CHAPTER V
When Ben-Hur sallied from the great warehouse, it was with thethought that another failure was to be added to the many he hadalready met in the quest for his people; and the idea was depressingexactly in proportion as the objects of his quest were dear to him;it curtained him round about with a sense of utter loneliness onearth, which, more than anything else, serves to eke from a soulcast down its remaining interest in life.
Through the people, and the piles of goods, he made way to the edgeof the landing, and was tempted by the cool shadows darkening theriver's depth. The lazy current seemed to stop and wait for him.In counteraction of the spell, the saying of the voyager flashedinto memory--"Better be a worm, and feed upon the mulberries ofDaphne, than a king's guest." He turned, and walked rapidly downthe landing and back to the khan.
"The road to Daphne!" the steward said, surprised at the questionBen-Hur put to him. "You have not been here before? Well, count thisthe happiest day of your life. You cannot mistake the road. The nextstreet to the left, going south, leads straight to Mount Sulpius,crowned by the altar of Jupiter and the Amphitheater; keep it tothe third cross street, known as Herod's Colonnade; turn to yourright there, and hold the way through the old city of Seleucus tothe bronze gates of Epiphanes. There the road to Daphne begins--andmay the gods keep you!"
A few directions respecting his baggage, and Ben-Hur set out.
The Colonnade of Herod was easily found; thence to the brazen gates,under a continuous marble portico, he passed with a multitude mixedof people from all the trading nations of the earth.
It was about the fourth hour of the day when he passed out thegate, and found himself one of a procession apparently interminable,moving to the famous Grove. The road was divided into separate waysfor footmen, for men on horses, and men in chariots; and those againinto separate ways for outgoers and incomers. The lines of divisionwere guarded by low balustrading, broken by massive pedestals, many ofwhich were surmounted with statuary. Right and left of the roadextended margins of sward perfectly kept, relieved at intervalsby groups of oak and sycamore trees, and vine-clad summer-housesfor the accommodation of the weary, of whom, on the return side,there were always multitudes. The ways of the footmen were pavedwith red stone, and those of the riders strewn with white sandcompactly rolled, but not so solid as to give back an echo to hoofor wheel. The number and variety of fountains at play were amazing,all gifts of visiting kings, and called after them. Out southwestto the gates of the Grove, the magnificent thoroughfare stretcheda little over four miles from the city.
In his wretchedness of feeling, Ben-Hur barely observed the royalliberality which marked the construction of the road. Nor moredid he at first notice the crowd going with him. He treatedthe processional displays with like indifference. To say truth,besides his self-absorption, he had not a little of the complacencyof a Roman visiting the provinces fresh from the ceremonies whichdaily eddied round and round the golden pillar set up by Augustusas the centre of the world. It was not possible for the provincesto offer anything new or superior. He rather availed himself ofevery opportunity to push forward through the companies in theway, and too slow-going for his impatience. By the time he reachedHeracleia, a suburban village intermediate the city and the Grove,he was somewhat spent with exercise, and began to be susceptibleof entertainment. Once a pair of goats led by a beautiful woman,woman and goats alike brilliant with ribbons and flowers, attractedhis attention. Then he stopped to look at a bull of mighty girth,and snowy white, covered with vines freshly cut, and bearing on itsbroad back a naked child in a basket, the image of a young Bacchus,squeezing the juice of ripened berries into a goblet, and drinkingwith libational formulas. As he resumed his walk, he wondered whosealtars would be enriched by the offerings. A horse went by withclipped mane, after the fashion of the time, his rider superblydressed. He smiled to observe the harmony of pride between theman and the brute. Often after that he turned his head at hearingthe rumble of wheels and the dull thud of hoofs; unconsciously hewas becoming interested in the styles of chariots and charioteers,as they rustled past him going and coming. Nor was it long untilhe began to make notes of the people around him. He saw they wereof all ages, sexes, and conditions, and all in holiday attire.One company was uniformed in white, another in black; some boreflags, some smoking censers; some went slowly, singing hymns;others stepped to the music of flutes and tabrets. If such werethe going to Daphne every day in the year, what a wondrous sightDaphne must be! At last there was a clapping of hands, and a burstof joyous cries; following the pointing of many fingers, he lookedand saw upon the brow of a hill the templed gate of the consecratedGrove. The hymns swelled to louder strains; the music quickenedtime; and, borne along by the impulsive current, and sharing thecommon eagerness, he passed in, and, Romanized in taste as he was,fell to worshiping the place.
Rearward of the structure which graced the entrance-way--a purelyGrecian pile--he stood upon a broad esplanade paved with polishedstone; around him a restless exclamatory multitude, in gayestcolors, relieved against the iridescent spray flying crystal-whitefrom fountains; before him, off to the southwest, dustless pathsradiated out into a garden, and beyond that into a forest, overwhich rested a veil of pale-blue vapor. Ben-Hur gazed wistfully,uncertain where to go. A woman that moment exclaimed,
"Beautiful! But where to now?"
Her companion, wearing a chaplet of bays, laughed and answered,"Go to, thou pretty barbarian! The question implies an earthlyfear; and did we not agree to leave all such behind in Antiochwith the rusty earth? The winds which blow here are respirationsof the gods. Let us give ourselves to waftage of the winds."
