CHAPTER XX: SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
'But, fairest Hypatia, conceive yourself struck in the face by a greatstone, several hundred howling wretches leaping up at you like wildbeasts--two minutes more, and you are torn limb from limb. What wouldeven you do in such a case?'
'Let them tear me limb from limb, and die as I have lived.'
'Ah, but--When it came to fact, and death was staring you in the face?'
'And why should man fear death?'
'Ahem! No, not death, of course; but the act of dying. That may be,surely, under such circumstances, to say the least, disagreeable. If ourideal, Julian the Great, found a little dissimulation necessary, and waseven a better Christian than I have ever pretended to be, till he foundhimself able to throw off the mask, why should not I? Consider me as alower being than yourself,--one of the herd, if you will; but a penitentmember thereof, who comes to make the fullest possible reparation, bydoing any desperate deed on which you may choose to put him, andprove myself as able and willing, if once I have the power, as Julianhimself.'
Such was the conversation which passed between Hypatia and Orestes halfan hour after Philammon had taken possession of his new abode.
Hypatia looked at the Prefect with calm penetration, not unmixed withscorn and fear.
'And pray what has produced this sudden change in your Excellency'searnestness? For four months your promises have been lying fallow.' Shedid not confess how glad she would have been at heart to see them lyingfallow still.
'Because--This morning I have news; which I tell to you the first asa compliment. We will take care that all Alexandria knows it beforesundown. Heraclian has conquered.'
'Conquered?' cried Hypatia, springing from her seat.
'Conquered, and utterly destroyed the emperor's forces at Ostia. Sosays a messenger on whom I can depend. And even if the news should provefalse, I can prevent the contrary report from spreading, or what is theuse of being prefect? You demur? Do you not see that if we can keep thenotion alive but a week our cause is won?'
'How so?'
'I have treated already with all the officers of the city, and everyone of them has acted like a wise man, and given me a promise of help,conditional of course on Heraclian's success, being as tired as I am ofthat priest-ridden court at Byzantium. Moreover, the stationaries aremine already. So are the soldiery all the way up the Nile. Ah! you havebeen fancying me idle for these four months, but--You forget that youyourself were the prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard with that goalin sight?'
Hypatia shuddered, but was silent; and Orestes went on--
'I have unladen several of the wheat-ships for enormous largesses ofbread: though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled mybenevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stockthey had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really mostofficious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor ofthe city! What possible business have they with Alexandria?'
'The wish for popularity, I presume.'
'Just so; and then what hold can the government have on a set of rogueswhose stomachs are filled without our help?'
'Julian made the same complaint to the high priest of Galatia, in thatpriceless letter of his.'
'Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly. Then again, I donot fear Cyril's power just now. He has injured himself deeply, I amhappy to say, in the opinion of the wealthy and educated, by expellingthe Jews. And as for his mob, exactly at the right moment, thedeities--there are no monks here, so I can attribute my blessings to theright source--have sent us such a boon as may put them into as good ahumour as we need.'
'And what is that?' asked Hypatia.
'A white elephant.'
'A white elephant?'
'Yes,' he answered, mistaking or ignoring the tone of her answer.'A real, live, white elephant; a thing which has not been seen inAlexandria for a hundred years! It was passing through with two tametigers, as a present to the boy at Byzantium, from some hundred-wivedkinglet of the Hyperborean Taprobane, or other no-man's-land in thefar East. I took the liberty of laying an embargo on them, and, after alittle argumentation and a few hints of torture, elephant and tigers areat our service.'
'And of what service are they to be?'
'My dearest madam-- Conceive.... How are we to win the mob without ashow?.... When were there more than two ways of gaining either the wholeor part of the Roman Empire--by force of arms or force of trumpery? Caneven you invent a third? The former is unpleasantly exciting, and hardlypracticable just now. The latter remains, and, thanks to the whiteelephant, may be triumphantly successful. I have to exhibit somethingevery week. The people are getting tired of that pantomime; and sincethe Jews were driven out, the fellow has grown stupid and lazy, havinglost the more enthusiastic half of his spectators. As for horse-racing,they are sick of it.... Now, suppose we announce, for the earliestpossible day--a spectacle--such a spectacle as never was seen before inthis generation. You and I--I as exhibitor, you as representative--forthe time being only--of the Vestals of old--sit side by side....Some worthy friend has his instructions, when the people are besidethemselves with rapture, to cry, "Long live Orestes Caesar!"....Anotherreminds them of Heraclian's victory--another couples your name withmine.... the people applaud.... some Mark Antony steps forward, salutesme as Imperator, Augustus--what you will--the cry is taken up--I refuseas meekly as Julius Caesar himself--am compelled, blushing, to acceptthe honour--I rise, make an oration about the future independence of thesouthern continent--union of Africa and Egypt--the empire no longer tobe divided into Eastern and Western, but Northern and Southern. Shoutsof applause, at two drachmas per man, shake the skies. Everybodybelieves that everybody else approves, and follows the lead.... And thething is won.'
'And pray,' asked Hypatia, crushing down her contempt and despair, 'howis this to bear on the worship of the gods?
