So the boat was made fast, the anchor was weighed, the sails were set, and the little sloop bent to the breeze and kissed the wave, as she rounded the headland and stood up the Bay, with Colonel George Talbot encircling with his arm his faithful wife, and with the gallant Cornet Murray sitting at his side.
They had now an additional reason for caution against search. So Murray ordered the skipper to shape his course over to the eastern shore, and to keep in between the islands and the main. This is a broad circuit outside of their course; but Roger is promised a reward by Mrs. Talbot, to compensate him for his loss of time; and the skipper is very willing. They had fetched a compass, as the Scripture phrase is, to the shore of Dorset County, and steered inside of Hooper's Island, into the month of Hungary River. Here it was part of the scheme to dismiss the faithful Roger from further service. With this view they landed on the island and went to Mr. Hooper's house, where they procured a supply of provisions, and immediately afterwards reembarked,—having clean forgotten Roger, until they were once more under full sail up the Bay, and too far advanced to turn back!
The deserted skipper bore his disappointment like a Christian; and being asked, on Hungary River, by a friend who met him there, and who gave his testimony before the Council, "What brought him there?" he replied, "He had been left on the island by Madam Talbot." And to another, "Where Madam Talbot was?" he answered, "She had gone up the Bay to her own house." Then, to a third question, "How he expected his pay?" he said, "He was to have it of Colonel Darnall and Major Sewall; and that Madam Talbot had promised him a hogshead of tobacco extra, for putting ashore at Hooper's Island." The last question was, "What news of Talbot?" and Roger's answer, "He had not been within twenty miles of him; neither did he know anything about the Colonel" !! But, on further discourse, he let fall, that "he knew the Colonel never would come to a trial,"—"thatheknew this; but neither man, woman, nor child should know it, but those who knew it already."
So Colonel George Talbot is out of the hands of the proud Lord Effingham, and up the Bay with his wife and friends; and is buffeting the wintry head-winds in a long voyage to the Elk River, which, in due time, he reaches in safety.
Let us now turn back to see what is doing at St. Mary's.
On the 17th of February comes to the Council a letter from Lord Effingham. It has the superscription, "These, with the greatest care and speed." It is dated on the 11th of February from Poropotanck, an Indian point on the York River above Gloucester, and memorable as being in the neighborhood of the spot where, some sixty years before these events, Pocahontas saved the life of that mirror of chivalry, Captain John Smith.
The letter brings information "that last night [the 10th of February] Colonel Talbot escaped out of prison,"—a subsequent letter says, "by the corruption of his guard,"—and it is full of admonition, which has very much the tone of command, urging all strenuous efforts to recapture him, and particularly recommending a proclamation of "hue and cry."
And now, for a month, there is a great parade in Maryland of proclamation, and hue and cry, and orders to sheriffs and county colonels to keep a sharp look-out everywhere for Talbot. But no person in the Province seems to be anxious to catch him, except Mr. Nehemiah Blakiston, the Collector, and a few others, who seem to have been ministering to Lord Effingham's spleen against the Council for not capturing him. His Lordship writes several letters of complaint at the delay and ill success of this pursuit, and some of them in no measured terms of courtesy. "I admire," he says in one of these, "at any slow proceedings in service wherein his Majesty is so concerned, and hope you will take off all occasions of future trouble, both unto me and you, of this nature, by manifesting yourselves zealous for his Majesty's service." They answer, that all imaginable care for the apprehending of Talbot has been taken by issuing proclamations, etc.,—but all have proved ineffectual, because Talbot upon all occasions flies and takes refuge "in the remotest parts of the woods and deserts of this Province."
At this point we get some traces of Talbot. There is a deposition of Robert Kemble of Cecil County, and some other papers, that give us a few particulars by which I am enabled to construct my narrative.
Colonel Talbot got to his own house about the middle of February,—nearly at the same time at which the news of his escape reached St. Mary's. He there lay warily watching the coming hue and cry for his apprehension. He collected his friends, armed them, and set them at watch and ward, at all his outposts. He had a disguise provided, in which he occasionally ventured abroad. Kemble met him, on the 19th of February, at George Oldfield's, on Elk River; and although the Colonel was disguised in a flaxen wig, and in other ways, Kemble says he knew him by hearing him cough in the night, in a room adjoining that in which Kemble slept. Whilst this witness was at Oldfield's, "Talbot's shallop," he says, "was busking and turning before Oldfield's landing for several hours." The roads leading towards Talbot's house were all guarded by his friends, and he had a report made to him of every vessel that arrived in the river. By way of more permanent concealment, until the storm should blow over, he had made preparations to build himself a cabin, somewhere in the woods out of the range of the thoroughfares of the district. When driven by a pressing emergency which required more than ordinary care to prevent his apprehension, he betook himself to the cave on the Susquehanna, where, most probably, with a friend or two,—Cornet Murray I hope was one of them,—he lay perdu for a few days at a time, and then ventured back to speak a word of comfort and encouragement to the faithful wife who kept guard at home.
In this disturbed and anxious alternation of concealment and flight Talbot passed the winter, until about the 25th of April, when, probably upon advice of friends, he voluntarily surrendered himself to the Council at St. Mary's, and was committed for trial in the provincial Court. The fact of the surrender was communicated to Lord Effingham by the Council, with a request that he would send the witnesses to Maryland to appear at his trial. Hereupon arose another correspondence with his Lordship, which is worthy of a moment's notice. Lord Effingham has lost nothing of his arrogance. He says, on the 12th of May, 1685, "I am so far from answering your desires, that I do hereby demand Colonel Talbot as my prisoner, in the King of England's name, and that you do forthwith convey him into Virginia. And to this my demand I expect your ready performance and compliance, upon your allegiance to his Majesty."
I am happy to read the answer to this insolent letter, in which it will be seen that the spirit of Maryland was waked up on the occasion to its proper voice.—It is necessary to say, by way of explanation to one point in this answer, that the Governor of Virginia had received the news of the accession and proclamation of James the Second, and had not communicated it to the Council in Maryland. The Council give an answer at their leisure, having waited till the 1st of June, when they write to his Lordship, protesting against Virginia's exercising any superintendence over Maryland, and peremptorily refusing to deliver Talbot. They tell him "that we are desirous and conclude to await his Majesty's resolution, [in regard to the prisoner,] which we question not will be agreeable to his Lordship's Charter, and, consequently, contrary to your expectations. In the mean time we cannot but resent in some measure, for we are willing to let you see that we observe, the small notice you seem to take of this Government, (contrary to that amicable correspondence so often promised, and expected by us,) in not holding us worthy to be advised of his Majesty's being proclaimed, without which, certainly, we have not been enabled to do our duty in that particular. Such advice would have been gratefully received by your Excellency's humble servants." Thanks, Colonels Darnall and Digges and you other Colonels and Majors, for this plain outspeaking of the old Maryland heart against the arrogance of the "Right Honorable Lord Howard, Baron of Effingham, Captain General and Chief Governor of his Majesty's Colony of Virginia," as he styles himself! I am glad to see this change of tone, since that first letter of obsequious submission.
