or, Thirty Centuries Ago.
Originally published in The Leader (Joseph Clatton, junr.) vol.1 #23 (31 Aug 1850).
It was the eve of the Spring Festival. The lots had been cast for the victim, and Phaon's name had fallen first out of the urn. Among the youths of Attica there was none so beautiful as Phaon. His foot was swiftest in the race, his arm was strongest in the fight, and his victories in all the games, from Elis to the Strymon, had shed a lustre on his country. Groups of citizens were gathered about the temples to thank the gods for having chosen so noble an offering. They were never so sure of the favour of Heaven as when the best they had was accepted at their hands. The old were talking gravely of the mysteries of Providence. Phaon was of common blood, and yet he was selected before the children of their highest families. While the young, who had been his companions, were counting up his exploits with a hope which was half despair, the girls were picking flowers for garlands in the meadows, or laying out their dresses to appear in beauty in the morning. Among them all there was one purpose—that the splendour of the ensuing Thargelia should eclipse the fairest Festival which the oldest Athenian citizen remembered. The last two years had been years of mourning. The earth had withheld her fruits, the cattle had died in the field, the wheat had withered on the stalk; but the sins which had brought upon them the righteous anger of the gods would now, they felt, be expiated in Phaon's death, and all would again be well.
But there was one heart which was heavy in the universal gladness, and which refused to answer to the gratitude which the lips struggled to utter; it was that which was beating out the last years of old Glaucus, Phaon's father.
"Alas for my life," he said, "that it is left to me to see this day. What is it to me that winter has rolled away, and the earth is rising in her beauty, if the spring of my life is taken from me, never to return. The daughter of Ceres may ascend from the shades; but when those gloomy gates have closed on Phaon they will never open to him again. Oh, my boy! my gallant boy! would to God old Glaucus might have given his life for thine! What are they, those dark Powers, whose favour must be bought with blood? Was there no way but this?"
Aratus stood near and heard him. "Murmur not," he said; "you and I are old; we have seen many changes upon the earth; was it ever well with those who lifted their voices against the gods? What is death that we should repine at it? Some day Phaon must have died. Is it not far more glorious that the gods should demand him before the leaves are faded upon the garlands which he has won? that he should go away now as a holy offering, to bear with him in the victory of his death the sins which weighed upon his country, than that he should burn like a torch to the socket, and expire in the white, withered ashes of a broken age."
"My boy must die," said Glaucus. "It is his destiny, and he will die like himself. But, oh! that he might have lived for his people, not died for them. It is easy to be wise for others; but, Aratus, you, who would not give Lycoris to Phaon as a bride, if the gods had chosen her, would you have been more willing to give your child to them? My brave boy was worthy of her, Aratus, of the race of Theseus though she be. He is worthy of a higher fate. I do not speak to taunt you; but, oh! chide not a father's grief, when you too have a child who may be taken from you."
"Forgive me," said Aratus: "I did not mean to pain you. Worthy was Phaon of a nobler bride than Lycoris. The past is with the Fates, and the gods themselves cannot change it. But they are mighty. What they send on us we must learn to bear. Why should we vex our spirits with vainly lamenting the inevitable?"
They separated. Aratus shrunk away as the hollow heart shrinks from the true; and Glaucus took his mournful way to his sorrow-stricken home, where, before midnight, he must have parted for the last time with his son. With the turn of the hours the priests would claim their victim. And on what was to follow he could scarcely let his thoughts rest, far less could he bear to witness it. Aratus might go, Aratus and the rest of Athens. He would hide his head in the dust, and pray the mercy of the gods that he might follow Phaon into the underworld.
Another heart, too, was beating strangely at the prospect of the morrow. A few moons' back Phaon, with the Olympic wreath green upon his forehead, had asked Aratus for his daughter. He had been repelled with disdain. It was better, so thought Aratus, that his daughter's heart should break than that she should marry into a lower rank; and, however he might show a fair front to Glaucus, he was secretly most pleased with the choice of the gods, because it rid him for ever of an unwelcome suitor. But now the maiden would have to bear a harder trial. She was one of the choir of virgins who tended the holy fire in Apollo's temple, and with the dawn she would have to take place in the fatal procession. She must sing her lover's dirge as she attended him to the altar, and join in the Greek Hymn of Triumph which would ascend over his blood.
