The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales - Richard Garnett
"'Well,' said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, 'and what about this vaunted
wisdom of the Indians?'
"'The wisdom of the Indians,' I replied, 'is entirely borrowed from
Pythagoras.'
"'Did I not tell you so? 'Euphronius appealed to his disciples.
"'Invariably,' they replied.
"'As if a barbarian could teach a Greek!' said he.
"'It is much if he is able to learn from one,' said they.
"'Pythagoras, then,' said Euphronius addressing me,' did not resort to
India to be instructed by the Gymnosophists?'
"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'he went there to teach them, and the
little knowledge of divine matters they possess is entirely derived from
him. His mission is recorded in a barbarous poem called the Ramayana,
wherein he is figuratively represented as allying himself with monkeys. He
is worshipped all over the country under the appellations of Siva,
Kamadeva, Kali, Gautama Buddha, and others too numerous to mention.'
"When I further proceeded to explain that a temple had been erected to
Euphronius himself on the banks of the Ganges, and that a festival, called
Durga Popja, or the Feast of Reason, had been instituted in his honour, his
good humour knew no bounds, and he granted me his daughter's hand without
difficulty. He died a few years ago, bequeathing me his celebrated dilemma,
and I am now head of his school and founder of the Rufinianian philosophy.
I am also the author of some admired works, especially a life of
Pythagoras, and a manual of Indian philosophy and religion. I hope for thy
own sake thou wilt forbear to contradict me: for no one will believe thee.
I trust also that thou wilt speedily overcome thy disappointment with
respect to Euphronia. I do most honestly and truthfully assure thee that
for a one-armed man like thee to marry her would be most inexpedient,
inasmuch as the defence of one's beard from her, when she is in a state of
excitement, requires the full use of both hands, and of the feet also. But
come with me to her chamber, and I will present thee to her. She is always
taunting me with my inferiority to thee in personal attractions, and I
promise myself much innocent amusement from her discomfiture when she finds
thee as gaunt as a wolf and as black as a cinder. Only, as I have
represented thee to have been devoured by a tiger, thou wilt kindly say
that I saved thy life, but concealed the circumstance out of modesty."
"I have learned in the Indian schools," said Mnesitheus, "not to lie for
the benefit of others. I will not see Euphronia; I would not disturb her
ideal of me, nor mine of her. Farewell. May the Rufinianian sect flourish!
and may thy works on Pythagoras and India instruct posterity to the tenth
generation! I return to Palimbothra, where I am held in honour on the
self-same account that here renders me ridiculous. It shall be my study to
enlighten the natives respecting their obligations to Pythagoras, whose
name I did not happen to hear while I abode among them."
THE DUMB ORACLE
Many the Bacchi that brandish the rod:
Few that be filled with the fire of the God.
I
In the days of King Attalus, before oracles had lost their credit, one of
peculiar reputation, inspired, as was believed, by Apollo, existed in the
city of Dorylseum, in Phrygia. Contrary to usage, its revelations were
imparted through the medium of a male priest. It was rarely left unthronged
by devout questioners, whose inquiries were resolved in writing, agreeably
to the method delivered by the pious Lucian, in his work "Concerning False
Prophecy." [*] Sometimes, on extraordinary occasions, a voice, evidently
that of the deity, was heard declaring the response from the innermost
recesses of the shrine. The treasure house of the sanctuary was stored with
tripods and goblets, in general wrought from the precious metals; its
coffers were loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy
suppliants and the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided
superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; while a
rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, and of the
officiating priest. The latter reverend personage was no less eminent for
prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had rewarded him with
extreme obesity. At length he died, whether of excess in meat or in drink
is not agreed among historians.
[Footnote: _Pseudomantis_, cap. 19-21.]
The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally
desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement,
elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest,
purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men. So rare a
choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary
manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred
authorities with dismay. The responses of the oracle ceased suddenly and
altogether. No revelation was vouchsafed to the pontiff in his slumbers; no
access of prophetic fury constrained him to disclose the secrets of the
future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the unanswered epistles of the
suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great altar. As a natural
consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of offerings into
the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were bare of
worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were those
slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of
Apollo. The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he
did not doubt that he had excited the Deity's wrath by some mysterious but
heinous pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous
verdict of all whom he approached.
One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and
pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was
startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied
an ancient woman. Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing.
He recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the temple.
"Reverend mother," he addressed her, "doubtless thou comest to mingle with
mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to indicate the
cause, and the remedy of his wrath."
"No, son," returned the venerable personage, "I propose to occasion no such
needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity. I hold within mine own
hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, and
for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am
minded to impart the same unto thee." And as the astonished priest made no
answer, she continued:
"My price is one hundred pieces of gold."
"Wretch!" exclaimed the priest indignantly, "thy mercenary demand alone
proves the vanity of thy pretence of being initiated into the secrets of
the Gods. Depart my presence this moment!"
The old woman retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the incident
soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the following
day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood before him, and said:
"My price is _two_ hundred pieces of gold."
Again she was commanded to depart, and again obeyed without a murmur. But
the adventure now occasioned the priest much serious reflection. To his
excited fancy, the patient persistency of the crone began to assume
something of a supernatural character. He considered that the ways of the
Gods are not as our ways, and that it is rather the rule than the exception
with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by
the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the
Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy
might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of
his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself
on the following day, to receive her in a different manner.
Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, "My price is
_three_ hundred pieces of gold."
"Venerable ambassadress of Heaven," said the priest, "thy boon is granted
thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou mayest."
The old woman's reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in extending
her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three hundred
pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the frequent
interruptions necessitated by the crone's depositing each successive
handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between jealousy and
affection, which she bestowed on each individual coin.
"And now," said the priest, when the operation was at length completed,
"fulfil thy share of the compact."
"The cause of the oracle's silence," returned the old woman, "is the
unworthiness of the minister."
"Alas! 'tis even as I feared," sighed the priest. "Declare now, wherein
consists my sin?"
"It consists in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy
understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience
is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear
no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I
seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets,
that thou art an egregious nincompoop."
And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued:
"Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the very
nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the
language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise
upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the
former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here,
but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to
deem that oracles were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that
there is no such person? Needs there, peradventure, any greater miracle for
the decipherment of these epistles than a hot needle? [*] As for the
supernatural voice, it doth in truth proceed from a respectable, and in
some sense a sacred personage, being mine own when I am concealed within a
certain recess prepared for me by thy lamented predecessor, whose mistress
I was in youth, and whose coadjutor I have been in age. I am now ready to
minister to thee in the latter capacity. Be ruled by me; exchange thy
abject superstition for common sense; thy childish simplicity for discreet
policy; thy unbecoming spareness for a majestic portliness; thy present
ridiculous and uncomfortable situation for the repute of sanctity, and the
veneration of men. Thou wilt own that this is cheap at three hundred
pieces."
[Footnote: Lucian.]
The young priest had hearkened to the crone's discourse with an expression
of the most exquisite distress. When she had finished, he arose, and
disregarding his repulsive companion's efforts to detain him, departed
hastily from the temple.
II
It was the young priest's purpose, as soon as he became capable of forming
one, to place the greatest possible distance between himself and the city
of Dorylaeum. The love of roaming insensibly grew upon him, and ere long
his active limbs had borne him over a considerable portion of Asia. His
simple wants were easily supplied by the wild productions of the country,
supplemented when needful by the proceeds of light manual labour. By
degrees the self-contempt which had originally stung him to desperation
took the form of an ironical compassion for the folly of mankind, and the
restlessness which had at first impelled him to seek relief in a change of
scene gave place to a spirit of curiosity and observation. He learned to
mix freely with all orders of men, save one, and rejoiced to find the
narrow mysticism which he had imbibed from his previous education gradually
yielding to contact with the great world. From one class of men, indeed, he
learned nothing--the priests, whose society he eschewed with scrupulous
vigilance, nor did he ever enter the temples of the Gods. Diviners, augurs,
all that made any pretension whatever to a supernatural character, he held
in utter abhorrence, and his ultimate return in the direction of his native
country is attributed to his inability to persevere further in the path he
was following without danger of encountering Chaldean soothsayers, or
Persian magi, or Indian gymnosophists.
He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was still
at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he was
sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase which
arrested his attention.
"As true as the oracle of Dorylaeum." The speaker was a countryman, who
appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of the
company as greatly in need of confirmation. The sudden start and stifled
cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained to ask,
with the most indifferent air he could assume:
"Is the oracle of Dorylaeum, then, so exceedingly renowned for veracity?"
"Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?" demanded the countryman, with
some disdain. "Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?"
"Eubulides!" exclaimed the young traveller, "that is my own name!"
"Thou mayest well rejoice, then," observed another of the guests, "to bear
the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy
Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have
often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now that I
scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy
namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous
in thee."
"Divinity!" exclaimed another. "Aye, if Phoebus himself ministered at his
own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides."
"Or predict the future more accurately," added a priest.
"Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse," subjoined a poet.
"Yet is it not marvellous," remarked another speaker, "that for some
considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to
deliver a single oracle?"
"Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an
aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple."
"Ha!" exclaimed Eubulides, "how was that?"
"He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came
to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully
appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the
root of her tongue."
"The Gods be praised for that!" ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath.
"Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this
vile mockery? To keep up the juggle--well, I know it must be so; but to
purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, I
will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour."
He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the city
of Dorylaeum. The further he progressed in this direction, the louder
became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the
testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of
the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of
continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with
throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious
ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended
delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first
regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly
yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not but acknowledge
that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source of much
innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion,
considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation
from this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in
which it had been exhibited by the old woman.
In this ambiguous frame of mind he entered the temple. Before the high
altar stood the officiating priest, a young man, the image, yet not the
image, of himself. Lineament for lineament, the resemblance was exact, but
over the stranger's whole figure was diffused an air of majesty, of
absolute serenity and infinite superiority, which excluded every idea of
deceit, and so awed the young priest that his purpose of rushing forward to
denounce the impostor and drag him from the shrine was immediately and
involuntarily relinquished. As he stood confounded and irresolute, the
melodious voice of the hierophant rang through the temple:
"Let the priest Eubulides stand forth."
This summons naturally caused the greatest astonishment in every one but
Eubulides, who emerged as swiftly as he could from the swaying and
murmuring crowd, and confronted his namesake at the altar. A cry of
amazement broke from the multitude as they beheld the pair, whose main
distinction in the eyes of most was their garb. But, as they gazed, the
form of the officiating priest assumed colossal proportions; a circle of
beams, dimming sunlight, broke forth around his head; hyacinthine locks
clustered on his shoulders, his eyes sparkled with supernatural radiance; a
quiver depended at his back; an unstrung bow occupied his hand; the majesty
and benignity of his presence alike seemed augmented tenfold. Eubulides and
the crowd sank simultaneously on their knees, for all recognised Apollo.
All was silence for a space. It was at length broken by Phoebus.
"Well, Eubulides," inquired he, with the bland raillery of an Immortal,
"has it at length occurred to thee that I may have been long enough away
from Parnassus, filling thy place here while thou hast been disporting
thyself amid heretics and barbarians?"
The abashed Eubulides made no response. The Deity continued:
"Deem not that thou hast in aught excited the displeasure of the Gods. In
deserting their altars for Truth's sake, thou didst render them the most
acceptable of sacrifices, the only one, it may be, by which they set much
store. But, Eubulides, take heed how thou again sufferest the unworthiness
of men to overcome the instincts of thine own nature. Thy holiest
sentiments should not have been at the mercy of a knave. If the oracle of
Dorylaeum was an imposture, hadst thou no oracle in thine own bosom? If the
voice of Religion was no longer breathed from the tripod, were the winds
and waters silent, or had aught quenched the everlasting stars? If there
was no power to impose its mandates from without, couldst thou be
unconscious of a power within? If thou hadst nothing to reveal unto men,
mightest thou not have found somewhat to propound unto them? Know this,
that thou hast never experienced a more truly religious emotion than that
which led thee to form the design of overthrowing this my temple, the
abode, as thou didst deem it, of fraud and superstition."
"But now, Phoebus," Eubulides ventured to reply, "shall I not return to the
shrine purified by thy presence, and again officiate as thy unworthy
minister?"
"No, Eubulides," returned Phoebus, with a smile; "silver is good, but not
for ploughshares. Thy strange experience, thy long wanderings, thy lonely
meditations, and varied intercourse with men, have spoiled thee for a
priest, while, as I would fain hope, qualifying thee for a sage. Some
worthy person may easily be found to preside over this temple; and by the
aid of such inspiration as I may from time to time see meet to vouchsafe
him, administer its affairs indifferently well. Do thou, Eubulides,
consecrate thy powers to a more august service than Apollo's, to one that
shall endure when Delphi and Delos know _his_ no more."
