by George Moore
So full was she of Rhesos’s cruel request for Ajax, not at some time but at once, that she could barely kiss Thrasillos. One little peck, and protestations flowed over her lips. No, Thrasillos, I cannot give up Ajax. We are friends. He is all I have now. Tell Rhesos that Ajax belongs to him, I do not deny it, but if he wants his wolf he must come to fetch him.
To nobody else will I give him. But, mother — I can talk of the matter no longer. When dost thou return? I came by ship, said Thrasillos, thinking to take Ajax back with me, but since I am to leave him behind I had better return to-day. A ship will loose this evening. Thou’lt come to see thy grandfather, she replied, and we’ll have a meal together and thou’lt tell me about Rhesos, what he is doing and what thou art doing, and the time will pass pleasantly. And Thrasillos having nothing to say against her projects, accompanied her to Otanes, and it was not till the day began to darken that they walked down to the wharf. I must go, mother, I must. Rhesos will be waiting for me at the Piræus. Rhesos is not everybody, she answered, but her words misgave her. Hear the crier, mother; I must go on board.... Something hath fallen out in the town, he called to her from the gangway. The people are shouting to each other. But pressed by a favourable wind the ship was already gliding from the wharf, and Biote returned wondering what had happened in Aulis to send people running hither and thither. For what end? she asked herself, and stopping by the laneway and choosing a passer-by whom she deemed likely to inform her, she asked him the cause of the commotion.
Cause there is enough for all men to open their ears and their eyes, he answered. Daridceus, the great seer, is in Aulis, lady; and she listened first to one and then to another, everybody wishing to tell the story. At last she understood that Daridceus had returned to Greece to discourse to his own people on that wisdom which inspires kindness of heart, the real aim of life, leaving the rites and observances to tradition, and she would have liked to hear more on this subject; but one of the crowd raised his voice, saying: Thou hast not yet told the lady that Daridceus left Olympia to visit the oracle of Trophonios. I haven’t yet come to that part of the story! he was answered. And whilst the townsfolk wrangled a man took Biote aside, and she learnt from him that on entering the temple of Trophonios at Lebadea, Daridoeus had said: I have in mind to go down into the sacred cave. His very words I am reporting, lady; but the priests were unwilling that a stranger should examine their cave, and reminded Daridoeus that only the wicked and impure came to consult the oracle. The people waited for Daridoeus to answer the priests, but as if he had not heard them he took his seat beneath the springs of Hercyne and talked of the rise of the oracle and of the manner of consulting it. Biote asked if the oracle was on a hill or in the plain, and a voice told her that it was on a hill within an enclosure of white stones, and that towards evening Daridœus had wrapped himself in his cloak and descended into the cave; and after wandering therein for seven days, saving himself from the reptiles by throwing them cakes made of honey, he appeared in Aulis. Had he come by ship, said Biote, I should have heard of it on the wharf, and had he come overland a message would have reached me; but coming from underground, through cracks in mother earth — Behold, he comes!
And the sight of a tall, thin man in white linen garments, very handsome, his hair falling over his shoulders in curls, coming up the street at the head of his disciples, imposed silence for a moment; and then a mutter began in the crowd that had gathered round Biote, and though she was not in the front rank Daridœus picked her out, and addressing her said that he was on his way to the wharves to take ship. The shipper is Otanes, she replied; I am his daughter and will lead thee to him. And promising the crowd that Daridœus would speak to them when Otanes had arranged what ship he should sail in, she led the seer and his disciples down the laneway, and Timotheus coming to meet them she bade him carry the news to Otanes that Daridœus, the great wanderer and philosopher, had come to Aulis and desired speech with him. Thou’lt enter our house? she said, turning to Daridœus, and including with a gesture his disciples, she led them into the hall and bade them be seated, adding: Otanes will not keep a philosopher waiting long. He is himself a philosopher, or shall I say one that is prone to philosophy. We shall enjoy each other’s company the more, replied the seer, there being always a bond of amity between the wise. We have come a long way, he continued, myself the longest, though it is hard to judge distances in the darkness of caverns. Thou hast heard of my journey, lady? I heard it from the townsfolk, she answered, but they speak without authority. Then I will tell it; but he had only half finished telling of the priests’ disgraceful behaviour and of the Gods’ displeasure, when Otanes came into the hall breathless, eager to tell Daridceus that if he had known of his arrival in Aulis he would have sent messengers to meet him.
