Ertene

“ A necessity for fresh air and movement came over Ethne; child of the hills and woods, for her the companionship of the mountains and the streams was as that of familiar friends. At first she hesitated to leave Damaris alone, until persuaded by her entreaties.
“Go forth, my daughter,” she said, “among the hills and brooks; thine eyes are always opened to see the well-springs, as thou liftest up the thirsting.”
And Ethne went, usually accompanied by the two people of her own race in the household, Nurse Fedelm and Dewi, and by the great deer-hound. ”

“ The year of the death of Attila brought two little sons to the palace on the Aventine and the house among the Sabine hills.
The joy was very great in both homes. If Ethne had been as a fountain of youth to Marius, these babes seemed to bring back youth to Damaris. She travelled backwards and forwards in a flutter of new possession and new hope from Rome to the mountains. North and south, the new world and the old seemed visibly blended in those two precious blossoms of new human life. ”

“ Roman and Gothic soldiers knelt together. Ethne’s head was bowed, and her eyes, when she lifted them, were full of tears. Perhaps alone among that exulting multitude, in her prayers the vanquished and retreating enemy had a share. The ugly brown head of the dying boy so near her brother’s age, his feeble, grateful smile, his groans of pain, were in her heart. Perhaps in that worshipping multitude there were few besides who felt as she did how far the tide of redeeming [110] love might reach from the heart of “the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sins of the world.” ”

“ And when the old nurse had left, Ethne said—
“Every bit of the world seems so close to the heavenly King, why should I wish to be anywhere but where we are; where all our beloved are; where our father and mother have the homage of all; where all would die for us; where all would follow us in life and death; where a word from our lips is law, and a wish of our hearts is understood and obeyed before we can speak it?”
“It is for these, it is just because of their love, I sometimes wish to go afar and learn,” replied Baithene. ”

“ As they stood there Ethne said—
“If only we Christians had remained what the martyrdoms of Nero made us in that awful night at Rome, torches to illuminate the city and the world, how bright the city and the world would have been before this!”
“In truth,” he replied, “it is not martyrdom we have to dread, but the deadly chill in our own [248] hearts. And that,” he added, “every day and for ever thou keepest away from me. And by and by thou shalt take me to thy country, where the Christians are still early Christians, of the stamp of Nero’s Christians ”

“ The poor stifled soul of Ernesta was a soul of pain and passion. Born with a mighty longing for life, she thirsted for the sun—for a free, happy, active existence in the full daylight. She was noted for her large limpid eyes and the charming oval of her gentle face. Extremely ignorant, like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the little she knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in the black Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by those daily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied her mother. ”

“ This timeless Grecian Etna, in her lower-heaven loveliness, so lovely, so lovely, what a torturer! Not many men can really stand her, without losing their souls. She is like Circe. Unless a man is very strong, [Pg 14] she takes his soul away from him and leaves him not a beast, but an elemental creature, intelligent and soulless. Intelligent, almost inspired, and soulless, like the Etna Sicilians. Intelligent daimons, and humanly, according to us, the most stupid people on earth. Ach, horror! How many men, how many races, has Etna put to flight? ”

“ King Acestes is concerned for the honour of Sicily. There is lying beside him on the grass a grey-haired chief named Entellus, sometime a pupil in this art of the great hero Eryx, who gave his name to the mountain which overhangs the place of assembly. Will he sit tamely by, Acestes asks, and see this Trojan boaster carry off the prize and the glory unchallenged? Entellus listens to his friend, and feels the old fire stir within him. He would willingly enter the ring once more for the honour of his native island,—
"But strength is slack in limbs grown old,
And aged blood runs dull and cold. ”

“ But when Orestes heard this, he brake in, "Where is this Iphigenia? Hath the dead come back among the living?"
"Thou seest her in me. But interrupt me not 'I BID THEE FETCH ME BEFORE I DIE TO ARGOS FROM A STRANGE LAND, TAKING ME FROM THE ALTAR THAT IS RED WITH THE BLOOD OF STRANGERS, WHEREAT I SERVE.' And if Orestes ask by what means I am alive, thou shalt say that Artemis put a hind in my stead, and that the priest, thinking that he smote me with the knife, slew the beast, and that the goddess brought me to this land." ”

