The World's Desire by Andrew Lang and H. Rider Haggard
II
THE VISION OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE
The fragrant night was clear and still, the silence scarce broken by thelapping of the waves, as the Wanderer went down from his fallen home tothe city on the sea, walking warily, and watching for any light from thehouses of the people. But they were all as dark as his own, many of themroofless and ruined, for, after the plague, an earthquake had smittenthe city. There were gaping chasms in the road, here and there, andthrough rifts in the walls of the houses the moon shone strangely,making ragged shadows. At last the Wanderer reached the Temple ofAthene, the Goddess of War; but the roof had fallen in, the pillars wereoverset, and the scent of wild thyme growing in the broken pavement rosewhere he walked. Yet, as he stood by the door of the fane, where he hadburned so many a sacrifice, at length he spied a light blazing from thewindows 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 anda golden blaze rushed forth till they were lost in the silver of themoonshine and in the salt smell of the sea. Thither the Wanderer wentslowly, for his limbs were swaying with weariness, and he was half ina dream. Yet he hid himself cunningly in the shadow of a long avenueof myrtles, for he guessed that sea-robbers were keeping revel inthe forsaken shrine. But he heard no sound of singing and no tread ofdancing feet within the fane of the Goddess of Love; the sacred plotof the goddess and her chapels were silent. He hearkened awhile, andwatched, till at last he took courage, drew near the doors, and enteredthe holy place. But in the tall, bronze braziers there were no faggotsburning, nor were there torches lighted in the hands of the golden menand maids, the images that stand within the fane of Aphrodite. Yet, ifhe did not dream, nor take moonlight for fire, the temple was bathed inshowers of gold by a splendour of flame. None might see its centre norits fountain; it sprang neither from the altar nor the statue of thegoddess, but was everywhere imminent, a glory not of this world, a fireuntended and unlit. And the painted walls with the stories of the lovesof men and gods, and the carven pillars and the beams, and the roof ofgreen, 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 hidhis face as he sat by the altar in the holiest of the holy shrine, andwith 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 seemedto him that soon there came a murmuring and a whispering of the myrtleleaves and laurels, and a sound in the tops of the pines, and then hisface 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 hisflesh stood up, so cold was the strange wind.
There was silence; and he heard a voice, and he knew that it was thevoice of no mortal, but of a goddess. For the speech of goddesses wasnot strange in his ears; he knew the clarion cry of Athene, the Queen ofWisdom and of War; and the winning words of Circe, the Daughter of theSun, and the sweet song of Calypso's voice as she wove with her goldenshuttle at the loom. But now the words came sweeter than the moaning ofdoves, more soft than sleep. So came the golden voice, whether he wokeor whether he dreamed.
"Odysseus, thou knowest me not, nor am I thy lady, nor hast thou everbeen my servant! Where is she, the Queen of the Air, Athene, and whycomest _thou_ here as a suppliant at the knees of the daughter ofDione?"
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 breedson thy hearthstone, and the night-bird roosts beneath thy roof-tree.Thou hast neither child nor wife nor native land, and _she_ hathforsaken thee--thy Lady Athene. Many a time didst thou sacrifice to herthe thighs of kine and sheep, but didst thou ever give so much as apair 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? Isthe wise goddess fickle as a nymph of the woodland or the wells? Dothshe love a man only for the bloom of his youth? Nay, I know not; butthis I know, that on thee, Odysseus, old age will soon be hastening--oldage that is pitiless, and ruinous, and weary, and weak--age that comethon all men, and that is hateful to the Gods. Therefore, Odysseus, ereyet it be too late, I would bow even thee to my will, and hold thee formy thrall. For I am she who conquers all things living: Gods and beastsand men. And hast thou thought that thou only shalt escape Aphrodite?Thou that hast never loved as I would have men love; thou that hastnever obeyed me for an hour, nor ever known the joy and the sorrow thatare mine to give? For thou didst but ensure the caresses of Circe, theDaughter of the Sun, and thou wert aweary in the arms of Calypso, andthe Sea King's daughter came never to her longing. As for her who isdead, 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, thyhousewife, and the mother of thy child. She was mingled with all thememories 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 isas the ashes of a forsaken hearth where once was a camp of men. Whathave all thy wars and wanderings won for thee, all thy labours, and allthe adventures thou hast achieved? For what didst thou seek amongthe living and the dead? Thou soughtest that which all men seek--thousoughtest _The World's Desire_. They find it not, nor hast thou foundit, Odysseus; and thy friends are dead; thy land is dead; nothing livesbut Hope. But the life that lies before thee is new, without a remnantof the old days, except for the bitterness of longing and remembrance.Out of this new life, and the unborn hours, wilt thou not give, whatnever before thou gavest, one hour to me, to be my servant?"