"But if we should get lost?"
"O thou timid! No one was ever lost in Daphne, except those onwhom her gates close forever."
"And who are they?" she asked, still fearful.
"Such as have yielded to the charms of the place and chosen itfor life and death. Hark! Stand we here, and I will show you ofwhom I speak."
Upon the marble pavement there was a scurry of sandalled feet;the crowd opened, and a party of girls rushed about the speakerand his fair friend, and began singing and dancing to the tabretsthey themselves touched. The woman, scared, clung to the man,who put an arm about her, and, with kindled face, kept time tothe music with the other hand overhead. The hair of the dancersfloated free, and their limbs blushed through the robes of gauzewhich scarcely draped them. Words may not be used to tell of thevoluptuousness of the dance. One brief round, and they darted offthrough the yielding crowd lightly as they had come.
"Now what think you?" cried the man to the woman.
"Who are they?" she asked.
"Devadasi--priestesses devoted to the Temple of Apollo. There isan army of them. They make the chorus in celebrations. This istheir home. Sometimes they wander off to other cities, but allthey make is brought here to enrich the house of the divinemusician. Shall we go now?"
Next minute the two were gone.
Ben-Hur took comfort in the assurance that no one was ever lostin Daphne, and he, too, set out--where, he knew not.
A sculpture reared upon a beautiful pedestal in the garden attractedhim first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscriptioninformed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron,the beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteriesof hunting, medicine, music, and prophecy. The inscription alsobade the stranger look out at a certain part of the heavens, at acertain hour of the clear night, and he would behold the dead aliveamong the stars, whither Jupiter had transferred the good genius.
The wisest of the centaurs continued, nevertheless, in the serviceof mankind. In his hand he held a scroll, on which, graven in Greek,were paragraphs of a notice:
"O Traveller! "Art thou a stranger?
"I. Hearken to the singing of the brooks, and fear not the rain ofthe fountains; so will the Naiades learn to love thee.
"II. The invited breezes of Daphne are Zephyru
s and Auster;gentle ministers of life, they will gather sweets for thee;when Eurus blows, Diana is elsewhere hunting; when Boreasblusters, go hide, for Apollo is angry.
"III. The shades of the Grove are thine in the day; at night theybelong to Pan and his Dryades. Disturb them not.
"IV. Eat of the Lotus by the brooksides sparingly, unless thouwouldst have surcease of memory, which is to become a child ofDaphne.
"V. Walk thou round the weaving spider--'tis Arachne at work forMinerva.
"VI. Wouldst thou behold the tears of Daphne, break but a bud froma laurel bough--and die.
"Heed thou! "And stay and be happy."
Ben-Hur left the interpretation of the mystic notice to othersfast enclosing him, and turned away as the white bull was led by.The boy sat in the basket, followed by a procession; after them again,the woman with the goats; and behind her the flute and tabret players,and another procession of gift-bringers.
"Whither go they?" asked a bystander.
Another made answer, "The bull to Father Jove; the goat--"
"Did not Apollo once keep the flocks of Admetus?"
"Ay, the goat to Apollo!"
The goodness of the reader is again besought in favor of anexplanation. A certain facility of accommodation in the matterof religion comes to us after much intercourse with people of adifferent faith; gradually we attain the truth that every creed isillustrated by good men who are entitled to our respect, but whomwe cannot respect without courtesy to their creed. To this pointBen-Hur had arrived. Neither the years in Rome nor those in thegalley had made any impression upon his religious faith; he wasyet a Jew. In his view, nevertheless, it was not an impiety tolook for the beautiful in the Grove of Daphne.
The remark does not interdict the further saying, if his scrupleshad been ever so extreme, not improbably he would at this time havesmothered them. He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing ofa trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wellsof nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was thewrath peculiar to ardent natures rudely awakened by the suddenannihilation of a hope--dream, if you will--in which the choicesthappinesses were thought to be certainly in reach. In such casenothing intermediate will carry off the passion--the quarrel iswith Fate.
Let us follow the philosophy a little further, and say to ourselves,it were well in such quarrels if Fate were something tangible, to bedespatched with a look or a blow, or a speaking personage with whomhigh words were possible; then the unhappy mortal would not alwaysend the affair by punishing himself.
In ordinary mood, Ben-Hur would not have come to the Grove alone,or, coming alone, he would have availed himself of his position inthe consul's family, and made provision against wandering idlyabout, unknowing and unknown; he would have had all the pointsof interest in mind, and gone to them under guidance, as in thedespatch of business; or, wishing to squander days of leisure inthe beautiful place, he would have had in hand a letter to themaster of it all, whoever he might be. This would have made hima sightseer, like the shouting herd he was accompanying; whereas hehad no reverence for the deities of the Grove, nor curiosity; a manin the blindness of bitter disappointment, he was adrift, not waitingfor Fate, but seeking it as a desperate challenger.
Every one has known this condition of mind, though perhaps not allin the same degree; every one will recognize it as the conditionin which he has done brave things with apparent serenity; and everyone reading will say, Fortunate for Ben-Hur if the folly which nowcatches him is but a friendly harlequin with whistle and painted cap,and not some Violence with a pointed sword pitiless.