'Why.... why,.... if you thought that people's minds were sufficientlyprepared, you might rise in your turn, and make an oration--you canconceive one. Set forth how these spectacles, formerly the glory of theempire, had withered under Galilaean superstition.... How the only pathtoward the full enjoyment of eye and ear was a frank return to thosedeities, from whose worship they originally sprang, and connected withwhich they could alone be enjoyed in their perfection.... But I need notteach you how to do that which you have so often taught me: so nowto consider our spectacle, which, next to the largess, is the mostimportant part of our plans. I ought to have exhibited to them the monkwho so nearly killed me yesterday. That would indeed have been a triumphof the laws over Christianity. He and the wild beasts might have giventhe people ten minutes' amusement. But wrath conquered prudence; andthe fellow has been crucified these two hours. Suppose, then, we had alittle exhibition of gladiators. They are forbidden by law, certainly.'
'Thank Heaven, they are!'
'But do you not see that is the very reason why we, to assert our ownindependence, should employ them?'
'No! they are gone. Let them never reappear to disgrace the earth.'
'My dear lady, you must not in your present character say that inpublic; lest Cyril should be impertinent enough to remind you thatChristian emperors and bishops put them down.'
Hypatia bit her lip, and was silent.
'Well, I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to you.... If we couldbut contrive a few martyrdoms--but I really fear we must wait a yearor two longer, in the present state of public opinion, before we canattempt that.'
'Wait? wait for ever! Did not Julian--and he must be our model--forbidthe persecution of the Galilaeans, considering them sufficientlypunished by their own atheism and self-tormenting superstition?'
'Another small error of that great man.--He should have recollected thatfor three hundred years nothing, not even the gladiators themselves,had been found to put the mob in such good humour as to see a fewChristians, especially young and handsome women, burned alive, or thrownto the lions.'
Hypatia bit
her lip once more. 'I can hear no more of this, sir. Youforget that you are speaking to a woman.'
'Most supreme wisdom,' answered Orestes, in his blandest tone, 'youcannot suppose that I wish to pain your ears. But allow me to observe,as a general theorem, that if one wishes to effect any purpose, it isnecessary to use the means; and on the whole, those which have beentested by four hundred years' experience will be the safest. I speakas a plain practical statesman--but surely your philosophy will notdissent?'
Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could she answer? Was itnot too true? and had not Orestes fact and experience on his side?
'Well, if you must--but I cannot have gladiators. Why not a--one ofthose battles with wild beasts? They are disgusting enough but stillthey are less inhuman than the others; and you might surely takeprecautions to prevent the men being hurt.'
'Ah! that would indeed be a scentless rose! If there is neither dangernor bloodshed, the charm is gone. But really wild beasts are tooexpensive just now; and if I kill down my present menagerie, I canafford no more. Why not have something which costs no money, likeprisoners?'
'What! do you rank human beings below brutes?'
'Heaven forbid! But they are practically less expensive. Remember, thatwithout money we are powerless; we must husband our resources for thecause of the gods.'
Hypatia was silent.
'Now, there are fifty or sixty Libyan prisoners just brought in fromthe desert. Why not let them fight an equal number of soldiers? They arerebels to the empire, taken in war.'
'Ah, then,' said Hypatia, catching at any thread of self-justification,'their lives are forfeit in any case.'
'Of course. So the Christians could not complain of us for that. Didnot the most Christian Emperor Constantine set some three hundred Germanprisoners to butcher each other in the amphitheatre of Treves?'
'But they refused, and died like heroes, each falling on his own sword.'
'Ah--those Germans are always unmanageable. My guards, now, are justas stiff-necked. To tell you the truth, I have asked them already toexhibit their prowess on these Libyans, and what do you suppose theyanswered?'
'They refused, I hope.'
'They told me in the most insolent tone that they were men, and notstage-players; and hired to fight, and not to butcher. I expected aSocratic dialogue after such a display of dialectic, and bowed myselfout.'
'They were right.'
'Not a doubt of it, from a philosophic point of view; from a practicalone they were great pedants, and I an ill-used master. However, I canfind unfortunate and misunderstood heroes enough in the prisons, who,for the chance of their liberty, will acquit themselves valiantlyenough; and I know of a few old gladiators still lingering about thewine-shops, who will be proud enough to give them a week's training.So that may pass. Now for some lighter species of representation tofollow--something more or less dramatic.'
'You forget that you speak to one who trusts to be, as soon as she hasthe power, the high-priestess of Athene, and who in the meanwhile isbound to obey her tutor Julian's commands to the priests of his day, andimitate the Galilaeans as much in their abhorrence for the theatre asshe hopes hereafter to do in their care for the widow and the stranger.'
'Far be it from me to impugn that great man's wisdom. But allow me toremark, that to judge by the present state of the empire, one has aright to say that he failed.'
'The Sun-God whom he loved took him to himself, too early, by a hero'sdeath.'
'And the moment he was removed, the wave of Christian barbarism rolledback again into its old channel.'
'Ah! had he but lived twenty years longer!'
'The Sun-God, perhaps, was not so solicitous as we are for the successof his high-priest's project.'
Hypatia reddened--was Orestes, after all laughing in his sleeve at herand her hopes?
'Do not blaspheme!' she said solemnly.
'Heaven forbid! I only offer one possible explanation of a plain fact.The other is, that as Julian was not going quite the right way to workto restore the worship of the Olympians, the Sun-God found it expedientto withdraw him from his post, and now sends in his place Hypatia thephilosopher, who will be wise enough to avoid Julian's error, and notcopy the Galilaeans too closely, by imitating a severity of morals atwhich they are the only true and natural adepts.'
'So Julian's error was that of being too virtuous? If it be so, letme copy him, and fail like him. The fault will then not be mine, butfate's.'
