Part 2

In the still garden that Pythagoras made, The Temple of the Muses, firm as truth, Lucid as beauty, the white marriage-song Made visible, of beauty and truth in one, Flushed with the deepening East. It was no dream. The thrush that with his long beak shook and beat The dark striped snail-shell on the marble flags Between the cool white columns told me this. The birds among the silvery olives pealed So many jargoning rivulet-throated bells That in their golden clashings discord drowned, And one wild harmony closed and crowned them all And yet, as if the spread wings of a hawk Froze in the sky above them, every note Died on an instant. Over the sparkling grass The long dark shadows of ash and pine began To shrink, as though the rising of the sun Menaced, not only shadows, but the world.

A frightened bird flew, crying, and scattering dew Blindly away; though, on this dawn of dawns, Nothing had changed. The Golden Brotherhood stole Up through the drifts of wet rose-laurel bloom As on so many a dawn for many a year, To make their morning vows. They thronged the porch, The lean athletes of truth, trained body and mind, For their immortal trial. Among them towered Milon, the soldier-wrestler. His brown limbs Moved with the panther’s grace, the warrior’s pride; Milon, who in the Olympic contests won Crown after crown, but wore them on broad brows Cut like fine steel for thought; and, in his eyes, Carried the light of those deep distances That challenge the spirit of man. They entered in; And, like the very Muses following them, Theano, and her Golden Sisterhood, First of that chosen womanhood, by the grace Of whose heaven-walking souls the race ascends, Passed through the shining porch. It was no dream. In the bright marble, under the sandalled feet, And in the glimmering columns as they passed, The reflex of their flowing vestments glowed White, violet, saffron, like another dawn.

...

Before them, through the temple’s fragrant gloom, The Muses, in their dim half-circle, towered; And, in the midst, over the smouldering myrrh, The form of Hestia. In her mighty shadow, Pythagoras, with a scroll in his right hand, Arose and spoke. “Our work is well-nigh done. Our enemies are closing round us now. I have given the sacred scrolls into the hands Of Lysis; and, though all else be destroyed, If but a Golden Verse or two live on In other lands, and kindle other souls To seek the law, our work is not in vain. If it be death that comes to us, we shall lose Nothing that could endure. It was not chance That sent us on this pilgrimage through time, But that which lives within us, the desire Of gods, to know what once was dark in heaven. Gods were not gods who, in eternal bliss, Had never known this wonder—the deep joy Of coming home. But we have purchased it, And now return, enriched with memories Of mortal love, terrestrial grief and pain, Into our own lost realm.” His dark eyes flashed. He lifted his proud head as one who heard Strains of immortal music even now. He towered among the Muses in the dusk, And then, as though he, too, were carved in stone, And all their voices breathed through his own voice, “Fear nothing now,” he said. “Our foes can steal The burdens we lay down, but nothing more. All that we are we keep. They strike at shadows And cannot hurt us. Little as we may know, We have learned at least to know the abiding Power From these poor masks of clay. This dust, this flesh, All that we see and touch, are shadows of it, And hourly change and perish. Have we not seen Cities and nations, all that is built of earth, Fleeting into the darkness, like grey clouds, And only one thing constant—the great law, The eternal order of their march to death? Have we not seen it written upon the hills? The continents and seas do not endure. They change their borders. Where the seas are now Mountains will rise; and, where the land was, once, The dark Atlantic ends the world for man. But all these changes are not wrought by chance. They follow a great order. It may be That all things are repeated and reborn; And, in their mighty periods, men return And pass through their forgotten lives anew. It may be; for, at times, the mind recalls— Or half recalls—the turning of a road, A statue on a hill, a passing face.... It may be; for our universe is bound In rhythm; and the setting star will rise. This many a cunning ballad-singer knows Who haunts the mind of man with dark refrains; Or those deep poets who foretell in verse The restoration of the world’s great Year. Time never fails. Not Tanais, or the Nile Can flow for ever. They spring up and perish; But, after many changes, it may be These, too, return, with Egypt and her kings.”

He paused a moment; then compassion, grief, Wonder and triumph, like one music, spoke Farewell to shadows, from his own deep soul Rapt, in pure vision, above the vanishing world: “The torrents drag the rocks into the sea. The great sea smiles, and overflows the land. It hollows out the valleys and returns. The sea has washed the shining rocks away And cleft the headland with its golden fields That once bound Sicily to her mother’s breast. Pharos, that was an island, far from shore When Homer sang, is wedded now and one With Egypt. The wild height where Sappho stood, The beautiful, white, immortal promontory, Crowned with Apollo’s temple, long ago The struggling seas have severed from the land. And those fair Grecian cities, Helice And Buris, wondering fishermen see, far down, With snowy walls and columns all aslant, Trembling under the unremembering wave. The waters of Anigris, that were sweet As love, are bitter as death. There was a time When Etna did not burn. A time will come When it will cease to burn; for all things change; And mightier things by far have changed than these In the slow lapse of never-ending time. I have seen an anchor on the naked hills, And ocean-shells among the mountain-tops. Continents, oceans, all things pass away; But One, One only; for the Eternal Mind Enfolds all changes, and can never change.”

