The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
the pleated regard of a not-very-gracious pig, bade me to advance
and make my offering. But I grieved that men, of evil mind and
turpilucricupidous, should have twisted the good mind of the gods to
suit their own improper ends: for, whereas, of old, a suppliant’s gift
was made as a willing thank-offering after the Pythian nun had repeated
the words of the god, now, indeed, the treasurer would have appraised
my gift, before admitting me even to the narthex of the shrine where
men may await the divine oracle. Wherefore, avoiding undue display of
my actual condition, and (in fact) wilily simulating poverty, I began
by making reluctant offering of a tiny golden ingot. But the blameless
treasurer had a motion which made his mitre slip down to one ear of
his, discovering a corner of old skull red as a rotten bite of meat and
giving his aspect something of dancing and elastic: also, he snorted
very contemptuously, like a camel of sneering nostrils; and (seeing
me to be clad in an old cloak and wearing no well-crested helmet but
a shabby floppy hat such as my wing-footed grandsire Hermes loves to
wear), he had a flapping of his fattish fingers, and cried out upon me,
and would have sent me away. But I doled out gold in morsels; and, as a
Kretan, selling embroideries or incised stones to some blubber-lipped
carroty-headed chin-less alien who screams with spasms of fury, lies
in wait to see what the fool will offer, so did I with the warden of
the treasury, offering a little at a time, moaning prodigiously, till I
wearied him of bargaining and gained permission to pass in.
And, at length, I stood before the hollow shrine, and I prayed to the
son of Queen Titania that he would be propitious and easy of memory
concerning certain former regrettable occurrences. And all was still.
The bards sat hard on their stools, anointed ones, ignoble, stinking,
and perfectly contented, in an odious fraternity of dalmatics,
listless, till such time when the shrieks of the Pythia should spinge
them into vibration with verses.
Above the bards, the hierarch of Phoibos Apollon, occupied a throne as
archbishop, laurel-crowned, venerably filletted.
And, anon, the holy Pythian nun, standing on the fumy grating with her
python coiled about her feet, ecstatic amid clouds of frankincense,
shrieked, and moaned, and shrieked again; and her eyes glared, being
fixed wide open.
The blameless bards sprang forth from their drowsing; and put on the
allure of very intelligent men. The archbishop advanced an attentive
ear of the rose of rotten flesh. And the inspired virgin chanted, in
the Delian mode, with bell-like notes and simple cadences, delivering
the oracle which the fair-haired god was whispering to her mind. But
she sang in the language of the gods, intelligible only to masters
alone among articulately-speaking men.
Thus, then, she sang; and the bards were dazed; and the filletted
archbishop marvelled vastly: for very rarely does the Pythia use the
secret tongue in her phrenzies.
Thus, then, she sang, as her ecstasy intensified, floating her up from
the grating all rigid, as she stood on the willing air tenderly lifting
her up on high. For far-darting Phoibos Apollon himself was uttering
unwinged words through the mouth of his nun.
And thus she sang:
_Time-straying Wanderer, sea-borne Sea-lover,
signed with the Crab and starred with the Moon,
priest of all crafts of god-lore and man-lore,
head corner-stone by base builders rejected,
castaway paladin, master of mysteries,
known in the future, renowned in the past,
now, in the present, thy quest thou pursuest,
god-confirmed, seeking the crown of thy wisdom.
I smell, in the south, the odour of aloes
and basil and thyme and verbena and rosemary:
I see the black portal of Tainaron yawning:
I hear the fierce howls of the three-headed hound of hell.
Where thou hast been, go again, very warily:
heroes shall compass thee, ghosts of the great
shall acclaim, and the high gods environ, thee.
There is the golden crown of all wisdom:
there, in dark Hades, accomplish thy questing,
spoiling the god of the world of the dead._
Such was the Oracle of Delphic Phoibos Apollon.
But, when the Pythian nun swooned, having made an end of her singing,
the blameless archbishop gushed hurriedly down from his throne, very
ardent, very violent, the crupper under his dalmatic waggling with
furies no longer to be concealed: for he knew the secret tongue; and
he perceived that I must be a personage of superior quality, though
assuredly he did not understand the full import of the message, which
(indeed) could be known solely to the divine Bow-bearer and to me, the
bearer of the singing bow. But, because (being a priest, and one of
the most righteous of men) he hankered after the society of a person
so openly favoured by the god, he approached me, bent upon inquiries.
And he made me the _Sign of the Master-Architect_: but I responded
with the _Grip of the Ruler of Nine_. And he signed me with the Word
of the Knight of the Crab: but I countersigned him with the _Word of
the Prince of the Moon_. We embraced in the _Ways of the East and of
the West_. Together we formed the _Symbols of the Peacock_ and of _the
Ravens both Black and White_. But, when he shewed himself to be a
_Master of the White Stars_, I, in my turn gave him my token as _Lord
of the Ultra-Violet Radiance_, further than which no mortal man can
go in this direction. And I beckoned him to slink back to his throne:
which he did, very sorrowful in his heart, and champing his ancient
gums while borborygms of his belly went and came.
In this manner, I triumphed at the temple of Delphi, obtaining the
favour of the god.