'Not in being too virtuous himself, most stainless likeness of Athene,but in trying to make others so. He forgot one half of Juvenal's greatdictum about "Panem and Circenses," as the absolute and overrulingnecessities of rulers. He tried to give the people the bread without thegames.... And what thanks he received for his enormous munificence,let himself and the good folks of Antioch tell--you just quoted hisMisopogon--'
'Ay-the lament of a man too pure for his age.'
'Exactly so. He should rather have been content to keep his purityto himself, and have gone to Antioch not merely as a philosophichigh-priest, with a beard of questionable cleanliness, to offersacrifices to a god in whom--forgive me--nobody in Antioch hadbelieved for many a year. If he had made his entrance with ten thousandgladiators, and our white elephant, built a theatre of ivory and glassin Daphne, and proclaimed games in honour of the Sun, or of any othermember of the Pantheon--'
'He would have acted unworthily of a philosopher.'
'But instead of that one priest draggling up, poor devil, through thewet grass to the deserted altar with his solitary goose under his arm,he would have had every goose in Antioch--forgive my stealing a punfrom Aristophanes--running open-mouthed to worship any god known orunknown--and to see the sights.'
'Well,' said Hypatia, yielding perforce to Orestes's cutting arguments.'Let us then restore the ancient glories of the Greek drama. Let us givethem a trilogy of Aeschylus or Sophocles.'
'Too calm, my dear madam. The Eumenides might do certainly, orPhiloctetes, if we could but put Philoctetes to real pain, and make thespectators sure that he was yelling in good earnest.'
'Disgusting!'
'But necessary, like many disgusting things.'
'Why not try the Prometheus?'
'A magnificent field for stage effect, certainly. What with those oceannymphs in their winged chariot, and Ocean on his griffin.... But Ishould hardly think it safe to reintroduce Zeus and Hermes to the peopleunder the somewhat ugly light in which Aeschylus exhibits them.'
'I forgot that,' said Hypatia. 'The Orestean trilogy will be best, afterall.'
'Best? perfect--divine! Ah, that it were to be my fate to go downto posterity as the happy man who once more revived Aeschylus'smasterpieces on a Grecian stage! But--Is there not, begging the pardonof the great tragedian, too much reserve in the Agamemnon for our moderntaste? If we could have the bath scene represented on the stage, and anAgamemnon who could be really killed--though I would not insist on that,because a good actor might make it a reason for refusing the part--butstill the murder ought to take place in public.'
'Shocking! an outrage on all the laws of the drama. Does not even theRoman Horace lay down as a rule the--_Nec pueros coram populo Medeatrucidet_?'
'Fairest and wisest, I am as willing a pupil of the dear old Epicureanas any man living--even to the furnishing of my chamber; of which factthe Empress of Africa may some day assure herself. But we are not nowdiscussing the art of poetry, but the art of reigning; and, after all,while Horace was sitting in his easy-chair, giving his countrymen goodadvice, a private man, who knew somewhat better than he what the massadmired, was exhibiting forty thousand gladiators at his mother'sfuneral.'
'But the canon has its foundation in the eternal laws of beauty. It hasbeen accepted and observed.'
'Not by the people for whom it was written. The learned Hypatia hassurely not forgotten, that within sixty years after the _Ars Poetica_was written, Annaeus Seneca, or whosoever wrote that very bad tragedycalled the Medea, found it so necessary
that she should, in despite ofHorace, kill her children before the people, that he actually made herdo it!'
Hypatia was still silent--foiled at every point, while Orestes ran onwith provoking glibness.
'And consider, too, even if we dare alter Aeschylus a little, we couldfind no one to act him.'
'Ah, true! fallen, fallen days!'
'And really, after all, omitting the questionable compliment to me, ascandidate for a certain dignity, of having my namesake kill his mother,and then be hunted over the stage by furies--'
'But Apollo vindicates and purifies him at last. What a noble occasionthat last scene would give for winning them hack to their old reverencefor the god!'
'True, but at present the majority of spectators will believe morestrongly in the horrors of matricide and furies than in Apollo's powerto dispense therewith. So that I fear must be one of your labours of thefuture.'
'And it shall be,' said Hypatia. But she did not speak cheerfully.
'Do you not think, moreover,' went on the tempter, 'that those oldtragedies might give somewhat too gloomy a notion of those deities whomwe wish to reintroduce--I beg pardon, to rehonour? The history of thehouse of Atreus is hardly more cheerful, in spite of its beauty, thanone of Cyril's sermons on the day of judgment, and the Tartarus preparedfor hapless rich people?'
'Well,' said Hypatia, more and more listlessly; 'it might be moreprudent to show them first the fairer and more graceful side of theold Myths. Certainly the great age of Athenian tragedy had its playfulreverse in the old comedy.'
'And in certain Dionysiac sports and processions which shall benameless, in order to awaken a proper devotion for the gods in those whomight not be able to appreciate Aeschylus and Sophocles.'
'You would not reintroduce them?'
'Pallas forbid! but give as fair a substitute for them as we can.'
'And are we to degrade ourselves because the masses are degraded?'
'Not in the least. For my own part, this whole business, like thecatering for the weekly pantomimes, is as great a bore to me as itcould have been to Julian himself. But, my dearest madam--"Panem andCircenses"--they must be put into good humour; and there is but oneway--by "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the prideof life," as a certain Galilaean correctly defines the time-honouredRoman method.'
'Put them into good humour? I wish to lustrate them afresh for theservice of the gods. If we must have comic representations, we can onlyhave them conjoined to tragedy, which, as Aristotle defines it, willpurify their affections by pity and terror.'
