III
[A ring of turf, in a hollow of the slope, surrounded by beech-trees, except on one side, where a marsh descends to a small tarn. Over the latter is rising the harvest moon. Phœbus Apollo alone; he watches the luminary for a long time in silence.]
Phœbus.
Selene! sister! – since that tawny shell,
Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy sighs,
Recalls thee still to mind – dost thou regard,
From some tumultuous covert of this woodland,
Thy whilom sphere and palace? Nun of the skies,
In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands
Repelled me when I sought to win thy lair,
Fraternal, with no thoughts but humorous ones;
And in thy chill revulsion, through thy skies,
At my advance thy crystal home would fade,
A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery dream.
Thou and thy moon were one. What is it now,
Thy phantom paradise of gorgeous pearl,
With sibilant streams and palmy tier on tier
Of wind-bewhitened foliage? Still it floats,
As when thy congregated harps and viols
Beat slow harmonious progress, light on light,
Across our stainless canopy of heaven.
Ah! but how changed, Selene! If thy form
Crouches among these harsher herbs, O turn
Thy withering face away, and press thine eyes
To darkness in the strings of dusty heather,
Since that loose globe of orange pallor totters,
Racked with the fires of anarchy, and sheds
The embers of thy glory; and the cradles
Of thy imperial maidenhood are foul
With sulphur and the craterous ash of hell.
O gaze not, sister, on the loathsome wreck
Of what was once thy moon. Yet, if thou must
With tear-fed eyes visit thine ancient realm,
Bend down until the fringe of thy faint lids
Hides all save what is in this tarn reflected —
Cold, pallid, swimming in the lustrous pool,
There only worthy of thy clear regard,
A vision purified in woe.
[The reeds in the tarn are stirred, and there is audible a faint shriek and a ripple of laughter. A shrouded figure rises from the marsh, and, hastening by Phœbus through the darkness, is lost in the woods. It is followed closely by Pan, who, observing Phœbus, pauses in embarrassment.]
Phœbus.
I thought I was alone.
Pan.
And so did we, sire.
Phœbus.
Am I to congratulate you on your distractions?
Pan.
I have a natural inclination to marshy places.
Phœbus.
This is a ghastly night, Pan.
Pan.
I had not observed it, sire. Yes, doubtless a ghastly night. But I was occupied, and I am no naturalist. This glen curiously reminded me of rushy Ladon. I am a great student of reeds, and I was agreeably surprised to find some very striking specimens here – worthy of the Arcadian watercourses, as I am a deity. I should say, was a deity.
Phœbus.
They will help, perhaps, to reconcile you to mortality. You can add them to your collection.
Pan.
That, sire, is my hope. The stems are particularly full and smooth, and the heads of the best of them rustle back with a profusion of flaxen flowerage, remarkably agreeable to the touch. I broke one as your Highness approached. But the wind, or some goblin, bore it from me. This curious place seems full of earth-spirits.
Phœbus.
You must study them, too, Pan. That will supply you with another object.
Pan.
But the marsh water has a property unknown to the Olympian springs. I suspect it of being poisoned. After standing long in it, I found myself troubled with aching in the shank, from knee to hoof. If this is repeated, my studies of reed-life will be made dolorously difficult.
Phœbus.
It must now be part of your pleasure to husband your enjoyments. You have always rolled in the twinkle of the vine-leaves, hot enough and not too hot, with grapes – immense musky clusters – just within your reach. If you think of it philosophically —
Pan.
How, sire?
Phœbus.
Philosophically… Well, if you think of it sensibly, you will see that there was a certain dreariness in this uniformity of satisfaction. Rather amusing, surely, to find the cluster occasionally spring up out of reach, to find the polished waist of the reed slip from your hands? Occasionally, of course; just enough to give a zest to pursuit.
Pan.
Ah! there was pursuit in Ladon, but it was pursuit which always closed easily in capture. What I am afraid of is that here capture may prove the exception. Your Highness … but a slight family connection and our adversities are making me strangely familiar…
Phœbus.
Speak on, my good Pan.
Pan.
Your Highness was once something of a botanist?
Phœbus.
A botanist? Ah, scarcely! A little arboriculture, the laurel; a little horticulture, the sun-flower. Those varieties seem entirely absent here, and I have no thought of replacing them.
Pan.
The last thing I should dream of suggesting would be a hortus siccus…
Phœbus.
And I was never a consistent collector. There are reeds everywhere, you fortunate goat-foot, but even in Olympus I was the creature of a fastidious selection.
Pan.
The current of the thick and punctual blood never left me liable to the distractions of choice.
Phœbus.
I congratulate you, Pan, upon your temperament, and I recommend to you a further pursuit of the attainable.
