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# 2025-01-29 - The Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garnett
Prometheus by Gustave Moreau (1868)
I admire the author's beautiful, poetic writing style in this
collection of high-quality fantasy short stories. I liked the first
story the best. I also enjoyed The Dumb Oracle, Pan's Wand, and
Truth And Her Companions. All of these stories involve Greek
mythology.
The story of Ananda The Miracle Worker is a Buddhist trope. Long
ago i read that when Buddhism became an official state spiritual
path, the role of Ananda in many stories was to be a dupe, showing
the superiority of Buddha's teaching over what it supplanted. In
this story, Ananda fills this role perfectly.
I am including the complete text of the first story below.
# The Twilight of the Gods
> Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear
> The longest date do melt like frosty rime.
## Chapter I
The fourth Christian century was far past its meridian, when, high
above the summit of the supreme peak of Caucasus, a magnificent
eagle came sailing on broad fans into the blue, and his shadow
skimmed the glittering snow as it had done day by day for thousands
of years. A human figure--or it might be superhuman, for his mien
seemed more than mortal--lifted from the crag, to which he hung
suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the
presentiment of pain. The eagle's screech clanged on the wind, as
with outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing
circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears,
whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated
his hands and feet. Then happened what all these millenniums had
never witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of
cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot;
yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling
sheer down into the unfathomable abyss below. At the same moment
the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, projected by an
impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular precipice, he
alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward amid
young ash and oak, where he long lay deprived of sense and motion.
The sun fell, dew gathered on the grass, moonshine glimpsed through
the leaves, stars peeped timidly at the prostrate figure, which
remained prostrate and unconscious still. But as sunlight was born
anew in the East a thrill passed over the slumberer, and he became
conscious, first of an indescribably delicious feeling of restful
ease, then of a gnawing pang, acute as the beak of the eagle for
which he at first mistook it. But his wrists, though still
encumbered with bonds and trailing fetters, were otherwise at
liberty, and eagle there was none. Marvelling at his inward and
invisible foe, he struggled to his feet, and found himself
contending with a faintness and dizziness heretofore utterly
unknown to him. He dimly felt himself in the midst of things grown
wonderful by estrangement and distance. No grass, no flower, no
leaf had met his eye for thousands of years, nothing but the
impenetrable azure, the transient cloud, sun, moon, and star, the
lightning flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the solitary
eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all
these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed
his utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly
growing more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort
he steadied himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished
so much when a tall dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an
antelope, wildly beautiful as a Dryad, but liker a Maenad with her
aspect of mingled disdain and dismay, and step hasty as of one
pursuing or pursued, suddenly checked her speed on perceiving him.
"Who art thou?" he exclaimed.
"Gods! Thou speakest Greek!"
"What else should I speak?"
"What else? From whom save thee, since I closed my father's eyes,
have I heard the tongue of Homer and Plato?"
"Who is Homer? Who is Plato?"
The maiden regarded him with a look of the deepest astonishment.
"Surely," she said, "thy gift has been bestowed upon thee to little
purpose. Say not, at least, that thou usest the speech of the Gods
to blaspheme them. Thou art surely yet a votary of Zeus?"
"I a votary of Zeus!" exclaimed the stranger. "By these fetters,
no!" And, weak as he was, the forest rang with his disdainful
laughter.
"Farewell," said the maiden, as with dilating form and kindling eye
she gathered up her robes. "I parley with thee no more. Thou art
tenfold more detestable than the howling mob down yonder, intent on
rapine and destruction. They know no better, and can no other. But
thou, apt in speaking the sacred tongue yet brutally ignorant of
its treasures, knowing the father of the Gods only to revile him!
Let me pass."
The stranger, if willing to hinder her, seemed little able. His
eyes closed, his limbs relaxed, and without a cry he sank senseless
on the sward.