Perhaps this change of tone may have had some connection with the recent change on the throne, in which the accession of a Catholic monarch may have given new courage to Maryland, and abated somewhat the confidence of Virginia. If so, it was but a transitory hope, born to a sad disappointment.
The documents afford but little more information.
Lord Baltimore, being in London, appears to have interceded with the King for some favor to Talbot, and writes to the Council on the third of July, "that it formerly was and still is the King's pleasure, that Talbot shall be brought over, in the Quaker Ketch, to England, to receive his trial there; and that, in order thereto, his Majesty had sent his commands to the Governor of Virginia to deliver him to Captain Allen, commander of said ketch, who is to bring him over." The Proprietary therefore directs his Council to send the prisoner to the Governor of Virginia, "to the end that his Majesty's pleasure may be fulfilled."
This letter was received on the 7th of October, 1685, and Talbot was accordingly sent, under the charge of Gilbert Clarke and a proper guard, to Lord Effingham, who gives Clarke a regular business receipt, as if he had brought him a hogshead of tobacco, and appends to it a short apologetic explanation of his previous rudeness, which we may receive as another proof of his distrust of the favor of the new monarch. "I had not been so urgent," he says, "had I not had advices from England, last April, of the measures that were taken there concerning him."
After this my chronicle is silent. We have no further tidings of Talbot. The only hint for a conjecture is the marginal note of "The Landholder's Assistant," got from Chalmers: "He was, I believe," says the note, "tried and convicted, and finally pardoned by James the Second." This is probably enough. For I suppose him to have been of the same family with that Earl of Tyrconnel equally distinguished for his influence with James the Second as for his infamous life and character, who held at this period unbounded sway at the English Court. I hope, for the honor of our hero, that he preserved no family-likeness to that false-hearted, brutal, and violent favorite, who is made immortal in Macaulay's pages as Lying Dick Talbot. Through his intercession his kinsman may have been pardoned, or even never brought to trial.
This is the end of my story. But, like all stories, it requires that some satisfaction should be given to the reader in regard to the dramatic proprieties. We have our several heroes to dispose of. Phelim Murray and Hugh Riley, who had both been arrested by the Council to satisfy public opinion as to their complicity in the plot for the escape, were both honorably discharged,—I suppose being found entirely innocent! Roger Skreene swore himself black and blue, as the phrase is, that he had not the least suspicion of the business in which he was engaged; and so he was acquitted! I am also glad to be able to say that our gallant Cornet Murray, in the winding-up of this business, was promoted by the Council to a captaincy of cavalry, and put in command of Christiana Fort and its neighborhood, to keep that formidable Quaker, William Penn, at a respectful distance. It would gratify me still more, if I could find warrant to add, that the Cornet enjoyed himself, and married the lady of his choice, with whom he has, unknown to us, been violently in love during these adventures, and that they lived happily together for many years. I hope this was so,—although the chronicle does not allow one to affirm it,—it being but a proper conclusion to such a romance as I have plucked out of our history.
And so I have traced the tradition of the Cave to the end. What I have been able to certify furnishes the means of a shrewd estimate of the average amount of truth which popular traditions generally contain. There is always a fact at the bottom, lying under a superstructure of fiction,—truth enough to make the pursuit worth following. Talbot did not live in the Cave, but fled there occasionally for concealment. He had no hawks with him, but bred them in his own mews on the Elk River. The birds seen in after times were some of this stock, and not the solitary pair they were supposed to be. I dare say an expert naturalist would find many specimens of the same breed now in that region. But let us not be too critical on the tradition, which has led us into a quest through which I have been able to supply what I hope will be found to be a pleasant insight into that little world of action and passion,—with its people, its pursuits, and its gossips,—that, more than one hundred and seventy years ago, inhabited the beautiful banks of St. Mary's River, and wove the web of our early Maryland history.
I have another link in the chain of Talbot's history, furnished me by a friend in Virginia. It comes since I have completed my narrative, and very accurately confirms the conjecture of Chalmers, quoted in the note of "The Landholder's Assistant." "As for Colonel Talbot, he was conveyed for trial to Virginia, from whence he made his escape, and, after being retaken, and,I believe, tried and convicted, was finally pardoned by King James II." This is an extract from the note. It is now ascertained that Talbot was not taken to England for trial, as Lord Baltimore, in his letter of the 6th of July, 1685, affirmed it was the King's pleasure he should be; but that he was tried and convicted in Virginia on the 22d of April, 1686, and, on the 26th of the same month, reprieved by order of the King; after which we may presume he received a full pardon, and perhaps was taken to England in obedience to the royal command, to await it there. The conviction and reprieve are recorded in a folio of the State Records of Virginia at Richmond, on a mutilated and scarcely legible sheet,—a copy of which I present to my reader with all its obliterations and broken syllables and sad gashes in the text, for his own deciphering. The MS. is in keeping with the whole story, and may be looked upon as its appropriate emblem. The story has been brought to light by chance, and has been rendered intelligible by close study and interpretation of fragmentary and widely separated facts, capable of being read only by one conversant with the text of human affairs, and who has the patience to grope through the trackless intervals of time, and the skill to supply the lost words and syllables of history by careful collation with those which are spared. How faithfully this accidentally found MS. typifies such a labor, the reader may judge from the literal copy of it I now offer to his perusal.
[Transcriber's note: Gaps in the text below are signified with an asterisk.]
By his Excellency
Whereas his most Sacred Majesty has been Graciously pleasedby his Royall Com'ands to Direct and Com'and Me ffrancisLord Howard of Effingham his Maj'ties Lieut and Gov'r. Gen'll.of Virginia that if George Talbott Esq'r. upon his Tryall shouldbe found Guilty of Killing M'r Christopher Rowsby, that Executionshould be suspended untill his Majesties pleasure shouldbe further signified unto Me; And forasmuch as the sd GeorgeTalbott was Indicted upon the Statute of Stabbing and hathReceived a full and Legall Tryall in open Court on y'e Twentiethand One and Twentieth dayes of this Instant Aprill, before hisMajesties Justices of Oyer and Terminer, and found Guilty of y'eaforesaid fact and condemned for the Same, I, therefore, *ffrancisLord Howard, Baron of *ffingham, his Majesties Lieu't and Gov'r.Gen'll. Of Virginia, by Virtue of *aj'ties Royall Com'andsto Me given there * doe hereby Suspend *tion of theSentence of death * his Maj'ties Justices* Terminer on the * till his Majesties*erein be * nor any* fail as yo* uttmost* and for y'r soe doing this sh*
Given under my and * Seale
the 26th dayof Apri*
To his Majesties Justices of Oyer and Terminer.
