"Art thou not so now?" said the child.
Again that mournful look rested on the face of the spirit.
"I sinned - I broke the solemn vows of a priestess for earthly love - I carried a deceitful heart to the holy shrine; yet I paid in death a fearful atonement - more fearful still was the thought of thee. Cruel was the mercy that delayed the punishment until thy birth, to make it only more bitter. But ere death came, I met it with a calm and penitent heart, and it wafted me to rest and peace. Here I await thee - and one more. The day is now come."
"Not yet, not yet!" uttered the mysterious voice, and Erotion felt herself borne away as on the wings of a summer breeze into a lovely glade. There spirits, diviner and more beautiful in shape than any she had yet beheld, were floating over the grass, or listening to ethereal music. They were crowned with stars, and bore golden palm-branches, and their brightness was such, that the child veiled her eyes from the sight. But they came near and lifted her in their dazzling arms, while their song rose loud and triumphant-
"We are blessed, we are blessed! we died joyfully for what was dearest to us on earth; we feared not the lonely shore nor the gloomy sea, and we enjoy a rapturous immortality. 0 spirit! loosed from the earth bonds for a time, behold thy destiny - thou shalt be one of us - rejoice, rejoice! Such a death is sweet - sweet as a babe's slumber - such an immortality is unspeakably glorious. Erotion, fulfil thy destiny, and come to us."
The child seemed to fall from that divine embrace, down, down through mists and darkness unfathomable - time and space, myriads of ages, and millions of leagues appeared to gather behind her, until some soft touch was laid upon her eyes and lips, and Erotion awoke from her trance.
She lay on the floor of the sanctuary; the sacred lamp was nearly extinguished, and the gray morning twilight rested on the veiled statue of Diana Taurica, which stood immovable in its white shroud.
Chapter III
Never more after that night did the vowed one of Diana look or speak as a child. Erotion was not sad, but none ever heard from her lips the light-hearted laughter of girlhood. Her eyes were of a dreamy depth, and had a strange, mysterious look, as if her soul saw without the aid of mere bodily organs. She walked through the world as though she beheld it not; shut up in herself, her outward life seemed mechanical, while her inner mind was ever brooding over things beyond earth. Men looked upon her as one on whom the spirit of the goddess had fallen; the few words which dropped from her lips were held as oracles; no eye followed her - no power controlled her. Wrapped in her priestess' veil, the young maiden passed from the temple to the city, from the city to the sylvan forest, or the lone sea-shore, and no one stayed her. She passed, like a spirit of purity and beauty; wild, untutored men looked and turned aside in reverence, as if Diana herself were among them; children beheld with wonder one who was like themselves, and yet so unlike. But one and all regarded Erotion as the chosen of the goddess.
As months and years gathered over the head of the maiden, the strange spell which had overshadowed her childhood seemed to grow stronger. Even the vowed novices thought of their own beauty in girlish vanity, and talked of the world outside the temple walls; but no such feelings ever disturbed Erotion's unworldly nature. Beautiful she was, but it was the beauty of an angel, not of a woman; no eye could look upon her and mingle her idea with that of earthly love.
In the long summer days, Erotion went out in the forest; there, in the deepest glades, she wandered alone. Sometimes children who were suffered to run wild in the woods, came home and told of a strange and lovely face which they had seen gleaming through the trees, and mothers remembered that it was a place haunted by Dryad and Oread, and thought it no marvel that such should love to look upon beauteous infancy. Often, too, the wayfaring peasant heard, above the melody of hidden waters, a sweet and mysterious voice, and said it was the Naiad singing beside her fountain.
But more than the green plains and the woody recesses, did the young priestess love the sea-shore. A spell for which she could not account drew her ever to the margin of that dark sea, now called the Euxine, on whose shore the city stood. Its gloomy billows, its wild coast, its frowning rocks, had for her an inexplicable charm; it might be that they recalled the memory of her wondrous dream in the temple, if dream indeed it were, which seemed so real. In the splendour of noon, in the dusky eve, in storm and in calm, Erotion haunted the shore and watched the sea. Mariners from afar saw her white garments floating on high cliffs and in sand-bound caves, which hitherto only the seabird had visited, and told strange tales of ocean nymphs and coral-crowned Nereids.