In an instant the maiden was kneeling by his side. Hastily undoing
a basket she carried on her arm, she drew forth a leather flask,
and, supporting the sunken head with one hand, poured a stream of
wine through the lips with the other. As the gurgling purple
coursed down his throat the sufferer opened his eyes, and thanked
her silently with a smile of exquisite sweetness. Removing the
large leaves which shaded the contents of the basket, she disclosed
ripe figs and pomegranates, honeycomb and snow-white curd, lying
close to each other in tempting array. The stranger took of each
alternately, and the basket was well-nigh emptied ere his appetite
seemed assuaged.
The observant maiden, meanwhile, felt her mood strangely altered.
"So have I imaged Ulysses to myself," she thought as she gazed on
the stranger's goodly form, full of vigour, though not without
traces of age, the massive brow, the kindly mouth, the expression
of far-seeing wisdom. "Such a man ignorant of letters, and a
contemner of Zeus!"
The stranger's eloquent thanks roused her from a reverie. The Greek
tongue fell upon her ear like the sweetest music, and she grieved
when its flow was interrupted by a question addressed directly to
herself.
"Can a God feel hunger and thirst?"
"Surely no," she rejoined.
"I should have said the same yesterday," returned the stranger.
"Wherefore not to-day?"
"Dear maiden," responded he, with winning voice and manner, "we
must know each other better ere my tale can gain credence with
thee. Do thou rather unfold what thine own speech has left dark to
me. Why the language of the Gods, as should seem, is here
understood by thee and me alone; what foes Zeus has here other than
myself; what is the profane crowd of which thou didst speak; and
why, alone and defenceless, thou ascendest this mountain. Think of
me, if thou wilt, as one fallen from the clouds."
"Strange man," returned the maiden, "who knowest Homer's speech and
not Homer's self, who renouncest Zeus and resemblest him, hear my
tale ere I require thine. Yesterday I should have called myself the
last priestess of Apollo in this fallen land, to-day I have neither
shrine nor altar. Moved by I know not what madness, my countrymen
have long ago forsaken the worship of the Gods. The temples
crumbled into ruin, prayer was no longer offered or sacrifice made
as of old, the priestly revenues were plundered; the sacred vessels
carried away; the voice of oracles became dumb; the divine tongue
of Greece was forgotten, its scrolls of wisdom mouldered unread,
and the deluded people turned to human mechanics and fishermen. One
faithful servant of Apollo remained, my father; but 'tis seven days
since he closed his eyes for ever. It was time, for yesternoon the
heralds proclaimed by order of the King that Zeus and the Olympians
should be named no more in Caucasia."
"Ha!" interrupted the stranger, "I see it all. Said I not so?" he
shouted, gazing into the sky as if his eye could pierce and his
voice reach beyond the drifting clouds. "But to thy own tale," he
added, turning with a gesture of command to the astonished Elenko.
"It is soon told," she said. "I knew that it was death to serve the
Gods any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn
upon Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I
became aware of a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was
ready for death, but not at their hands. I caught up this basket,
and escaped up the mountain. On its inaccessible summit, it is
reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let me bow in awe before his
inscrutable counsels) doomed for his benevolence to mankind. To
him, as Aeschylus sings, Io of old found her way, and from him
received monition and knowledge of what should come to pass. I will
try if courage and some favouring God will guide me to him; if not,
I will die as near Heaven as I may attain. Tell me on thy part what
thou wilt, and let me depart. If thou art indeed Zeus's enemy, thou
wilt find enough on thy side down yonder."
"I have been Zeus's enemy," returned the stranger, mildly and
gravely, "I am so no longer. Immortal hate befits not the mortal I
feel myself to have become. Nor needest thou ascend the peak
further. Maiden, I am Prometheus!"
## Chapter II
It is a prerogative of the Gods that, when they do speak sooth,
mortals must needs believe them. Elenko hence felt no incredulity
at the revelation of Prometheus, or sought other confirmation than
the bonds and broken links of chain at his wrists and ankles.
"Now," he cried, or rather shouted, "is the prophecy fulfilled with
which of old I admonished the Gods in the halls of Olympus. I told
them that Zeus should beget a child mightier than himself, who
should send him and them the way he had sent his father. I knew not
that this child was already begotten, and that his name was Man. It
has taken Man ages to assert himself, nor has he yet, as it would
seem, done more than enthrone a new idol in the place of the old.
