Kitabı oku: «Hypolympia; Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy», sayfa 3

V

[The glen, down which a limpid and murmuring brook descends, with numerous tiny cascades and pools. Beside one of the latter, underneath a great beech-tree, and sitting on the root of it, Aphrodite, alone. Enter from below, concealed at first by the undergrowth, Ares. It is mid-day.]

Aphrodite [to herself].

Here he comes at last, and from the opposite direction… No! that cannot be Phœbus… Ah! it is you, then!

Ares.

Is it possible? Your Majesty – and alone!

Aphrodite.

Phœbus offered me the rustic entertainment of gathering wild raspberries. We found some at length, and regaled ourselves. I wished for more, and Phœbus, with his usual gallantry, wandered dreamily away into the forest on the quest. He has evidently lost his way. I sat me down on this tree and waited.

Ares.

Surely it is the first time that you were ever abroad unattended. I am amazed at the carelessness of Phœbus. Aphrodite – without an attendant!

Aphrodite.

That is rather a fatuous remark, and from you of all people in the world. My most agreeable reminiscences are, without exception, connected with occasions on which I had escaped from my body-guard of nymphs. At the present moment you would do well to face the fact, Ares, that I have but a single maid, and that she has collapsed under the burdens of novelty and exile.

Ares.

Is that my poor friend Cydippe?

Aphrodite.

You have so many friends, Ares. Poor Cydippe, then, broke down this morning in moaning hysterics after having borne up just long enough to do my hair. I really came out on this rather mad adventure after the raspberries to escape the dolours of her countenance, and the last thing I saw was her chlamys flung wildly over her head as she dived down upon the floor in misery. Such consolations as this island has to give me will not proceed from what you call my attendant. You do not look well, Ares.

Ares.

I am always well. I am still incensed.

Aphrodite.

Ah, you are oppressed by our misfortunes?

Ares.

I can think of nothing else.

Aphrodite.

You do not, I hope, give way to the most foolish of the emotions, and endure the silly torture of self-reproach?

Ares.

I have nothing to reproach myself with. Our forces had never been in smarter trim, public spirit in Olympus never more patriotic and national; and as to the personal bravery of our forces, it was simply a portent of moral splendour.

Aphrodite.

And your discipline?

Ares.

It was perfect. I had led the troops up to the point of cheerfully marching and counter-marching until they were ready to drop with exhaustion, on the eve of each engagement; and at the ends of all our practising-grounds brick walls had been set up, at which every officer made it a point of honour to tilt head-foremost once a day. There was no refinement preserved from the good old wars of chivalry which was not familiar to our gallant fellows, and I had expressly forbidden every species of cerebral exercise. Nothing, I have always said, is so hurtful to the temper of an army as for the rank and file to suspect that they are led by men of brains.

Aphrodite.

There every one must do you justice, Ares. I never heard even the voice of prejudice raised to accuse you.

Ares.

No; I do not think any one could have the effrontery to charge me with encouraging that mental effort which is so disastrous to the work of a soldier. The same old practices which led our forefathers to glory – the courage of tigers; the firm belief that if any one tried to be crafty it must be because he is a coward; a bull-front set straight at every obstacle, whatever its nature; a proper contempt for any plan or discovery made since the days of Father Uranus – these are the principles in which I disciplined our troops, and I will not admit that I can have anything to reproach myself with. The circumstances which we were unexpectedly called upon to face were such as could never have been anticipated.

Aphrodite.

I do not see that you could have done otherwise than, as you did, to refuse with dignity to anticipate anything so revolutionary.

Ares.

There are certain things which one seems to condone by merely acknowledging their existence. That employment of mobile mechanisms, for instance —

Aphrodite.

Do not speak of it! I could never have believed that the semblance of the military could be made so excessively distasteful to me.

Ares.

Can I imagine myself admitting the necessity of guarding against such an ungentlemanlike form of attack?

Aphrodite.

Your friends are all aware, Ares, that if the conditions were to return, you would never demean yourself and them by guarding against anything of the kind. But I advise you not to brood upon the past. Your figure will suffer. You must keep up your character for solid and agile exercises.

Ares.

