John Powys - Atlantis

But Eione’s childish features were unquestionably plain and homely; whereas, as he was now at such close quarters with Pontopereia he could dwell for steadily increasing spaces of time upon her beautiful and subtly intellectual face.

Ironically enough those two troublesome hamperers of the well-governed order of Themis, namely Tyche and Anangke, or chance and necessity, prevented him, though it was only by means of the very edge of the supper-board from noting how totally devoid of lightness and grace were the awkward limbs with which Nature in the reckless scattering of her bounty had burdened the daughter of Teiresias.

Had the competent and capable Nemertes not been busy in her kitchen preparing a culminating dish of sweet-meats it is quite possible that she would have reacted to the words and behaviour of Zeuks in a manner that would have come nearer to the heart of the utterer than any of the rest.

As to Odysseus himself, that wily old hero had made it a rule long ago never to waste his energy in redundant reactions. He accepted the message of Zeuks at its purely practical and pragmatic face-value: and since only certain portions of it could fall in with his own purpose, his calm empirical mind had enough to do in isolating these from the rest without getting excited about anything else.

The moment he entered Okyrhöe’s dining-hall, the shrewd old king saw that it was she and not the collector of images who was responsible for the transformation of the aboriginal Ornax into a contemporary palace far more luxurious than his own; and in his diplomatic brain there began to take shape, as he cast glance after glance at the changing expressions, the lively gestures, the rapid decisive commands, of the lady of the house, the embryo idea that if the soothsaying daughter of a dead prophet was likely to help the advancement of his adventure, this formidable woman, if by any possible compulsion or enticement he could sweep her into his scheme, might turn out an even more effective aid. He hadn’t relinquished his faithful Heraklean club when he crossed the threshold of this complicated group of palatial erections. In fact from where he now sat, while the lady’s airy revelations of her life in the city of Kadmos were interrupted by Zeuks’ reverberating “prokleesis”, he could see the familiar curves of his queer-looking weapon propped against the elbow of a small stone-seat cut in the wall, a seat that would be far too narrow for any contemporary hips, whether male or female.

No smile came to his lips as he realized the direction his thoughts were on the verge of taking, as in spite of himself he listened to Zeuks’ description of the in-rush of the murderous crowd of imaginary pirates and projected himself, for the push of his practical imagination could hardly be described in any other way, into breaking his bonds, scattering the bodies of his enemies, and grasping his club by the middle!

But if Zeuks’ outburst of “prokleesis” had made even the paramour of the Daughter of the Sun jerk up his trim beard, it can be well understood how it made the two insects inside it jump and cry out. With them, however, the situation was just opposite to what it had been earlier that day; for now it was the fly who was keen to leave their shelter and the moth who was all for restraining him.

“But, Pyraust darling, I must find out whether the King is sweating under his beard! I know him so well that I know that that is the great sign. If there’s a drop of perspiration under his beard you may depend on it that he’s going to do something serious and do it soon. Please don’t hold me so tight, my sweet friend. I swear I won’t go further than that fold of his chiton. Once there I can crawl perfectly well between a few grey hairs, and soon discover what I want to know.

“It’ll only be like a microscopic thicket, and you know how good I am at threading my way through olive-branches and rose-bushes! Oh, I’ll find the least drop of sweat if there is one to be found! You see he’s still got that old nurse, Eurycleia, though she must be over a hundred years old, and you may depend on that old lady keeping him clean. You bet your life, my pretty one, I couldn’t settle on Zeuks’ chiton — you must remember, darling, that we house-flies are extremely sensitive to smells.

“We’re not like carrion-flies or dung-flies who live on filth and naturally seek it out! — no! I couldn’t settle on Zeuks’ chiton, though he’s a self-respecting, decently washed and well-dressed farmer, without being overpowered by the smell of his skin. But Eurycleia uses, though he’s old now, the same unguents and essences that she used for him when he was a child; so that you needn’t be afraid, dear heart, that your crazy Myos will faint from the old man’s stench, and slip down under the fellow’s shirt and be no more seen!

“Whatever happens, I can assure you, sweetest of Pyrausts, that I shall return safely to this heavenly shelter in the bosom of our Heraklean Club.

“No? You won’t let go? You won’t let me risk it? All right, I’m not going to break loose by force. So if you won’t let me go, you won’t let me go; and that’s the end of it. Of course some would say I’m taking the opportunity of your prohibition to escape doing what I’m really scared stiff of doing.

“But I know you don’t think like this; and yours is the only opinion I really value. As I have often confessed to you, there have been occasions in my peaceful life when I have had pleasure with exactly twenty-seven female flies. This I have never concealed from you. But when it becomes—”

It was at this point that the Moth — who so many times had heard her friend quote the well-known lines from Beelzebelle, the Sappho of Flies, that begin:

“airy-fairy-flickit-with-Mary” and ends:

“wagatail-wispy-with-honeymoon-Jane”,

that there had been moments when she felt that if he didn’t stop before one, two, three more ticks of the clock she would rush straight into the nearest fire — beat a tattoo with her free wing upon the wall of their retreat of so decisive a character that the fly yielded in every sense.

He left the topic of female flies. He gave up his exploration of the neck of Odysseus for a drop of perspiration. And he replied to the unspoken question that was behind all the moth had been saying, by assuring her that even if there had been no drop of sweat under the king’s beard, and even if they all had to sleep where they were that night, they would without question be making their departure, if not by “Lykophos” or “Wolf’s-light”, certainly by the first streak of red in the sky….

By this time Zeuks had reached the climax of his singular outburst. He was still on his feet; but he was standing in a manner in which we can be absolutely certain no Grecian orator had ever stood before while addressing a crowd. One foot was on his chair and the other on the floor.

This sounds harmless and conventional enough; but it only does so because we have not yet realized that owing to Zeuks’ lack of height and his chair’s antique height, his upraised knee was on a level with his chin. Nor was this all; for Zeuks’ incurable indifference to the decencies of human dignity combined with his flagrant and absolutely unashamed fondness for his own physical person from head to foot, resulted in a very quaint issue: for seeing his knee so extremely near his mouth, much nearer than human knees generally are to human lips he clutched it with his two hands and digging his chin into it and pressing his clenched teeth against it he began muttering and murmuring through his teeth, for his teeth being tightly clenched he wasn’t biting his knee, a strange rhapsody of self-enjoyment.

To all but one of the company then present this curious chant of ecstatic self-possession was inarticulate; but to the club of Herakles it was not only wholly audible but wholly intelligible.