HOMER IN C

OMER IN HIOS.

BY

DENTON J. SNIDER.

ST. LOUIS.

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO.,

210 PINE ST11EET,

1891.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1891,

BY DENTON J. SNIDER, in the office of Librarian of Congress, Washington.

CONTENTS.

I. MNEMOSYNE.

The Making of the Poet 5

II. CALLIOPE.

The Call of the Muse. ..... 27

III. EUTERPE.

The Daughter of Homer 47

IV. ERATO.

The Stranger of Northland. ... 63

V. CLIO.

The Travels of Homer. ..... 85

VI. TERPSICHORE.

The Pedagogue Chian. . * . . . 113

VII. MELPOMENE.

The Singer of Ascra 131

VIII. THALIA.

The Songstress of Lesbos 149

IX. POLYHYMNIA.

The Psalmist of Israel 173

X. URANIA.

The Marriage. ... c ... 201

476406

I.

The Making of The Poet.

(5)

ARGUMENT.

HOMER, the poet, having returned in old age to Chios, his birth-place, an island not far from the coast of Asia Minor, tells the story of his early life to his pupils. Two chief influences wrought upon his child hood. The first ivas that of the smith, Chalcon, who was both artisan and artist — both vocations in early times ivere united in one man — and who revealed to the budding poet the forms of the Gods. The second in fluence was that of his mother, Cretheis (name given by Herodotus, Vita Horn). She was the depository of fable and folklore, which she told to her boy in the spirit of a poet, and which are the chief materials of his two great poems. So Homer reaches back to his earliest years by the aid of Mnemosyne (memory), who accord ing to Hesiod (Theogou. 915) was the mother of the Nine Muses.

(6)

66 Fair was the day when I first peeped into the

workshop of Chalcon, Chalcon, the smith, who wrought long ago in the

city of Chios ; Now that day is the dawn of my life, which I yet

can remember,

All my hours run back to its joy as my very be ginning, And one beautiful moment then let in the light

of existence, Starting within me the strain that thrills through

my days to this minute ! Still the old flash I can see as I peeped at the

door of the workshop, Memory whispers the tale of the rise of a world

that I saw there Memory, muse of the past, is whispering faintly

the story.

(7)

8

Chalcon the smith, far-famed in the sun-born

island of Chios, Stood like a giant and pounded the bronze in the

smoke of his smithy, Pounded the iron until it would sing in a tune

with the anvil, Sing in a tune with the tongs and the anvil and

hammer together, Making the music of work that rang to the ends

of the city. Figures he forced from his soul into metal, most

beautiful figures, Forced them by fury of fire beneath cunning

strokes of the hammer; As he thought them, he wrought them to loveliest

forms of the living, Wrought them to worshipful shapes of the Gods,

who dwell on Olympus. That was when I was still but a child in the home

of my mother, Sole dear home of my life, the home of Cretheis

my mother ! Only two doors from his shop with its soot stood

her clean little cottage, Vainly she strove to restrain her clean little boy

from the smithy, But he would slip out the house and away, as

soon as she washed him, Off and away to the forge just where the smutch

was the deepest.

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 9

How I loved the great bellows puffing its breath

on the charcoal ! And the storm of the sparkles that lit up the

smithy with starlight ! And the hiss of the iron red-hot when thrust into

water ! Greatest man in the world I deemed at that time

to be Chalcon, And his smithy to me rose up a second OLvm-

pus, Where the Gods and the Heroes I saw move forth

into being; Him too deemed I divine, like Hephaestus, a God

in his workshop. As he thought, so he wrought — he pounded and

rounded the metal Till it breathed and would move of itself to a

corner and stand there, Till it spoke, and speaking would point up beyond

to Immortals. Bare to the waist and shaggy the breast of the

big-boned Chalcon, As it heaved with an earthquake of joy in the

shock of creation; Thick were the thews of his arm and balled at

each blow till his shoulder, At the turn of his wrist great chords swelled out

on his fore-arm, One huge hand clasped the grip of the tongs in

its broad bony knuckles,

10 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Th' other clutched hold of the sledge and whirled

it around by the handle ; Shutting his jaws like a lion, and grating his

teeth in his fury, Whirled he the ponderous sledge to hit in the

heat of the iron ; While the veins underneath would heave up the

grime on his forehead, Smote he the might of the metal with all the grit

of a Titan ; Working mid flashes of flame that leaped out the

belly of darkness, Smote he and sang he a song in response to the

song of his hammer."

So spake aged Homerus, the bard, as he sat in

his settle, WThere grew a garden of fruit, the fig and the

pear and the citron, Grapes suspended in clusters and trees of the

luscious pomegranate. He had returned to his home with a life full of

light and of learning; Wandering over the world, he knew each country

and city, Man he had seen in the thought and the deed, the

Gods he had seen too ; Home he had reached once more, the violet

island of Chios, Blind, ah blind, but with sight in his soul and a

sun in his spirit.

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 11

Youths were standing around him and hearkened

to what he was telling, Bright-eyed youths, who had come to his knees

from each region of Hellas, Homerids hopeful of song, the sons of the genius

of Homer, By the new tale of Troy inspired, they sought to

make measures, Striving to learn of the master to wield the

hexameter mighty, As high Zeus the thunderbolt wields in a flash

through the Heavens, Leaping from cloud unto cloud and leaving long

lines of its splendor, Rolling the earth in its garment of resonant

reverberation. Luminous too was the look of the boys, lit up

by the Muses, Eager they turned to the sage, and begged for

the rest of his story ; Soon into musical words he began again spinning

his life-thread:

" Chalcon, the smith, was the maker of Gods

in the smoke of his smithy ! Out of darkness he wrought them, out of chaos

primeval, Striking great blows that lit up the night with

the sparks of creation

12 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Which would flash from his mind into metal

through strokes of the hammer. Aye, and the maker of me in his Gods he was

also — that Chalcon; He perchance did not know it — the world he

was mightily making. All the Graces he wrought into shape, and loved

as he wrought them, And the Fates he could form in his need, though

he never did love them, But the snake-tressed Furies he banished in hate

from his workshop. I could always forecast what he wrought and

whether it went well, Whether full freely the thought ran out of his

soul to the matter,

For he would sing at his work an old Prome thean ditty. Tuneful, far-hinting it poured from his soul into

forms of his God-world, Strong deep notes which seemed to direct each

sweep of the hammer, Just at the point where a stroke might finish the

work of the master, Or a blow ill-struck might shatter a year of his

labor. Then bright notes would well from within as he

filed and he chiseled, Seeking to catch and to hold in a shape the

gleam of his genius.

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 13

Battles he pictured in silver and gold on the

shield of the warrior, Corselets he plaited in proof and swords he

forged for the Hero, Many a goblet he made wreathed round with the

frolic of Bacchus, All the Gods he could fashion to life, in repose

and in motion,

Their high shapes he could call from his soul, to gether and singly, Call with their godhood down from the heights of

the radiant Heavens, Till the dingy old smithy shot into Olympian

sunshine. Chalcon, Oh Chalcon, me thou hast formed in

forming Immortals, And the song of thy hammer I hear in the ring

of my measures, Oft I can feel thee striking thy anvil still in my

heart-strokes, Which are forging my strains like thee when thou

smotest the metal, Till it rang and it sang the strong tune of the

stress of thy labor. Chalcon, thy workshop went with me in every

turn of my travel, Through the East and the West of wide Hellas,

through island and mainland, Through the seas in the storm, through mount ains rolling in thunder,

14 HOMER IN CHIOS.

With me it went in my wandering, e'en to the

top of Olympus: Never thy shapes shall fade from the sight of my

soul, Oh Chalcon."

Quickly the poet turned round in his seat and

said to his servant: " Come, Amyntas my boy, now bring some wine

in my goblet, Chian wine in my goblet wrought by the cunning

of Chalcon, Which he gave to me once when I sang him my

earliest measures,

Eound which are dancing the youths at the tast ing the must of the wine-press, While tlie God overgrown with leaves and with

vines looks laughing; Chalcon gave it me once as a prize when I sang

in his workshop, Sang him my earliest measures in tune to the

strokes of his hammer."

Beardless Amyntas, the cup bearer, brought the chalice of Chian,

Choicest of wine, that sparkled and danced on the rim of the chalice,

Draught of the sea, and the earth, and the sun shine together commingled,

Liquid poesy, stealthily sung in each drop by the wine-god.

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 15

Softly the singer sipped off the glittering beads

of the beaker, Touching his lip to the line where the rim and

the brim come together, Where flash twinkles of joy and laugh in the eye

of the drinker. That was the essence of Chios distilled from

the heart of her mountains, Tempered hot in the fires that smoulder still in

the soil there, Drawn by the grape into drops that shoot into

millions of sparkles, Generous vintage of Chios, renewing the heart of

the singer.

When his thirst he had slaked and his thought

had returned to his thinking, Sweetly he lowered his voice to the note of a mu sical whisper, And he bent forward his body as if he were

telling a secret : " Once, I remember, Chalcon was making a group

of the Muses, Sacred givers of song, to be borne to a festival

splendid, Where each singer had in their presence to

sing for the laurel. What do you think he did as I stood with him

there in the smithy?

16 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Me he turned into bronze, and put me among the

Nine Sisters, As if I their young brother might be, their one

only brother ; In the center he placed me, aye in the heart of

the Muses, Sweet Calliope kissed me there in the workshop

of Chalcon, Even in bronze I could feel her embrace on that

day — I now feel it — And I could hear her soft breathings that told of

the deeds of the Heroes. Still I can feel, e'en though I be old, the kiss of

the Muses, And at once I respond to their music in words of

my measures,

Yielding my heart and my voice to their prompt ings and gentle persuasion.

0 good Chalcon, memory keeps thee alive, as I

love thee ! Keeps thee working in me as the maker who is

the poet; Ever living thou art in thy glorious shapes of

Immortals, Though thou, a mortal by Fate, hast gone to the

Houses of Hades, Whither I too must soon go — the call I can

hear from the distance,

1 too a mortal by Fate must pass to the shades

of my Heroes."

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 17

There he paused on the tremulous thought of a

hope and a sorrow, And the sweet word died away on his lips thrown

far in the future. Hark! the voice of a song creeps into the house

of Homerus, Filling his home with love and with life to the

measure of music, Fresh from the youth of the heart, the fountain

of hope everlasting. Though unseen the sweet singer, hidden in

leaves of an arbor, All the youths well knew who it was, and stood

for a moment, Bating the breath and bending the head to listen

the better, And to quaff each note to the full, for the voice

that was singing Poured out the soul of a maiden, the beautiful

daughter of Homer, Whom those boys were more eager to hear than

to study their verses, Aye, more eager to hear the daughter than

hearken the father.

He, when the strain had ceased, with a sigh

broke into the silence:

"Ah! the fleet years! how like is that note to the note of my mother,

18 HOMEB IN CHIOS.

As she hymned to her work or sang me to sleep

on her pallet ! Early my father had died, his face I no longer

remember, But the voice which speaks when I speak from

my heart is always — Well do I know it — the voice of my mother,

Cretheis my mother ! ' '

Overmastered a moment by tears, he soon overmastered

All of the weaker man in himself, and thus he proceeded:

" I was telling the tale of the wonderful work shop of Chalcon,

Where I saw all the deities rise into form in a rapture,

Coming along with their sunshine to stand in the soot of the smithy,

Happy Olympian Gods who once fought and put down the dark Titans.

Bearing their spell in my soul, I always went home to my mother,

And I would beg her to tell me who were the Gods and the Muses,

All this beautiful folk whom Chalcon had brought from the summits,

From free sunny Olympus down into the smoth ering smithy.

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 19

She would begin with a glow in her eyes and tell me their story,

Meanwhile plying the distaff — she never could help being busy —

All of their tales she knew, by the hundreds and hundreds she knew them,

Tales of the beings divine, once told of their dealings with mankind,

When they came to our earth and visibly mingled with mortals.

New was always the word on the tongue of Cretheis my mother,

Though she dozens of times before had told the same story,

Still repeating when I would call for it, ever re peating,

For a good tale, like the sun, doth shine one day as the other.

What a spell on her lip when up from her lap I was looking,

Watching her mouth in its motion, whence drop ped those wonderful stories !

Oft I thought I could pick up her word in my hand as it fell there,

Keep it and carry it off, for my play a most beau tiful plaything,

Which I could toss on the air when I chose, like a ball or an apple,

Catch it again as it ^f ell in its flight, for the word wa,s a thing then.

20 HOMES IN CHIOS.

Mark! what I as a child picked up, the old man

still plays with : Words made of breath, but laden with thought

more solid than granite, Pictures of heroes in sound that lasts, when

spoken, forever, Images fair of the world and marvelous legends

aforetime, All of them living in me as they fell from the

lips of my mother."

There he stopped for a moment and passed his

hand to his forehead, As if urging Mnemosyne now for the rest of

the story; Soon came the Muse to the aid of the poet, and

thus he continued : '* How she loved the songs of old Hellas, and

loved all its fabling ! Well she could fable herself and color her speech

with her heart-beats. I have known her to make up a myth which

spread through all Chios, Thence to island and mainland wherever Hellenic

is spoken. Once I heard far out by the West in a town of

Zakynthus, At a festival one of her lays, which I knew in

my cradle,

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 21

Sung by the bard of the town as his guerdon of

song from the Muses. Ana now let me confess, too, my debt, the debt

of my genius ! Many a flash of the fancy is hers which you read

in my poems, Many a roll of the rhythm, and many a turn of

the language, Many a joy she has given, and many a tear she

has dropped there, Merciful sighs at the stroke of grim Fate on the

back of the mortal — All are remembrances fallen to me from the lips

of my mother."

For a moment he ceased, till he gathered his

voice into firmness, Smoothing the tremulous trill that welled from

his heart into wavelets, Smoothing and soothing the quivering thoughts

which Memory brought him : " Hard was her lot, she had to work daily

through Chios by spinning, For herself and her boy she fought the rough

foes of existence, Making her living by toil that flew from the tips

of her fingers, Deft and swift in the cunning which gives all

its worth unto labor.

22 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Yet more cunning she showed in spinning the

threads of a story Till they all came together forming a garment of

beauty, Than in twirling the distaff and reeling the yarn

from the spindle. But she too, my poor mother, was laid in the

earth, as was fated, For the Fates span out the frail thread of her

life at their pleasure."

Here again the old man made a stop with a

gaze in his features As if prying beyond to behold the unspeakable

secret; But he came back to himself with a joy in his

look and continued : 66 It was she who gave me the love and the lore

of the legend, Training my youth to her song which throbbed

to the best of the ages — All the great men of the Past and great women,

the mothers of Heroes. Do you know it was she who first told me the

story of Thetis — Thetis the Goddess-Mother, whose son was the

Hero Achilles ? Tenderly told she the tale of the boy who was

born to do great things,

THE HAKIMS OF THE POET. . 23

Who from his birth had in him the spark divine

of his mother, Though he had to endure all the sorrow of being

a hero, Suffer the pang that goes with the gift of the

Gods to a mortal. Then in a frenzy of hope she would clasp me

unto her bosom,

Dreaming the rest of her dream in the soft in spiration of silence, Yet you could see what it was by the light that

was lit in her presence, See it all by the light of her soul that shone from

her visage.

Once in her joy she arose with her arms out stretched mid her story, Showing how Thetis arose from the deeps in a

cloud o'er the billow, That she> the Goddess, might secretly take her

son to her bosom, To impart what was best of herself — : the godlike

endurance — And to arouse in him too the new valor to meet

the great trial. O fond soul of my mother, how well that day

I remember, When thou toldest the tale of the bees that flew

to my cradle, Dropping out of the skies on a sudden along with

the sunbeams,

24 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Humming and buzzing through all of the house

as if they were swarming, Till they lit on my lips as I slept but never once

stung me, Never stung thee, though running around in thy

fright to defend me, Smiting and slashing with stick or with rag or

whatever came handy, Scorching at last their leathery wings with their

own waxen tapers ! But ere they flew, in spite of the fire and fight of

the household,

They had left on my lips their cells of the clear- flowing honey, Honey clear-flowing and sweet, though bitter the

struggle to give it; Even the bees had to pay for giving the gift of

their sweetness.

Thenwertthou happy, Cretheis, then wertthou sad too, my mother,

Pensive, forethinking afar on what the God had intended,

Who had sent the dumb bee to speak as a sign unto mortals.

What thy son was to do and endure flashed into thy vision,

Double that flash of the future, joyful, sorrow ful also,

THE MAKING OF THE POET. 25

And them didst say to thyself and the God, bend ing over to kiss me :

* Let it fall — the lot of his life ; I feel what is coming :

He must distil from the earth into speech all the sweetness of living,

He must pour from his heart into song all the nectar of sorrow ;

Let it fall — the lot of his life; though hard be the trial,

Always there will be left on his lips the hive of its honey/ '

II.

The Call of The Muse.

(27)

ARGUMENT.

Homer now tells the third chief influence ivhich helped make him a poet. This influence was the bard of the toivn, Ariston, who sang on the borderland between East and West, but was not able to sing of the great con flict between Troy and Greece. It was Ariston who suggested this theme to Homer, and bade the youth go out to the sea-shore, where was the cave of the Muses, and listen to the voice which would speak to him there. Calliope, the epic Muse, appears to him, tells him what he must do and suffer, and inspires him with his great vocation. He goes home to his mother and tells her what the Muse has said to him; his mother after a short internal struggle, bids him goat once and follow the call of the Muse.

(28)

Thus to the whisper of fleeting Mnemosyne,

mother of Muses, Homer was yielding his heart and shaping her

shadowy figures. While he was speaking, rose up the roar of the

sea in the distance, Which an undertone gave to his measures, mighty,

majestic, Wreathing the roll of its rhythm in words of the

tale he was telling, Giving the musical stroke of its waves to the

shore of the island, Giving the stroke for the song to the beautiful

island of Chios.

All the sea was a speech, and spoke in the lan guage of Homer,

(29)

30 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Aye, the ^Egean spoke Greek, and sang the re frain of great waters,

All the billows were singing that day hexameters rolling,

Rolling afar from the infinite sea to the garden of Homer.

Stopped in the stretch of his thought the poet

lay back in his settle, Seemingly lost in the maze where speech fades out

into feeling ; He was silent awhile, though not at the end of

his story. Aged and blind he was now, recalling the days

of his boyhood, When he saw all the world of fair forms, as it

rose up in Hellas, Eise from the hand of the smith and rise from

the lips of his mother,

Saw too- himself in the change of the years be coming the singer.

Soon spake a youth at his side, it was the best

of his pupils, Called Demodocus, son of Demodocus, Ithacan

rhapsode, Who belonged to an ancestry born into song from

old ages : "Did you have no bard of the village, no teacher

of measures,

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 31

Who could melt the rude voice of the people to

rhythm of music? Men of that strain we have in our Ithaca, they

are my clansmen. Still I follow the craft, and to thee, best singer,

I come now, That I be better than they, far better in song

than my fathers."

Here he suddenly stopped and glanced out into

the garden, For there flitted an airy form of a maid in the

distance, Going and coming amid the flowers — the

daughter of Homer, Whom Demodocus loved and sought as the meed

of his merit, He would carry away not only the verse of the

master, But would take, in the sweep of his genius, also

the daughter. Yet the maiden held off, declaring the youth was

conceited.

But the father in words of delight replied to

his scholar: " Well bethought ! a good learner ! thou thinkest

ahead of the teacher ! Just of the bard I was going to speak, he rose in

my mind's eye

32 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Suddenly with thy question — the face and the form of Ariston.

Every day I went to the place of the market to hear him —

Deep-toned Ariston, the singer of praises to Gods and to Heroes,

Chanting the fray and the valorous deed in the ages aforetime,

While the crowd stood around in reverent si lence and listened.

He was the bard of the town, he knew what had been and will be,

Knew the decree of Zeus and could read it out of the Heavens,

Knew too, the heart of man, and could tell every thought in its throbbing.

At the festivals sang he through all of the ham lets of Chios,

He was the voice of the isle, the mythical hoard of old treasures ;

Song and story and fable, even the jest and the riddle —

All were his charge and his choice, by the care and the call of the Muses.