[Pan makes a profound obeisance and disappears in the woodland. Phœbus watches him depart, and then turns to the moon.]
Phœbus [alone].
His familiarity was not distasteful to me. It reminded me of days out hunting, when I have come suddenly upon him at the edge of the watercourse, and have shared his melons and his conversation. I anticipate for him some not unagreeable experiences. The lower order of divinities will probably adapt themselves with ease to our new conditions. They despaired the most suddenly, with wringing of hands as we raced to the sea, with interminable babblings and low moans and screams, as they clustered on the deck of that extraordinary vessel. But the science of our new life must be to forget or to remember. We must live in the past or forego the past. For Pan and his likes I conceive that it will largely resolve itself into a question of temperature – of temperature and of appetite. That orb is of a sinister appearance, but to do it justice it looks heated. My sister had a passion for coldness; she would never permit me to lend her any of my warmth. I cannot say that it is chilly here to-night. I am agreeably surprised.
[The veiled figure flits across again, and Pan once more crosses in close pursuit.]
Phœbus [as they vanish].
What an amiable vivacity! Yes; the lower order of divinities will be happy, for they will forget. We, on the contrary, have the privilege of remembering. It is only the mediocre spirits, that cannot quite forget nor clearly remember, which will have neither the support of instinct nor the solace of a vivid recollection.
[He seats himself. A noise of laughter rises from he marsh, and dies away. In the silence a bird sings.]
Phœbus.
Not the Daulian nightingale, of course, but quite a personable substitute: less prolongation of the triumph, less insistence upon the agony. How curiously the note breaks off! Some pleasant little northern bird, no doubt. I experience a strange and quite unprecedented appetite for moderation. The absence of the thrill, the shaft, the torrent is not disagreeable. The actual Phocian frenzy would be disturbing here, out of place, out of time. I must congratulate this little, doubtless brown, bird on a very considerable skill in warbling. But the moon – what is happening to it? It is not merely climbing higher, but it is manifestly clarifying its light. When I came, it was copper-coloured, now it is honey-coloured, the horn of it is almost white like milk. This little bird's incantation has, without question, produced this fortunate effect. This little bird, halfway on the road between the nightingale and the cicada, is doubtless an enchanter, and one whose art possesses a more than respectable property. My sister's attention should be drawn to this highly interesting circumstance. Selene! Selene!
[He calls and waits. From the upper woods Selene slowly descends, wrapped in long white garments.]
Phœbus.
Sister, behold the throne that once was thine.
Selene.
And now, a rocking cinder, fouls the skies.
Phœbus.
A magian sweeps its filthy ash away.
Selene.
There is no magic in the bankrupt world.
Phœbus.
Nay, did'st thou hear this twittering peal of song?
Selene.
Some noise I heard; this glen is full of sounds.
Phœbus.
Fling back thy veil, and staunch thy tears, and gaze.
Selene.
At thee, my brother, not at my darkened orb.
Phœbus.
Gaze then at me. What seest thou in mine eyes?
Selene.
Foul ruddy gleams from what was lately pure.
Phœbus.
Nay, but thou gazest not. Look up, look at me!
Selene.
But on thy sacred eyeballs fume turns fire.
Phœbus.
Nay, then, turn once and see thy very moon.
Selene [turning round].
Ah! wonder! the volcanic glare is gone.
Phœbus.
The wizard bird has sung the fumes away.
Selene.
Empty it seems, and vain; but foul no more.
Phœbus [approaching her, and in a confidential tone].
I will not disguise from you, Selene, my apprehension that the hideous colour may return. Your moon is divorced from yourself, and can but be desecrated and forlorn. But at least it should be a matter of interest to you – yes, even of gratification, my sister – that this little bird, if it be a bird, has an enchanting power of temporarily relieving it and raising it.
[Selene, manifestly more cheerful, ascends to the wood on the left. Phœbus, turning again to the moon,]
I have observed that this species of mysterious agency has a very salutary effect upon the more melancholy of our female divinities. They are satisfied if they have the felicity of waiting for something which they cannot be certain of realising, and which they attribute to a cause impossible to investigate. [To Selene, raising his voice.] Whither do you go, my sister?
Selene.
I am searching for this little bird. I propose to discuss with it the nature of its extraordinary, and I am ready to admit its gratifying, control over the moon. I think it possible that I may concoct with it some scheme for our return. You shall, in that case, Phœbus, be no longer excluded from my domain.
Phœbus.
Let me urge you to do no such thing. The action of this little bird upon your unfortunate luminary is sympathetic, but surely very obscure. It would be a pity to inquire into it so closely as to comprehend it.
[Selene, without listening to him, passes up into the woods, and exit.]
Phœbus [alone].
