Chryses

“ The Greeks sacked the city of Chryse, where was a temple of Apollo, and a priest that served the temple. And when they divided the spoil, they gave to King Agamemnon, with other gifts, the priest's daughter Chryseïs. Thereupon there came to the camp Chryses, the priest, wishing to ransom his daughter. Much gold he brought with him, and on his staff of gold he carried the holy garland, that men might reverence him the more. ”

“ Longfellow, The Evening Star.
Chryseis [Kri see'.iss] , daughter of Chrysês priest of Apollo. She was famed for her beauty and her embroidery. During the Trojan war Chryseis was taken captive and allotted to Agamemnon king of Argos, but her father came to ransom her. The king would not accept the offered ransom, and Chrysês prayed that a plague might fall on the Grecian camp. His prayer was answered, and in order to avert the plague Agamemnon sent the lady back to her father not only without ransom but with costly gifts.—Homer, Iliad, i. ”

“ Chrysa is a small town on the sea-coast with a harbour. Near and above it is Thebe. Here was the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and here Chryseïs lived. The place at present is entirely abandoned. To the present Chrysa, near Hamaxitus, was transferred the temple of the Cilicians, one party of whom went to Pamphylia, the other to Hamaxitus. Those who are not well acquainted with ancient histories say that Chryses and Chryseïs lived there, and that Homer mentions the place. ”

“ Mortals who offended him were leveled by the cruel sunstroke, by arrows of malarial venom, of manifold sickness and death.
When the host of the Achæans was encamped before Troy, the king of men, Atrides, unjustly declined to restore his captive, Chryseïs of the fair cheeks, to her father Chryses, the priest of far-darting Apollo. Then the aged Chryses went apart and prayed aloud, "Hear me, god of the silver bow, ... let the Danaans pay by thine arrows for my tears!"
[Pg 99]
So spake he in prayer ”

“ Chryses then prayed to Apollo for vengeance, and the god sent a plague into the camp of the Greeks, which did not cease raging until Calchas explained the cause of it, and Odysseus took Chryseïs back to her father. ”

“ Chryses says not a word in answer to the insults of Agamemnon, but walks pensively along the shore. The melancholy flowing of the verse admirably expresses the condition of the mournful and deserted father.
[So called on account of his having saved the people of Troas from a plague of mice, sminthos in their language meaning a mouse.—Tr.]
Apollo had temples at Chrysa, Tenedos, and Cilla, all of which lay round the bay of Troas. Müller remarks, that “the temple actually stood in the situation referred to, and that the appellation of Smintheus was still preserved in the district. ”

“ When the Hellenes needed food or clothing, they attacked and plundered the neighbouring cities, which were not so well defended as Troy.
The plunder of one of these cities, named Chryse, was the cause of the fatal quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles.
In Chryse there was a temple sacred to Apollo, guarded by a priest named Chryses. His daughter Chryseis, and another beautiful maiden named Briseis the Faircheeked, were taken prisoners when the town was sacked by the Hellenes. ”

“ Prophet of evil, never yet have you spoken to me a pleasant thing; ever is evil dear to your heart to prophesy, but a word of good you have never yet spoken, nor brought to pass. And now among the Danaans you claim in prophecy that for this reason the god who strikes from afar brings woes upon them, that I would not accept the glorious ransom for the girl, the daughter of Chryses, since I much prefer to keep her in my home. ”

“ On Clytemnestra’s speech see Introduction, p. xiii.
[P. 63, l. 1387, A prayer well sped to Zeus of Hell] —As the third gift or libation was ritually given to Zeus the Saviour, Clytemnestra blasphemously suggests that her third and unnecessary blow was an acceptable gift to a sort of anti-Zeus, a Saviour of Death.
[P. 65, l. 1436, Aigisthos.] —At last the name is mentioned which has been in the mind of every one!—Chrysêïs was a prisoner of war, daughter of Chrysês, priest of Apollo. ”