Recordatur E Chillon Gen'l Car*
[Endorsed]
Talbott's Repreif from L'd Howard 1686 for Killing Ch'r. Rousby Examined Sept. 24th 26th Aprill 1686 Sentence of ag'* Col Ta Suspended Aprill 26* 1*86
In Sana, oh, in Sana, God, the Lord,Was very kind and merciful to me!Forth from the Desert in my rags I came,Weary and sore of foot. I saw the spiresAnd swelling bubbles of the golden domesRise through the trees of Sana, and my heartGrew great within me with the strength of God;And I cried out, "Now shall I right myself,—I, Adeb the Despised,—for God is just!"There he who wronged my father dwelt in peace,—My warlike father, who, when gray hairs creptAround his forehead, as on LebanonThe whitening snows of winter, was betrayedTo the sly Imam, and his tented wealthSwept from him, 'twixt the roosting of the cockAnd his first crowing,—in a single night:And I, poor Adeb, sole of all my race,Smeared with my father's and my kinsmen's blood,Fled through the Desert, till one day a tribeOf hungry Bedouins found me in the sand,Half mad with famine, and they took me up,And made a slave of me,—of me, a prince!All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them,In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart,Like a strong swimmer, bore me up againstThe howling sea of my adversity.At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop,I stood like a young eagle on a crag.The traveller passed me with suspicious fear:I asked for nothing; I was not a thief.The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones,Fed on the berries and the crusted pools,Were a scant morsel. Once, a brown-skinned girlCalled me a little from the common path,And gave me figs and barley in a bag.I paid her with a kiss, with nothing more,And she looked glad; for I was beautiful,And virgin as a fountain, and as cold.I stretched her bounty, pecking, like a bird,Her figs and barley, till my strength returned.So when rich Sana lay beneath my eyes,My foot was as the leopard's, and my handAs heavy as the lion's brandished paw;And underneath my burnished skin the veinsAnd stretching muscles played, at every step,In wondrous motion. I was very strong.I looked upon my body, as a birdThat bills his feathers ere he takes to flight,—I, watching over Sana. Then I prayed;And on a soft stone, wetted in the brook,Ground my long knife; and then I prayed again.God heard my voice, preparing all for me,As, softly stepping down the hills,I saw the Imam's summer-palace all ablazeIn the last flash of sunset. Every fountWas spouting fire, and all the orange-treesBore blazing coals, and from the marble wallsAnd gilded spires and columns, strangely wrought,Glared the red light, until my eyes were painedWith the fierce splendor. Till the night grew thick,I lay within the bushes, next the door,Still as a serpent, as invisible.The guard hung round the portal. Man by manThey dropped away, save one lone sentinel,And on his eyes God's finger lightly fell;He slept half standing. Like a summer windThat threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf,I stole from shadow unto shadow forth;Crossed all the marble court-yard, swung the door,Like a soft gust, a little way ajar,—My body's narrow width, no more,—and stoodBeneath the cresset in the painted hall.I marvelled at the riches of my foe;I marvelled at God's ways with wicked men.Then I reached forth, and took God's waiting hand:And so He led me over mossy floors,Flowered with the silken summer of Shirar,Straight to the Imam's chamber. At the doorStretched a brawn eunuch, blacker than my eyes:His woolly head lay like the Kaba-stoneIn Mecca's mosque, as silent and as huge.I stepped across it, with my pointed knifeJust missing a full vein along his neck,And, pushing by the curtains, there I was,—I, Adeb the Despised,—upon the spotThat, next to heaven, I longed for most of all.I could have shouted for the joy in me.Fierce pangs and flashes of bewildering lightLeaped through my brain and danced before my eyes.So loud my heart beat that I feared its soundWould wake the sleeper; and the bubbling bloodChoked in my throat, till, weaker than a child,I reeled against a column, and there hungIn a blind stupor. Then I prayed again;And, sense by sense, I was made whole once more.I touched myself; I was the same; I knewMyself to be lone Adeb, young and strong,With nothing but a stride of empty airBetween me and God's justice. In a sleep,Thick with the fumes of the accursed grape,Sprawled the false Imam. On his shaggy breast,Like a white lily heaving on the tideOf some foul stream, the fairest woman sleptThese roving eyes have ever looked upon.Almost a child, her bosom barely showedThe change beyond her girlhood. All her charmsWere budding, but half opened; for I sawNot only beauty wondrous in itself,But possibility of more to beIn the full process of her blooming days.I gazed upon her, and my heart grew soft,As a parched pasture with the dew of heaven.While thus I gazed, she smiled, and slowly raisedThe long curve of her lashes; and we lookedEach upon each in wonder, not alarm,—Not eye to eye, but soul to soul, we heldEach other for a moment. All her lifeSeemed centred in the circle of her eyes.She stirred no limb; her long-drawn, equal breathSwelled out and ebbed away beneath her breast,In calm unbroken. Not a sign of fearTouched the faint color on her oval cheek,Or pinched the arches of her tender mouth.She took me for a vision, and she layWith her sleep's smile unaltered, as in doubtWhether real life had stolen into her dreams,Or dreaming stretched into her outer life.I was not graceless to a woman's eyes.The girls of Damar paused to see me pass,I walking in my rags, yet beautiful.One maiden said, "He has a prince's air!"I am a prince; the air was all my own.So thought the lily on the Imam's breast;And lightly as a summer mist, that liftsBefore the morning, so she floated up,Without a sound or rustle of a robe,From her coarse pillow, and before me stoodWith asking eyes. The Imam never moved.A stride and blow were all my need, and theyWere wholly in my power. I took her hand,I held a warning finger to my lips,And whispered in her small expectant ear,"Adeb, the son of Akem!" She repliedIn a low murmur, whose bewildering soundAlmost lulled wakeful me to sleep, and sealedThe sleeper's lids in tenfold slumber, "Prince,Lord of the Imam's life and of my heart,Take all thou seest,—it is thy right, I know,—But spare the Imam for thy own soul's sake!"Then I arrayed me in a robe of state,Shining with gold and jewels; and I boundIn my long turban gems that might have boughtThe lands 'twixt Babelmandeb and Sahan.I girt about me, with a blazing belt,A scimitar o'er which the sweating smithsIn far Damascus hammered for long years,Whose hilt and scabbard shot a trembling lightFrom diamonds and rubies. And she smiled,As piece by piece I put the treasures on,To see me look so fair,—in pride she smiled.I hung long purses at my side. I scooped,From off a table, figs and dates and rice,And bound them to my girdle in a sack.Then over all I flung a snowy cloak,And beckoned to the maiden. So she stoleForth like my shadow, past the sleeping wolfWho wronged my father, o'er the woolly headOf the swart eunuch, down the painted court,And by the sentinel who standing slept.Strongly against the portal, through my rags,—My old, base rags,—and through the maiden's veil,I pressed my knife,—upon the wooden hiltWas "Adeb, son of Akem," carved by meIn my long slavehood,—as a passing signTo wait the Imam's waking. Shadows castFrom two high-sailing clouds upon the sandPassed not more noiseless than we two, as one,Glided beneath the moonlight, till I smeltThe fragrance of the stables. As I slidThe wide doors open, with a sudden boundUprose the startled horses; but they stoodStill as the man who in a foreign landHears his strange language, when my Desert call,As low and plaintive as the nested dove's,Fell on their listening ears. From stall to stall,Feeling the horses with my groping hands,I crept in darkness; and at length I cameUpon two sister mares, whose rounded sides,Fine muzzles, and small heads, and pointed ears,And foreheads spreading 'twixt their eyelids wide,Long slender tails, thin manes, and coats of silk,Told me, that, of the hundred steeds there stalled,My hand was on the treasures. O'er and o'erI felt their long joints, and down their legsTo the cool hoofs;—no blemish anywhere:These I led forth and saddled. Upon oneI set the lily, gathered now for me,—My own, henceforth, forever. So we rodeAcross the grass, beside the stony path,Until we gained the highway that is lost,Leading from Sana, in the eastern sands:When, with a cry that both the Desert-bornKnew without hint from whip or goading spur,We dashed into a gallop. Far behindIn sparks and smoke the dusty highway rose;And ever on the maiden's face I saw,When the moon flashed upon it, the strange smileIt wore on waking. Once I kissed her mouth,When she grew weary, and her strength returned.All through the night we scoured between the hills:The moon went down behind us, and the starsDropped after her; but long before I sawA planet blazing straight against our eyes,The road had softened, and the shadowy hillsHad flattened out, and I could hear the hissOf sand spurned backward by the flying mares.—Glory to God! I was at home again!The sun rose on us; far and near I sawThe level Desert; sky met sand all round.We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well,And ate and slumbered. Somewhat, too, was said:The words have slipped my memory. That same eveWe rode sedately through a Hamoum camp,—I, Adeb, prince amongst them, and my bride.And ever since amongst them I have ridden,A head and shoulders taller than the best;And ever since my days have been of gold,My nights have been of silver.—God is just!
