The God Beneath the Sea

by Leon Garfield

  ‘Beware of gods bearing gifts,’ muttered his great brother whom he never understood.

  Epimetheus looked uncertain. Hermes stretched out his staff. ‘Come,’ he called. ‘Pandora!’

  She came from behind the trees in the cloudy gown of Hera. She walked with graceful yet uncertain steps. Her eyes were downcast – though from time to time they glimmered with a curious sideways glance that lingered in Epimetheus’ heart

  ‘Here is your new gift, Epimetheus. Pandora – gift of the Olympian gods.’

  Epimetheus was entranced. Never had their orchard seen a richer fruit.

  ‘Beware, brother—’

  ‘Lord Prometheus, this is no concern of yours.’ Hermes spoke calmly, but there was an edge to his voice. Then he laughed disarmingly. ‘Epimetheus – your deep brother is too anxious. He mistrusts good fortune. Between you and me, I suspect a little envy. And who could blame him? See—’

  He touched the trembling Pandora with his staff, laying its appled tip on her breast. She smiled timidly. ‘She bears the gifts of us all.’

  ‘She is the gift of Zeus, brother. Old Cronus once had such a gift. Do you remember a cup of honeyed drink—?’

  Epimetheus hesitated; gazed uneasily from brother to the god. He avoided Pandora’s eyes. He thanked Olympus, but begged time to consider . . .

  Prometheus smiled triumphantly.

  ‘Do you refuse me, Epimetheus?’ Pandora’s voice was low . . . even pleading. The gentle Titan glanced at her. Modestly she cast her eyes down to Aphrodite’s kindling girdle. Epimetheus felt desire rise like the all-covering sea.

  Then briefly Pandora lifted her eyes and stared at Prometheus. Her look was still gentle and partly timid. She seemed to be bewildered and curious as to why this mighty being should bid his brother send her away. What had she done? Why did he stare at her as if to pierce her through and through? Why did his great brows furrow till his eyes were no more than pools of troubled shadow? Was it only because she had come between brother and brother? Was it as the bright god had said – that this vast soul was stabbed with envy for his brother’s blessing?

  If so, then it was not of her doing . . .

  See – he was drawing Epimetheus aside, talking with him—while the god who had brought her looked on with the strangest smile. What was to become of her, with all her beauty and gifts?

  Why had the gods made her so?

  ‘Do not refuse me, Epimetheus,’ she pleaded; and such was her power that Epimetheus’ heart faltered within him. She promised him such joy and fierce delight that even the gods would envy him. Epimetheus’ eyes began to gleam. Whereupon the blessing of Hestia, momentarily conquering the passions of Aphrodite and Ares, prompted Pandora to speak of ease and sweet companionship, and the speaking silences of harmonious kinds . . .

  ‘Can there be danger in such a gift?’ asked simple Epimetheus of his brother.

  ‘Nor will their lives be fruitless, Lord Prometheus,’ murmured Hermes, drifting close and leaning towards the Titan’s ear. ‘Glorious Demeter has blessed her, too. Even as your well-tended trees bear fine fruit, so will Pandora bear children to your home. Mark my words, Prometheus, her children will inherit our immortal gifts—for the gods’ gifts do not die – and these children will mingle with mankind. Thus does my father mean well, Prometheus. He seeks to improve on your charming but fragile creation with some more durable qualities of the gods. Believe me, my friend—’

  Suddenly the Titan turned with terror on the murmuring god of lies. His eyes were wild – his vast comprehension tilted so that all ran down into the pit of dismay. He had divined dread Zeus’ purpose – and foreseen his own defeat. The creatures that he loved – the creatures who might have inherited the earth as neither gods nor Titans were permitted to do – were to be crippled before they had begun.

  Even as in Pandora the passions of the gods opposed each other, so they would in men. All aspiration would be lamed, all achievement warped as man eternally fought within himself a battle that could be neither lost nor won.

  The great Titan raised his eyes to Mount Olympus and cursed immortal Zeus.