Thy renown, illustrious seer, hath preceded thee, my ships bringing stories of great and stirring events prophesied by thee, of miracles achieved. Wisdom and philosophy, Otanes, descend from the skies, sweet balm, gifts from the Gods lest men should abandon themselves to the belief that all is riot and confusion on earth. And having given thy life to wisdom and philosophy, Daridoeus, thou canst indeed lay claim to communion with the Gods. But thou, Otanes, hast claim to philosophy. To some small part, mayhap, Otanes replied; none can claim much more. Had I been free, philosophy would have been my life’s business. Philosophy asks of a man his whole life, said Daridoeus, and feeling this to be so after my father’s death I let my brother take my share of the money to do with as he pleased, retaining only sufficient for me to seek philosophy all over the inhabited earth. Philosophy is not confined to one race, nor one people, nor one country; philosophy is the gift of the Gods to man, and whosoever hath learnt this much hath learnt that he must worship the Gods with his body as well as with his mind. And by dressing myself in linen, the simple produce of the earth and water, letting my hair grow, and refusing all animal food, I have cleansed my mind of many impurities and taken in many new provinces of the soul unknown to it before, including even foreknowledge of what is to be. Otanes bent his head, and laying his face in his hands he drew the seer’s attention to him. What is it that distresses thee, Otanes? That I should have lived so long without knowing thee, Otanes answered. My grandsons are in Athens learning to build temples and to carve statues, and my son-in-law is in the Euxine seeking new routes for trade. The house is large enough — wilt extend thy visit from a day to a week, from a week to a month, for as long as it pleases thee? Thy house is a worldly possession, Otanes, not comportable with my condition of life, and for this reason I prefer to live with some private individual whose fortune doth not exceed my own. But it is my business to offer my mind to all that need it, and providence and the Gods having directed me hither, my conversation is at thy service for this day at least. Of what we shall speak, whether of my travels or of the teaching of Pythagoras, I cannot say; mayhap I shall be prompted to speak on some other subject of which I am not yet conscious, for good talk is an inspiration of the moment — Daridoeus’s smooth periods stopped suddenly, checked by the savoury odour of a leg of mutton, and Otanes, guessing the misadventure, ordered the slaves to take it away at once and to replace the course with eggs cooked in many different ways. Until the hen hath been trodden by the cock, said Daridceus, the eggs she lays are without life and may be accepted as food; and he continued in this strain, seeing dried figs and grapes substituted for the different meats, and it was whilst crushing almonds under his teeth that he said that the weariness of travel and constant change were worth while for the pleasure of returning to one’s own country. The rugged, hollow coasts of Euboea have given me more pleasure than the cataracts of the Nile or the hanging gardens of Babylon, or the Ganges and Euphrates, and dearer even than the dear, rugged face of Greece is the pleasure of hearing and speaking our own language. Wherefore we may conclude that our Boeotian accent doth not jar thine ears, said Biote; yet our Athenian neighbours laugh at it. Only in their comedies, Daridceus replied. The Boeotians are not less Greek than the Atheni
ans, and Pindar, though the greatest, is not your only poet. I visited his house in Thebes a few weeks ago and shall not forget easily the reverential hour I spent in the garden recalling immemorial passages from the odes he wrote under its single hawthorn-tree. Wilt repeat them to us in the courtyard? Otanes asked, in the tone of one bent double before his illustrious guest. As much of them as I can recall, Daridoeus answered. But memory is rarely staunch and often treacherous; should mine halt, leaving me seeking a word or line, thou wilt remember that I have returned but lately from countries in which the name of Pindar is unknown.
