by George Moore
Ships had indeed split, but some had escaped the swelling of the tides, and the news from the Hellespont proved that Daridoeus had prophesied truly. Towns had been wrecked by earthquakes and people were hiding in holes and corners just as he had described them, promising the Gods that if they would avert further thunderbolts temples would be built in their honour, sacrifices offered up and libations poured. Others held that the earthquakes were not the vengeance of the Gods upon men who had not built temples and worshipped them, but were caused by disputes among the Gods themselves. Hephaestus, they said, was forging thunderbolts to be used against Ares for his seduction of Aphrodite; whilst Chaldean magicians, drawn into the region of the wrecked towns in the hope that money would be given to them to obtain peace from the Gods, were saying that Poseidon had raised up his empire in great waves to revenge the flight of Aphrodite, whom he had carried away in his chariot and lived with for how many years was not known. But the people were too frightened to hearken to the story of Poseidon’s love of Aphrodite, and eagerly besought the Chaldeans to take all their store of gold and silver and lodge it in their banks, and in return to offer up sacrifices for the quieting of earth tremors.
Biote sat enjoying her triumph, without pity for her father, who had come from his counting-house with the news thinking to please her, unsuspicious that she would treat him as an old fool. When she had played with him a little while she put out her paw with the words: Well, father, it is very extraordinary? Very, he answered somewhat dryly. I know not how it is that thou shouldst ever have doubted the vision, she continued; his sudden vision, hadst thou been present at it, would have convinced thee as it convinced me. She had had her triumph and wished reconciliation, but could not resist the temptation to humiliate him a little further. What I fail to understand, she said, is all these days of doubt despite the stories that are now known about him and that must have reached thine ears. The marvellous is part of himself. He is not as we are; he hath faculties that we have not. Stories that are reported in the town have reached my ears truly, replied Otanes, but stories spread by disciples should be accepted cautiously. Many times, father, hath he predicted the deaths of tyrants, and droughts and diseases, and he hath subdued plagues. But, I repeat, if thou hadst been present when the sight of the wrecked towns broke upon him —
Well, well, Biote, we cannot all be as wise as thou! Biote bristled, and he added: We need not quarrel. The business before us should be enough to engage our thoughts, she replied. We have to make provision against an outbreak of earthquakes along our own coasts, and at once. And how dost thou propose to do that, Biote? By conforming to the counsels of Daridoeus, she answered. Hast forgotten that he said the earthquakes were inflicted by the Gods in the regions of the Hellespont as a punishment for lack of worship? He added that the Gods rejoice in temples raised in their honour, embellished with statues of their beauty, and reproved us for not raising temples and carving statues, saying that in our prosperity we had forgotten we are subject to Olympus. Thou hast Daridceus’s words closely at heart, daughter. Wherefore, said Biote, we should build a temple and place in it a statue of exceeding beauty. After reflection Otanes answered: The people of Aulis must be consulted; an assembly must be called at once —— Now we are beginning to understand each other, father! But to call an assembly there must be a head, Otanes continued, and I am too old to undertake new work. Were Kebren here he would be elected priest and guardian of the temple. I never knew why he left us, father; there was no quarrel. Is his absence a riddle to thee as it is to me? she asked, and picking Otanes’s rug from the floor she arranged it about him whilst wondering at his thinness; his yellow, claw-like hand she laid upon it, and Otanes turned his head that he might better see his daughter.