High beat his heart as he poured out its music singing of Heroes,

Every word of his voice was a tremulous pulse- beat of Hellas,

Doomf ul the struggle he saw in the land and fate ful its Great Men.

THE CALL OF THE 3IUSE. 33

Often he sang the sad lot of Bellerophou, hero of Argos,

Who once crossed to the Orient, leaving the mainland of Europe,

Quitting his home in the West for the charm of a Lycian maiden,

Daughter fair of the king who dwelt by the ed dying Xanthus.

Many a demon he slew, destroying the shapes of the ugly,

Savages tamed he to beautiful law, and the law, too, of beauty.

Monsters, Chimeras, wild men and wild women he brought to Greek order,

Amazons haters of husbands, and Solymi mount aineers shaggy.

But the Hero, for such is his fate, sank to what he subjected,

In the success of his deed he lapsed and fell under judgment,

Hateful to Gods is success, though much it is loved by us mortals,

Victory is the trial, most hard in the end to the victor.

Such was the strain of Ariston, here on the

borderland singing Where two continents stand and look with a scowl

at each other Over the islanded waters, ready to smite in the

struggle.

31 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Every Greek in our Chios then heard Bellero-

phon's echo, Heard in the deep-sounding name of the Hero an

echo that thrilled him, Felt in his bosom the reverberation of Bellero-

phontes, For he could find in himself the same peril of

lapsing from Hellas, Sinking to Asia back from the march of the world

to the westward."

Sympathy touched in its tenderest tone the

voice of Homerus, As his words sank down at the end of the line to

a whisper, Then to a silence, the silence of thought, which

spoke from his presence. What was the matter with Homer, and why that

shadow in sunshine? Did he find in his own Greek soul a gleam of the

danger? Did his poetical heart then enter the trance of

temptation ? He must respond to the passion, aye to the guilt,

in his rapture, He must glow with the deed of the Hero, even

the wrongful,

Never forgetting the law, and sternly pronounc ing the judgment.

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 35

Soon he rallied and rose, and his voice returned

with his story : " Well I knew the old man and eagerly stored up

his treasures, Aged Ariston loved me, and made me his daily

companion, I was his scholar, perchance, as ye are now in my

training. Once in a mutual moment of freedom I ventured

to ask him : ' O my Ariston, sing me to-day the new song

of our nation, Born of the deed, the last great deed we have all

done together, All the Hellenes have done it, methinks, in the

might of one impulse,

Fighting our destiny's fight to possess and pre serve the new future, Saving the beautiful woman and saving ourselves

in her safety ; That is the deed of Troy and its lay of the Hero

Achilles ! Seek not so far for an action when near in thy

way is the greatest.'

Thus I spake, and his face on the spot turned

into a battle.

' Ah ! ' he replied ' too near me it lies, just that is the hindrance !

36 HOMER IN CHIOS.

I must leave it behind to another, for I cannot

touch it ; Still my heart is cleft by that terrible struggle

asunder, Wounded I was in the strife, remediless still I am

bleeding, Cureless I feel it to be — that wound of the

Greeks and the Trojans ! I was on both sides during the war, and yet upon

neither, Standing aloof from each, yet standing with one

and the other, With father Priam of Troy as well as with Greek

Agamemnon — Tossed to this part or that, and torn into shreds

by the Furies; Greeks had my brain on their side, the Trojans

had hold of my heart-strings ; With that breach in my soul, how could I make

any music? I cannot stand the stress, the horrible stress of

the struggle Always renewed in my song whose every word is

a blood-stain. But hereafter the man will arise who is able to

sing it, Healing the wound in himself and the time,

which in me is unhealing; One shall come and sing of that mightiest deed

of the Argives,

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 37

He shall arise, the poet of Hellas — the man hath

arisen Who will take it and mould it and make it the

song of the ages. Youth, be thou singer of Troy and the war for

the beautiful Helen, Sing of the Hero in wrath, and reconciled sing

of the Hero ! '

Thus spoke Ariston the bard ; what a life he started within me !

Chaos I was, but the sun of a song had smitten the darkness,

And my soul bore a universe, with one word as a midwife,

That was the word of the poet, who spoke as the maker primeval,

Calling the sun and the earth from the void, and the firmament starry.

Always welfare he brought to the people who hearkened his wisdom,

And he was ever alive with the thought of bring ing a blessing,

Climbing the height of the highest Gods, where dwells freedom from envy.

After deep silence, the mother of good, he sol emnly added:

* Now is the moment to seek the divinity's sign for thy calling,

38 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Godlike the token must be, for of Gods is the

breath of the singer ; Go to the grot of the sweet-voiced Muses down

by the sea-side

Where old Nereus scooped out of stone his son orous cavern, Sounding the strains of a lyre that is played by

the hands of great waters, As they incessantly strike on the sands and the

shells and the rock walls, Reaching out from the heart of the sea for a

stroke of their fingers, Just for one stroke of their billowy fingers, then

broken forever, Playing the notes of a song that can only be

heard by a poet. There thou wilt hear, if it also be thine, the voice

of the Muses, Who will give thee their golden word and the

high consecration ; But if it be not within thee already, they will be

silent, Silence is the command of the God to seek them

no further ; Then thou wilt hear in their house by the sea but

a roar and a rumble, But a roar and a rumble of godless waters in

discord; Wheel about in thy tracks, perchance thou wilt

make a good cobbler.'

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 39

Not yet cold was the word when I started and

came to the cavern, Set with many a glistening gem overhead in the

ceiling, Decked with sculpture of stone cut out on its

sides by the Naiads, Making a gallery fair of the forms of the Gods

of the waters, Kound whose feet mid the tangle and fern were

playing the mermaids, Smiting the wine-dark deep, as they dived from

the sight of the sea-boys. Smiting the blue-lit billows above into millions

of sparkles, Into millions of cressets that lit up the cavern

like starlight, Secret cavern of love for the nymphs, the watery

dwellers, Echoing music afar of the kiss of the earth and

the ocean. Well I knew the recess for often before I had

been there,

Oft I had heard the report that told of the sil very swimmers, Told of the maidens and youths who loved far

under the billows, Loved one another far under the billows and sang

the sweet love song, Swimming around in the grots and the groves of

deep Amphitrite,

40 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Or reclining to rest on the couch of the pearl or

the coral.

There I had seen in the sunset the car of hoary Poseidon,

Skimming across the wave with his train to his watery temple

Over the golden bridge of the sunbeams that lay on the ripples,

Bridge that lay on the ripples ablaze in the sheen of Apollo,

Spanning the stretch of the sea from Chios away

to the sundown.

There I had seen old Proteus, changeful God of the waters,

Forming, transforming himself, the one, into shapes of all being,

Into the leaf- shaking tree and into the shaggy- manecl lion,

Creeping reptile, blazing fire, and flowing water;

Still I saw him, the one and the same, under neath all his changes.

There I had seen the beautiful Nereid, daugh ter of Nereus,

Chased by the sinuous Triton, the man of the sea in his passion,

Who would snort in his fury whenever the mer maid escaped him,

Spouting the foam of his rage up into the face of the heavens,

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 41

Rising and shaking his billowy curls and blowing his sea-horn.

There I lay down on a pallet of stone and slid

into slumber, While I was sleeping, stood up before me a troop

of fair women, Nine of them, sisters who sang in a circle, they

were the Muses, Singing along with their mother, Mnemosyne,

who was the tenth one, Who would always give them the hint of the

matter and music, Looking backward she grave to the Muses the

O O

beat of the present. Soon they arose into beautiful shapes from the

strains of the cavern, Quite as once I had seen them arise in the

smithy of Chalcon, Taking divinity's form in the strokes of his

dexterous hammer.

One of them stepped from the group, alto gether the tallest and fairest, And she kissed me ; it was Calliope who in the

cavern Gave me again the sweet kiss that I felt in

the smoke of the smithy; But her lips began moving with words in the

twilight of dreamland,

42 BOMER IN CHIOS.

And with a smile she stretched out her hand and

spake me her message : * Hail, O son of Cretheis, doubly the son of thy

mother, Son of her mythical soul and son of her beautiful

body, Hearken, dear youth, to our call, for thou hast

been chosen the master, Thee we endow with all of our gifts of speech

and of spirit, But take heed of the warning, henceforth be ready

to suffer ; Mark it ! along with each gift the Gods have a

penalty given, For each good that they grant unto mortals,

strict is the payment; Not without toil is the gift of the Muses, not

without sorrow ; Nay, a Fury is thine, called Sympathy, rending

thy bosom, Making the fate of the human thine own in the

song which thou singest ; Into the stroke of thy heart we have put each

pang of the mortal, Which will throb and respond in a strain to the

cry of the victim ; Answer thou must in agony every twinge of his

torture, Pass through his sorrow of soul, and leap with

the sting of his body ;

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 43

And when he goes down to death, thou living

must go along with him, Go to the uttermost region beyond the line of

the sunset, Living descend to the dead and speak in the

Houses of Hades. Now thou must wander; thy path runs over

each mountain of Hellas,

Over the river and plain to the site of each ham let and city, That thou see all its people and hear them tell

their own story ; Not till then art thou fitted to sing the great song

of Achsea. First to Troy thou must pass and look at the

plain and the ruins, Thou wilt hear on the air the fierce clangor of

arms in the onset, Hear the groans of the wounded, the shouts of

the victor and vanquished, Hear the voice of the graves by the shore of the

blue Hellespontus. Still the ghosts of the dead are fighting, will fight

there forever ! Catch the fleet flight of their words in thy strain,

in its adamant fix them, Make adamantine the speech of the spectres by

rolling Scamander. Also the Gods thou must see descending from

lofty Olympus,

4i HOMER IX CHIOS.

Aiding one side or the other, inspiring this hero

or that one, Nay, they must fight on Olympus, the Gods

must have too a battle, But forget not omnipotence — high above all of

them Zeus sits. 'Tis our vision we grant thee, to spy out their

forms in the ether, As they flit hither a thought of the mortal, but

yet a God too!'

Loftily spoke the grand Muse, when she changed to a look of compassion,

Which made me weep for myself as again she began to forecast me :

< O, the hard law which for good the divine must lay on the human !

For thy vision celestial the penalty too must be given,

In return for the boon thou must yield thy ter restrial vision,

Sight at last in old age will be weighed and be paid for thy insight.

Poverty thou must endure on the way for the cause of thy poem,

Thine is to hunger in body and thine to suffer in spirit,

Still kind hands will reach thee a morsel where- over thou singest,

THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 45

Kindred souls will speak thee a word of sweet

recognition, Then go further and sing, though at first nobody

may listen, Further and further and sing till the end has been

sung of thy journey. Hard is thy lot, I warn thee — the lot of the

God-gifted singer, But it cannot be shunned — to shun it were

death without dying. Go now, get thee ready at once, and set out on

thy travels.'

Roused by the voice of command I awoke in a

swirl of the senses, Homeward I hastened, reflecting how I might

break to my mother What I had heard in a swound from the Muses

so fateful, foretelling

Sad departure, ordaining divinely the long sep aration. Great was her joy at the marvelous tale, and

great was her sorrow, Tear was fighting with tear in a war of delight

and of anguish, Till in the masterful might of her heart she rose

up and bade me : ' Go my son, start to-day, thou must follow the

call of the Muses,

46 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Suffer whatever of weal and of woe the Goddesses

give thee ; Thou wast the hope of my life, but gladly I shall

thee surrender, Follow the call of the Muses, I can still spin for

a living.' "

m.

The Daughter of Homer.

(47)

ARGUMENT.

Wliile Homer is telling to the youths the story of his early life, his daughter Praxilla, who has hitherto been kept in the background, appears and begs that she be allowed to share in the school and in the gifts of her father. /She refuses all the allurements of love till this right be accorded her. Homer grants her petition, and finds in her words a strong note plainly indicating the future. Then they all move to the shrine of Apollo, and the poet prays the God fvr light within, and also prays for the God, who is still to unfold.

(48)

Strong and firm yet tender in tone had spoken

Homerus, Ever the son of his mother and born each day of

her spirit, Merely the thought of her brought back the sight

to his eyes, though he saw not, And to his vision, though shut to the world, her

shape had arisen, Speaking the long and the last farewell as he left

her to travel, Speaking the words which Memory, shyest of

Muses, had whispered.

Of a sudden he stopped, borne off by the tide

of his feelings,

Out of the region of speech, which died like a beautiful music

4 (49)

50 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Far on the hills, with echoes repeating them selves on his heart-strings,

As he hearkened that voice which can only be heard in its silence.

Always the poet responds to the lightest touch of his poem,

In it the music he hears, and also the music be yond it,

For two strains his measures must have, both singing together,

One of mortals and earth, the other of Gods and Olympus,

One of gloom and of fate, the other of light and of freedom.

Priest though he be at the altar of song, he is also the victim,

And he yields up his heart to the battle of joy and of sorrow.

Homer, sovereign singer, was weaving the strands of his storj^,

Weaving together the threads of his life as he sat in his garden,

Where, on the path of the sea to the East, the is land of Chios

Up from the waters throbs to the rise and the fall of the billows,

Being itself but a petrified fragment of sea born music,

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 51

Which was sung into stone with its notes at their sweetest vibration.

Over the slant and the summit the fruitage is hav ing a frolic,

Oranges coated with gold and olives sparkling in silver,

Playing in Hoods of the sun that pour from the sky to the island,

Whose new ardent blood is flowing to juice of the wine-press.

Heart-beats of stormiest stone you can feel every where to the hill-tops,

Heaving the vehement earth till it rises from slope into summit,

While the fiery soil is transmuted to grapes in the vineyard,

Which reveal the red rage of the God in the sparks of their droplets.

Pulses of passionate air you can breathe every where in the island,

Lifting the rapturous soul into love of the youth and the maiden,

Which breaks forth into strains in answer to valley and mountain.

Every look is a chorus of sea and of earth and of heaven,

All of the isle is a song as it sways in the sweep of its ridges,

And keeps time to the up and the down of the beat of a master,

52 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Tuning the sea and the land to vast undulations

of music, Notes of the strain that rose from the voice of

the singer primeval When he created the land and the sea and the

firmament starry.

In the heart of this musical isle, his birth-place,

sat Homer, And around him stood youths from the east and

the west of all Hellas, In a trance of the Muses carried along by his

numbers, Yielding their souls unto his to be shaped to

that harmony splendid. Nor from that group of fair youths could Eros

be rightfully absent, Eros, the God of Love, had his shrine, as his

wont is, in secret There in the garden of Homer who, though shut

in his eye-sight,

Could behold each deity present, however dis guised.

Suddenly all of the eyes of the youths were

turned from the singer, And to the tune of new measures were shooting

poetic scintillas, Rolling sidelong in fiery joy, yet trying to hide

it,

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 53

Flinging millions of sparkles over the form of a

maiden, Very beautiful maiden, who entered the gate of

the garden. Out of her hiding she moved, emerging from

leaves of her arbor, Like a Goddess she came, who has sped from the

heights of Olympus Down to the longing earth, to appear the divine

unto mortals.

Forward she stepped to the group without stop ping, and came to its center ; All of the youths were lighting her path with

their looks as she passed them, Making the twinkle of starlight there in the

blaze of the sunlight. With a reverent glance she touched the lean hand

of the poet, Yet the look of resolve gave strength to her

face in its sweetness, Softly obedience shone just while her own way

she was going. Standing behind him she pressed the bloom of

her cheek to his forehead, Koses of life seemed to suddenly shoot from the

furrows of wisdom,

And to her father thus spake Praxilla the daugh ter of Homer, While her strong sweet lips gave a kiss which

sounded heroic :

54 HOMER IN CHIOS.

" Father, suffer me also to come to thy knees

and to listen ; I would learn who thou art before thou pass from

this sunshine, Soon thou must go, methinks, with the Days, the

daughters of Phoebus, Go with the beautiful Days far over the sea to

the sundown. I am the daughter of Homer, hardly I know yet

my father; Do not deny me the hope of my soul which of

thine is begotten. Great is my longing to hear of what thou art

saying and singing ; Why should men not share with the women their

lore and their wisdom ? None the less will you have, and we shall gain

much by your bounly ; We shall be worthy of you, and you will receive

the full blessing. Long I have patiently kept in my bower, my

beautiful bower, Covered with blossom and branch and filled with

the fragrance of Nature, Which thou nobly gavest me once — it seems long

ago now — Thoughtful the gift was and kind, but to-day I

can stay there no longer. As I listened within it, hidden in leaves and in

branches,

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 55

Wreathed around and around in its flowers and

clasped in its tendrils, I resolved to go forth and to claim my heritage

also, Heritage equal of legend and song which are all

thy possessions. Hear me, O Father ! thy child, I am come to

know of thy knowledge, I am come to thy school to learn if I be the true

heiress, And to say the one word which long has been

growing within me, Not yet mature, but this day it is ripe and must

drop from my lips now: Child of thy body I am, I seek to be child of thy

spirit, I, not knowing my father, am not the true

daughter of Homer."

Mild was the mien, yet strong was the word

which the maiden had uttered, Gentle the note of her voice, suppressing softly

a quiver, Yet betraying a wavering line in response to her

heart-beats, Which sank down with her modesty, yet swelled

up with her purpose, Heedful of men in her presence, but of their

scoffing defiant,

50 HOMER IN CHIOS.

To her father dutiful, yet her own way she must go too.

All of the youths admired and looked, she re turned not their glances, Was there not one whom she in her heart already

had chosen — One of those beautiful youths, the flower of

Hellas and Asia ? See how handsome they stand in a group, as if

they were God-born,

Gathered now on Olympus, rejoicing their par ents immortal ! Still not a look from the maiden that way ! not

a glance of sly favor ! How can she help it? But not a beam hath she

dropped there among them. Say, has Nature lost her authority over the

maiden? Once revenges were wreaked on the rebel, double

revenges, Love which rejects will feel too the pang of being

rejected, Twofold the wound which Eros inflicts if you tear

out his arrow. Mark how the generous summers of Chios have

given their bounty, Given their hidden command in the warmth of a

Southern climate, But the command is not heard, is defied by the

daughter of Homer.

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 5<

Subtle and sinuous are the retreats in the heart

of a maiden Where she hides herself, unconsciously testing

the gold there ; Labyrinth hopeless it is to dozens of fairest of

suitors, Yet its clew is simple — merely the love of the

right one, When he happens along, as he certainly will, on

her pathway ; Yes, he will come, though we cannot tell when —

to-day or to-morrow ; Thinking or thoughtless, guilty or guileless, lo !

he is chosen, And the rest, much better perchance, march off

under judgment ; Just he, nobody else, and the reason without

any reason, Sent from above he must be, it is said, yet sent

by himself too, Helped divinely she is, in going the way that she

pleases, Providence brings them together, and both have

done what they wanted. See the two Gods, within and without ! they have

met and are kissing, Eros and Psyche have met and are kissing, the

spirits immortal, Long before the two mortals have tasted the lips

of each other.

58 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

But not so it runs now in the tale of the

daughter of Homer, Now the law seems changed — and yet we can

hardly believe it; Strange desire she has to share in the lore and

the legend, Firmly refusing to listen to-day to the whisper

of Eros, Who is wont to be hinting to maidens his secret

suggestion, And to speak with his face hid in clouds till he

dare be discovered. Now she will take her part of the gifts from her

father descended, Dimly dreaming perchance that she hereafter

may need them; She will learn the old songs which treasure th6

wisdom of peoples, Learn the story of heroes tried in the failure

and triumph,

Learn the story of women, unf alien, fallen, for given, Faithful Penelope, dire Clytemnestra, beautiful

Helen ; She too will sing, remaining forever the daughter

of Homer.

Gently the poet groped for her hand, reaching out with his fingers,

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 59

Found it and laid it in his with a satisfied look,

then addressed her : " Daughter methinks thy voice has suddenly

changed from thy childhood, Yesterday thou wert a girl, to-day thou art wholly

the woman, I can hear in thy tones once more the voice of

my mother.