“ He seems only to care for one thing besides—these sacred relics of our ancient glory. He also steals in here from time to time, and I have seen the tears on his wrinkled old face, making it look for the moment young again, as if the old days and the old life might come back yet.”
The family stayed all that winter on the Aventine, and more and more Ethne’s heart was drawn [270] to Fabricius and Damaris, with a deep and tender reverence for the old age which seemed creeping on them too soon, as if the dissolution and decay of the falling world around them were gathering them into its shadow. ”

“ Therefore Dares came near to Æneas, and, laying his left hand on the horns of the ox, spake, saying, “If there be no man to stand against me, why do I tarry? Bid them bring the prize.” Thereupon Acestes rebuked Entellus, who sat near him upon the grass: “Sufferest thou such gifts to be taken [Pg 108] without contest? What of Eryx, thy master? What of thy fame, which hath gone through all the land of Sicily, and the spoils that hang in thy house?”
Then said Entellus, “Think not, Acestes, that I am fearful, or careless of honour. But I am old: my strength is gone from me. ”

“ I have known a long while, ever since Captain Willoughby came to The Pool with the first feather. I waited to tell you that I knew until Harry Feversham came back, and he came to-day."
Ethne sat down in her chair again. She was stunned by Durrance's unexpected disclosure. She had so carefully guarded her secret, that to realise that for a year it had been no secret came as a shock to her. But, even in the midst of her confusion, she understood that she must have time to gather up her faculties again under command. So she spoke of the unimportant thing to gain the time. ”

“ And Æneas gave the two equal gauntlets, and they stood with heads thrown back, and began the battle. Dares indeed was swifter to move, and vigorous, and young; and Entellus was huge of stature, but slow and scant of breath. Many blows they aimed at each other: many times one smote the other on his breast or his cheek, but struck not home. And ever Entellus abode in the same place, swaying himself hither and thither with watchful eyes. ”

“ For him there is no cleansing. To him no land can offer the shelter of its protection. ‘Alone, he has arrayed against him the universe.’ [129] Sooner or later he will be put to death and will be delivered into the hands of the Erinnyes. But in the Attic legend Orestes is not a wilful matricide. Hence the Erinnyes of the Iphigenia drama [369] are not so implacable as the Erinnyes of the Orestes. They are placated by the simple device of transferring an image of Artemis from the Tauric land to Athens! ”

“ There was much to tell Ethne when they were once more alone together on their couches of heather and hay, in their own little sleeping-chamber.
“The heather is sweet,” said Ethne, always finding something pleasant to speak of. “It smells like our Ireland, like home.”
“There is no home,” sighed Baithene; “there are no homes in the world. ”

“ Better a hundred deaths in the quest of honour than to live and die as cowards and sluggards." But Ethne said, "ye are banished from Erinn—never was there a sadder deed." Then they put forth from the river-mouth of the Boyne and soon the fair coasts of Erinn faded out of sight. ”

“ So forces were at once sent as an assistance to them. But among the men of Eretria there was no sound counsel Those who had summoned the Athenians were themselves divided between two opinions: for some intended to abandon the city and betake themselves to the higher ground of Euboea: but others, hoping for private gain from the Persians, were preparing to betray the city. On ascertaining this, one of their chiefs begged the Athenians to return home, lest they should perish together with the men of Eretria. So all returned at once to Athens, and escaped the danger. ”

“ Lucilius Junior devotes the concluding lines of his poem on Etna to the glory of the brothers: "The flames blushed to touch the filial youths, and wherever they plant their footsteps, they retire. That day is a day of fortune; harmless that land. On their right hand [Pg 81] fierce dangers prevail; on their left are burning fires. Athwart the flames they pass in triumph, his brother and he, each safe beneath his filial burden. There the devouring fire flees backward, and checks itself round the twin pair. At length they issue forth unharmed, and bear with them their deities in safety. ”

