John Powys: Atlantis

“Yes, you flipperty-flap of an insect, what you’ve got to realize is that the Kingdom of the Dead is the Kingdom of Aidoneus; and that Aidoneus is the brother of Zeus and as much under his will as you and I are under his will.

“It is by the will of Zeus, as well as by the help of Queen Persephone, that Aidoneus keeps the ghastly myriads of the dead in control and compels them to submit to their fate. And do you know, you flicker-fan, what their fate is? What yours will be, yours will be, yours will be, if you flap at my crack of quietness, or disturb my groove of wisdom any more!

“But if you ask me, you silly flitter-fluff, what their fate is now, and what yours will soon be, I cannot answer. ‘Shadows they are and shadows cover them,’ as I heard Herakles muttering once when we brushed the dead leaves from his lion’s skin. Have you forgotten, O grain of sand on a pair of wings, the story of how our old Odysseus called up the Theban Prophet Teiresias from among these shadows?

“And how the Prophet had to drink blood before he could speak? So much for the most intellectual of mortal men when it comes to real knowledge! Drink blood is what they have to do, little brown one, drink blood! Is your precious Priest of Orpheus prepared to do that ?”

The wings of the moth-girl emitted a faint susurrating shiver. Then they relaxed and closed above her sunken head. But she was still perched on one of the bosom-curves of the monster-killing Club where she must have looked to any smaller creature, to a thirsty louse for instance, searching for half a drop of sweat from a human hand, like an exhausted sea-mew resting on the crest of a sea-wave.

And her voice filtered down like a distillation of mist into that long and narrow crevasse where dwelt the club’s consciousness.

“Is it true, O immortal one,” she asked — and behold! it was brought about by her very fear of the gods that the voice of Pyraust, the moth-girl, gathered up as she spoke some of the rhythmical lost notes from the wailing of the earth over the rape of Persephone; and thus, while not too faint to be audible to the smallest louse, had in them that which caused even the pine-wood sap in the club of Herakles to stir and rise—“please, please tell me if it is true what I heard the Priest of Orpheus tell the Priestess of Pallas Athene: namely that on the confines of the country of the blameless Ethiopians there have now come back from the Kingdom of the Dead the First Man and the First Woman; and that the First Woman, whose name is Niobe, no longer weeps like a ceaseless torrent from an eternal rock; and that by her side once again is the first man, whose name is Phoroneus and who was the son of a Melian Nymph who came from ah Ash-Grove, even as thou thyself, O immortal one, came from a Pine-Forest.”

Now indeed had the moth-girl said the wrong thing! She had been taught from childhood about the Melian Nymphs and about their association with Ash-trees and there had been a family tradition among her own brown-moth ancestors that it had been by the special intercession of one particular Melian Nymph that the original pair of brown-moths had extricated themselves from the hidden parts of the Great Mother.

But what she had never been taught, or, if she had, what she could never keep in her head, was that the effect of every act and every word and every gesture of every living creature depends, not on the nature of what’s done, spoken, or indicated, but on the manner of these performances.

And where this impulsive flutterer made her mistake was in speaking so carelessly about Ash-Trees and Pine-Trees that the natural implication was left upon the atmosphere that the only difference between them was that one was the haunt of Nymphs and the other of Lions.

But the savage beast with whose brains the Club of Herakles had sprinkled the pine-needles of the Nemean Wood had never made a more violent sign of fury than the heavy thud with which the Club struck the paving stones of that palace-porch or the harsh groan with which it bade the terrified little flutterer “get back to your Priest of Blasphemy and your Father of Lies!”

Out into the dawn flew in deadly silence Pyraust, the brown moth, while Myos, the black house-fly, spread his gauzy wings and with the tense buzzing sound that always, for all its low pitch, suggested the impetus of a classic messenger, flew in pursuit of her to the Temple of Athene.

