The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales Part 25

The rumour seemed so highly plausible that it must be feared that sufficient pains were not taken to verify it--cannot have been, in fact; for, as I said, here he comes, having been brought, as he affirms, through the air by an angel. Little would it have signified if he had come by himself, but he is accompanied by three hundred monks carrying cudgels, who threaten an insurrection if he is not consecrated on the spot. My friend the Archbishop and I are at our wits' end: we have set our hearts on having a gentleman over the diocese, but we cannot afford to have tumults reported at Constantinople. At last, mainly through the mediation of a sable personage whom no one seems to know, but who approves himself most intelligent and obliging, the matter is put off till to-morrow, when them and Pachymius are to compete for the bishopric in public on conditions not yet settled, but which our swarthy friend undertakes to arrange to every one's satisfaction. So keep up a good heart, and don't run away in any case. I know thou art timid, but remember that there is no safety for thee but in victory. If thou yieldest thou wilt be beheaded by me, and if thou art defeated thou wilt certainly be burned by Pachymius."

With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the poor poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the G.o.ds lay on the table in their place, whence he concluded that a friendly power might yet be watching over him.

III

Next morning all Panopolis was in an uproar. It was generally known that the pretensions of the candidates for the episcopate would be decided by public compet.i.tion, and it was rumoured that this would partake of the nature of an ordeal by fire and water. Nothing further had transpired except that the arrangements had been settled by the Governor and Archbishop in concert with two strangers, a dingy Libyan and a handsome young Greek, neither of whom was known in the city, but in both of whom the authorities seemed to repose entire confidence. At the appointed time the people flocked into the theatre, and found the stage already occupied by the parties chiefly concerned. The Governor and the Archbishop sat in the centre on their tribunals: the compet.i.tors stood on each side, Pachymius backed by the demon, Nonnus by Apollo; both these supporters, of course, appearing to the a.s.sembly in the light of ordinary mortals. Nonnus recognised Apollo perfectly, but Pachymius's limited powers of intelligence seemed entirely engrossed by the discomfort visibly occasioned him by the proximity of an enormous bra.s.s vessel of water, close to which burned a bright fire. Nonnus was also ill at ease, and continually directed his attention to a large package, of the contents of which he seemed instinctively cognisant.

All being ready, the Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, with the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of determining between the claims of two such highly qualified compet.i.tors had been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates.

Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of course be inst.i.tuted; should both undergo the probation successfully, new criterions of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both would be set aside, and the disputed mitre would be conferred elsewhere. He would first summon Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now their fellow-Christian, to submit himself to the test proposed.

Apollo now rose, and proclaimed in an audible voice, "By virtue of the authority committed to me I call upon Nonnus of Panopolis, candidate for the bishopric of his native city, to demonstrate his fitness for the same by consigning to the flames with his own hands the forty-eight execrable books of heathen poetry composed by him in the days of his darkness and blindness, but now without doubt as detestable to him as to the universal body of the faithful." So saying, he made a sign to an attendant, the wrapping of the package fell away, and the forty-eight scrolls of the Dionysiaca, silver k.n.o.bs, purple cords, and all, came to view.

"Burn my poem!" exclaimed Nonnus. "Destroy the labours of twenty-four years! Bereave Egypt of its Homer! Erase the name of Nonnus from the tablet of Time!"

"How so, while thou hast the Paraphrase of St. John?" demanded Apollo maliciously.

"Indeed, good youth," said the Governor, who wished to favour Nonnus, "methinks the condition is somewhat exorbitant. A single book might suffice, surely!"

"I am quite content," replied Apollo. "If he consents to burn any of his books he is no poet, and I wash my hands of him."

"Come, Nonnus," cried the Governor, "make haste; one book will do as well as another. Hand them up here."

"It must be with his own hands, please your Excellency," said Apollo.

"Then," cried the Governor, pitching to the poet the first scroll brought to him, "the thirteenth book. Who cares about the thirteenth book? Pop it in!"

"The thirteenth book!" exclaimed Nonnus, "containing the contest between wine and honey, without which my epic becomes totally and entirely unintelligible!"

"This, then," said the Governor, picking out another, which chanced to be the seventeenth.

"In my seventeenth book," objected Nonnus, "Bacchus plants vines in India, and the superiority of wine to milk is convincingly demonstrated."

"Well," rejoined the Governor, "what say you to the twenty-second?"

"With my Hamadryad! I can never give up my Hamadryad!"

