Last Days of Pompeii Part 6

Arbaces was seated before a small table, on which lay unfolded several scrolls of papyrus, impressed with the same character as that on the threshold of the mansion. A small tripod stood at a little distance, from the incense in which the smoke slowly rose. Near this was a vast globe, depicting the signs of heaven; and upon another table lay several instruments, of curious and quaint shape, whose uses were unknown to Apaecides. The farther extremity of the room was concealed by a curtain, and the oblong window in the roof admitted the rays of the moon, mingling sadly with the single lamp which burned in the apartment.

'Seat yourself, Apaecides,' said the Egyptian, without rising.

The young man obeyed.

'You ask me,' resumed Arbaces, after a short pause, in which he seemed absorbed in thought-'You ask me, or would do so, the mightiest secrets which the soul of man is fitted to receive; it is the enigma of life itself that you desire me to solve. Placed like children in the dark, and but for a little while, in this dim and confined existence, we shape our spectres in the obscurity; our thoughts now sink back into ourselves in terror, now wildly plunge themselves into the guideless gloom, guessing what it may contain; stretching our helpless hands here and there, lest, blindly, we stumble upon some hidden danger; not knowing the limits of our boundary, now feeling them suffocate us with compression, now seeing them extend far away till they vanish into eternity. In this state all wisdom consists necessarily in the solution of two questions: "What are we to believe? and What are we to reject?" These questions you desire me to decide.'

Apaecides bowed his head in a.s.sent.

'Man must have some belief,' continued the Egyptian, in a tone of sadness. 'He must fasten his hope to something: is our common nature that you inherit when, aghast and terrified to see that in which you have been taught to place your faith swept away, you float over a dreary and sh.o.r.eless sea of incert.i.tude, you cry for help, you ask for some plank to cling to, some land, however dim and distant, to attain. Well, then, have not forgotten our conversation of to-day?'

'Forgotten!'

'I confessed to you that those deities for whom smoke so many altars were but inventions. I confessed to you that our rites and ceremonies were but mummeries, to delude and lure the herd to their proper good. I explained to you that from those delusions came the bonds of society, the harmony of the world, the power of the wise; that power is in the obedience of the vulgar. Continue we then these salutary delusions-if man must have some belief, continue to him that which his fathers have made dear to him, and which custom sanctifies and strengthens. In seeking a subtler faith for us, whose senses are too spiritual for the gross one, let us leave others that support which crumbles from ourselves. This is wise-it is benevolent.'

'Proceed.'