To comprehend it might even be to discover that it does not exist. Whereas to come here night after night, in the fragrant darkness, to see the unhallowed lump of fire creep out of the lake, to listen for the first clucks and shakes of the sweet little purifying song, and to watch the orb growing steadily more hyaline and lucent under its sway, how delicious! The absolute harmony and concord of nature would be then patent and recurrent before us. My poor sister! However, it is consoling to reflect that she is almost certain not to be able to find that bird.
IV
[The same glen. Æsculapius alone, busily arranging a great cluster of herbs which he has collected. He sits on a large stone, with his treasures around him.]
Æsculapius.
Yew – an excellent styptic. Tansy, rosemary. Spurge and marsh mallow. The best pellitory I ever plucked out of a wall. The herbs of this glen are admirable. They surpass those of the gorges of Cyllene. Is this lavender? The scent seems more acrid.
[Enter Pallas and Euterpe.]
Pallas.
You look enviably animated, Æsculapius. Your countenance is so fresh beneath that long white beard of yours, that the barbarians will suppose you to be some mad boy, masquerading.
Euterpe.
What will you do with these plants?
Æsculapius.
These are my simples. As we shot through the Iberian narrows on our frantic voyage hither, my entire store was blown out of my hands and away to sea. The rarest sorts were flung about on rocks where nothing more valetudinarian than a baboon could possibly taste them. My earliest care on arriving here was to search these woods for fresh specimens, and my success has been beyond all hope. See, this comes from the wet lands on the hither side of the tarn —
Euterpe.
Where Selene is now searching for the wizard who draws the smoke away from the moon's face at night.
Æsculapius.
This from the beck where it rushes down between the stems of mountain-ash, this from beneath the vast ancestral elm below the palace, this from the sea-shore. Marvellous! And I am eager to descend again; I have not explored the cliff which breaks the descent of the torrent, nor the thicket in the gully. There must be marchantia under the spray of the one, and possibly dittany in the peat of the other.
Pallas.
We must not detain you, Æsculapius. But tell us how you propose to adapt yourself to our new life. It seems to me that you are determined not to find it irksome.
Æsculapius.
Does it not occur to you, Pallas, that – although I should never have had the courage to adopt it – thus forced upon us it offers me the most dazzling anticipations? Hitherto my existence has been all theory. What there is to know about the principles of health as applied to the fluctuations of mortality, I may suppose is known to me. You might be troubled, Pallas, with every conceivable malady, from elephantiasis to earache, and I should be in a position to analyse and to deal with each in turn. You might be obscured by ophthalmia, crippled by gout or consumed to a spectre by phthisis, and I should be able, without haste, without anxiety, to unravel the coil, to reduce the nodosities, to make the fleshy instrument respond in melody to all your needs.
Pallas.
But you have never done this. We knew that you could do it, and that has been enough for us.
Æsculapius.
It has never been enough for me. The impenetrable immortality of all our bodies has been a constant source of exasperation to me.
Pallas.
Is it not much to know?
Æsculapius.
Yes; but it is more to do. The most perfect theory carries a monotony and an emptiness about with it, if it is never renovated by practice. In Olympus the unbroken health of all the inmates, which we have accepted as a matter of course, has been more advantageous to them than it has been to me.
Pallas.
I quite see that it has made your position a more academic one than you could wish.
Æsculapius.
It has made it purely academic, and indeed, Pallas, if you will reflect upon it, the very existence of a physician in a social system which is eternally protected against every species of bodily disturbance borders upon the ridiculous.
Pallas.
It would interest me to know whether in our old home you were conscious of this incongruity, of this lack of harmony between your science and your occasions of using it.
Æsculapius.
No; I think not. I was satisfied in the possession of exact knowledge, and not directly aware of the charm of application. It is the result, no doubt, of this resignation of immortality which has startled and alarmed us all so much —
Pallas.
Me, Æsculapius, it has neither alarmed nor startled.
Æsculapius.
I mean that while we were beyond the dread of any attack, the pleasure of rebutting such attack was unknown to us. I have divined, since our misfortunes, that disease itself may bring an excitement with it not all unallied to pleasure… You smile, Euterpe, but I mean even for the sufferer. There is more in disease than the mere pang and languishment. There is the sense of alleviation, the cessation of the throb, the resuming glitter in the eye, the restoration of cheerfulness and appetite. These, Pallas, are qualities which are indissolubly identified with pain and decay, and which therefore – if we rightly consider – were wholly excluded from our experience. In Olympus we never brightened, for we never flagged; we never waited for a pang to subside, nor felt it throbbing less and less poignantly, nor, as if we were watching an enemy from a distance, hugged ourselves in a breathless ecstasy as it faded altogether; this exquisite experience was unknown to us, for we never endured the pang.