"Then," said the Governor, contemptuously hurling the whole set in the direction of Nonnus, "burn which you will, only burn!"

The wretched poet sat among his scrolls looking for a victim. All his forty-eight children were equally dear to his parental heart. The cries of applause and derision from the spectators, and the formidable bellowings of the exasperated monks who surrounded Pachymius, did not tend to steady his nerves, or render the task of critical discrimination the easier.

"I won't! I won't!" he exclaimed at last, starting up defiantly. "Let the bishopric go to the devil! Any one of my similes is worth all the bishoprics in Egypt!"

"Out on the vanity of these poets!" exclaimed the disappointed Governor.

"It is not vanity," said Apollo, "it is paternal affection; and being myself a sufferer from the same infirmity, I rejoice to find him my true son after all."

"Well," said the Governor, turning to the demon: "it is thy man's turn now.

Trot him out!"

"Brethren," said the demon to the a.s.sembly, "it is meet that he who aspires to the office of bishop should be prepared to give evidence of extraordinary self-denial. Ye have seen even our weak brother Nonnus adoring what he hath burned, albeit as yet unwilling to burn what he hath adored. How much more may be reasonably expected of our brother Pachymius, so eminent for sanct.i.ty! I therefore call upon him to demonstrate his humility and self-renunciation, and effectually mortify the natural man, by was.h.i.+ng himself in this ample vessel provided for the purpose"

"Wash myself!" exclaimed Pacyhmius, with a vivacity of which he had previously shown no token. "Destroy at one splash the sanct.i.ty of fifty-seven years! Avaunt! thou subtle enemy of my salvation! I know thee who thou art, the demon who brought me hither on his back yesterday."

"I thought it had been an angel," said the Governor.

"A demon in the disguise of an angel of light," said Pachymius.

A tumultuous discussion arose among Pachymius's supporters, some extolling his fort.i.tude, others blaming his wrongheadedness.

"What!" said he to the latter, "would ye rob me of my reputation? Shall it be written of me, The holy Pachymius abode in the precepts of the eremites so long as he dwelt in the desert where no water was, but as soon as he came within sight of a bath, he stumbled and fell?"

"Oh, father," urged they, "savoureth not this of vaingloriousness? The demon in the guise of an angel of light, as thou so well saidest even now.

Be strong. Quit thyself valiantly. Think of the sufferings of the primitive confessors."

"St. John was cast into a caldron of boiling oil," said one.

"St. Apocryphus was actually drowned," said another.

"I have reason to believe," said a third, "that the loathsomeness of ablution hath been greatly exaggerated by the heretics."

"I know it has," said another. "I _have_ washed myself once, though ye might not think it, and can a.s.sert that it is by no means as disagreeable as one supposes."

"That is just what I dread," said Pachymius. "Little by little, one might positively come to like it! We should resist the beginnings of evil."

All this time the crowd of his supporters had been pressing upon the anchorite, and had imperceptibly forced him nearer the edge of the vessel, purposing at a convenient season to throw him in. He was now near enough to catch a glimpse of the limpid element. Recoiling in horror, he collected all his energies, and with head depressed towards his chest, and hands thrust forth as if to ward off pollution--b.u.t.ting, kicking, biting the air--he rushed forwards, and with a preternatural force deserving to be enumerated among his miracles, fairly overthrew the enormous vase, the contents streaming on the crowd in front of the stage.

"Take me to my hermitage!" he screamed. "I renounce the bishopric. Take me to my hermitage!"

"Amen," responded the demon, and, a.s.suming his proper shape, he took Pachymius upon his back and flew away with him amid the cheers of the mult.i.tude.

Pachymius was speedily deposited at the mouth of his cavern, where he received the visits of the neighbouring anchorites, who came to congratulate him on the constancy with which he had sustained his fiery, or rather watery trial. He spent most of his remaining days in the society of the devil, on which account he was canonised at his death.

"O Phoebus," said Nonnus, when they were alone, "impose upon me any penance thou wilt, so I may but regain thy favour and that of the Muses. But before all things let me destroy my paraphrase."

"Thou shalt not destroy it," said Phoebus, "Thou shalt publish it. That shall be thy penance."

And so it is that the epic on the exploits of Bacchus and the paraphrase of St. John's Gospel have alike come down to us as the work of Nonnus, whose authors.h.i.+p of both learned men have never been able to deny, having regard to the similarity of style, but never could explain until the facts above narrated came to light in one of the Fayoum papyri recently acquired by the Archduke Rainer.

THE PURPLE HEAD

Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel That set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel.