Read Online The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso - Free Book Online
Authors: Roberto Calasso
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the dream. Cadmus sent for Tiresias. Semele guessed what his answer would be: a sacrifice. Whenever something strange and frightening came up, you killed an animal. But what animal? A bull, said Tiresias. And Semele would have to sacrifice it with her own hands. She lit the fire on the altar herself. She was standing very close to the animal, and when it was killed a jet of blood spurted across her stomach. Touching her plaited hair, she found it was sticky. And looking down she saw her whole tunic was sodden with blood. So she ran, through the cover of the high reeds, toward the river Asopus. A few moments later and the blood was forgotten. She had bathed in this water since earliest childhood and swam with her head up, against the stream, shaking off the night’s terror in the wind.
Stung by love, Zeus watched Semele swimming from on high. He forgot the earth spread out beneath his feet to stare at that pool of water and the girl swimming. Patiently waiting for their mistress, her mules looked on, and likewise Zeus. The god’s eyes slithered over her wet skin, from toes to bare neck, refraining only from the mysteries of the groin. They lingered over her chest, glistening like armor. The tips of her breasts sent sharp javelins flying into the wound Eros had opened. For a moment Zeus thought he was seeing another princess, Europa, who he had carried off from Sidon. But no, it wasn’t Europa, though there was a blood relation,since Cadmus was Europa’s brother—and above all they shared the same splendor, the same resplendent sheen. In his mind Zeus left the heavens to swim at Semele’s side. He watched the sun impatiently. He wouldn’t be able to go to her bed till nightfall.
The bars defending the palace of Thebes rose silently in the dark. Zeus stretched out on Semele’s bed in the form of a bull with human limbs. Then he was a panther. Then a young man with vine shoots in his curls. Finally he settled into that most perfect of shapes: the serpent. Zeus prolonged their union like some story without end, a rehearsal of the life of the god about to be generated. The snake slithered over Semele’s trembling body and gently licked her neck. Then, gripping her bust in one of his coils, wrapping her breasts in a scaly sash, he sprinkled her not with poison but with liquid honey. Now the snake was pressing his mouth against Semele’s mouth, a dribble of nectar trickling down onto her lips intoxicated her, and all the while vine leaves were sprouting up on the bed and there was a sound of drums beating in the darkness. The earth laughed. Dionysus was conceived just as Zeus shouted the name with which for centuries he was to be evoked: “Evoe!”
III
(photo credit 3.1)
D ELOS WAS A HUMP OF DESERTED ROCK, drifting about the sea like a stalk of asphodel. It was here that Apollo was born, in a place not even wretched slave girls would come to hide their shame. Before Leda, the only creatures to give birth on that godforsaken rock had been the seals. But there was a palm tree, and the mother clutched it, alone, bracing her knees in the thin grass. Then Apollo emerged, and everything turned to gold, from top to bottom. Even the water in the river turned to gold and the leaves on the olive tree likewise. And the gold must have stretched downward into the depths, because it anchored Delos to the seabed. From that day on, the island drifted no more.
If Olympus differs from every other celestial home, it is thanks to the presence of three unnatural divinities: Apollo, Artemis, Athena. More than mere functions, these imperious custodians of the unique stripped away that thin, shrouding curtain which nature weaves about its forces. The bright enameled surface and the void, the sharp outline, the arrow. These, and not water or earth, are their elements. There is something autistic about Olympus’s unnatural gods. Apollo, Artemis, Athena march forward cloaked in their own auras. They look down at the world when they plan to
Stung by love, Zeus watched Semele swimming from on high. He forgot the earth spread out beneath his feet to stare at that pool of water and the girl swimming. Patiently waiting for their mistress, her mules looked on, and likewise Zeus. The god’s eyes slithered over her wet skin, from toes to bare neck, refraining only from the mysteries of the groin. They lingered over her chest, glistening like armor. The tips of her breasts sent sharp javelins flying into the wound Eros had opened. For a moment Zeus thought he was seeing another princess, Europa, who he had carried off from Sidon. But no, it wasn’t Europa, though there was a blood relation,since Cadmus was Europa’s brother—and above all they shared the same splendor, the same resplendent sheen. In his mind Zeus left the heavens to swim at Semele’s side. He watched the sun impatiently. He wouldn’t be able to go to her bed till nightfall.
The bars defending the palace of Thebes rose silently in the dark. Zeus stretched out on Semele’s bed in the form of a bull with human limbs. Then he was a panther. Then a young man with vine shoots in his curls. Finally he settled into that most perfect of shapes: the serpent. Zeus prolonged their union like some story without end, a rehearsal of the life of the god about to be generated. The snake slithered over Semele’s trembling body and gently licked her neck. Then, gripping her bust in one of his coils, wrapping her breasts in a scaly sash, he sprinkled her not with poison but with liquid honey. Now the snake was pressing his mouth against Semele’s mouth, a dribble of nectar trickling down onto her lips intoxicated her, and all the while vine leaves were sprouting up on the bed and there was a sound of drums beating in the darkness. The earth laughed. Dionysus was conceived just as Zeus shouted the name with which for centuries he was to be evoked: “Evoe!”
III
(photo credit 3.1)
D ELOS WAS A HUMP OF DESERTED ROCK, drifting about the sea like a stalk of asphodel. It was here that Apollo was born, in a place not even wretched slave girls would come to hide their shame. Before Leda, the only creatures to give birth on that godforsaken rock had been the seals. But there was a palm tree, and the mother clutched it, alone, bracing her knees in the thin grass. Then Apollo emerged, and everything turned to gold, from top to bottom. Even the water in the river turned to gold and the leaves on the olive tree likewise. And the gold must have stretched downward into the depths, because it anchored Delos to the seabed. From that day on, the island drifted no more.
If Olympus differs from every other celestial home, it is thanks to the presence of three unnatural divinities: Apollo, Artemis, Athena. More than mere functions, these imperious custodians of the unique stripped away that thin, shrouding curtain which nature weaves about its forces. The bright enameled surface and the void, the sharp outline, the arrow. These, and not water or earth, are their elements. There is something autistic about Olympus’s unnatural gods. Apollo, Artemis, Athena march forward cloaked in their own auras. They look down at the world when they plan to
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