“Although the colours of the frescoes are still bright and fresh in the palaces of Mycenae, Tirinthus and Orchomenus, although the chariots of the rich landowners still race along smooth roads paved with huge white stones as they did in former times, the grass of oblivion is gaining headway on the roads, in the courtyards of the empty houses and even on the sides of the mighty walls.”
Gone were the days of great wealth, Agenor told his pupil, the days of long journeys to fabulous Aigyptos. (Aigyptos — the Greek name from which the modern word Egypt is derived. It is a Greek distortion of the Egyptian Het-Ka-Ptah, the Palace of the Spirit of Ptah, another name for Memphis, the City of the White Walls.) The environs of these cities were now inhabited by strong phratries with large numbers of warriors. Their chiefs had subordinated very large territories, had made the cities part of their domains, had subjugated the weaker clans and declared themselves the rulers of the lands and the peoples.
In Oeniadae, where they lived, there were no mighty chiefs, just as there were no cities and beautiful temples. But then, in the east there were more slaves, more men and women who had lost their liberty. Amongst them, apart from the captives seized in foreign lands, were members of poorer clans, the fellow-countrymen of their masters. What then would be the fate of a stranger in these lands? If he was not backed by a powerful phratry with whom it was dangerous for even a strong chief to quarrel or if he were not accompanied by a strong armed escort of his own, there were only two ways open to him — slavery or death.
“Remember, Pandion,” the artist took the youth by both hands, “we live in a troubled and dangerous time — clans and phratries are at enmity with each other, there are no common laws and the threat of slavery hangs over the head of all travellers. This beautiful country is no place to travel in. Remember that if you leave us you will be without hearth or rights, anybody can humiliate or kill you without fear of invoking a blood feud or paying blood money. You’re alone and poor, I can’t help you in any way, you can’t gather even a small band of fighting men! Alone you must surely perish unless the gods make you invisible! You see, Pandion, although it seems the simplest thing in the world to you to sail a thousand stadia across the bay from our Cape Achelous to Corinth whence it is but a half day’s journey to Mycenae, a day’s to Tirinthus and three days to Orchomenus, in reality it would be the same to you as a journey beyond the bounds of Oicumene!” Agenor got up and went to the door, drawing the boy with him. “You’re like a son to me and my wife, but I’m not thinking of us… Try to imagine the sufferings of my Thessa if you were to languish in slavery in some foreign land!…”
Pandion flushed a deep red but did not answer.
Agenor felt that he had not convinced Pandion and that the youth was floundering in a sea of indecision between two strong affections, one that chained him to the house and the other that beckoned him from afar, despite the certainty of danger.
Thessa did not know what to do for the best — first she would oppose the journey and then, with noble pride, would tell Pandion to go.
Several months passed, and when the winds of spring blowing across the Gulf of Corinth, brought with them the faint aroma of the flowering hills and mountains of Peloponnesus, Pandion at last chose his life’s road.
He was determined to enter into single combat with a strange and distant world. The half year that he intended to spend in foreign parts seemed like an eternity to him. At times Pandion was dismayed by the thought that he was leaving his native shores for ever… Agenor and other wise men of their clan advised Pandion to go to Crete, the home of the descendants of the Sea People, the home of an ancient civilization. Although the huge island was much farther than the ancient cities of Boeotia and Argolis, the journey would be safer for a single traveller.
The island lay at the junction of several sea routes and was now inhabited by different tribes. Foreigners — merchants, sailors and porters — were constantly to be met on its shores. The multilingual population of Crete engaged in commerce and were more peaceful than the inhabitants of Hellas and, in general, were kinder to strangers. In the interior of the island, behind the mountain barriers, however, there still lived the descendants of ancient tribes who were hostile to all strangers.
Pandion was to cross the Gulf of Calydon to a sharp promontory opposite Lower Achaia where he would hire himself out as a rower on one of the boats carrying wool to Crete after the period of winter storms during which the frail boats of the Greeks avoided long journeys.
On the night of the full moon the youth of the district gathered for dances on the big glade of the sacred grove.