Orestes smiled.
'I certainly can have no objection to so good a purpose. But do you notthink that the battle between the gladiators and the Libyans will havedone that sufficiently beforehand? I can conceive nothing more fit forthat end, unless it be Nero's method of sending his guards among thespectators themselves, and throwing them down to the wild beasts inthe arena. How thoroughly purified by pity and terror must every worthyshopkeeper have been, when he sat uncertain whether he might not followhis fat wife into the claws of the nearest lion!'
'You are pleased to be witty, sir,' said Hypatia, hardly able to concealher disgust.
'My dearest bride elect, I only meant the most harmless of _reductionesad absurdum_ of an abstract canon of Aristotle, with which I, who am aPlatonist after my mistress's model, do not happen to agree. But do,I beseech you, be ruled, not by me, but by your own wisdom. You cannotbring the people to appreciate your designs at the first sight. You aretoo wise, too pure, too lofty, too far-sighted for them. And thereforeyou must get power to compel them. Julian, after all, found it necessaryto compel--if he had lived seven years more he would have found itnecessary to persecute.'
'The gods forbid that--that such a necessity should ever arise here.'
'The only way to avoid it, believe me, is to allure and to indulge.After all, it is for their good.'
'True,' sighed Hypatia. 'Have your way, sir.'
'Believe me, you shall have yours in turn. I ask you to be ruled byme now, only that you may be in a position to rule me and Africahereafter.'
'And such an Africa! Well, if they are born low and earthly, they must,I suppose, he treated as such; and the fault of such a necessity isNature's, and not ours.--Yet it is most degrading!--But still, if theonly method by which the philosophic few can assume their rights, asthe divinely-appointed rulers of the world, is by indulging those lowerbeings whom they govern for their good--why, be it so. It is no worsenecessity than many another which the servant of the gods must endure indays like these.'
'Ah,' said Orestes, refusing to hear the sigh, or to see the bitternessof the lip which accompanied the speech--'now Hypatia is herself again;and my counsellor, and giver of deep and celestial reasons for allthings at which poor I can only snatch and guess by vulpine cunning. Sonow for our lighter entertainment. What shall it be?'
'What you will, provided it be not, as most such are, unfit for the eyesof modest women. I have no skill in catering for folly.'
'A pantomime, then? We may make that as grand and as significant as wewill, and expend too on it all our treasures in the way of gewgaws andwild beasts.'
'As you like.'
'Just consider, too, what a scope for mythologic learning a pantomimeaffords. Why not have a triumph of some deity? Could I commit myselfmore boldly to the service of the gods! Now--who shall it be?'
'Pallas--unless, as I suppose, she is too modest and too sober for yourAlexandrians?'
'Yes--it does not seem to me that she would be appreciated--at allevents for the present. Why not try Aphrodite? Christians as well asPagans will thoroughly understand her; and I know no one who would notdegrade the virgin goddess by representing her, except a certain lady,who has already, I hope, consented to sit in that very character, by theside of her too much honoured slave; and one Pallas is enough at a timein any theatre.'
Hypatia shuddered. He took it all for granted, then--and claimed herconditional promise to the uttermost. Was there no escape? She longed tospring up and rush away, into the streets, into the desert--anything tobreak the hideous net which she had wound around herself. And yet--wasit not the cause of the gods--the one object of her life? And afterall, if he the hateful was to be her emperor, she at least was to bean empress; and do what she would--and half in irony, and half in theattempt to hurl herself perforce into that which she knew that she mustgo through, and forget misery in activity, she answered as cheerfully asshe could.
'Then, my goddess, thou must wait the pleasure of these base ones! Atleast the young Apollo will have charms even for them.'
'Ah, but who will represent him? This puny generation does not producesuch figures as Pylades and Bathyllus--except among those Goths.Besides, Apollo must have golden hair; and our Greek race has intermixeditself so shamefully with these Egyptians, that our stage-troop is asdark as Andromeda, and we should have to apply again to those accursedGoths, who have nearly' (with a bow) 'all the beauty, and nearly all themoney and the power, and will, I suspect, have the rest of it beforeI am safe out of this wicked world, because they have not nearly, butquite, all the courage. Now--Shall we ask a Goth to dance Apollo? for wecan get no one else.'
Hypatia smiled in spite of herself at the notion. 'That would be tooshameful! I must forego the god of light himself, if I am to see him inthe person of a clumsy barbarian.'
'Then why not try my despised and rejected Aphrodite? Suppose we had hertriumph, finishing with a dance of Venus Anadyomene. Surely that is agraceful myth enough.'
'As a myth; but on the stage in reality?'
'Not worse than what this Christian city has been looking at for many ayear. We shall not run any danger of corrupting morality, be sure.'
Hypatia blushed.
'Then you must not ask for my help.'
'Or for your presence at the spectacle? For that be sure is a necessarypoint. You are too great a person, my dearest madam, in the eyes ofthese good folks to be allowed to absent yourself on such an occasion.
If my little stratagem succeeds, it will be half owing to the fact ofthe people knowing that in crowning me, they crown Hypatia.... Comenow--do you not see that as you must needs be present at their harmlessscrap of mythology, taken from the authentic and undoubted historiesof those very gods whose worship we intend to restore, you will consultyour own comfort most in agreeing to it cheerfully, and in lendingme your wisdom towards arranging it? Just conceive now, a triumph ofAphrodite, entering preceded by wild beasts led in chains by Cupids, thewhite elephant and all--what a field for the plastic art! You might havea thousand groupings, dispersions, regroupings, in as perfect bas-reliefstyle as those of any Sophoclean drama. Allow me only to take this paperand pen--'
And he began sketching rapidly group after group.
