THE THIRTEENTH PAPYRUS

When white Dawn was come, I left the small Pharos behind. Sihor had become brackish; and a favourable breeze drove us out on to the unvintaged sea. My galley was indeed meet for a king: for all her fitments were of cedar inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl. Her food-service also was of well-chased ephesian silver; and her sail and her awnings were of thick white silk with vermilion bordures and fringes. Furthermore, my master-mariner, Deythes son of Kimon of Naxos, was an honest man, an islander, as well as a mariner of much favour with the Divine Ones who inhabit olympian palaces; and he had never lost a ship. Wherefore, being aware that my equipage was quite worthy of me and of my destiny, I was glad.

But, when I came to ponder Amenemhat’s last prediction, I could not understand it; and it behoved me to understand it very speedily, in order that I might contrive new wiles and suitable: for, at the moment, I was sailing the open sea without a notion as to my destination.

For which cause, I tried my crystal orb of divination: but I saw nothing therein. But, having next refreshed my memory concerning the things which Thalos (who had been Yokkho) saw in the palm-mirror, I read in my note-book these words: The silver god, in the ship, speaking with the azure-haired god on the white horses. And that I might know more about this azure-haired god on the white horses, of whom the innocent eager slave had spoken, I performed the rite of the palm-mirror a second time, having summoned clear-eyed Thalos to me. But he saw nothing in the ink, though he gazed into it and sweated till he swooned from sheer exhaustion. But I was aware, having restored him and having given him to be treated tenderly, that a far greater magic was necessary to explain his utterance and the utterance of Amenemhat, to wit: The silver god, in the ship, speaking to the azure-haired god, on the white horses, and From the Depths of the Dead thou shalt win back the Treasure of Hades. And, when the mother of Dawn, rosy-fingered Morning, was about to come again, bringing light to mortals and immortals, then my galley was alone upon the bluish-grey-green sea.

But I was resolved to try the Rite of Thalattomancy, which is most efficacious; and it may only be performed by a master and prince of the highest degree and most secret initiation and by a sacred ruler of the innermost light. To which end, I caused Nile-water and other proper apparatus to be placed on the lofty poop; and I made a proclamation to my crew, lest curiosity should overcome fear and obedience, that death in shreds (lasting some hours) would be the lot of an interruptor of my solitude in the sight of all. And, having bathed and arrayed myself in my silver panoply, I opened the rite.

Within the square of four pentagons, I drew the four concentric circles with white chalk on the lofty poop-deck, filling them with the proper names. Within these, I drew also the double circle for ebb and flow. And, within the last, I placed a dish of offerings to the seven sea-gods and the silver divination-cup brimming with Nile-water. But I stood between them, wearing the symbols of the Crab and the Moon: for the Crab is a watery sign, and the Moon is the Governess of the Sea. And, having called on the gods of the sea and the moon to be propitious, I burned aloes in a brazier, and I chanted the Spell which releases the souls of the drowned from their torments in the netherworld, providing the forms of birds for clothing them, and treating them to a taste of fresh air, so that (with their wings) they might veil the apparition of a favouring sea-god, an aboundingly holy awful sight not to be viewed excepting by initiates, as it is written: It is not necessary for the novice to believe anything, but only to sacrifice his little pig.

But the cries of my birds, rejoicing in freedom for an hour, came nearer and nearer; and they circled round me closely and more closely, till I seemed to be enclosed in a pillar like a cylinder of whirling wings. And, at the moment of sunrise, the spirits of the moon came knocking at the gates of the waves to summon the divine ones of the sea. But those spirits were of a great and full body, soft and phlegmatic, of colour like a cloud, black, morbid, obscure, having swelling countenances and aspects ready to melt away like an exceeding great rain about the circles. And their particular shapes were a king like an archer riding on a doe, and a little boy, and a woman-hunter with a bow and arrows, and a cow, and a little doe, and a vermilion and silver garment, and many white horses having finny feet.