It will not be easy for me to occupy myself here. I am accustomed, as you know, to hunting and slaying. I thought I might have enjoyed some sport with the barbarian islanders, and I selected one for the purpose. But Zeus intervened, with that authority which even here, in our shattered estate, we know not how to resist.

Aphrodite.

Did he give any reason for preventing the combat?

Ares.

Yes; and his reasons (I was bound to admit) carried some weight with them. He said, first, that it was wrong to kill those who had received us with so generous a hospitality; and secondly, that, as I am no longer immortal, this brawny savage, with hair so curiously coiled and matted over his brain-pan, might kill me; and thirdly, that the whole affair might indirectly lead to his, Zeus', personal inconvenience. Here then is enjoyment by one door quite shut out from me.

Aphrodite.

Are there not deer in these woods, and perhaps wolves and boars? There must be wild duck on the firth, and buzzards in the rocks. Instead of challenging the barbarians to a foolish trial of strength, why not make them your companions, and learn their accomplishments?

Ares.

It is possible that I shall do so. But for the present, anger gushes like an intermittent spring of bitter water in my bosom. I forget for a moment, and the fountain falls; and then, with a rush, memory leaps up in me, a column of poison. I say to myself, It cannot be, it shall not be; but I grow calm again and find that it is.

Aphrodite.

The worst of the old immortality was the carelessness of it. We were utterly unprepared for anything bordering on catastrophe, and behold, without warning, we are swept away in a complete cataclysm of our fortunes. I see, Ares, that it will be long before you can recover serenity, or take advantage of the capabilities of our new existence. They will appeal to you more slowly than to the rest of us, and you will respond more unwillingly, because of your lack – your voluntary and boasted lack – of all intellectual suppleness.

Ares.

It is not the business of a soldier to be supple.

Aphrodite.

So it appears. And you will suffer for it. For, stiff and blank as you may determine to be, circumstances will overpower you. Under their influences you will not be able to avoid becoming softer and more redundant. But you will resist the process, I see, and you will make it as painful as you can.

Ares.

You discuss my case with a cheerful candour, Aphrodite. Are you sure of being happier yourself?

Aphrodite.

Not sure; but I have a reasonable confidence that I shall be fairly contented. For I, at least, am supple, and I court the influences which you think it a point of gallantry to resist.

Ares.

You will continue, I suppose, to make your main business the stimulating and the guiding of the affections? Here I admit that suppleness, as you call it, is in place.

Aphrodite.

Unfortunately, even here, immortality was no convenient prelude to our present state. We did not, indeed, neglect the heart —

Ares.

If I forget all else, there must be events —

Aphrodite.

Alas! we loved so briefly and with so facile a susceptibility, that I am tempted to ask myself whether in Olympus we really loved at all.

Ares [with ardour].

There, at least, memory supplies me with no sort of doubt —

Aphrodite [coldly].

Let us keep to generalities. Looking broadly at our experience, I should say that the misfortune of the gods, as a preparation for their mortality, was that in their deathless state the affections fell at the foot of the tree, like these withered leaves. We should have fastened the branches of life together in long elastic wires of the thin-drawn gold of perdurable sentiment.

Ares.

The rapture, the violence, the hammering pulse, the bursting heart, – I see no resemblance between these and the leaves that flutter at our feet.

Aphrodite.

These leaves had their moment of vitality, when the sap rushed through their veins, when their tissue was like a ripple of sparkling emerald on the face of the smiling sky. But they could not preserve their glow, and they are the more hopelessly dead now, because they burned in their green fire so fiercely.

Ares.

We felt no shadow of coming disability strike across our pleasures.

Aphrodite.

No; but that was precisely what made our immortality such an ill preparation for a brief existence on this island. In Olympus the sentiment of yesterday was forgotten, and we realised the passion of to-day as little as the caprice of to-morrow. Perhaps this fragmentary tenderness was the real chastisement of our implacable prosperity.

Ares [in a very low voice].

Can we not resume in this our exile, and with more prospect of continuity, the emotions which were so agreeable in our former state? So agreeable – although, as you justly say, too ephemeral [coming a little closer]. Can you not teach us to moderate and to prolong the rapture?

Aphrodite [rising to her feet].

