The Last Days of Pompeii Part 4

'How mean you, Sall.u.s.t?' returned the gamester, with a flushed brow.

'I mean, what you would leave me if I played often with you; and that is--nothing.'

Clodius answered only by a smile of disdain.

'If Arbaces were not so rich,' said Pansa, with a stately air, 'I should stretch my authority a little, and inquire into the truth of the report which calls him an astrologer and a sorcerer. Agrippa, when aedile of Rome, banished all such terrible citizens. But a rich man--it is the duty of an aedile to protect the rich!'

'What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even a few proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew G.o.d--Christus?'

'Oh, mere speculative visionaries,' said Clodius; 'they have not a single gentleman amongst them; their proselytes are poor, insignificant, ignorant people!'

'Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy,' said Pansa, with vehemence; 'they deny Venus and Jove! Nazarene is but another name for atheist. Let me catch them--that's all.'

The second course was gone--the feasters fell back on their couches--there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence, but Clodius began already to think that they wasted time.

'Bene vobis! (Your health!) my Glaucus,' said he, quaffing a cup to each letter of the Greek's name, with the ease of the practised drinker.

'Will you not be avenged on your ill-fortune of yesterday? See, the dice court us.'

'As you will,' said Glaucus.

'The dice in summer, and I an aedile!' said Pansa, magisterially; 'it is against all law.'

'Not in your presence, grave Pansa,' returned Clodius, rattling the dice in a long box; 'your presence restrains all license: it is not the thing, but the excess of the thing, that hurts.'

'What wisdom!' muttered the umbra.

'Well, I will look another way,' said the aedile.

'Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped,' said Glaucus.

Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a yawn.

'He gapes to devour the gold,' whispered Lepidus to Sall.u.s.t, in a quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus.

'Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they touch,' answered Sall.u.s.t, in the same tone, and out of the same play.

The third course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts, sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionery tortured into a thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table; and the ministri, or attendants, also set there the wine (which had hitherto been handed round to the guests) in large jugs of gla.s.s, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and quality.

'Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa,' said Sall.u.s.t; 'it is excellent.'

'It is not very old,' said Glaucus, 'but it has been made precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire:--the wine to the flames of Vulcan--we to those of his wife--to whose honour I pour this cup.'

'It is delicate,' said Pansa, 'but there is perhaps the least particle too much of rosin in its flavor.'

'What a beautiful cup!' cried Clodius, taking up one of transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems, and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii.

'This ring,' said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of his finger and hanging it on the handle, 'gives it a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Clodius, on whom may the G.o.ds bestow health and fortune, long and oft to crown it to the brim!'

'You are too generous, Glaucus,' said the gamester, handing the cup to his slave; 'but your love gives it a double value.'

'This cup to the Graces!' said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calix.

The guests followed his example.

'We have appointed no director to the feast,' cried Sall.u.s.t.

'Let us throw for him, then,' said Clodius, rattling the dice-box.

'Nay,' cried Glaucus, 'no cold and trite director for us: no dictator of the banquet; no rex convivii. Have not the Romans sworn never to obey a king? Shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho! musicians, let us have the song I composed the other night: it has a verse on this subject, "The Bacchic hymn of the Hours".'

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the youngest voice in the band chanted forth, in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain:--

THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS

I

Through the summer day, through the weary day, We have glided long; Ere we speed to the Night through her portals grey, Hail us with song!-- With song, with song, With a bright and joyous song; Such as the Cretan maid, While the twilight made her bolder, Woke, high through the ivy shade, When the wine-G.o.d first consoled her.

From the hush'd, low-breathing skies, Half-shut look'd their starry eyes, And all around, With a loving sound, The AEgean waves were creeping: On her lap lay the lynx's head; Wild thyme was her bridal bed; And aye through each tiny s.p.a.ce, In the green vine's green embrace The Fauns were slily peeping-- The Fauns, the prying Fauns-- The arch, the laughing Fauns-- The Fauns were slily peeping!

II

Flagging and faint are we With our ceaseless flight, And dull shall our journey be Through the realm of night, Bathe us, O bathe our weary wings In the purple wave, as it freshly springs To your cups from the fount of light-- From the fount of light--from the fount of light,

For there, when the sun has gone down in night, There in the bowl we find him.

The grape is the well of that summer sun, Or rather the stream that he gazed upon, Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth, His soul, as he gazed, behind him.

III

A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love, And a cup to the son of Maia; And honour with three, the band zone-free, The band of the bright Aglaia.

But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure Ye owe to the sister Hours, No stinted cups, in a formal measure, The Bromian law makes ours.

He honors us most who gives us most, And boasts, with a Baccha.n.a.l's honest boast, He never will count the treasure.

Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings, And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs; And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume, We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom; We glow--we glow, Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave Bore once with a shout to the crystal cave The prize of the Mysian Hylas, Even so--even so, We have caught the young G.o.d in our warm embrace We hurry him on in our laughing race; We hurry him on, with a whoop and song, The cloudy rivers of night along-- Ho, ho!--we have caught thee, Psilas!

The guests applauded loudly. When the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm.

'Thoroughly Greek,' said Lepidus: 'the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue, it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry.'

'It is, indeed, a great contrast,' said Clodius, ironically at heart, though not in appearance, 'to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic: the word puts me in mind of a toast--Companions, I give you the beautiful Ione.'

'Ione!--the name is Greek,' said Glaucus, in a soft voice. 'I drink the health with delight. But who is Ione?'

'Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance,' said Lepidus, conceitedly; 'not to know Ione, is not to know the chief charm of our city.'

'She is of the most rare beauty,' said Pansa; 'and what a voice!'

'She can feed only on nightingales' tongues,' said Clodius.

'Nightingales' tongues!--beautiful thought!' sighed the umbra.

'Enlighten me, I beseech you,' said Glaucus.