Kitabı oku: «Hypolympia; Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy»

PREFACE

The scene of this fantasy is an island, hitherto inhabited by Lutherans, in a remote but temperate province of Northern Europe. The persons are the Gods of Ancient Greece. The time is early in the Twentieth Century.

I

[A terrace high above the sea, which is seen far below, through vast masses of woodland. Steps lead down towards the water, from the centre of the scene. To the left, a large, low country-house, of unpretentious character, in the style of the late eighteenth century. Gardens belonging to the same period, and now somewhat neglected and overgrown, stretch on either side. The edge of the terrace is marked by a stone balustrade, with a stone seat running round it within. At the top of steps, ascending, appear Aphrodite and Eros.]

Aphrodite.

A moment, Eros. Let us sit here. What can this flutter at my girdle be? I breathe with difficulty. Oh! Eros, can this be death?

Eros.

Death? Ah! no; you have roses in your cheeks, mother. Your lips are like blood.

Aphrodite.

It must be weariness. Ever these new sensations, these odd, exciting apprehensions! This must be mortality. I never breathed the faster as I rose from terrace to terrace in Cythera.

Eros.

Yet this is like Cythera – a little like it. [Looking round.] It is not the least like it. These round billowy woods, that grey strip of sea far below, the long smooth land with square yellow fields and pointed brown fields, and the wild grey sky above. No; it would be impossible for anything to be less like Cythera.

Aphrodite.

Yet it is like it. [Gazing round.] How strange … to be where everything is not azure and gold and white – white land, gold houses and blue sky and sea. What are these woods, Eros?

Eros.

Are they beech-woods?

Aphrodite.

I did not think that I could ever be happy again. I am not happy. But I am not miserable. Now that my heart is quiet again, I am not miserable. Oh! that sick tossing on the black sea, the nausea, the aching, the dulness; that I, who sprang from the waves, could come to hate them so. We will never venture on the sea, again?

Eros.

Then must we stay for ever here, since this is an island.

Aphrodite.

Yes, here for ever. For ever? We have no "for ever" now, Eros.

[Enter, from the house, Cydippe.]

Aphrodite.

Is all prepared for us, Cydippe?

Cydippe.

I have done my best. The barbarian people are kind and clean. They have blue eyes. There is one, with marigold curls and a crisp beard, who has brought up water and logs of wood. There are two maidens, with hair like a wheat-field and rough red fingers. There are others… I know not. All seem civil and frightened. But your Majesty will be wretched.

Aphrodite.

No, Cydippe, I think I shall be happy.

Eros [walking to the parapet, and looking down].

Our white ship still lies there, mother. Shall we start again?

Aphrodite.

On that leaden water, with the little cruel breakers like coriander seeds? Never. And whither should we go, Eros? We have lost our golden home, our only home. We have lost the old white world of empire; any grey corner of the world of stillness is good enough for us. I will eat, and lie down, and rest without that long, awful heave of the intolerable ocean. Which way, Cydippe?

[Aphrodite and Cydippe enter the house.]

Eros [alone].

This little milk-white flower, with the drop of wine in it… It is like the grass that grows on the slopes of Parnassus. It is the only home-like thing here. Can that be grey wool that hangs in the sky, and droops like a curtain over the opposite hills? How cold the air is! Ah! it is raining over in the other island, and the brown fields grow like the yellow fields, melt into a mere white mist behind the slate-coloured sea. Here is one of the barbarians.

[Poseidon slowly appears at the top of the steps.]

Poseidon.

Ah, you here alone, Eros?

Eros [aside].

It is Poseidon! How old and bluff he looks! [To Poseidon.] My mother is within. [Smiling.] She was angry with you, Poseidon, but her anger is fallen.

Poseidon.

Adversity brings us all together. It was once I who burned with anger against her. Why was she angry?

Eros.

The cruelty of your sea; it shook and sickened her.

Poseidon.

