A Reaping

by E. F. Benson

And of their paintings! We have none left (and there’s the pity of it) which even reflect the Greek master at his best. But corresponding to our English paintings on china, we have the Greek vases of the fourth and fifth centuries. They were made by journeymen in potters’ shops, but there is not one that lacks the supremacy of knowledge and observation. It is as if a china-shop in the Seven Dials suddenly displayed in its window examples of the nude figure which showed a perfect knowledge not only of anatomy, but of the romance of movement. The sculptors and painters of Greece saw perfectly. Even our academicians themselves appear to us to be not flawless. But in Greece we are not dealing with these great lords of colour and drawing: we deal only, as far as drawing goes, with little people in back streets. The noble church of St. Paul in the City of London, which so few people visit, was lately decorated. At this moment I look on a sketch of a fragment of pottery.... It is by one like whom there were thousands. It happens to be perfect in draughtsmanship.

To think of one day in ancient Athens! In the morning I went up (I feel as if I must have done this) to see the new statue of Athene Promachos, which Pheidias had just finished. We knew little then about his work, except that he had been chosen to decorate the Parthenon, and those who had seen his sketches for the frieze (which we can see now in the British Museum) said that they were ‘not bad.’ So after breakfast my friend and I strolled towards the Acropolis, talking, as Athenians talked, of ‘some new thing’—in fact, we talked of several new things, and, being Athenians, we got quite hot about them, since we had (being Athenians) that keenness of soul that never says ‘I don’t care about that,’ or ‘I take no interest in this.’ Everything was intensely interesting. It was a hot morning, and the plane-trees by the Ilyssus looked attractive, and there was a company of people there whose talk might be stimulating, but to-day we were too busy: we had to see the Athene Promachos, a bronze statue by Pheidias, forty feet high, and after lunch (lunch was going to be rather grand, because a new play was coming out, and Pericles was going to be there, and perhaps Aspasia) we were going to Æschylus’s new tragedy, called the ‘Agamemnon.’ And my friend, who was Alcibiades, was giving a supper-party in the evening. Socrates was coming, and a man who was really very pleasant, only he listened and made notes, but seldom talked. His name was Plato.

Alcibiades was rather profane sometimes, and spoke of the great gods as if he did not really believe in them. I, knowing him so well, knew that he did, and that it was only his Puck-like spirit which made him in talk make light of what he believed. All up the steps of the Propylæa he was, though amusing, rather profane, and then we came through the central gate, which was yet unfinished, and straight in front of us was the statue. And some jest—I know not what—died on my friend’s lips, and his great grey eyes suddenly became dim with tears at the sight of beauty, and his mouth quivered as he said:

‘Mighty Lady Athene, my goddess!’

And with that he knelt down on the rock in front of where she stood, and prayed to the wisdom of God.

He refused to go to the grand lunch after this, and insisted on our remaining up here till it was time to get to the theatre, quoting something that Socrates had said about the cleansing power of beauty; ‘so we will not soil ourselves just yet,’ quoth he, ‘with the intrigues we should hear about at lunch, but go straight from here to the theatre.’ So we bought from a peasant some cheese wrapped up in a vine-leaf, and a bottle of wine, and a loaf of bread and some grapes, and then went down the rock to the theatre. And still that divine vision had possession of Alcibiades, for he paid no attention to the greeting of his friends, and bade them be silent. And soon the actors were come, and the watchman went up to the tower, and looked east, and saw the beacons leap across the land, to show that the ten-year siege was over, and that Troy had fallen. Then slowly began to be unfolded the tale of the stupendous tragedy. Home came Agamemnon, with his captive, the Princess Cassandra, riding behind him in his chariot of triumph. Clytemnestra, his wife, met him at the palace door, and with feigned obeisance and lying words of love welcomed him in, leaving Cassandra outside. Then there descended on the Princess the spirit of prophecy, and in wild words she shrieked out the doom that was coming. Quickly it came: from within we heard the death-cry of the King, and the palace doors swung open, and out came the Queen, fondling the axe with which she had slain him.... The doom of the gods was accomplished.

Then afterwards we went round to the green-room, and found Æschylus there, and Alcibiades, in his impulsive way—I tell him he has the feelings of a woman—must kneel and kiss the hand that wrote this wonderful play. Socrates was there, too, putting absurd questions to everybody about the difference between the muse of tragedy and the muse of comedy; as if anybody cared, so long as Æschylus wrote plays like that! However, he got Plato to listen to him, and soon made him contradict himself, which is what Socrates chiefly cares about. Pericles came in, too, with Aspasia, to whom he kindly introduced me. Certainly she is extraordinarily beautiful, and has great wit. But she called attention to her physical charms too much, which is silly, since they are quite capable of calling attention to themselves.

Afterwards, since only Alcibiades and I had seen the wonderful statue, we all strolled up to the Acropolis again to look at it and the sunset. Socrates came, too, and after we had examined and admired the bronze goddess again, we went and sat on the steps of the temple of Athene. He tried his usual game of asking us questions till we contradicted ourselves, but before long all of us refused to answer him any more, saying that we were aware that we were totally ignorant of everything, and that there was no longer any need for him to prove it to us. And then—exactly how it arose I don’t know, but I think it was from the questions and answers that had already passed—he began to weave us the most wonderful fable, showing us how all that we thought beautiful here on earth was but the reflection, the pale copy, of the beauty which was eternal. Round the outer rim of the earth and the stars, he said, ran the living stream of a great river, which, indeed, was heaven, and everything that we thought beautiful here had its archetype there, and all day and all night the gods drove round and round on this river of beauty in their chariots. It was our business, then, here on earth, to look for beauty everywhere, and never falter in the quest of it, for so we prepared ourselves for the sight of that of which these things were but the shadow, so that the greater would be the initiation which would be ours after death. More especially we must seek for the beauty of spiritual things, which was the real beauty, and so order our bodies, our words, and actions, that they were all in tune with it, with the beauty of prudence, and temperance, and kindness, and wisdom, for it was of these that heaven itself and the living stream was composed, and these shone from the eyes of the immortal gods.

‘So there is my prayer,’ said he, rising and stretching out his hands to the great statue, while we all rose with him. ‘O Athene, give me inward beauty of soul, and let the inward and the outward man be at one.’

So the sun set, but on the violet crown of Athens—the hills there, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and Parnes—the light still lingered, and shone like the river of beauty Socrates had told us about, till it faded also from the tops, and above the deep night was starry-kirtled.