TYPHON, meeting with a traveller to Athens, wrote a very short letter and begged that it might be delivered to his anxious parents. “They will handsomely reward you,” promised the wanderer, “when they know that I am well and prosperous.”
So he went ever on his way and met with divers chances, some good and some evil. To many people he gave pleasure, when in amiable mood; to others pain, when not so amiable. He learned much, received and returned blows, but presently discovered that a civil tongue was better than a saucy, and diffidence more useful than pride. As yet his heart continued untouched by ruth, but there dawned patience in it, because Soter still evaded him and, as the search grew longer, so did his fixed and adamant determination not to be beaten by a plant so squalid that none had ever heard its name.
“It shall yield to me,” vowed Typhon. “I will drag the little wretch from its roots, soon or late.”
At evening-time on a day of early summer he came to a glade of great trees and found therein a temple. It was a very little place lifted upon crumbling pillars, and above them in the pediment there still stood an archaic carving of Apollo and his steeds. Under the red gold of sinking day the shrine burned brightly and made a wondrous gem against the ilex grove behind it. Upon one side a mean habitation clung, and, doubting not that some peasant dwelt therein, Typhon was about to approach and seek a night’s lodging. But he saw a venerable oak-tree and first addressed it.
Most ancient proved the oak, and life had already shrunk down far beneath its older tiers and turrets; for from the central mass, which remained still vigorous under foliage and green wood, there towered barren and desolate boughs, like antlers upon the forehead of a great stag. Them the sunset gilded until they shone as brightly as gold.
“Tell me, oak,” said Typhon, “if I may seek shelter and comfort here against approaching night.”
“Welcome, boy,” replied the tree. “Twice only in my three hundred years of living have I met with one of your race able to address me. And this is likely to be the last time, for my days are nearly told.”
“Are you dying, then?” inquired Typhon.
“I am. Perhaps another half-century will see the last of me. Meantime, however, it lies in your power to do me a service; and I may serve you also.”
“What of a night’s lodging then? And as for serving you, I am already on an important mission and have my work cut out for me.”
“There is no hurry,” answered the great tree. “You stand at the entrance of an oracle. In times long past, when first this temple was established over a rift in the earth, I came hither as an acorn from Dodona — yea, I am a Dodonian oak; and now, in my old age, I much desire that acorns from these venerable boughs shall return whence I came and be planted in that sacred soil. None as yet has gratified this wish, but you may do so. I have watched the vicissitudes of yonder temple for three hundred years; I have seen it sink from high prosperity into melancholy decay; yet still it seems that Apollo remembers and, at present, a man and his daughter continue to work the oracles for such devout persons as seek them. But the highway that once ran here is long deserted, and few are the suppliants who penetrate our sequestered vale.
“Omphale, named after the famed Queen of Lydia, is the Pythoness at present. She is a middle-aged woman of no personal charm; but she understands her business — she learned it at Argos — and she and her old parent, Dion, keep the home-fires burning and make shift to live. They talk of giving it up and returning to Athens; and I should be very glad if they did so, for their presence frets me somewhat, and I am now at an age when I need profound peace and contemplation to brood upon my latter end. However, I do not quarrel with them. All is done decently and in order, so far as a tree may tell. They preserve the feast days of the Lord of Light and venerate his Name. I only regret for their sakes that business should be so bad. There is a fashion in these things, and they go out of fashion also. Values change, and the verities and sacraments of to-day become diversions for the antiquary of to-morrow.”
“As how?” asked Typhon.
“Oracles, for example,” replied the great oak. “Or marriage customs and ceremonials; or religious faith and observance; as when the disciples of Osiris eat their god’s body and drink his blood.
“Again, the great were once thought to come fatherless into the earth, the offspring of virgins and the children of moonlight, or the wind, or the thought of a distant god. Of such were Horus, child of Isis; Epaphus, the Apis of Egyptians; Ra, the sun; Attis, Phrygia’s high deity, born of virgin Nana; Jason, whom Zeus destroyed; Adonis, the Syrian Omnipotence; while, but now, men held Plato immaculately conceived of Apollo, who himself explained this delicate matter to Ariston, the husband. Gautama, the Buddha of many million faithful worshippers in far Hindustan, was born of the virgin Maya; and we hear of him how, as a babe, he confounded the wisdom of the learned men who sought to instruct him. Before Buddha the like things happened, and Rama, an earlier hero, was born without a father, as the Hindu scriptures declare. Are we not told to-day that Alexander, the Macedonian, is the child, not of Philip, but Jupiter Ammon; and will not unborn men of leading be similarly ushered into the world by miracles? It is true that we hear not of these portents until after their genius has appeared, and nothing out of the way attends the production of the average idiot, who always needs a father of some sort.
