Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
down a little way it tumbled with a roar over rocks; then there was
another pool, and another cascade; and so on, out of view; and bridges
and pools and resounding cascades said, plainly as inarticulate things
can tell a story, the river was running by permission of a master,
exactly as the master would have it, tractable as became a servant of
the gods.
Forward from the bridge he beheld a landscape of wide valleys and
irregular heights, with groves and lakes and fanciful houses linked
together by white paths and shining streams. The valleys were spread
below, that the river might be poured upon them for refreshment in days
of drought, and they were as green carpets figured with beds and fields
of flowers, and flecked with flocks of sheep white as balls of snow;
and the voices of shepherds following the flocks were heard afar. As if
to tell him of the pious inscription of all he beheld, the altars out
under the open sky seemed countless, each with a white-gowned figure
attending it, while processions in white went slowly hither and thither
between them; and the smoke of the altars half-risen hung collected in
pale clouds over the devoted places.
Here, there, happy in flight, intoxicated in pause, from object to
object, point to point, now in the meadow, now on the heights, now
lingering to penetrate the groves and observe the processions, then
lost in efforts to pursue the paths and streams which trended mazily
into dim perspectives to end finally in— Ah, what might be a fitting
end to scene so beautiful! What adequate mysteries were hidden behind
an introduction so marvellous! Here and there, the speech was
beginning, his gaze wandered, so he could not help the conviction,
forced by the view, and as the sum of it all, that there was peace in
the air and on the earth, and invitation everywhere to come and lie
down here and be at rest.
Suddenly a revelation dawned upon him—the Grove was, in fact, a
temple—one far-reaching, wall-less temple!
Never anything like it!
The architect had not stopped to pother about columns and porticos,
proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to
materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature—art can go no
further. So the cunning son of Jupiter and Callisto built the old
Arcadia; and in this, as in that, the genius was Greek.
From the bridge Ben-Hur went forward into the nearest valley.
He came to a flock of sheep. The shepherd was a girl, and she beckoned
him, “Come!”
Farther on, the path was divided by an altar—a pedestal of black
gneiss, capped with a slab of white marble deftly foliated, and on that
a brazier of bronze holding a fire. Close by it, a woman, seeing him,
waved a wand of willow, and as he passed called him, “Stay!” And the
temptation in her smile was that of passionate youth.
On yet further, he met one of the processions; at its head a troop of
little girls, nude except as they were covered with garlands, piped
their shrill voices into a song; then a troop of boys, also nude, their
bodies deeply sun-browned, came dancing to the song of the girls;
behind them the procession, all women, bearing baskets of spices and
sweets to the altars—women clad in simple robes, careless of exposure.
As he went by they held their hands to him, and said, “Stay, and go
with us.” One, a Greek, sang a verse from Anacreon:
“For to-day I take or give;
For to-day I drink and live;
For to-day I beg or borrow;
Who knows about the silent morrow?”
But he pursued his way indifferent, and came next to a grove luxuriant,
in the heart of the vale at the point where it would be most attractive
to the observing eye. As it came close to the path he was travelling,
there was a seduction in its shade, and through the foliage he caught
the shining of what appeared a pretentious statue; so he turned aside,
and entered the cool retreat.
The grass was fresh and clean. The trees did not crowd each other; and
they were of every kind native to the East, blended well with strangers
adopted from far quarters; here grouped in exclusive companionship
palm-trees plumed like queens; there sycamores, overtopping laurels of
darker foliage; and evergreen oaks rising verdantly, with cedars vast
enough to be kings on Lebanon; and mulberries; and terebinths so
beautiful it is not hyperbole to speak of them as blown from the
orchards of Paradise.
The statue proved to be a Daphne of wondrous beauty. Hardly, however,
had he time to more than glance at her face: at the base of the
pedestal a girl and a youth were lying upon a tiger’s skin asleep in
each other’s arms; close by them the implements of their service—his
axe and sickle, her basket—flung carelessly upon a heap of fading
roses.
The exposure startled him. Back in the hush of the perfumed thicket he
discovered, as he thought, that the charm of the great Grove was peace
without fear, and almost yielded to it; now, in this sleep in the day’s
broad glare—this sleep at the feet of Daphne—he read a further chapter
to which only the vaguest allusion is sufferable. The law of the place
was Love, but Love without Law.
And this was the sweet peace of Daphne!
This the life’s end of her ministers!
For this kings and princes gave of their revenues!
For this a crafty priesthood subordinated nature—her birds and brooks
and lilies, the river, the labor of many hands, the sanctity of altars,
the fertile power of the sun!