Euterpe.
You make me eager for an illness. What shall it be? Prescribe one for me. I am ignorant even of the names of the principal maladies. Let it be a not unbecoming one.
Æsculapius.
Ah! no, Euterpe. Your mind still runs in the channel of your lost impermeability. Till now, you might fling yourself from the crags of Tartarus, or float, like a trail of water-plants, on the long, blown flood of the altar-flame, and yet take no hurt, being imperishable. But now, part of your hourly occupation, part of your faith, your hope, your duty, must be to preserve your body against the inroads of decay.
Euterpe.
You present us with a tedious conception of our new existence, surely.
Æsculapius.
Why should it be tedious? There was tedium, rather, in the possession of bodies as durable as metal, as renewable as wax, as insensitive as water. In the fiercest onset of the passions, prolonged to satiety, there was always an element of the unreal. What is pleasure, if the strain of it is followed by no fatigue; what the delicacy of taste, if we can eat like caverns and drink like conduits without being vexed by the slightest inconvenience? You will discover that one of the acutest enjoyments of the mortal state will be found to consist in guarding against suffering. If you are provided with balloons attached to all your members, you float upon the sea with indifference. It is the certainty that you will drown if you do not swim which gives zest to the exercise. I climb along yonder jutting cornice of the cliff with eagerness, and pluck my simples with a hand that trembles more from joy than fear, precisely because the strain of balancing the nerves, and the certainty of suffering as the result of carelessness, knit my sensations together into an exaltation which is not exactly pleasure, perhaps, but which is not to be distinguished from it in its exciting properties.
Pallas.
Is life, then, to resolve itself for us into a chain of exhilarating pangs?
Æsculapius.
Life will now be for you, for all of us, a perpetual combat with a brine that half supports, half drags us under; a continual creeping and balancing on a chamois path around the forehead of a precipice. A headache will be the breaking of a twig, a fever a stone that gives way beneath your foot, to lose the use of an organ will be to let the alpenstock slip out of your starting fingers. And the excitement, and be sure the happiness, of existence will be to protract the struggle as long as possible, to push as far as you can along the dwindling path, to keep the supports and the alleviations of your labour about you as skilfully as you can, and in the fuss and business of the little momentary episodes of climbing to forget as long and as fully as may be the final and absolutely unavoidable plunge. [A pause, during which Euterpe sinks upon the green sward.]
Æsculapius.
I have unfolded before you a scheme of philosophical activity. Are you not gratified?
Pallas.
Euterpe will learn to be gratified, Æsculapius, but she had not reflected upon the plunge. If she will take my counsel, she will continue to avoid doing so. [Euterpe rises, and approaches Pallas, who continues, to Æsculapius.] I am with you in recommending to her a constant consideration of the momentary episodes of health. And now let us detain you no longer from the marchanteas.
Euterpe.
But pray recollect that they grow where the rocks are both slippery and shelving.
[Exit Æsculapius. Euterpe sinks again upon the grass, with her face in her hands, and lies there motionless. Pallas walks up and down, in growing emotion, and at length breaks forth in soliloquy.]
Pallas.
Higher than this dull circle of the sense —
Shrewd though its pulsing sharp reminders be,
With ceaseless fairy blows that ring and wake
The anvil of the brain – I rather choose
To lift mine eyes and pierce
The long transparent bar that floats above,
And hides, or feigns to hide, the choiring stars,
And dulls, or faintly dulls, the fiery sun,
And lacquers all the glassy sky with gold.
For so the strain that makes this mortal life
Irksome or squalid, chains that bind us down,
Rust on those chains which soils the reddening skin,
Passes; and in that concentrated calm,
And in that pure concinnity of soul,
And in that heart that almost fails to beat,
I read a faint beatitude, and dream
I walk once more upon the roof of Heaven,
And feel all knowledge, all capacity
For sovereign thought, all intellectual joy,
Blow on me, like fluttering and like dancing winds.
We are fallen, fallen!..
And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my veins,
And yet a sense of limpid happiness
And buoyancy and anxious fond desire
Quicken my being. It is much to see
The perfected geography of thought
Spread out before the gorged intelligence,
A map from further detail long absolved.
But ah! when we have tasted the delight
Of toilsome apprehension, how return
To that satiety of mental ease
Where all is known because it merely is?
Nay, here the joy will be to learn and learn,
To learn in error and correct in pain,
To learn through effort and with ease forget,
Building of rough and slippery stones a House,
Long schemed, and falling from us, and at the last
Imperfect. Knowledge not the aim, so much
As pleasure in the toil that leads to knowledge,
We shall build, although the house before our eyes
Crumble, and we shall gladden in the toil
Although it never leads to habitation —
Building our goal, though never a fabric rise.