The muse! a myth! is passed away,
With earthly types of things unseen:
'Twas but a cloud—refracting ray,
Rolling the hidden world between
And man's aspiring panting soul!
Man's soul's divine, and yearns to clasp
(Freed from the yoke of earth's control)
That truth, but which eludes the grasp
While veiled in mythic forms unreal!
Awake! the day-star is arisen!
No more shall error's veil conceal
The lustrous, brilliant, light of heaven,
Now streaming, glory to impart
To vivify each human heart.
The crowd which had suddenly paused, now wondered, and turned to every side to look for the singer: in vain; the owner of that splendid voice was not to be seen, any more than the player on the silver-toned lute.
A strange influence had passed over the throng, unawares: it was hushed, awed, mesmerized as it were into another state of feeling. Exultation had passed away; bewilderment, questioning followed. What did it mean? myth! truth! glory! was it philosophy? was it poetry? or did an oracle speak? Man's soul divine! that was Platonism; but Plato's school, at its height some four hundred years previous, was now at a discount. Many sects discussed and disputed: but truth? Truth seemed as far off as ever; or rather it seemed a plaything or a something which men used to sharpen their wits on, that they might display their argumentative skill, in the intellectual arena; but for practical conclusions, for a real rule of life, which might be used as an every-day necessity, pooh! this was not to be thought of!
The Grecian world, such of it as was free, that is, not actually enslaved, not actually held as another man's chattel, was speculative and fond of discussion, but it does not appear that these discussions did much in forwarding the progress of truth among the majority of the population; for that majority were slaves—slaves, held for the most part in bondage of mind as well as of body. The dignity of manhood among these was unknown; and the purity, beauty, and loveliness of woman were sacrificed remorselessly to tyranny of the vilest description. We can but shudder as we recall doings even in the palmiest days of Grecian freedom, over which modesty compels the historian to cast a veil; for Grecian freedom even then meant freedom to the few; the workers, the toiling multitude were slaves—slaves who, when their numbers increased so as to alarm their masters, might be sacrificed en masse, as was too often the case. They were slaves not only in body, but in intelligence, for it was deemed dangerous to develop mind. Plato himself had been of this opinion, giving as his reason, "Lest they should learn to resist."
Philosophy was made for the few, for the free only, because only the free could carry out in practice the truths of the soul's divinity which philosophy pointed to.
The words which the poet Lucan puts into the mouth of Caesar, had long been acted upon even by the "wise and good" of the pagan world, though they dared not so openly express it. "Humanum paucis vivit genus." (Lucan. Phar.) "The human race exists but for the few." The workers, (that is, the slaves,) in other words, the majority, were utterly incapable of being benefited by the teachings of the sages of ancient Greece, not only by position, but in consequence of the dulness of intellect which the long maintenance of that position had occasioned. Poetry and philosophy condemned them as beings of an inferior order. Homer says in his Odys. 17, "that Jupiter has deprived slaves of half their mind;" and in Plato we find the following: "It is said that in the mind of slaves there is nothing sound or complete; and that a prudent man ought not to trust that class of persons." The consequence of this teaching was, that they were held to be a mean race, little elevated above the brute, and born for the convenience of their masters, and subject to their caprices; so the worship of the muses was, to them, with rare exceptions, a thing out of the question. These rare exceptions did, however, exist, and produced anomalous positions not always fruitful in morality.
The congregation of worshippers issuing from the temple of the muses was then composed almost entirely of the "free," although some few of the slaves attended their masters for purposes of state or style. Among the throng were three young nobles thus attended; and, as they issued from the edifice, they made their way to a grove in the rear, to which only a privileged few had access, and stationing their attendants within call, yet at some little distance, they stretched themselves in the shade, and began to discuss the adventure. Their names were Magas, Critias, and Pierus.
"The voice was heavenly," said Critias, "and the music faultless; but who could be the player, who the singer?"