“But these mysteries and solemnities are ever changing at the breath of man’s increasing reason and understanding. Your lives are too short to mark such movements; although, even in my three hundred years, I have seen eclipse and revelation succeed each other. You do not abandon the gods: they abandon you, as they find you outgrow their manners and customs. All should be well with humanity in the ages to come if reason suffers from no disaster and freedom of thought be not suspended. To strike at freedom of thought is to sin against the very spirit and genius of mankind. Let us hope, therefore, it will not happen. Nor do human affairs embody all the changes I have seen. The benignant principle of growth belongs to the unconscious also. The fox is sharper than when I was a sapling; the bird has new and melodious notes with which to charm his mate. These and such-like things I observe; but the life of man is too brief for him to do so.”
His speech did not interest Typhon.
“The Oracle still works?” he inquired.
“When opportunity is offered.”
“Would they permit me to consult it?”
“For a consideration, no doubt.”
“I can give them nothing but labour.”
“I will help you there,” replied the tree. “It lies in my power to pay the price, and so handsomely that their reward shall suffice to make them abandon the shrine at once. Thus both you and I are satisfied. The price, therefore, you can promise; and when they name it, indicate that it lies within your power to let them have twenty times as much.”
“Where shall I find the money?” inquired Typhon, and the oak explained:
“To-night, after they sleep, come out to me, face the North and stride twelve paces. Then dig and you will unearth a box containing a treasure. This give to Omphale after the Oracle has spoken.”
At that moment the Pythoness herself appeared, carrying a bundle of firewood. She was a thin and careworn woman, turning grey. Her garment was shabby and her back a little bent; yet in her eyes sat understanding, and her face lacked not for kindliness.
“Hail, Omphale!” said Typhon, saluting her. “I am a traveller who seeks shelter and food for the approaching night; and on the morrow I would consult the Oracle. Fear not for the offering; I can pay all that you may be pleased to ask.”
“You are welcome,” replied she. “By all means join our evening meal and partake of our simple fare; then sleep, and in the morning, if Apollo pleases, you shall be attended to.”
Typhon soon saw Dion, the father of Omphale, and chatted with him. The old man was a cynic, and found not much value in life lived without the comfort of cash; yet, as many cynics, he had a soft spot within his heart, and one interest which aroused enthusiasm and awoke sincerity.
He undertook to show Typhon the ruin, while Omphale prepared their meal, and as he displayed its perfections, and expatiated upon them, incidentally old Dion revealed his ruling passion.
“Though so small, yet you observe all is in the grand manner,” said he, as they walked together within the decaying shrine. “The Doric column, young man, may be said still to typify the very spirit and soul of Greek beauty. By comparison therewith the Ionic is human, the Corinthian too human. Consider the tremendous meaning of column and lintel. Look up at the faultless austerity of the capitals, as plain and unfurrowed as Apollo’s own forehead, and regard the fluted column — symbol of perfect loveliness and strength together blended. And remember the astounding craft of our ancestors, exemplified even in this obscure fane. The principles of their practice are as truly knit with this little temple as in the Parthenon itself. They so ordered the uplift of their middle stylobate, entablature and the subtle entasis of the columns, that they evaded and compensated the irregularities which a perfect regularity would have created in the human eye! That, indeed, is the art which conceals art, and their secrets will be a marvel for generations unborn if they have wit to find them out. As for you, should you in time to come build a cottage to inhabit, or a temple wherein to pray, let it be after the true Doric fashion, and only so.”
“I will remember,” promised Typhon. “Epicurus also praises these things. Perhaps some day, when you are dead and want it no more, I will move this little temple into Athens and set it up in the Garden of the Master.”
“There is a beauty of the architect and a beauty of the sculptor,” continued Dion, with eyes still lifted to the old stones; “and each must play his proper part in any building made with hands. When you see them intruding upon each other, then you know man is sinking below the best that he has made — the pure apotheosis of our genius. Subsequent ages, inspired by other incentives, and building in other climates than our own, will lift new things. The infinite possibilities of the arch, for example, have yet to be considered; but the arch, in all its multiple glory, will never bud or blossom with splendour so austere as column and lintel in the hands of our mighty ones. You say that you can talk to the trees, Typhon; but, believe me, if you could but understand the stones that have felt man’s chisel, or even the bricks moulded by him, you would then hear much worthy to be learned, and read something of our soul’s history spoken in a great tongue.”