Thine is the voice of Cretheis, when she was tell ing a story, Sweet are the turns of thy tongue in talking our

living Hellenic, And yet seeming to speak just to me from u world

resurrected, Building anew out of speech the rainbows of

youthful remembrance. But a difference, too, I can hear — thy words

are the stronger, Yes, far stronger are thine thar. the words of

Cretheis my mother, Who could fable the past and loved antiquity's

custom ; Stronger I deem them than Helen's, which held

in their spell all Achsea.

They do not dwell in old clays, nor do they de lay in the present, They belong not here in our Chios, belong not

in Hellas, But reach out to a time and a land somewhere in

the distance,

60 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Dreamily rising this moment, I see, out the fog

of the future, Faintly lifted to life in the light of the beams of

Apollo, Who has whirled in his chariot over the arch of

our heavens,

And, now facing the West, is scanning the far thermost Ocean. List ! I bid thee to come when done is the duty

of household, Come when thou wilt and stay when thou canst,

both now and hereafter, Freely unfold what is in thee to all that ever.

thou canst be. Travel thou must thine own way of life as thy

father before thee, Be thou child of my spirit, be thou heiress of

Homer, Follow the path of the Sun round the world, and

that be thy journey."

Scarce had he uttered the word, when stately

he rose from the settle, Full of the thought he had spoken he shone in

each line of his visage ; Then he moved to the place where stood in his

garden an altar, For, though blind, he knew well the way to the

shrine of the Light-God.

THE DAUGHTER OF HOMEE. 61

After him moved the daughter and youths in

holy procession, Solemn, slow-stepping, while stainlessly white

fell the folds of their garments ; When they had gathered about him and stood in

a worshipful silence, Hopeful he turned to the sky, rolled upward his

sightless eyeballs, Seeking the face of the God that shone as the

sun in the heavens, And he prayed his soul's prayer, with might of

an instant fulfillment: " O Apollo, bearer of all that is good to us

mortals, Bearer of light to the Earth and of sight to the

soul in thy presence, God of the luminous look that darts to the past

and the future, And doth shine on the present forever, creating

it daily ! Shed still over the Earth thy light, though to me

thou deny it ; Build thy arch of pure beams each day round the

heavens above us, Spend thy blessing on others, though I be not

able to take it ; Hold overhead as our lamp and our shield thy

canopy golden,

And, as thou risest upon the beautiful world out side me,

62 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Rise and illumine the world, the dim world that

is lying within me ! Deity though thou be, for thee also I lift up my

prayer ; Thou unfold in thyself while I too in thee am

unfolding, More and more may thy light be transformed

from the outer to inner,

Till thou be risen from godship of nature to god- ship of spirit. Then through thee may the song that I sing be

reborn in the ages, Ever reborn unto men in the sheen of thy spirit,

O Light-God!"

All the youths prayed the prayer of Homer,

the daughter prayed with them, In low tones of devotion that speak to the deity

present, Standing full in the sheen of the sun by the shrine

of Apollo, Who from his way in the West, threw back his

glances propitious, Warming the words of the poet, and making the

moments all golden.

IV.

The Stranger of Northland.

(63)

ARGUMENT.

At this point a stranger appears in the school of Homer, not a Greek or Asiatic, but a Barbarian, so called, from the far northwest. He has come to learn something about Homer, having had some previous in formation from a Greek captive whom he had taken in war. The stranger wishes to carry Homer's poetry — the whole of it, and not some fragments — to his people, and hand it down to the future. Meantime PraxiUa, the daughter of Homer, listens to the story of the stranger 'with an interest never felt before, and she neglects for a moment her household duties in her eagerness to see and hear him. Homer and the scholars, after trying in vain to pronounce the rough gutturals of his name, salute him by the Greek title of Hesperion.

(64)

Scarce to the God of the Light had they ended

their powerful prayer, And looked up from their service divine with a

sense of their freedom, Lo, a stranger arrives, a youth still dusted with

travel, Yet with a glow of new gladness that told of a

journey completed.

" Look, who is that?" the scholars were whis pering each to the other, " Homerid novel he is, just come from Barbary

distant ; Wonder if he have a tongue in his mouth that

can trill the Greek accent, See but his mantle of motley and garments

swaddled around him,

5 (65)

6G HOMER IN CHIOS.

Look at his face and his form, he never was

born 111 our Hellas. Beautiful still he might be, if he only were

dressed in our drapery."

Then they ceased , for the stranger already was

standing among them, Manly in look and lofty in stature and earnest in

feature. Fair was his hair and ruddy his cheek and broad

were his shoulders, Swift was the flash of his eye, it was wild and

still it was gentle, Often it sank to a dream reflecting the blue of

the heavens. Some new sort of a man he appeared to the

Greek of the islands, Taller he stood by the half of his head than any

one present ; At the entrance he stopped and gazed at the

group for a moment, Smit by the sight of what he had suddenly seen

in an eye-shot ; Then he turned and spoke to the poet, slowly

pronouncing Each Greek word in a tone that tingled the ear

with new music, Though it tickled at first the light-brained youths

to a titter,

Whispering, jibing, making remarks in the ban ter of boyhood.

THE STEANGEE OF NORTHLAND. 67

Thus spake the stranger, deliberate, yet inton ing his firmness, For a message he had in his heart, and was going

to tell it : 4< Far in the region of snow I dwell, whence

Boreas chilling Falls on the sun-loved South with his sword that

is forged in the Northland, Forged out of ice and tempered in blasts from

the nostrils of frost-gods.

Fierce is that warrior of winds and like the bar barian ever, Who is charmed from his frozen world to the

warmth and the harvest, And descends to your seas with his hordes in a

whirl and a tempest, Mad with your love he smites in his rage and

seizes your beauty. But, Oh Homer, you 1 address, the goal of my

travels — For I deem you that man whom I name by the

awe of your forehead — Do you know your measures have pierced our

ice builded fortress, Warming our clime by their breath and melting

our hearts to their music? Kude is the turn of your words in our speech, and

dim is the meaning, Still it touches our hearts, and to sympathy softens

our fierceness ;

68 HOMER IN CHIOS.

You have made us all feel ourselves a little more

human, When your Hero in wrath relented in pity for

Priam, Ransomed his bitterest foe and comforted sweetly

the father. Northland is starting to thaw in the breath of

the Southern singer, And I am come to reward you alive by telling

the message."

Joyful the poet was tuned by the tidings hyper borean, Voice from a far off world and promise of much

that was coming, Casting across the Greek landscape a shadow of

lands in the sunset. New were the tones of the tongue, not Doric,

Aeolic, Ionic, Not the turn of the speech that is spoken on

island or mainland, Nothing like it had ever been heard in the city of

Chios, Nothing like it had ever been sung in the strains

of a rhapsode, Music it had of its own, and yet all the words

were Hellenic, Nay, all the words were Homer's, and seemed to

be drawn from his poems,

THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 69

Wondrously tinged with new tints and quaintly

turned to new meanings. Greatly surprised at the sound of the voice spake

Homer, uprising : " Speak, oh guest, tell how you have learned

our language of Hellas ; Hard it is for the native, harder it must be for

strangers, Cunning it is like ourselves, eluding the grasp of

the learner, In its hundreds of shifts transforming itself like

old Proteus. Then I notice your rhythm to be of my measures

begotten, And some turns of your speech are certainly born

of my spirit, Aye and the sweep of the thought when you

spoke of the Hero Achilles. Well you have heard my song, far better than

many a Grecian, Though a barbarian, you, I can feel, have the

touch of my kinship. Mighty and marvelous is all this, I would never

have thought it, Come now, tell me the story, Oh guest, for great

is my wonder."

44 That I shall tell you at once," he replied, " not long is the story.

70 HOMEB IN CHIOS.

What I have spoken to you, I learned from a

Greek, my own captive, Whom I had taken in war, when he came to my

country's border, Trading, plundering, wandering over the world

for adventure ; That was another Ulysses, much-enduring and

crafty, Loving the song and the fable, singing them too

on occasion, Loving the deed and daringly doing on land and

on water. Your Greek earth was too small for the stress of

his thought and his action, Over the border he broke and hunted his prey

like a lion, Knowledge beyond it he sought, and fell into fate

in his searching. How I felt in my bosom the swell and the stroke

of his spirit! When I found what he was, I made him my friend

and companion, Though a slave still in name, he was given my

love and my bounty ; ,

Well he repaid the act; from a prisoner's death

I had saved him, And he saved me in turn from the ignorant death

of the savage.

There in the forest your speech I began, I prac ticed it daily

THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 71

Till by his aid I was able to speak it the way you now hear me.

Him I set free as soon as he taught me the lan guage of Homer,

It is the word of your poem that broke the chain of his bondage,

Mine too it broke at a blow when I said in your Greek : « Be free now,'

And I am sure, it would break every chain of the people who spoke it."

More astonished than ever the poet burst out into questions:

" Why hast thou come to this spot, and how didst thou get to our island ?

Utter again to me here thy broken Hellenic — I love it,

Love it twisted and splintered and broken to ra diant fragments

Dropping out of thy mouth, yet speaking the best that is spoken.

Say, who art thou, man, and what art thou doing in Hellas?"

Jubilant Homer asked, but could not wait for

the answer, Asked once more, and that was not yet the end

of his asking, Till the stranger, breaking the lull of a moment,

responded :

72 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

" He the Greek whom I spoke of, once called

you a native of Chios ; With that name in my heart, inquiring each step

I am come now Over the land from afar and over the sea in a

vessel. But is it so? I can hardly believe it myself —

Art thou Homer? Tell me, old man, thy name, O speak it but

once — Is it Homer ? ' ' " So I was called by my mother, still so I am

called by the Hellenes, Though there be some who deem me not Homer

but some other person, Merely a different man of that name," responded

Homerus, And a sunrise of smiles broke over the seams of

his features, As arose in his thought the pedagogue dwelling

in Chios, Terrible pedagogue, trouncer of boys, the crusty

Typt6des.

Then spake the stranger, uplifting himself to

the height of his stature, Far overlooking the heads of the rest of the little

assembly : " Let me now tell you the scope of my travel,

the hope of my journey !

THE STB ANGER OF NORTHLAND. 73

Praised be the Gods ! I have reached in safety

the place of your dwelling, Mighty, resistless the need I have felt to see you

and hear you, Aye, to learn your full song and store it away in

my bosom,

Whence the Muses, daughters of Memory, al ways can fetch it. I would carry it off to my home far up in the

Northland, Fleeting over the wintery border of beautiful

Hellas Where it reaches beyond the abode of the Gods

on Olympus, To the regions where drinking their whey dwell

the mare-milking Thracians, Over the hills and the valleys away to the banks

of a river, To the stream that is bearing the flood of the

wide-whirling Istros, Still beyond and beyond, still over the plain and

the mountain, Over vast lands to the seas, and over the seas to

the lands still, Through the icicled forest, and through the

tracts of the frost-fields, Still beyond and beyond, still over the earth and

its circles, I would carry your song in my soul to the homes

of my people

74 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Where ^ the huge arms of the breakers are smit ing the shore of the Ocean,

Ever beyond and beyond in the stretch of their strokes they are striking,

Beating, forever repeating the strokes of the in finite Ocean."

Both of his arms he outstretched and gazed on

the sea for a moment ; Catching his breath, the stranger returned from

his look to his hearers: " Barbarous lands and peoples you call them, and

truly so call them, But in their hearts they are ready, I know, to be

tuned to your music, And to be dipped, once more new-born, in your

harmony holy, Which they will keep forever enshrined in their

lore and their legend.

O

Homer, O Homer, poet of all the nations and

Give unto Barbary now what the Gods have given to Hellas."

Round whirled the stranger, the beat of his thought still smiting within him,

Driven out of himself, he walked at a whisk a small circle

And came back to his stand, as if putting a bodily period

THE STB ANGER OF NORTHLAND. 75

There to the sweep of his utterance swift, but

his spirit's full gallop He could not rein in at once, and so his words he

continued : " All of your song I would know, the whole

of it fitted together, That Greek captive of mine could only sing me

the fragments, Broken off here and there from the whole —

most beautiful fragments, Which Mnemosyne fleetingly brought him when

he invoked her. But the whole of your song I must have, the

whole of it shredless, For the whole is often far more than all of its

pieces, Aye, the whole is all of its pieces, and is the

whole too."

Here laughed Homer aloud, yet spake no word

with his pleasure ; What had started the poet who rarely gave way

to his laughter? It was the thought, the comical thought of the

pedagogue Chian, Who was always beating and breaking the song

into pieces, Till he became what he made, became too himself

but a fragment —

76 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Terrible fragment of man, the trouncer of boys

and of verses, Terrible pedagogue Chian, the slasher and

thrasher, Typtodes.

All of the youths drew closer around him, the

wonderful stranger, Scholar hyperborean, the first that had come from

the Northland ; They received him as one of themselves in the

school of the master, Gone is the scoff and the jibe, and the whisper is

speaking respectful.

Also Praxilla was there, the beautiful daughter

of Homer, Hearing the marvelous tale and pondering deeply

its meaning. Sweetly the maiden looked up and smiled at the

mirth of her father, Though she knew not the cause, she knew that

the stranger had pleased him, Her too the stranger had pleased, she thought,

in pleasing the father, Her too the stranger had pleased — she knew not

what was the reason. Not yet brought to an end was the task of the

day in the household, Still she lingered and listened, though hearing the

call of the kitchen.

THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 77

Nobly erect stands the youth, and towers aloft

in his stature, Brave as a hero he must be to travel alone the

long journey, Loyal the heart in his breast, so true to his Greek

benefactor ;

Lofty his soul looks out and full of divine aspi ration ! Man with a beard, overtopping the cluster of

beardless bardlings, As great Zeus overtops all the Gods in his mien

and his power. Burst is the bloom of his manhood, still as a man

he is youthful, Weighty his speech drops down with the ring of

the masterful doer; And Praxilla the daughter of Homer still lingered

and listened, Lingered to hear but a word, one more word

she would catch from the stranger, Though again she heard the importunate cry of

the kitchen.

Seeing her there he began once more, that son

of the Northland, For he thought she might wish to be told what he

knew about women : " Rude though we be and warriors from birth, we

are fond of the household,

78 HOMEll IN CHIOS.

And we honor the wife who rules with her heart

in her home life ; But, yet more, we honor the woman, for she is

the healer, Ever the merciful healer through the love in her

nature, Healing the soul and the body, and nursing the

sick and the helpless. Aye, yet more, we hold her the seeress, the

gifted divinely, Who has the vision beyond, foretelling the time

unto mortals." And Praxilla still lingered and listened, the

daughter of Homer, Lingered to hear but a word, one more word she

would hear from the stranger ; Louder and louder resounded the dolorous cry

of the kitchen.

Then the poet in speech forethoughtful and

hearty addressed him: " Welcome, oh stranger, here is 'our board with

its wine and its viands, Stay and partake, be refreshed from thy journey

in body and spirit, First pour a drop to the God of the Light, far

darter Apollo, Pray then, for men have need of the God, he will

answer thy prayer.

THE STE ANGER OF NORTHLAND. 79

Take of me all that I am, or was or ever I shall

be, Bear me afar as thou wilt, to thy folk in the

snows of the Northland, Learn all my song and carry it off, the whole,

not a fragment, For no fragment can live if torn from its life in

o

the body;

Sing it thyself and let it be sung by the farther most peoples, Thine it is as it is mine, if thou" only art able to

sing it; In thy words I can feel that thou art the son of

the future, Feel what is coming to me and to mine from the

world to the westward. Welcome O guest, now drink of our wine and

eat of our viands ; Stay — perchance I shall make thee joint heir of

all my possessions."

So spake the father in joy, expecting the feast

to be ready. But Praxilla, where is Praxilla, the dutiful

maiden? Still she lingered in spite of herself, and listened,

and wondered, Lingered to catch but a word, one more word,

from the lips of the stranger,

80 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Though her father she heard re- echo the cry of

kitchen, When he spoke of drinking the wine and eating

the viands. Beautiful daughter of Homer she stood there,

but dutiful also ; She was restless, and said to herself in reproof,

still delaying: "Surely I ought to be off, I was needed long

since in my kitchen ; What will the household become if left to itself

in the future ? Oh, those women, those wonderful women, up

there in the Northland ! That was the tale of a dream, and still I appear

to be dreaming, Thinking myselt far away in the glistening home

of the frost-gods, Thinking myself in a temple of ice on the top of

an iceberg. Woman, now speed from this old Greek world

and march to the new one ! Would he take me along if I perchance would go

with him? That is my mind — and yet I know not whether I

know it ; That is my mind — beyond the seas and over the

mountains — But I must go — my kitchen, my kitchen — and

still I delay here —

THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 81

Ever beyond and beyond is my mind, on the wings

of my thinking, Over the plain and the mountain, and over the

border of Hellas, Up to the stream that is bearing the flood of the

wide-whirling Istros,

Over the river afar to the shore of the further most Ocean, Where I can feel the embrace of the waves of the

earth-holding Ocean, There I would stand by the waters — and yet

even they could not stop me ! But away to my kitchen, my kitchen — Oh, why

do I stay here ! ' '

Just at that moment the stranger looked over

the youths round about him, But those youths did not mark quite what he was

warily seeking, Even away from the poet he looked and found

what he searched for, Where stood the lingering, listening daughter of

Homer, Praxilla, Who still delayed for a word, one more word

from the lips of the stranger.

Then spake the father, breaking into the

thought of the daughter :

66 Hold ! thy name, O guest, we must know, ere we go to the banquet, 6

82 HOMER IN CHIOS.

We must address thee as one of our OVVD, when

we sit at the table." Slowly the stranger pronounced it, barbarous,

heavy, rough-throated, But those soft-toned Greeks could not speak it in

spite of their cunning, Oft he repeated it for them, but in vain they

essayed it, Rudely its sounds were jolting out their mouths

in confusion, Broken to fragments around on the air flew the

name of the stranger. Then the master spake out, and bade all be silent

a moment : " Much too old is my voice to be forced to the

tones of thy language, Always it creaks and breaks if strained to the

subtle adjustment, I have sung too much to make any longer this

discord. Hearken to me ! in my tongue I shall name thee

henceforward Hesperion, Son of the Evening, come from the dip of bright

Helius westward, Eising and shining when it is sunset already in

Hellas. That is a name we can sing to right music in

measure Hellenic,

THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 83

List to the word, let us sing it together: Wel come, Hesperion ! "

Then the youths sang aloud all together : Wel come, Hesperion !

And Praxilla whispered in silence: Thrice welcome Hesperion !

In a blush at her whisper, she turned and ran out to her kitchen.

Clio.

The Travels of Homer.

(85)

ARGUMENT.

Homer takes up the account of his travels through Hellas in preparation for his work. All his scholars are present, of whom a short list is given. He first went to Troy, and saiu the ruined city with its plain, where the war took place. Then he crossed over to the continent of Greece, and heard the people of each village celebrate the deeds of its special hero. While singing himself he also heard the bards of every locality sing its special legend of Troy and the aforetime. Thus Homer gath ered all the stories of the Trojan ivar, and fused them together into his great national poem. He chances to speak of Helen and her captivity; at once the old conflict fiames out among the pupils in his school. But Homer stops the dispute for a short time, and continues the nar rative of his travels, till the strife breaks out anew, this time over Hector, between Glaucus the Lycian and Demodocus the Ithacan. Each side is still ready to fight the Trojan war over again. Homer once more harmonizes the conflict, and takes occasion to show how the poet must embrace in himself both sides of the strug gle ivhich he portrays.

(86)

Morning had come from the East saluting the

island of Chios, Throwing her kisses of light along every line of

the landscape, Till it stood forth in her glance, revealed and

transfigured to vision. Soft was the light that she dropped from her lips

on the hill and the valley, Tenderly touching the air with violet tinges and

golden ; Under her feet lay the waters and over her head

bent the heavens, Both of them waked from the night, reflecting

her soul in their stillness; Sea and sky, the two big blue eyes of nature, had

opened,

(87)

88 HOMER IN CHIOS.

And were looking with joy on Chios, the beauti ful island,

Where not far from the beach stood the garden and dwelling of Homer.

All the youths had assembled to hear the tale of his travel ,

Which by the chance of the moment had been before interrupted ;

Now they would hear of the way he had wan dered to come to his poems,

For they all would like to be Homers and sing of the heroes,

Catching the glory of life in the lilt of a music al measure.