  He lifted up his voice and hurled his curses till they echoed in the far corners of the universe. Even in hateful Tartarus they were heard, like thin, high whispers over the ceaseless weeping and groaning of the Titans who were chained there.

  Close by the dreary Fields of Asphodel, there is a pool beside which grows a bone-white poplar tree. It is the pool of memory. Here strayed the solitary shade of the man who had died. Vainly it drank of the pool; but what memories could it recapture of a life so fleeting, save an aching glimpse of a garden by night?

  It heard Prometheus’ curses and shook its thin head. ‘Why? Why?’ it wailed – and flittered away into the lonely gloom.

  Grim Hades in his palace heard them – and nodded in expectation of his vast brother’s revenge.

  As in a dream, Prometheus saw Hermes flicker away; and with a last stab of anguish he saw his brother and Pandora retreat with frightened faces, and run from the orchard. Their hands had been clasped – and there was no undoing them now.

  Prometheus bowed his mighty head. He heard a rushing in the air. It was coming; and he was almost glad of it – the thunderbolt of Zeus!

  The trees blazed and, for an instant, their blackened branches reached up like imploring arms with fingers charred and flaming.

  A radiance that seared even the Titan’s ancient eyes stood in the ruined orchard like a fiery sword. Zeus in all his unendurable glory was come for his revenge.

  Far, far to the north, amid the freezing mountains of the Caucasus, there stood a tall, cold pillar. Chains of unburstable iron hung from its base and capital. Here the naked Titan was manacled by wrists and ankles, stretched so that he could scarcely twist his body or avert his head.

  He waited – then a shadow fell across his face. He rolled his eyes to see what had come between him and the pale, bitter sun.

  A vulture with hooked talons and greedy beak hung in the air. Its stony eyes met his. Then it swooped and the Titan writhed and screamed till the mountains cracked. His agony had begun. Again and again the hungry bird flew at him and tore at his undefended liver. When night came with biting frosts and whirling snow, the Titan’s wounds healed and he grew whole again. But when the cold sun rose, the self-same shadow fell across his face and the Titan waited for his agony to begin once more. Such was the punishment of Prometheus, maker of men.

  Epimetheus, the last of the Titans, wept for his mighty brother – whom he had never understood. In his great sadness Pandora comforted him, and little by little, Epimetheus began to think his brother had misjudged her. She was so quick to understand and minister to his every need. She never crossed nor questioned him; nor did she plead to enter his lost brother’s mysterious room. For Prometheus, in his last moments of liberty, had charged his brother most urgently never to enter it or disturb what was hidden there.

  Pandora nodded. Though she had not liked Prometheus, she was sensible of her husband’s affection and was anxious for him to feel that she was of a like mind. For a while it seemed that the gifts of Hestia and Athene were uppermost.

  Then, thanks to the rich soil of Attica, the black scars in the orchard healed over, and the reason for the great Titan’s fall faded from Pandora’s mind. More and more she came round to the view that the whole unlucky affair had blown up out of jealousy. Why else had her husband’s brother so taken against her?

  She gazed at her reflection in a pool. Certainly she was beautiful enough to stir envy in anyone. After all, the gods had made her. She sighed. It had been tragic; but jealousy was an evil passion and Prometheus had paid for it. She only hoped it would serve as a lesson.

  She stood up and thoughts of Prometheus slid into thoughts of the forbidden room. What was so particular about it? She suspected jealousy was at the root of it again. A jealous spirit is jealous in everything. Most likely the room was very handsome and Prometheus had forbidden it to her out of
spite. The more she thought of it, the more she was convinced. It irritated her like a crumb in her bed. Wherever she turned for comfort, there it was, scratching away. Agitatedly she left the garden and entered the house. She paced the hall, pausing each time before the closed door. It was ridiculous. She felt she couldn’t call her home her own. She laid her hand on the engraved bolt. Epimetheus would get over it. Naturally he’d be hurt at first and grieve for his brother again. But it would pass and then there’d be nothing to come between them. A shadow would have been removed . . .

  Pandora nodded. All in all, it would be for the best. She opened the door.