As they moved across the courtyard screams were heard. Is there nobody to stop that woman’s mouth? Otanes cried, and he rang the gong impatiently, saying to Daridoeus: I am ringing for Timotheus, my head servant, and will give him such orders as will secure us against further interruptions. And they waited for Timotheus, who came bustling into the hall announcing that the screamer was not a woman but Bardanes, a eunuch. A eunuch? Daridoeus repeated, and always anxious to be instructed in the changes that trading with Oriental peoples had produced in Greece, he inquired if eunuchs had become common in Greece. More common lately than formerly, Otanes replied. The marts are filled with them, and they fetch higher prices than any other type of slave; our refusal to buy them would ensure their being sold for service in the galleys. Moreover, they make excellent servants. Is not that so, Timotheus? And Timotheus, acquiescing ruefully that they might sometimes be described as such, assured Otanes that his guest would not be disturbed in his discourse. But, father, cried Biote, we have not heard the cause of Bardanes’s screams. To learn it will profit us nothing, Biote, and the telling will delay —— For a few minutes, mayhap, she interjected, but our guest will forgive a woman’s curiosity. To make sure of hearing the story she reminded her father that she was mistress of the house, and having with the word mistress established her rule, she turned to Timotheus and bade him tell the cause of Bardanes’s screams. I often noticed, he replied, that Bardanes was attached to Daphne —— My own maid! Biote exclaimed.
And I warned him against this attachment, forbidding him to converse with her, to be alone with her, to touch her neck and hands, and of all, to dress her. But my instructions were disregarded; one of the female slaves caught him in Daphne’s bed, and overjoyed by her discovery she called to her fellows, and all together they pulled him out by the hair, belabouring him with sticks up and down the kitchen.
I regret that a story of a eunuch and a maidservant should have delayed the recitation of an ode, said Otanes. Even so, father, thy desire of Pindar’s ode should not allow thee to question my rule and authority. Mayhap, Biote, but our illustrious guest waits our attention; he stands by the fountain lost in meditation, doubtless thinking which ode to choose for our delectation. And his words reaching Daridoeus’s ears, the seer answered that he was considering whether the Eastern world was right in its belief that mutilation guaranteed chastity in slaves. The discovery of a eunuch in a maidservant’s bed seems conclusive that it is not right, he continued, and the need for the eunuch can be explained by the fact that man is idle, always prone to accept conventions as truths. But the truths of yesterday are the falsehoods of to-day; and his thoughts running on, he compared the continuous enlightening of the human mind during the last centuries to the breaking of day. The hill-tops appear one by one, and as the light strengthens, new frontiers come into view, and we know to-day that love in a man is more than a mere physical want. Wherefore love cannot be extinguished or banished by a mutilation; love enters by the eyes and ears, and exalted by the imagination abides. But, said Otanes, if no wrong hath been committed upon the youth I see no reason for discontinuing a useful practice. A stinted view this is certainly of man, who is more than mere animal substance, replied Daridoeus. Man hath a soul, and mutilation deprives his soul of the enjoyment of virtue, for he can practise chastity no longer when it is enforced by necessity.
Otanes listened with reverence, clinging, however, to the belief that what man had accepted generation after generation could not be wholly wrong. A profitless discussion had arisen, and he hoped that before they separated for the night the seer would remember his promise to recite passages from Pindar’s odes. But Daridceus could not forget that Bardanes’s love of Daphne, however balked, vitiated his own doctrine that a eunuch was deprived of the enjoyment of the practice of virtue, and to baffle Otanes, who might at any moment raise up this point against him, he started forth on a relation of his travels in Babylon and Egypt, telling many wonderful stories of his journey down the Nile to the great lakes, of cataracts tumbling from high rocks, of the tribes he had met, of their horses, their spears, their codes of honour and of warfare. He had spoken with many kings and discoursed in assemblies on the soul and virtue, acquiring a rich and flexible vocabulary; and seduced by the calm, even voice and the pour of language Biote sat exalted, his disciple for an hour, frightened by the encroaching dread that she had neglected her soul these many years, perhaps lost it for ever in husband, in children. He can tell me how I may save my soul, she said to herself, and perplexed by many hauntings that had lain hidden in the depths of her mind and been brought to the surface by this great prophet and seer, bidden perchance by a God to Aulis, she waited for the moment to come when she might speak with him alone. She waited, it seemed, in vain, but at last, when she had almost given up hope, Timotheus came to tell Otanes that beds could not be found in the house or in the outhouses for all the disciples. There are lodgings to be hired in the town, replied Otanes, and turning to Daridceus he asked permission to withdraw with Timotheus to settle how some measure of hospitality might be conceded to all. My disciples will not grumble, said Daridoeus, and being used to sleeping on the bare earth will vouch themselves fortunate if some sheaves of straw be laid for them. Otanes thanked him, and no sooner had he withdrawn than Biote rose to her feet; approaching the seer with reverence, she said: I have learnt many things to-night that I did not know, and some that I only suspected. Thou canst help me if thou wilt.
