in snakes. Above her lovely head, like a parasol, a cobra flared its hood. It stared with dusty eyes through changing mists. I tightened my grip on my
guide’s hand.
“Goddess, porter, whatever you are,” I whispered,
“shield me!”
“Be still,” she said. I obeyed, trembling, straightening
my glasses,
buttoning up my coat.
The queen of goddesses
had beautiful eyes, as benign and warm as the eyes
of the snake
were malevolent. Her face was radiant with life,
seductive,
as sensuous as the brow of Zeus was intellectual. The thrones were joined by an arm of gold, and on
that arm
Zeus rested his own. The queen’s arm lay on the king’s, and their fingers were interlaced. On Zeus’s shoulder,
a prodigious
birdlike creature perched, half-lion, half-eagle, watching the snake. “What can all this mean?” I asked. My guide
touched her lips.
Suddenly the hall was filled with a teeming sea of gods. Some were like monsters, some had the shapes of trees
or waterfalls;
some were like bulls, others like panthers, elephants,
monkeys,
and some were like men — like kings, queens, beggars,
saintly hermits.
One came in on a litter of finely wrought ebony set with centaurs of ivory and silver — a beautiful goddess
in a robe
of scarlet, open at the front to reveal great pendulous
breasts.
The mortals, her slaves, wore flowers in their hair—
the white hair tangled,
matted like the hair of mad women. They wept and
moaned
as they walked, limping, half-naked, ragged. Their
ankles
clinked and jangled with tarnished jewelry; the perfume they
wore
yellowed the air like woodsmoke. Their chalkgray feet
were crooked,
their eyes were dim, and beneath the stiffening paint,
their faces
were cities destroyed by fire. But whether the bearers
were women
or men, I could not guess. Quick fluttering sparrows flew like swirling leaves in a graveyard, screeching. My
shadowy guide
smiled and inclined her head.
“Not all gods here are wise,”
she said. “They have all their will, all that a creature
can desire:
They feel no hunger, no thirst, no weariness, no fear of
death,
no pain or sorrow or lonely old age. But the grinding
force
of life still burns in them, endlessly restless, driving,
devouring—
the force that blazes in the eyes of the half-starved lion
or swells
the veins of the terrified deer. They can never be rid
of it.
Some, desiring in a state where nothing is left to desire, sink to the sickness of ennui and wallow in vast self-pity like hogs in mire. Some puff up their power, and delight in smashing the will of the weak. A few, like Zeus, grow
wise.
But very few. Observe how the rest crawl through their
days.
At times, to break the tedium, the gods feast.
At times, to break the tedium, the gods fast.
At times they quarrel like dogs. At times they smile and
kiss.
At times they sue to the king with cantankerous
demands. Watch.”
The goddess in scarlet approached the throne of Zeus
and, descending
from her litter, kneeled before him. “O mighty Lord,”
she said,
“hear the prayer of your sorrowful Aphrodite! Cruelly the Queen of Olympos mocks me and makes me a
laughingstock!
I’m ashamed to be seen among gods. They smirk and
ogle, point at me,
whisper behind my back. I filled Medeia’s heart with love, stirred Jason to manly desire, arranged a
pairing
fit to be remembered through endless time and to the
farthest poles
of space. But Hera has overwhelmed me with her
treachery,
cluttering his heart with desires more base, so that all
I’ve done
is nothing, a cloud dispersed! O Great God, Lord of
Thunder,
make him shake off this wickedness!” Her cheeks were
bright
with anger, her dark eyes flashed; her flowing black
hair gleamed
as if even that were in a rage. Yet out of respect for
Hera,
or remembering that Hera was Zeus’s wife, she
controlled herself.
She stretched out her white left arm, her right hand
daintily pressed
to her breast, just over the roseate nipple, as if to quell the terrible quopping of her heart. “Have I ever denied
her power—
her supreme rule over all things physicaclass="underline" ships, rivers, forests, banquets, marriage beds? She fills the world with beauty, goodness, the excitements of danger. At
her command
Ares stirs up the terrors and joys of war. At a word from her, the gods lure men to the highest pinnacles
of feeling—
treasure-hunting, kingdom-snatching. By her pale light alchemists pawn away all they own to untomb the gold in lead, the wolf hunts the lamb, the shepherd attacks
the wolf,
the adder joyfully strikes at the shepherd’s heel. But
Lord,
O holy father of gods and men, I’ve earned some place in all that hungry rush! Imagine her kingdom with all my power shut down — no joy in the world but the
shoddy glint
of wealth, stern labor, knowledge-grubbing — no gentle
eyes
to drip their sweetness on rich men’s rings, no loving
hands
to smooth the pain from the farmer’s back when his
long day ends,
no dazzled maiden to flood the alchemist’s sulphurous
rooms
with the light of her music, her rainsoft fingers on his
arm! If my work
is meaningless, say so. I’ll trouble your halls no morel”
Bright tears
welled in her eyes and her bosom heaved. Her lips were
taut.
The ghastly creatures attending her gave out goatish
wails.
Hera’s face turned slowly to the king’s. “Beautiful
performance,”
she said, and smiled. The king said nothing. Dark
Aphrodite
glared, her glance like a dart of fire, and the muscles of
her face
trembled like the face of the plains when earthquakes
crack their beams.
A gentler goddess came forward then, a gray-eyed
goddess
with a crown like a city on a shining silver hill. At her
side
philosophers stood, their lean backs bent under thick,
smudged scrolls,
their eyes rolled up out of sight; behind her, nervous
kings,
each with his own set of tics (quick lip-jerks, twists,
winks, nods,
features overcome from time to time by a sudden
widening
of the eyes, like shocked recognition); then fat
merchants, wiping
their foreheads, clucking, wincing with distaste, their
tongues in motion
ceaseless as the sea, wetting their thick, chapped lips;
behind
the merchants, poets and musicians, all looking wry at
the smell
of the merchants, making ingenious jokes at the
merchants’ garish
or grandly funereal dress. — But when, from time to
time,
a merchant, philosopher, or king keeled over, slain by
the light
or brushed by a careless god, the poets and musicians
would praise
the nature of man, abstracted to green, magnificent