The World's Desire

But it was not for nothing that he bore a stout and patient heart, and a brain unclouded by danger or by love. He had never been in a strait like this; caught with bonds that no sword could cut, and in toils that no skill could undo. On one side were love and pleasure – on the other a broken oath, and the loss for ever of the Heart’s Desire. For to love another woman, as he had been warned, was to lose Helen. But again, if he scorned the Queen – nay, for all his hardihood he dared not tell her that she was not the woman of his vision, the woman he came to seek. Yet even now his cold courage and his cunning did not fail him.

“Lady,” he said, “we both have dreamed. But if thou didst dream thou wert my love, thou didst wake to find thyself the wife of Pharaoh. And Pharaoh is my host and hath my oath.”

“I woke to find myself the wife of Pharaoh,” she echoed, wearily, and her arms uncurled from his neck and she sank back on the couch. “I am Pharaoh’s wife in word, but not in deed. Pharaoh is nothing to me, thou Wanderer – nought save a name.”

“Yet is my oath much to me, Queen Meriamun – my oath and the hospitable hearth,” the Wanderer made answer. “I swore to Meneptah to hold thee from all ill, and there’s an end.”

“And if Pharaoh comes back no more, what then Odysseus?”

“Then will we talk again. And now, Lady, thy safety calls me to visit thy Guard.” And without more words he rose and went.

The Queen looked after him.

“A strange man,” she said in her heart, “who builds a barrier with his oath betwixt himself and her he loves and has wandered so far to win! Yet methinks I honour him the more. Pharaoh Meneptah, my husband, eat, drink, and be merry, for this I promise thee – short shall be thy days.”

V THE CHAPEL PERILOUS

“Swift as a bird or a thought,” says the old harper of the Northern Sea. The Wanderer’s thoughts in the morning were swift as night birds, flying back and brooding over the things he had seen and the words he had heard in the Queen’s chamber. Again he stood between this woman and the oath which, of all oaths, was the worst to break. And, indeed, he was little tempted to break it, for though Meriamun was beautiful and wise, he feared her love and he feared her magic art no less than he feared her vengeance if she were scorned. Delay seemed the only course. Let him wait till the King returned, and it would go hard but he found some cause for leaving the city of Tanis, and seeking through new adventures the World’s Desire. The mysterious river lay yonder. He would ascend the river of which so many tales were told. It flowed from the land of the blameless Æthiopians, the most just of men, at whose tables the very Gods sat as guests. There, perchance, far up the sacred stream, in a land where no wrong ever came, there, if the Fates permitted, he might find the Golden Helen.

If the Fates permitted: but all the adventure was of the Fates, who had shown him to Meriamun in a dream.

He turned it long in his mind and found little light. It seemed that as he had drifted through darkness across a blood-red sea to the shores of Khem, so he should wade through blood to that shore of Fate which the Gods appointed.

Yet after a while he shook sorrow from him, arose, bathed, anointed himself, combed his dark locks, and girded on his golden armour. For now he remembered that this was the day when the Strange Hathor should stand upon the pylon of the temple and call the people to her, and he was minded to look upon her, and if need be to do battle with that which guarded her.

So he prayed to Aphrodite that she would help him, and he poured out wine to her and waited; he waited, but no answer came to his prayer. Yet as he turned away it chanced that he saw his countenance in the wide golden cup whence he had poured, and it seemed to him that it had grown more fair and lost the stamp of years, and that his face was smooth and young as the face of that Odysseus who, many years ago, had sailed in the black ships and looked back on the smoking ruins of windy Troy. In this he saw the hand of the Goddess, and knew that if she might not be manifest in this land of strange Gods, yet she was with him. And, knowing this, his heart grew light as the heart of a boy from whom sorrow is yet a long way off, and who has not dreamed of death.

Then he ate and drank, and when he had put from him the desire of food he arose and girded on the sword, Euryalus’s gift, but the black bow he left in its case. Now he was ready and about to set forth when Rei the Priest entered the chamber.

“Whither goest thou, Eperitus?” asked Rei, the instructed Priest. “And what is it that has made thy face so fair, as though many years had been lifted from thy back?”

“‘Tis but sweet sleep, Rei,” said the Wanderer. “Deeply I slept last night, and the weariness of my wanderings fell from me, and now I am as I was before I sailed across the blood-red sea into the night.”