'Not so ugly, surely?'
'They are very beautiful, I cannot deny,' said poor Hypatia.
'Ah, sweetest Empress! you forget sometimes that I, too, world-worm asI am, am a Greek, with as intense a love of the beautiful as even youyourself have. Do not fancy that every violation of correct taste doesnot torture me as keenly as it does you. Some day, I hope, you will havelearned to pity and to excuse the wretched compromise between that whichought to be and that which can be, in which we hapless statesmen muststruggle on, half-stunted, and wholly misunderstood--Ah, well! Look,now, at these fauns and dryads among the shrubs upon the stage, pausingin startled wonder at the first blast of music which proclaims the exitof the goddess from her temple.'
'The temple? Why, where are you going to exhibit?'
'In the Theatre, of course. Where else pantomimes?'
'But will the spectators have time to move all the way from theAmphitheatre after that--those--'
'The Amphitheatre? We shall exhibit the Libyans, too, in the Theatre.'
'Combats in the Theatre sacred to Dionusos?'
'My dear lady'--penitently--'I know it is an offence against all thelaws of the drama.'
'Oh, worse than that! Consider what an impiety toward the god, todesecrate his altar with bloodshed?'
'Fairest devotee, recollect that, after all, I may fairly borrowDionusos's altar in this my extreme need; for I saved its very existencefor him, by preventing the magistrates from filling up the wholeorchestra with benches for the patricians, after the barbarousRoman fashion. And besides, what possible sort of representation, ormisrepresentation, has not been exhibited in every theatre of the empirefor the last four hundred years? Have we not had tumblers, conjurers,allegories, martyrdoms, marriages, elephants on the tight-rope, learnedhorses, and learned asses too, if we may trust Apuleius of Madaura; witha good many other spectacles of which we must not speak in thepresence of a vestal? It is an age of execrable taste, and we must actaccordingly.'
'Ah!' answered Hypatia; 'the first step in the downward career of thedrama began when the successors of Alexander dared to profane theatreswhich had re-echoed the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides by degradingthe altar of Dionusos into a stage for pantomimes!'
'Which your pure mind must, doubtless, consider not so very much betterthan a little fighting. But, after all, the Ptolemies could not dootherwise. You can only have Sophoclean dramas in a Sophoclean age; andtheirs was no more of one than ours is, and so the drama died a naturaldeath; and when that happens to man or thing, you may weep over it ifyou will, but you must, after all, bury it, and get something else inits place--except, of course, the worship of the gods.'
'I am glad that you except that, at least,' said Hypatia, somewhatbitterly. 'But why not use the Amphitheatre for both spectacles?'
'What can I do? I am over head and ears in debt already; and theAmphitheatre is half in ruins, thanks to that fanatic edict of the lateemperor's against gladiators. There is no time or money for repairingit; and besides, how pitiful a poor hundred of combatants will look inan arena built to hold two thousand! Consider, my dearest lady, in whatfallen times we live!'
'I do, indeed!' said Hypatia. 'But I will not see the altar polluted byblood. It is the desecration which it has undergone already which hasprovoked the god to withdraw the poetic inspiration.'
'I do not doubt the fact. Some curse from Heaven, certainly, has fallenon our poets, to judge by their exceeding badness. Indeed, I am inclinedto attribute the insane vagaries of the water-drinking monks and nuns,like those of the Argive women, to the same celestial anger. But I willsee that the sanctity of the altar is preserved, by confining the combatto the stage. And as for the pantomime which will follow, if you wouldonly fall in with my fancy of the triumph of Aphrodite, Dionusos wouldhardly refuse his altar for the glorification of his own lady-love.'
'Ah--that myth is a late, and in my opinion a degraded one.'
'Be it so; but recollect, that another myth makes her, and not withoutreason, the mother of all living beings. Be sure that Dionusos will haveno objection, or any other god either, to allow her to make her childrenfeel her conquering might; for they all know well enough, that if wecan once get her well worshipped here, all Olympus will follow in hertrain.'
'That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose symbol is thetortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity: not of that baserPandemic one.'
'Then we will take care to make the people aware of whom they areadmiring by exhibiting in the triumph whole legions of tortoises: andyou yourself shall write the chant, while I will see that the chorus isworthy of what it has to sing. No mere squeaking double flute and a pairof boys: but a whole army of cyclops and graces, with such trebles andsuch bass-voices! It shall make Cyril's ears tingle in his palace!'
'The chant! A noble office for me, truly! That is the very part of theabsurd spectacle to which you used to say the people never dreamed ofattending. All which is worth settling you seemed to have settled foryourself before you deigned to consult me.'
'I said so? Surely you must mistake. But if any hired poetaster's chantdo pass unheeded, what has that to do with Hypatia's eloquence andscience, glowing with the treble inspiration of Athene, Phoebus, andDionusos? And as for having arranged beforehand--my adorable mistress,what more delicate compliment could I have paid you?'
'I cannot say that it seems to me to be one.'
'How? After saving you every trouble which I could, and racking myoverburdened wits for stage effects and properties, have I not broughthither the darling children of my own brain, and laid them downruthlessly, for life or death, before the judgment-seat of your loftyand unsparing criticism?'
Hypatia felt herself tricked: but there was no escape now.