It once was her sea, too. Now it is not even mine… Rebellion everywhere, everywhere the servant risen against the master, everywhere our spells and portents broken. I rule the sea still, but it is as a man holds in a wild horse with a hard rein: it obeys with hatred, it would obey not one moment after the master's hand was withdrawn.

Eros.

How cold it is. But I am not disconsolate. Nor should you be, Poseidon, for you will have the sea to occupy your thoughts. Hephæstus will help you to break it in. He at least should be consoled, for in our fallen estate his magical ingenuity will employ his brain.

Poseidon.

We have never needed to be ingenious. It has been enough for us to command, to wield the elements like weapons, to say it shall be and to see it is.

Eros.

To see it is not, and yet to make it be, perhaps this may be a joy in store for us. For Hephæstus, certainly; for you, if you are wise; but for me, ah! what will there be? My arrows break against old hearts, and now we all are old.

[Pallas Athene comes rapidly down the steps from the house and speaks while still behind Eros.]

Pallas.

I have brought with me the box which Epimetheus made for Pandora.

Eros [turning suddenly].

Ah! Pallas! What, you have brought that ivory box with you? Why did you burden your hands with that?

Pallas.

I snatched it from the burning palace. There is something strange at the bottom of it – something like an opal, with a violet flame in it.

Eros.

Alas! we have no great need of jewels here. This shining beech-leaf is the treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a little bough of it, bent just above the white enamel of your forehead. It will be as green as a beryl to-day, and red like copper to-morrow, and perhaps you will need no third adornment.

Pallas.

There is something in the carven box which the shrieking oracle commended to me. "Take this," it said, "take this, and it will turn the blackness of exile into living light."

Eros.

Poor oracle, it became mad before it became dumb.

Pallas.

I was the only one of us all, Eros, who anticipated this change. High up above the glaciers of Olympus, where the warm crystal shone like ice, and the faint cumuli rained jasmine on us, and the blue light was like the cold acid of a fruit, in the midst of our incomparable felicity I pondered on the vicissitude of things.

Eros.

You only, I remember, ever heeded the foolish screaming oracle that moaned for mortals. You always had something of the mortal temperament, Pallas. It jarred upon my mother that you seem to shudder even at the voluptuous turmoil of the senses. She said you always looked old. You look younger now than she does, Pallas.

Pallas.

I am neither old nor young. I know not what I am. But this grey colour and those blowing woods are not unpleasing to me. I can be myself, even here, on a beech-wood peak in the cold sea.

[Enter up the steps Zeus, leaning heavily on Ganymede, and attended by many other Gods.]

Eros, Poseidon, and Pallas.

Hail! father and king!

Zeus.

I can push on no farther. Why have I brought you here? [Gazing round.] Nay, it is you who have brought me here. [He moves up the scene.] I have a demon in my legs, that swells them, breaks them, crushes me down. [To Ganymede.] You are careless; stiffen your shoulder, it slopes like a woman's. I have lost my thunderbolt, I have lost everything. Shall I be bound upon this muddy, slippery rock? What is that horror in the sky?

Poseidon.

It is some dark bird of the north; it seeks a prey in the woodlands.

Zeus.

I think it is a vulture. My eagle fled from me when the rebel whistled to it. It perched beside him, and smoothed its crest against his elbow. All have left me, even my eagle.

Pallas.

Father, we have not left you. We are about you here. One by one the alleys of the beech-wood will open, and one after one we shall all gather here, all your children, all the Olympians.

Zeus.

But where is Olympus? I hardly know you. [Gazing blankly about him.] Are you my children? You [to Pallas] gaze at me with eyes like those I hated most.

Eros.

Whose eyes, father and king?

Zeus.

I will not say. Are you sure [to Poseidon] that is not a vulture? I am torn, see, here under my beard, by a thorn. I can feel pain at last, I, who could only inflict it.

Eros.

Pallas has something in a box —

Zeus [vehemently].

There is nothing in any box, there is nothing in any island, there is nothing in all the empty caskets of this world which can give me any happiness. Is it in this shanty that we must live? Lead me on, Ganymede, lead me on into it, that I may sink down and sleep. Walk slowly and walk steadily, wretched boy.