But for the old, behold the last traces of its authority in these
fetters, of which the first smith will rid me. Expect no
thunderbolt, dear maiden; none will come: nor shall I regain the
immortality of which I feel myself bereaved since yesterday."
"Is this no sorrow to thee?" asked Elenko.
"Has not my immortality been one of pain?" answered Prometheus.
"Now I feel no pain, and dread one only."
"And that is?"
"The pain of missing a certain fellow-mortal," answered Prometheus,
with a look so expressive that the hitherto unawed maiden cast her
eyes to the ground. Hastening away from the conversation to which,
nevertheless, she inly purposed to return.
"Is Man, then, the maker of Deity?" she asked.
"Can the source of his being originate in himself?" asked
Prometheus. "To assert this were self-contradiction, and pride
inflated to madness. But of the more exalted beings who have like
him emanated from the common principle of all existence, Man, since
his advent on the earth, though not the creator, is the preserver
or the destroyer. He looks up to them, and they are; he out-grows
them, and they are not. For the barbarian and Triballian gods there
is no return; but the Olympians, if dead as deities, survive as
impersonations of Man's highest conceptions of the beautiful.
Languid and spectral indeed must be their existence in this
barbarian age; but better days are in store for them."
"And for thee, Prometheus?"
"There is now no place," replied he, "for an impeacher of the Gods.
My cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of
man by myself becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also
mortal I may haply traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I
would hope, Elenko by my side."
Elenko's countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany
Prometheus as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he
might please to conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious
reverie, and she inquired:
"Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer
and better than that which I have professed?"
"If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye," answered
Prometheus, "but of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy
tale to have begun but ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and
his reign was the Golden Age."
While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling
aimlessly down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path,
they suddenly found themselves in presence of an assembly of early
Christians.
These confessors were making the most of Elenko's dilapidated
temple, whose smoking shell threw up a sable column in the
background. The effigies of Apollo and the Muses had been dragged
forth, and were being diligently broken up with mallets and
hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were rending scrolls, or
dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that environed
the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth. The
sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver,
appeared safe in the guardianship of an episcopal personage of
shrewd and jovial aspect, under whose inspection they were being
piled up by a troop of sturdy young ecclesiastics, the only
weapon-bearers among the rabble. Elenko stood riveted to the
ground. Prometheus, to her amazement, rushed forward to one of the
groups with a loud "By all the Gods and Goddesses!" Following his
movements, she saw that the object of his interest was an enormous
dead eagle carried by one of the mob. The multitude, startled by
his cry and his emotion, gazed eagerly at the strangers, and
instantly a shout went up:
"The heathen woman!"
"With a heathen man!"
And clubs began to be brandished, and stones to be picked up from
the ground.
Prometheus, to whom the shouts were unintelligible, looked
wistfully at Elenko. As their eyes met, Elenko's countenance, which
had hitherto been all disdain and defiance, assumed an expression
of irresolution. A stone struck Prometheus on the temple, drawing
blood; a hundred hands went up, each weighted with a missile.
"Do as I," cried Elenko to him, and crossed herself.
Prometheus imitated her, not unsuccessfully for a novice.
The uplifted arms were stayed, some even sank down.
By this time the Bishop had bustled to the front, and addressed a
torrent of questions to Prometheus, who merely shook his head, and
turned to inspect the eagle.
"Brethren," said the Bishop, "I smell a miracle!" And, turning to
Elenko, he rapidly proceeded to cross-examine her.
"Thou wert the priestess of this temple?"
"I was."
"Thou didst leave it this morning a heathen?"
"I did."
"Thou returnest a Christian?"
Elenko blushed fire, her throat swelled, her heart beat violently.
All her soul seemed concentrated in the gaze she fastened on the
pale and bleeding Prometheus. She remained silent--but she crossed
herself.
"Who then has persuaded thee to renounce Apollo?"
Elenko pointed to Prometheus.
"An enemy of Zeus, then?"
"Zeus has not such another enemy in the world."
"I knew it, I was sure of it," exclaimed the Bishop. "I can always
tell a Christian when I see him. Wherefore speaks he not?"
