II
THE VISION OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE
The fragrant night was clear and still, the silence scarce broken by
the lapping of the waves, as the Wanderer went down from his fallen
home to the city on the sea, walking warily, and watching for any
light from the houses of the people. But they were all as dark as his
own, many of them roofless and ruined, for, after the plague, an
earthquake had smitten the city. There were gaping chasms in the road,
here and there, and through rifts in the walls of the houses the moon
shone strangely, making ragged shadows. At last the Wanderer reached
the Temple of Athene, the Goddess of War; but the roof had fallen in,
the pillars were overset, and the scent of wild thyme growing in the
broken pavement rose where he walked. Yet, as he stood by the door of
the fane, where he had burned so many a sacrifice, at length he spied
a light blazing from the windows of a great chapel by the sea. It was
the Temple of Aphrodite, the Queen of Love, and from the open door a
sweet savour of incense and a golden blaze rushed forth till they were
lost in the silver of the moonshine and in the salt smell of the sea.
Thither the Wanderer went slowly, for his limbs were swaying with
weariness, and he was half in a dream. Yet he hid himself cunningly in
the shadow of a long avenue of myrtles, for he guessed that sea-
robbers were keeping revel in the forsaken shrine. But he heard no
sound of singing and no tread of dancing feet within the fane of the
Goddess of Love; the sacred plot of the goddess and her chapels were
silent. He hearkened awhile, and watched, till at last he took
courage, drew near the doors, and entered the holy place. But in the
tall, bronze braziers there were no faggots burning, nor were there
torches lighted in the hands of the golden men and maids, the images
that stand within the fane of Aphrodite. Yet, if he did not dream, nor
take moonlight for fire, the temple was bathed in showers of gold by a
splendour of flame. None might see its centre nor its fountain; it
sprang neither from the altar nor the statue of the goddess, but was
everywhere imminent, a glory not of this world, a fire untended and
unlit. And the painted walls with the stories of the loves of men and
gods, and the carven pillars and the beams, and the roof of green,
were bright with flaming fire!
At this the Wanderer was afraid, knowing that an immortal was at hand;
for the comings and goings of the gods were attended, as he had seen,
by this wonderful light of unearthly fire. So he bowed his head, and
hid his face as he sat by the altar in the holiest of the holy shrine,
and with his right hand he grasped the horns of the altar. As he sat
there, perchance he woke, and perchance he slept. However it was, it
seemed to him that soon there came a murmuring and a whispering of the
myrtle leaves and laurels, and a sound in the tops of the pines, and
then his face was fanned by a breath more cold than the wind that
wakes the dawn. At the touch of this breath the Wanderer shuddered,
and the hair on his flesh stood up, so cold was the strange wind.
There was silence; and he heard a voice, and he knew that it was the
voice of no mortal, but of a goddess. For the speech of goddesses was
not strange in his ears; he knew the clarion cry of Athene, the Queen
of Wisdom and of War; and the winning words of Circe, the Daughter of
the Sun, and the sweet song of Calypso's voice as she wove with her
golden shuttle at the loom. But now the words came sweeter than the
moaning of doves, more soft than sleep. So came the golden voice,
whether he woke or whether he dreamed.
"Odysseus, thou knowest me not, nor am I thy lady, nor hast thou ever
been my servant! Where is she, the Queen of the Air, Athene, and why
comest /thou/ here as a suppliant at the knees of the daughter of
Dione?"
He answered nothing, but he bowed his head in deeper sorrow.
The voice spake again:
"Behold, thy house is desolate; thy hearth is cold. The wild hare
breeds on thy hearthstone, and the night-bird roosts beneath thy roof-
tree. Thou hast neither child nor wife nor native land, and /she/ hath
forsaken thee--thy Lady Athene. Many a time didst thou sacrifice to
her the thighs of kine and sheep, but didst thou ever give so much as
a pair of dove to /me/? Hath she left thee, as the Dawn forsook
Tithonus, because there are now threads of silver in the darkness of
thy hair? Is the wise goddess fickle as a nymph of the woodland or the
wells? Doth she love a man only for the bloom of his youth? Nay, I
know not; but this I know, that on thee, Odysseus, old age will soon
be hastening--old age that is pitiless, and ruinous, and weary, and
weak--age that cometh on all men, and that is hateful to the Gods.
Therefore, Odysseus, ere yet it be too late, I would bow even thee to
my will, and hold thee for my thrall. For I am she who conquers all
things living: Gods and beasts and men. And hast thou thought that
thou only shalt escape Aphrodite? Thou that hast never loved as I
would have men love; thou that hast never obeyed me for an hour, nor
ever known the joy and the sorrow that are mine to give? For thou
didst but ensure the caresses of Circe, the Daughter of the Sun, and
thou wert aweary in the arms of Calypso, and the Sea King's daughter
came never to her longing. As for her who is dead, thy dear wife
Penelope, thou didst love her with a loyal heart, but never with a
heart of fire. Nay, she was but thy companion, thy housewife, and the
mother of thy child. She was mingled with all the memories of the land
thou lovest, and so thou gavest her a little love. But she is dead;
and thy child too is no more; and thy very country is as the ashes of
a forsaken hearth where once was a camp of men. What have all thy wars
and wanderings won for thee, all thy labours, and all the adventures
thou hast achieved? For what didst thou seek among the living and the
dead? Thou soughtest that which all men seek--thou soughtest /The
World's Desire/. They find it not, nor hast thou found it, Odysseus;
and thy friends are dead; thy land is dead; nothing lives but Hope.