II. DEATH IN THE TEMPLE

Night on Crotona, night without a star. I heard the mob, outside the Temple, roaring _Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!_

Before the flushed white columns, in the glare Of all those angry torches, Cylon stood Wickedly smiling. “They have barred the doors. Pythagoras and his forty chosen souls Are all within. They are trapped, and they shall die. It will be best to whet the people’s rage Before we lay the axe, or set the torch Against the Muses’ temple. One wild howl Of ‘sacrilege’ may defeat us.”—This he called “Faith in the people.” He moistened his dry lips, And raised his hand. The savage clamouring ceased. One breathless moment, ere he spoke, he paused, Gathering his thoughts. His thin white weasel face Narrowed, his eyes contracted. In their pain —Pain pitiable, a torment of the mind— A bitter memory burned, of how he sued To join that golden brotherhood in vain. For when the Master saw him, he discerned A spirit in darkness, violent, empty of thought, But full of shallow vanity, cunning lies, Intense ambition. All now was turned to hate; Hate the destroyer of men, the wrecker of cities, The last disease of nations; hate, the fire That eats away the heart; hate, the lean rat That gnaws the brain, till even reason glares Like madness through blind eyes; hate, the thin snake That coils like whip-cord round the victim’s soul And strangles it; hate, that slides up through his throat, And with its flat and quivering head usurps The function of his tongue,—to sting and sting, Till all that poison which is now his life Is drained, and he lies dead; hate, that still lives, And for the power to strike and sting again, May yet destroy this world. So Cylon stood, Quivering a moment, in the fiery glare, Over the multitude. Then, in his right hand, He shook a roll of parchment over his head, Crying, _The Master said it_! At that word, A snarl, as of a myriad-throated beast, Broke out again, and deepened into a roar— _Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!_

Cylon upheld his hand, as if to bless A stormy sea with calm. The howling died Into a deadly hush. With twisted lips He spoke.

“This is their Scroll, the Sacred Word, The Secret Doctrine of their Golden Order! Hear it!” Then, interweaving truth with lies, Till even the truth struck like a venomed dart Into his hearers’ minds, he read aloud His cunningly chosen fragments. At the end, He tore the scroll, and trampled it underfoot. “Ye have heard,” he said. “Ye are kin to all the beasts! And, when ye die, your souls again inhabit Bodies of beasts, wild beasts, and beasts of burden. Even yet more loathsome—he that will not starve His flesh, and tame himself and all mankind To bear this golden yoke shall, after death, Dwell in the flesh of swine. He that rejects This wisdom shall, hereafter, seek the light Through endless years, with toads, asps, creeping things. Thus would they exile all our happier gods! Away with Bacchus and his feasts of joy! Back, Aphrodite, to your shameful foam! Men must be tamed, like beasts. The Master said it! And wherefore? There are certain lordly souls Who rise above the beasts, and talk with gods. These are his Golden Brotherhood; these must rule! Ye heard that verse from Homer—whom he loves— Homer, the sycophant, who could call a prince ‘The shepherd of his people.’ What are ye, Even in this life, then, but their bleating flocks? _The Master said it!_ Homer—his demi-god, Ye know his kind; ye know whence Homer sprang; An old blind beggarman, singing for his food, Through every city in Greece”—(This Cylon called Honouring the people)—“already he is outworn, Forgotten, without a word for this young age; And great Pythagoras crowns him! When they choose Their Golden Brotherhood, they lay down their laws, Declaring none may rule until he learn, Prostrate himself in reverence to the dead, And pass, through golden discipline, to power Over himself and you; but—mark this well— Under Pythagoras! Discipline! Ah, that path Is narrow and difficult. Only three hundred souls, Aristocrats of knowledge, have attained This glory. It is against the people’s will To know, or to acknowledge those that know, Or let their knowledge lead them for one hour. For see—see how the gods have driven them mad, Even in their knowledge! In their own Sacred Scroll, Pythagoras, who derives you from the beasts, Affirms that earth, this earth beneath our feet, Spins like a little planet round the sun!”