'This being settled,' resumed the Egyptian, 'the old landmarks being left uninjured for those whom we are about to desert, we gird up our loins and depart to new climes of faith. Dismiss at once from your recollection, from your thought, all that you have believed before. Suppose the mind a blank, an unwritten scroll, fit to receive impressions for the first time. Look round the world-observe its order-its regularity-its design. Something must have created it-the design speaks a designer: in that certainty we first touch land. But what is that something?-A G.o.d, you cry. Stay-no confused and confusing names. Of that which created the world, we know, we can know, nothing, save these attributes-power and unvarying regularity-stern, crushing, relentless regularity-heeding no individual cases-rolling-sweeping-burning on; no matter what scattered hearts, severed from the general ma.s.s, fall ground and scorched beneath its wheels. The mixture of evil with good-the existence of suffering and of crime-in all times have perplexed the wise. They created a G.o.d-they supposed him benevolent. How then came this evil? why did he permit it-nay, why invent, why perpetuate it? To account for this, the Persian creates a second spirit, whose nature is evil, and supposes a continual war between that and the G.o.d of good. In our own shadowy and tremendous Typhon, the Egyptians image a similar demon. Perplexing blunder that yet more bewilders us!-folly that arose from the vain delusion that makes a palpable, a corporeal, a human being, of this unknown power-that clothes the Invisible with attributes and a nature similar to the Seen. No: to this designer let us give a name that does not command our bewildering a.s.sociations, and the mystery becomes more clear-that name is NECESSITY. Necessity, say the Greeks, compels the G.o.ds. Then why the G.o.ds?-their agency becomes unnecessary-dismiss them at once. Necessity is the ruler of all we see-power, regularity-these two qualities make its nature. Would you ask more?-you can learn nothing: whether it be eternal-whether it compel us, its creatures, to new careers after that darkness which we call death-we cannot tell. There leave we this ancient, unseen, unfathomable power, and come to that which, to our eyes, is the great minister of its functions. This we can task more, from this we can learn more: its evidence is around us-its name is NATURE. The error of the sages has been to direct their researches to the attributes of necessity, where all is gloom and blindness. Had they confined their researches to Nature-what of knowledge might we not already have achieved? Here patience, examination, are never directed in vain. We see what we explore; our minds ascend a palpable ladder of causes and effects. Nature is the great agent of the external universe, and Necessity imposes upon it the laws by which it acts, and imparts to us the powers by which we examine; those powers are curiosity and memory-their union is reason, their perfection is wisdom. Well, then, I examine by the help of these powers this inexhaustible Nature. I examine the earth, the air, the ocean, the heaven: I find that all have a mystic sympathy with each other-that the moon sways the tides-that the air maintains the earth, and is the medium of the life and sense of things-that by the knowledge of the stars we measure the limits of the earth-that we portion out the epochs of time-that by their pale light we are guided into the abyss of the past-that in their solemn lore we discern the destinies of the future. And thus, while we know not that which Necessity is, we learn, at least, her decrees. And now, what morality do we glean from this religion?-for religion it is. I believe in two deities-Nature and Necessity; I worship the last by reverence, the first by investigation. What is the morality my religion teaches? This-all things are subject but to general rules; the sun shines for the joy of the many-it may bring sorrow to the few; the night sheds sleep on the mult.i.tude-but it harbors murder as well as rest; the forests adorn the earth-but shelter the serpent and the lion; the ocean supports a thousand barks-but it engulfs the one. It is only thus for the general, and not for the universal benefit, that Nature acts, and Necessity speeds on her awful course. This is the morality of the dread agents of the world-it is mine, who am their creature. I would preserve the delusions of priestcraft, for they are serviceable to the mult.i.tude; I would impart to man the arts I discover, the sciences I perfect; I would speed the vast career of civilizing lore: in this I serve the ma.s.s, I fulfill the general law, I execute the great moral that Nature preaches. For myself I claim the individual exception; I claim it for the wise-satisfied that my individual actions are nothing in the great balance of good and evil; satisfied that the product of my knowledge can give greater blessings to the ma.s.s than my desires can operate evil on the few (for the first can extend to remotest regions and humanize nations yet unborn), I give to the world wisdom, to myself freedom. I enlighten the lives of others, and I enjoy my own. Yes; our wisdom is eternal, but our life is short: make the most of it while it lasts. Surrender thy youth to pleasure, and thy senses to delight. Soon comes the hour when the wine-cup is shattered, and the garlands shall cease to bloom. Enjoy while you may. Be still, O Apaecides, my pupil and my follower! I will teach thee the mechanism of Nature, her darkest and her wildest secrets-the lore which fools call magic-and the mighty mysteries of the stars. By this shalt thou discharge thy duty to the ma.s.s; by this shalt thou enlighten thy race. But I will lead thee also to pleasures of which the vulgar do not dream; and the day which thou givest to men shall be followed by the sweet night which thou surrenderest to thyself.'

As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, the softest music that Lydia ever taught, or Iona ever perfected. It came like a stream of sound, bathing the senses unawares; enervating, subduing with delight. It seemed the melodies of invisible spirits, such as the shepherd might have heard in the golden age, floating through the vales of Thessaly, or in the noontide glades of Paphos. The words which had rushed to the lip of Apaecides, in answer to the sophistries of the Egyptian, died tremblingly away. He felt it as a profanation to break upon that enchanted strain-the susceptibility of his excited nature, the Greek softness and ardour of his secret soul, were swayed and captured by surprise. He sank on the seat with parted lips and thirsting ear; while in a chorus of voices, bland and melting as those which waked Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song: THE HYMN OF EROS

By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows, A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air; The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose, The doves couch'd breathless in their summer lair;

While from their hands the purple flowerets fell, The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;- From Pan's green cave to AEgle's haunted cell, Heaved the charm'd earth in one delicious sigh.