It may be. We shall see, Ares. But one thing I have already perceived. In this mortal sphere, the heart needs solitude, it needs silence. It must have its questionings and its despairs. The triumphant supremacy of the old emotions cannot be repeated here. For we have a new enemy to contend with. Even if love should prosecute its conquests here in all the serenity of success, it will not be able to escape from an infliction worse than any which we dreamed of when we were immortals.

Ares.

And what is that, Aphrodite?

Aphrodite.

The blight of indifference.

VI

[Aphrodite and Circe are seated on the grass in a little dell surrounded by beechwoods. Far away a bell is heard.]

Circe.

What is that curious distant sound? Is it a bird?

Aphrodite.

Cydippe tells me that there is a temple on the hill beyond these woods. I wonder to whom amongst us it is dedicated?

Circe.

I think it must be to you, Aphrodite, for now it is explained that on coming hither I met a throng of men and maidens, sauntering slowly along in twos, exactly as they used to do at Paphos.

Aphrodite.

Were they walking apart, or wound together by garlands?

Circe.

They were wound together by the arm of the boy coiled about the waist of the girl, or resting upon it, a symbol, no doubt, of your cestus.

Aphrodite [eagerly].

With any animation of gesture, Circe?

Circe.

With absolutely none. The maidens were dressed – but not all of them – in robes of that very distressing electric blue that bites into the eye, that blue which never was on sky or sea, and which was absolutely banished from every colour-combination in Olympus. It was employed in Hades as a form of punishment, if you recollect.

Aphrodite.

No doubt, then, this procession was a penitential one, and its object to appease my offended deity. But what a mistake, poor things! No one ever regained my favour by making a frump of herself.

Circe.

After these couples, came, in a very slow but formless moving group, figures of a sombre and spectral kind, draped, both males and females, in dull black, with little ornaments of gold in their hands. It was with the utmost amazement that, on their coming closer, I recognised some of the faces as those of the ruddy, gentle barbarians to whom we owe our existence here. You cannot think how painful it was to see them thus travestied. In their well-fitting daily dress they look very attractive in a rustic mode; there is one large one that labours in the barn, who reminds me, when his sleeves are turned up, of Ulysses. But, oh! Aphrodite, you must contrive to let them know that you pardon their shortcomings, and relieve them from the horrors of this remorseful costume. I know not which is more depressing to the heart, the blue of the young or the black of the aged.

Aphrodite.

I expect that at this distance from the centre of things, all manner of misconception has crept into my ritual. Of course, I cannot now demand any rites, and that the dear good people should pay them at all is very touching.

Circe.

Don't you think that it would be delightful to introduce here a purer form of liturgy? It is very sad to see your spirit so little understood.

Aphrodite.

Well, I hardly know. It is kind of you, Circe, to suggest such a thing. No doubt it would be very pleasant. But I feel, of course, the hollowness of the whole concern. We must be careful not to deceive the barbarians.

Circe.

Certainly … oh! yes, certainly. But … I am sure it would be so good for them to have a ritual to follow. We should not absolutely assert to them that you still exist as an immortal, but I do not see why we should insist on tearing every illusion away from them. Suppose I could persuade them that you were no longer displeased with them, and that you were quite willing to let them wear pink and white robes again, and plenty of flowers in their hair; and suppose I encouraged them to sacrifice turtle-doves on your altar, and arrange garlands of wild roses in the proper way, don't you think you could bring yourself to make a concession?

Aphrodite.

What do you mean by a "concession"?

Circe.

Well, for instance, when they were all assembled in the temple, and had sung a hymn, and the priest had gone up to the altar, could you not suddenly make an appearance, voluminous and splendid, and smile upon them? Could you not shower a few champak-blossoms over the congregation?

Aphrodite.

It is very ingenious of you to think of these things. But I suppose it would not be right to attempt to do it. In the first place it would encourage them to believe in my immortality —

Circe.

Oh! but to believe is such a salutary discipline to the lower classes. That is the whole principle of religion, surely, Aphrodite? It is not for people like ourselves. You know how indolent Dionysus is, but he always attended the temple when he was hunting upon Nysa.

Aphrodite.

There is a great deal in that argument, no doubt. Only, what will be the result when they discover that it is all a mistake, and that I am a mortal like themselves?

Circe.