"He is ancient, for all his vigorous mien. His martyrdom began ere
our present speech was, nor could he learn this in his captivity."
"Martyrdom! Captivity!" exclaimed the prelate gleefully, "I thought
we were coming thither. An early martyr, doubtless?"
"A very early martyr."
"Fettered and manacled?"
"Behold his wrists and ankles."
"Tortured, of course?"
"Incredibly."
"Miraculously kept alive to this day?"
"In an entirely supernatural manner."
"Now," said the Bishop, "I would wager my mitre and ring that his
life was prolonged by the daily ministrations of yonder fowl that
he caresses with such singular affection?"
"Never," replied Elenko, "for one day did that most punctual bird
omit to visit him."
"Hurrah!" shouted the Bishop. "And now, its mission accomplished,
the blessed creature, as I am informed, is found dead at the foot
of the mountain. Saints and angels! this is glorious! On your
knees, ye infidels!"
And down they all went, the Bishop setting the example. As their
heads were bowed to the earth, Elenko made a sign to Prometheus,
and when the multitude looked up, it beheld him in the act of
imparting the episcopal blessing.
"Tell him that we are all his brethren," said the Bishop, which
announcement became in Elenko's mouth, "Do as I do, and cleave to
thy eagle."
A procession was formed. The new saint, his convert, and the eagle,
rode in a car at the head of it. The Bishop, surrounded by his
bodyguard, followed with the sacred vessels of Apollo, to which he
had never ceased to direct a vigilant eye throughout the whole
proceedings. The multitude swarmed along singing hymns, or
contending for the stray feathers of the eagle. The representatives
of seven monasteries put in their claims for the links of
Prometheus's fetters, but the Bishop scouted them all. He found
time to whisper to Elenko:
"You seem a sensible young person. Just hint to our friend that we
don't want to hear anything about his theology, and the less he
talks about the primitive Church the better. No doubt he is a most
intelligent man, but he cannot possibly be up to all the recent
improvements."
Elenko promised most fervently that Prometheus' theological
sentiments should remain a mystery to the public. She then began to
reflect very seriously on the subject of her own morals. "This
day," she said to herself, "I have renounced all the Gods, and told
lies enough to last me my life, and for no other reason than that I
am in love. If this is a sufficient reason, lovers must have a
different code of morality from the rest of the world, and indeed
it would appear that they have. Will you die for me? Yes.
Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don't love me.
Βαλλ εισ κορακασ εισ Ταιναρον εισ Όγγ Κογγ."
## Chapter III
Elenko soon found that there was no pausing upon the path to which
she had committed herself. As the sole medium of communication
between Prometheus and the religious public, her time was half
spent in instructing Prometheus in the creed in which he was
supposed to have instructed her, and half in framing the edifying
sentences which passed for the interpretation of discourses for the
most part far more interesting to herself than if they had been
what they professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention which
she was observed to bestow on his utterances on such occasions all
but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was accepted as a
sufficient set-off against the unhallowed affection which she could
not help manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious
reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously
into the creeds and customs of the primitive Church was a great
help to her; and another difficulty was removed by the Bishop, who,
having no idea of encouraging a rival thaumaturgist, took an early
opportunity of signifying that it was rather in the line of
Desmotes (for by this name the new saint passed) to be the subject
than the instrument of miracles, and that, at all events, no more
were to be looked for from him at his time of life. The warmth with
which Elenko espoused this view raised her greatly in his good
opinion, and he was always ready to come to her aid when she became
entangled in chronological or historical difficulties, or seasoned
her versions of Desmotes' speeches with reminiscences of Plato or
Marcus Aurelius, or when her invention failed altogether. On such
occasions, if objectors grew troublesome, the Bishop would thunder,
"Brethren, I smell a heresy!" and no more was said. One minor
trouble both to Prometheus and Elenko was the affection they were
naturally expected to manifest towards the carcase of the wretched
eagle, which many identified with the eagle of the Evangelist John.
Prometheus was of a forgiving disposition, but Elenko wished
nothing more ardently than that the whole aquiline race might have
but one neck, and that she might wring it. It somewhat comforted
her to observe that the eagle's plumage was growing thin, while the
eagle's custodian was growing fat.