"To whose service, Phoebus?" inquired Eubulides.
"To the service of Humanity, my son," responded Apollo.
DUKE VIRGIL
I
The citizens of Mantua were weary of revolutions. They had acknowledged the
suzerainty of the Emperor Frederick and shaken it off. They had had a
Podesta of their own and had shaken him off. They had expelled a Papal
Legate, incurring excommunication thereby. They had tried dictators,
consuls, praetors, councils of ten, and other numbers odd and even, and ere
the middle of the thirteenth century were luxuriating in the enjoyment of
perfect anarchy.
An assembly met daily in quest of a remedy, but its members were forbidden
to propose anything old, and were unable to invent anything new.
"Why not consult Manto, the alchemist's daughter, our prophetess, our
Sibyl?" the young Benedetto asked at last.
"Why not?" repeated Eustachio, an elderly man.
"Why not, indeed?" interrogated Leonardo, a man of mature years.
All the speakers were noble. Benedetto was Manto's lover; Eustachio her
father's friend; Leonardo his creditor. Their advice prevailed, and the
three were chosen as a deputation to wait on the prophetess. Before
proceeding formally on their embassy the three envoys managed to obtain
private interviews, the two elder with Manto's father, the youth with Manto
herself. The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist's
influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went
further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word
to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted
with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand.
The youth had just risen from his knees, pleading with her, and drawing
glowing pictures of their felicity when he should be Duke and she Duchess.
She answered, "Benedetto, in all Mantua there is not one man fit to rule
another. To name any living person would be to set a tyrant over my native
city. I will repair to the shades and seek a ruler among the dead."
"And why should not Mantua have a tyrant?" demanded Benedetto. "The freedom
of the mechanic is the bondage of the noble, who values no liberty save
that of making the base-born do his bidding. 'Tis hell to a man of spirit
to be contradicted by his tailor. If I could see my heart's desire on the
knaves, little would I reck submitting to the sway of the Emperor."
"I know that well, Benedetto," said Manto, "and hence will take good heed
not to counsel Mantua to choose thee. No, the Duke I will give her shall be
one without passions to gratify or injuries to avenge, and shall already be
crowned with a crown to make the ducal cap as nothing in his eyes, if eyes
he had."
Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward to
announce that the commissioners waited.
"My projection," he whispered, "only wants one more piece of gold to insure
success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in exchange for
boundless riches!"
"And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!" said Manto, patting
his cheek.
The envoys' commission having been unfolded, she took not a moment to
reply, "Be your Duke Virgil."
The deputation respectfully represented that although Virgil was no doubt
Mantua's greatest citizen, he laboured under the disqualification of having
been dead more than twelve hundred years. Nothing further, however, could
be extorted from the prophetess, and the ambassadors were obliged to
withdraw.
The interpretation of Manto's oracle naturally provoked much diversity of
opinion in the council.
"Obviously," said a poet, "the prophetess would have us confer the ducal
dignity upon the contemporary bard who doth most nearly accede to the
vestiges of the divine Maro; and he, as I judge, is even now in the midst
of you."
"Virgil the poet," said a priest, who had long laboured under the suspicion
of occult practices, "was a fool to Virgil the enchanter. The wise woman
evidently demands one competent to put the devil into a hole--an operation
which I have striven to perform all my life."
"Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?" inquired Eustachio.
"Better upon an egg than upon a quack!" retorted the priest.
But such was not the opinion of Eustachio himself, who privately conferred
with Leonardo. Eustachio had a character, but no parts; Leonardo had parts,
but no character.
"I see not why these fools should deride the oracle of the prophetess," he
said. "She would doubtless impress upon us that a dead master is in divers
respects preferable to a living one."
"Surely," said Eustachio, "provided always that the servant is a man of
exemplary character, and that he presumes not upon his lord's withdrawal to
another sphere, trusting thereby to commit malpractices with impunity, but
doth, on the contrary, deport himself as ever in his great taskmaster's
eye."
"Eustachio," said Leonardo, with admiration, "it is the misery of Mantua
that she hath no citizen who can act half as well as thou canst talk. I
would fain have further discourse with thee."
The two statesmen laid their heads together, and ere long the mob were
crying, "A Virgil! a Virgil!"