve each vein and muscle, or the texture of the skin; for the exact weaving of the body is unimportant. But our great sculptors are lively of spirit, and they can convey the spirit that inhabits the body of the man whose semblance they record in stone. Just as a reed reflects a reed in the water, so does the spirit of a sculptor reflect the spirit of the man he carves. And this quality of our art can be seen at its highest in the statue of the great Meniss, which is alight with his justice and his courage; and the wisdom and compassion of my father lives on in granite.

  In Minoas I saw statues carved with two kinds of vision. There were those that were but reflections of the body: each curve of muscle, the fold of the eyelids, and the fine cord of vein at wrist and elbow, were rendered as though the flesh had been turned to stone; yet they were like a lovely corpse that had forgotten the spirit that had once housed it. And there were those statues where the soul had been reflected by the soul of the sculptor; and looking upon them one could say: this man was greedy, and this man was over-fond of gold; this woman was sly, and that one riotous in love. Yet of none of them could one say: he had long thoughts, he had compassion, or, he was strong in spirit.

  And in their paintings there was this same lack of the significance of the spirit. At first, when I looked upon a frieze of dancing-girls it seemed that if I turned my eyes away from them, they would move and their thin draperies flutter in the wind. And then I found that they were but a shallow pretence of dancing-girls, they were not as real as the shadows of reality upon a wall. Their image could not conjure up the sound of pipes, nor could their garlands bring back the fleeting scent of flowers; they were but empty shells in whose swift bodies blood had never coursed. They had never loved or sorrowed: for their spirit was paint and their universe was stone.

  In Minoas they rejoice in the beauty of their bodies. Yet even in this they are different from the people of Kam: for to us a body is beautiful, not only for the shaping of the shell, but also because of the spirit that inhabits it. We put malachite upon our eyelids and wear fine linen as a man might build a beautiful pavilion as a background to the woman he loves. But here men love a body for itself alone, and it is as though they strewed herbs on the floor of an empty house, where dust would lie forever undisturbed by any living feet.

  Yet they are happy in their youth. And to try to explain our ways of thought to them were as if one tried to tell a newborn kitten, content to suckle in its mother’s warmth, of the things it would see when its eyes were opened.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Court of the Sacred Bulls

  We arrived at the Court of the Sacred Bulls two hours after noon, while the sun was still high and would throw no shadows to confuse the players.

  Neyah and I sat on either side of Kiodas on low-backed chairs painted in Minoan red and white. With us on the royal dais, which was opposite the gates through which the bulls were driven in, were members of our households.

  The court was oval in shape and surrounded by ten tiers of wide stone steps, on which the rest of the spectators were assembled. Some sat on cushions and some on folded cloaks of brilliant colours. Sellers of wine, and water-carriers, and girls with flat baskets of sugared cakes and fruit and sweetmeats, went among the people.

  As I looked at the crowd, who were gay as laughing children, I thought how different they were in the presence of their king from our people in the presence of Pharaoh. I saw a girl who held the stalk of a little bunch of grapes in her teeth as her lover tried to eat the fruit from her lips; and a man who was whispering to the girl beside him kissed her on the shoulder.

  In Kam, though we may wear transparent linen, our bodies are no more significant to us than our hands or feet. But here they think of their bodies not as a sword for their will, but as a vessel wherein pleasures for the senses are distilled. The girls’ breasts are smooth as cups of alabaster, cups that hold enamoured wine to fire the blood. Their dresses ding like the arms of lovers to their young thighs and rounded bellies; and their milk-white bodies, gentle as gazelles, hold leopard fierceness in their silken warmth. Their men are smoothly muscled as the men of Kam, yet it seems that they gained them, not in swinging mace, in driving chariots, or in throwing spears, but in the pursuit of their swift-footed loves, whose laughter led them through sun-dappled shade to eager conquest in a murmurous grove. In Kam our bodies are but the clothes we wear on our long journey, but here their bodies are the habiliments of joy. They can hear melody in that sculptured curve from breast to thigh, clear as the notes of the night-singing bird; they speak not wisdom, yet whisper a caress limpid as white flowers in the moon-scented dark; their hair can throw a net about love’s wings until they hold him captive in their arms; their feet know not the measured step of thought, yet they can dance their waking ecstasy; they walk in shadow, yet they are rose-crowned, and sleeping birds un-wing their drowsy heads to join with them in their glad orisons.

  Why should their hearts long for a temple’s peace when they are crouched in honeysuckled bowers? Why should they dream of the Celestial Fields when golden jonquils spring about their feet and jasmin stars the night to make them wreaths? Sigh not for wisdom. You shall know its quiet when through your journey you are long in years. But while your Earth can be spanned by your arms, store memory of this honeyed happiness; gather it in the glory of your youth so that its golden sweetness may refresh your hearts when you are weary on your pilgrimage.…

  Kiodas broke in upon my thoughts and told me that to-day five girls and seven men were taking part in the contest. As he was speaking, a man came into the arena and read out the names of those who were to test their skill against the bulls.