“ Lemnos also a great goddess was anciently worshipped with sacrifices of virgins; to which place the wooden image is said to have been brought from Brauron. This opinion becomes more evident by a comparison with the worship of Chryse. Agamemnon is said to have been the father of Chryse as well as of Iphigenia,1596 and also, according to others, of a son Chryses, who went to Tauria with Orestes.1597 Now it is certain that Chryse was a goddess, who had from early times been worshipped both at Lemnos and Samothrace. The Argonauts under Hercules and Jason were said to have sacrificed to her ”

“ In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseïs and Briseïs, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryseïs, and priest of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to ransom her; with which the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of the siege. The priest being refused, and insolently dismissed by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god; who inflicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and encourages Chalcas to declare the cause of it ”

“ Their kiss is endless. Chrysis would seem to have under her tongue, not milk and honey, as in Holy Writ, but living, mobile, enchanted water. And this multiform tongue itself, now incurved like an arch, now rolled up like a spiral, now shrinking into its hiding-place, now darting forth like a flame, more caressing than the hand, more expressive than the eyes, circling, flower-like, into a pistil, or thinning away into a petal, this ribbon of flesh that hardens when it quivers and softens when it licks, Chrysis animates it with all the resources of her endearing and passionate fantasy . ”

“ Chrysas, among that people, is considered a god, and is worshipped with the greatest reverence. His temple is in the fields, near the road which goes from Assorum to Enna. In it there is an image of Chrysas, exquisitely made of marble. He did not dare to beg that of the Assorians on account of the extraordinary sanctity of that temple; so he entrusts the business to Tlepolemus and Hiero. They, having prepared and armed a body of men, come by night; they break in the doors of the temple; the keepers of the temple and the guardians hear them in time. ”

“ Chryseis asserts that she knows him by the name of Zeus, and believes that once upon a time he crossed the strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Ionia, carrying a fair maiden on his back. He is said to be a fine and majestic creature, and the Phrygians of Crete honour him with dances, howlings, and the music of tambourines: his priests are of the tribe of the Corybantes, the progeny of Corybis. It was mentioned by Chryseis that a bull had once married a queen of the island, named Pasiphae, by whom he had a strange offspring, half-man, half-bull ”

“ The name of Chrysostom, ‘Golden-mouthed,’ was assigned to him after his death to express the eloquence which he possessed in so much greater a degree than the other fathers of the Church. He never repeats himself, and is always original. The vivacity and power of his imagination, the force of his logic, his power of arousing the passions, the beauty and accuracy of his comparisons, the neatness and purity of his style, his clearness and sublimity, place him on a level with the most celebrated Greek authors. ”

“ Chrysostom, who had formerly been his school-fellow, under Libanius, and been afterwards instrumental in inducing him to forsake the world, and some time his companion in a religious state, grievously lamented his unhappy fall; and by two most tender and pathetic exhortations to repentance, gained him again to God. Every word is dictated by the most ardent zeal and charity, and powerfully insinuates itself into the heart by the charm of an unparalleled sweetness, which gives to the strength of the most persuasive eloquence an irresistible force. ”

“ Take the case of Chrysis: she loves me desperately, never leaves off teasing me, she who despised me as a servant, because, when she was acting as her mistress's go-between, I was dressed in the garments of a slave: she, I say) that same Chrysis, who looked with contempt upon your former lowly lot, is now bent upon following it up even at the peril of her life; (she swore that she would never leave my side on the day when she told me of the violence of her passion: but Circe owns me, heart and soul, all others I despise. Who could be lovelier than she?) ”

“ The villagers looked from one to another and said, "Surely the spell is broken; surely the elves must have fled;" and they wept for joy.
Arasmon woke with the first beam of the sun, and finding Chrysea was not there, he rose, and went to seek her in the village, calling, "Chrysea, Chrysea! the sun is up and we must journey on our way;" but no Chrysea answered, so he walked down all the streets, calling "Chrysea! come, Chrysea!" but no Chrysea came. ”

