The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
weakness, her fidelity, her faith, her wisdom, her generosity, her
pure unsullied soul, her worship, and her love. What she read in mine,
I also know; and, that we two know it, is enough.
We were ascending from twilight to daylight. Not for nothing had those
other divine ones gone before, announcing our coming: for the whole
world was set agog to behold us. Heavenly breezes rustled down the
shaft to refresh us with their clean breath. Little rills of sparkling
water trickled over the cleft earth’s lips in haste to greet us. And
the forests bowed their green heads, like a canopy, above us flashing
through the reft rock, as we reached the kindly-smiling earth once more.
In this pomp, I came triumphantly a third time out of the netherworld,
with the Treasure of Hades and the Crown of All Wisdom. And Love
himself was my charioteer.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] This is, or might very well be taken to be, an excessively nasty
one in the eye for the obsolete delusion once called “Modernism.” A. H.
[51] This ΑΝΡΗΙΘΜΟΝ ΓΕΛΑϹΜΑ is certainly a tag. A. H.
[52] It is hardly conceivable that Dante Alighieri can have lifted
these delicious phrases from Mr. C. The whole question is extremely
perplexing. A. H.
[53] Oh, really! But this is a little more definite in its dogmatism.
A. H.
THE TWENTY-SECOND PAPYRUS
But, when we had come to the beautiful plains of earth, there were
spread before our feet (for us to walk upon) pleasaunces of emerald
grass studded with jewels of daisies and bluebells and daffodils and
buttercups and cyclamen, with swathes of poppies, and with splashes
of pure gold crocus dropped straight down from the radiant sun.
Then, indeed, I (as a mortal man) found a fit time when I might give
way to human weakness: for a man who does godlike deeds must pay a
price. And, because my head swam with weariness, and because every
part of me ached from my sunned skin to my white bones, and because
every sense of me was sickened by the slime and corrupt blood of
hellish menials wherewith I was crusted from crest to sandals, then,
I longed to be visited by barbers and clean slaves, and, also, I had
a keen remembrance of the willing and alluring look which the young
god with the horn of eye-closing dust had shot at me by shady Hades’
hall, seeming to ask for an invitation. But I thought on these things
particularly, as (with Golden Helen) I paced a soft meadow bloomed of
violets and parsley, breathing the sweet air.
And Golden Helen perceived how it was with me: for two (who love)
are one. Beside, being a woman, she needed but a single service from
me, to wit, that I should never leave untold the never-to-be-outworn
story of my love for her; and that (to me) was no toil, but a pleasure
perennial. And, for the rest, she (the one woman of women and the
divine one of goddesses) had no other joy than that of caring for
her lover. Wherefore, she sat down on a thymy bank in the shade of
a may-bush: but I reclined by her side. Thus, we rested, during a
little while, watching the slaves beginning to clear my chariot and
my gear: for a cheerful brook ran by the place, sparing enough water
for their work, but not enough for the cleansing of a man as well.
But I intended, after resting, to seek a site apart, for my own
embellishment. And, while these things were being done, a remarkable
portent and a signal favour of a god were manifested, which I will at
once narrate.
For, when we emerged from the fissure in the earth whereby we evacuated
the abysm, it clapped-to behind us, just as did that other gulph which
formerly yawned for showy Curtius in the forum of Rome.[54] And the
living silver Love, my charioteer, folded his wings, while we paused
to breathe the upper air. But when we sat down to rest upon the thymy
bank, his clear young voice, with a shout of laughter, called us by
name. But we, starting, looked toward the sound; and the silver Love,
poised all alive on the front of the chariot, bade us to come near and
observe him closely. Thus we did; and the large volatile boy turned
on his hips, spreading his quivering wings to balance himself; and he
shewed us (and we perceived it) that he was girded about the reins
with a fine silver chain, the two taslets whereof dangled down behind
him as far as the rail of the chariot. And thus he chirruped: “Lady of
Love, and Lord of the Lady of Love, give me leave to make other lovers
happy in the intervals. But call me to serve you when you will, pulling
the chain this way or that, having enslaved me and bound me to you by
unbreakable fetters at present unseen.”
And, with the word, the god returned to his position, poising himself
as before with wide-spread wings. But he came (a large boy’s form of
flesh, ruddy and white as roses, slender and splendidly rounded), out
of the silver leaving his image behind him. And, leaping free with
far-flung limbs and strongly-waving arms, he stretched himself out at
length, swimming in the higher air out of our sight.
But my head began to whirl faster and faster. I saw Neandros and Thalos
arising after they had adored the blooming god, and I felt that Golden
Helen was conducting me again to the thymy bank. And, coming nearer, I
heard the sweet sound of a syrinx of pipes, and the bushes rustled as
though some divine one were approaching. But, instantly, the divine of
goddesses cried out, saying: “Oh Pan! O obliging Pan!”
But the country-god pushed aside the branches, peering at us from the
screen of green leaves, being shy in the quivering sunshine of noon.
And, when he saw who we were, he came forth and greeted us; and he led
us through the may-bushes to a little grove, on the bank of a deep
stream, with a waterfall and a pool, and mossy-soft couches of moly in
the shade, all of which (I believe) he invented at the moment. And,
having gathered handfuls of the herb All-heal, knowing Pan eased me of
my dinted armour: but fair Helen bathed me, and she bound the magic
herb on my bruised and weary limbs. Then, indeed, I summoned benign
Sleep, while Pan piped me a simple rustic ballad very soothing to the
mind.