“Sell thou the secret of this sleep to the ladies of Khem,” answered the aged priest, smiling, “and little shalt thou lack of wealth for all thy days.”

Thus he spake as though he believed the Wanderer, but in his heart he knew that the thing was of the Gods.

The Wanderer answered:

“I go up to the Temple of the Hathor, for thou dost remember it is to-day that she stands upon the pylon brow and calls the people to her. Comest thou also, Rei?”

“Nay, nay, I come not, Eperitus. I am old indeed, but yet the blood creeps through these withered veins, and, perchance, if I came and looked, the madness would seize me also, and I too should rush to my slaying. There is a way in which a man may listen to the voice of the Hathor, and that is to have his eyes blindfolded, as many do. But even then he will tear the bandage from his eyes, and look, and die with the others. Oh, go not up, Eperitus – I pray thee go not up. I love thee – I know not why – and am little minded to see thee dead. Though, perchance,” he added, as though to himself, “it would be well for those I serve if thou wert dead, thou Wanderer, with the eyes of Fate.”

“Have no fear, Rei,” said the Wanderer, “as it is doomed so shall I die and not otherwise. Never shall it be told,” he murmured in his heart, “that he who stood in arms against Scylla, the Horror of the Rock, turned back from any form of fear or from any shape of Love.”

Then Rei wrung his hands and went nigh to weeping, for to him it seemed a pitiful thing that so goodly a man and so great a hero should thus be done to death. But the Wanderer passed out through the city, and Rei went with him for a certain distance. At length they came to the road set on either side with sphinxes, that leads from the outer wall of brick to the garden of the Temple of Hathor, and down this road hurried a multitude of men of all races and of every age. Here the prince was borne along in his litter; here the young noble travelled in his chariot. Here came the slave bespattered with the mud of the fields; here the cripple limped upon his crutches; and here was the blind man led by a hound. And with each man came women: the wife of the man, or his mother, or his sisters, or she to whom he was vowed in marriage. Weeping they came, and with soft words and clinging arms they strove to hold back him whom they loved.

“Oh, my son! my son!” cried a woman, “hearken to thy mother’s voice. Go not up to look upon the Goddess, for if thou dost look then shalt thou die, and thou alone art left alive to me. Two brothers of thine I bore, and behold, both are dead; and wilt thou die also, and leave me, who am old, alone and desolate? Be not mad, my son, thou art the dearest of all; ever have I loved thee and tended thee. Come back, I pray – come back.”

But her son heard not and heeded not, pressing on toward the Gates of the Heart’s Desire.

“Oh, my husband, my husband!” cried another, young, of gentle birth, and fair, who bare a babe on her left arm and with the right clutched her lord’s broidered robe. “Oh, my husband, have I not loved thee and been kind to thee, and wilt thou still go up to look upon the deadly glory of the Hathor? They say she wears the beauty of the Dead. Lovest thou me not better than her who died five years agone, Merisa the daughter of Rois, though thou didst love her first? See, here is thy babe, thy babe, but one week born. Even from my bed of pain have I risen and followed after thee down these weary roads, and I am like to lose my life for it. Here is thy babe, let it plead with thee. Let me die if so it must be, but go not thou up to thy death. It is no Goddess whom thou wilt see, but an evil spirit loosed from the under-world, and that shall be thy doom. Oh, if I please thee not, take thou another wife and I will make her welcome, only go not up to thy death!”

But the man fixed his eyes upon the pylon tops, heeding her not, and at length she sank upon the road, and there with the babe would have been crushed by the chariots, had not the Wanderer borne her to one side of the way.

Now, of all sights this was the most dreadful, for on every side rose the prayers and lamentations of women, and still the multitude of men pressed on unheeding.

“Now thou seest the power of Love, and how if a woman be but beautiful enough she may drag all men to ruin,” said Rei the Priest.

“Yes,” said the Wanderer; “a strange sight, truly. Much blood hath this Hathor of thine upon her hands.”

“And yet thou wilt give her thine, Wanderer.”

“That I am not minded to do,” he answered; “yet I will look upon her face, so speak no more of it.”