'And who, pray, is to disgrace herself and me, as Venus Anadyomene?'
'Ah! that is the most exquisite article in all my bill of fare! What ifthe kind gods have enabled me to exact a promise from--whom, think you?'
'What care I? How can I tell?'asked Hypatia, who suspected and dreadedthat she could tell.
'Pelagia herself!'
Hypatia rose angrily.
'This, sir, at least, is too much! It was not enough for you, it seems,to claim, or rather to take for granted, so imperiously, so mercilessly,a conditional promise--weakly, weakly made, in the vain hope that youwould help forward aspirations of mine which you have let lie fallow formonths--in which I do not believe that you sympathise now!--It was notenough for you to declare yourself publicly yesterday a Christian, andto come hither this morning to flatter me into the belief that you willdare, ten days hence, to restore the worship of the gods whom you haveabjured!--It was not enough to plan without me all those movements inwhich you told me I was to be your fellow-counsellor--the very conditionwhich you yourself offered!--It was not enough for you to command me tosit in that theatre, as your bait, your puppet, your victim, blushingand shuddering at sights unfit for the eyes of gods and men:--but, overand above all this, I must assist in the renewed triumph of a woman whohas laughed down my teaching, seduced away my scholars, braved me inmy very lecture-room--who for four years has done more than even Cyrilhimself to destroy all the virtue and truth which I have toiled tosow--and toiled in vain! Oh, be
loved gods! where will end the torturesthrough which your martyr must witness for you to a fallen race?'
And, in spite of all her pride, and of Orestes's presence, her eyesfilled with scalding tears.
Orestes's eyes had sunk before the vehemence of her just passion; but asshe added the last sentence in a softer and sadder tone, he raised themagain, with a look of sorrow and entreaty as his heart whispered--
'Fool!--fanatic! But she is too beautiful! Win her I must and will!'
'Ah! dearest, noblest Hypatia! What have I done? Unthinking fool that Iwas! In the wish to save you trouble--In the hope that I could show you,by the aptness of my own plans, that my practical statesmanship was notaltogether an unworthy helpmate for your loftier wisdom--wretch that Iam, I have offended you; and I have ruined the cause of those very godsfor whom, I swear, I am as ready to sacrifice myself as ever you canbe!'
The last sentence had the effect which it was meant to have.
'Ruined the cause of the gods?'asked she, in a startled tone.
'Is it not ruined without your help? And what am I to understand fromyour words but that--hapless man that I am!--you leave me and themhenceforth to our own unassisted strength?'
'The unassisted strength of the gods is omnipotence.'
'Be it so. But--why is Cyril, and not Hypatia, master of the massesof Alexandria this day? Why but because he and his have fought,and suffered, and died too, many a hundred of them, for their god,omnipotent as they believe him to be? Why are the old gods forgotten; myfairest logician?--for forgotten they are.'
Hypatia trembled from head to foot, and Orestes went on more blandlythan ever.
'I will not ask an answer to that question of mine. All I entreat isforgiveness for--what for I know not: but I have sinned, and that isenough for me. What if I have been too confident--too hasty? Are younot the price for which I strain? And will not the preciousness of thevictor's wreath excuse some impatience in the struggle for it? Hypatiahas forgotten who and what the gods have made her--she has not evenconsulted her own mirror, when she blames one of her innumerable adorersfor a forwardness which ought to be rather imputed to him as a virtue.'
And Orestes stole meekly such a glance of adoration, that Hypatiablushed, and turned her face away.... After all, she was woman. And shewas a fanatic.... And she was to be an empress.... And Orestes's voicewas as melodious, and his manner as graceful as ever charmed the heartof woman.
'But Pelagia?' she said, at last, recovering herself.
'Would that I had never seen the creature! But, after all, I reallyfancied that in doing what I have done I should gratify you.'
'Me?'
'Surely if revenge be sweet, as they say, it could hardly find a moredelicate satisfaction than in degradation of one who--'
'Revenge, sir? Do you dream that I am capable of so base a passion?'
'I? Pallas forbid!' said Orestes, finding himself on the wrong pathagain. 'But recollect that the allowing this spectacle to take placemight rid you for ever of an unpleasant--I will not say rival.'
'How, then?'
'Will not her reappearance on the stage, after all her proud professionsof contempt for it, do something towards reducing her in the eyes ofthis scandalous little town to her true and native level? She willhardly dare thenceforth to go about parading herself as the consort ofa god-descended hero, or thrusting herself unbidden into Hypatia'spresence, as if she were the daughter of a consul.'
'But I cannot--I cannot allow it even to her. After all, Orestes, sheis a woman. And can I, philosopher as I am, help to degrade her even onestep lower than she lies already?'
Hypatia had all but said 'a woman even as I am': but Neo-Platonicphilosophy taught her better; and she checked the hasty assertion ofanything like a common sex or common humanity between two beings soantipodal.
'Ah' rejoined Orestes, 'that unlucky word degrade! Unthinking that Iwas, to use it, forgetting that she herself will be no more degraded inher own eyes, or any one's else, by hearing again the plaudits of those"dear Macedonians," on whose breath she has lived for years, than apeacock when he displays his train. Unbounded vanity and self-conceitare not unpleasant passions, after all, for their victim. After all, sheis what she is, and her being so is no fault of yours. Oh, it must be!indeed it must!'