I have often thought, Biote, that the rhapsodist we believed to be dead in Kebren all these years was not dead but sleeping, and awoke when he returned from a great disappointment in trade to learn that his sons were going to build temples and carve statues all over the Greek world; and it may be that this journey to the Euxine is Kebren’s revolt against himself; I can imagine him saying as he rode from Athens; I may find auditors in the Propontis and in the Greek towns along the shores of the Euxine. Yes, Biote, in my thoughts he is now expounding in Sinope and Dioscurias and other towns the same ideas that we heard in our courtyard. And thou thinkest, father, that if he continue to find auditors he will never return? To get my husband back I must wish that he again misses his bourne! Not so, Biote; if he should gain audiences and applause he will be anxious to return to win thy love with the story of his triumphs. Were he to return and take me in his arms, saying: I have failed as a rhapsodist, I would console him with my love and with stories of his children. Biote, thou dost expect too much. A man’s ideas are dearer to him than wife or children, for they are his soul, and no man will confess his soul to be base and worthless, not even to himself. A pretty story thou hast invented, father, to reconcile me to my husband, who may, like Ulysses, have fortuned on an enchanted island, where months go by cooing for the unloosing of a girdle. Kebren is a chaste man, Otanes replied, and his thoughts stray seldom, if ever, to sandals or girdles. Of what art thou thinking, Biote? My thoughts have turned backward, she answered, and I think thou hast discovered the truth. Kebren is a chaste man. He never saw me out of my shift, and I was a pretty little body. I beg thee, daughter, to have patience. Have patience, father? The Gods have no patience with us, and Hephaestus and Poseidon may be planning punishments, singly or together, against a town that hath never built a temple in their honour. I have never heard of a temple built in Hephaestus’s honour, said Otanes. O, father, it matters not to which God; we must have a temple, and it would seem that we cannot have one till Kebren returns. Wherefore let a ship be sent to search for him. The Euxine is a great place, daughter, and a ship may search for years without finding him. I can say no more. Biote rearranged the pillow behind Otanes’s head and waited till he recovered himself. Not another word shall be spoken about this, she said to herself, till he raises the question again. And many evenings went by before the time came for her to speak once more of what was nearest her heart: the building of the temple — and this time she could have spoken of it without argument, for the news brought by a ship from the Hellespont was good news. The sacrifices that Daridoeus had offered up and the libations he had poured had appeased the God, Poseidon or Hephaestus, they knew not which. Nor did it matter; the earth no longer quaked and the people were rebuilding their ruined homes. But the silence that Biote had imposed upon herself she kept; the temple was not mentioned; and their evening talk was difficult to maintain, for little else was in her mind.
Otanes, not so resolute as she, tried to soothe her with praise of Daridoeus’s art in appeasing the God, who had accepted a few sacrifices and libations, but whilst speaking these words of comfort he indulged himself in the hope that the silence of the earth had postponed the necessity of gaining peace in his home by sending a ship on a vain quest to the Euxine in search of Kebren. A few months more they would have to wait, and as the earth had ceased to quake these did not matter. The Gods have patience, more than Biote, he said to himself, smiling out of his ragged beard. And then speaking out of his sympathy for his daughter, whom he guessed to be possessed of a secret terror lest the earthquakes that had ceased in the Hellespont might erupt along the Euripos, he advised a letter to Rhesos and Thrasillos asking them to ride over from Athens, mentioning that a temple and a statue were needed at Aulis. Thou mayst indite my very words, Biote; and to make their coming doubly sure it might be as well to add that thou wilt walk a little way out of Aulis to meet them, or farther if the day should prove agreeable for walking and thy limbs be eager for another quarter of a league. She replied that story-telling was not easy whilst walking between two horses. They will dismount, he said. Thereby making the story more difficult than if they remained in the saddle! As thy mind hath it, daughter, so let it be. And it was in the courtyard that the sculptor and architect heard of Daridoeus
’s vision and prophecies.
Grouped under the statue of Hermes they listened with an attention that raised hopes in their elders that the site of the temple would be decided during the course of an afternoon’s walk, and the whole story was not told when teams of oxen walked in Biote’s imagination, bringing huge cut stones to foundations already dug. In a year from now, began Rhesos, we — A year, cried Biote, with earthquakes ready to spring upon us at any moment! We cannot leave Athens now, mother; our work on the Parthenon will last for many months. And to quiet his mother’s alarms Rhesos added: Thou’rt always in a hurry, mother, and what is done in a hurry is done badly. No more than the ride hither did Phidias allow us; we are due in Athens to-morrow. But the name of Phidias fell on deaf ears, and Biote saw them ride away, resolved that she would not allow herself to be defrauded of her right to save Aulis, her sons’ lives and fortunes, her father’s; her husband had taken himself off to the Euxine. Her face darkened, and lightened again as she bethought herself how the townsfolk might be roused out of their indifference with stories of hills crumbling and the sea rising up in the strait and overwhelming Aulis. But of what use to choose a site if thy sons are kept in Athens by Phidias? they asked; and to Biote herself it mattered little though Aulis were wrecked if Thrasillos was not the builder of the temple and Rhesos the carver of the statue. Daridœus was in her mind always; she copied his address, his lofty phrases; but as the earth remained still and news came that the towns that had been shaken were now rebuilt, the townsfolk of Aulis began to answer her warnings with quiet smiles, and as her meetings dwindled she heard jeers in her imagination and fancied she was avoided and laughed at in secret, a terrible thought. Wherefore she clenched her teeth, encouraged now and again by an adherent, a convert to her ideas, but never listened to seriously, till the news came from the Hellespont that the towns that had been wrecked and rebuilt were being wrecked again by new earth quakings. Then indeed opinion changed, and she became a heroine in place of an almost beldame.
