Danaë

“ Struggling and screaming, Danaë was held fast by the women-servants while her hair was cut off by her father’s dagger, and thereafter, a miserable little shorn object, she had been held up to every visitor as a model of juvenile depravity until her mother grew tired of the subject—the injured Angeliké meanwhile basking on the softest cushions, and enjoying the first taste of every dainty dish. ”

“ After much thought, Acrisius decided to lock Danae up in a brazen tower, around which he stationed guards to prevent any one from even approaching the captive princess.
But, although safely concealed from the eyes of men, Danae was plainly seen by the everlasting gods; and Jupiter, looking down from Olympus, beheld her in all her loveliness and in all her loneliness. She was seated on top of her brazen tower, her eyes wistfully turned toward the city, where girls of her age enjoyed freedom, and were allowed to marry when they pleased. ”

“ The words and their tone stirred Armitage with a most unwonted thrill. He caught Danaë’s hand again.
“Danaë, why should we trouble the Lady Zoe? Come on a long cruise with me, and let me teach you.”
But Danaë knew her own practical mind far too well to encourage such foolishness. “How could you teach me, lord? I want to become a European lady for your sake.” ”

“ Always tell the truth,” he said bluffly. To his utter stupefaction, Danaë unclasped the Girdle of Isidora from her waist, and laid it on the table.
“I would fain have spared you this shame, lord,” she said sadly. “Lady,” she turned to Zoe, “my lord gave this holy thing to the schismatic woman, and hailed her as Orthodox Empress. When she was dead, I took it from where I had seen her put it, and hid it, that it might be safe for my little lord’s wife when he grows up.”
“My girdle!” Danaë’s voice was drowned by Eirene’s shriek of joy as she sprang forward and seized the jewel. ”

“ Danaë lets the contents of the bowl slide into the brazier; a shaft of flame flares high, she averts her face.
Laodice.
Ho, are we dropping roses all the time?
Men; bring me men and torches and sharp spears—
A boat to cut the Centaur's rudder-ropes—
I will go down and take him back.... Hui....
She sweeps out followed by Barsine.
Danaë.
O, Sophron, out by the land! Nay, he knows more—
And she, and she; watch-towers divide this earth,
Horses go here; and he may save a ship.
She draws aside the curtain to look beyond.
May women's skirts impede you, ravening queen. ”

“ THE LADY. It was a very woe-begone and dishevelled Danaë, not at all like an inspired deliverer, who stumbled ashore on the quay at Therma at the rough bidding of Petros. The passage had been a stormy one, and the island girl, who could have faced a gale without serious discomfort in a fishing-boat, had succumbed hopelessly to the vile odours and eccentric motion of the wretched little steamer that carried her from the neighbouring island of Tortolana, Strio’s nearest link with civilisation, to the capital of her brother’s principality. ”

“ True to her desire for Danaë’s moral advancement, the good woman herself suggested that the reading should be in Greek, and Danaë listened with more or less edification. One day, however, she rose suddenly from fanning the children as they slept on the divan, and knelt down beside Zoe.
“Lady, is it true what that book says—that what is done can never be undone?”
“A thing done can never be as though it had not been, Kalliopé. But what sort of thing——?”
“But not if one goes on pilgrimage, my lady—to Jerusalem, even? to bathe in the Jordan? If one gives crowns and jewels to the icons——?” ”

“ Could they have guessed that she and Janni were hidden in the grounds, and be lying in wait in the house, ready to pounce upon them when hunger should drive them forth? Danaë shook from head to foot as the thought occurred to her, but a howl from Janni brought her back to him in a panic, and made action inevitable. Quieting him with promises and entreaties, she let herself down from the tree, and starting at every sound, crept through the bushes and reconnoitred the kitchen door. There was no one to be seen, and she ventured inside. ”

“ It is really too difficult for us to look into the soul of an old fanatic who is ready to slay his own son at the command of God; yet the foreshortening of the recumbent Isaac, and the angel sweeping down on him like a tempest, to seize just at the right moment the hand of the old man, are brought out again with really wanton mastery. The so-called Danaë is not to every one's taste, its universal fame notwithstanding. ”