But she had worse troubles to endure than any that eagles could
occasion. The youth of those who resorted to her and Prometheus
attracted remark from the graver members of the community. Young
ladies found the precepts of the handsome and dignified saint
indispensable to their spiritual health; young men were charmed
with their purity as they came filtered through the lips of Elenko.
Is man more conceited than woman, or more confiding? Elenko should
certainly have been at ease; no temptress, however enterprising,
could well be spreading her nets for an Antony three hundred years
old. Prometheus, on the contrary, might have found cause for
jealousy in many a noble youth's unconcealed admiration of Elenko.
Yet he seemed magnificently unconscious of any cause for
apprehension, while Elenko's heart swelled till it was like to
burst. She had the further satisfaction of knowing herself the best
hated woman in Caucasia, between the enmity of those of whose
admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, and of those who
found her standing between them and Prometheus. Her monopoly of
Greek, she felt sure, was her only security. Two constant
attendants at Prometheus's receptions particularly alarmed her, the
Princess Miriam, niece of the Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed
to have things as she wished them; and a tall veiled woman who
seemed unknown to all, but whose unseen eyes, she instinctively
knew, were never averted from the unconscious Prometheus.
It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons
to the private apartment of the Princess Miriam.
"Dear friend," the Princess began, "thou knowest the singular
affection which I have invariably entertained for thee."
"Right well do I know it," responded Elenko. ("The thirty-first lie
to-day," she added wearily to herself.)
"It is this affection, dear friend," continued the Princess, "which
induces me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of
conventional propriety, and make a communication distressing to
thee, but infinitely more so to myself."
Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause
of friendship, but the great lady was resolute.
"People say," she continued--
"What say they?"
"That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet. That it is equivocal.
That it is offensive. That it is sacrilegious. That, in a word, it
is improper."
Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would
allow.
"Dear friend," said the Princess, "thou dost not imagine that I
have part or lot in these odious imputations? Even could I deem
them true, should I not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a
heathen, and educated in impiety by a foul sorcerer? My poor lamb!
But tongues must be stopped, and I have now to advise thee how this
may be accomplished."
"Say on."
"People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of
communication with the holy man. Some deem him less ignorant of our
speech than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not: for, in
society, what seems, is. Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to
scandal. There is but one remedy. Thou must yield thy place to
another. It is meet that thou forthwith instruct in that barbarous
dialect some matron of unblemished repute and devout aspirations;
no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a woman of the world, whose
prudence and experience may preserve the holy man from the pitfalls
set for him by the unprincipled. Manifestly she must be a married
person, else nought were gained, yet must she not be chargeable
with forsaking her duties towards her husband and children. It
follows that she must be a widow. It were also well that she should
be of kin to some influential personage, to whose counsel she might
have recourse in times of difficulty, and whose authority might
protect her against the slanderous and evil disposed. I have not
been able to meet any one endowed with all these qualifications,
excepting myself. I therefore propose to thee that thou shouldst
instruct me in the speech of Desmotes, and when I am qualified to
take thy place my uncle shall elevate thee to the dignity of
Abbess, or bestow thee upon some young clergyman of extraordinary
desert."
Elenko intimated, perhaps with more warmth than necessary, her
aversion to both propositions, and the extreme improbability of the
Princess ever acquiring any knowledge of Greek by her
instrumentality.
"If this is the case," said the Princess, with perfect calmness, "I
must have recourse to my other method, which is infallible."
Elenko inquired what it might be.
"I shall represent to my uncle, what indeed he very well knows,
that a saint is, properly speaking, of no value till he is dead.
Not until his decease are his relics available, or pilgrimages to
his shrine feasible. It is solely in anticipation of this event
that my uncle is keeping Desmotes at all; and the sooner it comes
to pass, the sooner will my revered relative come by his own. Only
think of the capital locked up in the new church, now so nearly
completed, on the spot where they picked up the eagle! How shall it
be dedicated to Desmotes in Desmotes' lifetime? Were it not a most
blissful and appropriate coincidence if the day of the consecration
were that of the saint's migration to a better world? I shall
submit this view of the case to my uncle: he is accustomed to hear
reason from me, of whom, between ourselves, he is not a little
afraid. Thou mayest rely upon it that about the time of the
consecration Desmotes will ascend to heaven; while thou, it is
gravely to be feared, wilt proceed in the opposite direction.