Now they were come to the space before the bronze gates of the pylon of the outer court, and there the multitude gathered to the number of many hundreds. Presently, as they watched, a priest came to the gates, that same priest who had shown the Wanderer the bodies in the baths of bronze. He looked through the bars and cried aloud:

“Whoso would enter into the court and look upon the Holy Hathor let him draw nigh. Know ye this, all men, the Hathor is to him who can win her. But if he pass not, then shall he die and be buried within the temple, nor shall he ever look upon the sun again. Of this ye are warned. Since the Hathor came again to Khem, of men seven hundred and three have gone to win her, and of bodies seven hundred and two lie within the vaults, for of all these men Pharaoh Meneptah alone hath gone back living. Yet there is place for more! Enter, ye who would look upon the Hathor!”

Now there arose a mighty wailing from the women. They clung madly about the necks of those who were dear to them, and some clung not in vain. For the hearts of many failed them at the last, and they shrank from entering in. But a few of those who had already looked upon the Hathor from afar, perchance a score in all, struck the women from them and rushed up to the gates.

“Surely thou wilt not enter in?” quoth Rei, clinging to the arm of the Wanderer. “Oh, turn thy back on death and come back with me. I pray thee turn.”

“Nay,” said the Wanderer, “I will go in.”

Then Rei the Priest threw dust upon his head, wept aloud, and turned and fled, never stopping till he came to the Palace, where sat Meriamun the Queen.

Now the priest unbarred a wicket in the gates of bronze, and one by one those who were stricken of the madness entered in. For all of these had seen the Hathor many times from afar without the wall, and now they could no more withstand their longing. And as they entered two other priests took them by the hand and bound their eyes with cloths, so that unless they willed it they might not see the glory of the Hathor, but only hear the sweetness of her voice. But two there were who would not be blindfolded, and of these one was that man whose wife had fainted by the way, and the other was a man sightless from his youth. For although he might not see the beauty of the Goddess, this man was made mad by the sweetness of her voice. Now, when all had entered in, save the Wanderer, there was a stir in the crowd, and a man rushed up. He was travel-stained, he had a black beard, black eyes, and a nose hooked like a vulture’s beak.

“Hold!” he cried. “Hold! Shut not the gates! Night and day have I journeyed from the host of the Apura who fly into the wilderness. Night and day have I journeyed, leaving wife and flocks and children and the Promise of the Land, that I may once more look upon the beauty of the Hathor. Shut not the gates!”

“Pass in,” said the priest, “pass in, so shall we be rid of one of those whom Khem nurtured up to rob her.”

He entered; then, as the priest was about to bar the wicket, the Wanderer strode forward, and his golden armour clashed beneath the portal.

“Wouldst thou indeed enter to thy doom, thou mighty lord?” asked the priest, for he knew him well again.

“Ay, I enter; but perchance not to my doom,” answered the Wanderer. Then he passed in and the brazen gate was shut behind him.

Now the two priests came forward to bind his eyes, but this he would not endure.

“Not so,” he said; “I am come here to see what may be seen.”

“Go to, thou madman, go to! and die the death,” they answered, and led all the men to the centre of the courtyard whence they might see the pylon top. Then the priests also covered up their eyes and cast themselves at length upon the ground; so for a while they lay, and all was silence within and without the court, for they waited the coming of the Hathor. The Wanderer glanced through the bars of bronze at the multitude gathered there. Silent they stood with upturned eyes, even the women had ceased from weeping and stood in silence. He looked at those beside him. Their bandaged faces were lifted and they stared towards the pylon top as though their vision pierced the cloths. The blind man, too, stared upward, and his pale lips moved, but no sound came from them. Now at the foot of the pylon lay a little rim of shadow. Thinner and thinner it grew as the moments crept on towards the perfect noon. Now there was but a line, and now the line was gone, for the sun’s red disc burned high in the blue heaven straight above the pylon brow. Then suddenly and from afar there came a faint sweet sound of singing, and at the first note of the sound a great sigh went up through the quiet air, from all the multitude without. Those who were near the Wanderer sighed also, and their lips and fingers twitched, and he himself sighed, though he knew not why.