[He passes into the house, followed by all the others.]

II

[The terrace as before. Early morning, with warm sunshine. Enter Circe, very carefully helping Kronos down the steps of the house. Rhea follows, leaning on a staff. Circe places Kronos in one throne, and sees Rhea comfortably settled in another. Then she sits on the ground between them, at Rhea's knees.]

Circe.

There! We are all comfortable now. How did Kronos sleep, Rhea?

Rhea.

He has not complained this morning. [Raising her voice.] Did you sleep, Kronos?

Kronos [vaguely].

Yes, oh yes! I always sleep. Why should I not sleep?

Circe.

These new arrangements – I was afraid they might disturb you.

Rhea [to Circe].

He notices very little. I do not think he recollects that there has been any change. Already he forgets Olympus. [After a pause.] It is very thoughtful of you, Circe, to take so much trouble about us.

Circe.

I have been anxious about you both. All the rest of us ought to be able to console ourselves, but I am afraid that you will find it very difficult to live in the new way.

Rhea.

Kronos will soon have forgotten that there was an old way; and as for me, Circe, I have seen so much and wandered in so many places, that one is as another to me.

Kronos.

Is it Zeus who has driven us forth?

Circe.

Oh no! Zeus has led us hither. It was he who was attacked, it was against him that the rage of the enemy was directed.

Kronos [to himself].

He let me stay where I was. We were not driven forth before, Rhea, were we? When I saw that it was hopeless, I did not struggle; I rose and took you by the hand…

Rhea.

Yes; and we went half-way down the steps of the throne together…

Kronos [very excitedly].

And we bowed to Zeus…

Rhea.

And he walked forward as if he did not see us…

Kronos.

And then we came down, and I [all his excitement falls from him] I cannot quite remember. Did he strike us, Rhea?

Rhea.

Oh! no, no! He swept straight on, and did not so much as seem to see us, and in a moment he was up in the throne, and all the gods, the new and the old, were bowing to him with acclamation.

Circe [looking up at Rhea, with eager sympathy].

What did you do, you poor dears?

Rhea [after a pause].

We did nothing.

Kronos.

Zeus let us stay then. Why has he driven us out now?

Rhea [aside].

He does not understand, Circe. It is very sweet of you to be so kind to us, but you must go back now to your young companions. Who is here?

Circe.

I think we are all here, or nearly all. I have not seen Iris, but surely all the rest are here.

Rhea.

Is Zeus very much disturbed? On the ship I heard Æolus say that it was impossible to go near him, he was so unreasonably angry.

Circe.

Yes, he thought that our miseries were all the fault of Poseidon and Æolus. But mortality will make a great change in Zeus; I think perhaps a greater change than in any of us. He has eaten a very substantial breakfast. Æsculapius says that as Zeus has hitherto considered the quality of his food so much, it is probable that in these lower conditions it may prove to be quantity which will interest him most. He was greatly pleased with a curious kind of aromatic tube which Hermes invented for him this morning.

Rhea.

Does Zeus blow down it?

Circe.

No; he puts fire to one end of it, and draws in the vapour. He is delighted. How clever Hermes is, is he not, Rhea? What shall you do here?

Rhea.

I must look after Kronos, of course. But he gives me no trouble. And I do not need to do much more. I am very tired, Circe. I was tired in my immortality. When Kronos and I were young, things were so very different in Olympus.

Circe.

How were they different? Do tell me what happened. I have always longed to know, but it was not considered quite nice, quite respectful to Zeus, for us to ask questions about the Golden Age. But now it cannot matter; can it, Rhea?

Rhea [after a pause].

The fact is that when I look back, I cannot see very plainly any longer. Do you know, Circe, that after the younger Gods invaded Heaven, although Zeus was very good-natured to us, and let us go on as deities, something of our god-head passed away?

Kronos [aloud, to himself].

I said to him, "If I am unwelcome, I can go." And he answered, "Pray don't discommode yourself." Just like that; very politely, "Don't discommode yourself." And now he drives us away after all.

