CHAPTER XVII.
"It was best so for her and for us," said Eumedes, after gazing long atLedscha's touchingly beautiful, still, dead face.
Then he ordered her to be buried at once and shouted to the guards:"Everything must be over on this strip of land early to-morrow morning!Let all who bear arms begin at once. Selene will light the men brightlyenough for the work."
The terrible order given in mercy was fulfilled, and hunger and thirstwere robbed of their numerous prey. When the new day dawned the friendswere still on deck, engaged in grave conversation. The cloudless sky nowarched in radiant light above the azure sea. White seagulls came flyingfrom the right across the ship, and sportive dolphins gambolled aroundher keel.
The flutes of the musicians, marking time for the rowers, echoed gailyup from the hold, and, obedient to quick words of command, the seamenwere spreading the sails.
The voyage began with a favourable wind. As Hermon looked back for thelast time, the flat, desolate tongue of land appeared like a line ofgray mist in the southeastern horizon; but over it hovered, like agloomy thundercloud, the flocks of vultures and ravens, whose numberswere constantly increasing. Their greedy screaming could still be heard,though but faintly, yet the eye could no longer distinguish anythingin the fast-vanishing abode of horror, save the hovering whirl of darkspots--ravens and vultures, vultures and ravens.
Whatever human life had moved there yesterday, now rested from bloodygreed for booty, after victory and defeat, mortal terror, fury, anddespair.
Eumedes pointed out the quiet grave by the sea to his parents, saying:"The King's command is fulfilled. Not even the one man who is usuallyspared to carry the news remains out of the four thousand."
"I thank you," exclaimed Alexander's gray-haired comrade, shaking hisson's right hand, but Thyone laid her hand on Hermon's arm, saving:"Where the birds are darkening the air behind us lies buried whatincensed Nemesis against you. You must leave the soil of Egypt. True,it is said that to live in foreign lands, far from the beloved home,darkens the existence; yet Pergamus, too, is Grecian soil, and thereI see the two noblest of stars illumine your path with their purelight-art and love."
And his old friend's premonition was fulfilled.
.......................
The story of Arachne is ended. It closed on the Nile. Hermon's new lifebegan in Pergamus.
As Daphne's husband, under the same roof with the wonderfullyinvigorated Myrtilus, his Uncle Archias, and faithful Bias, Hermon foundin the new home what had hovered before the blind man as the fairestgoal of existence in art, love, and friendship.
He did not long miss the gay varied life of Alexandria, because he founda rich compensation for it, and because Pergamus, too, was a rapidlygrowing city, whose artistic decoration was inferior to no other inGreece.
Of the numerous works which Hermon completed in the service of the firstthree art-loving rulers of the new Pergamenian kingdom, Philetaerus,Eumenes, and Attalus, nothing was preserved except the head of a Gaul.This noble masterpiece proves how faithful Hermon remained to truth,which he had early chosen for the guiding star of his art. It is themodest remnant of the group in which Hermon perpetuated in marble thetwo Gallic brothers whom he saw before his last meeting with Ledscha, asthey offered their breasts to the fatal shafts.
One had gazed defiantly at the arrows of the conquerors; the other,whose head has been preserved, feeling the inevitable approach ofdeath, anticipates, with sorrowful emotion, the end so close at hand.Philetaerus had sent this touching work to King Ptolemy to thank him forthe severity with which he had chastised the daring of the barbarians,who had not spared his kingdom also. The Gaul's head was again found onEgyptian soil.
[Copied in Th. Schrieber's The Head of the Gaul in the Museum of Ghizeh in Cairo. Leipsic, 1896. With appendix. By H. Curschmann.]
Hermon also took other subjects in Pergamus from the domain of reallife, though, in most of his work he crossed the limits which he hadformerly imposed upon himself. But one barrier, often as he rushedforward to its outermost verge, he never dared to pass--moderation, thenoblest demand, to which his liberty-loving race subjected themselveswillingly in life as well as in art. The whole infinite, limitless worldof the ideal had opened itself to the blind man.
He made himself at home in it by remaining faithful to the rule which hehad found in the desert for his creative work, and the genuine happinesswhich he enjoyed through Daphne's love and the great fame his sculpturesbrought him increased the strong individuality of his power.
The fruits of his tireless industry, the much-admired god of light,Phoebus Apollo, slaying the dragons of darkness, as well as hisbewitching Arachne, gazing proudly at the fabric with which shethinks she has surpassed the skill of the goddess, were overtaken bydestruction. In this statue Bias recognised his countrywoman Ledscha,and often gazed long at it with devout ecstasy. Even Hermon's works ofcolossal size vanished from the earth: the Battle of the Amazons andthe relief containing numerous figures: the Sea Gods, which the RegentEumenes ordered for the Temple of Poseidon in Pergamus.