Poor Hypatia! The bait was too delicate, the tempter too wily; and yetshe was ashamed to speak aloud the philosophic dogma which flashed a rayof comfort and resignation through her mind, and reminded her that afterall there was no harm in allowing lower natures to develop themselvesfreely in that direction which Nature had appointed for them, and inwhich only they could fulfil the laws of their being, as necessaryvarieties in the manifold whole of the universe. So she cut theinterview short with--
'If it must be, then.... I will now retire, and write the ode. Only, Irefuse to have any communication whatsoever with--I am ashamed of evenmentioning her name. I will send the ode to you, and she must adapt herdance to it as best she can. By her taste, or fancy rather, I will notbe ruled.'
'And I,' said Orestes, with a profusion of thanks, 'will retire to rackmy faculties over the "dispositions." On this day week we exhibit--andconquer! Farewell, queen of wisdom! Your philosophy never shows tobetter advantage than when you thus wisely and gracefully subordinatethat which is beautiful in itself to that which is beautiful relativelyand practically.'
He departed; and Hypatia, half dreading her own thoughts, sat down atonce to labour at the ode. Certainly it was a magnificent subject. Whatetymologies, cosmogonies, allegories, myths, symbolisms, between allheaven and earth, might she not introduce--if she could but banish thatfigure of Pelagia dancing to it all, which would not be banished, buthovered, like a spectre, in the background of all her imaginations. Shebecame quite angry, first with Pelagia, then with herself, for beingweak enough to think of her. Was it not positive defilement of her mindto be haunted by the image of so defiled a being? She would purify herthoughts by prayer and meditation. But to whom of all the gods shouldshe address herself? To her chosen favourite, Athene? She who hadpromised to be present at that spectacle? Oh, how weak she had been toyield! And yet she had been snared into it. Snared--there was no doubtof it--by the very man whom she had fancied that she could guide andmould to her own purposes. He had guided and moulded her now against herself-respect, her compassion, her innate sense of right. Already shewas his tool. True, she had submitted to be so for a great purpose. Butsuppose she had to submit again hereafter--always henceforth? And whatmade the thought more poignant was, her knowledge that he was right;that he knew what to do, and how to do it. She could not help admiringhim for his address, his quickness, his clear practical insight: and yetshe despised, mistrusted, all but hated him. But what if his were thevery qualities which were destined to succeed? What if her purer andloftier aims, her resolutions--now, alas! broken--never to act but onthe deepest and holiest principles and by the most sacred means, weredestined never to exert themselves in practice, except conjointly withmiserable stratagems and cajoleries such as these? What if statecraftsand not philosophy and religion, were the appointed rulers of mankind?Hideous thought! And yet--she who had all her life tried to beself-dependent, originative, to face and crush the hostile mob ofcircumstance and custom, and do battle single-handed with Christianityand a fallen age--how was it that in her first important and criticalopportunity of action she had been dumb, irresolute, passive, thevictim, at last, of the very corruption which she was to exterminate?She did not know yet that those who have no other means for regeneratinga corrupted time than dogmatic pedantries concerning the dead andunreturning past, must end, in practice, by borrowing insincerely, andusing clumsily, the very weapons of that novel age which they deprecate,and 'sewing new cloth into old garments,' till the rent become patentand incurable. But in the meanwhile, such meditations as these drovefrom her mind for that day both Athene, and the ode, and philosophy, andall things but--Pelagia the wanton.
In the meanwhile, Alexandrian politics flowed onward in their
usual pureand quiet course. The public buildings were placarded with the news ofHeraclian's victory; and groups of loungers expressed, loudly enough,their utter indifference as to who might rule at Rome--or even atByzantium. Let Heraclian or Honorius be emperor, the capitals must befed; and while the Alexandrian wheat-trade was uninjured, what matterwho received the tribute? Certainly, as some friends of Orestes foundmeans to suggest, it might not be a bad thing for Egypt, if she couldkeep the tribute in her own treasury, instead of sending it to Romewithout any adequate return, save the presence of an expensive army....Alexandria had been once the metropolis of an independent empire....Why not again? Then came enormous largesses of corn, proving, moresatisfactorily to the mob than to the shipowners, that Egyptian wheatwas better employed at home than abroad. Nay, there were even rumours ofa general amnesty for all prisoners; and as, of course, every evil-doerhad a kind of friend, who considered him an injured martyr, all partieswere well content, on their own accounts at least, with such a move.
And so Orestes's bubble swelled, and grew, and glittered every day withfresh prismatic radiance; while Hypatia sat at home, with a heavy heart,writing her ode to Venus Urania, and submitting to Orestes's dailyvisits.
One cloud, indeed, not without squalls of wind and rain, disfiguredthat sky which the Prefect had invested with such serenity by the simpleexpedient, well known to politicians, of painting it bright blue, sinceit would not assume that colour of its own accord. For, a day or twoafter Ammonius's execution, the Prefect's guards informed him thatthe corpse of the crucified man, with the cross on which it hung, hadvanished. The Nitrian monks had come down in a body, and carried themoff before the very eyes of the sentinels. Orestes knew well enough thatthe fellows must have been bribed to allow the theft; but he dare notsay so to men on whose good humour his very life might depend; so,stomaching the affront as best he could, he vowed fresh vengeanceagainst Cyril, and went on his way. But, behold!--within four-and-twentyhours of the theft, a procession of all the rascality, followed byall the piety, of Alexandria,--monks from Nitria counted by thethousand,--priests, deacons, archdeacons, Cyril himself, in fullpontificals, and borne aloft in the midst, upon a splendid bier, themissing corpse, its nail-pierced hands and feet left uncovered for thepitying gaze of the Church.