In the grey mist of the May morning the Curetes gathered down upon the sands which were washed by the narrow strait that divides Attica from Eubœa. They raised a pile of peeled slips of figwood, beside which a censer smoked which contained the sacred fire, and they stood in front of it in the chill air with their long robes gathered round them, silent and motionless, like a group of the lost spirits standing mournfully beside the dull river which they may never pass. There they were, ready to pay the wretched victim his fearful honours. There was the golden bowl into which his warm blood would soon be flowing; across it lay the dull gleaming knife, to carve out the spirit from that cunning frame, in which it was so wonderfully set; the urn in which his ashes would be borne back to the city of his birth, and laid up as a treasure in the shrine of the Acropolis. Presently the first started and looked at the priest who was next him. They did not move, but a start of consciousness passed round the circle like an electric stroke, as, far off through the faint air, a gust of music was heard swaying among the rocks. Another and another, and then the interval ceased altogether, and a choir of voices was heard distinctly chanting a wild mournful melody. The road by which they were approaching led through a narrow winding glen upon the sea. The procession was close to the altar before the young girls who were leading passed out upon the sands. They opened as they appeared, dividing into two rows and passing behind the altar to leave the space free for those who followed them. The priests of Artemis came next, strewing fig leaves and chanting a slow wild hymn. The girls had ceased to sing as they had taken their places, but the words were caught up by the multitude, and roiled back along their ranks far into the hills, as in that gloomy Litany the populace of Attica were imprecating the vengeance which their sins had earned on the head of the unhappy Phaon. Phaon himself walked free behind the priests with a light and godlike step, beautiful as a young Apollo. He was dressed as for a bridal, with his lung yellow hair flowing over his shoulders, only lightly confined with a garland of olive, the last of many which he had won. The people crowded upon him, throwing wild figs at him, or darting at him wands of the peeled wood; but he only smiled at their curses; and a flush of triumph rushed over his face as he saw the altar and the blaze of the sacred fire which would consume him. They poured their sins on him, and he, their noblest, would bear them away in his death. Himself most pure, he became a curse for them, and he, the victim in his own sacrifice at once cursed and blessed, would pass away to the gods whose wrath, through him, was put away.
And they believed it all. He, they, the priests, that wailing crowd, they believed that God looked on with approving eyes, and accepted their dark devotion. It may have been the thought may have risen in some breast beating there (for they, too, were made of the old human clay), that if God required a life God himself could take it; that the bold heart and the strong hand might perhaps do better service both to Him and to mankind with the life left in them than by crumbling to dry ashes in the flames. Some doubt too, there may have been, whether the blood of the innocent could be welcome to God, or whether a God to whom it was welcome deserved the honour of mankind. But in those days the very thought was sin. It was a mystery on which they dared not reason; and faith, blind and cruel faith, most insolent to God in the very devotion by which it most thought to honour him, bore them all through it.
Loving men and women, who in their other life could be most kind, most just, most sensible in their dealings with the God of truth and justice, could become most wicked. Priests and wise men, teachers of real wisdom, pioneers of early knowledge, men who made law, who mapped out the Heavens and moulded language, bidding the flexible verb bend into mood, and tense, and person, and express out the innermost emotions of the spirit, could here forget their wisdom and lead their people into folly. And he, Phaon himself, could be warmed with the same madness. A wild, a hideous dream could raise in him the true emotions of genuine heroism; and he moved to his death as bravely, with as deep a sacrifice of self, as if he were going to shed his blood in turning back an invader's army from the hearths of his country.
