The Verdict

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Title:     The Verdict
Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz [More Titles by Sienkiewicz]

Apollo and Hermes once met toward evening on the rocks of Pnyx and were looking on Athens.

The evening was charming; the sun was already rolled from the Archipelago toward the Ionian Sea and had begun to slowly sink its radiant head in the water which shone turquoise-like. But the summits of Hymettus and Pentelicus were yet beaming as if melted gold had been poured over them, and the evening twilight was in the sky. In its light the whole Acropolis was drowned. The white walls of Propyleos, Parthenon, and Erechtheum seemed pink and as light as though the marble had lost all its weight, or as if they were apparitions of a dream. The point of the spear of the gigantic Athena Promathos shone in the twilight like a lighted torch over Attica.

In the space hawks were flying toward their nests in the rocks, to pass the night.

The people returned in crowds from work in the fields. On the road to Piraeus, mules and donkeys carried baskets full of olives and wine-grapes; behind them, in the red cloud of dust, marched herds of nannygoats, before each herd there was a white-bearded buck; on the sides, watchdogs; in the rear, shepherds, playing flutes of thin oat-stems.

Among the herds chariots slowly passed, carrying holly barlet, pulled by slow, heavy oxen; here and there passed a detachment of Hoplites or heavy armed troops, corseleted in copper, going to guard Piraeus and Athens during the night.

Beneath, the city was full of animation. Around the big fountain at Poikile, young girls in white dresses drew water, singing, laughing, or defending themselves from the boys, who threw over them fetters made of ivy and wild vine. The others, having already drawn the water, with the amphorae poised on their shoulders, were turned homeward, light and graceful as immortal nymphs.

A light breeze blowing from the Attic valley carried to the ears of the two gods the sounds of laughter, singing, kissing. Apollo, in whose eyes nothing under the sun was fairer than a woman, turned to Hermes and said:

"O Maya's son, how beautiful are the Athenian women!"

"And virtuous too, my Radiant," answered Hermes; "they are under Pallas' tutelage."

The Silver-arrowed god became silent, and listening looked into space. In the mean while the twilight was slowly quenched, movement gradually stopped. Scythian slaves shut the gates, and finally all became quiet. The Ambrosian night threw on the Acropolis, city, and environs, a dark veil embroidered with stars.

But the dusk did not last long. Soon from the Archipelago appeared the pale Selene, and began to sail like a silvery boat in the heavenly space. And then the walls of the Acropolis lighted again, only they beamed now with a pale-green light, and looked even more like a vision in a dream.

"One must agree," said Apollo, "that Athena has chosen for herself a charming home."

"Oh, she is very clever! Who could choose better?" answered Hermes. "Then Zeus has a fancy for her. If she wishes for anything she has only to caress his beard and immediately he calls her Tritogenia, dear daughter; he promises her everything and permits everything."

"Tritogenia bores me sometimes," grumbled Latona's son.

"Yes, I have noticed that she becomes very tedious," answered Hermes.

"Like an old peripatetic; and then she is virtuous to the ridiculous, like my sister Artemis."

"Or as her servants, the Athenian women."

The Radiant turned to the Argo-robber Mercury: "It is the second time you mention, as though purposely, the virtue of the Athenian women. Are they really so virtuous?"

"Fabulously so, O son of Latona!"

"Is it possible!" said Apollo. "Do you think that there is in town one woman who could resist me?"

"I do think so."

"Me, Apollo?"

"You, my Radiant."

"I, who should bewitch her with poetry and charm her with song and music!"

"You, my Radiant."

"If you were an honest god I would be willing to make a wager with you. But you, Argo-robber, if you should lose, you would disappear immediately with your sandals and caduceus."

"No, I will put one hand on the earth and another on the sea and swear by Hades. Such an oath is kept not only by me, but even by the members of the City Council in Athens."

"Oh, you exaggerate a little. Very well then! If you lose you must supply me in Trinachija with a herd of long-horned oxen, which you may steal where you please, as you did when you were only a boy, stealing my herds in Perea."

"Understood! And what shall I get if I win?"

"You may choose what you please."