Glaucus was there, a youth from the banks of the eddying Xanthus,

Mighty his ancestor was, Bellerophon, hero of Lycia ;

Warriors his race had been, but he now sought to be poet ;

Singing not doing the deed he held the better vo cation.

Other great names were present from lowland and upland of Asia:

Gyges, Mysius, Nastes, son of a Phrygian mon arch ,

Dardan from Gargarus nigh unto Troy, the city in ruins,

THE TEAVELS OF HOMER. 89

Aphroditorus the curled Milesian boy, Niobides Fresh from the tears of Sipylus — these may

stand as examples ; But the foremost was Glaucus, the son and the

grandson of Glaucus, Far back tracin^ his blood to the veins of Bel-

o

lerophontes.

Next, O Muse, thou must glance at the youths

who crossed out of Europe. Young Demodocus came, who sprang from an

order of singers, Living in Ithaca where they sang of the toils of

Ulysses. Homer had been their guest when he touched

their isle in his travels, Gathering wonderful Ithacan tales of voyages

westward, Fabulous threads of song, like gossamers floating

in sunshine,

All to be caught by the poet and wove to a beau tiful garment. Teucer of Salamis came, descended from Teucer

the archer ; Skill in handling the bow he possessed — the

gift of Apollo, But the God had refused his other great gift —

that of wisdom ; Still the youth would be singer, and broke in

scorn all his arrows,

90 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Talent he had for the one, desire he felt for the

other, Teucer could not what he would, and whatever

he could he would not. Burly Plexippus was there, the richest scholar

of Homer, Glossy and sleek were grazing his herds in

Thessaly grassy, Thousands of horses were his that drank at the

streams of Peneios, Palaces too he owned and held whole cities for

barter ; Somehow he thought he could simply exchange

some cattle for verses, E'en the Pierian spring was his by virtue of

money, Once for its waters he counted out pieces of gold

and of sjlver, But though their fountain he bought, he never

could purchase the Muses. When he returned to his country and held his

Thessalian domains, All his thought was to buy up the home of the

Gods, high Olympus, Then the Gods he deemed he possessed, possessing

their mountain, And at his will he could call them down from their

heights to his poem.

Other youths from the islands had come, and also from Argos,

THE TBAVELS OF HOMEK. 91

But the Muse has not given their names excepting

Sophrones, Clear Athenian soul, devoted to worship of

Pallas, Moralist ever was he, the manifold maker of

maxims.

Tall Hesperion too was present, just from the

Northland, Sole barbarian there, yet eager to learn and to

listen, Towering over the rest like Fate over beautiful

Hellas; Strong were his features, yet melting to love in

the sunshine of Chios.

One more scholar forget not, though first pres ent this morning!

There she stands behind by the door — the daugh ter of Homer,

Still by the door in the rear — she yet will ad vance to the foreground.

Shy are her glances, striving to hide her heart in her bosom,

But they are tell-tales, and whisper the thought she is secretly thinking.

Voices arose which bade the poet go on with

his story;

Grappling awhile for his thought again he began his recital :

92 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

" First I went over to Troy, and dwelt on its

plain and its hillock, In the city destroyed I stayed and lived with its

ruins, Which still talk to the traveler telling their story

so fateful. Kivers I saw in the plain, and heard the God of

Scam and er Speak of the Heroes slain and many a furious

battle, As he pointed to corselet and helmet and shield

mid his rushes, Showing the skulls of the dead that grinned from

the ooze of his stream bed. Thence I passed on the sea in a ship from island

to island, Felt the favor of hoary Poseidon, and felt too his

anger, When he would roll up the waves in a storm by

the might of his trident ; Him I once saw in his chariot scudding away on

the billow Right into sunset, and leaving a fiery track

through the waters.

Glad for my life I was when I came to the main land of Hellas, Peoples I saw, their cities and customs, but

chiefly their legends Drew me to listen and gather each radiant shred

of their spirit.

THE TEAVELS OF HOMEE. 93

Heroes unknown I found everywhere, great men

of their village, Whose high deeds were at festivals sung by their

townsmen in worship, For each village its Hero must have and revere

him divinely. Every bard in the country I heard and stored up

his fables, Till the Delphian cleft which utters the measures

prophetic, Till the Thesprotian land where speak the oaks of

Dodona, Till the Olympian heights where Gods look

down upon Hellas. And to Helicon came I and heard the song of its

Muses, Singing a rival strain to the Sisters who sit on

Parnassus; There I listened to Hesiod, crabbed old singer of

Ascra, And I gave him a note of the song that was rising

within me, I had already begun the new lay of the Gods and

the Heroes. For a moment he ceased his complaints of man

and of woman, Quit his dark world of monsters primeval and

hazy huge Titans, Just long enough for a laugh to break out like a

flash from a storm-cloud,

94 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

And to say to me : Friend, I shall visit thee sometime in Chios."

Here the poet himself was a smile and dropped

into silence For a minute or more, and then he returned to

his story: 66 Early to Argos I came and heard in a hymn the

whole people Chanting the glory of Diomed, who was their

valorous leader, How in the war of Troy he fought with the

Gods, though a mortal, Fought with two Trojan Gods in the might of

his heart, and he conquered ; For the Greek though a man, must put down the

God if a Trojan. 4 That ' I said to myself ' is a note in the lay of

our Hellas, In the grand lay of our Hellas that is a strain of

the music ; Part of the one vast temple of song in the soul

of the nation, I shall take it and mould it and build it into my

poem.' Each little fragment of life and each stray film

of a story, Name of mountain, river and town, whatever I

found there,

THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 95

All I picked up on the spot, and began to weave

them together,

By the aid of Mnemosyne, Muse who always re members. Then to Mycenae I went, the golden, where

dwelt Agamemnon, Through the portal I passed that was guarded

above by the Lions, Fiercely glaring in stone at the man who entered

their gateway. Much the splendid city had waned from its old

Trojan glory, And the look of the sunset rested all day on its

towers. There I learned the King's fate at the hands of

his wife Clyternnestra, And the death of herself and her lover, both

slain by Orestes. Sad was the tale of the doomful House of the

Monarch wide-ruling, I could never refrain from repeating that tale in

my measures, Truest example, methinks, of the dealing of

Gods with us mortals, Still to be sung in many new poems to millions

hereafter. It will be poured into bronze, and hewn out of

whitest of marble, Told in tongues yet unborn, to measures unheard

of in Hellas,

96 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Wretched indeed is the man, if the Gods in his

pride, he obey not ; Base ^Egisthus, I feel in my heart the point of

thy dagger !"

Fervidly spake the old man, and he seemed

overcome by his story, Thinking the fate that befel the great prince

of the Greeks, Agamemnon. To his own life the poet transmuted the lives

of the Heroes, Every thread of a fable he span to a strand of

his heart-strings, Each wild word of the wildest old legend he

caught and transfigured, Unto each sorrow of mortal his bosom beat

mighty responses; Nobly the youths were led to revere the man in

the poet.

Soon his gloom he had caught and flung it far back into Lethe,

Whence at times it escapes in the brightest of souls up to daylight,

And he began, in his countenance looking the look of the sunrise :

" Over the heights I scrambled, that was a coun try of mountains !

Woodmen I met in the forest, here and there a small hamlet.

THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 07

But every where I could find some fragment of

song or of story. Through the glens I passed of the piping Arcadian

shepherds, Through the hills full of music down into the

vale of Eurotas, Where lay Sparta — and there was the home of

the beautiful Helen. Still the palace I saw in the sunlight, where Paris

the Trojan As a guest was grandly received by the King

Menelaus, And I saw too the glance of the eye and the

thought of the woman, In its first flash to the fateful resolve — of wars

the beginning ! Madly I followed each step on the path of the

sea as she fled thence, Feeling the glow and the guilt of a passionate

world in each heart-beat, Watched her enter the ship, the sheltering ship of

her lover, W^atched it ride on the sea till it vanished afar on

the waters. There I sank on the sand, as the dead man drops

from the arrow Sent to his heart, and I died for a while in the

battle of Helen. O Aphrodite, Goddess of joy that is paid with

all sorrow,

7

98 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Queen of the love that bears in its proof the bit terest vengeance, There I fell down the thrall of thy spell, but I

rose up the master. Thou dost also possess in thy right the soul of

the singer, I was Paris myself and I fled to the East with my

Helen, Troy I was too and its siege, I was taken and

burnt into ashes ; But I am also the law which is read in the flames

of the city, And I am the stern judgment of Gods who speak

from its ruins."

When the poet had stopped in the rush of his

words for a moment, See ! a youth stands forth with a flash in his eye

like a falchion,

Lycian Glaucus it is, from the banks of the eddy ing Xanthus, Grandson of Glaucus Avho fell in the war by the

walls of the Trojans, Sprung of the seed of Heroes, though poesy

now he has chosen; Standing forth from the ranks of his friends, thus

says he to Homer: ''Helen belonged to our side, for she was the

woman of beauty,

THE TBAVELS OF HOMER. 99

We had to take her and keep her, or lose the

heritage lovely, Basely resign it to others, and yield up the claim

of fair Asia. Twenty years she was ours, of all the great war

she was worthy, Twenty years she was ours, and we paid but the

price of a city, Even one moment of Helen is worth all the losses

of Priam."

Scarce had he done when a valorous youth

sprang out of the front-line From the opposite ranks, as if to respond to the

challenge ; It was Demodocus, son of Demodocus, Ithaca's

singer, Now in the school of the poet to learn the new

song of the ages ; Far in advance was the song of all that were sung

in his country By the old bards, his fathers. Pointing his finger

ut Glaucus, Raising his arm and smiting the air at each word,

he spoke thus : " Yes, we smote you, we burnt you, we bound you

when sated with slaughter, Women we seized and your wealth, we wasted

the city and country.

100 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Little was left in the land, in your gore we painted our glory,

And the same fate awaits you again if you come to the trial.

Helen, the prize of the world, you had to sur render forever."

Each of the fiery speakers had spoken his speech

in a fury ; See the turn ! how strange ! they are looking no

more at each other. Both of them bending the head, they covertly

glance at one object, Right at one point where stands the beautiful

daughter of Homer, As if Helen she were, to be fought for and won

by a nation. But in the background quite overtopping them

all stood the stranger, Just behind the fair daughter he stood and

seemed to be weighing, Dreamful, blue-eyed Hesperion, yesterday come

from the Northland, Now he seemed to be weighing two weights in

the scales of a balance.

In the midst of the din the poet uprose from

his settle,

As great Zeus on Olympus, the God of the Greeks and the Trojans,

THE TRAVELS OF HOMEE. 101

Who looks down to 'the earth and judges the struggle of mortals.

Homer suddenly saw the old conflict arise in his scholars,

Every battle at Troy was still in them — how could they help it?

From the East and the West they had come, from Hellas and Asia,

Deep is that scission of soul and of time — a breach everlasting,

Not to be healed but by one who is both the victor and vanquished,

Who can feel the defeat triumphant, the triumph defeated,

Who can be slayer and slain, and rise up new born from his ashes.

Homer united both sides, and both saluted him poet,

What in them was a discord, he turned into har mony lasting,

What was twain in their lives, in his he made one and a poem.

All had their own completeness in him, so hailed him as master.

When to speak he began, one word changed

strife into concord :

" Hold, O youths," he cried, " cease wrangling at once in my presence ;

102 EOMEE IN CHIOS.

Learn from to-day just what is the bondage you

are to get rid of ; Free is the poet, but free you are not when ruled

by a passion ; Whole he must be, but whole you are not when

halved into parties ; Music you never will make if the soul hath a

break in its tension. Hear entirely ; now let us go on with the rest of

my story. Over to Pylos I passed, and saw the land of sage

Nestor,

Who returned to his home from the war un troubled by tempest, Or by the wrath of the Gods, which wrecked so

many returning. Older than I am he was when at Troy, and yet a

good soldier, Fond of the fight, but of telling a tale of his youth

still fonder. Thence I sailed to Ithaca where I heard of

Ulysses, Wisest of men, he endured; and enduring, he

rose in his wisdom ; Great were his deeds at Troy, for he was the

Hero who took it, Mounting its walls by the wooden horse that was

winged with his cunning; Over Achilles he rises, through might of the

spirit's contrivance.

THE TRAVELS OF HOMEE. 103

But yet greater his task was after the city had

fallen ; To return was the Hero's work, to return to his

country And to his wife, through storms of the sea and

himself in his doubting. Wandering through the whole world that lies out

the sunlight of Hellas, . Into the magical islands beyond the bounds of

our knowledge, Suffering sailed he on, though losing all his

companions ; Ithacan bards there told me his tale of the Cyclops,

of Circe, Even through Hades he passed, through the realm

of spirits departed ; Living, the Hero must go beyond life, and return

to the living. Thither I followed him too, in my age I told his

adventures, Bringing him back to Penelope prudent and

Ithaca sunny ; Last of my song is this, it has just lately been

finished, Though some parts have been sung long since at

the festivals Chian, Showing a glimpse of the West where men find

always their new-world."

104 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Thus he spake, and he turned, though blind,

with his face to the sundown, Where in his path Hesperion, thoughtful, was

standing in silence ; But before he began, interposed Sophrones of

Athens : " Why such a liar and rogue did you make him,

your hero Ulysses?" " Penalty too he must pay, the penalty even of

wisdom," Answered Homerus, thoughtful, forecasting his

words for his scholars. Low and slow he now spoke, as if with his soul

he were talking:

" Always the deed must be paid for, the doer

heroic must suffer, Virtue arouses revenges and duty may call up the

Furies; Double the conflict must be, and the right may

also be double. O Ulysses, great was thy action, but followed by

curses ! The reward of thy life will be centuries full of

reproaches ! Wrongful men thou didst pay with their wrong,

for this expect judgment; Thou didst meet the guileful with guile, smite

foes with their weapons,

THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 105

Thou shalt be rated as guileful and cruel in turn

o

for thine action. Compensation, the law, has been laid by the

Gods upon me too, All the sunshine of nature is dark in spite of my

vision, Insight the Muses have given, but for it my sight

has been taken."

Such was the answer, but it met not the need

of Soph rones, Who was the moralist trying old tales with the

touchstone of virtue, Easily solving the problem heroic by rule or a

maxim, Excellent maxim for men who have not the stress

of the problem. Thus the worthy Sophrones tested the life of the

Hero, Putting his standard to each and measuring

~ o

strictly the defect. Hear him again, for always Sophrones has one

other question : " Which was right, the Greek or the Trojan?

That is the point now, Truly the point to be settled before I can enter

this calling. Much I have been worried about it, and still no

decision.

106 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Ere I can sing, I must know just what is and

who are the righteous. Dare I confess? I like not Achilles, Ulysses,

not Helen, Beautiful Helen — she is not beautiful seen by

my vision, Nor can I love Penelope prudent with all of her

cunning; Aye, the Gods of Olympus I like not, I cannot

adore them ; Zeus do you think I can worship, a God with the

passions that I have?"

Homer, the poet, was silent; Sophrones, how ever, grew louder: " Best of them all is Hector the Trojan, the man

most perfect, True to the wife of his heart and doing his duty

to country, Brave as a lion in war and gentle at home as a

woman. But, like the good man always, he had to fall in

the struggle, And by fate to lose what he fought for — his

cause and his city. Such is the world — the great men are bad and

the good men must perish."

On the spot the sparkles were flying from one of the scholars,

THE TEAVELS OF HOMEE. 107

It wasGlaucus who spoke, the fiery Lycian bard- ling :

" He was right — great Hector — defending his home and his nation

From the wanton attack of the bandits who sought to destroy them ;

Valiant in every way he was for his land and his people,

He is the Hero of Homer, I say, the only true Hero ;

Hector was right, will be right forever, and he was a Trojan."

Then he turned to one of the company seeking approval,

Just from one and no more he sought it — the daughter of Homer,

Not from the father the poet, but from the beau tiful daughter

Sought he the meed of a glance for his verses, but she beheld not,

For she was looking away from the youths in an other direction.

But in answer Demodocus spoke, his vigorous

rival, Rival not only in verse, but also in love of the

maiden : 66 Yes, but he fought for the thing that was

wrong and he knew it — your Hector !

108 HOMER Itf CHIOS.

For the rape of Helen he fought and made it his

own thus ; Aye, the good husband battled in Troy to keep

wife from husband. What in his soul he condemned, he supported by

arms and by words too, And so died of a lie in his life and the spear of

Achilles."

Suiting the act to the speech, Demodocus drew

back and lifted Hand and arm to a poise, as if he were hurling the

weapon

Straight at Hector, to slay him before the battle ments Trojan; Lycian Glaucus shrank not, but leaped to the

front at the challenge. Great was the uproar; the war of Troy once

more was beginning Right in the school of Homer, but quickly the

master bade silence : " Hearken, O youths, what I say, and learn

by example a lesson ! Not a part is the poet, nor is he owned by a

party. On which side do I sing in my poem — the Greek

or the Trojan? Mark it — on both and on neither ; the will of

Zeus is accomplished,

THE TRAVELS OF HOMEE. 109

God supreme of the Hellenes, rising above all

conflict. Not with another, but with himself is the poet's

true struggle, He is the slayer and slain and his soul is the

place of the battle. Much I think with the Greeks and much I feel

with the Trojans, These have my heart perchance, but those take

hold of my reason ;

Zeus too loves his dear children in Troy, but de cides for Achsea. Ah, the poet must fight in himself the dolorous

combat, As the God fought the God in the fray on the

heights of Olympus; Wounds he cannot escape, he must bleed in the

battle on both sides; Showing the strife of the time, he shows too the

strife in hi-s bosom, But he must heal it — just that is the seal of the

God on the singer; Rage, war, battles he sings, but also the peace

and atonement, Sings great Achilles in wrath, and reconciled

sings great Achilles. Now let the truce be confirmed between both

the Greeks and the Trojans, And in our joy we shall pour to the Gods a hearty

libation."

110 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Tall Hesperion silently heard the dispute of the

bardlings, Much he had learned about Hellas, and seen the

two sides of the conflict, Seen it still living and parting atwain the new

generation, Who were ready to fight over Troy, and over its

poem. But the best was, he saw the poet bring both

sides to oneness, Out of discordance bring harmony lofty of men

and of Gods too, Making the tumult of war sing the song of

Olympian order.

Homer in happiest mood uprose and continued his talking :

o

" Youths, Demodocus, Glaucus, now heal ye the

wounds of each other, Thinking the thought of high Zeus, as it sings to

a melody god-born, Speaking divinity's word which is sprung of the

soul's recognition. Valiant ye be, but let us proclaim, the war is

now over, All in one joy to-day let the East and the West

greet as brothers, Each of them taking the best of the other as

test of his spirit !"

THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. HI

Turning aside, he spoke out the word of com mand in a transport : "Speed thee, Amyntas, my boy, a full jar of

old Chian, the oldest, Ten years' ripe let it be, for age in the wine

bringeth wisdom Back to the drinker, in concord attuning anew

the lost temper, Bringing the oneness of truth into souls that

differ by nature. Here comes the wine, already I catch a whiff of

its fragrance, Oldest of Chian it is, a God would mistake it for

nectar. Glaucus, Demodocus, Gyges, Plexippus, and

Aphroditorus, Noble Hesperion also,thou valorous youth of the

Northland, Pledge now a health to yourselves, and pour to

the Gods a libation."

All the youths of the school, most willing,

obeyed the good master, Touched loving lips to the brim of the wine on

the rim of the beaker, Pledging a health to themselves and pouring to

Gods a libation.

Hark ! mid the draught a shrill noise is disturb ing the flow of the liquid,

112 HOME 11 IN CHIOS.

'Tis the rickety gate as grinding it grates on its

hinges. Opening first to a push, then backward it slams

with a racket; What is the shape that noisily enters and

shuffles along there? Man well-known in Chios he is, well-known unto

Homer, Satisfied man with himself he seems by the turn

of his features. That is the pedagogue, first of the island, the lord

of the laurel, Which he doth use as a switch for teaching the

verses of poets, Teaching the boys of his school the glory and

gift of the Muses, Whose fair branch he now twirls in his hand as

he turns up the pathway. Terrible pedagogue Chian he comes, the thrasher

and slasher, Thrashing the youths into lore and slashing the

poets to pieces, Into the school of Homer he walks — he is here —

O Typtodes !