It would be pleasant now to record that as Ben-Hur pursued his walk
assailed by such reflections, he yielded somewhat to sorrow for the
votaries of the great outdoor temple; especially for those who, by
personal service, kept it in a state so surpassingly lovely. How they
came to the condition was not any longer a mystery; the motive, the
influence, the inducement, were before him. Some there were, no doubt,
caught by the promise held out to their troubled spirits of endless
peace in a consecrated abode, to the beauty of which, if they had not
money, they could contribute their labor; this class implied intellect
peculiarly subject to hope and fear; but the great body of the faithful
could not be classed with such. Apollo’s nets were wide, and their
meshes small; and hardly may one tell what all his fishermen landed:
this less for that they cannot be described than because they ought not
to be. Enough that the mass were of the sybarites of the world, and of
the herds in number vaster and in degree lower—devotees of the unmixed
sensualism to which the East was almost wholly given. Not to any of the
exaltations—not to the singing-god, or his unhappy mistress; not to any
philosophy requiring for its enjoyment the calm of retirement, nor to
any service for the comfort there is in religion, nor to love in its
holier sense—were they abiding their vows. Good reader, why shall not
the truth be told here? Why not learn that, at this age, there were in
all earth but two peoples capable of exaltations of the kind referred
to—those who lived by the law of Moses, and those who lived by the law
of Brahma. They alone could have cried you, Better a law without love
than a love without law.
Besides that, sympathy is in great degree a result of the mood we are
in at the moment: anger forbids the emotion. On the other hand, it is
easiest taken on when we are in a state of most absolute
self-satisfaction. Ben-Hur walked with a quicker step, holding his head
higher; and, while not less sensitive to the delightfulness of all
about him, he made his survey with calmer spirit, though sometimes with
curling lip; that is to say, he could not so soon forget how nearly he
himself had been imposed upon.
CHAPTER VII
In front of Ben-Hur there was a forest of cypress-trees, each a column
tall and straight as a mast. Venturing into the shady precinct, he
heard a trumpet gayly blown, and an instant after saw lying upon the
grass close by the countryman whom he had run upon in the road going to
the temples. The man arose, and came to him.
“I give you peace again,” he said, pleasantly.
“Thank you,” Ben-Hur replied, then asked, “Go you my way?”
“I am for the stadium, if that is your way.”
“The stadium!”
“Yes. The trumpet you heard but now was a call for the competitors.”
“Good friend,” said Ben-Hur, frankly, “I admit my ignorance of the
Grove; and if you will let me be your follower, I will be glad.”
“That will delight me. Hark! I hear the wheels of the chariots. They
are taking the track.”
Ben-Hur listened a moment, then completed the introduction by laying
his hand upon the man’s arm, and saying, “I am the son of Arrius, the
duumvir, and thou?”
“I am Malluch, a merchant of Antioch.”
“Well, good Malluch, the trumpet, and the gride of wheels, and the
prospect of diversion excite me. I have some skill in the exercises. In
the palaestrae of Rome I am not unknown. Let us to the course.”
Malluch lingered to say, quickly, “The duumvir was a Roman, yet I see
his son in the garments of a Jew.”
“The noble Arrius was my father by adoption,” Ben-Hur answered.
“Ah! I see, and beg pardon.”
Passing through the belt of forest, they came to a field with a track
laid out upon it, in shape and extent exactly like those of the stadia.
The course, or track proper, was of soft earth, rolled and sprinkled,
and on both sides defined by ropes, stretched loosely upon upright
javelins. For the accommodation of spectators, and such as had
interests reaching forward of the mere practise, there were several
stands shaded by substantial awnings, and provided with seats in rising
rows. In one of the stands the two new-comers found places.
Ben-Hur counted the chariots as they went by—nine in all.
“I commend the fellows,” he said, with good-will. “Here in the East, I
thought they aspired to nothing better than the two; but they are
ambitious, and play with royal fours. Let us study their performance.”
Eight of the fours passed the stand, some walking, others on the trot,
and all unexceptionably handled; then the ninth one came on the gallop.
Ben-Hur burst into exclamation.
“I have been in the stables of the emperor, Malluch, but, by our father
Abraham of blessed memory! I never saw the like of these.”
The last four was then sweeping past. All at once they fell into
confusion. Some one on the stand uttered a sharp cry. Ben-Hur turned,
and saw an old man half-risen from an upper seat, his hands clenched
and raised, his eyes fiercely bright, his long white beard fairly
quivering. Some of the spectators nearest him began to laugh.
“They should respect his beard at least. Who is he?” asked Ben-Hur.
“A mighty man from the Desert, somewhere beyond Moab, and owner of
camels in herds, and horses descended, they say, from the racers of the
first Pharaoh—Sheik Ilderim by name and title.”
Thus Malluch replied.
The driver meanwhile exerted himself to quiet the four, but without
avail. Each ineffectual effort excited the sheik the more.
“Abaddon seize him!” yelled the patriarch, shrilly. “Run! fly! do you
hear, my children?” The question was to his attendants, apparently of
the tribe. “Do you hear? They are Desert-born, like yourselves. Catch
them—quick!”
The plunging of the animals increased.
“Accursed Roman!” and the sheik shook his fist at the driver. “Did he
not swear he could drive them—swear it by all his brood of bastard
Latin gods? Nay, hands off me—off, I say! They should run swift as
eagles, and with the temper of hand-bred lambs, he swore. Cursed be
he—cursed the mother of liars who calls him son! See them, the
priceless! Let him touch one of them with a lash, and”—the rest of the
sentence was lost in a furious grinding of his teeth. “To their heads,
some of you, and speak them—a word, one is enough, from the tent-song