Now Omphale called them to supper, and presently the three ate a soup flavoured with herbs, a cake of millet bread and chestnuts, with withered fruit to follow. Dion had more to say than his daughter. He was a dry man, very bald, bead-eyed, and of a wrinkled countenance and sharp tongue, save when he spoke on architecture.
He dropped a humorous pessimism through their simple supper, but after it was finished, Omphale bade him be quiet.
“I have now to speak of serious things with Typhon,” said she; “for he must learn something concerning the morrow. Does he understand the significance of calling upon Apollo?”
“Not in the least,” answered Typhon. “I only want to know what awaits my search.”
“Listen, then, to me,” replied the Pythoness. “Of oracular responses there are but four: by the Word; by the Sign; by the Dream, and by the Dead. The last will linger longest, and while the others are already falling into neglect, and generations to come may refuse to credit the voice of Apollo, his signs, or the dreams that he may send to suppliant sleepers, mankind will ever rise to the bait of their beloved dead.”
“What is your particular line in Oracles, if I may ask?” inquired Typhon.
“The noblest,” answered Omphale.
“And, therefore, the most costly,” added Dion.
“Here Apollo, the Seer-God, himself deigns to respond, when questioned in a fitting manner,” continued the lady. “I was initiated at Argos and called to drink the blood of many lambs — an unpleasant rite for one who has been vegetarian from her youth up. But still I serve, though few and far between are the votaries of late, and my father and I continue to celebrate ceremonies and feast days, preserving the ancient ritual as our poverty allows. Still the brazen tripod is polished and the garlands renewed in this hallowed but ruinated haunt of holiness.”
“And what do you desire to learn, young man?” inquired Dion.
“I am a disciple of Epicurus,” replied the boy, “and at his command I travel far and wide to seek the plant Soter. It is a trifling herb, and thus far I have met none who can tell me where to find it. If you know, then I need not disturb the Oracle.”
“Never heard of it,” said Dion.
“Nor I,” added Omphale; “but Apollo, of course, would know. It seems, however, rather a small matter about which to trouble a god.”
“Fear nothing on that score,” declared Dion. “Apollo loves youth, and since Epicurus seeks the plant at your hand, your question appears reasonable, Typhon.”
“I also follow Epicurus,” said Omphale. “At your age, however, tranquillity is not the highest good. He will have pointed that out. Movement, incident, adventure — to harden your muscles and quicken your wits — these are the operations desired of youth. You will not achieve them, Typhon, by pandering to appetite, as vulgar folk report of the Master. Self-denial and fortitude are vital to the good Epicurean as to the good Stoic, and indeed to every good man. I myself have heard Epicurus say as much. He claims for his school that it makes men happier than any other; while as for the high gods, we will agree to leave them in their glory — unapproachable and unknowable.”
“Not at all,” declared her old parent. “It is not enough that Epicurus has loosened the bonds of human superstition and done his best to put the gods out of action; he has put them out of action. The gods, my dear Typhon, don’t bear thinking about; therefore let us not think about them. It is their business to think about us. We will leave them to that diverting occupation, and hope for the best.
“Our gods, alas! proved no match for Alexander and his legions; but that perhaps is not so much their fault as our own. A man’s legs and arms may be better than his knees when the Macedonians are the matter. As for your Philosopher; he is rather small-beer beside the bigger men. They try to explain life and get to the roots of it: he appears to be only concerned with how to make it endurable.”
“You speak very rashly, father,” retorted the Pythoness, in somewhat tart accents; “and you take the great name of Epicurus in vain. How man may recover his lost equilibrium and seek sanity in escape from superstitious terrors, Epicurus has instructed him, to his everlasting advantage. He has loosened the chains of fear and shown man that his welfare lies within his own reach to attain; but he has said not one sacrilegious word against Olympus. He does not deny the gods; he only denies that their business is the government and control of earth, or that they are so much preoccupied with mankind as in our vanity we suppose. Epicurus bids us worship them if we will; but points out that their powers are not unlimited, and in our approach to them neither hope nor fear should influence us. Some, indeed, there are, as Apollo himself, who take an active interest in us; but for many among them we offer no challenge whatsoever. They have more important matters on their hands.”
“We are to most of them an entertainment; to a few, perhaps, a responsibility,” admitted old Dion. “They may regard us as we do the study of birds or insects — an interest for moments of leisure. That we perish must always be a supreme fascination to those who know not death; while the haste we take to make our short lives shorter, and the ridiculous and bloody farce which we call civilisation, performed for their entertainment on the arenas of earth, surely awakens a sense of humour in the dullest dog among them. Men — as Plato remarked, I think — are not only the playthings of the gods, but of one another. The world is built on broken toys. I grant Epicurus a fair and a large mind at this point. Holding that faith in reality actuates all judgments, he regards it with tolerance, and respects both the religious and the devout. His followers may worship whom they please.”