In this solitude, Erotion pondered on her destiny; the winds and ever-murmuring waves were her teachers and companions; they seemed to speak to her as the invisible voice had done in her dream, of things great and wonderful - of the marvels of nature - of the life of the soul - of poetry, genius, and all-pervading love. Often she thoug1t of her own strange and lonely life - of her mysterious birth, and again she felt the embrace of the spirit who had called her "child," and whose mystic words she had heard in the vision. Then Erotion's thoughts turned from the dark and unexplained past to the future, still more vague and shadowy; and amidst all these musings came pealing the farewell chant which she had last heard in the land of immortality - "Erotion, Erotion, fulfil thy destiny, and come!"
It was on one of those evenings when the glories of the setting sun might truly bring to a Greek imagination the idea of Hyperion in his golden chariot, or of Tithonus the bridegroom sinking into the wavy arms of Thetis - that Erotion wandered along by the sea-shore. She watched the sun in his cloud-pavilion, and thought that an orb so glorious was a fit dwelling for a god. She remembered the legends of the priestesses concerning the elder race of gods - of Hyperion the Titan, whose throne was in the sun, and before whose giant beauty even that of the young Apollo grew dim; how that he and his brethren had been overthrown by a mightier power than even their own, and that Olympian Jove was now worshipped by mankind. And then came across the memory of the inspired maiden the words which she had listened to from the voice, that even these were shadows, and that the gods of Olympus were but personifications of the various powers of nature, or of holy sentiments, thus made tangible objects of worship for the darkened mind of man.
Absorbed in thoughts like these, Erotion saw not that black clouds had gathered over the fair evening sky, that the waves were rising, and the whirlwind was heard in the air. The sea-birds shrieked, and flew to the crevices of the rocks, against which dashed the billows thundering and heavily. Nearer came the tempest, bearing destruction on its wings, as if the powers of earth, heaven, and sea were at warfare, and were mingled together in deadly confusion. Through all this fearful contest went the maiden, her long black hair tossed by the winds, her garments torn, her feet bleeding, and leaving their red traces over the sand, until she came to a little cave she knew. She stood at its entrance, and the struggling moonbeam that glimmered through the edge of a black cloud, lighting up her form, made her seem like a wandering ghost by the side of the gloomy river of Tartarus.
As she stood and looked into the thick darkness of the cave, a man's voice, hoarse with terror, sounded from within-
"Iole! Iole! art though come to visit me? Has no tomb yet received thy clay, that thou must wander here as an avenging spirit? Iole! Iole! depart, and let me die!"
And the cry became a shriek of horror as Erotion drew nigh, and bent over the speaker - a gray-haired man, whose foreign garments, covered with sea-weed, and bruised limbs, bespoke him a shipwrecked stranger, driven thither by the storm.
"Fear me not," said the sweet voice of Erotion; "I am no spirit, but a woman, a priestess of the temple which is nigh here, the temple of Diana Taurica."
A cry such as only the wildest agony forces from man's lips, was uttered by the stranger -
"Diana Taurica - a priestess!" he shrieked. "Oh, ye gods, am I then here? It is no dream; thou art indeed lole. Tortured spirit, pardon! I knew not of thy vows! I knew not that t
o 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, 0 maiden - she stands and looks like thee - like thee; with her marble features, her dark floating hair, her mournful eyes. Off, offi 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 -
"0 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. 0 stranger! 0 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 cavernnook. 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 highpriestess 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 to 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. 0 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.
"0 King, 0 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 highpriestess of a rite as murderous as that to which she herself was once doomed? Hear, 0 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 fathers 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!"
The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: 19th Century (European Literary Fantasy Anthologies) Page 16