Then, I seized the cup of divination by both handles, crying aloud the magic Spell, and saying:

“Let him come in the boat. And the name of the boat is Assembler of Souls.

“Let him come with the oars. And the name of the oars is Making The Hair To Stand On End.

“Let him come from the hold. And the name of the hold is Good.

“Let him come by the rudder. And the name of the rudder is Making Straight For The Middle.

“Let him come with the mariners. And the name of the mariners is The Divine Ones Who Have Found Their Faces.

“Let the master-mariner come. And the name of the master-mariner is The Divine One Who Has Never Lost His Face.”

And I held out the cup of divination over the sea, flinging the water of sacred Sihor in a hemicycle of crystal drops as far as I could reach. But the cloud of birds moved away with it; and hovered above a billow with an agitated crest, which they surrounded with innumerably-feathered pinions. Whereby I was aware that a godlike form was manifesting himself in that direction. And, the dawn being fully come, I recited the Invitation to the gods of the sea, using the tongue of the gods.

Then, the answer arrived, very thin and clear, like a cock-crow far away in the stillness of a desert-night, saying: Receive the azure-haired Earth-shaker from the sea.

And the breeze instantly moaned and died; and the waves ceased from lapping against my galley. And my sea-birds made a great confusion in the awful calm, filling it with flashing pinions and plaintive whimperings, and settling into the shape of a dome all formed of beating wings, in which I on my ship and the tridentiferous god of the sea were enclosed, face to face.

The floor of the temple of this blessed vision was the marbled water of the rushing sea, frozen mute and motionless with awe. Throned upon white horses ramping along a curling-crested billow, was the form of wide-ruling sea-stilling earth-shaking Poseidon, king of the ocean, with his court of white-bodied nymphs of the sea attended by scaly tritons. And King Poseidon said: “Much is permitted to thee, O god-beloved Odysseys. For even I, forgetful of our ancient feud, am here to warn thee that severe ordeals of thine endurance are ordained. And my rede to thee is that thou speed to Delphi, there to have sure news of thy quest from the priestess of the Radiant Pure One: for we of the sea are ignorant of what may be intended.”

Thus he spoke; and forthwith the vision dived in deep waters, splashing awfully in disappearing. But I was left alone upon the lofty poop. Wherefore, having summoned Deythes, my shipman, I gave him his course; and, afterward, I rested, for magic is much more wearisome than war. In this manner, I learned that the sea-gods at least were propitious to me, and (also) that I was to go to the shrine of Phoibos Apollon at Delphi, there to receive an oracle and a Pythian revelation.

But, when we had passed Patrai and were making Kirrha (which was the port of Delphi on the Korinthic Gulph), it seemed good to me to prepare a gift, meet to be given by me, a priest and a king, to the domestic prelate of Pythian Phoibos Apollon. For which cause, I took stock of the treasure wherewith Amenemhat had loaded my galley. And indeed it was a generous and a godlike treasure. For there were wedges of virgin gold, weighty, plastic, red as the hair of a lovely girl of Altino of the Heneti, with great cut gems in leathern sacks, and vases and lamps of Korinthic bronze (which is platinum)⁠[36] wrought about with foliage, and tripods of burnished gold fit to stand with those which limping Hephaistos made for himself, and chryselephantine images of gods the work of Pheidias and Praxiteles and Lysippos, and bales of tissues of silver and gold and vermilion, with other treasures innumerable. Moreover, there was a gigantic chariot all of silver, inlaid with crabs and moons in mother-of-pearl; and the spokes of its wheels were images of the heroes, mighty men of old, wine-companions and sword-friends of me when we beleaguered woman-mad Paris and his Phrygians before the walls of windy Ilion. And, poised upon the front of the rail of the silver-shining chariot, there was a silver image of Love, larger than life, blindfolded, naked, most alluringly proportioned, and his well-winged arms were spread abroad in the very act of taking flight. And there were four white horses, a well-matched team, to go before the chariot for the sake of custom: but their harness and caparisons were of white leather with adornments of silver.

Thus, then, I prepared myself for pursuing my quest on land.

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