VI.

The Pedagogue Chian.

8 (113)

ARGUMENT.

A rival school to that of Homer is taught by Typtodes, the Chian schoolmaster, who comes one day to have a short visit tvith the poet. Typtodes is the severe critic of Homer's poems, and cuts them to pieces quite as some modern professors have done. But the school master is a progressive man and is now specially inter ested in the new script which has been brought from Phoenicia. In fact he is giving to the poems of Homer their Jirst alphabetic dress in spite of his criticism. It turns out that Typtodes has really come to see the daugh ter of the poet, though he disguises the fact. But his bitter criticism is modified by the wine which Homer causes to be brought him, and his final questions are in a different vein from his first utterances. A new man appears who will give some answer to what Typtodes has asked.

(114)

Not alone and unchallenged the poet held sway

in his city, There was a rival in Chios, who in his realm was

the ruler. Most of the youths of the place were sent to the

school of Typtodes, Crusty Typtodes, a far-famed trouncer of boys

into learning, Tickling bare legs of Greek boys till they danced

to the sprig of his laurel, Which he always held in his hand while he made

them con verses, Rousing the Muses unwilling by use of their

favorite symbol.

(115)

116 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Some were verses struck at a heat from the heart of a poet,

With an Olympian might, and flowing and glow ing forever

In the fire and flash of the words of the primal conception.

But the others, the most, were his own, the ped agogue's verses,

Made without a mistake according to rule in his school-room,

Flawlessly made out of wood, the toughest wood in the forest.

In his sandals he shuffles along the loose stones

of the pathway ; Slyly he shuffles and seems to be slipping about

on his tiptoes, As the schoolmaster warily slippeth around in

the school-room, Seeking to catch in the act the bad boy who is

making the mischief. Gaunt and ungainly the man, and somewhat

stilted in posture, Sparse was the beard, each hair from his visage

shot out like a bristle

Ready to stick and to prick any person approach ing too near him, Even the kiss of Typtodes had the keen point of

a briar.

THE PEDAGOGUE CHI AN. 117

Thin was the nap on his garment, exact each step

that he took there, Always the branch of the laurel he held in his

hand while walking Had in its swaying upward and downward the

look of precision. Sharp was the thrust of his eye, as it peered from

the hole of the eyebrows, Slightly barbed was the point of his nose, no

mercy allowing, No escape for the foe ; his whole visage seemed

pointed and ready, Even his look was a cut and his tongue had two

edges of sharpness. Yet the man had his virtues — industry, feeling

of duty, Faith in knowledge he never gave up, in spite of

reverses, And, on the whole, he believed in the movement

of men to the belter. Bearer of light to Chios he was, when the day

was beginning, Homer he was not, and yet but for him there had

been no Homer, Whom he first put into script from the word and

made everlasting, By the skill which he had in tracing Phoenician

letters. This fair day he has come to have a good visit

with Homer,

118 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Whom as a man he liked, as a fellow-craftsman respected,

Deeming himself to be, however, the much bet ter poet,

Though the world had passed on the men a differ ent judgment.

He had heard of the beauty, too, of the daughter

of Homer ; Living in the same town all his life he never had

seen her, Never had seen her, though knowing by heart

every word of her parent. Not too young to be curious, not too old was

Typtodes, Pedagogue Chian who sought for a glimpse of

the beautiful maiden, Though, of course, he pretended to come for a

chat with the father.

Settled down in his seat he began to talk of his

methods, How the rule had been found, and the glory was

great of the finder. " Yes, methinks I have brought to perfection this

science of teaching ! Surely not much will the schoolmaster have to be

doing hereafter But to follow, ages on ages, the steps of Typtodes.

THE PEDAGOGUE CIIIAN. Hi)

What great progress to-day we are making in

every department ! Some weeks ago a new churn was invented by

Phagon of Samos, Hither he brought it at once and showed it around

in our island; Soon each household of Chios will have it, soon

will be churning, Churning away for dear life the milk of the kine

of the country ; Barbarous oil-eating Greeks will change into

eaters of butter, That is improvement, that, I call, the grand

march of the species ! Only one fear I cannot help feeling amid all our

progress ; All the world will have nothing to do , and so will

do nothing, After that we are gone, and have left it the fruit

of our labor ; Idleness is the great curse, our children will have

to be idle ; Such is my fear ; so I one day have resolved to

take easy; Having dismissed my school, I would dally awhile

in your garden, Leave the words of the poem behind and talk with

the poet."

Here he stopped for a moment and slyly was peeping around him,

120 HOME R IN CHIOS.

Once, twice, thrice he looked, and every look was

a question, Asking, " Where, I wonder?" but without any

answer, Though he could hear a sweet stray note now and

then from an arbor. In its stead unwilling he heard the voice of old

Homer : " Friend, have you any new light on the dark way

of life?— O give it — Some fresh word upon fate or the law or the

wonderful secret ; Eyesight is gone, and often I feel the bounds of

my insight; Often I feel the bounds of the word in the stress

of the spirit."

Then began in the height of his mood the peda gogue Chian :

" We have lately been reading, or rather reciting your poems,

Since in the school or the market they still for the ear are recited,

Though I myself can read those recent Phoenician symbols,

Catching the sound of the voice in the devious tracery of letters ;

I alone of all of the men in the island of Chios,

I can wind out the labyrinth weird made of strange Alpha-Beta,

THE PEDAGOGUE CHIAN. 121

Follow the clew to the end and bring back the

prize that is hidden,

Hidden away by a spell in the heart of the char acters mystic. Into those signs I have been transforming the

voice of your verses, Scratching the musical sound into signs which

now are called letters, Magical symbols of fast-fleeting speech, which

fix it forever, Holding it firm to the sight when the tongue

which spake it, is silent. But not yet I have seen your beautiful daughter,

Homerus, Whom Fame whispers abroad in every nook of

our Hellas."

66 O good man," said the poet, " aught more

would I hear of this wonder, Which has caught and is holding the word to

make it eternal ; Fate forbids me to see it, Oh then let me learn of

the marvel Changing the world at a stroke by giving the past

to the future."

Crabbed Typtodes perchance was not pleased

with the turn of the answer,

But he began on the spot to speak out the thing that was in him :

122 HOMER IN CHIOS.

" Let that pass — all that which I said of Phoe nician letters.

We have glanced these days down into the depths of your poems;

Now I am going to speak you the word of friend ship and frankness.

You, I find, are not accurate, shifting the dates of your action,

Not quite correct in the facts, and you give your twist to the story.

All your tales of the Gods are turned to the bent of your thinking,

Somehow changed from the old they seem to be bearing your impress.

Often you make in your spring important mis takes in the measure,

Short where it ought to be long, and long where it ought Jo be shortened,

Forcing the stress of the voice in places where it belongs not.

And I hold the hexameter is not fit for your poem,

Which, so rapid in movement, should not be delayed by the meter ;

If you only had asked me, I could have told you a better.

Nay, I deem that measure not suitable to the Greek language,

Which has a boisterous genius not to be swaddled in long clothes ;

THE PEDAGOGUE CHI AN. 123

You should remember from Troy the Greeks no longer are babies.

Hark to a verse of your poem, describing far- darting Apollo,

Which should be simple and rapid and grand, divine in its movement ;

Slowly it drags along and cumbers its flight with its lumber,

Then at the end it suddenly whisks and swashes its tail round.

What a blasphemy ! Phoebus will take from his quiver an arrow,

Sly invisible arrow, penalty due to the Muses,

Put the notch to the bow-string and pull it- — be hold ! who is stricken !"

Warmed to his work was shrilly Typtodes, and so he continued,

Cruelly lashing himself into slashing to frag ments the poet :

"And that mixture of words from every part of our Hellas,

Mixture poetic of fragments of speech from island and mainland,

Doric, Ionic, ./Eolic, how can it ever be lasting?

It is a wonder that people to-day are willing to hear it ;

No such jargon has ever been spoken by Greek or Barbarian,

124 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Crumbs from the table of tongues — and that is

the language of Homer. Though to nature it be not kin, still I put it in

writing, And I study it too, though I have to tear it to

fragments ; What seems substance turns in my hands to the

flimsiest shadow, I confess I have pleasure in knocking nothing to

pieces, All to pieces I knock it so that it appears to be

something. "

Satisfied well with his work, Typtodes contin ued in judgment: " Nor are your characters always consistent,

however heroic, Diomed changes, Ulysses is never the same in

two stories, And your implacable Hero is placated twice in

his anger. Homer himself is never the same, but shifts to

another, Dozens and dozens of Homers I find ensconced

in your verses. Your large poem doth fall of itself into many

small poems, Which, I know, were sung by hundreds of singers

before you,

THE PEDAGOGUE CHIAN. 125

Who were the primitive makers of what you have

gathered and taken ; You are but a collection of songs, a string of

loose ballads, You are not one and a plan, but many you are

and planless. Now I shall state to your face the final result of

my wisdom : Homer, aye Homer himself is not the true author

of Homer.'*

Up rose the pedagogue Chian and stretched to

the height of his stature, Whirled his ponderous arm as if a boy he were

flogging, Slashing the verses of Homer, a pupil he seemed

to be thrashing, Terrible pedagogue Chian, the slasher and

thrasher Typtodes.

But in response he called up the cheerful humor

of Homer : " Take my book and study it further; perchance

you can read it In that new sort of script which you say has come

from Phoenicia. One is the book if you are one and can ever be

happy, Wholeness first being found in yourself, is found

then outside you,

126 HOMER IN CHIOS.

I am halved and quartered if you are a half or a

quarter, But a whole I shall be, if you are a whole in my

study ; Discord enough you will find in my poem, if you

be discordant, Discord enough in the world if harmony to you

be wanting. But those wonderful letters — would I might see

them and read them ! Ere I pass from this earth, I would know the

Phoenician letters!"

Mild was the manner and sweet was the voice

of the godlike singer, Dropping transparent as pearls the beautiful

words of his wisdom, Showing in chilly old age the upspring of young

aspiration. But that terrible fragment of man, the trouncer

Typtodes, Spake once more, and showed in his voice a dash

of resentment : " My next business will be to cut up your book

into ballads, I shall put the keen knife of this brain to each

joint of your body, Though I be but a half or a quarter, or less than

a quarter,

THE PEDAGOGUE CH1AN. 127

You shall be smaller than I am, you I shall chop

into mince-ineat." " In dissecting, oft the dissector himself is

dissected ; What to another he fits, may fit just the fitter,"

said Homer. " What a prophet you are? In you I foresee the

grand army Who will cut me and stab me with every sort of

a weapon, Gashing and slashing my whole poetical body

to fragments. Still I affirm your army so grand can never defeat

me, I shall remain as I am, the wounds will return to

the giver. But let us stop this pitiful wrangle, it wholly

untunes me ; Harmony, wisdom, hope it hath not, but ends in

mere nothing. Cheerful now let us pour to the Gods a hearty

libation, Then let us pour to ourselves a good draught in

the warmth of our worship."

Mellowed at once to the rhythm of wine Typ-

todes gave answer:

" Now you are truly a poet, with fresh inspira tion you touch me ;

128 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Wine is a poem in drops, which you easily sip in small verselets;

That hexameter which you just made while urg ing libation,

Was a good one — the best, to my taste, you ever have spoken.

Better, I think, I shall now understand the drift of your verses."

Look ! a beautiful figure has flitted past to the garden ;

Is it a sudden dream, a phantom of vision fan tastic?

No ; Typtodes has caught a glimpse of the daughter of Homer,

Caught one fitful glimpse of the shape of the beautiful maiden,

More he longed for and looked for, but he re ceived not the second.

44 Now I would know," he said, 4< how you build

with such skill your grand temple, How you turn your soul into music that flows in

your measures, How you turn all the world into harmony wedded

to beauty, How you call down the Gods themselves from the

heights of Olympus ? ' ' 44 Bravely," the poet replied, 4* you aim at the

white of the mark now ;

THE PEDAGOGUE C 111 AN. 12(J

But it is not my calling to point out the path of

the Muses In their flight through the air down to men from

the top of Parnassus. Surely enough it is if I hear them when they are

singing, And repeat their melodious strain in its fullness

to mortals. Faint is the note at first, but it goes on extending

and swelling, Till it sweeps to its musical train the whole earth

and the heaven, Tuning the discord below and above, of men and

of Gods too." " But whence cometh the world of the Gods and

their sway on Olympus? To the beginning I wish to return and make my

inquiry."

So spake Typtodes, when a new figure rose

over a hillock Walking out of the distance, amid the orchard of

olives. " Aye, whence cometh the man, who goes to the

Houses of Hades? What is he here for — the mortal of clay once

shaped by Prometheus? And the woman, his mate, the beautiful, fateful.

what is she? "

130 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Asking he glanced to the right and the left for

the daughter of Homer, Nowhere he saw her, but in her stead he beheld

through the leaflets, Slowly approaching, the man he had seen before

in the distance.

Such were the questions which eager Typtodes

put to Homerus, Who replied not, but seemed of something else to

be thinking. Hark to the groan of the gate which suddenly

grinds on its hinges !

VII.

tlvamtnt.

The Singer of Ascra.

(131)

ARGUMENT.

The person approaching turns out to be Hesiod, the poet of Ascra in Baiotia, whom Homer had met in his travels and whom he had invited to come on a visit to Chios. Hesiod is received by his brother poet, and tells his story of the Gods, and his view of the ivorld. He, too, will see and know the daughter of Homer, though he has no good opinion of woman. Finally he beholds her, when, for a sarcasm on her sex, she gives him a tart reply. The old Greek misogymist and pessimist slips away from the company, and vanishes out of Chios at the appearance of another woman, the songstress of Lesbos.

(132)

All start up at the stridulous sound to see what is

coming, When a stranger moves into the path of the

eye to the heavens, Leisurely comes down the walk which leads to the

garden of Homer, Beautiful garden of fruit and of flowers, of shade

and of sunshine. Broad and bony the hand of the man, and

knotted the knuckles, Trained to whirling the ax by the helve in the

woods on the mountain, Trained to holding the plow by the handle in

turning the furrow, Used to toil were his palms, and hardened to

horn by his labor.

(133)

134 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Great strong lines he had in his face dividing it crosswise,

Also dividing it lengthwise to network of val ley and mountain,

Which would rise and fall into billows of rough corrugations :

Surely that face was a battle, the battle of Gods and of Titans,

Seizing and hurling volcanoes aflame in their wrath at each other.

Under his features was lying a scowl, which seemed to be born there,

Which would dart from its lair in his look, spit ting fire like a dragon ;

Strange was the tone of his speech, yet stranger his play of grimaces,

Lips would writhe at each word, as if it were sore to be spoken.

Hark! he is ready to speak and turns to the poet of Chios :

" Over the sea I have come in a ship from the

mainland of Hellas ; Voyage unblest, for Poseidon was trying each

minute to drown me, Dashing his waves on the craft and mightily

cleaving the waters ; Often he opened his jaws and shut them tight on

the vessel,

THE SINGER OF AS OKA. 135

How I escaped I know not, but salted and scared

I escaped him.

Heavy Boeotia is my home, my village is Ascra, Ugly village of Ascra, vile in the summer and

winter. There I sang of the Birth of the Gods and the

Works of poor mortals, Mortals, who sweating and swinking in life, die

at last in a discord/*

" What a note is that in the sunlight of Chios,"

cried Homer, " Who art thou, man? Some tricks of thy voice

I have heard in my travels." Twisting his face into scowls, as if he were tasting

of wormwood, Spake the poet of Ascra, and spitefully spat out

the bitter : 44 Well thou knowest, for thou hast borrowed

some of my verses, Hiding the source in a word, thou hast called it

the breath of the Muses. Once I sang for thee when thou hadst come to

my home in thy journey, Sang of the eldest Gods who were born of Chaos

primeval, For I like to go back to the start, though it be

all in darkness, Origin ever I seek, although I can never quite

reach it.

136 HOMER IN CHIOS.

What a pleasure to run from the sheen of the sun back to nothing !

This Olympian order of thine, it came of dis order,

Which is my burden of song reaching back to the very beginning ;

Even this beautiful day now sporting in joy of the sunshine,

Not long ago was born of the night and to night it returneth."

" Hail, O brother," said Homer, the bard, to

the poet of Ascra, " I have heard thee before on Helicon — now I

remember — Bleak was the day and hoarse was the wind that

blew up the valley. Be at home, O guest ; give us more of thy song —

I would listen."

Then again the poet of Ascra seemed tasting of

wormwood, Ere his strain he began in the stress of a mighty

upheaval ; Soon into thunderous words he let out the soul

of old Chaos: " All this isle, this world, as we see it, was once

but a monster, Peopled with monsters grim in the grey of the

distant aforetime;

THE SINGER OF ASCRA. Io7

There I love to dwell with old Cronus who swal lowed his offspring, Even to Uranus oft I go back for a gaze in the

twilight, And I dally with Nereus, parent of beautiful

daughters, Thousandfold forms of the billows'rising, rolling,

retreating, Fleeting forever away in the haze of the distant

horizon, Leaping anew into life as they rise to the top of

the sea-swell. O for the mightiest monsters of old! I tell you,

I like them ; All day long I could sing of the terrible brood

of the Gorgons,

Triple-headed, hundred-handed, thousand-legged, Cerberus, Briareus, Hydra, Chimoera, Echidna

the lizard ; What is Olympus to these, with its Gods who

dwell in the sunshine ! Once in this world lived a people I loved — the

Giants and Titans,

Who could hurl as weapons of war huge mount ains and rivers, Heaven itself they would storm and break down

the limit of mortals, Which the Gods once set in their envy when man

they created.

138 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Long the battle was fought, the stormers of

heaven were vanquished, Now see them whirl — down, down they spin to

Tartarus sooty, By the Olympians whisked off the earth-ball to

infinite spaces,

Where they lie under ban of falling, falling for ever. Still in the TJpperworld sunny they wrought for

the ages great wonders ; This fair island, this sea, yon mountains are

showing their power. Lofty, grandiloquent words are my colors, by

which I can paint them, Words that are sung in mine ear by the high

Heliconian Muses, Loving the mighty and monstrous and piling up

horror on horror "

"Hold, for mercy! " cried Homer, " let me catch breath for a moment,

For I seem to be falling, falling along with your Titans,

Down to black Tartarus whirling I spin in a spiral headforemost.

Poet, is there no light in your world, no beauti ful order?"

Curling his lip to a scowl, responded the singer of Ascra :

THE SINGER OF ASCEA. 139

" I cannot say that I like your Olympian sun shine, Homerus, All of your deities stand too clear in the sweep

of my eyesight, Cut into words they walk as if they were moving

to marble, Gods in my thought should break over bounds

into limitless regions,

Break over all of the forms of fair life into in finite fancy. Give me the view far away o'er the deeps of

Oceanus hoary, And his thousands of children with all the dim

train of the sea-gods, Breaking, creating their shapes with every new

dash of the wavelet, Riding the steeds of the sea and leaping from

billow to billow. Homer, I conic to pay thee a visit once promised

at A sera; And I have heard of a beautiful maiden now

dwelling in Chios/' "Welcome again, O friend," said Homer;

" some wine in a goblet, Speed thee Amyntas, my boy — some Chian wine

for the poet."

But the musical guest in response made a face

full of discord,

For in spite of himself he longed to behold the fair daughter.

140 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Disappointed, lie turned once more to the tale of

his terrors: "Dragons I love, if human, and forms of the

sphinxes and griffons, Forms commingled of man and of beast, which

sprang from the Orient. You, O Homer, have driven my monsters away

to the background, Far in the background of Hellas they lie under

curse of your spirit, Where they will stay by your spell, I fear, in

the darkness forever. — No, again they will rise," spake the poet of

Ascra prophetic, " Out of the night they will rise and bask in the

sheen of Apollo, Far in the future I see them step to the light

from their hiding, They will riot around in the world as in times of

the Titans, Storming Olympus again in the might of their

struggle for heaven, They will battle with Gods on the earth and the

air and the ocean, Till the Underworld sunless will rumble and

quake in its terror."

