Read Online Atlantis by John Cowper Powys - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Cowper Powys
Ads: Link
child;I can’t hide it from you! But what Kleta-Charis really came to tell me was that Keto herself, the most terrible of all sea-monsters, has been seen in your cave!
“Oh child of my soul think of it! Yes, Keto herself, sister of that awful Eurybia who along with Echidna haunts Arima over there, where only those of us who have lost their wits ever go; yes! Keto the sea-monster who plays the beast with old man Phorkys of all the old gods of the sea has been seen in your cave; and since she has been there not a Naiad dares to go near it; and Kleta-Charis told me that nothing would ever induce her or any of her sisters to visit the place again! O my child, my child! It’s terrible to think of! What it will really be is a second Arima.
“Yes, Odysseus, a second ‘Arima’ whose threshold none of us will dare to cross. What are you doing? Where are you going, Odysseus? You’re not forgetting there are two hours still before Dawn, are you? Where are you going, Odysseus? You frighten me when you pull your blanket round you like that!”
Her voice rose to a hoarse shriek. “Stop, Odysseus! Stop! I tell you there are two hours more of night before the dawn comes. You can’t go now ,my child! You can’t go like that!”
The only reply he made to her frantic appeal, as he rose to his feet and wrapped his blanket more tightly round him, was to turn his face towards the East and stand absolutely still with his mouth open, his nostrils wide and quivering, and his breath drawn deeply inwards in long spasms of excited suction.
But when the troubled old creature went so far in her agitation as to clamber grotesquely if not indecently out of the hollow oak and seize him by the wrist, he did speak, and when he spoke he did so with a natural and easy calm entirely free from all intensity of locked-in emotion.
“I am only going to my room,” he said, “to get some sleep, and I’ve not the least intention of going anywhere, Kleta, old friend, till I have had a good meal. Athene will no doubt either send me a message or come herself. I only hope she won’t send Telemachos. Why is it, Kleta dear, that I find it so hard tofeel at ease with Telemachos since his mother died? He’s become so rigid and austere and pontifical; more of a priest than a son. The great goddess herself is free enough and natural enough with me. I can even fool her a bit now and again and make sport of the way she has treated me and challenge her to treat my son in the same way.
“And all this without her getting angry with me or my getting angry with her. Though she’s an immortal Olympian, and I am very much of a too-human mortal man, the goddess and I understand each other perfectly. Nothing anyone said to make trouble between us about her telling Telemachos things she doesn’t tell me would make me angry with her. She’s the goddess who all my life has helped me; and I am the one from among the rulers of men she has chosen to aid and defend—and that’s all there is between us.
“This business of priesthood and worship, and sanctity and calling upon the dead, and swallowing the smoke from mystic tripods, and eating the flesh of dead or of living gods, and drinking their blood, and bringing the dead to life by boiling their bones in magic cauldrons is something beyond me altogether and alien to me, and I cannot understand what has come over Telemachos since his mother died. He’s become so silent and secretive and so wrapt up in all this priestly ritual, that I can’t get a word out of him. He says he has no wish to be king of Ithaca and lord of the islands when I’m dead!
“Sometimes I think it’s all due to this curst Priest of Orpheus. But that is hard to believe; for Telemachos from his infancy has seen the Maenads and Bacchantes of Dionysos without wanting to join them! He has seen the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone without wanting to follow them into the Kingdom of Aidoneus. I tell you, Kleta, all the priests and prophets of
“Oh child of my soul think of it! Yes, Keto herself, sister of that awful Eurybia who along with Echidna haunts Arima over there, where only those of us who have lost their wits ever go; yes! Keto the sea-monster who plays the beast with old man Phorkys of all the old gods of the sea has been seen in your cave; and since she has been there not a Naiad dares to go near it; and Kleta-Charis told me that nothing would ever induce her or any of her sisters to visit the place again! O my child, my child! It’s terrible to think of! What it will really be is a second Arima.
“Yes, Odysseus, a second ‘Arima’ whose threshold none of us will dare to cross. What are you doing? Where are you going, Odysseus? You’re not forgetting there are two hours still before Dawn, are you? Where are you going, Odysseus? You frighten me when you pull your blanket round you like that!”
Her voice rose to a hoarse shriek. “Stop, Odysseus! Stop! I tell you there are two hours more of night before the dawn comes. You can’t go now ,my child! You can’t go like that!”
The only reply he made to her frantic appeal, as he rose to his feet and wrapped his blanket more tightly round him, was to turn his face towards the East and stand absolutely still with his mouth open, his nostrils wide and quivering, and his breath drawn deeply inwards in long spasms of excited suction.
But when the troubled old creature went so far in her agitation as to clamber grotesquely if not indecently out of the hollow oak and seize him by the wrist, he did speak, and when he spoke he did so with a natural and easy calm entirely free from all intensity of locked-in emotion.
“I am only going to my room,” he said, “to get some sleep, and I’ve not the least intention of going anywhere, Kleta, old friend, till I have had a good meal. Athene will no doubt either send me a message or come herself. I only hope she won’t send Telemachos. Why is it, Kleta dear, that I find it so hard tofeel at ease with Telemachos since his mother died? He’s become so rigid and austere and pontifical; more of a priest than a son. The great goddess herself is free enough and natural enough with me. I can even fool her a bit now and again and make sport of the way she has treated me and challenge her to treat my son in the same way.
“And all this without her getting angry with me or my getting angry with her. Though she’s an immortal Olympian, and I am very much of a too-human mortal man, the goddess and I understand each other perfectly. Nothing anyone said to make trouble between us about her telling Telemachos things she doesn’t tell me would make me angry with her. She’s the goddess who all my life has helped me; and I am the one from among the rulers of men she has chosen to aid and defend—and that’s all there is between us.
“This business of priesthood and worship, and sanctity and calling upon the dead, and swallowing the smoke from mystic tripods, and eating the flesh of dead or of living gods, and drinking their blood, and bringing the dead to life by boiling their bones in magic cauldrons is something beyond me altogether and alien to me, and I cannot understand what has come over Telemachos since his mother died. He’s become so silent and secretive and so wrapt up in all this priestly ritual, that I can’t get a word out of him. He says he has no wish to be king of Ithaca and lord of the islands when I’m dead!
“Sometimes I think it’s all due to this curst Priest of Orpheus. But that is hard to believe; for Telemachos from his infancy has seen the Maenads and Bacchantes of Dionysos without wanting to join them! He has seen the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone without wanting to follow them into the Kingdom of Aidoneus. I tell you, Kleta, all the priests and prophets of
Similar Books
