The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead which weighs on
the minds of those who have never loved, or never earnestly.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ARISTOPHANES IN LONDON
Non duco contentionis funern, dum constet inter nos, quod
fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam.—Petronius Arbiter.
I do not draw the rope of contention,{1} while it is agreed
amongst us, that almost the whole world practises acting.
1 A metaphor apparently taken from persons pulling in
opposite directions at each end of a rope. I cannot see, as
some have done, that it has anything in common with Horace's
Tortum digna sequi potius quant ducere funern: 'More
worthy to follow than to lead the tightened cord': which is
a metaphor taken from a towing line, or any line acting in a
similar manner, where one draws and another is drawn. Horace
applies it to money, which he says should be the slave, and
not the master of its possessor.
All the world's a stage.—Shakespeare.
En el teatro del mundo
Todos son représentantes.—Calderon.
Tous les comédiens ne sont pas au théâtre.
—French Proverb.
Rain came, and thaw, followed by drying wind. The roads were in good order for the visitors to the Aristophanic comedy. The fifth day of Christmas was fixed for the performance. The theatre was brilliantly lighted, with spermaceti candles in glass chandeliers for the audience, and argand lamps for the stage. In addition to Mr. Gryll's own houseful of company, the beauty and fashion of the surrounding country, which comprised an extensive circle, adorned the semicircular seats; which, however, were not mere stone benches, but were backed, armed, and padded into comfortable stalls. Lord Curryfin was in his glory, in the capacity of stage-manager.
The curtain rising, as there was no necessity for its being made to fall,{1} discovered the scene, which was on the London bank of the Thames, on the terrace of a mansion occupied by the Spirit-rapping Society, with an archway in the centre of the building, showing a street in the background. Gryllus was lying asleep. Circe, standing over him, began the dialogue.
1 The Athenian theatre was open to the sky, and if the
curtain had been made to fall it would have been folded up
in mid air, destroying the effect of the scene. Being raised
from below, it was invisible when not in use.
CIRCE
Wake, Gryllus, and arise in human form.
GRYLLUS
I have slept soundly, and had pleasant dreams.
CIRCE
I, too, have soundly slept—Divine how long.
GRYLLUS
Why, judging by the sun, some fourteen hours.
CIRCE
Three thousand years»
GRYLLUS
That is a nap indeed.
But this is not your garden, nor your palace.
Where are we now?
CIRCE
Three thousand years ago,
This land was forest, and a bright pure river
Ran through it to and from the Ocean stream.
Now, through a wilderness of human forms,
And human dwellings, a polluted flood
Rolls up and down, charged with all earthly poisons,
Poisoning the air in turn.
GRYLLUS
I see vast masses
Of strange unnatural things.
CIRCE
Houses, and ships,
And boats, and chimneys vomiting black smoke,
Horses, and carriages of every form,
And restless bipeds, rushing here and there
For profit or for pleasure, as they phrase it.
GRYLLUS
Oh, Jupiter and Bacchus! what a crowd,
Flitting, like shadows without mind or purpose,
Such as Ulysses saw in Erebus.
But wherefore are we here?
CIRCE
There have arisen
Some mighty masters of the invisible world,
And these have summoned us.
GRYLLUS
With what design?
CIRCE
That they themselves must tell. Behold they come,
Carrying a mystic table, around which
They work their magic spells. Stand by, and mark.
[Three spirit-rappers appeared, carrying a table, which they
placed on one side of the stage:]
1. Carefully the table place,
Let our gifted brother trace
A ring around the enchanted space
2. Let him tow'rd the table point
With his first fore-finger joint,
And with mesmerised beginning
Set the sentient oak-slab spinning.
3. Now it spins around, around,
Sending forth a murmuring sound,
By the initiate understood
As of spirits in the wood.
ALL.
Once more Circe we invoke.
CIRCE
Here: not bound in ribs of oak,
Nor, from wooden disk revolving,
In strange sounds strange riddles solving,
But in native form appearing,
Plain to sight, as clear to heating.
THE THREE
Thee with wonder we behold.
By thy hair of burning gold,
By thy face with radiance bright,
By thine eyes of beaming light,
We confess thee, mighty one,
For the daughter of the Sun.
On thy form we gaze appalled.
CIRCE
Cryllus, loo, your summons called.
THE THREE
Hira of yore thy powerful spell
Doomed in swinish shape to dwell;
Vet such life he reckoned then
Happier than the life of men,
Now, when carefully he ponders
All our scientific wonders,
Steam-driven myriads, all in motion,
On the land and on the ocean,
Going, for the sake of going,
Wheresoever waves are flowing,
Wheresoever winds are blowing;
Converse through the sea transmitted,
Swift as ever thought has flitted;
All the glories of our time,
Past the praise of loftiest rhyme;
Will he, seeing these, indeed,
Still retain his ancient creed,
Ranking, in his mental plan,
Life of beast o'er life of man?
CIRCE
Speak, Gryllus.
GRYLLUS
It is early yet to judge:
But all the novelties I yet have seen
Seem changes for the worse.
THE THREE
If we could show him
Our triumphs in succession, one by one,
'Twould surely change his judgment: and herein
How might'st thou aid us, Circe!
CIRCE
I will do so:
And calling down, like Socrates, of yore,
The clouds to aid us, they shall shadow forth,
In bright succession, all that they behold,
From air, on earth and sea. I wave my wand:
And lo! they come, even as they came in Athens,
Shining like virgins of ethereal life.
The Chorus of Clouds descended, and a dazzling array of
female beauty was revealed by degrees through folds of misty
gauze. They sang their first choral song:
CHORUS OF CLOUDS{1}
Clouds ever-flowing, conspicuously soaring,
From loud-rolling Ocean, whose stream{2} gave us birth
To heights, whence we look over torrents down-pouring
To the deep quiet vales of the fruit-giving earth,—
As the broad eye of Æther, unwearied in brightness,
Dissolves our mist-veil in glittering rays,
Our forms we reveal from its vapoury lightness,
In semblance immortal, with far-seeing gaze.
1 The first stanza is pretty closely adapted from the
strophe of Aristophanes. The second is only a distant
imitation of the antistrophe.
2 In Homer, and all the older poets, the ocean is a river
surrounding the earth, and the seas are inlets from it.
Shower-bearing Virgins, we seek not the regions
Whence Pallas, the Muses, and Bacchus have fled,
But the city, where Commerce embodies her legions,
And Mammon exalts his omnipotent head.
All joys of thought, feeling, and taste are before us,
Wherever the beams of his favour are warm:
Though transient full oft as the veil of our chorus,
Now golden with glory, now passing in storm.
Reformers, scientific, moral, educational, political, passed in succession, each answering a question of Gryllus. Gryllus observed, that so far from everything being better than it had been, it seemed that everything was wrong and wanted mending. The chorus sang its second song.