"Listen, my Far-aiming archer," said Hermes. "I will be frank with you, which occurs with me very seldom. Once, being sent on an errand by Zeus--I don't remember what errand--I was playing just over your Trinachija, and I perceived Lampecja, who, together with Featusa, watches your herds there. Since that time I have no peace. The thought about her is never absent from my mind. I love her and I sigh for her day and night. If I win, if in Athens there can be found a virtuous woman, strong enough to resist you, you shall give me Lampecja--I wish for nothing more."

The Silver-arrowed god began to shake his head.

"It's astonishing that love can nestle in the heart of a merchants-patron. I am willing to give you Lampecja--the more so because she is now quarrelling with Featusa. Speaking _intra parentheses_, both are in love with me--that is why they are quarrelling."

Great joy lighted up the Argo-robber's eyes.

"Then we lay the bet," said he. "One thing more, I shall choose the woman for you on whom you are to try your godly strength."

"Provided she is beautiful."

"She will be worthy of you."

"I am sure you know some one already."

"Yes, I do."

"A young girl, married, widow, or divorced?"

"Married, of course. Girl, widow, or divorcee, you could capture by promise of marriage."

"What is her name?"

"Eryfile. She is a baker's wife."

"A baker's wife!" answered the Radiant, making a grimace, "I don't like that."

"I can't help it. It's the kind of people I know best. Eryfile's husband is not at home at present; he went to Megara. His wife is the prettiest woman who ever walked on Mother-Earth."

"I am very anxious to see her."

"One condition more, my Silver-arrowed, you must promise that you will use only means worthy of you, and that you will not act as would act such a ruffian as Ares, for instance, or even, speaking between ourselves, as acts our common father, the Cloud-gathering Zeus."

"For whom do you take me?" asked Apollo.

"Then all conditions are understood, and I can show you Eryfile."

Both gods were immediately carried through the air from Pnyx, and in a few moments they were over a house situated not far from Stoa. The Argo-robber raised the whole roof with his powerful hand as easily as a woman cooking a dinner raises a cover from a saucepan, and pointing to a woman sitting in a store, closed from the street by a copper gate, said:

"Look!"

Apollo looked and was astonished.

Never Attica--never the whole of Greece, produced a lovelier flower than was this woman. She sat by a table on which was a lighted lamp, and was writing something on marble tables. Her long drooping eyelashes threw a shadow on her cheeks, but from time to time she raised her head and her eyes, as though she were trying to remember what she had to write, and then one could see her beautiful eyes, so blue that compared with them the turquoise depths of the Archipelago would look pale and faded. Her face was white as the sea-foam, pink as the dawn, with purplish Syrian lips and waves of golden hair. She was beautiful, the most beautiful being on earth--beautiful as the dawn, as a flower, as light, as song! This was Eryfile.

When she dropped her eyes she appeared quiet and sweet; when she lifted them, inspired. The Radiant's divine knees began to tremble; suddenly he leaned his head on Hermes' shoulder, and whispered:

"Hermes, I love her! This one or none!"

Hermes smiled ironically, and would have rubbed his hands for joy under cover of his robe if he had not held in his right hand the caduceus.

In the mean while the golden-haired woman took a new tablet and began to write on it. Her divine lips were disclosed and her voice whispered; it was like the sound of Apollo's lyre.

"The member of the Areopagus Melanocles for the bread for two months, forty drachmas and four obols; let us write in round numbers forty-six drachmas. By Athena! let us write fifty; my husband will be satisfied! Ah, that Melanocles! If you were not in a position to bother us about false weight, I never would give you credit. But we must keep peace with that locust."

Apollo did not listen to the words. He was intoxicated with the woman's voice, the charm of her figure, and whispered:

"This one or none!"

The golden-haired woman spoke again, writing further:

"Alcibiades, for cakes on honey from Hymettus for Hetera Chrysalis, three minae. He never verifies bills, and then he once gave me in Stoa a slap on the shoulder--we will write four minae. He is stupid; let him pay for it. And then that Chrysalis! She must feed with cakes her carp in the pond, or perhaps Alcibiades makes her fat purposely, in order to sell her afterwards to a Phoenician merchant for an ivory ring for his harness."