Her triumph was at its height when Kebren returned from the Euxine, expecting to see Aulis in ruins. But Aulis stood as he had left it, and he shaped his inquiries to the harbour master cautiously. Aulis is fortunate, he said. All the way up the Euripos I foresaw ruins, yet every roof is intact. We have escaped earthquakes, the harbour master answered, but there has been much talk about them, thy wife, Kebren, foremost among the talkers. There’s always some that will hearken to any tale, whatever it may be. Those who have seen the wrecked towns along the Hellespont do not smile over stories of earthquakes, Kebren replied. I have come from Colchis, where I met Daridœus, the seer, and he bade me hasten homeward to offer sacrifices and libations to the Gods. Thy wife hath preached the building of temples and the carving of statues, said the harbour master, and Kebren asked to which God or Goddess. The harbour master could not tell him, and he turned into the laneway leading to his house, stopping to listen for a moment to the cooing in the dove-cote above the gateway, where Biote met him, saying: Thou hast returned to us at last, and not too soon. Not too soon, he repeated, for I bring news from Daridœus, whom I met in Colchis, And when he had told the story fully of his meeting with Daridœus and of his voyage home, he said: I will ask thee, Biote, to send a messenger to Athens with the news, one who will bring our sons home to-morrow. I must hasten to the counting-house to write a proclamation calling all the citizens of Aulis together to hear how two cities in the Hellespont were destroyed by earthquakes, and how their own town may be saved from a like calamity by the building of a temple and libations and sacrifices. If I am but lucky enough to find the scriveners in the counting-house! he said to himself, as he walked with rapid steps. That luck was not denied him, and the words coming to him almost without his being aware of them, he dictated a proclamation in which the citizens read that if the anger of the Gods was not allayed, and if an earthquake should be raised up under the sea or in the hills along the coast, the town would perish and all the shipping. Wherefore Kebren, the messenger of Daridœus to Aulis, had summoned a meeting, and all those who had the welfare of Aulis at heart were invited to attend to consider the site for a temple and the deity that should be enshrined.
CHAPTER XIII
EVER SINCE THE posting of the warning crowds had lingered to read it and to discuss it, and when on the appointed day Kebren appeared he was received with acclamations and cheers, a maiden presenting him with a laurel wreath. An honour that was denied to me in Dioscurias, he said; the sweetest flowers are those that bloom in our own gardens; and full of confidence he mounted the platform that had been raised for his convenience.
Fellow-citizens, you have read in the proclamation of the danger that Aulis stands in, which can be averted only by the building of a temple; wherefore I put the question to you: Will you have a temple? We will have a temple! and so unanimous was the shout that Kebren was thrilled, and division did not break forth until he asked: To which deity shall we build? Many were for Poseidon, and as many for Aphrodite, to say nothing of isolated voices eager to speak but without anything but words to offer, and soon a third party began to emerge, a party that was of opinion that it would be well to choose some other deity, Poseidon having quarrelled with Aphrodite, who left his kingdom under the sea to gather worshippers around her on earth. But, said Kebren in his efforts to find peace, let us not enter into the question of whether Aphrodite’s flight from Poseidon was justified. I will merely ask you to remember that the quarrel occurred long ago —— No, sir, interjected a tall, lean man, a butcher, the Gods are timeless; a quarrel among the Gods is for eternity. Whereupon Thyonicus, a cobbler and a poet, cried: Thy conception of immortality, Cos, is as meagre as thy beefsteaks! As many wished to know whether the Gods were timeless and quarrelled for eternity, a wrangle began, and Kebren roared many times before he obtained a sufficient silence to propose that the Gods should be allowed to settle their own differences, and that the citizens of Aulis should choose some twenty or thirty men to form a deputation to meet Otanes in his house. To carry his point he added: It would be well that the matter should be discussed with Otanes, and the crowd apprehending this to mean that Otanes would pay for the temple, agreed willingly. And that there should be no unfairness Kebren proposed that the deputation should be elected by vote. Everybody that hath a house shall vote, he said. The hearth is the centre of life; let the hearth decide. And it was the hearth that did decide. Thirty citizens of many varied trades and wits assembled in Otanes’s hall to settle the questions at issue.