Love, sons of earth! I am the Power of Love!

Eldest of all the G.o.ds, with Chaos born; My smile sheds light along the courts above, My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn.

Mine are the stars-there, ever as ye gaze, Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes; Mine is the moon-and, mournful if her rays, 'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.

The flowers are mine-the blushes of the rose, The violet-charming Zephyr to the shade; Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows, And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade.

Love, sons of earth-for love is earth's soft lore, Look where ye will-earth overflows with ME; Learn from the waves that ever kiss the sh.o.r.e, And the winds nestling on the heaving sea.

'All teaches love!'-The sweet voice, like a dream, Melted in light; yet still the airs above, The waving sedges, and the whispering stream, And the green forest rustling, murmur'd 'LOVE!'

As the voices died away, the Egyptian seized the hand of Apaecides, and led him, wandering, intoxicated, yet half-reluctant, across the chamber towards the curtain at the far end; and now, from behind that curtain, there seemed to burst a thousand sparkling stars; the veil itself, hitherto dark, was now lighted by these fires behind into the tenderest blue of heaven. It represented heaven itself-such a heaven, as in the nights of June might have shone down over the streams of Castaly. Here and there were painted rosy and aerial clouds, from which smiled, by the limner's art, faces of divinest beauty, and on which reposed the shapes of which Phidias and Apelles dreamed. And the stars which studded the transparent azure rolled rapidly as they shone, while the music, that again woke with a livelier and lighter sound, seemed to imitate the melody of the joyous spheres.

'Oh! what miracle is this, Arbaces,' said Apaecides in faltering accents. 'After having denied the G.o.ds, art thou about to reveal to me...'

'Their pleasures!' interrupted Arbaces, in a tone so different from its usual cold and tranquil harmony that Apaecides started, and thought the Egyptian himself transformed; and now, as they neared the curtain, a wild-a loud-an exulting melody burst from behind its concealment. With that sound the veil was rent in twain-it parted-it seemed to vanish into air: and a scene, which no Sybarite ever more than rivalled, broke upon the dazzled gaze of the youthful priest. A vast banquet-room stretched beyond, blazing with countless lights, which filled the warm air with the scents of frankincense, of jasmine, of violets, of myrrh; all that the most odorous flowers, all that the most costly spices could distil, seemed gathered into one ineffable and ambrosial essence: from the light columns that sprang upwards to the airy roof, hung draperies of white, studded with golden stars. At the extremities of the room two fountains cast up a spray, which, catching the rays of the roseate light, glittered like countless diamonds. In the centre of the room as they entered there rose slowly from the floor, to the sound of unseen minstrelsy, a table spread with all the viands which sense ever devoted to fancy, and vases of that lost Myrrhine fabric, so glowing in its colors, so transparent in its material, were crowned with the exotics of the East. The couches, to which this table was the centre, were covered with tapestries of azure and gold; and from invisible tubes the vaulted roof descended showers of fragrant waters, that cooled the delicious air, and contended with the lamps, as if the spirits of wave and fire disputed which element could furnish forth the most delicious odorous. And now, from behind the snowy draperies, trooped such forms as Adonis beheld when he lay on the lap of Venus. They came, some with garlands, others with lyres; they surrounded the youth, they led his steps to the banquet. They flung the chaplets round him in rosy chains. The earth-the thought of earth, vanished from his soul. He imagined himself in a dream, and suppressed his breath lest he should wake too soon; the senses, to which he had never yielded as yet, beat in his burning pulse, and confused his dizzy and reeling sight. And while thus amazed and lost, once again, but in brisk and Bacchic measures, rose the magic strain: ANACREONTIC

In the veins of the calix foams and glows The blood of the mantling vine, But oh! in the bowl of Youth there glows A Lesbian, more divine!