Nearer came the sweet sound of singing, and stronger it swelled, till presently those without the temple gate who were on higher ground caught sight of her who sang. Then a hoarse roar went up from every throat, and madness took them. On they rushed, dashing themselves against the gates of bronze and the steep walls on either side, and beat upon them madly with their fists and brows, and climbed on each other’s shoulders, gnawing at the bars with their teeth, crying to be let in. But the women threw their arms about them and screamed curses on her whose beauty brought all men to madness.

So it went for a while, till presently the Wanderer looked up, and lo! upon the pylon’s brow stood the woman’s self, and at her coming all were once more silent. She was tall and straight, clad in clinging white, but on her breast there glowed a blood-red ruby stone, fashioned like a star, and from it fell red drops that stained for one moment the whiteness of her robes, and then the robe was white again. Her golden hair was tossed this way and that, and shone in the sunlight, her arms and neck were bare, and she held one hand before her eyes as though to hide the brightness of her beauty. For, indeed, she could not be called beautiful but Beauty itself.

And they who had not loved saw in her that first love whom no man has ever won, and they who had loved saw that first love whom every man has lost. And all about her rolled a glory – like the glory of the dying day. Sweetly she sang a song of promise, and her voice was the voice of each man’s desire, and the heart of the Wanderer thrilled in answer to it as thrills a harp smitten by a cunning hand; and thus she sang:

     Whom hast thou longed for most,        True love of mine?     Whom hast thou loved and lost?        Lo, she is thine!     She that another wed        Breaks from her vow;     She that hath long been dead        Wakes for thee now.     Dreams haunt the hapless bed,        Ghosts haunt the night,     Life crowns her living head,        Love and Delight.     Nay, not a dream nor ghost,        Nay, but Divine,     She that was loved and lost        Waits to be thine!

She ceased, and a moan of desire went up from all who heard.

Then the Wanderer saw that those beside him tore at the bandages about their brows and rent them loose. Only the priests who lay upon the ground stirred not, though they also moaned.

And now again she sang, still holding her hand before her face:

     Ye that seek me, ye that sue me,        Ye that flock beneath my tower,     Ye would win me, would undo me,        I must perish in an hour,     Dead before the Love that slew me, clasped the        Bride and crushed the flower.     Hear the word and mark the warning,        Beauty lives but in your sight,     Beauty fades from all men’s scorning        In the watches of the night,     Beauty wanes before the morning, and        Love dies in his delight.

She ceased, and once more there was silence. Then suddenly she bent forward across the pylon brow so far that it seemed that she must fall, and stretching out her arms as though to clasp those beneath, showed all the glory of her loveliness.

The Wanderer looked, then dropped his eyes as one who has seen the brightness of the noonday sun. In the darkness of his mind the world was lost, and he could think of naught save the clamour of the people, which fretted his ears. They were all crying, and none were listening.

“See! see!” shouted one. “Look at her hair; it is dark as the raven’s wing, and her eyes – they are dark as night. Oh, my love! my love!”

“See! see!” cried another, “were ever skies so blue as those eyes of hers, was ever foam so white as those white arms?”

“Even so she looked whom once I wed many summers gone,” murmured a third, “even so when first I drew her veil. Hers was that gentle smile breaking like ripples on the water, hers that curling hair, hers that child-like grace.”

“Was ever woman so queenly made?” said a fourth. “Look now on the brow of pride, look on the deep, dark eyes of storm, the arched lips, and the imperial air. Ah, here indeed is a Goddess meet for worship.”

“Not so I see her,” cried a fifth, that man who had come from the host of the Apura. “Pale she is and fair, tall indeed, but delicately shaped, brown is her hair, and brown are her great eyes like the eyes of a stag, and ah, sadly she looks upon me, looking for my love.”

“My eyes are opened,” screamed the blind man at the Wanderer’s side. “My eyes are opened, and I see the pylon tower and the splendid sun. Love hath touched me on the eyes and they are opened. But lo! not one shape hath she but many shapes. Oh, she is Beauty’s self, and no tongue may tell her glory. Let me die! let me die, for my eyes are opened. I have looked on Beauty’s self! I know what all the world journeys on to seek, and why we die and what we go to find in death.”

VI THE WARDENS OF THE GATE

The clamour swelled or sank, and the men called or cried the names of many women, some dead, some lost. Others were mute, silent in the presence of the World’s Desire, silent as when we see lost faces in a dream. The Wanderer had looked once and then cast down his eyes and stood with his face hidden in his hands. He alone waited and strove to think; the rest were abandoned to the bewilderment of their passions and their amaze.