“ These islands yielded a ready submission; and it was not till Datis and Artaphernes reached Euboea that they encountered any resistance. Eretria defended itself gallantly for six days, and repulsed the Persians with loss; but on the seventh the gates were opened to the besiegers by the treachery of two of its leading citizens. The city was razed to the ground, and the inhabitants were put in chains. From Eretria the Persians crossed over to Attica, and landed on the ever memorable plain of Marathon, a spot which had been pointed out to them by the despot Hippias, who accompanied the army. ”

“ Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
Orestes:
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
Electra:
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call?
Orestes:
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
Electra:
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
Orestes:
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
Electra:
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
Orestes:
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
Electra:
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woel
Orestes:
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
Electra:
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self? ”

“ The Etruscan, in its highest artistic development, preserves something of an Oriental fantasy and want of repose, and invariably falls short of the dignified and purely imaginative character of the Greek. It makes no exception to this rule, that there are Etruscan Scarabæi which have purely Greek intaglii, since we know that there were Greek artists of the highest rank among those who emigrated to Etruria, and that it was customary for one workman to make the Scarabæus, and another the incision. ”

“ Twenty miles away floats the stately cone of Etna. It is a place of entrancing beauty, and the gem of it all is the ancient Greek theatre. I suppose that nowhere in the world have nature and the noblest art [Pg 320] that ever adorned the earth combined in a more perfect picture.
The resting-place chosen by Miss Randolph is not out of that picture, but a part of it. For five hundred years it was a monastery. How well those good old monks knew how to do themselves! They laid out a fairy garden on a gracious headland above the sea, overlooking a panorama the most beautiful in Sicily. ”

“ Afterwards Lucia said to Ethne—
“I would have expected that thy father and mother and thy close kindred should be like thee, princely and simple, royally regarding the wants and claims of all, and with sympathetic discrimination measuring the differences in place and character of each. But this charm goes through all your people; there is not one clown, one obtrusive, awkward person amongst them. Every one is as respectful to you as if you were their queen, and as much at home with you as if you were their sister. ”

“ When the avenging Erinnyes of the slain Clytaemnestra threaten to hurl the shafts of their wrath upon the Attic land because it has harboured Orestes, whom they regard as the murderer of his kin, Athene, who has caused a murder-court to declare him free from guilt, apparently on a plea of justifiable homicide, commands the Erinnyes to be appeased, and says: ‘Hurl you not the weight of your wrath upon Attica; be not indignant, nor cause barrenness by sending down the blighting drops that come from Spirits, the cruel bitter destroyers of our seed. ”

“ And Ethne their sister accompanied them, wailing and lamenting, but no words of cheer had they now to say to her, for now they began to comprehend that a mightier and a craftier mind had caught them in the net of fate. And whereas they had deemed themselves heroes and victors in the most glorious quest whereof the earth had record, they now knew that they were but as arrows in the hands of a laughing archer, who shoots one at a stag and one at the heart of a foe, and one, it may be, in sheer wantonness, and to try his bow, over a cliff edge into the sea. ”

“ When they returned to the Aventine from the solemn obsequies of the Shepherd and Father of Rome, Marius said to Ethne—
“Thou hast never been perplexed by anything that seemed doubtful in the great Bishop’s life; not about his contest with Hilary of Arles, nor even about his forbidding the ordination of slaves.”
“Why should I?” she said; “Leo never claimed to be anything in himself. Has he not taught us [310] all to say day by day in our prayers, that ‘we can do nothing good without God’? ”

“ In time Ethne grew into a fair and stately maiden Now in the Brugh of Angus there were two magical treasures, namely, an ale-vat which could never be emptied, and two swine whereof one was ever roasted and ready to be eaten while the other lived, and thus they were, day and day about. There was therefore always a store of food of faery, charged with magical spells, by eating of which one could never grow old or die. It came to be noticed that after Ethne had grown up she never ate or drank of the fairy food, or of any other, yet she continued to seem healthy and well-nourished. ”