Bright, bright, As the liquid light, Its waves through thine eyelids shine!

Fill up, fill up, to the sparkling brim, The juice of the young Lyaeus; The grape is the key that we owe to him From the gaol of the world to free us.

Drink, drink!

What need to shrink, When the lambs alone can see us?

Drink, drink, as I quaff from thine eyes The wine of a softer tree; Give the smiles to the G.o.d of the grape-thy sighs, Beloved one, give to me.

Turn, turn, My glances burn, And thirst for a look from thee!

As the song ended, a group of three maidens, entwined with a chain of starred flowers, and who, while they imitated, might have shamed the Graces, advanced towards him in the gliding measures of the Ionian dance: such as the Nereids wreathed in moonlight on the yellow sands of the AEgean wave-such as Cytherea taught her handmaids in the marriage-feast of Psyche and her son.

Now approaching, they wreathed their chaplet round his head; now kneeling, the youngest of the three proffered him the bowl, from which the wine of Lesbos foamed and sparkled. The youth resisted no more, he grasped the intoxicating cup, the blood mantled fiercely through his veins. He sank upon the breast of the nymph who sat beside him, and turning with swimming eyes to seek for Arbaces, whom he had lost in the whirl of his emotions, he beheld him seated beneath a canopy at the upper end of the table, and gazing upon him with a smile that encouraged him to pleasure. He beheld him, but not as he had hitherto seen, with dark and sable garments, with a brooding and solemn brow: a robe that dazzled the sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold and gems, blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with the emerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his raven locks. He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the glory of a second youth-his features seemed to have exchanged thought for beauty, and he towered amidst the loveliness that surrounded him, in all the beaming and relaxing benignity of the Olympian G.o.d.

'Drink, feast, love, my pupil!' said he, 'blush not that thou art pa.s.sionate and young. That which thou art, thou feelest in thy veins: that which thou shalt be, survey!'

With this he pointed to a recess, and the eyes of Apaecides, following the gesture, beheld on a pedestal, placed between the statues of Bacchus and Idalia, the form of a skeleton.

'Start not,' resumed the Egyptian; 'that friendly guest admonishes us but of the shortness of life. From its jaws I hear a voice that summons us to ENJOY.'

As he spoke, a group of nymphs surrounded the statue; they laid chaplets on its pedestal, and, while the cups were emptied and refilled at that glowing board, they sang the following strain: BACCHIC HYMNS TO THE IMAGE OF DEATH

I

Thou art in the land of the shadowy Host, Thou that didst drink and love: By the Solemn River, a gliding ghost, But thy thought is ours above!

If memory yet can fly, Back to the golden sky, And mourn the pleasures lost!

By the ruin'd hall these flowers we lay, Where thy soul once held its palace; When the rose to thy scent and sight was gay, And the smile was in the chalice, And the cithara's voice Could bid thy heart rejoice When night eclipsed the day.

Here a new group advancing, turned the tide of the music into a quicker and more joyous strain.

II

Death, death is the gloomy sh.o.r.e Where we all sail- Soft, soft, thou gliding oar; Blow soft, sweet gale!

Chain with bright wreaths the Hours; Victims if all Ever, 'mid song and flowers, Victims should fall!

Pausing for a moment, yet quicker and quicker danced the silver-footed music: Since Life's so short, we'll live to laugh, Ah! wherefore waste a minute!

If youth's the cup we yet can quaff, Be love the pearl within it!

A third band now approached with br.i.m.m.i.n.g cups, which they poured in libation upon that strange altar; and once more, slow and solemn, rose the changeful melody: III

Thou art welcome, Guest of gloom, From the far and fearful sea!

When the last rose sheds its bloom, Our board shall be spread with thee!

All hail, dark Guest!