The people passed down upon the sands. The Curetes, like statues inspired with a sudden life, joining with the other priests, formed a circle about him, and began to move round, first with slow, measured steps, then faster, and even faster, chanting their wild hymn, and waving their arms now towards Heaven, and now towards the victim, as if every evil influence which was descending they would intercept with their incantations and turn them all into a single stream, while the High Priest of Apollo stood with his arms folded on a raised throne by the side of the altar, watching for the first flush of sunlight on the mountains of Eubœa. So beautiful it was, that still-flowing, soft, rippling sea, crisping its tiny waves at their feet, the sea birds waking on its surface, crooning their feathers, or trying their wings in short flights after their night sleep. The last star had gone out. It had waned away before its hour, in haste to escape from a sight so unlovely; and the pale, wan moon was hurrying down like a ghost behind the hills, as if heartsick at the ghastly follies of unhappy men.
Ah! madmen, was this fair world cursed, then? and were such deeds as yours to wash it clean? Ah! could ye but know that it is ye who curse it; ye, with your own dark frenzy! That sea may wash those shores for a thousand thousand years, but the stained memory of your accursed rites shall brood over them, and shall never be washed away; and men in after ages shall shudder as they pass by, and look to Heaven and offer silent thanksgiving that ye could do this and yet God could forbear you, and the polluted earth was yet left remaining.
A shout rose out of the crowd; the rising clouds were lighting; a few more moments and the rays would be on the mountain peaks. The dance ceased, two of the inferior priests left the circle and approached Phaon to bind him. He pressed them disdainfully back; a free Athenian was giving himself as a free sacrifice, he said; he was not to be offered by them like a slave or an animal. He was moving proudly towards the altar, when a confused cry rose among the chorus of girls as a maiden broke through the circle and rushed towards him. She gained the moment of surprise. An instant after a hundred hands were stretched out to hold her back; but it was too late. Phaon vainly trying to push her from him only hastened the fatal touch which would give her to share his fate. Her arms were round him, and to touch Phaon was deadly as to touch one struck with the plague. Lycoris too must die; by the holy law of Apollo Lycoris must die. Phaon was devoted to the gods, and after their solemn choice no living creature except the priests might touch him. Whatever did so the gods had chosen too.
A silent horror fell over the people. They were too shocked to speak or move; only old Aratus staggered blindly forward. Miserable man! He too would have gone to his death in the vain effort to save his child; but his steps, like his heart, were more feeble than hers; a single hand held him back, and he sank helplessly on the ground. Where was now the pride of the blood of Theseus, which might not mingle with the stream which flowed in lower veins? It must flow now in the same bow] with Phaon's, to mingle with it in death if not in life. Where was the fair talk of the high choice of the gods, and the glory of a noble death? His words had been as wind upon his lips. The cant of race, the cant of creed, the prating hollowness of fair-sounding talk; how does every mask fall off when the deep spirit of the heart is truly stirred!
Lycoris still clung to Phaon. He turned away; he could not look on her. "Oh, Phaon!" she said, my Phaon! will you not speak to me?"
"Speak to you, Lycoris! Oh! what, what have you done?"
"What have I done, Phaon? Do you think I could live without you? I might not be yours for the short life of earth; I am going with you, then, where I shall be yours for ever in the happy islands of the blessed."
He turned slowly towards her; the deadly hand of the minister of the sacrifice was resting on her shoulder.
Easy, natural, even sainted, as his own sacrifice had seemed to him, it slowed in all its horrors when this fair lily was to be broken. "Never, never!" he cried; "this dreadful death; it shall not be. You, Lycoris! you!"
"What!" he cried to the crowd, who were staring terror-struck at the scene, "shall this thing be? and you, free born Athenians! will you look on and witness it? See this beautiful form. Shall this be mangled with that ghastly knife? Look on that old man there. Look on his grey hairs, Save her! save her! If there is guilt, I am the victim; let it fall on me."
His words swept over the people like the breeze over the rolling corn.
Aratus saw it, and rose up from the ground, and ran passionately among them, calling them by their names, and adjuring them with frenzied eagerness to have mercy on his age.
"Cruel Phaon!" said Lycoris, as he caught her in his arms; "you will send me away to die by my own hands. My spirit will wander by the dark river, and I shall never see you more."