Would'st thou avert this unpleasantness, think well of my first
proposal. I give thee credit for loving Desmotes, and suppose,
therefore, that thou wilt make some sacrifice for his sake. I am a
Kettle, thou art a Pot. Take heed how thou knockest against me!"
Elenko sped back to bear tidings of the threatened collision to
Prometheus. As she approached his chamber she heard with
astonishment two voices in eager conversation, and discovered with
still greater amazement that their dialogue was carried on in
Greek. The second speaker, moreover, was evidently a female. A
jealous pang shot through Elenko's breast; she looked cautiously
in, and discerned the same mysterious veiled woman whose demeanour
had already been an enigma to her. But the veil was thrown back,
and the countenance went far to allay Elenko's disquiet. It bore
indeed traces of past beauty, but was altogether that of one who
had known better days; worn and faded, weary and repining. Elenko's
jealousy vanished, though her surprise redoubled, when she heard
Prometheus address the stranger as "Sister."
"A pretty brother I have got," rejoined the lady, in high sharp
tones: "to leave me in want! Never once to inquire after me!"
"Nay, sister, or sister-in-law," responded Prometheus, "if it comes
to that, where were you while I was on Caucasus? The Oceanides
ministered to me, Hermes came now and then, even Hercules left a
card; but I never saw Pandora."
"How could I compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?" demanded Pandora.
"Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would
come right, without any meddling of mine."
"Let her tell you so now," retorted Prometheus.
"Tell me now! Do you pretend not to know that the hussey forsook
Olympus ten years ago, and has turned Christian?"
"I am sure I am very sorry to hear it. Somehow, she never forsook
me. I can't imagine how you Gods get on without her."
"Get on! We are getting off. Except Eros and Plutus, who seem as
usual, and the old Fates, who go on spinning as if nothing had
happened, none of us expects to last for another ten years. The
sacrifices have dwindled down to nothing. Zeus has put down his
eagle. Hera has eaten her peacocks. Apollo's lyre is never
heard--pawned, no doubt. Bacchus drinks water, and Venus--well, you
can imagine how she gets on without him and Ceres. And here you
are, sleek and comfortable, and never troubling yourself about your
family. But you had better, or I swear I will tell Zeus; and we
shall see whether these Christians will keep you with your
ante-chamber full of starving gods. Take a day to think of what I
have been saying!"
And away she flounced, not noticing Elenko. Long and earnestly did
the pair discuss the perils that menaced them, and at the end of
their deliberations Elenko sought the Bishop, and briefly imparted
the Princess Miriam's ultimatum.
"It is painful to a spiritual man," replied the prelate, "to be
accessory to a murder. It is also repugnant to his feelings to deny
a beloved niece anything on which she has set her heart. To avoid
such grievous dilemma, I judge it well that ye both ascend to
heaven without further ceremony."
That night the ascent of Prometheus and Elenko was witnessed by
divers credible persons. The new church was consecrated shortly
afterwards. It was amply stored with relics from the wardrobe of
Prometheus and what remained of the eagle. The damsels of the
capital regained their admirers, and those who had become enamoured
of Prometheus mostly transferred their affections to the Bishop.
Everybody was satisfied except the Princess Miriam, who never
ceased to deplore her indulgence in giving Elenko the chance of
first speech with her uncle.
"If I had been five minutes beforehand with the minx!" she said.
## Chapter IV
The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated
in a sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into
the glen, which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds,
who still observed the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes,
deeming but to show kindness to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a
forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at the entrance the vale was
walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part waving with trees,
but here and there revealing the naked crag. It was traversed by a
silvery stream, in its windings enclosing Prometheus's and Elenko's
cottage, almost as in an island. The cot, buried in laurel and
myrtle, had a garden where fig and mulberry, grape and almond,
ripened in their season. A few goats browsed on the long grass, and
yielded their milk to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh when
needed, were easily procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary
furniture, the cottage contained little but precious scrolls,
obtained by Elenko from Athens and the newly founded city of
Constantine. In these, under her guidance, Prometheus read of
matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered the
imagination of any God.