The voice, as it seemed, grew softer and came nearer, till the Wandererheard it whisper in his very ear, and with the voice came a divinefragrance. The breath of her who spoke seemed to touch his neck; theimmortal tresses of the Goddess were mingled with the dark curls of hishair.
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 onThe World's Desire!"
Then the Wanderer lifted his head, and he saw, as it were in a pictureor in a mirror of bronze, the vision of a girl. She was more than mortaltall, and though still in the first flower of youth, and almost a childin years, she seemed fair as a goddess, and so beautiful that Aphroditeherself may perchance have envied this loveliness. She was slim andgracious as a young shoot of a palm tree, and her eyes were fearless andinnocent 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 thefoliage of a plane tree. Then the Wanderer knew her, and saw her onceagain as he had seen her, when in his boyhood he had journeyed to theCourt of her father, King Tyndareus. For, as he entered Sparta, and camedown the hill Taygetus, and as his chariot wheels flashed through theford 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 hisheart had been filled with the desire of the fairest of women, and likeall the princes of Achaia he had sought her hand in marriage. But Helenwas 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 mightbe a song in the ears of men in after time.
As he beheld the vision of young Helen, the Wanderer too grew youngagain. But as he gazed with the eyes and loved with the first love of aboy, she melted like a mist, and out of the mist came another vision. Hesaw himself, disguised as a beggar, beaten and bruised, yet seated in along hall bright with gold, while a woman bathed his feet, and anointedhis 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 campof the Achaeans, and how he had crept in a beggar's rags within the houseof Priam to spy upon the Trojans, and how Helen, the fa
"Where beneath the sunlight dwells the golden Helen?" For now he hadonly 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 wheneven Wisdom was of no avail?"
He answered: "Yea, O Queen!"
"Behold then," said the voice, "I would again have mercy and be kind tothee, 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, thoumust devour thine own heart and be lonely till thou diest. ThereforeI breathe into thy heart a sweet forgetfulness of every sorrow, and Ibreathe love into thee for her who was thy first love in the beginningof thy days.
"For Helen is living yet upon the earth. And I will send thee on thequest of Helen, and thou shalt again take joy in war and wandering. Thoushalt find her in a strange land, among a strange people, in a strife ofgods and men; and the wisest and bravest of man shall sleep at last inthe arms of the fairest of women. But learn this, Odysseus; thou mustset 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 amongwomen that deal in sorceries.
"_On the breast of Helen a jewel shines, a great star-stone, the gift Igave her on her wedding-night when she was bride to Menelaus. From thatstone fall red drops like blood, and they drip on her vestment, andthere vanish, and do not stain it._
"By the Star of Love shalt thou know her; by the star shalt thou swearto her; and if thou knowest not the portent of the Bleeding Star, or ifthou breakest that oath, never in this life, Odysseus, shalt thou winthe golden Helen! And thine own death shall come from the water--theswiftest 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 noship 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. Gofrom my house, and lie down to sleep in my holy ground, within the noiseof the wash of the waves. There sleep, and take thy rest! Thy strengthshall come back to thee, and before the setting of the new sun thoushalt be sailing on the path to The World's Desire. But first drink fromthe chalice on my altar. Fare thee well!"
The voice died into silence, like the dying of music. The Wanderer awokeand lifted his head, but the light had faded, and the temple was grey inthe first waking of the dawn. Yet there, on the altar where no cup hadbeen, stood a deep chalice of gold, full of red wine to the brim. Thisthe Wanderer lifted and drained--a draught of Nepenthe, the magic cupthat puts trouble out of mind. As he drank, a wave of sweet hope wentover his heart, and buried far below it the sorrow of remembrance, andthe trouble of the past, and the longing desire for loves that were nomore.
With a light step he went forth like a younger man, taking the twospears in his hand, and the bow upon his back, and he lay down beneath agreat rock that looked toward the deep, and there he slept.