The Last Days of Pompeii Part 12

Mine are the stars--there, ever as ye gaze, Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes; Mine is the moon--and, mournful if her rays, 'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.

The flowers are mine--the blushes of the rose, The violet--charming Zephyr to the shade; Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows, And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade.

Love, sons of earth--for love is earth's soft lore, Look where ye will--earth overflows with ME; Learn from the waves that ever kiss the sh.o.r.e, And the winds nestling on the heaving sea.

'All teaches love!'--The sweet voice, like a dream, Melted in light; yet still the airs above, The waving sedges, and the whispering stream, And the green forest rustling, murmur'd 'LOVE!'

As the voices died away, the Egyptian seized the hand of Apaecides, and led him, wandering, intoxicated, yet half-reluctant, across the chamber towards the curtain at the far end; and now, from behind that curtain, there seemed to burst a thousand sparkling stars; the veil itself, hitherto dark, was now lighted by these fires behind into the tenderest blue of heaven. It represented heaven itself--such a heaven, as in the nights of June might have shone down over the streams of Castaly. Here and there were painted rosy and aerial clouds, from which smiled, by the limner's art, faces of divinest beauty, and on which reposed the shapes of which Phidias and Apelles dreamed. And the stars which studded the transparent azure rolled rapidly as they shone, while the music, that again woke with a livelier and lighter sound, seemed to imitate the melody of the joyous spheres.

'Oh! what miracle is this, Arbaces,' said Apaecides in faltering accents. 'After having denied the G.o.ds, art thou about to reveal to me...'

'Their pleasures!' interrupted Arbaces, in a tone so different from its usual cold and tranquil harmony that Apaecides started, and thought the Egyptian himself transformed; and now, as they neared the curtain, a wild--a loud--an exulting melody burst from behind its concealment.

With that sound the veil was rent in twain--it parted--it seemed to vanish into air: and a scene, which no Sybarite ever more than rivalled, broke upon the dazzled gaze of the youthful priest. A vast banquet-room stretched beyond, blazing with countless lights, which filled the warm air with the scents of frankincense, of jasmine, of violets, of myrrh; all that the most odorous flowers, all that the most costly spices could distil, seemed gathered into one ineffable and ambrosial essence: from the light columns that sprang upwards to the airy roof, hung draperies of white, studded with golden stars. At the extremities of the room two fountains cast up a spray, which, catching the rays of the roseate light, glittered like countless diamonds. In the centre of the room as they entered there rose slowly from the floor, to the sound of unseen minstrelsy, a table spread with all the viands which sense ever devoted to fancy, and vases of that lost Myrrhine fabric, so glowing in its colors, so transparent in its material, were crowned with the exotics of the East. The couches, to which this table was the centre, were covered with tapestries of azure and gold; and from invisible tubes the vaulted roof descended showers of fragrant waters, that cooled the delicious air, and contended with the lamps, as if the spirits of wave and fire disputed which element could furnish forth the most delicious odorous.

And now, from behind the snowy draperies, trooped such forms as Adonis beheld when he lay on the lap of Venus. They came, some with garlands, others with lyres; they surrounded the youth, they led his steps to the banquet. They flung the chaplets round him in rosy chains. The earth--the thought of earth, vanished from his soul. He imagined himself in a dream, and suppressed his breath lest he should wake too soon; the senses, to which he had never yielded as yet, beat in his burning pulse, and confused his dizzy and reeling sight. And while thus amazed and lost, once again, but in brisk and Bacchic measures, rose the magic strain:

ANACREONTIC

In the veins of the calix foams and glows The blood of the mantling vine, But oh! in the bowl of Youth there glows A Lesbian, more divine!

Bright, bright, As the liquid light, Its waves through thine eyelids s.h.i.+ne!

Fill up, fill up, to the sparkling brim, The juice of the young Lyaeus; The grape is the key that we owe to him From the gaol of the world to free us.

Drink, drink!

What need to shrink, When the lambs alone can see us?

Drink, drink, as I quaff from thine eyes The wine of a softer tree; Give the smiles to the G.o.d of the grape--thy sighs, Beloved one, give to me.

Turn, turn, My glances burn, And thirst for a look from thee!

As the song ended, a group of three maidens, entwined with a chain of starred flowers, and who, while they imitated, might have shamed the Graces, advanced towards him in the gliding measures of the Ionian dance: such as the Nereids wreathed in moonlight on the yellow sands of the AEgean wave--such as Cytherea taught her handmaids in the marriage-feast of Psyche and her son.