* * * * *
ELEUSINIA.[a]
[Footnote a: See Number XXIII., September, 1859.]
Life, in its central idea, is an entire and eternal solitude. Yet each individual nature so repeats—and is itself repeated in—every other, that there is insured the possibility both of a world-revelation in the soul, and of a self-incarnation in the world; so that every man's life, like Agrippa's mirror, reflects the universe, and the universe is made the embodiment of his life,—is made to beat with a human pulse.
We do all, therefore,—Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, or Saxon,—claim kinship both with the earth and the heavens: with the sense of sorrow we kneel upon the earth, with the sense of hope we look into the heavens.
The two Presences of the Eleusinia,—the earthly Demeter,[b] the embodiment of human sorrow, and the heavenly Dionysus,[c] the incarnation of human hope,—these are the two Great Presences of the Universe; about whom, as separate centres,—the one of measureless wanderings, the other of triumphant rest,—we marshal, both in the interpretations of Reason and in the constructions of our Imagination, all that is visible or that is invisible,—whatsoever is palpable in sense or possible in idea, in the world which is or the world to come. Incarnations of the life within us, in its two developments of Sorrow and Hope,—they are also the centres through which this life develops itself in the world: it is through them that all things have their genesis from the human heart, and through them, therefore, that all things are unveiled to us.
[Footnote b: Demeter is [Greek Gae-mhaetaer], Mother Earth.]
[Footnote c: The same as Iacchus and the Latin Bacchus.]
But these Two Presences have their highest interest and significance asfociof the religious development of the race: and inasmuch as all growth is ultimately a religious one, it is in this phase that their organic connections with life are widest and most profound. As such they appear in the Eleusinia; and in all mythology they furnish the only possible key for the interpretation of its mystic symbolism, its hieroglyphic records, and its ill-defined traditions.
Accordingly we find that all mythology naturally and inevitably flows about these centres into two distinct developments, which are indicated,—
1. In Nature; inasmuch as they are first made manifest through symbols which point to the two great forces, theactiveand thepassive, which are concerned in all natural processes (sol et terra subjacens soli); and,
2. In the primitive belief among all nations, that men are the offspring of the earth and the heavens,—and in the worship equally prevalent of the sun, the personal Presence of the heavens, as Saviour Lord, and of the earth as sorrowing Lady and Mother.
Why the earth, in this primitive symbolism and worship, was represented as the Sorrowing One, and the sun as Saviour, is evident at a glance. It was the bosom of the earth which was shaken with storm and rent with earthquake. She was the Mother, and hers was the travail of all birth; in sorrow she forever gathered to herself her Fate-conquered children; her sorrowful countenance she veiled in thick mists, and, year after year, shrouded herself in wintry desolation: while he was the Eternal Father, the Revealer of all things, he drove away the darkness, and in his presence the mist became an invisible exhalation; and, as out of darkness and death, he called into birth the flowers and the numberless forests,—even as he himself was every morning born anew out of darkness,—so he called the children of the earth to a glorious rising in his light. Everything of the earth was inert, weighing heavily upon the sense and the heart, only waiting its transfiguration and exaltation through his power, until it should rise into the heavens; which was the type of his translation to himself of his grief-oppressed children.
Under these symbols our Lord and Lady have been worshipped by an overwhelming majority of the human race. They swayed the ancient world, from the Indians by the Ganges, and the Tartar tribes, to the Britons and Laplanders of Northwestern Europe,—having their representatives in every system of faith,—in the HinduIsi and Isana, the EgyptianIsis and Osiris, the AssyrianVenus and Adonis, theDemeter and Dionysusof Greece, the RomanCeres and Bacchus, and theDisa and Freyof Scandinavia,—in connection with most, if not all, of whom there existed festivals corresponding, in respect of their meaning and use, with the Grecian Eleusinia.
Moreover, the various divinities of any one mythology—for example, the Greek—were at first only representatives of partial attributes or incidental functions of these Two Presences. Thus, Jove was the power of the heavens, which, of course, centred in the sun; Apollo is admitted to have been only another name for the sun; Æsculapius represents his healing virtues; Hercules his saving strength; and Prometheus, who gave fire to men, as Vulcan, the god of fire, was probably connected with Eastern fire-worship, and so in the end with the worship of the sun. Some of the goddesses come under the same category,—such as Juno, sister and wife of Jove, who shared with him his aerial dynasty; as also Diana, who was only the reflection of Apollo,[d] as the moon of the sun, carrying his power on into the night, and exercising among women the functions which he exercised among men. The representatives of our Lady, on the other hand, are such as the ancient Rhea,—Latona, with her dark and starry veil,—Tethys, the world-nurse,—and the Artemis of the East, or Syrian Mother; to say nothing of Oreads, Dryads, and Nereids, that without number peopled the mountains, the forests, and the sea.
[Footnote d: This connection of Diana with Apollo has led some to the hasty inference, that the sun and moon—not the sun and earth—were the primitive centres of mythological symbolism. But it is plain that the sun and moon, as _active _forces referable to a single centre, stood over against the earth aspassive.]
The confusion of ancient mythology did not so much regard its subjective elements as its external development, and even here is easily accounted for by the mingling of tribes and nations, hitherto isolated in their growth,—but who, as they came together, in their mutual recognition of a common faith under different names and rites, must inevitably have introduced disorder into the external symbolism. But even out of this confusion we shall find the whole Pantheon organized about two central shrines,—those of theMater Dolorosaand theDominus Salvator,—which are represented also in Christendom, though detached from natural symbols, in the connection of Christianity with the worship of the Virgin.
