“Fatherland!” continues Alcmaeon. “Ay, in the minds of the Greeks have originated the truths of the world. The divine spirit of our Fatherland shone in a glorious, effulgent day. Having long warmed the world with celestial rays, the spirit now sleeps. There will be a morrow, my loved ones, when the harvest grown under that heat will be garnered. Ah, shall we ever see the day when triumphant Athene shall take the spear and shield from restless and impetuous Ares and crown his head with the olive-wreath of peace?”
Alcmaeon pauses. His voice is trembling. He seems to be gathering fresh thoughts from the profoundest depths of his mind. The evening has now fallen, and the peristyle is shrouded in darkness. So impressive is the effect of Alcmaeon’s words that his pensive hearers are stirred to the very radicles of their souls.
“Fatherland! Fatherland!” he continues, “we shall see the quiet fields of Greece in the pacific radiance of her glorious religion. We shall see our noble temples. We shall encircle with our arms the pure columns,—beautiful sisters of holy hymns. We shall feel in our veins the pulsations of that inspiration which moved the God of Poetry to sing the immortal Iliad. In our Fatherland, where tremble every mountain, every river, every fountain, every grove, every laurel and myrtle, all trembling like a single leaf, all twinkling like a single star, with the fervor of infinite Goodness, infinite Beauty, and infinite Truth,—there, my beloved ones, we shall breathe in the aroma of future incense! We shall feel the Titanic throb of our past greatness! We shall see with prophetic eyes the final triumph of Greek thought over the world!”
From out the darkness, while Alcmaeon spoke these last words, the enraptured listeners hear a clear soprano voice singing a cradle-song. It seems like a voice from another world. It is Aldo, who, moved by his happy dreams, half awake, sings the song that is dearest to him. Alcmaeon starts, and when the song dies away, he asks Gyges, “Where did Aldo learn that song?”
“I know not, O father.”
“’Tis a song that is sung only by those who come from Corinth.”
Alcmaeon rises and goes towards Aldo’s couch. He gently touches him and asks, “Where didst thou learn that song?”
The lad awakes and drowsily asks, “What—what song?”
“Wert thou asleep?”
“Ay. Did I sing in my sleep?”