  As she’d suspected, the room was the best in the house. A little dark, perhaps, and certainly dusty . . . but the fig-tree and its polished branches gave it great character and atmosphere.

  She ran her finger along the wide bench that stretched from wall to wall. Idly she drew the shape of a baby in the dust. She smiled. The room would make a fine nursery . . .

  No sooner had she thought of it than she set to work. She swept and polished and transformed the shadowy room into a shining joy. She cleared out the cupboards of all old stone jars – but did not open them.

  Here she respected her husband’s wishes; besides, the jars seemed quite useless.

  Then, quite by chance, she came upon a smaller one, tucked underneath the bench. She held it up. It was a pretty jar. Cleaned out, it would hold jewels or perfume . . . She shook her head. No. She would defer to her husband’s wish, foolish as it was.

  Then she thought of Prometheus. How like him to keep such a jar for himself! What could he possibly want with it now? After all, it wasn’t as though she intended to open all the jars.

  She had her principles and would not have abandoned them for anything. She was perfectly certain that her husband would come to see it her way. He would admire her for leaving the other jars and so honouring his selfish brother’s memory.

  She shook the pretty little jar gently. There was something inside. She listened. It gave a dry rattling sound. She shrugged her shoulders. She’d put up with the sacred memory of Prometheus for long enough. She opened the jar.

  She screamed; she shrieked; she dropped the jar. Gentle Epimetheus came running to her cries.

  There seemed to be a cloud about Pandora: a whirling, malignant veil that glittered with ten thousand furious wings. They seemed to be insects of extraordinary venom and ferocity. They bit and stung and beat against his crouching wife; then they turned on him and he felt their wicked little spears in every part of his body. He cried out:

  ‘Prometheus, Prometheus! What have we done?’

  Far in the north a fiercer pain than the vulture’s beak stabbed at the chained Titan. From his icy place of punishment he saw what had befallen his children. His deep eyes filled with tears as a more terrible vulture tore at his heart.

  Nor did this phantom bird depart with its bloody brother when healing night came. High in the freezing mountains, striped with the purple glaciers of his blood, Prometheus wept. His labours and his fall had been in vain.

  The strange spots and scales he had imprisoned in the jar had been malignant indeed. Unhindered by the divine substance from which they’d been scraped, they had grown into hideous little furies. He had seen them fly out of his house in a wicked cloud to sting his helpless children. Madness, vice, old age and crippling sickness had been let out upon the world as a birthright for man.

  Prometheus raised his eyes and stared across the world’s night. His eyes met those of bitter Atlas; and these two giants who had opposed the gods looked long and deep at each other from their separate high prisons of pain.

  ‘Mankind,’ whispered great Prometheus, ‘forgive me; I have failed. Better that I never made you . . . for what is there left to you now?’

  Pandora gazed down at the shattered jar. It was past repairing. She felt awkward. Her husband, inflamed from the strange insects’ attacks, had looked at her reproachfully.

  So, as mildly as she was able, she remarked that Prometheus was to blame. He should never have kept such things in a jar. She bent down and began to gather the broken pieces. Suddenly she came upon a curious stone. She picked it up. It was not a stone. She looked at it carefully. It seemed to be a chrysalis . . .

  She shivered as she tried to throw it away before it hatched. But it stuck to her fingers.

  At last she scraped it off on a fragment of the jar. She rubbed her hands to rid herself of the gum-like substance the chrysalis had left. Her eyes brightened in surprise. The pain of the bites and stings seemed soothed. Eagerly she told Epimetheus. The chrysalis was a balm – a wondrous healing balm.

  Pandora was delighted. She smiled at her husband. Was it not a good thing after all that she’d opened the jar? As she’d always told him, everything turned out for the best.

  A sudden movement aloft distracted her. She looked up. A bird had been perched in the polished rafters, looking down with bright, inquisitive eyes. It flapped its wings and flew away. It had been a crane. She watched it through the casement as it flew with amazing speed towards the north. It pierced the colder air and crossed the mountains till at last it saw below it the pillar of Prometheus.

  ‘What is there left to mankind now?’ cried the despairing Titan as he saw the sideways-dropping god.