THE FIFTEENTH PAPYRUS
But, having returned to Kirrha, I went up into the curved ship, and
I sailed propitiously southward for Tainaron, dark, forbidding to
strangers. And, while I was voyaging, I pondered the words of the
oracle.
But, as I thought of these things, many remembrances crept out of my
mind, crowding upon me: for, when I was a liegeman of Victory queen
of the stalwart stately Anglicans, and also when I was a priest of
Queen Isis in the land of Khem, I had been oblivious of many great and
wily deeds which I had done in the morning of the world. But, now,
I began to remember many things concerning lofty Ilion, and wars,
and windy Fate, and my sometime comrades there; and the black bow of
Eyrytos vibrated in my hand, and my glance fixed itself on the dazzling
sheen of my huge silver shield; and the bow sang to me of implacable
young yellow-haired Akhilleys, and faithful temerarious Patrokles his
friend, and fearless ruddy-headed Neoptolemos his son, and magnanimous
Agamemnon shepherd of the people and leader of the Argive hosts, and
aged Phoinix who (when a boy) obeyed his mother, and proud insane
Aias, and Aitolian Diomedes of the loud war-cry with whom I spied on
the Dardanians and stole the horses of Rhesos king of the Thrakians,
and Idomeneys the Kretan fierce as flame, and my own dear son wise
Telemakhos, and, also, the blameless foes of the rolling-eyed Argives,
to wit, pious runaway Aineias and accursed crest-tossing Hektor, and
old Priam with his sons Lykaon and Kebriones and godlike Polydoros the
runner, all blameless, and woman-mad Paris of the splendid body, and
also equal-handed Asteropaios: nor was I unmindful of bandy-legged
woolly-haired Thersites, the very ugliest man of all who came to Ilion.
And, furthermore, my singing bow began to sing to me, and it sang
of the white-armed slave Lyrnessian Briseis, and of the inquisitive
Deidamia, and of perfidious Klytaimnestra wife of Agamemnon, and of
unhappy Andromakhe, and of prudent Penelope, and of beautiful golden
Helen daughter of Zeys the Swan.
But the mind in my lordly breast busied itself with causes and effects:
for I began to understand many more things, and one thing specially
above all things, this, to wit, that these heroes (my friends and
enemies) strove as I strove, and endured as I endured, and contrived
their plans as I contrived my very wily plans, all for a prize and a
crown. And, further, it seemed to me that, in all my striving after
wisdom, there was one branch of knowledge which I had not considered
even rudimentarily: for, as far as I remembered, I had never permitted
myself (as all other heroes permit themselves) to go stark mad for
love of a woman. But that was chiefly due to my nature, which caused
me to hide my soft and hungry heart beneath a hard and cruel armour of
proof. Yet other men, not less brave (though far less wily) than I,
loved women, not coolly, as I had loved prudent Penelope (whom I always
used most respectfully and kindly), but perfervidly and even hairily
and with utter self-renunciation. And I began to wonder why my wisdom
had omitted to take count of rather more than half the human race.
And I began to wonder whether my comrades had gained certain rewards
of wisdom by their madness which I, by my wily self-control had not
attained. For I suddenly remembered the old adage, _What I gained, I
lost: What I lost, I won: What I gave, I have._
Now I blamed divine Memory: for she was treating me in a scurvy and
niggardly manner, doling out mere handfuls of all the wealth of notions
and ideas which, from time to time, I had been used to store in her
cells. For the wise man ought not to utter a judgment until he knows
all the matter to be judged. And I did not know all. Wherefore I put
myself to ponder the little which I knew.
And, one by one, slowly, and painfully, certain other matters were
brought out and laid before my mind.
For I remembered that the oldest and the youngest and the most
venerated and by far the most exceedingly powerful of all the gods
is Love. And, also, I remembered that each one of us, who stamp on
the wide-bosomed earth, is no more than a moiety and counterpart of a
perfect human creature. For, very early in the morning of the world,
Zeys Pampator cut all mortals in two, halving them, for a religious
reason, and on account of their ineffable prepotence. Wherefore,
having once been a whole being, and being now but the half of a whole
being, all articulately-speaking men most fervently desire and pursue
any other creature whom they take to be their lost counterpart, that
the two halves may again be mingled and fused in one: for, as Plato
definitely teaches, _Love is the Desire and Pursuit of the Whole_. For
which cause, I was aware that all men and all women needed nothing
more than this, and nothing so much as this, that Love should work out
perfectly, each finding other, returning to the aboriginal nature.
These things, then, occupied the mind in my breast.
And, moreover, I considered how that I was going (obeying the Delphic
oracle) where I twice had been before, once alive and once dead, to
wit, to the House of Hades, tremendous king of infernal shades, whom
I was to despoil of his treasure and the crown of all wisdom. Yet,
still, I knew not what that treasure and crown might be. And, having
remembered thus much of the past, I held a sort of council with my
noble mind, which determined me to despoil that king of whatever might
seem to be of greatest worth in his kingdom.
Wherefore, having summoned Thalos my slave, bathed and purified, I set
the magic mirror on his palm, bidding him to gaze therein, and laying a
very strong spell on him so that he should have clear sight of that one
thing of which I had no knowledge.
And his little body became rigid; and his long black eyes stared; and
the sweet sweat oozed like dewdrops from his flesh, and he shook with
fear, insomuch that I chained his arms and legs with my own hands as