“ Their resentment was inflamed by a powerful party, embracing the magistrates, the ministers, the favourite eunuchs, the ladies of the court, and Eudoxia the empress herself, against whom the preacher thundered daily from the pulpit of St Sophia. A favourable pretext for gratifying their revenge was discovered in the shelter which Chrysostom had given to four Nitrian monks, known as the tall brothers, who had come to Constantinople on being excommunicated by their bishop, Theophilus of Alexandria, a man who had long circulated in the East the charge of Origenism against Chrysostom. ”

“ VII. Chrysostom, and the contemporary fathers of the Eastern Church, naturally seem very remote from us; but, in fact, they are nearer to us in their modes of thought than many who in point of time are less distant. They were brought up in the study of that Greek literature with which we are familiar. Philosophy had not stiffened into scholasticism. The ethics of Chrysostom are substantially the same with the ethics of Butler. So, again, Eastern fathers of the fourth century are far more nearly allied to us in theology than writers of a few centuries later. ”

“ Chrysostom heard them with grief and confusion, and ascribed them to the fondness of a good master, and the charity of the people. Afterwards, ascending the pulpit, he said that every word of the discourse had struck him to the heart, and made him sigh within himself: for praises sting the conscience no less than sins, when a soul is conscious to herself how far she is from what is said of her: they only set before her eyes the last day, in which, to her greater confusion, all things will appear naked and as they are; for we shall not be judged by the masks which are put on us by other men. ”

“ Chrysostom had always been an ascetic liver, but he had not a robust frame, and he had been accustomed to wholesome food and the frequent use of the bath. Continuous travelling by night as well as day, the scorching sun, hot dust, hard bread, brackish water, and deprivation of the bath, threw him into a fever; but either from fear of the Isaurians, or of Leontius, bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, one of his most virulent enemies, the journey was pursued without intermission till he arrived, more dead than alive, at Cæsarea, in Cappadocia. ”

“ We look at nothing so minutely as the face of the woman we love. Seen at the excessively close range of the kiss, Chrysis’s eyes seem enormous. When she closes them, two parallel creases remain on each eyelid, and a leaden-hued patch extends from the brilliant eyebrows to the verge of the cheeks. ”

“ They that wear soft clothing are in king's houses,"--as much as to say, My prophets, my ministers, rejoice not in such things.
So Chrysostom could never forget that he was a minister of Christ, and was willing to forego the trappings and pleasures of material life sooner than abdicate his position as a spiritual dictator. The secular historians of our day would call him arrogant, like the courtiers of Arcadius, who detested his plain speaking and his austere piety; but the poor and unimportant thought him as humble as the rich and great thought him proud. ”

“ Chrysostom directs his discourse to a Christian father, whom he threatens with the judgment of Hell, if he withdrew his children from this state of perfection, in which they would have become suns in heaven, whereas, if they were saved in the world, their glory would probably be only that of stars. He inveighs against parents, who, by their discourse and example, instil into their children a spirit of vanity, and sow in their tender minds the seeds of covetousness, and all those sins which overrun the world. He compares monks to angels, in their uninterrupted joy and attention to God ”

“ Chrysostom acted on his advice. He entered the choir with his friendly bishops, bestowed on them a farewell kiss and farewell words; then bidding them wait for him there while he went to repose, he entered the baptistry, and sent for the deaconesses, Olympias, Pentadia, Procla, and Salvina. “Come hither, my daughters,” he said, “and hearken to me: my career, I perceive, is coming to an end; I have finished my course, and perchance ye will see my face no more. ”

“ Chrysis did not answer.
“We had given doves,” said the little flute-player; “will the goddess remember? The goddess must be very angry. And you, my poor Chryse! you who were to be very happy to-day or very powerful . . .”
“All is accomplished,” said the courtesan.
“What do you mean?”
Chrysis took two steps backwards and lifted her right hand to her mouth.
“Look well, Rhodis; look, Myrtocleia. Human eyes have never beheld what you are to behold to-day, since the day, when the goddess descended upon Ida. And such a sight will never be seen again upon the earth.” ”