  Then the wooden gates were thrown open, and through them entered the procession of the players, who, standing on litters, which the bearers held shoulder high, were carried round the arena, to the cheering of the spectators. Both men and girl were naked except for protective padding, covered in gold, between their loins; and their bodies were oiled and shone like ivory. The girls’ hair was cut short like the men’s and covered their heads in tight curls. In front of the royal dais the players sprang from their litters and each threw a flower to Kiodas.

  The three who were to take part in the first contest, a man and two girls, walked forward and took up their positions in the centre of the court. Then to a blast of trumpets the doors opened and a magnificant black bull came charging in. His forward curving horns were gilded, and round his neck was a garland of crimson flowers. Suddenly he shot out his forefeet and checked himself, bellowing with anger. One of the girls walked forward towards him. The bull charged her. As he lowered his head to attack, she seized a horn in each hand and vaulted over his head and landed, running, behind him.

  The bull was bewildered. Then he saw the man to the right of him and charged again. This time the man somersaulted and stood upright for a moment on the bull’s back before jumping to safety. The crowd cheered and shouted with excitement. As the bull galloped across the arena, the other girl seized it by the tail; and as it turned on her she vaulted across its back. This feat was loudly acclaimed, and Kiodas said to me, “None other in the land could have done that!”

  While two cows were driven in to lead the bull out of the arena, the three victors came before Kiodas, and he crowned them with crimson roses; for they had vanquished the Bull of Roses. Kiodas told me that as this bull had been conquered by man, it was no longer worthy to be a sacred bull, and it would be taken to the pastures where the sacrificial animals were kept until such time as they were needed.

  The next bull was white, garlanded with violets. He charged more slowly than the first one, and the players, who were all girls, somersaulted between his horns. When the cows led him out and the girls came to be crowned, Kiodas told one of them to stay with us. She was the daughter of one of his sailing-masters. Her body was as supply-muscled as a young boy’s, and she had a long scar across her thigh. W
hen I told her of my admiration for her skill, she laughed and pointed at the scar and said, “I sometimes make mistakes; I was lucky to be able to make more than one.” I wondered whether she was ever frightened, or whether her thoughts must be kept too tightly leashed in concentration on her perfect rhythm for her to have time for thoughts of fear.

  And as I talked to her, I was reminded of the red-brown people of the Land of Waterfalls. Here, in the bull court of Minoas, courage is tempered to an even finer edge. In our land we are taught that when danger bars the path along which we should travel, it must be challenged and overthrown; but here they search for danger like a hunter searching for his quarry through the tall reeds. This girl lives among a people who believe that their bodies are their true selves, and that their youth has but one flowering. Yet she is not afraid to dare her little span of youth against those sweeping horns that seek to end her strength, these pounding hooves in which she must hear the echo of death’s voice.

  The next bull was black and garlanded with marigolds, like the wreaths of its victors. And the one that followed it, which was the last, was red and white, and so belonged to Kiodas, as did every calf of this colour born in his kingdom. It was in a royal rage as it thundered across the arena, but two of the players vaulted safely between its horns. Before the last man challenged it, he called out something I could not understand; Kiodas told me he had declared that he would try the hardest feat of all, in which the player twists in the air as he somersaults between the horns, and lands astride the bull, facing its head.

  As the bull charged, everyone was silent; the court might have been empty but for the pounding of its hooves. The player vaulted in a somersault, higher than any of the others had done; and as his body twisted in the air, the bull checked, and he landed, not on its back, but on the point of its horn. Dagger sharp, it split open his belly like an over-ripe fig; and before anyone could run to his aid, the bull had gored and stamped him to a pulp.

  I found the moods of these people bewildering, for instead of the lamentation that I expected from the crowd, there was a wild outburst of acclamation for the bull. Flowers were rained down upon it, and as the cows enticed it out of the arena, the people shouted in an ecstasy of excitement. A cloak was thrown over the dead man, and I put my hand on the shoulder of the girl sitting at my feet. It must have been unnerving for her to see her companion killed, knowing that many times she would dare this death; but her face mirrored nothing of her heart.

  Kiodas was delighted. He said to me, “See, the gods have taken unto themselves my bull. We shall have a rich harvest. None other than Zeus could have vanquished the greatest athlete in the land.” And when I asked him if he were not sorrowful that such a man should have been killed, he said, “He was magnificent. It must indeed have been Zeus himself who conquered him. This bull, which the god has honoured by incarnating into it, even though for a moment, shall live in the precincts of the temple. Twenty virgins shall wait upon him and bring his food, and strew his stall knee-deep in sweet hay and flowers. He shall have a pasture and as many cows as even he can serve. As he is a royal bull, the temple must give me half of all the tribute he receives. People who bring their cows to him must pay five jars of oil or eight of wine, or the like value, for every cow he serves. And the droppings of such a bull are a strong magic against ills of the throat, and they are worth their weight in silver. In confidence, I think the priests increase their revenues by mingling the droppings of lesser beasts with what they barter; but the people do not suspect this, and some of them will even give a fine pearl for enough to plaster the chest of a sick child.”