You never can be a mortal like the barbarians, for you have been a force ruling the sea, and the flowers, and the winds, and twisting the blood of man and woman in your fingers like a living skein of soft red silk. They will always worship you. It may not be in temples any longer, not with a studied liturgy, but wherever the sap rises in a flower, or the joy of life swims up in the morning through the broken film of dreams, or a young man perceives for the first time that the girl he meets is comely, you will be worshipped, Aphrodite, for the essence of your immortality is the cumulative glow of its recurrent mortality.

Hermes [entering abruptly].

You will be disappointed —

Circe.

Ah! you followed the youths and maidens to the little temple of our friend. Is it not beautiful?

Hermes.

It is hideous.

Circe.

Are you sure that it is a temple at all?

Hermes.

I confess that I was for a long time uncertain, but on the whole I believe that it is.

Aphrodite.

But is it dedicated to me?

Hermes.

That is the disappointment… It is best to tell you at once that I see no evidence whatever that it is.

Circe.

I am very much disappointed.

Aphrodite.

I am very much relieved. But could you not gather from the decoration of the interior to whom of us it is inscribed?

Hermes.

It is not decorated at all: whitewashed walls, wooden benches, naked floors.

Circe.

But what is the nature of the sculpture?

Hermes.

I could see no sculpture, except a sort of black tablet, with names upon it, and at the sides two of the youthful attendants of Eros – those that have wings, indeed, but cannot rest. These were exceedingly ill-carven in a kind of limestone. And I hardly like to tell you what I found behind the altar —

Aphrodite.

I am not easily shocked. My poor worshippers sometimes demand a very considerable indulgence.

Circe.

Nothing very ugly, I hope?

Hermes.

Yes; very ugly, and still more incomprehensible. But nothing that could spring out of any misconception of the ritual of our friend. No; I hardly like to tell you. Well, a gaunt painted figure, with spines about the bleeding forehead —

Aphrodite.

Was it fastened to any symbol? Did you notice anything that explained the horror of it?

Hermes.

No. I did not observe it very closely. As I was glancing at it, the celebration or ritual, or whatever we are to call it, began, and I withdrew to the door, not knowing what frenzy might seize upon the worshippers.

Aphrodite.

There was a cannibal altar in Arcadia to Phœbus, so I have heard. He instantly destroyed it, and scattered the ignorant savages who had raised it.

Hermes.

There was a touch of desolate majesty about this figure. I fear that it portrays some blighting Power of suffering or of grief. [He shudders.]

Aphrodite.

There are certainly deities of whom we knew nothing in Olympus. Perhaps this is the temple of some Unknown God.

Hermes.

I admit that I thought, with this picture, and with their sinister garments of black and of blue, and with the bareness and harshness of the temple, that something might be combined which it would give me no satisfaction to witness. I placed myself near the door, where, in a moment, I could have regained the exquisite forest, and the odour of this carpet of woodruff, and your enchanting society. But nothing occurred to disconcert me. After genuflexions and liftings of the voice —

Aphrodite.

What was the object of these?

Hermes.

I absolutely failed to determine. Well, the priest – if I can so describe a man without apparent dedication, robed without charm, and exalted by no visible act of sacrifice – ascended a species of open box, and spoke to the audience from the upturned lid of it.

Circe.

What did he say? Did he explain the religion of his people?

Hermes.

To tell you the truth, Circe, although I listened with what attention I could, and although the actual language was perfectly clear to me – you know I am rather an accomplished linguist – I formed no idea of what he said. I could not find the starting-point of his experience.

Circe.

To whom can this temple be possibly dedicated?

Aphrodite.

Depend upon it, it is not a temple at all. What Hermes was present at was unquestionably some gathering of local politicians. Poor these barbarians may be, but they could not excuse by poverty such a neglect of the decencies as he describes. No flowers, no bright robes, no music of stringed instruments, no sacrifice – it is quite impossible that the meanest of sentient beings should worship in such a manner. And as for the picture which you saw behind what you took to be the altar, I question not that it is used to keep in memory some ancestor who suffered from the tyranny of his masters. In the belief that he was assisting at a process of rustic worship, our poor Hermes has doubtless attended a revolutionary meeting.

Circe.

Dreadful! But may its conflicts long keep outside the arcades of this delightful woodland!

Hermes.

And still we know not to which of us the mild barbarians pray!