It is the 15th of the month Bœdromion, when commence the Eleusinian Mysteries—the greater mysteries celebrated alone in the city of Cecrops—those sacred rites founded by Demeter herself (the Grecian Ceres) when wandering in long search for her daughter Persephone, she was kindly received and entertained in Attica, when she rewarded their hospitality by giving them the fruits of the earth, and these holiest and noblest institutions of the Hellenic religion. What parent bends to take a farewell of his wife and child ere he departs to perform his duties of dadouchos, or torch-bearer, to whom alone it was permitted to marry? The golden-hair of the Grecian father mingles with the dark locks of the woman and her son as they unite in the parting embrace. She is not of the Autocthones, no child of the soil, or she would join her husband in the initiation. Far other rites has she early bowed to in the flowering forests of India—these she has changed for Grecian faith, but yet yearns for something purer—may she not hope for it? Faith ever rules all hearts more or less, and often most the weakest—thus to the most erring child of earth is given return and repentance—thus to the feeblest soul the sublimest trust is granted. Will not Demetros “point to other worlds and show the way” for Ganga?
Curious the mother and the delighted child have watched day by day the progress of the Eleusinian, observed during the nine days festival, Demetros leading the procession. That first night he had entered the holy of holies—that mystic temple he had entered crowned with myrtle—there, pure and cleansed from sin, washed with holy water, he had listened to the reading, the exposition of the holy mysteries, from the rigid leaves of the stone volume which contained the divine inspiration—then followed the long processions in which the child might one day join, but never the foreign mother—the pilgrimage to the sea-shore for purification—the fasting and sacrifice—the sacred procession with baskets of pomegranates and poppy-seeds, borne on a wagon drawn by oxen—the torch procession to the temple at Eleusis—the bearing of the image of Jachus, the son of Demeter, and on the night of the sixth day the final initiation, the entrance into the lighted sanctuary, where they beheld what was permitted to no other eyes. But why cannot the mother share in the Dionysiac festival, the nocturnal orgies of Bacchus? Educated under the stern rule of temperate Brahmins, this principle of continence would be alone sufficient to restrain her, where she not also withheld by that innate modesty which belongs to every child of nature.
It is evening, and two persons recline in the cool shade on the summit of Mount Anchesmus, near the temple of Jupiter. A child sports round them occasionally, withdrawing their attention from the contemplation of the red-tinged top of the Acropolis, the silver stream of the Ilissus, the murmuring Cephissus and the maritime port of Piræus, where the waves of the Ægean mingle their solemn roar with the hymns of the sailors, the buzz of the populous city, and the strains of the tortoise-formed lyre.
The sun is slowly sinking in the west, with the clear radiance peculiar to happy Greece, but, as it seems to the mother, with less majesty than when it dipped its burning orb, as into Lethe’s wave, in the lotus-filled waters of the Ganges. Solemnly they converse of their happy youth when all things to come wore ever brightening hues, when future deeds surrounded them like the stars now emerging countless from the night. And now the aulic tones whisper softly in the ether around them, filling all things with sweet melody, and catching the ear of the listening child; recalling to Demetros the period of infancy, when in like manner at eventide he had raised his head from the lap of his mother; to Ganga the time when, in the protecting arms of Nikaiyah, she had hearkened to the notes of the Indian nightingales.
Sadly Ganga speaks of them as those she shall never behold. Hopefully the Eleusinian priest unfolds his faith in immortality—pure and sweet fell his words on her mind, when divested of Brahmin superstition, as the placid moonbeams now silvering his golden locks and kissing the brow of the sleeping infant. Here was no hideous transmigration to pass through atoning, but all was clear and blessed as the innocent period of childhood—there, where the starry points showed glimpses of the radiant heaven, they would rejoin, in the happy company of the gods, their friends now made immortal. There, as true Olympians, enjoy the happiness of the blessed.
Their prophetic eyes seem to behold in the misty future the deified reclining, on the golden-clouds which cap the hill of Musaeus. Silently descend the shades of evening on the city of Athens, and on the pair as they muse on the mount by the temple of Jupiter.
Centuries have passed since the times of Elephantum and Eleusis. The “eye of Greece” now desolate, still courts the shade of Hymethus—the suns rise and set no more on the home of the Arts and the Muses—no longer gild the morning rays a glittering Acropolis—no longer chime the aulic notes with the song of the Chian-Homer. Still wanders the Brahmin, no longer at Elephantum, in India’s groves alone, unchanged amid the changing scenes around him. Still flows the Ganges, the mightiest of eastern waters.