In the little courtyard of Agenor’s house Pandion sat in deepest thought, oppressed by his sorrow. The inevitable must come on the morrow, he must thrust out of his heart everything that was near and dear to him and face an unknown destiny. He must part with his beloved and an uncertain future and loneliness awaited him.
Thessa’s clothing rustled inside the silent house, then she appeared in the dark opening of the doorway, adjusting the folds of a mantle thrown over her shoulders. The girl called softly to Pandion’ who immediately jumped up and went to meet her. Thessa’s hair was folded into a heavy knot on the nape of her neck and three ribbons crossed the top of her head, coming together under the knot.
“You’ve done your hair like an Attic girl today,” exclaimed Pandion. “It’s very pretty.”
Thessa smiled and asked him somewhat sadly:
“Aren’t you going to dance for the last time, Pandion?”
“Do you want to go?”
“Yes,” answered Thessa firmly, “I’m going to dance for Aphrodite and also the crane dance.”
“You’re going to dance the Attic crane dance, so that’s why your hair is done that way! I don’t think we’ve ever danced the crane dance before.”
“Today everything is for you, Pandion!”
“Why is it for me?” asked the astonished youth.
“Surely you haven’t forgotten that in Attica they dance the crane dance in memory,” Thessa’s voice quivered, “of the successful return of Theseus (Theseus — the hero of Greek mythology who went to Crete and defeated the monster, Minotaur, in its underground labyrinth; the most handsome girls and youths of Attica had been sacrificed annually to the monster, and Theseus freed his country of this bloody tribute to the ruler of Crete.)from Crete and in honour of his victory… Come on, dearest.” Thessa stretched out both hands to Pandion and, pressing close to each other, the two young people disappeared under the trees of the sacred grove beyond the houses…
The sea met them noisily, beckoning and opening up its boundless waters. In the rays of the early morning sun the distant surface of the sea bulged in the convex lines of a gigantic bridge.
The slow, rolling waves, tinged pink in the dawning sun, carried tatters of golden foam from some distant shore, perhaps even from fabled Aigyptos itself. And the sun’s rays danced, broke and rocked on the tireless, ever-moving waters, giving a faint, flickering radiance to the air.
The path, from which the group of houses and Agenor’s family, waving their last greetings, could still be seen, disappeared behind a hill.
The coastal plain was deserted and Pandion was alone with Thessa before the sea and the sky. In front of them, a tiny boat loomed black on the beach — in this Pandion was to sail round the spit at the mouth of the Achelous and cross the Gulf of Calydon.
The youth and the girl walked on in silence. Their slow steps were uncertain: Thessa looked straight at Pandion who could not take his eyes off her face.
Soon, far too soon, they came to the boat. Pandion straightened his back and with a deep sigh expanded his cramped chest. The moment that had lain heavily on him for days and nights had come at last. There was so much he wanted to say to Thessa in that last moment but the words would not come.
Pandion stood still in ‘embarrassment, his head filled with incomplete thoughts, inconsequent and incoherent.
With a sudden, impetuous movement
, Thessa threw her arms round his neck and whispered to him hurriedly and brokenly, as though she were afraid they might be overheard:
“Swear to me, Pandion, swear by Hyperion, swear by the awful Hecate, goddess of the moon and sorcery… No, swear by your love and mine that you will not go farther than Crete, that you will not go to distant Aigyptos. . where you’ll be made a slave and be lost to me for ever… Swear that you will return soon…” Thessa’s whispering broke off in a suppressed sob.
Pandion pressed the girl tightly to him and pronounced the oath; before his eyes there passed expanses of sea, rocks, groves, houses and the ruins of unknown cities, everything that was to keep him away from Thessa for six long months, months in which he would know nothing of his beloved or she of him.
Pandion closed his eyes and he could feel Thessa’s heart beating.
The minutes passed, and the inevitable parting drew ever nearer and further anticipation had become unbearable.
“On your way, Pandion, hurry… good-bye…” whispered the girl.