A brutal bellowing, as of Asian bulls, Boomed from a thousand mouths. (This Cylon called The laughter of the people and their gods.) He raised his hand. It ceased. “_This_ is their knowledge, And _this_,” he cried, “their charter to obscure What all men know, the natural face of things. _This_ proves their right to rule us from above. They meet here nightly. Nightly they conspire Against your rights, your liberties, and mine. Was it not they who, when the people rose In Sybaris, housed her noble fugitives here? And was it not Pythagoras who refused To send them back to Sybaris and their death? Was it not this that plunged us into war With Sybaris; and, when victory crowned our arms, Who but Pythagoras robbed us of its fruits? We gathered booty, and he called it theft. We burned their palaces, and he called it hate. We avenged our sons. He called it butchery, And said the wild beast wakes again in man. What have we gained, then? Nothing but the pride Of saving those Pythagoras wished to save; Counting gold dross, and serving his pure gods. _The Master said it._ What is your judgment, then?” He stretched one hand, appealing to the crowd, And one to the white still Temple. “_Death! Death! Death!_” Under the flaring torches, the long waves Of tense hot faces opened a thousand mouths, Little blue pits of shadow that raced along them, And shook the red smoke with one volleying roar,— _Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!_

...

But, in the Temple, through those massive walls, While Cylon spoke, no whisper had been heard; Only, at times, a murmur, when he paused, As of a ninth wave breaking, far away.

The half-moon of the Muses, crowned with calm, Towered through the dimness. Under their giant knees, In their immortal shadow, those who knew How little was their knowledge waited death Proudly, around their Master. Robed in white, Beautiful as Apollo in old age, He stood amongst them, laying a gentle hand, One last caress, upon that dearest head Bowed there before him, his own daughter’s hair. Then, tenderly, the god within him moved His mortal lips; and, in the darkness there, He spoke, as though the music of the spheres Welled from his heart, to ease the hurts of death.

“Not tears, belovèd. Give it welcome, rather! Soon, though they spared us, this blind flesh would fail. They are saving us the weary mile or two That end a dusty journey. The dull stains Of travel; the soiled vesture; the sick heart That hoped at every turning of the road To see the Perfect City, and hoped in vain, Shall grieve us now no more. Now, at the last, After a stern novitiate, iron test, And grinding failures, the great light draws near, And we shall pass together, through the Veil.”

He bowed his head. It was their hour of prayer; And, from among the Muses in the dark, A woman’s voice, a voice in ecstasy, As if a wound should bless the sword that made it, Breathed through the night the music of their law:

_Close not thine eyes in sleep_ _Till thou hast searched thy memories of the day,_ _Graved in thy heart the vow thou didst not keep,_ _And called each wandering thought back to the way._

_Pray to the gods! Their aid,_ _Their aid alone can crown thy work aright;_ _Teach thee that song whereof all worlds were made;_ _Rend the last veil, and feed thine eyes with light._

_Naught shall deceive thee, then._ _All creatures of the sea and earth and air,_ _The circling stars, the warring tribes of men_ _Shall make one harmony, and thy soul shall hear._

_Out of this prison of clay_ _With lifted face, a mask of struggling fire,_ _With arms of flesh and bone stretched up to pray,_ _Dumb, thou shalt hear that Voice of thy desire._

_Thou that wast brought so low;_ _And through those lower lives hast risen again,_ _Kin to the beasts, with power at last to know_ _Thine own proud banishment and diviner pain;_

_Courage, O conquering soul!_ _For all the boundless night that whelms thee now,_ _Though worlds on worlds into that darkness roll,_ _The gods abide; and of their race art thou!_

There was a thunder of axes at the doors; A glare as of a furnace; and the cry, _Death to Pythagoras! Death to those who know!_

Then, over the streaming smoke and the wild light That like a stormy sunset sank away Into a darker night, the deeper mist Rolled down, and of that death I knew no more.