The Eleusinia, collecting together, as it did, all the prominent elements of mythology, furnishes, in its dramatic evolution through Demeter and Dionysus, the highest and most complete representation of ancient faith in both of its developments. In a former paper, we have endeavored to give this drama its deepest interpretation by pointing to the human heart as the central source of all its movements. We shall now ask our readers to follow us out into these movements themselves,—that, as before we saw how the world is centred in each human soul, we may now see how each soul develops itself in the world; for thither it is that the ever-widening cycles of the Eleusinian epos will inevitably lead us.
And first as an epos of sorrow: though centring in the earthly Demeter, yet its movement does not limit itself by the remembrance ofhernine days' search; but, in the torch-light procession of the fifth night, widens indefinitely and mysteriously in the darkness, until it has inclosed all hearts within the circuit of its tumultuous flight. Thus, by some secret sympathy with her movements, are gathered together about the central Achtheia all theMatres Dolorosoe,—our Ladies of Sorrow;—for, like her, they were all wanderers.
They were so by necessity. All unrest involves loss, and thus leads to search. It matters not if the search be unsuccessful; though the gadfly sting as sharply the next moment as it did the last, still so must continue her wanderings. Therefore that Jew, whose mythic fate it is to wait forever upon the earth, the victim of an everlasting sorrow, is also an everlasting wanderer. All suffering necessitates movement,—and when the suffering is intense, the movement passes over into flight.
Therefore it is that the epos of suffering requires not merely time for its accomplishment, but also space. Ulysses, the "much-suffering," is also the "much-wandering."
Thus our Lady in the Eleusinian procession of search represents the restless search of all her children.
Migrations and colonizations, ancient or modern,—what were they but flights from some phase of suffering,—name it as we may,—poverty, oppression, or slavery? It was the same suffering Io who brought civilization to the banks of the Nile.
Thus, from the very beginnings of history or human tradition, out of the severities of Scythian deserts there has been an endless series of flights,—nomadic invasions of tribes impelled by no merely barbarian impulse, but by some deep sense of suffering, flying from their Northern wastes to the happy gardens of the South. In no other way can you account for these movements. If you attribute them to ferocity, what was it that engendered and nourishedthat? Call them the results of a Divine Providence, seeking by a fresher current of life to revive systems of civilization which through long ages of luxury have come to frailty,—still it was through this severity of discipline alone that Providence accomplished its end. Besides, these nomads were fully conscious of their bitter lot; and those who fled not in space fled at least in their dreams,—waiting for death at last to introduce them to inexhaustible hunting-grounds in their happy Elysium.
The very mention of Rome suggests the same continually repeated series of antecedent tragedy and consequent wandering,—pointing backward to the fabled siege of Troy and the flight of Aeneas,—"profugus" from Asia to Italy,—and forward to the quick-coming footsteps of the Northernprofugi, who were eager, even this side the grave, to enter the Valhalla of their dreams.
It is said that the Phoenician cities sent out colonies from a desire of gain, and because they were crowded at home. It is said, too, that, in search of gold, thousands upon thousands went to El Dorado, to California, and Australia; but who does not know that the greater part of these thousands left their homes for reasons which, if fully exposed, would reveal a tragedy in view of which gold appears a glittering mockery?
The great movement of the race westward is but an extension of this epic flight. Thus, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England,—the grandestprofugiof all time,—or even the bold adventurers of Spain, would have been moved only by intense suffering, in some form, to exchange their homes for a wilderness.
The world is full of these wanderings, under various pretences of gain, adventure, or curiosity, hiding the real impulse of flight. So with the strong-flowing current in the streets of a great city; for how else shall we interpret this intricate net-work of human feature and movement,—this flux of life toward some troubled centre, and then its reflux toward some uncertain and undefined circumference?
And as Nature is the mirror of human life, so at the source of those vast movements by which she buries in oblivion her own works and the works of man there is hidden the type of human suffering, both for the race and the individual. And hence it is, that, over against the eternal solitude within us, there ever waits without us a second solitude, into which, sooner or later, we pass with restless flight,—a solitude vast, shadowy, and unfamiliar in its outline, but inevitable in its reality,—haunting, bewildering, overshadowing us!
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"Who is it that shall interpret this intricate evolution of human footsteps, in its meaning of sorrow?—who is it that shall give us rest?" Such is the half-conscious prayer of all these fugitives,—of our Lady and all her children. This it is which gives meaning to the torch-light procession on the fifth night of the Festival; but to-morrow it shall find an answer in the Saviour Dionysus, who shall change the flight of search into the pomp of triumph.
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But let us pause a moment. It is Palm Sunday! We are not, indeed, in Syria, the land of palms. Yet, even here,—lost in some far-reaching avenue of pines, where one could hardly walk upon a summer Sunday without such sense of joy as would move him to tears,—even here all the movements of the earth and the heavens hint of most jubilant triumph. Thus, the green grass rises above the dead grass at our feet; the leaf-buds new-born upon the tree, like lotos-buds springing up from Ethiopian marble, give token of resurrection; the trees themselves tower heavenward; and in victorious ascension the clouds unite in the vast procession, dissolving in exhalation at the "gates of the sun"; while from unnumbered choirs arise songs of exultant victory from the hearts of men to the throne of God!
But whither, in divine remembrance,—whither is it that upon this Sunday of all Sundays the thoughts of Christendom point? Back through eighteen hundred years to the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, followed by the children crying, "Hosanna in the highest heavens!" Of this it is that the processions of Nature, in the resurrections of birth and the aërial ascension of clouds,—of this that the upward processions of our thoughts are commemorative!
Thus was the sixth day of the Eleusinia,—when the ivy-crowned Dionysus was borne in triumph through the mystic entrance of Eleusis, and from the Eleusinian plains, as from our choirs to-day, ascended the jubilant Hosannas of the countless multitude;—this was the Palm Sunday of Greece.
Close upon the chariot-wheels of the Saviour Dionysus followed, in the faith of Greece, Aesculapius and Hercules: the former the Divine Physician, whose very name was healing, and who had power over death, as the child of the Sun; and the latter, who by his saving strength delivered the earth from its Augean impurities, and, arrayed in celestial panoply, subdued the monsters of the earth, and at last, descending to Hades, slew the three-headed Cerberus and took away from men much of the fear of death. Such was the train of the Eleusinian Dionysus. If Demeter was the wanderer, he was the conqueror and centre of all triumph.
And this reminds us of his Indian conquest. What did it mean? Admit that it may have been only the fabulous march in triumph of some forgotten king of mortal birth to the farthest limits of the East. Still the fact of its association with Dionysus stands as evidence of the connection of human faith with human victory. Let it be that Dionysus himself was only the apotheosis of victorious humanity. In strict logic this is more than probable. Yet why apotheosize conquerors at all? Why exalt all heroes to the rank of gods?
