Though somewhat vex'd at this so brief delay—78
Yet as the rites, in truth, required preparing,
The flock obedient took themselves away;—
Meanwhile the Knight was on the Idol staring,
Not without wonder at the tastes terrestrial
Which in that image hail'd a shape celestial.
Full thirty ells in height—the goddess stood79
Based on a column of the bones of men,
Daub'd was her face with clots of human blood,
Her jaws as wide as is a tiger's den;
With giant fangs as strong and huge as those
That cranch the reeds, through which the sea-horse goes.
"Right reverend Sir," quoth he of golden tongue,80
"A most majestic gentlewoman this!
Is it the Freya,[12] whom your scalds have sung,
Goddess of love and sweet connubial bliss?
If so—despite her very noble carriage,
Her charms are scarce what youth desires in marriage."
"Stranger," said one who seem'd the hierarch-priest—81
"In that sublime, symbolical creation,
The outward image but conveys the least
Of Freya's claims on human veneration—
But (thine own heart if Love hath ever glow'd in),
Thou'lt own that Love is quite as fierce as Odin!
"Hence, as the cause of full one half our quarrels,82
Freya with Odin shares the rites of blood;—
In this—thou seest a hidden depth of morals,
But by the vulgar little understood;—
We do not roast thee in an idle frolic!
But as a type mysterious and symbolic."
The Hierarch motions to the priests around,83
They bind the victim to the Statue's base,
Then, to the Knight they link the wondering hound,
Some three yards distant—looking face to face.
"One word," said Gawaine—"ere your worships quit us,
How is it meant that Freya is to eat us?"
"Stranger," replied the Priest, "albeit we hold84
Such questions idle, and perhaps profane;
Yet much the wise will pardon to the bold—
When what they ask 'tis easy to explain—
Still typing Truth, and shaped with sacred art,
We place a furnace in the statue's heart.
"That furnace heated by mechanic laws85
Which gods to priests for godlike ends permit,
We lay the victim bound across the jaws,
And let him slowly turn upon a spit;
The jaws—(when done to what we think their liking)
Close;—all is over:—The effect is striking!"
At that recital, made in tone complacent,86
The frozen Knight stared speechless and aghast,
Stared on those jaws to which he was subjacent,
And felt the grinders cranch on their repast.
Meanwhile the Priest said—"Keep your spirits up,
And ere I go, say when you'd like to sup?"
"Sup!" falter'd out the melancholy Knight,87
"Sup! pious Sir—no trouble there, I pray!
Good though I grant my natural appetite,
The thought of Freya's takes it all away:
As for the dog—poor, unenlighten'd glutton,
Blind to the future,—let him have his mutton."