What was it that he had seen? That which he had sought his whole life long; sought by sea and land, not knowing what he sought. For this he had wandered with a hungry heart, and now was the hunger of his heart to be appeased? Between him and her was the unknown barrier and the invisible Death. Was he to pass the unmarked boundary, to force those guarded gates and achieve where all had failed? Had a magic deceived his eyes? Did he look but on a picture and a vision that some art could call again from the haunted place of Memory?

He sighed and looked again. Lo! in his charmed sight a fair girl seemed to stand upon the pylon brow, and on her head she bore a shining urn of bronze.

He knew her now. He had seen her thus at the court of King Tyndareus as he drove in his chariot through the ford of Eurotas; thus he had seen her also in the dream on the Silent Isle.

Again he sighed and again he looked. Now in his charmed sight a woman sat, whose face was the face of the girl, grown more lovely far, but sad with grief and touched with shame.

He saw her and he knew her. So he had seen her in Troy towers when he stole thither in a beggar’s guise from the camp of the Achæans. So he had seen her when she saved his life in Ilios.

Again he sighed and again he looked, and now he saw the Golden Helen.

She stood upon the pylon’s brow. She stood with arms outstretched, with eyes upturned, and on her shining face there was a smile like the infinite smile of the dawn. Oh, now indeed he knew the shape that was Beauty’s self – the innocent Spirit of Love sent on earth by the undying Gods to be the doom and the delight of men; to draw them through the ways of strife to the unknown end.

Awhile the Golden Helen stood thus looking up and out to the worlds beyond; to the peace beyond the strife, to the goal beyond the grave. Thus she stood while men scarce dared to breathe, summoning all to come and take that which upon the earth is guarded so invincibly.

Then once more she sang, and as she sang, slowly drew herself away, till at length nothing was left of the vision of her save the sweetness of her dying song.

     Who wins his Love shall lose her,        Who loses her shall gain,     For still the spirit woos her,        A soul without a stain;     And Memory still pursues her        With longings not in vain!     He loses her who gains her,        Who watches day by day     The dust of time that stains her,        The griefs that leave her grey,     The flesh that yet enchains her        Whose grace hath passed away!     Oh, happier he who gains not        The Love some seem to gain:     The joy that custom stains not        Shall still with him remain,     The loveliness that wanes not,        The love that ne’er can wane.     In dreams she grows not older        The lands of Dream among,     Though all the world wax colder,        Though all the songs be sung,     In dreams doth he behold her        Still fair and kind and young.

Now the silence died away, and again madness came upon those who had listened and looked. The men without the wall once more hurled themselves against the gates, while the women clung to them, shrieking curses on the beauty of the Hathor, for the song meant nothing to these women, and their arms were about those whom they loved and who won them their bread. But most of the men who were in the outer court rushed up to the inner gates within which stood the alabaster shrine of the Hathor. Some flung themselves upon the ground and clutched at it, as in dreams men fling themselves down to be saved from falling into a pit that has no bottom. Yet as in such an evil slumber the dreamer is drawn inch by inch to the mouth of the pit by an unseen hand, so these wretched men were dragged along the ground by the might of their own desire. In vain they set their feet against the stones to hold themselves from going, for they thrust forward yet more fiercely with their hands, and thus little by little drew near the inner gates writhing forwards yet moving backwards like a wounded snake dragged along by a rope. For of those who thus entered the outer court and looked upon the Hathor, few might go back alive.

Now the priests drew the cloths from their eyes, and rising, flung wide the second gates, and there, but a little way off, the veil of the shrine wavered as if in a wind. For now the doors beyond the veil were thrown open, as might be seen when the wind swayed its Tyrian web, and through the curtain came the sound of the same sweet singing.

“Draw near! Draw near!” cried the ancient priest. “Let him who would win the Hathor draw near!”

Now at first the Wanderer was minded to rush on. But his desire had not wholly overcome him, nor had his wisdom left him. He took counsel with his heart and waited to let the others go, and to see how it fared with them.

The worshippers were now hurrying back and now darting onwards, as fear and longing seized them, till the man who was blind drew near, led by the hand of a priest, for his hound might not enter the second court of the temple.