Under the very palace windows, from which Orestes found it expedient toretire for the time being, out upon the quays, and up the steps of theCaesareum, defiled that new portent; and in another half-hour a servantentered, breathlessly, to inform the shepherd of people that hisvictim was lying in state in the centre of the nave, a martyr dulycanonised--Ammonius now no more, but henceforth Thaumasius thewonderful, on whose heroic virtues and more heroic faithfulness unto thedeath, Cyril was already descanting from the pulpit, amid thunders ofapplause at every allusion to Sisera at the brook Kishon, Sennacherib inthe house of Nisroch, and the rest of the princes of this world who cometo nought.
Here was a storm! To order a cohort to enter the church and bring awaythe body was easy enough: to make them do it, in the face of certaindeath, not so easy. Besides, it was too early yet for so desperate amove as would be involved in the violation of a church .... So Orestesadded this fresh item to the long column of accounts which he intendedto settle with the patriarch; cursed for half an hour in the name of alldivinities, saints, and martyrs, Christian and Pagan; and wrote off alamentable history of his wrongs and sufferings to the very Byzantinecourt against which he was about to rebel, in the comfortableassurance that Cyril had sent, by the same post, a counter-statement,contradicting it in every particular.... Never mind.... In case hefailed in rebelling, it was as well to be able to prove his allegianceup to the latest possible date; and the more completely the twostatements contradicted each other, the longer it would take to siftthe truth out of them; and thus so much time was gained, and so much themore chance, meantime, of a new leaf being turned over in that Sibyllineoracle of politicians--the Chapter of Accidents. And for the time being,he would make a pathetic appeal to respectability and moderation ingeneral, of which Alexandria, wherein some hundred thousand tradesmenand merchants had property to lose, possessed a goodly share.
Respectability responded promptly to the appeal; and loyal addresses anddeputations of condolence flowed in from every quarter, expressing theextreme sorrow with which the citizens had beheld the late disturbancesof civil order, and the contempt which had been so unfortunately evincedfor the constituted authorities: but taking, nevertheless, the libertyto remark, that while the extreme danger to property which might ensuefrom the further exasperation of certain classes, prevented their takingthose active steps on the side of tranquillity to which their feelingsinclined them, the known piety and wisdom of their esteemed patriarchmade it presumptuous in them to offer any opinion on his presentconduct, beyond the expression of their firm belief that he had beenunfortunately misinformed as to those sentiments of affection andrespect which his excellency the Prefect was well known to entertaintowards him. They ventured, therefore, to express a humble hope that,by some mutual compromise, to define which would be an unwarrantableintrusion on their part, a happy reconciliation would be effected, andthe stability of law, property, and the Catholic Faith ensured. Allwhich Orestes heard with blandest smiles, while his heart was blackwith curses; and Cyril answered by a very violent though a very true andpractical harangue on the text, 'How hardly shall they that have richesenter into the kingdom of heaven.'
So respectability and moderation met with their usual hapless fate,and, soundly cursed by both parties, in the vain attempt to please both,wisely left the upper powers to settle their own affairs, and went hometo their desks and counters, and did a very brisk business all that weekon the strength of the approaching festival. One hapless innkeeper onlytried to carry out in practice the principles which the deputation fromhis guild had so eloquently advocated; and being convicted of givingaway bread in the morning to the Nitrian monks, and wine in the eveningto the Prefect's guards, had his tavern gutted, and his head broken bya joint plebiscitum of both the parties whom he had conciliated, whoafterwards fought a little together, and then, luckily for the generalpeace, mutually ran away from each other.
Cyril in the meanwhile, though he was doing a foolish thing, was doingit wisely enough. Orestes might curse, and respectability might deplore,those nightly sermons, which shook the mighty arcades of the Caesareum,but they could not answer them. Cyril was right and knew that he wasright. Orestes was a scoundrel, hateful to God, and to the enemies ofGod. The middle classes were lukewarm covetous cowards: the whole systemof government was a swindle and an injustice; all men's hearts were madwith crying, 'Lord, how long?' The fierce bishop had only to thunderforth text on text, from every book of scripture, old and new, in orderto array on his side not merely the common sense and right feeling, butthe bigotry and ferocity of the masses.
In vain did the good Arsenius represent to him not only the scandal butthe unrighteousness of his new canonisation. 'I must have fuel, my goodfather,' was his answer, 'wherewith to keep alight the flame of zeal. IfI am to be silent as to Heraclian's defeat, I must give them some otherirritant, which will put them in a proper temper to act on that defeat,when they are told of it. If they hate Orestes, does he not deserve it?Even if he is not altogether as much in the wrong in this particularcase as they fancy he is, are there not a thousand other crimes ofhis which deserve their abhorrence even more? At all events, he mustproclaim the empire, as you yourself say, or we shall have no handleagainst him. He will not dare to proclaim it if he knows that we areaware of the truth. And if we are to keep the truth in reserve, we musthave something else to serve meanwhile as a substitute for it.'
And poor Arsenius submitted with a sigh, as he saw Cyril making a freshstep in that alluring path of evil-doing that good might come, which ledhim in after years into many a fearful sin, and left his name disgraced,perhaps for ever, in the judgment of generations, who know as littleof the pandemonium against which he fought, as they do of the intensebelief which susta
ined him in his warfare; and who have thereforeneither understanding nor pardon for the occasional outrages and errorsof a man no worse, even if no better, than themselves.
Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face Page 21