Again Apollo paid no attention to the words--he was enchanted with the voice alone and whispered to Hermes:

"This one or none!"

But Maya's son suddenly covered the house, the apparition disappeared, and it seemed to the Radiant Apollo that with it disappeared the stars, that the moon became black, and the whole world was covered with the darkness of Chimera.

"When shall we decide the wager?" asked Hermes.

"Immediately. To-day!"

"During her husband's absence she sleeps in the store. You can stand in the street before the door. If she raises the curtain and opens the gate, I have lost my wager."

"You have lost it already!" exclaimed the Far-darting Apollo.

The summer lightning does not pass from the East to the West as quickly as he rushed over the salt waves of the Archipelago. There he asked Amphitrite for an empty turtle-shell, put around it the rays of the sun, and returned to Athens with a ready formiga.

In the city everything was already quiet. The lights were out, and only the houses and temples shone white in the light of the moon, which had risen high in the sky.

The store was dark, and in it, behind a gate and a curtain, the beautiful Eryfile was asleep. Apollo the Radiant began to touch the strings of his lyre. Wishing to awake softly his beloved, he played at first as gently as swarms of mosquitoes singing on a summer evening on Illis. But the song became gradually stronger like a brook in the mountain after a rain; then more powerful, sweeter, more intoxicating, and it filled the air voluptuously.

The secret Athena's bird flew softly from the Acropolis and sat motionless on the nearest column.

Suddenly a bare arm, worthy of Phidias or Praxiteles, whiter than Pantelican marble, drew aside the curtain. The Radiant's heart stopped beating with emotion. And then Eryfile's voice resounded:

"Ha! You booby, why do you wander about and make a noise during the night? I have been working all day, and now they won't let me sleep!"

"Eryfile! Eryfile!" exclaimed Silver-arrowed. And he began to sing:

"From lofty peaks of Parnas--where there ring
In all the glory of light's brilliant rays
The grand sweet songs which inspired muses sing
To me, by turns, in rapture and praise--
I, worshiped god--I fly, fly to thee,
Eryfile! And on thy bosom white
I shall rest, and the Eternity will be
A moment to me--the God of Light!"

 

"By the holy flour for sacrifices," exclaimed the baker's wife, "that street boy sings and makes love to me. Will you go home, you impudent!"

The Radiant, wishing to pursuade her that he was not a common mortal, threw so much light from his person, that all the earth was lighted. But Eryfile, seeing this, exclaimed:

"That scurrilous fellow has hidden a lantern under his robe, and he tries to make me believe that he is a god. O daughter of mighty Dios! they press us with taxes, but there is no Scythian guard to protect us from such stupid fellows!"

Apollo, who did not wish yet to acknowledge defeat, sang further:

"Ah, open thine arms--rounded, gleaming, white--
To thee eternal glory I will give.
Over goddess of earth, fair and bright,
Thy name above immortal shall live.
I kiss the dainty bloom of thy cheek,
To thy lustrous eyes the love-light I bring,
From the masses of thy silken hair I speak,
To thy beauty, peerless one, I sing.
White pearls are thy ruby lips between--
With might of godly words I thee endow;
An eloquence for which a Grecian queen
Would gladly give the crown from her brow.
Ah! Open, open thine arms!

"The azure from the sea I will take,
Twilight its wealth of purple shall give too;
Twinkling stars shall add the sparks which they make,
And flowers shall yield their perfume and dew.
By fairy touch, light as a caress,
Made from all this material so bright,
My beloved rainbow, in Chipryd's rich dress
Thou shalt be clothed by the God of Light."

 

And the voice of the God of Light was so beautiful that it performed a miracle, for, behold! in the ambrosian night the gold spear standing on the Acropolis of Athens trembled, and the marble head of the gigantic statue turned toward the Acropolis in order to hear better. Heaven and Earth listened to it; the sea stopped roaring and lay peacefully near the shore; even the pale Selene stopped her night wandering in the sky and stood motionless over Athens.