II

ARISTOTLE

I. YOUTH AND THE SEA

The mists unfolded on a sparkling coast Washed by a violet sea. It was no dream. The clustering irised bubbles in the foam, The grinding stir as through the shining pebbles The wave ran back; the little drifts of smoke Where wet black rocks dried grey in the hot sun; The pods of sea-weed, crackling underfoot, All told me this. My comrade at my side, Moved like a shadow. I turned a promontory, And like a memory of my own lost youth, Shining and far, across the gulf I saw Stagira, like a little city of snow, Under the Thracian hills. Nothing had changed. I saw the City where that Greek was born Who ranged all art, all life, and lit a fire That shines yet, after twice a thousand years; And strange, but strange as truth, it was to hear No slightest change in that old rhythmic sound Of waves against the shore. Then, at my side, My soul’s companion whispered, all unseen, ‘Two thousand years have hidden him from the world, Robed him in grey and bearded him with eld, Untrue to his warm life. There was a time When he was young as truth is; and the sun Browned his young body, danced in his young grey eyes; And look—the time is now.’ There, as he spoke, I saw among the rocks on my right hand, Lying, face downward, over a deep rock-pool, A youth, so still that, till a herring-gull swooped And sheered away from him with a startled cry And a wild flutter of its brown mottled wings, I had not seen him. Quietly we drew near, As shadows may, unseen. He pored intent Upon a sea-anemone, like a flower Opening its disk of blue and crimson rays Under the lucid water. He stretched his hand, And with a sea-gull’s feather, touched its heart. The bright disk shrank, and closed, as though a flower Turned instantly to fruit, ripe, soft, and round As the pursed lips of a sea-god hiding there. They fastened, sucking, on the quill and held it. Young Aristotle laughed. He rose to his feet. “Come and see this!” he called. Under the cliff Nicomachus arose, and drawing his robe More closely round him, crossed the slippery rocks To join his son. There, side by side, they crouched Over the limpid pool,—the grey physician And eager boy. “See, how it grips the feather! And grips the rock, too. Yet it has no roots. Your sea-flowers turn to animals with mouths. Take out the quill. Now it turns back again Into a flower; look—look—what lovely colours, What marvellous artistry. This never was formed By chance. It has an aim beyond this pool. What does it mean? This unity of design? This delicate scale of life that seems to ascend Without a break, through all the forms of earth From plants to men? The sea-sponge that I found Grew like a blind rock-rooted clump of moss Dilating in water, shrinking in the sun; I know it for a strange sea-animal now, Shaped like the brain of a man. Can it be true That, as the poets fable in their songs Of Aphrodite, life itself was born Here, in the sea?” Nicomachus looked at him. “That’s a dark riddle, my son. You will not hear An answer in the groves of Academe, Not even from Plato. When you go to Athens Next year, remember, among the loftiest flights Of their philosophy, that the living truth Is here on earth if we could only see it. This, this at least, all true Asclepiads know. Remember, always, in that battle of words, The truth that father handed down to son Through the long line of men that served their kind From Æsculapius, father of us all, To you his own descendant:—naught avails In science, till the light you seize from heaven Shines through the clear sharp fact beneath your feet. This is the test of both—that, in their wedding, The light that was a disembodied dream Burns through the fact, and makes a lanthorn of it, Transfigures it, confirms it, gives it new And deeper meanings; and itself, in turn, Is thereby seen more truly. Use your eyes; And you, or those that follow you, will outsoar Pythagoras. He believed the soul descends From the pure realm of gods; is clothed with clay; And, struggling upward through a myriad forms, After a myriad lives and deaths, returns Enriched with all those memories, lord of all That knowledge, master of all those griefs and pains As else it could not be, home to the gods, Itself a god, prepared for the full bliss, The living consummation of the whole. Earth must be old, if all these things are true. But take this tale and read it. If it seem Only a tale, the light in it has turned Dark facts to lanthorns for me. There are tales More true than any fragment of the truth.

One of his homeless clan (who came to me Dying), his last disciple’s wandering son, Gave me the scroll. I give it now to you,— The young swift-footed runner with the fire. You’ll find strange thoughts; and, woven into the close, His Golden Verses, with a thought more strange.”

Then, from his breast, the Asclepiad drew a scroll, Smooth as old ivory, honey-stained by time, A wand of whispering magic; and the boy Seized it with brown young hands. His father smiled And turned away, between the shining pools To seek Stagira. Under his sandalled feet The sea-weeds crackled. His footsteps crunched away Along the beach. Upon a sun-warmed rock The boy outspread the curled papyrus-roll, Keeping each corner in place with a small grey stone. There, while the white robe drifting down the coast Grew smaller and smaller, till at last it seemed A flake of vanishing foam, he lay full length, Reading the tale. The salt on his brown skin Dried to a faint white powder in the sun. Over him, growing bold, the peering gulls Wheeled closer, as he lay there, tranced and still; Till, through the tale, the golden verses breathed Like a returning music, rhythmic tones Changed by new voices, coloured by new minds, Yet speaking still for one time-conquering soul, As on the shore the wandering ripples changed And tossed new spray-drops into the sparkling air, Yet pulsed with the ancient breathing of the sea:

_Guard the immortal fire._ _Honour the glorious line of the great dead._ _To the new height let all thy soul aspire;_ _But let those memories be thy wine and bread._

_Quench not in any shrine_ _The smouldering storax. In no human heart_ _Quench what love kindled. Faintly though it shine,_ _Not till it wholly dies the gods depart._