It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures
wholly their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of
the other. These treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection,
memory, hope. But never were such treasures of knowledge shared
between lovers as between Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed
immeasurable stores, hitherto inaccessible to the other. How
trifling seemed the mythical lore which Elenko had gleaned as the
minister of Phœbus to that now imparted by Prometheus! The Titan
had seen all, and been a part of all that he had seen. He had bowed
beneath the sceptre of Uranus, he had witnessed his fall, and
marked the ocean crimson with his blood. He remembered hoary Saturn
a brisk active Deity, pushing his way to the throne of Heaven, and
devouring in a trice the stone that now resists his fangs for
millenniums. He had heard the shields of the Corybantes clash
around the infant Zeus; he described to Elenko how one day the sea
had frothed and boiled, and undraped Aphrodite had ascended from it
in the presence of the gazing and applauding amphitheatre of
cloud-cushioned gods. He could depict the personal appearance of
Cybele, and sketch the character of Enceladus. He had instructed
Zeus, as Chiron had instructed Achilles; he remembered Poseidon
afraid of the water, and Pluto of the dark. He called to mind and
expounded ancient oracles heretofore unintelligible: he had himself
been told, and had disbelieved, that the happiest day of his own
life would be that on which he should feel himself divested of
immortality. Of the younger gods and their doings he knew but
little; he inquired with interest whether Bacchus had returned in
safety from his Indian expedition, and whether Proserpine had a
family of divine imps.
Much more, nevertheless, had Elenko to teach Prometheus than she
could learn from him. How trivial seemed the history of the gods to
what he now heard of the history of men! Were these indeed the
beings he had known "like ants in the sunless recesses of caves,
dwelling deep-burrowing in the earth, ignorant of the signs of the
seasons," to whom he had given fire and whom he had taught memory
and number, for whom he had "brought the horse under the chariot,
and invented the sea-beaten, flaxen-winged chariot of the sailor?"
And now, how poorly showed the gods beside this once wretched
brood! What Deity could die for Olympus, as Leonidas had for
Greece? Which of them could, like Iphigenia, dwell for years beside
the melancholy sea, keeping a true heart for an absent brother?
Which of them could raise his fellows nearer to the source of all
Deity, as Socrates and Plato had raised men? Who could portray
himself as Phidias had portrayed Athene? Could the Muses speak with
their own voices as they had spoken by Sappho's? He was especially
pleased to see his own moral superiority to Zeus so eloquently
enforced by Æschylus, and delighted in criticising the sentiments
which the other poets had put into the mouths of the gods. Homer,
he thought, must have been in Olympus often, and Aristophanes not
seldom. When he read in the Cyclops of Euripides, "Stranger, I
laugh to scorn Zeus's thunderbolts," he grew for a moment
thoughtful. "Am I," he questioned, "ending where Polyphemus began?"
But when he read a little further on:
> The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
> To eat and drink during his little day,
> And give himself no care--
"No," he said, "the Zeus that nailed me to the rock is better than
this Zeus. But well for man to be rid of both, if he does not put
another in their place; or, in dropping his idolatry, has not flung
away his religion. Heaven has not departed with Zeus." And, taking
his lyre, he sang:
> What floods of lavish splendour
> The lofty sun doth pour!
> What else can Heaven render?
> What room hath she for more?
>
> Yet shall his course be shortly done,
> And after his declining
> The skies that held a single Sun
> With thousands shall be shining.
## Chapter V
It was not long ere the gods began to find their way to
Prometheus's earthly paradise, and who came once came again. The
first was Epimetheus, who had probably suffered least of all from
the general upset, having in truth little to lose since his
ill-starred union with Pandora. He had indeed reason for
thankfulness in his practical divorce from his spouse, who had
settled in Caucasia, and gave Greek lessons to the Princess Miriam.