Omphale, who felt uneasy to hear her father indicate his slight opinion of sacred things, was glad to observe that Typhon, wearied by a long day on foot, had already gone to sleep. She wakened him, showed him the couch in a little chamber of the dwelling, and when he had flung himself upon it returned to her father.
“Are you going to give Apollo a chance?” asked Dion’s daughter, with anxiety. “In this case, the young man being well favoured and well born, it is more than likely that the Sun-God would really attend to him.”
It was a curious remark, but in no way astonished the old man.
“No,” he replied. “We will see to this little matter ourselves. Be reasonable, Omphale. Twice within this year, at your entreaties, I took no hand in the Oracle and suffered suppliants to rely entirely upon the god. What happened? Nothing. He did not answer their questions and, as a result, we did not receive our fees. If the gods won’t help a good and faithful Pythoness, then obviously she must help herself. In this case her father will help her. You do your part and I will do mine. You may safely leave the oracular response to me. I manage these things rather more adroitly than Apollo, as you must confess.”
This Omphale could not deny, for Dion had that order of mind in which humour, with a certain feeling for the epigram, combined to produce oracles of great distinction. He happened to be ambiguous by nature and loved a dilemma, or paradox — in fact, he was a born oracle himself.
The woman sighed, and anon father and daughter retired to sleep. Then, when the moon shone, Typhon awakened, to hear Dion snoring on his left hand and Omphale also snoring in the chamber on his right. The old man made hideous explosions and gurglings; while his daughter snored like a lady; but the note was melancholy and penetrating.
Virgin Artemis rained her cold silver upon the earth as Typhon, who had leapt for the casement of his room, took a spade from the cabbage garden of Dion and approached the great oak.
“Here I am,” he said, but the tree did not reply. It was sound asleep, for the trees also slumber and enjoy their dreamless repose on still and starlit nights. The noble ancient stood unconscious, while upon a dead bough, that thrust above his living wealth of leaves, there sat an owl and hooted to a neighbour.
Remembering his instructions, Typhon dug in the earth where he was bidden, found a box beneath the ground, restored the spade and returned to bed. In the morning he detached the mouldering wood that held the treasure and discovered a marvel. It was a Cypriote cylix made of a melted rainbow. Typhon had never seen anything so beautiful.
“How my father would love this!” thought he. He concealed this rare treasure for a little while, and broke his fast with the Pythoness and her parent.
“When the sun is at its highest, as my dial will register, you shall challenge Apollo,” said Omphale; and so it happened that, at ten minutes before the noontide hour, Typhon stood before the sacred orifice — a cleft in naked rock at the rear wall of the temple — while she, with all her tarnished war-paint on, cast fragrant gums into the tripod of brass and filled the place with sweet smoke. Her elaborate ritual bewildered the suppliant, for the priestess did all manner of strange things, in keeping with the highest traditions of Argos, and presently stopping, out of breath, she lighted a torch, that cast its radiance even unto the stone mouth of the Oracle, and then told Typhon to ask his question. She then flung herself upon her knees and rested her forehead upon the temple floor. It was an attitude which did not do Omphale justice; but the votary had already fixed his eyes elsewhere.
“Shall I find what I seek, most holy Apollo?” he inquired, in a voice perhaps a little too conversational for so great an occasion. For a moment there was no answer; then, from the dark entrails of the earth, there rumbled forth a sound. It began softly, deepened into a hollow and mysterious roar, died gradually away again to silence. It was as though a dinner-gong had been correctly struck by some skilled menial.
“Is that all?” asked Typhon blankly, and the Pythoness reared her head.
“Hush! Hush!” she whispered. “The answer has yet to come.”
Then she dived again.
A moment later distinct slow words ascended one by one out of the rift. The tone was sonorous, megaphonic, impressive:
“TYPHON WILL SEEK MORE THAN HE FINDS. TYPHON WILL FIND MORE THAN HE SEEKS.”
Again the gong-like murmur reverberated from below, pealed, waned and ceased. Then Omphale arose and extinguished the torch.
“Thrice happy boy!” she said. “You go upon your way with the authentic voice of the Lord of Light in your ears.”
Typhon did not immediately reply; he was entering the Oracle in a little book that Admetus had given him for the making of notes.
“There doesn’t seem much in it,” he ventured to say.