The crowd was heaving like the sea before a coming storm. The priests looked anxiously at one another. They were few and unarmed, except With the instruments of the sacrifice, and it seemed to be trembling in the balance whether, in the strength of the human appeal, the gods and their bloody rites would not be violated and defied. The mass of the people still hung back, hesitating and uncertain, but Aratus, with a few of the boldest of them, was approaching the victims, when the high priest, who had stood motionless through it all with his eyes fixed upon the sky, started suddenly and, waving his hand, in a voice which made the fiercest warrior shrink—
"Madmen," he cried, "are two victims so few, then, that ye will have Tartarus split before our feet, and swallow down a myriad. Back, back, there is a sign from the gods. Mark it."
He pointed upwards, and an eagle was seen soaring in from the sea, and hovering over them.
He had caught the moment and the feeling. He himself, they all, the crowd, the wretched father, Phaon himself believed that the gods were speaking, and every eye was fixed upon the bird, as in silent awe they waited for the celestial messenger to deliver the command of Heaven. For several minutes it swept screaming round over them, and then, with wings set and motionless, swooped down upon a neighbouring grove. A wood dove was sitting on a brood there. Its mate was cooing among the branches of the same tree. The eagle struck the male bird, and was rising with it when he saw the other, which, frightened from its nest yet unwilling to leave it, fluttered out upon a bough. Turning again, he struck her too, and then rose swiftly up and soared away, bearing his two victims in his talons.
No inspired prophet was needed to interpret so clear a sign. It was enough. The gods had spoken, and their awful message fell down over the troubled spirit of the people and stilled them into calm. Phaon set his beautiful burden on the ground, and bowed his head in resignation, The sacrifice must be completed.
"The father is calling his children. He will have them both, his beautiful ones; he bids us send them," cried the high priest. "Bless him on your knees, ye foolish people. For your madness he multiplies his mercies. When ye murmur against him he but accepts a second offering; he will wash you doubly clean."
The slaves of Aratus bore him away. He might go now and lay his head in the dust with old Glaucus. He might not look on what was coming.
In a burst of tenderness and love Phaon threw himself on the neck of Lycoris. There was no fear now lest she might lose him. "Traitor," she said, in playful reproach, "you would have stolen from me and left me. The gods are more merciful than you. They have given you to me. They have chosen me. They call us to our glorious bridal."
"May they accept us," muttered Phaon.
"May they! Ah! they do. They have accepted us," she cried. "The sun is over the mountains, and we linger. Let us make haste to our deliverance. Come, Phaon! come. Let us take our last leave of our old companions."
"Farewell dear friends," they sang together. "Farewell—weep not for us. The flowers are sweet upon Hymettus, but the spirits of the flowers blow pure where we are going, and the Asphodel of Elysium is watered by the streams of immortality. "The heroes are there, and the wise and the beautiful of the old times; and there we are going. The gods call us; we are their favoured children. Farewell, ye gallant youths. Listen to the song of the bard. Let your hearts thrill at his words, and grow strong in you for noble deeds. The gods love the brave, and blessed are those who die for their country. A little while and ye too must pass the dark gate which we are passing. We will pray for you, that you may be given to us and come and make your home with us for ever."
"The priest is waiting with the garlands. Come, Phaon!" cried Lycoris, "come, our bower is twined for us by the still flowing river, of flowers which never fade, and the chariot which shall bear us there is waiting in the sunlight. The young doves are yoked to it. They grow impatient. I hear the rustling of their golden wings. We pass away through a blessed death to life where death shall come no more."
And they went, those beautiful ones. Went where the spirits go of the noble and the brave. Spirits like theirs are the bright jewels which make earth shine before Heaven; and to earth they left a blessing, not that, perhaps, of which they were dreaming, but yet a blessing. Surely it has been by the noble deaths of such as these that in the slow rolling age men have won their freedom. We were held prisoners by the powers of cloudy ignorance and fear, through which the splendour of God glared red, and sullen, and terrible. But in the life blood of the noble they have melted oft and passed away, and we, who are but common men, and might have been even as that miserable multitude, may lift our eyes without fear and see the beneficence of that blessed light in the glory of mercy and of love. The spectres vanish away, the air is clear, and we are free. Oh! may we rightly prize the freedom which has been bought at so terrible a cost.