Here a youth stepped forth, he had recently

come from the Northland,

Tall Hesperion, who from a dream had been roused by the story,

THE SINGEE OF ASCRA. 141

Roused by the mention of Giants, the dwellers of

mountain and iceberg, Calling to mind his own far country in landscape

and legend. Thus he spake in response to the poet of Ascra

foretelling :

" Truth you have spoken, I know it; those mon sters are living and thriving Just at this moment far up in the nebulous tract

of the Northland Where they fight with the fire and sport with the

frost of the icefield ; Mighty and massive those Giants of cold, the

Hyperboreans, Never I thought I would find them here in the

o

sunbeams of Hellas, Even in story I did not expect to be told of their

wonders, Though they be sitting in Tartarus sooty, the

cheerless, the hopeless. Tell me your name, O stranger, for I would

carry it with me, When I return to my land with the name and the

song of great Homer, Both of you banded together shall go to my home

in the Northland."

With a gleam of rude joy responded the singer

of Ascra,

Fame he reproached and despised and yet he longed to be famous :

142 HOMER IN CHIOS.

" I am called Hesiod, younger in song than

Homer, jet older, Earliest Gods I have sung and the latest of all —

Prometheus, Friend of poor lost man, and the sufferer, too, for

his goodness;

Sufferer God-born he lay in his anguish on Cau casus lonely. But the strange spell of my life ! I cannot get

rid of the woman ! On me has rested a curse, the curse of that

charmer Pandora, Once created by Zeus, endowed by each God with

his talent, Born with craft in her heart, then sent upon man

for his evil. Off and away! good Homer, I whisper the hope

of my journey ! Much I have heard in my land of a girl now grown

to a woman, Can I not see, perchance, now converse with the

beautiful maiden? Vain is my visit to-day if I see not the daughter

of Homer; More than Helen she is, aye more than the gifted

Pandora/'

" Here comes Amyntas," said Homer, " bear ing the fragrance of Chios ;

What a perfume of the wine as he steps in the gate of the garden !

THE ISINGEE OF ASCRA. 143

Well, that boy is ti flower that blooms with the scent of old Bacchus !

I can trace his path in the air without hear ing his footstep.

Drink now a cupful of tears that were shed on the beautiful island,

Tears of the wine-god which tell not the sorrow but joy of the godhood."

Hesiod turned up the cup, and drank off the

vintage of Chios, Generous vintage of Chios, that^lightens the soul

of the singer. And that cup was a wonder, with figures that

danced in a~circle, Forms of maidens and youths that danced in a

ring round the wine-cup, Wrought by the cunning of Chalcon the smith, and

given to Homer ^ When in his youth he sang for the prize and won

in the contest, Won the fair prize in a contest with deep-toned

Ariston his teacher. So they sipped off the wine from their beakers a

moment in silence,

Hesiod, Homer, the great Greek singers were sip ping together There in Chios the wine that is good for the Gods

and us mortals, Good for libations to Gods and a slaking of thirst

unto mortals.

144 HOMER IN CHIOS.

ISoon they were done, for they loved, not the frenzy, but joy of the wine-god.

"Dearest my daughter, where art thou?

Come hither and lead me,'' said Homer. But he heard no response, so he called out again :

Praxilla ! What is the matter ? where is the maiden ? Gone

on an errand? No, she was looking just then in a dream from

a nook of her arbor,

Whence she could gaze on the fair-haired, blue- eyed youth of the Northland, Wondering what she would do if she went to

the folk of the icefields. Of a sudden she woke from her wonder and

sprang to her father, Speaking mid blushes : "I was not gone, behold,

I am present." But the flashes of red spake louder that what

she had spoken, Truer than words in telling the truth of the heart

that is hidden.

Then they passed from the house for a stroll mid the trees and the vineyard,

All together they went — the youths, the guests and the maiden.

Shady the roof overhead of the leaves and the twigs and the tendrils,

THE SINGER OF A SOU A. 145

Leaves of the olive with silvery sparkle in sun beams of Chios,

Tendrils of grapevines that clasped the twigs in tender embraces,

Hinting of love in a bower to hearts that are young, and to old ones.

Hesiod saw with delight the beautiful daughter of Homer,

Every seam of his face was illumed with the torches of Eros,

Fled are the monsters aforetime, ended the battle of Titans,

And the wormwood of words is turning to sweet ness of honey ;

Glances he cast on the maiden and coined them to lines of a poet.

Singer of Ascra, thou hast forgotten thy tale of Pandora !

Also Typtodes beheld in a joy the daughter of

Homer, For the pedagogue too was a man, though dry in

his learning, Dry the vast heap of his learning, but it would

make a great bonfire, If but one little spark would snap from the flamelet

of Eros, Fall on the ponderous pile and suddenly set it to

blazing.

iq

146 HOMER IN CHIOS.

O Typtodes, pedngogue Chian, what are these

flashes ! Thou hast forgotten thy letters, forgotten the

symbols Phoenician.

So they walked and they talked till they came

to the view of the waters, Wondering came they at once to the side of the

sea everlasting Rolling its waves from beyond and beyond, far

over the vision, Over the tremulous line where heaven and earth

run together,

Where the God may be seen as he comes and de parts from the mortal. Nearest the billow that broke on the beach stood

the maiden Praxilla, Just behind her with look o'er the sea stood

youthful Hesperion.

All of them gazed at the waves, and thought fully dropped into silence,

Seeming to peep far over the bound of the bend ing horizon

Into the realm beyond for a moment, and hear its low music,

Feeling a gentle attunement of soul to the beat of the billows,

Telling the pulse of the world that is coming, the world that is going.

THE SINGER OF ASCEA. 147

List to a voice ! a herald is hurrying out of the

city, Kunning along the white sand of the margin that

gleamed in the sunshine; 66 Hearken," he cried, " I announce the approach

of the sovereign woman,

Poetess come from the Lesbian isle to pay hom age to Homer." " What ! a woman poetic!" broke out old Hesiod

crabbed, With a twinge in his lips as if tasting his words

that were wormwood, With a whirl of his fist as if fighting the Gods

like a Titan: " What new evil is born to the suffering race of us

mortals ! This last woman, methinks, is worse, far worse

than the first one, With the gift of her verses she comes, far worse

than Pandora."

" Hater of woman!" quickly responded the daughter of Homer,

Why are your Muses women, your own Heli conian Muses ?

Long I have known of you here, I have heard that tale of Pandora,

Shameless ! you have in that tale besmirched the mother that bore you."

148 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Off slipped the poet of Ascra through a lone path by the sea-shore,

Thinking to catch some vessel awaiting the breezes for Hellas,

Eager to quit the sunshine of Chios for heavy Bceotia,

Leaving the Gods of Olympus, to dwell once more with the Titans.

Surly he sauntered along by himself till he passed out of vision,

Hapless poet of Ascra, dismissed by the daugh ter of Homer.

Meanwhile the rest of the people went back

from the sea to the garden, Where they sat down on the stones which were

seats for the guests in a circle, Waiting to hear the first notes of the beautiful

songstress of Lesbos, And with a festival high and a hymn to receive

her with honor.

vm.

The Songstress of Lesbos.

(149)

ARGUMENT.

The person heralded is Sappho, a poetess of the island of Lesbos, and ancestress of the later more fa mous Sappho. She had caught from Homer the spirit of song in her youth, and now she comes to tell him her gratitude for what he had done. She thinks that Homer, through his story of Helen, had helped to save all women of Greece, herself included, from the fate of Helen. She crowns Homer ivith a garland for his other pictures of noble ivomen, those found in the Odyssey. At this point the daughter of Homer steps forward and asks Sappho concerning a secret. Hesperion, who has listened to the songstress and has heard her songs before, comes for ward and asks a similar question. The result is, the two lovers are brought together through Sappho, the poetess of love. But they are suddenly separated by the warning sound of a trumpet.

(150)

Who could it be that had come from the

neighboring island of Lesbos, Lovely island of love, and the home of the lyre

of Hellas?

It was Sappho, beautiful Sappho, poetess tender, Singing ancestress of many a Sappho still greater

than she was, Sister own of the Muses, the sister too of the

Graces, Breathing the heart of her sex into strains of the

sweetest of music, Bearing the beautiful name to be borne by her

children hereafter, Sappho, melodious Sappho, first name of the

songstress of Hellas.

(151)

152 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Many a Lesbian woman she gave of her

musical dower, Tunefully sharing the gift of her song to the soul

that might need it, All of them singing of love with the joy, the

triumph, the sorrow, Tasting the magical drop which wings with a word

the sweet senses — Lesbian bees that lit on each beautiful flower

of nature, Busily culling in song the bitter-sweet honey of

passion. Sappho already had sung for the prize in a

contest with Homer, Years agone that was, when she was the bloom

of a morning, But when he was a noonday turning and looking

to sundown. Both of them sang before judges — the prize was

a new-made tripod, Fashioned to life by Chalcon with dexterous

strokes of the hammer, That it seemed ready to step and to walk while

standing forever. High and mighty the judges taken from lords

of the islands, And from rulers of cities on mainland, all of

them greybeards ;

Rigid and just they were deemed in settling dis putes of the people,

THE 80NGSTEESS OF LESXOS. l^o

Rigid and just were the judges, and still she had

won before singing. See but the gleam of her eye, no furrow of frost

can resist it ! Every heart she had won by her look, and away

went the tripod ; She herself was the song that sang more sweetly

than Homer, Love and beauty were hers while singing of love

and of beauty, She was the prize herself, the prize of the Gods

to the winner. No true Greek could ever behold her, not hoping

possession. So the tripod she easily won from the first of

the poets, By the decree of the judges, whose law she took

in her triumph, Took too the hearts of the greybeards along,

and they could not help it; Homer himself in their place had not given

another decision, Homer had turned against Homer, had he been

one of the judges.

But to-day she harbored no thought to tell of

that triumph,

Rather ashamed she was, for she knew the power that gave it.

154 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Years had brought to her life the golden return

of their harvest, Still not chilling the warmth and the glow of the

Lesbian summer. Not too young in her folly, not too old in her

wisdom, Almost repentant her spirit looked out on the

world from its windows,

Casting its glances adown as if it had a con fession. Stately she moved, yet modest, into the presence

of Homer; Courteous welcome he gave to the songstress,

when she began speaking, Not in her own soft cadence, but tuned to the

sweep of his measures:

"Thee, O fatherly singer, I come to visit in

Chios, Chios, thy beautiful island, fair sister it is to my

Lesbos ; I would behold thee once more in the living form

of thy features, Ere thou pass to Elysian fields, last home of the

poets, Who shall dwell as spirits beyond in the house of

their genius, House of high fantasy built, material stronger

than granite,

THE SONGSTEESS OF LESBOS. loo

Holding eternal the echo of musical strains of the singer.

There among thine own Heroes, there abiding forever,

Thou the Hero shalt be thyself — in the deed the first Hero ;

For of all thy great people of song, thou sing ing art greatest,

Singing high actions of men thine action itself is the highest.

There I too, a poet mid happy Elysian meadows,

Hope in the sound of thy song with thee to be living immortal.

But to-day I have come once more in the sun shine to listen,

I would hear thee again this side of the pitiless earth-stream,

And would speak thee a word — not to thee but to me it is needful,

Bringing thy soul nearer mine — the word of sweet recognition."

" Aye, it is sweet, that word," interrupted the

poet good-humored, "Even to age it is sweet, for myself I do not

deny it ; More I would hear of thy strain, so deftly thou

turnest thy measures."

Seeing herself reflected in Homer, the song stress continued :

156 HOMER IN CHIOS.

66 Long ago I first heard thee attune the high lay

in my Lesbos,

I was a girl in my home, and thou wert a wan dering minstrel, Who went singing through Hellas the wrath of

the Hero Achilles, Singing the fateful, dolorous tale of the beautiful

woman, Wandering, singing, and tuning thy song to the

hearts of the Hellenes. Helpful thou spakest to me in the bloom and the

peril of girlhood, Mighty thy voice in my heart just then in the

struggle of woman ; At thy command my soul was set free and broke

forth into measures,

Irresistible measures of longing in Lesbian music. Secretly sang I my earliest notes to a circle of

maidens, Who would listen and love along with the tender

vibrations, Singing the strains of the song and touching the

strings of the cithern. That was after I heard thee hymning the story of

Helen, How she was blinded and sank in the spell of

sweet Aphrodite, Though the Goddess she fought and rated with

heavy reproaches ;

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 157

How by Paris of Troy she then was led from her

husband, Going, unwilling to go, and yielding though

always refusing, Driving the Trojan away, yet drawing him back

by denial, No was the word of her tongue, but Yes the

response of her action."

Here she stopped for a moment and looked

abashed at her daring, Thought unspoken when born into speech has in

it a demon, Who oft leaps from the sound of the word and

frightens the speaker, Till the courage returns to speak out the heart

of the matter. Poetess was the Lesbian, having the right to her

color, Having the duty to utter the truth of herself in

her singing; Warm were the tones and strong were the tints

of the thoughts that she painted ; Though her words seemed growing forbidden,

courageous began she: " Must I confess it? Helen I felt in myself at

that moment ! All of the bliss and the blight of her love swept

over my heart strings,

158 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Touching them lightly at first, then smiting them

harder and harder, As if I were a lyre by fingers of Fates to be

played on, Thrilling to music the ebb and the flow of the

ocean within me, Making the billowy passion sing to a measure

responsive ! Willing unwilling, fated yet free, to myself but

a battle ! Yes, I confess, the Goddess I felt, the Goddess

resistless, Driving me forward to do as did the beautiful

woman,

Whispering dulcet commands in words of divin ity's power. Yet Aphrodite but spoke to what was within me

already, Willing, unwilling, fated yet free — yeGods, how

she smote me ! Till through the cleft of my heart I could see

down, down to its bottom! With the prize of the fairest, the penalty too has

been given, With the beautiful women is chained the spite of

a Fury, Who doth secretly lurk in the gift of the Gods to

the mortal. But I stand not alone, for all I now stand in thy

presence:

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 159

Every wife in Lesbos, in Chios, in all the Greek

islands, And on mainland too, through Hellas, through

midland of Argos, Far in the isles of the West and over the sea to

the sundown, Has that danger of Helen, the lapse of the soul

in its loving, With the vengeance that follows the joy and the

glory of beauty. In thy story a witness I was of all that I might

be, Saw the dread ghost of myself and fled from the

horrible specter !

Homer, my father, thou hast saved me from be ing a Helen, In thy song thou hast suffered and saved all men

and all women Winning thy soul to themselves in its story of

trial and rescue. I had been taken to Troy, if thy word had never

been spoken, All the daughters of Greece thou hast rescued

from fleeing with Paris, Though his city has fallen, again he had come to

Achaea, Were it not that thy song keeps the warning alive

and the judgment. Troy still stands in the world and holds in its

citadel Helen,

160 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Only in song, thy song, is it taken forever, O Homer."

There she stopped on the height of her thought, the Lesbian songstress,

Whence she could see far over the sky-bound limit of Hellas ;

Soon in sweet low tones responded the poet

prophetic :

"Gracious words thou hast spoken and dear to me, beautiful woman;

Singing the peril of beauty in soft, warm words of thy measures;

Muse among Muses the tenth for thy strain hence forth I shall name thee,

Aye, for thy love the tenth Muse I shall name thee to nations hereafter,

Who thy honor will sing beyond the far streams of the Ocean,

First of the women of Hellas to build the melo dious poem,

Chastely chanting thy lay to the wives and maid ens of Lesbos.

Thou wilt be followed by thousands of songsters along down the ages,

Thine is the musical prelude of forests of night ingales singing.

Women preserve the story and song as they nourish their infants,

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 161

Who must be reared on the voice as well as the

milk of the mother; Nature makes her sing, she must die or sing to

her baby ; Motherly harmony is her first gift to her child,

and the greatest. What a world I see rising before me, the world

of the woman ! Beautiful Helen again shall be sung, aye, more,

she shall sing too, Taking herself Troy town, not conquered but

conquering Paris; She shall be the new Hero Achilles, in action

heroic, Gods I as I see I must speak ! she also shall be

the new Homer."

Down fell the word like a blow, surprising

even the speaker, Who by the spur prophetic was driven beyond

his own knowledge ; But on the spot she snatched up the talk, that

Lesbian songstress, For she still had a weight on her heart to be

lifted by speaking : "How we look at ourselves in thy tale of the

beautiful woman ! Our warm heart thou hast felt, its ready response

and the peril.

11

162 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

All our circle is drawn, the trial, the fall and the

sorrow. Then the return of the soul, the rise and the

grand restoration ; Helen estranged is restored to her own, restored

to herself too. In her marvelous tale I can see the past and the

future, All the life of our people unfold to the story

of Hellas. But still more than Hellas I watch in the lines of

her image : — This whole round of existence on earth, hard

destiny human, With the rise and the drop in the struggle of good

and of evil,

Now on the up and now on the down of the life- stroke eternal, Measuring cycles of pain and of gain to the beat

of the master."

Here she stopped for a moment, lost in the

reach of her thinking, Which ran over the bounds of her speech in the

stress of .her spirit; Soon again she came back to herself and spoke

Greek unto Homer : "Not alone the rise from the fall, thy beautiful

Helen,

THE SONGSTliESS OF LESBOS. 163

But the woman unfallen is also thy gift to us

women — She who never could lapse from herself in trial

the sorest. Now let me crown thy brow with this wreath for

Penelope faithful, For Arete, the mother, who dwells in the heart

of her household,

For Nausicaa too, the maid of all maidens for ever. Take this gift from thy children, thou art the

father of Hellas ! Which has been born to thy song and trained to

the step of thy music, Which will go singing thy strains down Time, in

joy and in sorrow, With tho echo repeating itself in all nations, O

Homer."

Thus spake Sappho, the soft-speaking Sappho,

sweet Lesbian songstress, Graceful she stepped, and loving she laid on his

temples the garland, Plucked by her hand and wove to a crown of the

leaves of the laurel. Echoing shouts of approval rang back from the

hills and the sea-shore, Even the wavelets, trying to walk, had come up

to the bank-side,

164 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Trying to talk had murmured afar their billowy answer.

Sweetly the rhythm she spoke, her spirit had caught it from Homer,

And the heroic hexameter yielded to lips of a woman,

Tamed by her gentle caress into lines of mel lifluous movement,

Though it was used to the clangor and clash of the onset of battle.

Now the poet has heard in tenderest tones of the songstress,

Touched with Lesbian tints, the tune of his own mighty measure

Softened quite to the whisper of love in its deli cate cadence,

Sung in praise of himself for singing the praises of woman,

Showing her highest worth, not sparing her blame ful in error.

Fairest reward of the bard, when he harks to the heart of his verses

Beating out of a bosom that throbs in a joy to his music,

Flowing from lips that he loves, like a soft suc cession of kisses.

But behold ! another fair woman steps up to the front-line,

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 165

Forward she moves to that presence, it is the

daughter of Homer, Who in a gleam of her sunshine embraces the

songstress of Lesbos,

And then speaks in low tones what her looks al ready are telling: " Thou hast uttered the word of my heart to thy

music, O Sappho, Word which often has beaten the wall of my lips

for delivrance, Always in vain, for left to myself I never can

say it ; But in the warmth of thy speech I can feel the

hot beat of my bosom, And that struggle of thine and of Helen's has

sung me my battle. Deep is the joy of my soul, and yet I have with

it a trembling, I have given myself all away, and yet I must

keep me, Sweet is every moment of life, and yet it is

bitter. What is this riddle of pleasure in pain and of

pain in pleasure ?

Would I might fly from myself, and yet to my self I would fly then. Tell me the great surrender which will restore me

my freedom, Speak it again, the magical word, the word of my

weal now,

166 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Overmaking me wholly in hope of the time of

my ransom. I would bathe in the stream of thy song as in

waters of healing, At thy voice my full heart which before had been

closed, is open, Like the flower which bursts at the breath of the

spring from its bud-coat, Still unwilling to show at first what is hid in its

bosom."

What does this mystery mean which lurks in the speech of the maiden?