“ Danaë ventured to ask.
“You will go straight from this room to the quay. And tell the girl’s father from me,” again he addressed Petros, “that he will do well to find her a husband at once, before she brings further disgrace on his house. And you may warn the husband to look well after her.”
Flame flashed from Danaë’s eyes at the words and the obvious glee with which Petros received them—for was not his master ranging him with himself against the Despot and the Lady Danaë?—but it was quenched by a sudden rush of tears. “O my Prince, you will let me bid farewell to the little lord?” ”

“ Saturated as I was with Greek mythology, there came to my mind the thought of Danaë, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, and mother of Perseus. Because she refused to listen to the love-words of the king who received her, after her father exiled her, she was condemned to similar work.
A great excitement seized me. I thought that the story I had read did not belong to the past—that it was being enacted in that very place, at that very hour, and before my own eyes. Nay, more! I was a Greek runner, ordered by the gods of Olympus to announce to her the return of her son. ”

“ I am the brother of Polydectes the king; and men call me Dictys the netter, because I catch the fish of the shore.’
Then Danae fell down at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried—
‘Oh, sir, have pity upon a stranger, whom a cruel doom has driven to your land; and let me live in your house as a servant; but treat me honourably, for I was once a king’s daughter, and this my boy (as you have truly said) is of no common race. ”

“ She’s tiring him out, she is.”
Danaë’s eyes were aflame with indignation, not against her brother, but the Lady. The enchantress was not satisfied with ensnaring her victim, then; she wished to keep him for ever, to ruin his future without hope of remedy. It never occurred to Danaë for a moment to regard the marriage at Bashi Konak as binding—she was far too strongly Orthodox to admit that a Greek could marry a Latin by Latin rites—but she feared that Prince Romanos might be induced to go through a second ceremony, prior to which the bride would renounce her schismatic creed. ”

“ And I can’t talk your mincing foreign Greek? You will find before very long that I can! I make my bow to you, my Lady. You will know me better when I bring my Jannaki to the window of your dungeon, and teach him to spit upon you!”
Danaë could not have explained why her mistress’s indifference wounded her more than active dislike would have done, but so it was. The company of the two old women, with their taunts and nods of triumph, was equally intolerable, and she never rested until she had found a hiding-place for herself and Janni where they could be by themselves. ”

“ On the verandah she paused. There were sounds at the gate. The Lady had heard them too, and risen from her chair, just as Mariora rushed through the hall from the kitchen.
“Fly, my Lady, hide yourself! Murderers!” shrieked the old woman. “I will keep them back!” and she pushed her mistress violently inside the house and ran towards the gate, brandishing a chopper. The Lady turned to snatch Janni out of Danaë’s arms, but drew back suddenly.
“Hide him, my Eurynomé, save him! You love him, I know.”
“They will do you no harm, Lady,” responded Danaë confidently, “nor the little lord either.” ”

“ Danaë withdrew her hands from his knee. “I am sorry you thought I deserved this of you, lord.”
“Oh, you won’t understand!” cried Armitage desperately. “Our customs are different from yours. With us it is the highest compliment to be willing to marry a girl without a dowry.”
Danaë’s aggrieved attitude was slightly modified, though her silence showed that she considered the custom, however honourable to the lady, likely to be inconvenient in practice. But Armitage was evidently waiting anxiously for some remark. ”

“ Danaë could bear no more. Her brother was unconscious of her presence, and she burst through the bushes and ran across the lawn to the spot where she had left Janni. Catching him up, she hastened back and tried to put him into his father’s arms.
“See, lord, you are not left wholly desolate. There is yet one to love and that loves you.”
“Take the child away!” said Prince Romanos angrily.
“But, lord, your little son!”
“Take him away. What do I care for him? It is his mother I want—not a baby that cannot speak.” He turned again to the Lady’s body. “Sweet, hast thou no word for thy lover? ”