The reason is, that men are unwilling to draw a limited meaning from any human act. How could they, then, connecting, as they did, all victory with hope,—how could they fall short of the most exalted hope, of the most excellent victory; especially in instances like the one now under our notice, where the material circumstances of the conquest as well as of the conqueror's life have passed out of remembrance; when for generations men have dwelt upon the dim tradition in their thoughts, and it has had time to grow into its fullest significance,—even finding an elaborate expression in sacred writings, in symbolic ritual, and monumental entablature? Osiris, who subjected men to his reign of peace, was also held to be the Preserver of their souls. Even Caesar, had he lived two thousand years before, might have been worshipped as Saviour. All extended power, measured by duration in time or vast areas of space, becomes an incarnate Presence in the world, which awes to the dust all who resist it, and exalts with its own glory all who trust in it. Achtheia mourns all failures; and here it is that the human touches the earth. But they who conquer, these are our Saviours; they shall follow in the train of Dionysus; they shall lift us to the heavens, and sanctify in our remembrance the Sunday of Palms!
But Dionysus not only looks back with triumphant remembrance to ancient conquest, but has his victories in the present, also, and in the great Hereafter. For triumph was connected with all Dionysiac symbols, hints of which are preserved to us in representations found upon ancient vases: such, for instance, as the figure of Victory surmounting the heads of the ivy-crowned Bacchantes in their mystic orgies; or the winged serpents which bear the chariot of the victor-god,—as if in this connection even the reptiles, whose very name (serpentes) is a synonyme for what creeps, are to be made the ministrants of his conquering flight. The tombs of the ancients from Egypt to Etruria are full of these symbols. Many of them have become dim as to their meaning by oblivious time; but enough is evident to indicate the prominence of hope in ancient faith. This appears in the very multiplicity of Dionysiac symbols as compared with any other class. Thus, out of sixty-six vases at Polignano, all but one or two were found to be Dionysiac in their symbolism. And this instance stands for many others. Thecharacterof the scenes represented indicates the same prominence of hope, sometimes as connected with the relations of life,—as, for example, the representation, found upon a sepulchral cone, of a husband and wife uniting with each other in prayer to the Sun. Frequent inscriptions—such as those in which the deceased is carefully committed to Osiris, the Egyptian Dionysus—point in the same direction; as also the genii who presided over the embalmed dead, a belief in whose existence surely indicated a hopeful trust in some divine care which would not leave them even in the grave. Statues of Osiris are found among the ruins of palaces and temples; but it was in the monuments associated with death that they dwelt most upon his name and expressed their faith in most frequent incarnation and inscription.
The epic movement of Eleusinian triumph was in its range as unlimited as the movement of sorrow. Each found expression in sculptured monument,—the one hinting of flight into darkness, and the other of resurrection into light; each in its cycle inclosed the world; each widened into the invisible; as the wail of Achtheia reached the heart of Hades, so the paean of Dionysus was lost in the heavens.
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But in what manner did this Dionysus make hisavatarin the world? For he must needs have first touched the earth as human child, ere he could be worshipped as Divine Saviour. Latona must leave the heavens and come to Delos ere she can give birth to Apollo; for, in order to slay the serpent, the child must himself be earth-born,—indeed, according to one representation, he slew the Python out of his mother's arms. Neither the serpent of Genesis nor the dragon of Revelation can be conquered save by the seed of the woman. From this necessity of his earthly birth, the connection of the Saviour-Child with theMater Dolorosabecomes universal,—finding its counterpart in the Assyrian Venus with babe in arm, in Isis suckling the child Horus, and even in the Scandinavian Disa at Upsal accompanied by an infant. It is from swaddling-clothes, as the nursling of our Lady, and out of the sorrowful discipline of earth, that the child grows to be the Saviour, both for our Lady and for all her children.
Hence, according to the tradition, Dionysus was born of Semele of the royal house at Thebes; and Jove was his father. A little before his time of birth,—so the story goes,—Jove visited Semele, at her own rash request, in all the majesty of his presence, with thunderings and lightnings, so that the bower of the virgin mother was laid in ruins, and she herself, unable to stand before the revealed god, was consumed as by fire. But Jove out of her ashes perfected the birth of his son; whence he was called the Child of Fire, ([Greek: puripais],)—which epithet, as well as this part of the fable, probably points to his connection with the Oriental symbolism of fire in the worship of the Sun.
And it is worth while, in connection with this, to notice the gradations by which in the ancient mind everything ascended from the gross material to a refined spirituality. As in Nature there was forever going on a subtilizing process, so that
"from the rootSprings lighter the green stalk, from thence the leavesMore aëry, last the bright consummate flowerSpirits odorous breathes,"—
and as, in their philosophy, from the earth, as the principle of Nature, they ascended through the more subtile elements of water, air, and fire, to a spiritual conception of the universe; so, as regards their faith, its highest incarnation was through the symbolism of fire, as representative of that central Power under whose influence all things arose through endless grades of exaltation to Himself,—so that the earthly rose into the heavenly, and all that was human became divine.
The enthusiasm of victory and exaltation in the worship of Dionysus tended of course to connect with him whatsoever was joyous and jubilant in life. He was the god of all joy. Hence the fable which makes him the author and giver of wine to men. Wherever he goes, he is surrounded by the clustering vine and ivy, hinting of his summer glory and of his kingly crown. Thus, the line of his conquests leads through the richest fields of Southern Asia,—through the incense-breathing Arabia, across the Euphrates and the Tigris, and through the flowery vales of Cashmere to the Indian garden of the world: and as from sea to sea he establishes his reign by bloodless victories, he is attended by Fauns and Satyrs and the jovial Pan; wine and honey are his gifts; and all the earth is glad in his gracious presence. Hence he was ever associated with Oriental luxuriance, and was worshipped even among the Greeks with a large infusion of Oriental extravagance, though tempered by the more subdued mood of the West.
But that depth of Grecian genius, which made it possible for Greece alone of all ancient nations to develop tragedy to anything like perfection, insured also even in the most impassioned life the most profound solemnity. Into the praises of Apollo, joyous as they were,—where, to the exultant anthem was joined the evolution of the dance beneath the vaulted sky, as if in his very presence,—for the sun was his shechinah,—there enters an element of solemnity, which, in certain connections, is almost overwhelming: as, for instance, in the first book of the "Iliad,"—where, after the pestilence which has sent up an endless series of funeral pyres,—after the strife of heroes and the return of Chryseïs to her father, the priest of the angry Apollo,—after the feast and the libation from the wine-crowned cups, there follow theapotropoea, and the Grecian youths unite in the song and the dance, which last, both the joyous paean and the tread of exultant feet, until the setting sun. I know of nothing which to an equal degree suggests this element of solemnity, that is almost awe-inspiring from its depth, short of the jubilant procession of saints, in the Apocalypse, with palms in their hands.
This element is also evident in the worship of Dionysus,—so that the inspiration of joy must not be taken for the frenzy of intoxication, though the symbol of the vine has often led to just this misapprehension. Besides, Dionysus must not be too closely identified with the Bacchanalian orgies, which were only a perversion of rites which retained their original purity in the Eleusinia: and this latter institution, it must be remembered, was from the first under the control of the state,—and that state at the time the most refined on the face of the earth.