Not quite clear to herself is the meaning of what she has uttered ;

Nearer the Lesbian songstress she drew, confid ing in glances,

Then in a whisper she spake, the beautiful daugh ter of Homer,

Clinging to Sappho, soft-speaking Sappho, the helper of love-pain:

" Tell me the story once more thou hast told so often already,

I can hear it again from thy lips and never grow weary,

I would hearken thy heart and live in the strains of its music;

Sappho, O Sappho, what is this love of the youth and the maiden,

THE S ONG STRESS OF LE SB 0 S. 107

Which thou singest in hundreds of songs to the s6norous cithern?"

Scarce had ended the speech when both were

aware of another Who had entered their thought and stood by

himself in their presence; Both looked hastily up, it was the fair youth

of the Northland Ready to speak, and his glances held the t\vo

women asunder, Since the one of them blushed, and the other

drew back in amazement ; Warm was his accent, though neither Ionic,

2Eolic, nor Doric; Well he could say what he wanted and spake

to the Lesbian songstress: " Thou hast uttered the word of my heart to thy

music, O Sappho; I a stranger am here from afar, from the realm

of the frost-gods, Thy warm breath I have felt as it wafted in words

from thy poems, All the winter within me has melted, and I am

the summer, Tender summer of Hellas attuned to the lyre of

Lesbos. All the ice of the North to-day thou hast thawed

from my bosom,

168 HOMER IN CHIOS.

As them toklest thy tale in the tale of the beauti ful woman;

Helen I was myself, and I sank in the spell of her passion,

But I was also her spouse, to Troy I would march for my Helen ;

Aye, the Greek I must win, or myself I shall lose forever."

Here he stopped for a sigh, then passed to

an undertone softly : " What is this fearful joy, and yet an agony

with it Which allows no rest in the pain that is born

of its pleasure?

Sweet is every moment of life, and yet it is bit ter ; I had given myself all away, before I had known

it; Tell me the cause of this hungering lingering

longing for something — Sappho, O Sappho, what is this love of the youth

and maiden, Which thou singest in hundreds of songs to the

sonorous cithern? "

Smiling she touched the amorous chords with

the tip of her finger,

Softly preluding the tones which turned into words in her answer :

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 169

" Both of you have the same pain, and both of you have the same pleasure,

Both of you sing the one song which runs to the very same ending ;

Even the words of your lips I notice are pairing together,

Yes, young people, I think I can tell you concern ing this matter,

Old is the tale to the old, yet ever is new to the youthful,

But to the poet it never can wear off the gleam of its freshness.

Much in myself I have studied the cause and the cure of this trouble ;

What in longing is sighing asunder, the word brings together,

Hear me, then, both of you, daughter of Homel and son of the Northland :

Two are still twain and in pain, who were born to be one and one only.

Give me two hands — I shall join them to one in mine own at a heart-beat."

Sappho set down her sonorous shell, to the pair

she drew nearer, Till between them she stood and secretly reached

out on both sides, Took two hands in her own and laid them willing

together,

170 HOMER IX CHIOS.

Which of themselves, with a grip like Fate, were clasped in a promise,

While the eyes at each other shot fiery ratifica tion.

Meantime the songstress was chanting a lay of the doings of Eros,

Singing for others she sang to relieve her own heart of its travail,

For the old wound, broken open, could only be stanched by the love-song.

Hark! the sound of a trumpet rolls over the

hills in the distance ! What can it mean, interrupting this moment of

j°y by a startle? There ! once more it is rolling, it sends on its

waves a light shudder. Each Jet go the firm grip of the hand in the shock

of the warning.

But the daughter has gone and whispered aside to her father ;

What did she say to him there as she leaned to his ear with her blushes?

Joyful he was at the word and louder he spoke than a whisper :

" Happy I am — I hnvc it foreseen — let me pledge you together ;

Sorrowful too — ye both have to leave me be hind — leave Hellas ;

THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 171

Still I feel you will take me along to the land of

the future, Aye, you will take our Hellas along and preserve

it forever."

Louder, nearer, sterner, resounded the blast of

the trumpet, Bearing command it seemed and bidding to wait

for the message ; Still no person appeared, but a ruler was surely

behind it, For authority spoke unworded in tones of the

trumpet, Strangely attuned to the roll of the thunder, the

voice of the Heavens.

In response to the note of forewarning spake

Homer prophetic: " Nay, not yet, not yet — the tie is not yet to be

fastened, First this flame must be curbed and subdued to

the oracle coming, Else it will burn down the world, like Troy, in a

grand conflagration; No more Helens — one Helen is surely enough

for all ages — Bravely renounce the sweet thought, and prove

yourselves worthy, renouncing; Bravely renounce and renounce till the law hath

declared its fulfillment."

172 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Louder responded to Homer the blast of the

ominous trumpet, Louder, nearer it rolled and mingled its sound

with his sentence. As if giving the strength of its stroke to the

words of the poet, Who still added his warning to souls that might

be impatient: " Something else is announced, the best is to

wait for the message ; It is near — the tramp can be heard — now wait

for the message."

IX.

Psalmist of Israel.

(173)

ARGUMENT.

David, King of Israel, comes to visit Homer, having heard the songs of the Greek poet sung by Mesander, born m Cyprus, a Hellene and a representative of his race, the Hellenes (pronounced as two syllables) among Semi tic peoples — Phoenicians and Hebrews. The two great poets sing for each other, and in their songs they give the Greek and the Hebrew views of the world. The po ems of Homer and the psalms of David have just been written in the new alphabet of Phoenician letters; Typ- todes and Mesander have copies of the two works. David and Homer sing several times, each recognizes the greatness and worth of the other. They become warm friends, as from Chios they look out upon the future to the westward. Hesperian and Praxilla are betrothed, and King David stays to take part in celebrating the marriage on the morrow.

(174)

Suddenly after the sound of the trumpet that

rolled from the mountain Followed a wave of deep voices of song that

swayed to the sea-swell, Choiring in tune to the strings of the harp and

the tones of the timbrel, Mid the clash of the cymbals and drum, and the

clangor of cornets, Loudly preluding new strains to be joined to the

music of Hellas, First to-day, where rises melodious Chios in

billows, Chios, the beautiful island, whose eye is the gar^

den of Homer. Slowly a caravan wound through sinuous turns

of the mountain,

(175)

176 HOMER //V CHIOS.

Shone as it rolled into vision out of the azure

horizon ; Over the hilltops it heaved, it seemed to be hung

from the heavens ! Gaily it glistened afar with the gleam of its gold

and its purple ; Precious stones of the East, the onyx, the opal,

the diamond, Peeped with a thousand eyes from the front of

the column advancing, Peeped and sparkled and shot in a dance with the

sunbeams of Chios.

«* What high pomp of a monarch is that and

where is he going? "

Each one asked of his neighbor, who gave no re sponse to the question, For he knew nothing to say, but stood and gazed

in his wonder. Statelier moved the procession while nearer it

came, still nearer, Till it had reached to the door where inside was

sitting Homerus, Sitting not far from the hearth by the altar he

made for the Muses, With his soul in a song he sat there and heard

what was coming.

Royally rode forth a man, dismounted and stood at the entrance,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 177

All the radiant train of his followers with him dismounted ;

What a spangle of gems and twinkle of jewels like starlight !

Dark was the eye and crispy the hair and brown the complexion,

Strong was the curve of the nose of the King, like the beak of an eagle,

As it darts from its fastness of rock on the cow ering rabbit.

Yet how soft lay his lip underneath the fierce hook of the nostrils

As if nought but compassion he knew, and could utter love only !

Merciful downward to earth and prayerful up ward to heaven

Ran his glances, while under them glowed the tire of his daring.

In a lofty obeisance he raised up finger to fore head,

Jeweled lightnings leaped from his hand to the eyes of beholders,

Making them blink in the flash, and answer the sport of the sparkles.

Then he murmured low tones of a something in syllables foreign,

To the man who stood at his side, and who seemed to be waiting,

Eager to let the fountain of speech gush up to

the sunlight.

l-J

178 HOMER IN CHIOS.

That was a different man from the rest of the

men of the Monarch ; Not the same turn of the features he had, and not

the same stature ;

He was named Mesander — the versatile, clear- toned Mesander, Knovver of speech, reconciler of men, interpreter

famous, He was the tongue of the King who bade him tell

of the journey. Hark ! he is speaking, now list to his voice ! his

words are Hellenic ! Thus he spoke in the rhythm and speech familiar

to Homer:

" Hail to thee, poet, thou song of the West,

and also its prophet ! Humbly we pray thee to give us to-day a glimpse

of th}' treasures, And of our own we gladly shall grant what we

can in requital. This high Monarch has heard thy strains in the

home of his people, Over the roar of the seas, beyond Phoenician

Sidon, Where dwells Israel's seed in the holy land of

Judea. In his palace he listened with pain to the sorrows

of Priam, Deeply forefeeling in Troy and its fall the fate

of his city,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 170

Sacred Jerusalem, set on a hill by good Abraham's

children. Also he followed in hope the devious path of

Ulysses,

In whose return he beheld the return of his peo ple from bondage, When they fled through the sea and the wilderness

drear out of Egypt. High beat the wish in his heart and rose to a

longing resistless, Thee to behold, the singer of Hellas — he too is

a singer — Ere the dark Fates of Death shall clutch thee and

hale thee to Hades. He has stepped down from his throne to pay

thee a visit of honor, Leaving his own far away, he has corne to the

country of Javan, Turning the point of his law, which keeps him

aloof from the stranger. Greatest of musical Hellenes, thou, the voice of

the Muses

Singing forever down time and making thy lan guage eternal, Homer, before thee stands Israel's sovereign,

singer, King David."

Such were the words of Mesander, the em bassy's eloquent spokesman, He in Cyprus was born, and long he had lived with Phoenicians,

180 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Learning their manners and speech, when he

came as sailor to Sidon ; Also he traded with Tyre, when Hiram was king

of the country, Hiram, the King of rich Tyre, the friend and

ally of David. Skillful in talking the tongues, Mesander had

seen many nations, Noting the merits of each, he spoke the language

of concord, Artful in dealing with men, he was often chosen

as envoy, Wandering over the world, as interpreter came

he to Jewry, Even a poet he was and doubly was dear to King

David. But he remained a good Greek, although he was

born on the border, Quite on the line where Shem and Japhet have

fought for dominion All through the ages, and mingled in battle the

blood of their children. Greek though he was, Mesander partook of them

both in his spirit, Sought to keep peace between the combative

souls of the brothers, Sought to muke each understand the greatness

and worth of the other, Deftly uniting the East and the West in the

truth that is common.

THE PSALMIST OF ISUAEL. 181

Good was the Greek and yet he was vain, the

showy Mesander Called by the envious Hebrew, although beloved

by King David; Vain of his gift he was, of his gift in the tongues

and in song too. How he would strut when he made a good speech,

or perchance a good verselet ! He could put on more airs than David and Homer

together.

When Mesander had spoken, the King looked around for a moment ;

Lo ! he is stopped in his look, he is caught in the glance of fair Sappho,

Tranced by her face and her figure he cried : " What a beautiful woman !

How would she like to appear in my palace, a daughter of Israel,

Aye, a wife to the King, and a light of Greek beauty to Hebrews! "

Sappho looked on the ground, she knew the lan guage of glances,

Sappho knew the language of love, even when it is silent,

Though she did not understand the Hebrew, the language of David,

And Mesander kept still, for he honored the Les bian songstress.

182 HOMER IN- CHIOS.

Then to the words of Israel's Monarch re sponded Homerus,

" Welcome, O friend, to the isles of the sea, to the land of fair Hellas,

Enter my garden and home, to me thou shalt be as a brother !

Thy great name I have heard, it was borne from the realm of Phoenicians,

By the Tyrian princes who trade in their ships with Greek merchants.

Sweet though faint is the shred of thy song in the land of Achseans,

Floating over the sea from the East to the tune of the sunrise.

How I have longed to list to your Muses, so lofty, so holy !

Now the moment has come ere I pass into pitiless Hades ;

Oft in my heart I have felt you had something I had not, but needed.

Strike the harp ! sing the song ! one burst of your heavenly music !

And of your God I would know through melo dious lips of his servant,

For we all have need of the God, be he one, be he many,

Dwelling in man and the world, over Hellas en throned or Judea.

Tell me the story of trials I heard concerning your people,

THE PSALMIST OF 1SUAEL. 183

As from bondage it fled with its God from the

land of the Nile-stream ; That, methinks, is the story of man, to be told

him forever, Oft repeating itself in his life and the life of the

nations. We the Greeks have also divinely been put under

training, Through sore trial our Gods have tested the love

of their people, Tested our mettle Hellenic to do the grand task

of the ages; Over to Troy we went and we fought ten years

for our heirship, Asia we had to assail that we save our beautiful

Helen."

Then the dark king of tiie East laid off his gar ments of purple,

And a golden harp he took from the hand of its holder,

Harp of ten strings to which he chanted the praise of Jehovah.

Also his voice he essayed in a caroling upward and downward;

Sweet were the tones which he rapidly touched in the strains of his prelude,

Soft were the notes which he secretly hummed to himself for the trial,

18-1 UOMEE IN CHIOS.

Gently he glided to words, that wedded the tender vibrations,

Making the measures of song which skillful Mesander translated.

Homer hearkened, laying his soul to the lips of King David,

Who sang Israel's strain till it filled the fail- garden of Chios :

>

"Happiest nation of nations I sing, whose

God is Jehovah; Blessed forever and ever the people whom He

hath chosen, Looking down from the heavens the children of

men He beholdeth, Israel's children He loves, but His law is the law

of the nations. Praise Him, my soul, the one holy God, He is the

Almighty; Praise Him, the King of the Kings, the Monarch

of earth and of heaven,

Whose thoughts are a great deep, and His right eousness like a great mountain ; Trust in the Lord and do good, for He laughs at

the cunning of evil, Its keen sword, when drawn against Him, shall

pierce its own bosom. He is the law of the world, which to men He has

mightily given,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 185

He is the law of the world, and He is also the judgment.

List to His voice as it speaketh aloud in the roll of the thunder,

See Him fold up the sea in His hand like a gar ment of waters,

Hark how the cedars of Lebanon crash in the breath of His anger !

Hark to His law, ye nations: No other God is before me/'

In the might of his mood sang the King high

strains of his language, Which Mesander the spokesman turned to the

speech of Homerus ; To the hexameter's swing he broke the wild

cadence of Hebrew, Tuning Israel's heavenly flight to the tread of a

heathen, Training in bounds of Greek measure the sweep

of divine aspiration. Oft he had done so before, and now he would

peep in a scroll there, Made of a papery rind of Egyptian reeds from

the Nile fens, Which he held in his hand, scratched over and

over with scribblings, Curious mystical signs which seemed to whisper

in secret,

186 HOMER IN~ CHIOS.

Only by him understood was the talk of those

signs and their meaning, Still their voice was not hoard, for they talked in

a flash to his eyesight.

But at last he raised up his eyes and folded his

writing, And in a glow he spoke, that Grecian of Cyprus,

to Homer : " Give him the roar of thy seas, as they rise like

Icarian billows, Give him the swell of thy heart as it heaves in

the height of the battle, Give him the roll of thy measures in waves of the

blue Hellespontus ; O Maeonides, sing him thy Zeus, the God of the

Hellenes, Father whose children are Gods who come with

their help to us mortals. Sands of the desert below, and glories of Heaven

above us He has sung — now give him thy concord of man

and the world here, Give him thy concert of Earth and Olympus,

divine and the human, And for thee I shall do what for him I tyave

done — translate thee."

Softly Homer began with a prayer that fell into measures:

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 187

"Zeus, high father of Gods and of men, Olym pian father !

Son thyself of old Cronus, consumer of all of his children,

Thou has escaped from his maw and dethroned thy pitiless parent,

Who would be all to himself in the world, with out even offspring.

Hear me, O Zeus, me the mortal, but loving thy worship and order !

Not by thyself dost thou rule from the top of snowy Olympus,

Highest of all thy gifts thou dost share unto others — thy godhood,*

Many divinities sit in a circle majestic around thee,

Gods and goddesses too are thy sons and thy beautiful daughters,

Whom thou hast raised to thy heights and with thee hast made to be rulers,

Ruling the air and the earth and even the under-

o

world sunless,

Ruling the man in his deed and also his inner most spirit.

Still thou art ever the first among many, in mind and in power,

And in authority over the Gods thou art surely the sovereign,

Let any deity dare to question thy might for a moment.

188 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

Down to black Tartarus whirls he to sit with the hopeless Titans."

Skillful Mesander now did his best to turn this

to Hebrew, Toning a word here and there to suit the fine ear

of King David, Fitting to music the thought, as it flowed from

the heart of the singer; But in spite of his skill, the translation ran rough

in hard places. Free Greek speech would not always dance to

the tune of Semitic, Homer's hexameters broke in the back at the

gait of the psalm-song, And the Monarch would scowl when he heard of

the Gods in the plural, Yet he would smile to himself at the noise about

beautiful Helen, For the God of the King must be one, though his

wives may be many; Gods of the Greek may be many, his wife is the

one, the one only, Whom to save he is ready to fight ten years with

the Orient.

Sly Typtodes had slipped up behind and

peeped into the papers

Which the interpreter held in his hand when his reading had ended ;

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 189

Then began to address him in whispers the peda gogue prying:

" What is that script which I see, that strange miraculous scribbling?

Have you too the mystical writ of symbols Phoenician ?

Mighty it will be forever, preserving both David and Homer,

Rescued from sounds of the voice and fixed into signs for the vision.

And the schoolmaster now will have work in each new generation,

Teaching the name and the shape and the sound of the wonderful letters,

Till they together be put into words, the holders of all things.

Then the pupil will spell out the deed and the thought of aforetime,

Spurred by the sprig of the laurel held in the hand of the teacher.

That I call progress, that is the march of man kind to the better !

Nor will it stop till every youth in the land knows the letters,

Every youth in the world must know the Phoe nicians symbols."

Ere Typtodes had done, strong currents had drowned out his whisper,

100 HOMEIi IN- CHIOS.

Strong loud currents of song that rose from the

throat of the singer, Overflowing all bounds of the sea when the tide

runs the highest, And it came from the fathomless heart of Israel's

psalmist : "Praised be Jehovah, in Him is our trust, the

God of our Fathers,

From everlasting to everlasting He is the ruler ! In the land of Egypt we toiled and we wept in

our sorrow, Slaves were Jacob's children, but they were

never forgotten, From the slime of the Nile we fled to the shore

of the Red Sea, Always we saw a great hand reach out of the

cloud round about us, Smiting the chains of our bondage and pointing

the way of our rescue.

Through the walls of the waters we crossed dry- shod on the bottom, Long in the wilderness forward and backward in

trial we wandered, Till we returned to our home, the primitive home

of our Fathers, Bearing the law in our hearts, which was given in

thunders at Sinai. Sing, O my soul, the high song, the return to

the land of our promise,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 101

Sing it for me and for mine, and for wandering

millions hereafter, Millions on millions unborn, the countless sons of

the future."

As he ended he turned to Hesperion, child of

the Northland, Into whose shadowy semblance he peered in a

wonder while singing, For that youth had the face among faces which

look at the speaker, Drawing him always secretly back to the spell of

its gazes, Back to itself it draws him, unconscious of magical

power, Showing him dreamlike glimpses of something

afar that is coming. Thus the youth of the North attracted the look

of King David, Who seemed glancing into futurity throned in

that visage, Far-off futurity throned in the visage of dreamful

Hesperion, As he stood there beside the beautiful daughter

of Homer, Who all the future had read in the soft blue eyes

of the stranger, Dreamful Hesperion, lately arrived from the

snows of the Northland.