Would Prometheus lend him half a talent? a quarter? a tenth? a
hundredth? Thanks, thanks. Prometheus might rely upon it that his
residence should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding
which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by eleven gods
and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really
alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions
to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a
chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and
took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on
most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial,
infernal, and marine.
Beautiful and blessed beyond most things is youthful enthusiasm,
looking up to something it feels or deems above itself. Beautiful,
too, as autumn sunshine is maturity looking down with gentleness on
the ideal it has surpassed, and reverencing it still for old ideas
and associations. The thought of beholding a Deity would once have
thrilled Elenko with rapture, if this had not been checked by awe
at her own presumption. The idea that a Deity, other than some
disgraced offender like Prometheus, could be the object of her
compassion, would never have entered her mind. And now she pitied
the whole Olympian cohort most sincerely, not so much for having
fallen as for having deserved to fall. She could not conceal from
herself how grievously they were one and all behind the age. It was
impossible to make Zeus comprehend how an idea could be a match for
a thunderbolt. Apollo spoke handsomely of Homer, yet evidently
esteemed the Iliad and Odyssey but lightly in comparison with the
blind bard's hymn to himself. Ceres candidly admitted that her mind
was a complete blank on the subject of the Eleusinian mysteries.
Aphrodite's dress was admirable for summer, but in winter seemed
obstinate conservatism; and why should Pallas make herself a fright
with her Gorgon helmet, now that it no longer frightened anybody?
Where Elenko would fain have adored she found herself tolerating,
excusing, condescending. How many Elenkos are even now tenderly
nursing ancient creeds, whose main virtue is the virtue of their
professors!
One autumn night all the principal gods were assembled under
Prometheus's roof, doing justice to the figs and mulberries, and
wine cooled with Taygetan snow. The guests were more than usually
despondent. Prometheus was moody and abstracted, his breast seemed
labouring with thought. "So looked my Pythoness," whispered Apollo
to his neighbour, "when about to deliver an oracle."
And the oracle came--in lyric verse, not to infringe any patent of
Apollo's--
> When o'er the towers of Constantine
> An Orient Moon begins to shine,
> Waning nor waxing aught, and bright
> In daytide as in deep of night:
> Then, though the fane be brought
> To wreck, the God shall find,
> Enthroned in human thought,
> A temple in the mind.
"And what becomes of us while this prodigious moonshine is
concocting?" demanded Zeus, who had become the most sceptical of
any of the gods.
"Go to Elysium," suggested Prometheus.
"There's an idea!" cried Zeus and Pallas together.
"To Elysium! to Elysium!" exclaimed the other gods, and all rose
tumultuously, saving two.
"I go not," said Eros, "for where Love is, there is Elysium. And
yonder rising moon tells me that my hour is come." And he flitted
forth.
"Neither go I," said an old blind god, "for where Plutus is,
Elysium is not. Moreover, mankind would follow after me. But I too
must away. Strange that I should have abode so long under the roof
of a pair of perfect virtue." And he tottered out.
But the other gods swept forth into the moonlight, and were seen no
more. And Prometheus picked up the forsaken sandals of Hermes, and
bound them on his own feet, and grasped Elenko, and they rose up by
a dizzy flight to empty heaven. All was silent in those immense
courts, vacant of everything save here and there some rusty
thunderbolt or mouldering crumb of ambrosia. Above, around, below,
beyond sight, beyond thought, stretched the still deeps of æther,
blazing with innumerable worlds. Eye could rove nowhither without
beholding a star, nor could star be beheld from which the Gods'
hall, with all its vastness, would not have been utterly invisible.
Elenko leaned over the battlements, and watched the racing meteors.
Prometheus stood by her, and pointed out in the immeasurable
distance the little speck of shining dust from which they had flown.
"There? or here?" he asked.
"There!" said Elenko.
author: Garnett, Richard, 1835-1906
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_Twilight_of_the_Gods_and_Other_Tales
LOC: PZ3.G187 T
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/1/0/0/9/10095/
tags: ebook,fantasy,fiction
title: Twilight of the Gods
# Tags
ebook
fantasy
fiction
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