Who hath so fair a plea Our welcome Guest to be, As thou, whose solemn hall At last shall feast us all In the dim and dismal coast?

Long yet be we the Host!

And thou, Dead Shadow, thou, All joyless though thy brow, Thou-but our pa.s.sing GUEST!

At this moment, she who sat beside Apaecides suddenly took up the song: IV

Happy is yet our doom, The earth and the sun are ours!

And far from the dreary tomb Speed the wings of the rosy Hours- Sweet is for thee the bowl, Sweet are thy looks, my love; I fly to thy tender soul, As bird to its mated dove!

Take me, ah, take!

Clasp'd to thy guardian breast, Soft let me sink to rest: But wake me-ah, wake!

And tell me with words and sighs, But more with thy melting eyes, That my sun is not set- That the Torch is not quench'd at the Urn That we love, and we breathe, and burn, Tell me-thou lov'st me yet!

BOOK THE SECOND

Chapter I

A FLASH HOUSE IN POMPEII, AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE CLa.s.sIC RING.

TO one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not by the lords of pleasure, but by its minions and its victims; the haunt of gladiators and prize-fighters; of the vicious and the penniless; of the savage and the obscene; the Alsatia of an ancient city-we are now transported.

It was a large room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose hardy and reckless countenances, indicated the champions of the arena. On a shelf, without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was inserted in the wall a coa.r.s.e painting, which exhibited gladiators drinking-so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! Within the room were placed several small tables, arranged somewhat in the modern fashion of 'boxes', and round these were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some playing at dice, some at that more skilful game called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the a.s.sistance of dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable time itself denoted the habitual indolence of these tavern loungers.

Yet, despite the situation of the house and the character of its inmates, it indicated none of that sordid squalor which would have characterized a similar haunt in a modern city. The gay disposition of all the Pompeians, who sought, at least, to gratify the sense even where they neglected the mind, was typified by the gaudy colors which decorated the walls, and the shapes, fantastic but not inelegant, in which the lamps, the drinking-cups, the commonest household utensils, were wrought.

'By Pollux!' said one of the gladiators, as he leaned against the wall of the threshold, 'the wine thou sellest us, old Silenus'-and as he spoke he slapped a portly personage on the back-'is enough to thin the best blood in one's veins.'

The man thus caressingly saluted, and whose bared arms, white ap.r.o.n, and keys and napkin tucked carelessly within his girdle, indicated him to be the host of the tavern, was already pa.s.sed into the autumn of his years; but his form was still so robust and athletic, that he might have shamed even the sinewy shapes beside him, save that the muscles had seeded, as it were, into flesh, that the cheeks were swelled and bloated, and the increasing stomach threw into shade the vast and ma.s.sive chest which rose above it.

'None of thy scurrilous bl.u.s.terings with me,' growled the gigantic landlord, in the gentle semi-roar of an insulted tiger; 'my wine is good enough for a carca.s.s which shall so soon soak the dust of the spoliarium.'

'Croakest thou thus, old raven!' returned the gladiator, laughing scornfully; 'thou shalt live to hang thyself with despite when thou seest me win the palm crown; and when I get the purse at the amphitheatre, as I certainly shall, my first vow to Hercules shall be to forswear thee and thy vile potations evermore.'

'Hear to him-hear to this modest Pyrgopolinices! He has certainly served under Bombochides Cluninstaridysarchides,' cried the host. 'Sporus, Niger, Tetraides, he declares he shall win the purse from you. Why, by the G.o.ds! each of your muscles is strong enough to stifle all his body, or I know nothing of the arena!'

'Ha!' said the gladiator, coloring with rising fury, 'our lanista would tell a different story.'

'What story could he tell against me, vain Lydon?' said Tetraides, frowning.

'Or me, who have conquered in fifteen fights?' said the gigantic Niger, stalking up to the gladiator.

'Or me?' grunted Sporus, with eyes of fire.

'Tush!' said Lydon, folding his arms, and regarding his rivals with a reckless air of defiance. 'The time of trial will soon come; keep your valor till then.'