The car with the young man pulling it passed the turn of the road, and glimmered through the olive trees. A bright spring moon was rising, making everything pale and clear, casting dark shadows of leaves. The priest’s spotted pelt and dappled limbs seemed one with the tree trunk where he leaned watching me. He thought his thoughts, whatever they were, and I thought mine.
The sunset was fading, and the moon’s face lifted above the sea, making a white path which shone between the moving boughs. I saw the moon and her brightness; but the place had changed for me. My life which was I stood upon a lofty platform, gazing on a great rock’s shadow flung across a plain. Clear and brilliant was the starry sky, spanning the amber mountains; and the high Citadel too shone of herself, as if her stones breathed light.
“Indeed and truly,” I thought, “it was not lucky when I looked too near too soon. A cold bed, and a cold shadow on my fate, this looking will bring me. For what I must do now, dead Minos will not forgive me in the house of Hades. So much the worse for me. But better for the strong house of Erechdieus, which stood long before me and will stand long after. I will not go back to that light with my hand full of darkness; not even the darkness of a god.”
I looked at the priest. He had turned his face to the moon, which glittered on his open eyes; his body was quiet as the olive tree, or as a snake upon a stone. He seemed like a man who knew earth magic, and would prophesy in the madness of the dance. And then I thought of the great Labyrinth, which had stood a thousand years; and how Minos had said the god’s voice called them no longer.
“All things change,” I thought, “except the gods who live for ever. And who can tell; after a thousand ages, they themselves in their house above the clouds may hear the voice that calls home the King, and make the offering of their immortality—for do not the gods’ gifts excel the gifts of men?—and all their power and glory will rise like smoke to a higher heaven, and pass into a greater god. That would be death into life, if such a thing could be. But this is life into death, the madness without the oracle, the blood without the listening ear and the consent that frees the soul. Yes, that is death indeed.”
My mind went back to the room behind the sanctuary, where she had called me a barbarian. I felt her fingers touching my breast, and her voice whispering, “I love you more than I can bear.” And I saw her waking tomorrow in such another room, washed from the blood, perhaps with the madness all forgotten, with wondering eyes looking about her, and seeking me. The chariot had passed out of sight down the hill road. I could hear no longer even the sound of wheels.
I turned to the priest, and found his eyes already on me. “I have done an unlucky thing,” I said. “Perhaps it has displeased the god. This is his feast day. It will be better for me to go.”
He answered, “You have done him worship; he will forgive a stranger’s ignorance. But it will be better not to stay too long.”
I looked toward the road, empty and pale in the moonlight. “A royal priestess, called to this mystery; she would have honor here in Dia?”
“Do not be afraid,” he said. “She will be honored.”
“You will tell your Queen, then,” I said, “why we go like this by night, without thanks or farewell?”
“Yes,” he said. “She will understand it. I will tell her in the morning; tonight she will be weary.” There was silence, and I searched my heart for another message, where there was more need of it. But there was nothing to say.
At last he said to me, “Grieve no longer. Many-formed are the gods; and the end men look for is not the end they bring. So it is here.” He stepped out from the tree, and walked away through the grove. Soon he melted into the fleckered shadows, and I saw him no more.
The olive field was empty; my companions were long gone. I went alone down the road, and came to the sleeping harbor. The watch was still by the ship, not all blind drunk; and some of the crew had come to sleep on the shore. There was a night breeze, blowing from the south, enough to fill the sail; if they were sluggish at the oar, it was no great matter. I told them it was dangerous to stay, that they must find the others and bring them quickly. They hurried off; it is easy to wake men’s fears in a strange land.
When they were gone, I told the pilot’s mate to fetch in the dancers. Then for a while I stood by the sea alone. I pictured her next day on the holy islet, looking out to sea, seeking our sail; thinking perhaps that some girl at the feast had made me forsake her; or that I had never loved her, but only used her to help me out of Crete. So she might think. But the truth would be no better.
As I paced to and fro, hearing the ripples suck the shore, the crunch of my feet on shells, and the night guard’s drowsy song, I saw a pale form wandering by the water, and heard a sound of weeping. It was Chryse, her gold hair, loosened on her shoulders, pale in the moonlight, crying into her hands. I took them from her face. There was no stain on them, but of dust and tears.
I told her to be comforted, and weep no more, whatever she had seen; that what was done in the god’s frenzy was best not thought of after, being a mystery hard for Hellenes to understand. “We are sailing tonight,” I said. “We shall make Delos by morning.”
She looked at me dimly. I remembered her courage in the bull ring, and how she had brought me to myself when I was mad. She swallowed, and put back her hair, and wiped her eyes. “I know, Theseus. I know. It was all the frenzy of the god, and he will forget tomorrow. He will forget, and only I will remember.”
It was a thing I had no help for. I might have said that everything passes, if I had had time to learn it myself. As I shook my head, I began to see some of the dancers running down to the ship. The watchman’s cresset showed their faces; among the first was Amyntor. His mouth was open to question me, but then he looked again. He turned to Chryse, shyly, and hanging back; I saw he was in fear of her anger. Their eyes met, peering in the uncertain torchlight; suddenly he ran across, and took her hand. Their fingers folded together, in a knot as close as a goldsmith makes upon a ring.
I did not trouble them with reasons, for they would have heeded none, but said they must help to get in the rest of the bull-dancers; we should set sail at midnight. They ran off, still handfast, toward Naxos, where the lamps were being quenched for the night.
The moon made its twinkling pathway on the sea. A dark shade broke it, the little island of Dionysos; I saw the sanctuary roof with its Cretan horns, and one small lighted window. They had left her with a lamp, I thought, lest waking in a strange place she should be afraid. When midnight had passed, and we put out into the strait under the sinking Pleiads, I saw it was still burning. It shone steadfastly until the sea-line hid it, keeping faith with her sleep while I fled away.
2
WE REACHED DELOS WITH the light of morning; as we drew in, the sun was standing over the holy hill.
On a bright day in Delos, the very stones, which twinkle with sparks like silver, seem to flash and glitter under the kiss of the god. Water and air are clear as crystal. You can count every pebble as you wade ashore; and when you look toward the stairway that leads to the sacred cave, it seems you could count every flower upon the mountain. From the hilltop above the sanctuary, the plume of the morning sacrifice uncurled in a deep sapphire sky.
There was a joy here beyond laughter; and for us who were Hellenes, even though our feet trod Delian soil for the first time, a homecoming beyond tears. As I walked up to the lake and the sacred grove, along the warm sparkling causeway, the sharp white sunlight seemed to wash from me the earth-darkness of Dia, the rotten glow of Crete. All here was lucid, shining, and clear; even the awe of the god, the secret of his mystery, hidden not in shadows but in a light too dazzling for human eyes.