And there, in the grove, we rested during several days. For I contrived
a new wile, which was that I would not hurry on my journey to lofty
Olympos, but rather delay a little: for an unwilling guest has the
greater honour. Moreover, I did not wish to appear before the blessed
gods in a squalid or a sordid guise, but rather as a personage more
accustomed to giving than to receiving, since I was actually a
suppliant to great Zeys for the hand of his daughter; and it is the
custom of gods and men to give the best gifts to well-seeming mortals.
For which causes, I took my fill of rest, so that my strength returned,
while my slaves (in the neighbouring glade) polished my arms and my
chariot as best they might, to make a respectable appearance. For magic
is waived before Pan, and men must depend entirely on their natural
powers in his presence unless the god himself suggests otherwise.
But, by chance, Hermes (my grandsire), passing by on a message, espied
us one day; and he stayed his flight while he spoke with us. He said
that there was much talk on the height of Olympos, because of our
absence, and because the divine ones (witnesses of my acts in the house
of shady Hades) had entered into a compact one with another to keep
silence on those matters, so that the whole areiopagos of heaven might
hear them (if I so willed) from my own mouth. Which was a very pleasant
hearing for me; and, indeed, I thought it extremely nice and delicate
on the part of the gods. But I answered Hermes meekly enough, saying
that it was not for me, a mortal, to enter heavenly dominions in a
manner unworthy of my grandsire. And my wile proved to be an excellent
one. For Hermes, having had a word with kindly Pan, fled (swift-footed)
away, presently returning with slow-footed Hephaistos and a portable
smithy. For Hephaistos, being proud of the armour which he made for the
son of silver-footed Thetis, was unwilling that the hands of slaves
should renew its splendour. But when his forge was set up, in the
neighbouring glade, the divine artificer (out of admiration for me)
deigned to employ Neandros and Thalos as his assistants instead of a
parcel of kyklops of immoderate unsightliness: more, also, he let them
learn several very important tricks of his trade, when he observed
that they were intelligent workmen of ingenious and reverend mind.
Such mortals, as a matter of fact, do the gods usually select, when
imparting knowledge of the arts.
Thus, then, we passed the time, living on cheeses and nuts and
blackberries and dandelions with the luscious milk of incontinent goats
of amiable demeanour, while I continued to repose myself, cared-for
by the divine one of goddesses and cheered by old Pan. He, indeed,
entertained me vastly with stories of the youth of the world, when
Great Zeys lay hid in Krete and the older gods were yet unborn; and,
at other times, he attuned his reedy pipes intonating quaint songs of
the woodlands. And once, while long-robed Helen slept in the heat of
the day, the knowing old god persuaded some dryads to come out of the
oak-trees in the grove to fan away the flies when I was dozing: but he
himself sat among the reeds not far away, chatting with the cheerful
little brown and silver river. They were very slim young girls (these
dryads), with flesh as white as an acorn-kernel, with long smooth
hair of the colour of oak-bark, and shy green eyes of the colour of
oak-leaves, and excessively modest and timid of disposition. But, when
fair Helen awakened from sleep, and spied the industrious little
creatures, her sweet face flushed like rosy dawn, and she frightened
the shy nymphs quite away by her bleak mode of thanking them for
their care of me. Nor was I puffed with vanity: for I am not the only
complacent mortal who has been an occasion of jealousy to a goddess.
But, at another time, while sweet Helen was washing her robes in the
pool, rustic Pan took leave to inform me (as a friend) of her history
during the previous ten centuries. And I will say that Pan was the
only one of all the blessed gods who did not ascribe my own stories
about myself, and about my future life in the kingdom of Victory queen
of the stalwart stately Anglicans, to some one or other of my usual
altogether-unexpected wiles. But Pan knows all. And he told me how that
(when I fell dead in my former chariot, from the arrow of unknowing
Telegonos), my son and that awful goddess Kirke’s, in Egypt, more than
a thousand years before, then, the divine one of goddesses, Helen, had
behaved very queerly indeed: for she shewed as much grief as though
she herself had caused my demise. Pan said that many persons called
her grief remorse: which is absurd. But, having vowed herself anyhow
to my memory, she prepared to wander through time, mourning, until my
coming again. And heroes and kings’ sons without number sought her in
marriage: whom having scorned fearfully (as far as so gentle a creature
could scorn), she retired to find commodious seclusion on lofty
Olympos. But, there, a certain Kyknos, a son (they say) of far-darting
Phoibos Apollon, persuaded that god to demand her for him from Great
Zeys. But the father and king of gods and men only confirmed (with a
nod) the maiden’s right of choice. Thereat, blameless Kyknos would
have taken her by force, following the custom of Olympians: but her
brothers, Kastor the tamer of horses and Polydeykes the pugilist, beat
on his nose so very bitterly, that beef-eating Herakles wakened from
slumber adding his shouts to the tumult. Which having been explained to
him, he promptly tossed Kyknos to earth from lofty Olympos, breaking
him. And Phoibos Apollon felt it incumbent upon him to take up the