Otanes begged me to excuse his absence from the meeting, said Kebren. He is old, and discussion fatigues him unduly. Wherefore he hath charged me to ask Milon to give us his reasons for wishing Aulis to be placed under the protection of Poseidon; and when we have been favoured with our fish-monger’s views I will ask Thyonicus, our cobbler-poet, to tell us his reasons for wishing to place the town under the protection of Aphrodite.... Milon began by reminding them that Poseidon had always shown himself favourable to Aulis. We have been told that the Gods are timeless and that their quarrels are for eternity, but I would not raise that question — But thou hast raised it! cried Thyonicus, and he was answered by Kebren: Wait for thy turn to speak; do not interrupt him who hath the ear of the assembly. It will be remembered, said Milon, that it was Poseidon who obtained Æolus’s promise that not a wind should escape from the bladder of winds whilst the ships journeyed to Troy. Thyonicus muttered, but catching Kebren’s eyes at that moment, he refrained from challenging this statement, and Milon continued to tell with increasing confidence that winds escaped sometimes even from the best-secured bladder, but the fleet had arrived at Troy almost intact, and ever since — that is to say, since Troy fell four hundred years ago — commerce had arisen and prospered on the shores of the Euripos. Certainly Aulis hath been favoured in her rivalry with the merchants of Salamis, he said, who, if they had succeeded in robbing us, would have made an end of the town, all the trade of the Ægean and the Euxine falling into their hands. But the effect of tra
de passing from one port to another can be understood only by men of imagination. It is the lot of man to think more of to-day than of to-morrow, and before our wharves were empty of shipping we should be cut off from all supplies from the sea — Cut off from all supplies from the sea, and the galleys lying empty in the strait! cried Thyonicus. Art thinking, Milon, that in times of famine wheat will not reach us from over seas? I was thinking, Milon answered, not of the wheat that might or might not reach us from Egypt, but of the tunny that our nets would not draw out of the Mæotic lake if Poseidon should call up a tempest, driving our fishing-boats hither and thither, restoring to the sea the captures of our fishermen. This he may do if a temple be not built in his honour on the seashore, and with still more certainty will he avenge the building of a temple to Aphrodite, who wearied of his palaces and left him. And what wouldst thou do, Thyonicus asked, if the fishers of Aulis returned without fish for thee to sell? And if Aphrodite should not get a temple, Milon answered, what wouldst thou do with thy verses? Doubtless, also, thou dost itch to propound thy plan whereby all the new babes exposed in the woods shall be saved from the wolves? And guessing what was in the fishmonger’s mind, Kebren interposed hastily, saying: We are not here to settle personal quarrels but to determine whether Aulis shall have a temple dedicated to Aphrodite or to Poseidon; at which Milon muttered that it was not he who was the aggressor but Thyonicus. I will protect thee as far as I can against Thyonicus, whose interruptions delay the meeting, Kebren continued, and thou wilt in return confine thy remarks to the subject. Remember, the question is whether we shall build a temple to a God or to a Goddess. Whichever will afford us the best protection, Milon replied — Poseidon, without doubt. We would hear thy reasons, said Kebren. I would not alarm the meeting, sir, but there are evil reports. Then speak them, Milon; bad news doth not improve with keeping. No more than fish! cried Thyonicus. Some fishers have come into the port, said Milon, and they tell of great waves that threatened to engulf their boats, and there being no wind about they judged the waves to arise from the bottom of the sea out of Poseidon’s kingdom, and not out of the air, which is Æolus’s kingdom. When the waves had passed on they lifted their nets, and finding the fish they had caught were dead they sailed away; but they had not sailed far before a great wave rose, and the sea was shaken as the earth is by an earthquake, and plying their oars, and sailing when the wind was favourable, they returned to our wharves many days after we had expected them. In answer to our questions as to what storms they had met with and why they had returned without fish, they said:
