THE TWENTY-SECOND PAPYRUS

But, when we had come to the beautiful plains of earth, there were spread before our feet (for us to walk upon) pleasaunces of emerald grass studded with jewels of daisies and bluebells and daffodils and buttercups and cyclamen, with swathes of poppies, and with splashes of pure gold crocus dropped straight down from the radiant sun. Then, indeed, I (as a mortal man) found a fit time when I might give way to human weakness: for a man who does godlike deeds must pay a price. And, because my head swam with weariness, and because every part of me ached from my sunned skin to my white bones, and because every sense of me was sickened by the slime and corrupt blood of hellish menials wherewith I was crusted from crest to sandals, then, I longed to be visited by barbers and clean slaves, and, also, I had a keen remembrance of the willing and alluring look which the young god with the horn of eye-closing dust had shot at me by shady Hades’ hall, seeming to ask for an invitation. But I thought on these things particularly, as (with Golden Helen) I paced a soft meadow bloomed of violets and parsley, breathing the sweet air.

And Golden Helen perceived how it was with me: for two (who love) are one. Beside, being a woman, she needed but a single service from me, to wit, that I should never leave untold the never-to-be-outworn story of my love for her; and that (to me) was no toil, but a pleasure perennial. And, for the rest, she (the one woman of women and the divine one of goddesses) had no other joy than that of caring for her lover. Wherefore, she sat down on a thymy bank in the shade of a may-bush: but I reclined by her side. Thus, we rested, during a little while, watching the slaves beginning to clear my chariot and my gear: for a cheerful brook ran by the place, sparing enough water for their work, but not enough for the cleansing of a man as well. But I intended, after resting, to seek a site apart, for my own embellishment. And, while these things were being done, a remarkable portent and a signal favour of a god were manifested, which I will at once narrate.

For, when we emerged from the fissure in the earth whereby we evacuated the abysm, it clapped-to behind us, just as did that other gulph which formerly yawned for showy Curtius in the forum of Rome.⁠[54] And the living silver Love, my charioteer, folded his wings, while we paused to breathe the upper air. But when we sat down to rest upon the thymy bank, his clear young voice, with a shout of laughter, called us by name. But we, starting, looked toward the sound; and the silver Love, poised all alive on the front of the chariot, bade us to come near and observe him closely. Thus we did; and the large volatile boy turned on his hips, spreading his quivering wings to balance himself; and he shewed us (and we perceived it) that he was girded about the reins with a fine silver chain, the two taslets whereof dangled down behind him as far as the rail of the chariot. And thus he chirruped: “Lady of Love, and Lord of the Lady of Love, give me leave to make other lovers happy in the intervals. But call me to serve you when you will, pulling the chain this way or that, having enslaved me and bound me to you by unbreakable fetters at present unseen.”

And, with the word, the god returned to his position, poising himself as before with wide-spread wings. But he came (a large boy’s form of flesh, ruddy and white as roses, slender and splendidly rounded), out of the silver leaving his image behind him. And, leaping free with far-flung limbs and strongly-waving arms, he stretched himself out at length, swimming in the higher air out of our sight.

But my head began to whirl faster and faster. I saw Neandros and Thalos arising after they had adored the blooming god, and I felt that Golden Helen was conducting me again to the thymy bank. And, coming nearer, I heard the sweet sound of a syrinx of pipes, and the bushes rustled as though some divine one were approaching. But, instantly, the divine of goddesses cried out, saying: “Oh Pan! O obliging Pan!”

But the country-god pushed aside the branches, peering at us from the screen of green leaves, being shy in the quivering sunshine of noon. And, when he saw who we were, he came forth and greeted us; and he led us through the may-bushes to a little grove, on the bank of a deep stream, with a waterfall and a pool, and mossy-soft couches of moly in the shade, all of which (I believe) he invented at the moment. And, having gathered handfuls of the herb All-heal, knowing Pan eased me of my dinted armour: but fair Helen bathed me, and she bound the magic herb on my bruised and weary limbs. Then, indeed, I summoned benign Sleep, while Pan piped me a simple rustic ballad very soothing to the mind.

And there, in the grove, we rested during several days. For I contrived a new wile, which was that I would not hurry on my journey to lofty Olympos, but rather delay a little: for an unwilling guest has the greater honour. Moreover, I did not wish to appear before the blessed gods in a squalid or a sordid guise, but rather as a personage more accustomed to giving than to receiving, since I was actually a suppliant to great Zeys for the hand of his daughter; and it is the custom of gods and men to give the best gifts to well-seeming mortals. For which causes, I took my fill of rest, so that my strength returned, while my slaves (in the neighbouring glade) polished my arms and my chariot as best they might, to make a respectable appearance. For magic is waived before Pan, and men must depend entirely on their natural powers in his presence unless the god himself suggests otherwise.

But, by chance, Hermes (my grandsire), passing by on a message, espied us one day; and he stayed his flight while he spoke with us. He said that there was much talk on the height of Olympos, because of our absence, and because the divine ones (witnesses of my acts in the house of shady Hades) had entered into a compact one with another to keep silence on those matters, so that the whole areiopagos of heaven might hear them (if I so willed) from my own mouth. Which was a very pleasant hearing for me; and, indeed, I thought it extremely nice and delicate on the part of the gods. But I answered Hermes meekly enough, saying that it was not for me, a mortal, to enter heavenly dominions in a manner unworthy of my grandsire. And my wile proved to be an excellent one. For Hermes, having had a word with kindly Pan, fled (swift-footed) away, presently returning with slow-footed Hephaistos and a portable smithy. For Hephaistos, being proud of the armour which he made for the son of silver-footed Thetis, was unwilling that the hands of slaves should renew its splendour. But when his forge was set up, in the neighbouring glade, the divine artificer (out of admiration for me) deigned to employ Neandros and Thalos as his assistants instead of a parcel of kyklops of immoderate unsightliness: more, also, he let them learn several very important tricks of his trade, when he observed that they were intelligent workmen of ingenious and reverend mind. Such mortals, as a matter of fact, do the gods usually select, when imparting knowledge of the arts.

Thus, then, we passed the time, living on cheeses and nuts and blackberries and dandelions with the luscious milk of incontinent goats of amiable demeanour, while I continued to repose myself, cared-for by the divine one of goddesses and cheered by old Pan. He, indeed, entertained me vastly with stories of the youth of the world, when Great Zeys lay hid in Krete and the older gods were yet unborn; and, at other times, he attuned his reedy pipes intonating quaint songs of the woodlands. And once, while long-robed Helen slept in the heat of the day, the knowing old god persuaded some dryads to come out of the oak-trees in the grove to fan away the flies when I was dozing: but he himself sat among the reeds not far away, chatting with the cheerful little brown and silver river. They were very slim young girls (these dryads), with flesh as white as an acorn-kernel, with long smooth hair of the colour of oak-bark, and shy green eyes of the colour of oak-leaves, and excessively modest and timid of disposition. But, when fair Helen awakened from sleep, and spied the industrious little creatures, her sweet face flushed like rosy dawn, and she frightened the shy nymphs quite away by her bleak mode of thanking them for their care of me. Nor was I puffed with vanity: for I am not the only complacent mortal who has been an occasion of jealousy to a goddess.