It was at this moment that the cow-herd Tis stretched himself with a comfortable groan and rising to his feet lifted up first his bare right leg and then his bare left leg, supporting them against the base of the third pillar, while he fumbled for his sandals. He had been sleeping in his single garment, his shirt-tunic or “chiton”, and he now surveyed his companion, the boy Nisos, who, asleep in a similar garment, though fashioned a little differently as befitted not only his fewer years but his nobler birth, had been so suddenly submerged in sleep that though the cords that bound his sandals to his ankles had been loosened and now trailed over the flag-stones, the sandals themselves remained on his feet.

Tis regarded the sleeping boy with friendly amusement for a moment. Then he shook him gently by the shoulder. “ That girl will be down here in a moment,” he said. “In fact I keep thinking I hear her step. Of course neither she nor Leipephile would worry about me if I were like you a son of Naubolos who claims to have more right to be King of Ithaca than Odysseus himself.

“But if I were your elder brother or your uncle that girl Arsinöe would still throw her witch-look on me just the same as she does on you. She hates us all, and not altogether without — God! master Silly-Boy! wake up for Hermes’ sake! Tie your sandal-strings tight!” As he spoke the Cow-herd disentangled the boy’s sandal from the cords of the mattress on which the lad had been sleeping and helped him to get his foot into it.

“Has Babba been making a noise?” enquired Nisos somewhat irritably. “The old lady ought to be ashamed of herself,” he went on, “if she has been raising hell again just because her damned udders are too full. Didn’t I hold on to my bladder when it was nigh to bursting yesterday when mother sent me to the Temple to see Stratonika and I had to wait till her morning chant was finished and she’d put off her garlands and black ribbons in the porch?

“How ridiculously different from one another women are, Tis! Who would ever have imagined that Stratonika was Leipephile’s Sister? It seems just simply crazy to me whenever I think about it. I can’t help rather liking Leipephile myself. It’s the way she smiles at you when you tease her; as much as to say: “of course, kid, I know perfectly well you’re much cleverer than I am; and I’m a bit of an idiot; and I know that the great House of Naubolides is much grander than we Pheresides can ever claim to be; but yet,” so her looks seems to say, “you and I, Nisos Naubolides, are born to understand each other. That’s what the gods have willed that you and I should understand each other!”

The boy was now engaged in smoothing down his blue-black hair with a small ivory comb which he drew from an interior pocket of his “chiton” and the odd fancy crossed the patient mind of Tis that his own left eye upon which Nisos seemed to have concentrated his gaze had suddenly become a mirror, but a mirror that didn’t interfere with his keeping both his own eyes firmly fixed on the boy’s face. “It’ll be your brother Agelaos she’ll soon have to understand, if what Eurycleia told me the other day is true,” muttered Tis carelessly.

“O I know all that ,” cried Nisos; “and Agelaos is as simple as Leipephile! It’s Mummy and me who are the clever ones. You should hear us confabulating in the kitchen when she’s stewing pears and how I say something about Leipephile and she says something about Agelaos and how we both laugh. Dad has no more idea than Agelaos how mother and me talk about them and what we say and how we laugh; but naturally”—here the boy gave the cow-herd a very searching and very quick look—“naturally it’s different between us, Tis. You’re the oldest friend I’ve got; and I’ll never have another like you. However! We are what we are, Tis, old partner — you the perfect cow-herd and me Eurycleia’s clever little House-help — and if dreams mean anything some very queer happenings are on the wind. Do you know what I was dreaming when you woke me up? No, no! I’ll tell you later! There’s Babba making that noise again! Don’t let’s wait here, Tis. I’ll come out with you. I’ve got to see mother anyway before I help Leipephile with the old man’s breakfast. So I’ll come down the road with you to the Milking-Shed and then I’ll go on to Aulion. I’d better run in at Druinos as I pass its gate. My mother and Leipephile’s mother tell each other everything! Dad and my brother can’t understand how everything they say to each other is known all over the island.