But the life that lies before thee is new, without a remnant of the
old days, except for the bitterness of longing and remembrance. Out of
this new life, and the unborn hours, wilt thou not give, what never
before thou gavest, one hour to me, to be my servant?"
The voice, as it seemed, grew softer and came nearer, till the
Wanderer heard it whisper in his very ear, and with the voice came a
divine fragrance. The breath of her who spoke seemed to touch his
neck; the immortal tresses of the Goddess were mingled with the dark
curls of his hair.
The voice spake again:
"Nay, Odysseus, didst thou not once give me one little hour? Fear not,
for thou shalt not see me at this time, but lift thy head and look on
The World's Desire!"
Then the Wanderer lifted his head, and he saw, as it were in a picture
or in a mirror of bronze, the vision of a girl. She was more than
mortal tall, and though still in the first flower of youth, and almost
a child in years, she seemed fair as a goddess, and so beautiful that
Aphrodite herself may perchance have envied this loveliness. She was
slim and gracious as a young shoot of a palm tree, and her eyes were
fearless and innocent as a child's. On her head she bore a shining urn
of bronze, as if she were bringing water from the wells, and behind
her was the foliage of a plane tree. Then the Wanderer knew her, and
saw her once again as he had seen her, when in his boyhood he had
journeyed to the Court of her father, King Tyndareus. For, as he
entered Sparta, and came down the hill Taygetus, and as his chariot
wheels flashed through the ford of Eurotas, he had met her there on
her way from the river. There, in his youth, his eyes had gazed on the
loveliness of Helen, and his heart had been filled with the desire of
the fairest of women, and like all the princes of Achaia he had sought
her hand in marriage. But Helen was given to another man, to Menelaus,
Atreus's son, of an evil house, that the knees of many might be
loosened in death, and that there might be a song in the ears of men
in after time.
As he beheld the vision of young Helen, the Wanderer too grew young
again. But as he gazed with the eyes and loved with the first love of
a boy, she melted like a mist, and out of the mist came another
vision. He saw himself, disguised as a beggar, beaten and bruised, yet
seated in a long hall bright with gold, while a woman bathed his feet,
and anointed his head with oil. And the face of the woman was the face
of the maiden, and even more beautiful, but sad with grief and with an
ancient shame. Then he remembered how once he had stolen into Troy
town from the camp of the Achæans, and how he had crept in a beggar's
rags within the house of Priam to spy upon the Trojans, and how Helen,
the fairest of women, had bathed him, and anointed him with oil, and
suffered him to go in peace, all for the memory of the love that was
between them of old. As he gazed, that picture faded and melted in the
mist, and again he bowed his head, and kneeled by the golden altar of
the Goddess, crying:
"Where beneath the sunlight dwells the golden Helen?" For now he had
only one desire: to look on Helen again before he died.
Then the voice of the Goddess seemed to whisper in his ear:
"Did I not say truth, Odysseus? Wast not thou my servant for one hour,
and did not Love save thee in the city of the Trojans on that night
when even Wisdom was of no avail?"
He answered: "Yea, O Queen!"
"Behold then," said the voice, "I would again have mercy and be kind
to thee, for if I aid thee not thou hast no more life left among men.
Home, and kindred, and native land thou hast none; and, but for me,
thou must devour thine own heart and be lonely till thou diest.
Therefore I breathe into thy heart a sweet forgetfulness of every
sorrow, and I breathe love into thee for her who was thy first love in
the beginning of thy days.
"For Helen is living yet upon the earth. And I will send thee on the
quest of Helen, and thou shalt again take joy in war and wandering.
Thou shalt find her in a strange land, among a strange people, in a
strife of gods and men; and the wisest and bravest of man shall sleep
at last in the arms of the fairest of women. But learn this, Odysseus;
thou must set thy heart on no other woman, but only on Helen.
"And I give thee a sign to know her by in a land of magic, and among
women that deal in sorceries.
"/On the breast of Helen a jewel shines, a great star-stone, the gift
I gave her on her wedding-night when she was bride to Menelaus. From
that stone fall red drops like blood, and they drip on her vestment,
and there vanish, and do not stain it./
"By the Star of Love shalt thou know her; by the star shalt thou swear
to her; and if thou knowest not the portent of the Bleeding Star, or
if thou breakest that oath, never in this life, Odysseus, shalt thou
win the golden Helen! And thine own death shall come from the water--
the swiftest death--that the saying of the dead prophet may be
fulfilled. Yet first shalt thou lie in the arms of the golden Helen."
The Wanderer answered:
"Queen, how may this be, for I am alone on a seagirt isle, and I have
no ship and no companions to speed me over the great gulf of the sea?"
Then the voice answered:
"Fear not! the gods can bring to pass even greater things than these.
Go from my house, and lie down to sleep in my holy ground, within the
noise of the wash of the waves. There sleep, and take thy rest! Thy
strength shall come back to thee, and before the setting of the new
sun thou shalt be sailing on the path to The World's Desire. But first
drink from the chalice on my altar. Fare thee well!"
The voice died into silence, like the dying of music. The Wanderer
awoke and lifted his head, but the light had faded, and the temple was
grey in the first waking of the dawn. Yet there, on the altar where no
cup had been, stood a deep chalice of gold, full of red wine to the
brim. This the Wanderer lifted and drained--a draught of Nepenthe, the
magic cup that puts trouble out of mind. As he drank, a wave of sweet
hope went over his heart, and buried far below it the sorrow of
remembrance, and the trouble of the past, and the longing desire for
loves that were no more.
With a light step he went forth like a younger man, taking the two
spears in his hand, and the bow upon his back, and he lay down beneath
a great rock that looked toward the deep, and there he slept.