Circe [flinging herself over to Kronos' knees].

Oh! Kronos, he does not drive you away! It is not he. It is our new enemies, not of our own race, that have driven us. And we are all here – Pallas, Ares, Phœbus – we are all here. You like Hermes, do you not, Kronos? Well, Hermes is here, and he will amuse you.

Kronos.

I thought that Zeus had forgiven us. But never mind, never mind!

Rhea.

We are tired, Circe. And what does the new life matter to us now? The old life had run low, and we had long been prepared for mortality by the poverty of our immortality.

[Enter Hermes running.]

Hermes [in reply to a gesture of Circe].

I cannot stay. I am trying to rouse Demeter from her dreadful state of depression. She sits in the palace heaving deep sighs, and doing absolutely nothing else. It will affect her heart, Æsculapius say.

Circe.

She has always been so closely wedded to the study of agriculture, and now…

Hermes.

Precisely. And it has occurred to me that the way to rouse her will be to send Persephone to her in a little country cart I have discovered. I have two mouse-coloured ponies already caught and harnessed – such little beauties. The only thing left to do is to search for Persephone.

Circe.

I will find her in a moment. [Exit.]

Rhea.

We hear that you have already invented a means of amusing Zeus, Hermes? Is he prepared to forget his thunderbolt?

Hermes.

He has mentioned it only twice this morning, and I have set Hephæstus to work to make him another, of yew-tree wood. It will be less incommodious, more fitted to this place, and in a very short time Zeus will forget the original.

Kronos [loudly, to himself].

Zeus gave me an orb and sceptre to console me. I used to play cup and ball with them behind his throne.

Rhea [in a solicitous aside to Hermes].

Oh! it is not true. Kronos' mind now wanders so strangely. He thinks that it is Zeus who has turned him out of Olympus.

Hermes [in the same tone].

Do not distress him, Rhea, by contradiction and explanation. I will find modes of amusing him a little every day, and, for the rest, let him doze in the sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth that it fails any longer to catch in ideas as they flit against it. They pass off, glide away. It is useless, Rhea, to torment Kronos.

Rhea.

I shall watch him, all day long. For I, too, am weary. Do not propose to me, with your restless energy, any fresh interests. Let me sit, with my cold hands folded in my lap, and look at Kronos, nodding, nodding. It is very kind of Circe, but we are too old for love; and of you, but we are too old for amusement. Let us rest, Hermes, rest and sleep; perhaps dream a little, dream of the far-away past.

[Circe and Persephone enter from the left.]

Persephone [to Hermes].

My mother requires so much activity of mind and body. You must not believe that I was neglecting her. But I went forth in despair this morning to see what I could invent, adapt, discover, as a means of rousing her. I am stupid, I could think of nothing. I wandered through the woods, down the glen, along the sea-shore, up the side of the tarn and of the marsh, but I could think of nothing.

Circe.

And when I found Persephone she was lying, flung out among the flowers, with bees and butterflies leaping round her in the sunshine, and the beech-leaves singing their faint song of peace. It was beautiful, it was like Enna – with, ah! such a difference.

Persephone.

Circe does not tell you that I was so foolish as to be in tears. But now it seems that you have invented an occupation for Ceres? You are so divinely ingenious.

Hermes.

I hope it may be successful.

Persephone.

Tell me what it is.

Hermes.

I have found at the back of the palace a small rural waggon, and I have caught two ponies, with coats like grey velvet, and great antelopes' eyes – dear little creatures. I have harnessed them, and now I want you to sit in this cart, while I am dressed like some herdsman of these barbarians, and lead the ponies, and we will go together to coax Demeter out into the fields.

Persephone.

Oh! Hermes, how splendid of you. Let us fly to carry out your plan. Circe, will you not come with us?

Circe.

Or shall I not rather go to prepare the mind of Demeter for an agreeable surprise? Shall you be happy by yourselves, Kronos and Rhea?

Rhea.

Quite happy, for we desire to sleep.

[Exit Circe to right, Hermes and Persephone to left.]