  As we left the Court of the Sacred Bulls, I thought again of the man whose body lay under the cloak in the empty arena. And my heart echoed to a chord of memory, and I remembered that I had seen him in the Hall of Records while I was proving my wings. Then he had been told to seek for courage in the Court of Bulls, and now he had found her and become her son.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Temple Ritual of Minoas

  In the temples of Kam all days are equal, and there is no day more important than another on which to seek counsel of the priests. To think of wisdom only on a day apart is as if a man should thirst for six days and drink water from the river by his door only upon the seventh. In Kam, one day in seven a man does not labour, and fishermen leave their nets and walk in the bean-fields, and the oxen stand idle while the ploughman drinks his beer; for it is well that all should have a time for sleeping in the shade.

  If a man would think long thoughts, he can think them whether his hands are working or whether he but stirs the air of a hot noon with a fan to cool his rest. Yet to the people of Minoas the Gods are not the breath of their nostrils, but are kept separate from their ordinary lives. Only on days set apart, when vintagers pick no grapes and the ships sleep at anchor, do these people go to the temple. Yet even this is not a thing of their hearts, but it is a ceremonial which they perform.

  Upon such a day Neyah and I went with Kiodas to the Temple of Praxitlares. It stood on a wide terrace on the mountainside. There was no forecourt, but a long flight of steps led up to the portico, whose fluted pillars were painted a soft rose colour: and it was as though the temple were carved from dusky coral. Inside, it was like a great hall of audience, lit from above through hidden windows in the roof; the walls were painted to look like archways, and through them one could see a frieze of sacred bulls, and girls and youths playing on reed pipes. On a massive stone altar was a statue of Zeus, God of Thunder. In his right hand was a sword, and in the other, upraised above his head, he held rods of lightning. Facing the statue were the two royal thrones, high-backed and gilded and elaborately carved; upon each side of them had been placed another for Neyah and me. Behind us were the Minoan nobles in degree of rank, and the rest of the hall was packed with a dense crowd, some standing, some sitting on wooden benches.

  When we were seated, the high-priest entered through a curtained doorway from behind a statue. His robe of purple silk, thrown over one shoulder and leaving the other bare, reached to the ground in heavy sculptured folds. Boys in sleeved tunics of brilliant green followed him, swinging copper incense-burners of aromatic leaves. Then came two girls carrying a double-handled dish, on which lay a freshly slaughtered kid. The blood was still dripping from its throat as they placed it before the altar. Then the high-priest began to speak his ritual prayers.

  I could understand little of what he said, and I found his voice bemusing to clear thought and drowsy as bees on a hot summer’s day. Time seemed as slow as a snail’s track on a path. I wondered if they thought Zeus found pleasure in this prolonged and monotonous appeal, if in his murmurous words the high-priest could send a call towards the stars, or if his message died with the echoes in this room.

  Then there was a stirring rustle from all the people, who must have become as somnolent as I; it sounded like an oryx running through dry reeds. I realized why interest had returned to them when, to the music of cymbals and the high clear notes of a flute, twelve dancing-girls came through the curtained doorway. They carried bows, and quivers of arrows hung at their girdles; on their heads they wore a silver sickle moon, and their thin tunics, the colour of the night sky, were caught about their breasts with silver cords. Artemiodes whispered to me that they were the hand-maidens of the Moon-goddess, and they had come to woo Zeus so that he should not challenge her rulership of the night sky with his thunder clouds. The girls danced in supplication before the statue, their arms fluid as moonlight on rippling water. The piping grew more shrill; and they feigned terror of the wrath of the Thunder-god, as the clashing of cymbals, the music of Zeus, heralded the storm. Then, to show that they had won his gentleness, the cymbals were muted, till they were like the murmur of the long waves that follow a storm.

  After this the dancers and the acolytes burst into a song of praise, in which they promised Zeus that if he should keep his lightning leashed within his hands and let the almond groves be heavy with fruit, the oil jars would
be filled and a thousand lamps burn in his honour; and if the vineyards were fruitful, the wine-vats would overflow and all the people should drink to his name.

  It was so like a spectacle at a banquet that I almost told Artemiodes how much I admired the dancers and singers that she had got for our amusement, before I remembered that I was watching a ritual ceremony in a temple. It is not in the nature of these people to look on dancing-girls unmoved, yet they were as grave as the people of the Two Lands when they listen to the Reading of the Laws. In Kam a temple is a place where will is sharpened and thought made clear. But here the mind is dulled with ritual, so that the hearers sway on the verge of sleep, and then the senses are delighted.

  On the altar stood a bowl of fine glazed pottery, painted with temple scenes in black and red. It was filled with oil, which came from an almond tree that had been struck by lightning, yet had not died, but had lived on as two trees. With this oil the high-priest anointed the King and Queen on the forehead, breast, and eyes; and he anointed Neyah and me also—after we had assented. It pleased him that we joined in his ritual. He did not know that in Kam we hold the gods of other countries in respect, unless they be of the train of Set. There is but one truth and one great brotherhood; and all gods, if they be true gods, must be of that company, in whatever form the people of Earth may picture them. And even if that which is called a god is but a statue having no spirit in the universe, still would it be against our teaching to treat that little, which is the furthest such people can attain, without courtesy.