The works of his grandson and grandson's pupils, however, are preservedon the great altar of victory in Pergamus.
The power and energy natural to Hermon, the skill he had acquired inRhodes, everything in the changeful life of Alexandria which had inducedhim to consecrate his art to reality, and to that alone, and whateverhe had, finally, in quiet seclusion, recognised as right and inharmony with the Greek nature and his own, blend in those works of hissuccessor, which a gracious dispensation of Providence permits us stillto admire at the present day, and which we call in its entirety, the artof Pergamus.
The city was a second beloved home to him, as well as to his wife andMyrtilus. The rulers of the country took the old Alexandrian Archiasinto their confidence and knew how to honour him by many a distinction.He understood how to value the happiness of his only daughter, thebeautiful development of his grandchildren, and the high place thatHermon and Myrtilus, whom he loved as if they were his own sons,attained among the artists of their time. Yet he struggled vainlyagainst the longing for his dear old home. Therefore Hermon deemed itone of the best days of his life when his turn came to make Daphne'sfather a happy man.
King Ptolemy Philadelphus had sent laurel to the artist who had fallenunder suspicion in Egypt, and his messenger invited him and Myrtilus,and with them also the exiled merchant, to return to his presence. Ingratitude for the pleasure which Hermon's creation afforded him and hiswife, the cause that kept the fugitive Archias from his home should beforgiven and forgotten.
The gray-haired son of the capital returned with the Bithynian Gras tohis beloved Alexandria, as if his lost youth was again restored. Therehe found unchanged the busy, active life, the Macedonian Council, thebath, the marketplace, the bewitching conversation, the biting wit, theexquisite feasts of the eyes--in short, everything for which hisheart had longed even amid the happiness and love of his dear ones inPergamus.
For two years he endeavoured to enjoy everything as before; but whenthe works of the Pergamenian artists, obtained by Ptolemy, had beenexhibited in the royal palaces, he returned home with a troubled mind.Like the rest of the world, he thought that the reliefs of Myrtilus,representing scenes of rural life, were wonderful.
The Capture of Proserpina, a life-size marble group by his son-in-lawHermon, seemed to him no less perfect; but it exerted a peculiarinfluence upon his paternal heart, for, in the Demeter, he recognisedDaphne, in the Proserpina her oldest daughter Erigone, who bore the nameof Hermon's mother and resembled her in womanly charm. How lovely thisbudding girl, who was his grand-daughter, seemed to the grandfather!How graceful, in spite of the womanly dignity peculiar to her, was themother, encircling her imperilled child with her protecting arm!
No work of sculpture had ever produced such an effect upon the oldpatron of art.
Gras heard him, in his bedroom, murmur the names "Daphne" and "Erigone,"and therefore it did not surprise him when, the next morni
ng, hereceived the command to prepare everything for the return to Pergamus.It pleased the Bithynian, for he cared more for Daphne, Hermon, andtheir children than all the pleasures of the capital.
A few weeks later Archias found himself again in Pergamus with hisfamily, and he never left it, though he reached extreme old age, and waseven permitted to gaze in wondering admiration at the first attempts ofthe oldest son of Hermon and Daphne, and to hear them praised by others.
This grandson of the Alexandrian Archias afterward became the master whotaught the generation of artists who created the Pergamenian works, inexamining which the question forced itself upon the narrator of thisstory: How do these sculptures possess the qualities which distinguishthem so strongly from the other statues of later Hellenic antiquity?
Did the great weaver Imagination err when she blended them, through themighty wrestler Hermon, with a tendency of Alexandrian science andart, which we see appearing again among us children of a period so muchlater?
Science, which is now once more pursuing similar paths, ought and willfollow them further, but Hermon's words remain applicable to the presentclay: "We will remain loyal servants of the truth; yet it alone does nothold the key to the holy of holies of art. To him for whom Apollo, thepure among the gods, and the Muses, friends of beauty, do not open itat the same time with truth, its gates will remain closed, no matter howstrongly and persistently he shakes them."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE ARACHNE:
Aimless life of pleasure Camels, which were rarely seen in Egypt Cast my warning to the winds, pity will also fly away with it Cautious inquiry saves recantation Forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse Must--that word is a ploughshare which suits only loose soil Nature is sufficient for us Regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established Tender and uncouth natural sounds, which no language knows There is nothing better than death, for it is peace There are no gods, and whoever bows makes himself a slave Tone of patronizing instruction assumed by the better informed Two griefs always belong to one joy Wait, child! What is life but waiting? Waiting is the merchant's wisdom Woman's hair is long, but her wit is short
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