192 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Soon the poet of Hellas began once more full

of fervor, Gently attuning his note somewhat to the music

of David : 44 Singer, thou art of the East, but thy strain

belongs to the West too, In it I hear the same voice that to me is the voice

of the Muses, By whose help I also have sung the return of my

people,

That was the sad return of the haughty victori ous Argives, Coming from Troy in their ships to their homes

on island and mainland; Many were lost through wrath of the Gods, but

the faithful were rescued, Though the path was doubtful and long that lay

on the waters. Lately I finished the tale which tells the return of

Ulysses, Who on the passionate sea had to wander with

foolish companions; Much he endured in his heart, and much he

doubted in spirit,

Till he came back to his Ithacan home, to Pene lope prudent, Where in peace he dwelt till the Fates had spun

out his life-thread. Great the return of Israel, hymning itself in all

peoples,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. W*

Great the return of Achaea, which also will not

be forgotten. Different may be our speech, but one at last is

the meaning, Different may be our blood, but it all responds to

one heart-beat, Different may be our Gods, but the Man is the

same in us both here/'

Spoken the winged word, uprose divinely

Homer us, Reaching out with his fingers, he felt for the

hand of King David, Trip-hammer strokes of his heart beating time

to the voice of tho Muses: st Mortals may blame the Gods for their ill, but

it is their own folly, Through themselves they must perish, ere Gods

are able to smite them, Ate is sent for by man, else even the Gods could

not send her, \Vhat through man the divinities do, is also his

doing, His is the deed, though the world is divine in

which he can do it. But the one deity truly is thine, the God of the

ages,

All shall pass away, but He abideth forever. Hear my prophecy, hear it and weigh it, con cerning two poets

13

194 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Standing in Chios and looking afar on the worlds in the sunset;

One shall lift up the soul from below to the pres ence immortal,

And will quicken the heart to worship, unseen, the Eternal ;

But the other will show the trial and triumph of Heroes,

Singing into his strains the homage undying of beauty.

Both as brothers shall go down the echoing hall of the ages.

Echoing double one voice from the heart of Greece and Judea.

Two are the aisles in the temple of song, Hellenic, Hebraic,

One is the harmony under them both, the har mony human,

Tuning to musical life the Man and the God in their struggle."

Slowly the poet of Hellas drew back to his seat

in the settle, But his mind ran on in its might, though his body

was weary, And he continued: " One thing more my spirit

must tell thee, Hear now my prayer, O David, and call it the

prayer of Homer :

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 195

May the son ever be a much better man than his father!"

At the thought he suddenly turned and seemed to be looking,

Though he was blind, he seemed to be looking and prying about him :

" But I forget ! I have a new pupil, where is he? Hesperion ?

Where is Hesperion, dreamful youth of the neb ulous Northland?

And I forget too my daughter, where is she? Praxilla? Praxilla?

Surely to-day she is roaming, my daughter, my sunny Praxilla ! "

In a moment the crowd was moving and turning

O O

and looking, All would peep at the pair whom the poet had

coupled together ; What he had joined in his words, they surmised

he had joined in his thoughts too, Every boy in the school surmised what was going

to happen, Every boy in the school blushed red as if he were

guilty, Guilty of hiding away in his heart an arrow of

Eros, Which had pricked him with jealousy's pang,

though slyly secreted.

196 HOMER JN CHIOS.

First he peeped for his rival, but found no reward for his peeping,

Saw no Hesperion, dreamful youth of the neb ulous Northland,

Then he would speak in low tones to his neigh bor, who had to make answer;

Each was disguising the timorous thought that trembled within him,

Each was telling it too just through his careful disguises ;

Soon the whole school was a whisper, asking : Where is Praxilla?

Soon the whole school was a whisper, replying, Where is Hesperion?

Crabbed Typtodes, the schoolmaster, still

was present and looking, But he nowhere saw what he looked for, the

daughter of Homer, Whom he too would see and would sue in spite

of his wrinkles ; Teaching the verses of Homer, he weened he

could teach the fair daughter, Writing Phoenician letters, he thought he would

write her a poem. Vain is the effort, to-day he is wearied and

worried with waiting; In his sandals he shuffles along to the side of

Mesander,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 197

Whom he somehow thinks to be kin to himself

in the spirit ; Him he bespeaks on a point quite aloof from the

way of the lover: " Long you have dwelt in Phoenicia, you say,

and know all its learning; Have you the songs set down in the signs of

strange Alpha-Beta, Cunning symbols of speech, that fix the fleet

breath of the singer?" "Yes," responded with joy the dexterous

spokesman Mesander, " All have been set down in signs so that we

can hear them forever

Only by seeing them, look, the cunning Phoeni cian symbols ! Thousands of years from now, yea, millions on

millions of ages, Men will have but to look on these signs and will

hear King David, Magical signs of the word, which make the good

poem eternal. I have all of his songs scratched down on the

folds of this scroll here."

Lowering still his tone, Typtodes spoke to Me-

sander,

Confidentially bending his head more near while speaking :

198 HOMEE IN CHIOS.

" I have noted it well ; while you talked, I peeped

over your shoulder. But I must tell you a secret, which nobody knows

of in Chios — Long I have wrought to set down in these signs

the poems of Homer; What a task it has been — the burning by drops

of my heart's blood! It is done, but yesterday done, and to-day I have

brought it, Hid in my bosom; toilsome the work but I felt

it was worthy, Though I find fault with the failings of Homer

and slash him to fragments ; See ! I have poured out my life into writ, here

it is, O Mesander — One small roll out of many, the rest I shall fetch

from the school-house, One short day out of many, all which have sunk

into Lethe." "Surely no idler thou art," said the Greek

from the island of Cyprus, And thou movest along with the world, the

schoolmaster moves too, Spirit needeth the letter, the letter too needeth

the spirit, Homer will last, but the pedagogue Chian will not

be forgotten, Who was the first to put into script the song of

the poet,

THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL.

Making him sing forever in spite of the Fates, the grim spinners/'

Both of the men had still something to say on

the matter of letters. But they suddenly stopped when they heard the

voice of the poet Not now chanting a musical strain to the Gods

and the Heroes, But impatiently calling aloud, "Hesperion!

Praxilla!" Twice he repeated, ''Where is Hesperion ! Where

is my daughter? " " Here I am on this side," soon spake up the

youth of the Northland, " Here I am on the other," responded the maiden

Praxilla. Both of them spoke in their joy as they suddenly

sprang from an arbor, Where they had hid from the crowd for a moment

of sweet conversation, Words of the twain now blended together to

tenderest music, And their voice was wedded in love, preluding

the marriage: "For thy blessing we come, thy blessing, O

father Homerus."

Then both kneeled at his side, brave youth and beautiful maiden.

200 HOMEtt IN CHIOS.

"Rapid work, my children, too rapid, and yet

I confirm it ! Who can catch and turn back in its flight the

arrow of Eros? Well I foresaw what was coming, I knew in

advance the whole story. Did you think because I was blind, I never could

see you? All the while I could see you doing just what I

intended. But enough ! You have my approval, take now

my blessing!" Laying each hand on a head, he rose up with

them together.

Standing between the twain, once more spoke

the poet to David : " Thee I beseech, O Monarch, yet greater than

Monarch, a Singer, Stay with me here, for to-morrow is given in

marriage my daughter ; Go to rest in my chamber and wake up renewed

in the morning, Both of us then shall sing together the song of

the wedding, Ere we send off the pair to the distant forests of

Northland. Thou must give them thy God, the One, and his

high adoration, ,• • I shall show them the Man, the beautiful Man in

his freedom. "

X.

fcnb,

The Marriage.

(201)

ARGUMENT.

All come together in the morning for the wedding fes tival of Hesperian and Praxilla. The scholars have a choral dance in honor of the event; Glaucus and Dem- odocus confess their great disappointment. Sappho chants for the pair her last measures of love and good wishes. Typtodes brings as his bridal gift the poems of Homer written in the new alphabet. Homer and David give to the pair their blessing and with it their two books, which are to be borne to the new home, whither the happy couple now set forth on their journey.

(202)

Up rose the Sun in his car and lit the Ionian heavens,

Driving the timorous Dawn far over the sea to the westward,

Seeming to mount to the sky in flames that burst from his glances

For some joy that he felt and imparted to earth and to ocean.

Like a bridegroom he rose and put on his gar ments of splendor,

Gold he was strewing wherever he looked on the land and the water.

Warm was the thrill as he reached from afar with his radiant fingers,

Earth awoke at the touch and sprang up respond ing in music,

(203)

204 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Every creature was singing, even still voices of

nature Chanted the hymn of the Sun as he soared up

the sky in the morning. Purple and scarlet and gold were his regal changes

of raiment, Jewels he flung with his sheen in the lap of the

beautiful island, Which peeped forth from the waves in a smile at

the sport of the sunbeams, As from slumber it woke and lay on the bed of

the billows. Chios he kissed in a rapture, as if his bride he

were kissing, All the heart of the Sun was flowing to love and

to marriage,

As he glowed and he glanced down into the gar den of Homer.

Both of the poets had risen from sleep, the

Greek and the Hebrew, And were sitting together, in joy saluting the

morning, Which from earth and from heaven returned the

high salutation. "Beautiful is this world of Jehovah," shouted

King David. " Praised be his name, for his law is the law which

endureth forever."

THE M^UiRIAGE. 205

" Beautiful is this world of the Gods," responded

Homerus, " Beautiful too is the man, divinely upbearing his

freedom."

Thus they continued their talk, which ran of

itself into measure, All of their speech was a song, and each of them

sang to the other. Two were the strains on the tongue, yet both

reached down to one key-note. Skillful Mesander translated the twain and added

his comment.

Soon they all had gathered together with David

and Homer, Hearing the note of the East and the West in the

words of the masters. Lovely Sappho was present, the soft-speaking

songstress of Lesbos, But she was silent, for eagerly now she heard the

new message, Heard the voice of the law as it fell from the

lips of the psalmist, Though she felt that the singer himself was not

free of its judgment. Still in her thought she did not upbraid him who

rose after falling, Nor condemn what her own tender heart had told

her was human.

206 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Shifty Typtodes, the pedagogue Chiari, doth

seem to be absent ; No, lie is coming, yonder he shuffles along in his

sandals, He has set down the poems of Homer in symbols

Phoenician, Though he won not the daughter, he must be a

guest at her marriage. Look ! he hastes up the path, and carries the

rolls of his paper, Rolls first made of the rind of the fen-born rush,

the papyrus, On which is written the word of the poet for

ages hereafter ; Book it is called, the scribbled peelings of rushes

of Egypt.

Next were seen the beautiful youths who sang in a chorus,

Gracefully stepping along, attuning their dance to the song-beat,

All the youths of the school were there arrayed for the wedding,

Spotless they shone in white raiment falling in folds to their motion.

From the East and the West they had come, all joined the procession,

And they began the high song with a festal pray er together,

THE MARRIAGE. 207

Prayer beseeching the presence divine of the God of Espousals :

"Hail Hymenseus, hail! O come to the island of Chios,

Come to the glorious island of song that is sing ing thy praises !

Great is the need of thy presence to bless what is going to happen,

For the lots of marriage are now to be drawn by a maiden,

Earest of maidens of Hellas, the beautiful daugh ter of Homer.

Be not absent, O deity, rule the caprices of Fortune ;

Hail Hymenoeus, hail ! make the tie of the pair everlasting! "

David the King drew near, and spake to the

youth of the Northland, " Speed thee afar to thy forests, and take this

maiden Hellenic, Her thou must win to thy love, for thou never

canst marry a Jewess, 'Tis not allowed by the law — no hope thou canst

have for my daughter, Whom I have left behind with the rest of the

daughters of Israel ; These we keep to ourselves for the glory and

praise of Jehovah.

208 HOMER IN CHIOS.

But unrewarded thou shalt not pass from my

presence this morning, All that is best of myself, whatever is good in

my nation, I shall give as a present to thee and thy people

forever. It shall attune thee anew to its song when thy

soul is discordant, From thy fall it shall lift thee on high with fresh

aspiration, It shall stead thee in trial the sorest, in death it

shall stead thee. Now its words have been written in signs that

came from Phoenicia, Musical sounds of the voice have been set down

in signs for the vision On that ^Egyptian peel of a rush, called Byblus,

the Bible. We have brought it along on our journey —

Where is it, Mesander?"

Here the translator suddenly stopped his talk ing Hellenic,

Spoke in Hebrew the word of reply which has not been translated.

Taking the folds of a curious roll written over with letters,

Looking the look of a victor, he handed it soon to the Monarch.

THE MAREIAGE. 209

Meanwhile trembling in voice spake up good

father Homerus, 66 Now may life pass away, the end I have seen of

my living; When his work has been done, not long the

mortal will tarry ; More cannot fall to my lot, my hours henceforth

are a passage ; After to-day I shall sing no more, the spirit

refuses ; Words cannot tell what I think, but bound the

flight of my vision ; Life I have loved, for it was a deed, and it was a

song too, But it is done, and the time draws near — the

time of my silence, When the sound of my song will be but an echo

repeating, Ever repeating the voice which I flung on the

breezes of Hellas. Daughter, go ; I send thee far off to the folk of

the Northland, Thither now bear my song, for it is my gift to

the ages ; May thy children be heirs of the lay and the life

of Greek Homer."

Such were the words of the parent, and they were never forgotten.

14

210 HOMER IN CHIOS.

All of the company present were touched by the

tone of the farewell, For they seemed to hear the refrain of a lay in

the distance, Giving a soft response from beyond to the note

of the poet, Who was singing to-day the last, last strains of

his swan-song.

Hark to the bardlings ! a youth steps forth from

the line of the chorus, With a discord in look and in heart — it was

high-born Glaucus, Who from Lycia came, and now he sang to the

maiden : " I have tried to win the hand of the daughter

of Homer ; How I longed to carry her off to the banks of

the Xanthus, WThere is my sweet sunny home by the banks of

the eddying Xanthus ! Honest my suit was to bear her away once more,

the Greek Helen, Peacefully bring back the beautiful prize of the

world into Asia; But I have lost, the Gods are against me, and

turn from my people; All I have lost, I must now see the bride borne

off to the westward —

THE MAREIAGE. 211

I the son of King Glaucus, and grandson of Glaucus the Hero,

I who am sprung far back of the seed of Bel- lerophontes —

Hail, Hymenaeus, thy blessing upon the daugh ter of Homer."

Scarce had he ended, when from the opposite

side of the chorus Stepped forth a youth of the West, in song and

in love his great rival, It was Demodocus, son of Demodocus, Ithacan

rhapsode: " I too sought for the hand of the beautiful

daughter of Homer, From this isle I would bear her away to the

home of Ulysses, Whence the old Greeks our fathers once came to

the rescue of Helen. Great was the deed they did, the deed of the

Greeks, our fathers! Beautiful Helen again I would rescue in fairest

Praxilla, Coming over the sea from my home to the

island of Chios. I have lost, let me go, I now shall become but a

swineherd, Son unworthy of men who took the citadel

Trojan.

212 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Hail, Hymenseus, thy blessing upon the daughter of Homer."

Forward came Sappho, the Lesbian songstress,

the tenth among Muses, Grace she revealed in her form and her speech,

the fourth among Graces, Aye tenth Muse of the Muses, and aye fourth

Grace of the Graces, As she sang to the pair mid the sweet low tones

of her cithern : " Hail, Hymenseus, hail! make happy the

bride and the bridegroom ! May the souls of the twain be one thought, the

two lives be one living ! Make the marriage a presence, which they shall

dwell in forever.

May the love of to-day be also the love of to morrow ! You, O bride and bridegroom, you tool would

move by my prayer; When you come to your home far over the border

of Hellas, Sappho forget not, who was the first to join you

together, Making the love of your hearts to flow in the

strains of her music,

Taking the hands of you both into hers and link ing the promise,

THE MARRIAGE. 213

Daughter of Homer and son of the Northland,

remember the songstress, Sappho the Lesbian singing the love of the youth

and the maiden, Hail, Hyrnemeus ! make the bond of the lovers

eternal!"

Soon Typtodes stepped forth, in his hand were

the rolls of his writing, Faithful he brought the work of his life as his

gift at the nuptials, Though the beautiful daughter he won not with

all of his wooing.

But he hath his reward, his gift shall not be for gotten. Gruffly with a grimace he muttered : Hail, Hy-

menasus ! Into the hand of the poet he put the magical

symbols. Then he withdrew from the place — not the least

was the schoolmaster's present ; As he passed out of sight, he flung down a tear

on the gravel ; Once he looked back at his rolls, his life-task,

sad at the parting.

Then spake Homer, giving the pair his last bene diction:

" Here, take my book, now writ by Typtodes in letters Phoenician,

HOMER IN CHIOS.

Keep it and let it still grow, one seed of your future existence,

Showing the beautiful world of the Gods which arose in our Hellas,

Showing what man must do with himself to build

up a freeman."

Then spake David, giving the pair his last ben ediction :

" Here, take my book, it too is written in letters Phoenician,

By some scribe — I know not his name — em ployed in my household :

Keep it and let it still grow, one seed of your future existence,

Showing the law of the world proclaimed in the land of Judea,

Showing the God, the one only God, and his

worship in spirit."

So to the Northland they took the two books of Homer and David,

Oldest and newest, twin books of all time, the Greek and the Hebrew,

Lovingly bore them afar to the West, the home of the nations,

Which shall kindle the light in their hearts and carry it further,

Where the two singers of Eld shall still sing daily their wisdom,

Voices resounding in millions of echoes from let ters Phoenician,

THE MARRIAGE. 215

Bringing their song to the present and handing it

on to the future, Ever renewing their strains in the soul that is

ready to hear them, Known far better hereafter than ever in Greece

or Judea. Then the pair set out — Hesperion son of the

Northland, And Praxilla, fair maiden of Hellas, the daughcer

of Homer, Quitting the garden where grew the orange, the

fig and pomegranate, Where the hills were a flutter of leaves of the

silvery olive. Soon they came to the shore, and there lay the

boat of the bridal, Covered with branches and leaves, and decked

with the flowers of Chios. Seamen raised up the mast and steadied it firmly

with mainstays, Then they spread out the sails to the wind and

took the direction. Oars they dipped in the brine, for trial made

ready the rudder, And the God sent a favoring breeze which blew

from the island, Yet a sigh mid the joy of the day it would

whisper in snatches.

" Farewell forever, Praxilla my daughter ! Fare well Hesperion!"

216 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Light ran the ship as it cut with its keel through the billowy waters,

Laughingly sparkled the sea in the stroke of the vigorous oarsmen,

Over the rise and the fall of the ripples was rock ing the vessel,

Muffled sang the great deep, upheaving and bear ing its burden.

" Farewell forever, O Homer, my father! Fare well O Hellas."

From the shore all the youths of the school

were gazing in sorrow, Merrily still the vessel kept dancing away o'er

the billow, That was the last day of school, the end had

come of their training ;

Long they looked at the boat until it had van ished from vision, Looked in the blue at the sail till lost in the haze

to the westward, Wondering whither it went and whether again

they would see it. When the small white speck of the ship had

twinkled to nothing, Longing the scholars turned for the sight and the

speech of the poet, But he was not to be seen, he had gone to his

home with King David. Soon they too had dispersed, each went his own

way to his country.

THE MAEEIAGE. 217

Still the lovers sailed on far away from the gar dens of Chios,

Onward they went in their joy, behind them leav ing the islands,

Over the deep they sailed and came to the shore of the mainland.

Quitting the ship and the sea, they plunged into forest and desert,

Into the dangers of land far greater than perils of water,

Fleeting across the wintery border of beauti ful Hellas,

Where it stretches beyond the abode of the Gods on Olympus,

To the regions where drinking their whey dwell the mare-milking Thracians,

Over the hills and the valleys away to the banks of a river,

To the stream that is bearing the flood of the wide-whirling Istros,

Still beyond and beyond, still over the plain and the mountain,

Over vast lands to the seas, and over the seas to the lands still,

Through the icicled forests, through the tracts of the frost-fields,

Still beyond and beyond, still over the earth and its circles,

Onward they passed, the daughter of Homer and son of the Northland —

218 HOMER IN CHIOS.

Further and further they went, till they came to

the homes of his people, Bringing two books in their journey, the gifts of

David and Homer, Bringing two songs of the sunrise to sing to the

lands of the sunset, Songs still singing of God in his foresight and

Man in his freedom, Where the huge arms of the breakers are smiting

the shores of the Ocean, Ever beyond and beyond in the stretch of their

strokes they are striking, Striking the barrier of earth in the stress of their

strong aspiration,

Beating, forever repeating, the strokes of the in finite Ocean.

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE.

OCT 8 1938

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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