Now approaching, they wreathed their chaplet round his head; now kneeling, the youngest of the three proffered him the bowl, from which the wine of Lesbos foamed and sparkled. The youth resisted no more, he grasped the intoxicating cup, the blood mantled fiercely through his veins. He sank upon the breast of the nymph who sat beside him, and turning with swimming eyes to seek for Arbaces, whom he had lost in the whirl of his emotions, he beheld him seated beneath a canopy at the upper end of the table, and gazing upon him with a smile that encouraged him to pleasure. He beheld him, but not as he had hitherto seen, with dark and sable garments, with a brooding and solemn brow: a robe that dazzled the sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold and gems, blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with the emerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his raven locks.

He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the glory of a second youth--his features seemed to have exchanged thought for beauty, and he towered amidst the loveliness that surrounded him, in all the beaming and relaxing benignity of the Olympian G.o.d.

'Drink, feast, love, my pupil!' said he, 'blush not that thou art pa.s.sionate and young. That which thou art, thou feelest in thy veins: that which thou shalt be, survey!'

With this he pointed to a recess, and the eyes of Apaecides, following the gesture, beheld on a pedestal, placed between the statues of Bacchus and Idalia, the form of a skeleton.

'Start not,' resumed the Egyptian; 'that friendly guest admonishes us but of the shortness of life. From its jaws I hear a voice that summons us to ENJOY.'

As he spoke, a group of nymphs surrounded the statue; they laid chaplets on its pedestal, and, while the cups were emptied and refilled at that glowing board, they sang the following strain:

BACCHIC HYMNS TO THE IMAGE OF DEATH

I

Thou art in the land of the shadowy Host, Thou that didst drink and love: By the Solemn River, a gliding ghost, But thy thought is ours above!

If memory yet can fly, Back to the golden sky, And mourn the pleasures lost!

By the ruin'd hall these flowers we lay, Where thy soul once held its palace; When the rose to thy scent and sight was gay, And the smile was in the chalice, And the cithara's voice Could bid thy heart rejoice When night eclipsed the day.

Here a new group advancing, turned the tide of the music into a quicker and more joyous strain.

II

Death, death is the gloomy sh.o.r.e Where we all sail-- Soft, soft, thou gliding oar; Blow soft, sweet gale!

Chain with bright wreaths the Hours; Victims if all Ever, 'mid song and flowers, Victims should fall!

Pausing for a moment, yet quicker and quicker danced the silver-footed music:

Since Life's so short, we'll live to laugh, Ah! wherefore waste a minute!

If youth's the cup we yet can quaff, Be love the pearl within it!

A third band now approached with br.i.m.m.i.n.g cups, which they poured in libation upon that strange altar; and once more, slow and solemn, rose the changeful melody:

III

Thou art welcome, Guest of gloom, From the far and fearful sea!

When the last rose sheds its bloom, Our board shall be spread with thee!

All hail, dark Guest!

Who hath so fair a plea Our welcome Guest to be, As thou, whose solemn hall At last shall feast us all In the dim and dismal coast?

Long yet be we the Host!

And thou, Dead Shadow, thou, All joyless though thy brow, Thou--but our pa.s.sing GUEST!

At this moment, she who sat beside Apaecides suddenly took up the song:

IV

Happy is yet our doom, The earth and the sun are ours!

And far from the dreary tomb Speed the wings of the rosy Hours-- Sweet is for thee the bowl, Sweet are thy looks, my love; I fly to thy tender soul, As bird to its mated dove!

Take me, ah, take!

Clasp'd to thy guardian breast, Soft let me sink to rest: But wake me--ah, wake!

And tell me with words and sighs, But more with thy melting eyes, That my sun is not set-- That the Torch is not quench'd at the Urn That we love, and we breathe, and burn, Tell me--thou lov'st me yet!

BOOK THE SECOND

Chapter I

A FLASH HOUSE IN POMPEII, AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE CLa.s.sIC RING.

TO one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not by the lords of pleasure, but by its minions and its victims; the haunt of gladiators and prize-fighters; of the vicious and the penniless; of the savage and the obscene; the Alsatia of an ancient city--we are now transported.

It was a large room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose hardy and reckless countenances, indicated the champions of the arena. On a shelf, without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was inserted in the wall a coa.r.s.e painting, which exhibited gladiators drinking--so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! Within the room were placed several small tables, arranged somewhat in the modern fas.h.i.+on of 'boxes', and round these were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some playing at dice, some at that more skilful game called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the a.s.sistance of dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable time itself denoted the habitual indolence of these tavern loungers.