“Study it; ponder it; turn it over a hundred times,” replied she, “and you will learn that more and more significance attaches to these gracious words every time you consider them. It is a great answer, believe me. It has the style and quality of the palmy days.”
She detained him for a few moments and directed him to kneel and lift a prayer of gratitude to the Giver. He then rose and fetched the Cypriote cylix.
“By Hera!” cried Omphale, staring out of her colourless eyes upon the wonder. “Know you that this is worth twenty thousand drachmas at the least?”
“If so,” replied Typhon, “you have only to take it to my father, Agathion, the Athenian, and he will be delighted to give you that sum. Myself I judge it to be worth more than the Oracle, but that is a matter of opinion.”
“Call my father,” she said, and when the ancient, who was now peacefully digging in his cabbages, appeared, Omphale displayed the glorious treasure.
Dion’s aged eyes glittered. He was a man who knew a good thing when he saw it.
“What does this mean?” he inquired.
“It means we leave for Athens in an hour,” replied his daughter. “It means that our privations and discomforts and disappointments are at an end. Noble Typhon presents us with this remarkable piece of bric-à-brac as payment for the Response. Whence he got it is his business. It only remains for us to thank the gods and hasten to Athens.”
Dion felt suspicious, but the feminine intuition of Omphale swept his mean doubts aside. She knew that Typhon, whatever his failings, was not the lad to pay her shifty parent in his own doubtful coin.
“Seek a safe box for it; pack it with infinite care and prepare to start in half-an-hour,” was all she answered to his doubts.
They bestowed little more attention upon Typhon, but bade him a kind farewell, collected a few trifles from their desolate home, made him free of what remained in the larder and then, chattering together, turned their backs upon the little temple for ever. Suddenly the Pythoness remembered a point and looked back.
“What is your father’s direction at Athens?” she inquired.
“To name him is enough,” replied the lad. “And tell him, please, that all is well with me.”
Then the guardians of the Oracle faded away, and Typhon turned to the great oak.
“On receiving the treasure,” said he, “both Omphale and Dion made violent haste to be gone.”
“That is exactly what I knew they would do,” replied the oak, who was refreshed by his night’s sleep. “Now tell me, Typhon, will you return when autumn comes and presently carry a dozen of my matured fruits to Dodona? This place, as you observe, is now played out; and I, too, am fading away with dignity into the unknown. But will you promise me to obey my wish and return here for acorns when the autumn leaves are falling? Do this for good will. I might bribe you to do it; but I would rather rely upon your given word.”
“Typhon takes no bribes from man or tree,” said the lad. “You have befriended me. I shall return and do your will.”
“I believe you,” answered the oak; “and now I may tell you that you are a very fortunate young fellow. Prepare to hear gratifying news.”
“Willingly. Proceed, old oak.”
“Little did they know who planted me upon this spot what lay beneath me,” began the tree. “Nor did I myself discover it until fifty years were told. But then my roots, ever burrowing and twining deeper and deeper into the earth for nourishment, made an astounding discovery. Have you ever heard of Plutus?”
“No,” said Typhon.
“Plutus,” continued the tree, “was a child of Demeter, and he became the wealthiest of all the gods. Such gems and jewels and marvels of statuary, gold, silver and ivory did he collect, that it is impossible to imagine any complete catalogue of them. Miser-like the god took to hiding his treasures, and beneath your feet is a thesaurus — one of many, which this deity hid in earth’s bosom until he should need them again. Numerous similar stores are concealed in the world, for since Zeus blinded Plutus, because he used his gifts to bad purpose, the god cannot find his burying-places. Here, then, is my return to you for what you have promised to do for me. The treasure shall be yours.”
Typhon stared before this interesting news.
“Oak,” said he, “the Oracle spoke a true word — so far. Apollo has told me this morning that I shall find more than I sought.”
“Excellent!” responded the majestic tree. “Now go upon your way and proceed with your proper task. But take heed of your life and do not tempt fortune too far. Remember that you are under a promise; while as for the treasure, the secret of that lies in your bosom alone. I could not impart it to any other mortal, even if I would.”
“Treasures are nothing to me,” declared Typhon.
“I may find greater than even these of greedy Plutus. Indeed I would exchange them willingly for Soter; that is the sole treasure I covet. Meantime, farewell, gracious tree. In autumn we shall meet again.”
Having repaired to the larder of Omphale and eaten everything that remained there, Typhon went forward on his way.
“I have,” thought he, “hunted the lowlands and the foothills of the mountains. Now must I climb higher and face, if need be, the eternal snows.”