My mission is to listen to the broken-hearted, Daridoeus answered, to raise up those that have fallen, to inspire confidence in life and in the Gods, and my ears being open to thee, speak. From under shaggy eyebrows his eyes looked into hers. Thou art afraid lest the path thou art treading should stop suddenly and should leave thee looking round for it, and finding it nowhere thy life will appear as a vain thing, lived vainly. Thou art troubled... he paused... thou art troubled by the love of — Only of my sons, she interjected; and her confession having begun she related her story rapidly, for at any moment her father might return. My husband, Kebren, hath left me to voyage in the Euxine — I can tell thee nothing of thy husband. Why not? she asked, and he answered: The future is not open before me like a book to be read aloud to the passer-by. If I foresee, it is not from any power within myself; it is from a power beyond me. I am but an instrument. Continue thy story, or better still, I will continue it as far as I know it. Thy love is not shared equally between thy sons? When I take Rhesos in my arms, she answered, I am thrilled, and ask myself if my love of him does not exceed a love legitimate in a mother. The world is love, he replied, but every love is different, as thou’lt understand when I speak of a mother’s love for her daughter, which is not and cannot be the same as her love for her son. I would act righteously, Daridoeus, and now that I have heard thee tell that love enters by the eyes and by the ears, and that our imagination carries us whither we know not, beyond our control, I would protect myself against evil thoughts; I am thinking that there may be an amulet or charm that would help me. If thou hast a clear apprehension of my doctrine, Biote, thou must have learnt that there are two worlds, the world within and the world without, and that it is the soul only that matters. Love thy son as nature commands thee to love him, passionately and with pride, and he will love thee with tenderness and solicitude. All his love is absorbed by marble, she replied: I have often feared that his heart is as marble.
At that moment Biote was swe
pt out of the seer’s eyes, and Otanes’s house with her, and seeing and hearing the noise of towns wrecked and a rumbling of earth and a change of landscape, he cried: Houses are falling, and in holes and corners men and women pray that the Gods may not command the earth to open and swallow them alive — manifestations of a God’s anger for dissensions among men. Not for the first time have cities in Asia been wrecked for such reasons. In the coasts before my eyes the Gods are not worshipped; they have no place in the thoughts of men. There are no temples, nor shrines; a godless people. Aulis hath no temple —
Aulis will have a temple when my grandsons return from Athens to build it! cried Otanes, entering the courtyard, followed by Timotheus. Aulis hath delayed long, the seer continued, and may be visited with overturnings and sudden and unforeseen abysses. To-morrow I leave you for the Hellespont if a ship looses. The Golden Arrow looses at daybreak, said Timotheus. A few hours of rest I will take, and my disciples will find lodgings in the town. I have found lodgings, said Timotheus, but not for all; sheaves of straw in the outhouses — My disciples do not sleep under silken quilts, and will be shy of a sheaf apiece.
CHAPTER XII
BUT OTANES WAS not sure that Daridoeus had seen what he professed to see, more than once mentioning that in dreams we see distinctly, to which Biote answered: The seer was talking with me of Rhesos and Thrasillos when the vision interrupted him, awake as thou and I are at this moment. But vex not thyself with doubts, father, for a few hours more or a few days will bring us news whether the towns are whole or in ruins. Yes, Biote, we shall know the truth in a few days more. Our ships should have brought the news sooner. There are seaquakes as well as earthquakes, she answered, and the ships may have split.