But, at another time, while sweet Helen was washing her robes in the pool, rustic Pan took leave to inform me (as a friend) of her history during the previous ten centuries. And I will say that Pan was the only one of all the blessed gods who did not ascribe my own stories about myself, and about my future life in the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, to some one or other of my usual altogether-unexpected wiles. But Pan knows all. And he told me how that (when I fell dead in my former chariot, from the arrow of unknowing Telegonos), my son and that awful goddess Kirke’s, in Egypt, more than a thousand years before, then, the divine one of goddesses, Helen, had behaved very queerly indeed: for she shewed as much grief as though she herself had caused my demise. Pan said that many persons called her grief remorse: which is absurd. But, having vowed herself anyhow to my memory, she prepared to wander through time, mourning, until my coming again. And heroes and kings’ sons without number sought her in marriage: whom having scorned fearfully (as far as so gentle a creature could scorn), she retired to find commodious seclusion on lofty Olympos. But, there, a certain Kyknos, a son (they say) of far-darting Phoibos Apollon, persuaded that god to demand her for him from Great Zeys. But the father and king of gods and men only confirmed (with a nod) the maiden’s right of choice. Thereat, blameless Kyknos would have taken her by force, following the custom of Olympians: but her brothers, Kastor the tamer of horses and Polydeykes the pugilist, beat on his nose so very bitterly, that beef-eating Herakles wakened from slumber adding his shouts to the tumult. Which having been explained to him, he promptly tossed Kyknos to earth from lofty Olympos, breaking him. And Phoibos Apollon felt it incumbent upon him to take up the cause of Kyknos and to be extremely prepotent about it. But Great Zeys, upset by cow-eyed Hera (most righteous of goddesses), shrouded himself in black clouds, having decreed that the fragments of broken Kyknos must stay below to satisfy Golden Helen, and that she (the divine one of goddesses) must not stay above, being a cause of disorderly conduct among the young gods. But Phoibos Apollon collected the pieces of Kyknos, as many as he could find, wherewith he made a new swan (that lickerish fowl) entirely black.⁠[55] But Golden Helen, debarred from the height of Olympos, and her honour in peril from hairy men down below, betook herself further, even to the profundity of the netherworld, where the gods were austere, and men but senseless shades, phantoms of men worn out. And there she lived in exile, all for the sake of me, divested of godlihood, enduring ten centuries of sorrow, the inevitable penance for the glowing glory of her immortal inmarcesible youth.

But, having heard all these things babbled-of by rustic Pan one day when we dawdled together (and I could not learn them from fair Helen, for reasons of modesty), then, indeed, I held a sort of council with the mind in my noble breast. And I determined that, as far as I was concerned, she certainly should be rewarded for her grievous pains. For the best of women wants no more than a little true love; and well indeed did I know that that man is a blind besotted imbecile who, in pride or what-not, denies himself the pleasure of making a woman happy with what she wants, excepting (of course) for a religious reason. And, furthermore, I was aware that I myself was by way of owing a clearly-defined duty to the golden one of goddesses, in that I owed a debt of love to her, not only for her fidelity, or as amends for her wrongs, but chiefly because she had procured for me several pleasing and exciting and singular adventures, teaching me how to win the Crown of All Wisdom. The which debt I determined to pay forthwith.

Thereafter, I spoke not a word of these pious matters: but fair Helen was not unaware that I knew all that Pan could tell me, not as her accredited embassador but as the trusty friend of us both. And, when I suddenly became very eager and insistent for nuptials, she would not deny me: but she mentioned that a bride ought to be brought from her paternal home to the house of her husband. Which doctrine I accepted. And I said that I would contain myself till her case and my case had been suitably pleaded before very mighty many-named Zeys. That, then, was to be the object of our visit to the height of Olympos. For it pleased me better to go thus, on a matter of business, than merely to arrive, sleek, grinning, and complacent, to receive prizes and praises for athletic achievements and feats of endurance and wiliness, which, though most meritorious and praiseworthy, and valuable also, inasmuch as they gained for me the friendship of several very important gods (whose friendship is much preferable to their enmity), were, I affirm, rather to be classed with my ordinary habits than with my virtues.

Anon, cunning Hephaistos restored to me my shining armour of silver with adornments of rock-crystals and blue moonstones in all its pristine splendour: but he returned forthwith to Olympian palaces. Neandros and Thalos also brought my silver chariot, polished in all its parts with a sheen like the full moon, and its secret recesses were well-filled with water and oil. But, when we had placed my gear therein, we said farewell to kindly Pan. And, in the cool of the evening, I led the divine one of goddesses to her place at the front: but I mounted by her side; and the slaves climbed up behind. But fair Helen pulled the fine chain by its taslet; and the whole chariot vibrated for sheer joy, panting and pulsating like a creature enjoying sweet life: for, at the same moment, young Eros dived out of open space, and the silver image of him started into perfervid life, boiling with force and merrily hooting.⁠[56] But we, leaping forward with his beating wings, skimmed into distance more swiftly than an owl in flight. All through the cool night we went at tireless speed: but, whether over sea or land, I cannot say. For, in good sooth, I was not aware of anything, save that the moon serene and the flagrant Crab smiled upon me from the dark-blue sky, that I was no longer dawdling but active and very strong, that Golden Helen was with me for good and all, and that Love was my charioteer.

In this manner, I set forth from the silvan grove where goat-footed Pan had been entertaining me.

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