Pandion shuddered, released the girl and ran to the boat.
The boat lay deep in the sand but his strong arms moved it and the keel grated over the sand. Pandion went knee-deep into the water and then turned to look round. The boat, rocked by a wave, struck him on the leg.
Thessa, motionless as a statue, stood with her eyes fixed on the spot behind which Pandion’s boat would soon disappear.
Something snapped in the youth’s breast. He pushed the boat off the sand-bank, jumped into it and seized the oars. Thessa turned her head sharply and the westerly breeze caught her hair that she had loosened as a sign of mourning.
Under mighty strokes of the oars the boat drew rapidly away from the shore but Pandion never once took his eyes off the girl, standing with her face lifted high above her bare shoulder.
The wind blew Thessa’s shining black tresses over her face but the girl made no move to brush them back. Through the hair Pandion could see her shining eyes, her dilated nostrils and the bright red lips of her half-open mouth. Her hair, fluttering in the wind, fell in heavy masses on her neck, its curling ends lying in countless ringlets on her cheeks, temples and high bosom. The girl stood motionless until the boat was far from the shore and had turned its bows to the south-east.
It seemed to Thessa that the boat was not turning round the spit but that the spit, dark and forbidding in the shadow of the sun’s low rays, was moving out into the sea, gradually drawing nearer to the boat. Now it had reached a tiny black spot in the glistening sea — now the spot was concealed behind it.
Thessa, conscious of nothing more, sank on to the damp sand.
Pandion’s boat was lost amidst the countless waves. Cape Achelous had long since been lost to view but Pandion continued to row with all his strength as though he were afraid that sorrow would force him to return. He thought of nothing at all, he only tried to tire himself out by hard work.
The sun was soon astern of the boat and the slow-moving waves took on the colour of dark honey. Pandion dropped his oars on to the bottom of the boat and, balancing on one leg so as not to overturn the boat, sprang into the sea. The water refreshed him and he swam for a while pushing the boat before him; then he climbed back and stood up at full height.
Ahead of him lay a sharp-pointed cape while away to the left he could see the longish island that closed the harbour of Calydon — the object of his journey — from the south. Pandion again set to work with his oars and the island began to grow in size as it rose from the sea. Soon the line of its summit broke up into separate pointed tree-tops which in turn became rows of stately cypress-trees looking like gigantic, dark spearheads. The curved, rocky- end of a promontory protected the cypresses from the wind and on its southern side they grew in profusion, striving ever upwards into the clear blue sky. The youth steered his boat carefully between rocks fringed with rust-coloured seaweed. Through the greenish gold of the water the clean sandy seabed could be clearly seen. Pandion went ashore, found a glade of soft young grass in the vicinity of an old, moss-grown altar and there drank up the last of the fresh water he had brought with him. He did not feel like eating. It was no more than twenty stadia to the harbour which lay on the far side of the island.
Pandion decided that he would approach the ship’s master fresh and in full strength and so lay down to rest awhile.
A picture of yesterday’s festival dances arose with extraordinary clarity before Pandion’s closed eyes…
Pandion and the other youths from the district were lying on the grass waiting until the girls had finished their dance in honour of Aphrodite. The girls, dressed in light garments caught in at the waist with ribbons of many colours, were dancing in pairs, back to back. Linking their hands each of them looked back over her shoulder as though she were admiring the beauty of her partner.
The wide folds of the white tunics rose and fell like waves of silver in the moonlight, the golden, sun-tanned bodies of the dancers bent like slender reeds to the strains of the flutes — at the same time soft and attenuated, doleful and joyful.;
Then the youths mingled with the girls in the crane dance, rising on to the tips of their toes and extending their arms like wings. Pandion danced beside Thessa whose troubled eyes never left his face.
The youth of the district were more attentive to Pandion than usual. There was only one young man, Eurymachus, who was in love with Thessa, whose face showed that he was glad of his rival’s departure; and there was the tantalizing Aenoia who could not help teasing him. Pandion noticed that the others did not joke with him in their usual way, there were fewer sarcastic remarks at his expense — it seemed as though a line had been drawn between the one who was leaving and those who were to remain.