“ According to another story, her son Perseus, on his return with the head of Medusa, finding his mother persecuted by Polydectes, turned him into stone, and took Danae back with him to Argos. Latin legend represented her as landing on the coast of Latium and marrying Pilumnus or Picumnus, from whom Turnus, king of the Rutulians, was descended. Danae formed the subject of tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Livius Andronicus and Naevius. She is the personification of the earth suffering from drought, on which the fertilizing rain descends from heaven. ”

“ With huge delight Despina and Mariora dragged their prisoner away and shut her up in the wood-shed until Petros should arrive with the Prince. Janni’s piteous wailings for “Nono,” which could only be calmed by undivided attention from his mother, troubled them not a whit, but they added fuel to the fire which burned in the rebellious heart of the girl who crouched exhausted on the ground after a wild and futile attack on the door. If Danaë had felt before that she did well to be angry with the Lady and her household, she would now gladly have seen them all lying dead before her. ”

“ Meanwhile Danaë wore European clothes all day long, had Janni with her whenever she was not out of doors, and found herself and her husband the cynosure of every eye and the attraction at every social gathering they could manage to attend. Armitage’s boyish face and grey hair made such a piquant contrast with the splendid beauty of his wife that it only needed the discovery that Lady Armitage was a child of nature from the islands to send Therma wild about them. ”

“ Prince Christodoridi was puzzled by the warmth of personal feeling in the answer.
“Is it not the affair of all when one of us disgraces himself, lord?” Danaë was regaining her courage now that discovery had not been followed by instant death.
“No, insolent one! Has your mother not taught you yet that it is no affair of a woman what any of her men choose to do? Then you will have time to learn it in solitude here while Petros returns to his master.” ”

“ If Lady Danaë will be my niece, and obey me in all things, I will take her, but not otherwise. Holy Antony! if the Lord Romanos knew what was plotting against his love”—Prince Christodoridi glanced at him sharply—“perpetual imprisonment, no less—my life would not be worth a drachma, and I desire to continue in his service until he enters Czarigrad in triumph as Emperor.”
“Peace! you talk too much. Lady Danaë will obey you, and you will be responsible for her,” said Prince Christodoridi sharply. “Come, girl!” ”

“ Let thy spirit visit me at night, my beautiful one, and keep vengeance ever in my mind. If there be one left alive of those who slew thee——”
The familiar voice, raised in a half chant, grew faint in Danaë’s ears. She was stalking majestically across the grass, hushing the protesting Janni in her arms, and listening greedily for some word of recall. No one should say she had stolen away secretly, but if she was driven out she would go. ”

“ Danaë gave her one glance out of her black eyes, then laughed confusedly.
“It was only foolishness, lady. Does he not wear the little lord’s clothes? And we are proud of a first-born son in—” she had all but said “in Strio,” but substituted just in time—“in the islands. He is often called the little lord by the women.”
“Then you do come from the islands? Why did you tell my husband you had never been there?”
“Because I never have, my lady. I have always lived in Therma, but my family come from the islands. I suppose that is why that wretch Petros sought us out,” she added hardily. ”

“ He placed around the tower a strong guard, so that no one could get even a glimpse of the imprisoned princess; but though no mortal wooer could approach her, Danaë's loveliness was not hidden from Jupiter's eyes, and as he looked down from high Olympus he pitied the maiden's236 loneliness and loved her for her great beauty. Fearing to frighten her if he assumed any mortal disguise, and not daring to appear before her in his divine splendor, he took the form of a golden shower, which fell softly on the sill of the tower window and charmed the lonely captive with its brightness. ”

“ As for Danaë herself, she was highly flattered by the request, having long admired in secret the large painting of Zoe which the artist had presented to her and her husband as his wedding-gift. Her ideas on the subject were not exactly in accord with Armitage’s, however, as was made evident when she presented herself for the first sitting robed in Linton’s best black gown and a stiffly starched white apron, with her hair strained back from her face and piled into a kind of helmet on her head, in distant imitation of Zoe’s coils. ”