Out of the mists of the moon floated Istar the daughter of Sin.
Out of the mists and the fog came she forth, and Æolian choirs,
Winds of the evening, sang low of her going. Upborne by her tresses
Floating above and about her, she sank; and the dawn was not yet.
Istar, the daughter of Sin, in her vestment of tissue of silver,
Under which glowed the deep purple proclaiming her godhead, and there,
Full on her breast, the bright flush of the crimson that told of her passion,
Laughed to herself and the winds, as she came forth from out of her refuge.
Down, far adown the dark, mystical depths of the chasm of chaos
Floated the mystical maiden; a voice like a clarion echo
Calling from out of the mist she had left: "O Istar, beloved,
Hear and return unto me, father, archtype, soul of the sphere!"
Istar, the daughter of Sin, obeying the word of the Lord,
Heard but not heeded the voice. Only pausing a thought in her course,
Flinging her head to the stars, laughed aloud with her lips that were scarlet.
Then, with a shake and a shrug of her bare, cloud-born shoulders, she sent
Clashing and ringing below into space a bright silvery shower
Flashing and pringling with light; which earth-men calléd shower of stars.
Istar continued her flight and went swaying her tortuous way
Down and adown past all planets and suns in their horror of heat,
Till, in the end, the great fall was accomplished, and Istar was born,
Soulless and pure in the city called "Gateway of God."
Book I
THE JOURNEY
I
THE SEA
A hot April sun shone full over the waters to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long circle divided the misty, shimmering dove-color of the Mediterranean from the richer blue of the swelling sky. A path of sun-strewn ripples, broadening as the afternoon advanced, ended at that distant line, and found its starting-point at the rocky base of the Selinuntian acropolis, on the southwestern coast of Sicily. The day was warm, and the air rich with the perfume of sweet alyssum, beneath which delicate flower the whole island lay buried. A light breeze feathered the sea, occasionally sweeping away enough powdered sunshine to disclose the rich sapphire depths of the under-waters. Nevertheless more perfect skies had been, and generally were, at this season of the year; for to-day half the west was hidden by a curtain of short, thick clouds that threatened to hide the usual evening glory of wine-tinted waters and crimson-flooded skies.
Upon the height of the cliff that terminates the broad Selinuntian plain, Selinous, white, Doric city, with her groups of many-columned temples and her well-built walls, sent forth the usual droning murmur of life. White-robed men and women were wont to move in unhurried dignity in their citadels in those days when Æneas was not yet a myth, before Syracuse knew Gelon, when the first Aahmes ruled in Egypt, when Crœsus of Lydia and Astyages of Media were paying bitter tribute to the great Elamite just retired from Babylonian plains to his far Rhagæ in the Eastern hills; and here, on the Sicilian coast, the Greek city lay in placid beauty upon her two hills, divided by the philosophically drained valley, bounded upon the right hand by her shining river, while far to the left, in the direction of Acragas, a line of rugged hills rose into the blue. The four bright temples of the acropolis were mirrored in the sea below. On the east hill, at some distance from where the gigantic new sanctuary to Apollo was building, and directly in front of the old temple of Hera, on the very edge of the cliff, drowsing in the sunlight, lay Charmides, a shepherd, surrounded by his flock.