Surely, it is not more difficult to give a pure and spiritual significance to a vintage-festival or to the symbolic wine-cup of Dionysus, than in the rhapsodies of a Persian or Hindu poet to symbolize the attraction between the Divine Goodness and the human soul by the loves of Laili and Majnum, or of Crishna and Radha,—to say nothing of the exalted symbolism attached to the love of Solomon for his Egyptian princess, and sanctioned by the most delicate taste.
Indeed, is it not true that whatsoever is most sensuous in connection with human joy, and at the same time pure, is the very flower of life, and therefore the most consummate revelation of holiness? Nothing in Nature is so intensely solemn as her summer, in its infinite fulness of growth and the unmeasured altitude of its heavens. And within the range of human associations which shall we select as revealing the most profound solemnity? Surely not the sight of the funeral train, nor of the urn crowned with cypress,—of nothing which is associated with death or weakness in any shape;—but the sight of gayest festivals, or the paraphernalia of palace-halls,—the vision of some youthful maiden of transcendent beauty crowned with an orange-wreath, within hearing of marriage-bells and the whisperings of holy love,—or the aspirations of the dance and the endless breathings of triumphant music. These are they which come up most prominently in remembrance,—even as the whole race, in its remembrances, instinctively looks back to the Orient,—to some Homeric island of the morning, where are the palaces, the choral dances, and the risings of the sun.[e] And as Memory has the power to purify the past of all material grossness, Faith has the same power as regards the present Hence, the closest connection of religious faith with the most joyous festivals, with a finely moulded Venus or Apollo, with an Ephesian temple or a splendid cathedral, or the sweetest symphonies of music, does not mar, but reveals its natural beauty and strength.
[Footnote e:Odyssey, xii., 4.]
But most certainly the Greeks gave a profound spiritual meaning to the Eleusinia, as also to the mystic connection of Demeter with Dionysus. She gave them bread: but they never forgot that she gave them the bread of life. "She gave us," says the ancient Isocrates, "two gifts that are the most excellent: fruits, that we might not live like beasts; and that initiation, those who have part in which have sweeter hope,—both as regards the close of life, and for all eternity." So Dionysus gave them wine, not only to lighten the cares of life, but as a token, moreover, of efficient deliverance from the fear of death, and of the higher joy which he would give them in some happier world. And thus it is, that, from the earliest times and in all the world, bread and wine have been symbols of sacramental significance.
Human life so elevates all things with its exaltation and clothes them with its glory, that nothing vain, nothing trifling, can be found within its range. He who opposes himself to a single fact thus of necessity opposes himself to the whole onward and upward current, and must fall. We have heard of Thor, who with his magic mallet and his two celestial comrades went to Jötunheim in quest of adventures: and we remember the goblet which he could not exhaust because of its mysterious connection with the inexhaustible Sea; the race with Hugi, which in the end proved to be a race with Thought; and the wrestle with the old nurse Elli, who was no other than Time herself, and therefore irresistible. So do we all get us mallets ingeniously forged by the dark elves;—we try a race with human thought, and look vainly to come out ahead; we laugh at things because they are old, but with which we struggle to no purpose; and the cup which we confidently put to our lips has no bottom;—in fact, the great world of Jötunheim has grown for so long a time and so widely that it is quite too much for us,—and its tall people, though we come down upon them, like Thor and his companions, from celestial heights, are too stout for our mallet.
Nothing human is so insignificant, but that, if you will give it time and room, it will become irresistible. The plays of men become their dramas; their holidays change to holy days. The representations, through which, under various names, they have repeated to themselves the glory and the tragedy of their life,—old festivals once celebrated in Egypt far back beyond the dimmest myths of human remembrance,—the mystic drama of the Eleusinia, which we have been considering in its overwhelming sorrow developed in hurried flight, and its lofty hope through triumphal pomp and the significant symbolism of resurrection,—the epos and the epic rhapsodies,—the circus and the amphitheatre,—and even the impetuous song and dance of painted savages,—all these, which at first we may pass by with a glance, have for our deeper search a meaning which we can never wholly exhaust. Let it be that they have grown from feeble beginnings, they have grown to gigantic dimensions; and not their infantile proportions, but their fullest growth is to be taken as the measure of their strength,—if, indeed, it be not wholly immeasurable.
Upon some day, seemingly by chance, but really having its antecedent in the remotest antiquity, a company of men participate in some simple act,—of sacrifice, it may be, or of amusement. Now that act will be reiterated.
"Quod semel dictum est stabilisque rerumTerminus servet."
The subtile law of repetition, as regards the human will, is as sure in Determination as it is in Consciousness. Habit is as inevitable as Memory; and as nothing can be forgotten, but, when once known, is known forever,—so nothing is done but will be done again. Lethe and Annihilation are only myths upon the earth, which men, though suspicious of their eternal falsehood, name to themselves in moments of despair and fearful apprehension. The poppy has only a fabled virtue; but, like Persephone, we have all tasted of the pomegranate, and must ever to Hades and back again; for while death and oblivion only seem to be, remembrances and resurrections there must be, and without end. Therefore this before-mentioned act of sacrifice or amusement will be reiterated at given intervals; about it, as a centre, will be gathered all the associations of intense interest in human life; and the names connected with its origin—once human names upon the earth—will pass upon the stars, so that thenominashall have changed tonumina, and be taken upon the lips with religious awe. So it was with these old festivals,—so with all the representations of human life in stone or upon the canvas, in the fairy-tale, the romance, and the poem; at every successive repetition, at every fresh resurrection, is evolved by human faith and sympathy a deeper significance, until they become the centres of national thought and feeling, and men believe in them as in revelations from heaven; and even the oracles themselves, in respect of their inherent meaning, as also of their origin and authority, rise by the same ascending series of repeated birth,—like that at Delphi, which, at first attributed to the Earth, then to Themis, daughter of Earth and Heaven, was at last connected with the Sun and constituted one of the richest gems in Apollo's diadem of light.
In the end we shall find that the whole world organizes about its centre of Faith. Thus, under three different religious systems, Jerusalem, Delphi, and Mecca were held to be each in its turn theomphalosor navel of the world. It follows inevitably that themainmovement of the world must always be joyous and hopeful. By reason of this joy it is that every religious system has its feast; and the sixth day—the day of Iacchus—is the great day of the festival. The inscription which rises above every other is "To the Saviour Gods."
We must look at history as a succession of triumphs from the beginning; and each trophy that is erected outdoes in its magnificence all that were ever erected before it. Nothing has suffered defeat, except as it has run counter to the main movement of conquest. No system of faith, therefore, can by any possibility pass away. Involved it may be in some fuller system; itsmaterialbases may be modified; its central source become more central in the human heart, and so stronger in the world and more immediate in its connection with the eternal; but the life itself of the system must live forever and grow forever.
Still it is true that in the widest growth there is the largest liability to weakness. "Thus it is," says Fouqué, "with poor, though richly endowed man. All lies within his power so long as action is at rest within him; nothing is in his power the moment action has displayed itself, even by the lifting-up of a finger on the immeasurable world." In the very extent of the empire of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Tamerlane, rests the possibility of its rapid dissolution. At the giddiest altitude of triumph it is that the brain grows dizziest and there is revealed the deepest chasm of possible defeat; and the conqueror,
"Having his ear full of his airy fame,"
is just then most likely to fall like Herod from his aërial pomp to the very dust. This consciousness, revealing at the highest moment of joy its utmost frailty, led the ancients to suspect the presence of some Ate or Nemesis in all human triumphs. We all remember the king who threw his signet-ring into the sea, that he might in his too happy fortunes avert this suspected presence; we remember, too, the apprehension of the Chorus in the "Seven against Thebes," looking forward from the noontide prosperity of the Theban king to some coming catastrophe.
But it is not without us that this Nemesis waits; she is but another name for the fearful possibility which lurks in every human will, of treachery to itself. And as solemnity rises to its acme in the most sensuous manifestation of the glory of life,—so in all that most fascinates and bewilders, at the very crisis of victorious exaltation, at the very height of joyous sensibility, does this mysterious power of temptation reveal her subtlest treachery; and sometimes in a single moment does she change the golden-filleted Horæ, that are our ministers, into frightful furies, which drive us back again from triumph into flight.
What was it, then, which saved the Eleusinia from this defeat,—which kept the movement of the Dionysiac procession from the ruin inevitably consequent upon all intemperate joy? It was the presence of our Lady, the sorrowing Achtheia, who was the inseparable companion of the joyous conqueror,—who subdued the joy of victory, and preserved the strength and holy purity of the great Festival. Demeter was thus necessary to Dionysus,—as Dionysus to Demeter; and if in remembrance of him the sepulchral walls were covered with scenes associated with festivity,—in remembrance of her there must needs be a skeleton at every feast.
How inseparably connected in human thought is sorrow with all permanent hope is indicated in the penances which men have imposed upon themselves, from the earliest Gymnosophists of India, and the Stylitæ of Syria, down to the monastic orders of the Romish Church in later times. This is the meaning of the old Indian fable which made two of theRishisor penitents to have risen by the discipline of sorrow from some low caste,—it may be, from very Pariahs,—first to the rank of Brahmins, and at last to the stars. The first initiation in which we veil our eyes, losing all, is essential to our fresher birth, by which in the second initiation all things are unveiled to us as our inheritance: indeed, it is only through that which veils that anything is ever revealed or possessed.
Through the same gate we pass both to glory and to tragic suffering, each of which heightens and measures the other; and it is only so that we can understand the function of sorrow in the Providence of God, or interpret the sudden calamities which sometimes overwhelm human hopes at their highest aspiration,—which from the most serene and cloudless sky evoke storms which leave not even a wreck from their vast ruin.
Nor merely is sorrow efficient in those who hope, but in even a higher sense does it attach to the character of Saviour. Apollo is, therefore, fabled to have been an exile from heaven and a servant of Admetus; indeed, Danaüs, in "The Suppliants" of Æschylus, appeals to Apollo for protection on this very plea, addressing him as "the Holy One, and an exiled God from heaven." Thus Hercules was compelled to serve Eurystheus; and his twelve labors were typed in the twelve signs of the zodiac. Æsculapius and Prometheus both suffered excruciating tortures and death for the good of men. And Dionysus—himself the centre of all joy—was persecuted by the Queen of Heaven and compelled to wander in the world. Thus he wandered through Egypt, finding no abiding-place, and finally, as the story runs, came to the Phrygian Cybele, that he might know in their deepest meaning—even by the initiation of sorrow—the mysteries of the Great Mother. And, very significantly, it is from this same initiation thatHiswanderings have their end and his world-wide conquest its beginning; as if only thus could be realized the possibility both of triumph for himself and of hope for his followers. For these wanderers can find rest only in asufferingSaviour, by the vision of whose deeper Passion they lose their sense of grief,—as Io on Caucasus in sight of the transfixed Prometheus, and the Madonna at the Cross.
It is worthy of more attention than we can give it here, yet we cannot pass over in silence the fact, so important in this relation, that Grecian Tragedy, in all its wonderful development under the three great masters, was directly associated, and in its ruder beginnings completely identified, with the worship of Dionysus. And this confirms our previous hint, that the same element which made tragedy possible for Greece must also be sought for in the development of its faith. There are those who decry Grecian faith,—at the same time that they laud the Grecian drama to the skies: but to the Greeks themselves, who certainly knew more than we do as regards either, the drama was only an outgrowth of their faith, and derived thence its highest significance. Thus the mystic symbolism of the dramatic Choruses, taken out of its religious connections, becomes an insoluble enigma; and naturally enough; for its first use was in religious worship,—though afterwards it became associated with traditionary and historic events. Besides, it was supposed that the tragedians wrote under a divine inspiration; and the subjects and representations which they embodied were for the most part susceptible of a deep spiritual interpretation. Indeed, upon a careful examination, we shall find that very many of the dramas directly suggest the two Eleusinian movements, representing first the flight of suppliants—as of the Heraclidae, the daughters of Danaüs, and of Oedipus and Antigone—from persecution to the shrine of some Saviour Deity,—and finally a deliverance effected through sacrifice or divine interposition. Examples of this are so numerous that we have no space for a minute consideration.
But certainly it is plain that the Eleusinia, as being more central, more purely spiritual, must in the thought of Greece have risen high above the drama. The very dress in which themystaewere initiated was preserved as most sacred or deposited in the temple. Or if we insist upon measuring their appreciation of the Festival by the more palpable standard of numbers,—the temple at Eleusis, by the account of Strabo, was capable of holding even in its mystic cell more persons than the theatre. To be sure, the celebration was only once in five years,—but it was all the more sacred from this very infrequency. Nothing in all Greece—and that is saying very much—could compare with it in its depth of divine mystery. If anything could, it would have been the drama; but no wailings were ever heard from beneath the masks of the stage like the wailings of Achtheia,—no jubilant song of the Chorus ever rose like the paean of Dionysiac triumph.
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Thus was the name of Dionysus connected with the palace and the temple, with the sepulchral court of death and the dramatic representations of life,—and everywhere associated with our Lady.
Sometimes, indeed, she seems to overshadow and hide him from our vision. Thus was it when the Eumenides in their final triumph swept the stage, and victory seemed all in the hands of invisible Powers, with no human participant: even as throughout the Homeric epos there runs an undercurrent of unutterable sadness; because, while to the Gods there ever remains a sure seat upon Olympus, unshaken by the winds, untouched by rain or snow, crowned with a cloudless radiance,—yet upon man come vanity, sorrow, and strife; like the leaves of the forest he flourisheth, and then passeth away to the "weak heads of the dead," ([Greek: nekuon amenaena karaena],) conquered by purple Death and strong Fate.
To the eye of sense, and in the circumscribed movements of this world, the desolation seems complete and the defeat final. But the snows of winter are necessary to the blossoms of spring,—the waste of death to the resurrection of life; and from the vastest of all desolations does our Lady lead her children in the loftiest of all flights,—even from all sorrow and solitude,—from the wastes of earth and the desolation of Æons, to ineffable joy in her Saviour Lord.
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