And when Apollo had finished, a light wind arose and carried the song throughout the whole of Greece, and wherever a child in the cradle heard only a tone of it, that child became a poet.

But before Latona's son had finished his divine singing, the angry Eryfile began to scream:

"What an ass! He tries to bribe me with flowers and dew; do you think that you are privileged because my husband is not at home? What a pity that our servants are not at hand; I would give you a good lesson! But wait; I will teach you to wander during the night with songs!"

So saying she seized a pot of dough, and, throwing it through the gate, splashed it over the face, neck, robe, and lyre of the Radiant. Apollo groaned, and, covering his inspired head with a corner of his wet robe, he departed in shame and wrath.

Hermes, waiting for him, laughed, turned somersaults, and twirled his caduceus. But when the sorrowful son of Latona approached him, the foxy patron of merchants simulated compassion and said:

"I am sorry you have lost, O puissant archer!"

"Go away, you rascal!" answered the angry Apollo.

"I shall go when you give me Lampecja."

"May Cerberus bite your calves. I shall not give you Lampecja, and I tell you to go away, or I will twist your neck."

The Argo-robber knew that he must not joke when Apollo was angry, so he stood aside cautiously and said:

"If you wish to cheat me, then in the future be Hermes and I will be Apollo. I know that you are above me in power, and that you can harm me, but happily there is some one who is stronger than you and he will judge us. Radiant, I call you to the judgment of Chronid! Come with me."

Apollo feared the name of Chronid. He did not care to refuse, and they departed.

In the mean time day began to break. The Attic came out from the shadows. Pink-fingered dawn had arisen in the sky from the Archipelago. Zeus passed the night on the summit of Ida, whether he slept or not, and what he did there no one knew, because, Fog-carrying, he wrapped himself in such a thick cloud that even Hera could not see through it. Hermes trembled a little on approaching the god of gods and of people.

"I am right," he was thinking, "but if Zeus is aroused in a bad humor, and if, before hearing us, he should take us each by a leg and throw us some three hundred Athenian stadia, it would be very bad. He has some consideration for Apollo, but he would treat me without ceremony, although I am his son too."

But Maya's son feared in vain. Chronid waited joyfully on the earth, for he had passed a pleasant night, and was gladsomely gazing on the earthly circle. The Earth, happy beneath the weight of the gods' and people's father, put forth beneath his feet green grass and young hyacinths, and he, leaning on it, caressed the curling flowers with his hand, and was happy in his proud heart.

Seeing this, Maya's son grew quiet, and having saluted the generator, boldly accused the Radiant.

When he had finished, Zeus was silent a while, and then said:

"Radiant, is it true?"

"It is true, father Chronid," answered Apollo, "but if after the shame you will order me to pay the bet, I shall descend to Hades and light the shades."

Zeus became silent and thoughtful.

"Then this woman," said he finally, "remained deaf to your music, to your songs, and she repudiated you with disdain?"

"She poured on my head a pot of dough, O Thunderer!"

Zeus frowned, and at his frown Ida trembled, pieces of rock began to roll with a great noise toward the sea, and the trees bent like ears of wheat.

Both gods awaited with beating hearts his decision.

"Hermes," said Zeus, "you may cheat the people as much as you like--the people like to be cheated. But leave the gods alone, for if I become angry I will throw you into the ether, then you will sink so deep into the depths of the ocean that even my brother Poseidon will not be able to dig you out with his trident."

Divine fear seized Hermes by his smooth knees; Zeus spoke further, with stronger voice:

"A virtuous woman, especially if she loves another man, can resist Apollo. But surely and always a stupid woman will resist him.

"Eryfile is stupid, not virtuous; that's the reason she resisted. Therefore you cheated the Radiant, and you shall not have Lampecja. Now go in peace."

The gods departed.

Zeus remained in his joyful glory. For a while he looked after Apollo, muttering:

"Oh, yes! A stupid woman is able to resist him."

After that, as he had not slept well the previous night, he called Sleep, who, sitting on a tree in the form of a hawk, was awaiting the orders of the Father of gods and people.

[The end]
Henryk Sienkiewicz's short story: The Verdict

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