  ‘Hope,’ answered great Hermes. ‘For better or worse – for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis? – hope was left behind.’

  PART THREE

  GODS AND MEN

  ELEVEN

  WOLVES

  Unchanging Zeus looked down. The glimmering nymphs were harder now to find. The creatures of Prometheus seemed everywhere. Like mice, they filled the shady crannies of the earth. Neither the Fates nor the plagues, nor the loss of their great protector, had extinguished them. They built temples and the soft air was whiskered with the smoke of sacrifices.

  They pleased Demeter, who enriched their harvests; and Hestia, who blessed their hearths. All seemed set fair for a second Olympus to be raised on earth. Prometheus had not laboured in vain. He had made man in the image of the immortals – and the gods were flattered to see themselves so dearly imitated.

  So the lord of the sky laid aside his blinding fire and thunderbolts and left his palace in the clouds for Arcadia, where once the nymphs had lain thick on the ground. He came at nightfall, in the shape of a humble traveller . . .

  The pinewoods of Lycaeus were dark and full of fumbling shadows. High overhead, the black branches interlocked like giants’ fingers over the eye of the moon. But here and there her arrows silvered through and stuck quivering in the ground, their slanting shafts engraved with moss, ferns and misty bark. Unseen animals rustled and padded about their nightly business, briefly pausing as if alarmed by each other’s footfalls . . .

  Suddenly, a wind began to blow. Trembling, the animals fled and hid in their lairs as this strange wind came sweeping through the woods from the north. Even the arrows of the moon bent aside for it . . . Then it passed out of the trees where they gave way to what seemed to be a second forest made of marble.

  The palace of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, lay under the moon as proud and silver-white as a city of the gods. Courtyards and colonnaded walls surrounded it, and their shadows stretched like black dreams across a silver world. From time to time, these shadows jumped and divided as light from the palace leaped up . . . most likely when some log was thrown on the hearth or roasting fat had caught and flared. For there was a savoury smell of meat in the air, together with a noise of shouting and laughter.

  A servant, leaning against the pillared porch, muttered and hoped he’d be remembered before all the food was gone. He stared across the courtyards towards the pinewoods, idly counting the shadows.

  Suddenly, he stood upright. There was someone coming.

  The light from the palace flared again. The servant’s eyes narrowed. It was a stranger – a traveller by the look of him. He was walking impudently across the courtyard.

  ‘Be off wi
th you!’

  But the stranger did not seem to hear. He came on at a steady pace.

  Within the porch, chained to the pillars, were a pair of lean, grey dogs. Their savage, bloodshot eyes were turned towards the angry servant. It was for just such an occasion as this that they were kept – their natural ferocity increased by hunger and confinement.

  Eagerly the servant undid their chains. For a moment, the dogs seemed uncertain; then they snarled and padded towards the traveller. ‘Kill him! Kill—!’

  The servant stopped. The dogs had turned back. They were coming now towards him; and behind them, tall and relentless, came the traveller. His eyes were blazing.

  A sudden wind swept into the palace. It burst open doors so that guards and servants hastened to close them and slide the heavy bolts. It whipped the dust from the deep-wrought cornices and sent it whirling among the columns that stood like a grove of stony trees before the banqueting hall of King Lycaon. Then that great door burst open and the leaping lights and uproar of the feasting king, his sons and their laughing wives met the traveller’s eyes.

  Astonished, they turned to face the interruption. The traveller stared. What had become of the creatures of Prometheus? Their faces were netted with webs of skin and their eyes gleamed without fire. It was as if the divine heat within them had proved too fierce for the Promethean clay – and cracked it. Or was it that Time, the courteous servant of the gods, had become man’s arrogant overseer and marked him about the neck, eyes and brow with a hurrying whip?

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  Lycaon leaned back in his gold and ivory chair. He frowned menacingly at the stranger in the doorway. Though the fellow was tall and carried himself well, his attire was humble – an insult at Lycaon’s feast. His beard was golden and, in the dancing firelight, speckles of the same bright colour flickered in his deep, shadowed eyes.