The moon sank slowly behind the trees. A heavy curtain of darkness fell over the glade.
The dances were over. Thessa and her friends sang the Hirasiona — the song of the swallow and spring — a song that Pandion loved to hear. At last the young people made their way in pairs to their houses. Pandion and Thessa were the last, deliberately slowing down to be alone. No sooner had they reached the ridge of the hill overlooking the village than Thessa shuddered, stopped and pressed close to Pandion.
The sheer wall of white limestone behind the vine-yards reflected the moon like a mirror. A transparent curtain of silver light veiled the houses, the littoral and the dark sea, a light that was permeated with deadly charm and silent sorrow.
“I’m terribly afraid, Pandion,” whispered Thessa. “Oh, how great is the power of Hecate, goddess of the moonlight, and you are going to the country where she rules…”
Pandion, too, caught Thessa’s excitement.
“No, no, Thessa, Hecate rules in Caria, but I am not going there, my way lies towards Crete,” exclaimed the youth, urging the girl towards their house…
Pandion awoke from his dream. It was time to eat and continue his journey. He made sacrifice to the God of the Sea, walked down to the beach, measured his shadow to judge the time, found that it measured nineteen feet and realized that he would have to hurry to reach the ship before evening.
Rounding the island Pandion saw a white post standing in the: sea — the sign of a harbour — and redoubled his efforts at the oars.
II. THE LAND OF FOAM
I he wind raised clouds of coarse sand as it howled mournfully through the dry bushes. Like a road built by some giants unknown, the ridge ran away eastwards, curving round a broad, green valley. On the seaward side the mountains descended to the water’s edge in a gentle, flower-covered slope, which from a distance gave it the appearance of a huge piece of gold rising out of the shimmering blue of the sea.
Pandion increased his pace. Today he was more homesick than ever for Oeniadae. He remembered that he had been advised not to penetrate into that distant, mountain-encircled part of Crete where the descendants of the Sea People were unkind to strangers.
Pandion had need to hurry. He had already spent five months in various parts of th
e island that stretched in a chain of mountains rising out of the sea. The young sculptor had seen many strange and marvellous things that the ancients had left in the empty temples and almost unpopulated cities.
He had spent many days in the gigantic Palace of Cnossus, the older parts of which went back to times beyond the memory of man. As he wandered up and down the countless staircases of the palace the youth saw, for the first time in his life, columns of red stone narrowing at the base and he marvelled at the cornices brightly painted with black and white rectangles or decorated with black and light blue whorls resembling a series of moving waves.
Brightly-coloured pictures covered the walls. Pandion gazed in breathless amazement at the pictures of the sacred games with the bulls, the processions of women bearing vessels in their arms, girls dancing within an enclosure outside which stood a crowd of men, unknown, sinuous” animals amongst the mountains and strange plants. Pandion thought the outlines of the figures unnatural and the plants rose up on exceedingly long and almost leafless stems. At the same time he realized that the artists of ancient days had deliberately distorted natural proportions in an effort to express some idea, but the idea was incomprehensible to the youth who had grown up at liberty in the lap of nature, beautiful even when stern.
In Cnossus, Tylissos and Aelira, and in the mysterious ruins of the ancient harbour of the “slate city” whose name had long been forgotten, all the houses were built of slabs of smooth, grey, stratified stone instead of the usual blocks. Pandion saw many female statuettes of ivory, bronze and faience, marvellous vessels and dishes and cups made of an amalgam of gold and silver and covered with the most delicate drawings.
These works of art astounded the young Hellene but they were as little understood by him as the mysterious inscriptions in the forgotten symbols of a dead language that he met amongst the ruins. The magnificent craftsmanship to be seen in the tiniest detail of any of these things did not satisfy Pandion; he wanted something more — he did not want to limit himself to abstract depiction; he strove for an incarnation of the living beauty of the human body he worshipped.
The Land of Foam Page 4
