day and night
have passed in the demiurgic Mind. And the span of the
Mind in such days
and nights is one hundred and eight years. Mind
follows Mind,
rising and sinking in endless procession. And the
universes,
side by side, each with its demiurgic Mind and its Zeus, who’ll number those? Like delicate boats they float
on the fathomless
waters that form the Unnamable. Out of every pore of that body a universe bubbles and breaks.’
“A procession of ants
had made its appearance in the hall while the boy was
saying this.
In a military column four yards wide the tribe paraded slowly across the gleaming tiles. The mysterious boy paused and stared, then suddenly laughed with an
astonishing peal,
but immediately fell into thoughtful silence.
“ ‘Why do you laugh?’
stammered Zeus. “Who are you, mysterious being in
the deceiving guise
of a boy?’ The proud god’s throat and lips were dry,
and his voice
kept breaking. ‘Who are you, shrouded in deluding mists?’
“ ‘I laughed,’
said the boy, ‘at the ants. Do not ask more. I laughed
at an ancient
secret. It is one that destroys.’ Zeus regarded him,
unable to move.
At last, with a new and clearly visible humility, the great god said, ‘I would willingly suffer annihilation for the secret, mysterious visitor.’ The boy smiled and nodded. ‘If so, you have nothing to fear. It is
merely this:
The gods on high, the trees and stones, are apparitions in a fantasy. Without that dream in the Unnamable
Mind
there is neither life nor death, neither good nor evil.
The wise
are attached neither to good nor to evil. The wise
are attached
to nothing.’
“The boy ended his appalling lesson and, quietly,
he gazed at his host. The king of the gods, for all his
splendor,
had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.
“Meanwhile another amazing apparition had entered
the hall.
He appeared to be some hermit. He wore no clothes.
His hair
was gray and matted except in one place at the back
of his head,
where he had no hair at all, having lain on that one
part
for a thousand years. His eyes glittered, cold as stone.
“Zeus, recovering from his first shock, offered the
old man
wine and honey, but the hermit refused to eat. Zeus
then asked,
falteringly, concerning the old man’s health. The
hermit
smiled. ‘I’m well for a dying man,’ he said, and nodded. Zeus, disconcerted by the man’s stern eyes, could say
no more.
Immediately the boy took over the questioning, asking
precisely
what Zeus would have asked if he could. ‘Who are you,
Holy Man?
What brings you here, and why have you lain in one
place so long
that the hair has worn from your head? Be kind
enough, Holy Man,
to answer these questions. I am anxious to understand.’
“Presently
the old saint spoke. ‘Who am I? I am an old, old man. What brings me here? I have come to see Zeus, for
with each hair
I lose from my head, a new Zeus dies, and when the
last hair falls
I too shall die. Those I have lost, I have lost by lying motionless, waiting for peace. I am much too short
of days
to have use for a wife and son, or a house. Each
eyelid-flicker
of the Unnamable marks the decease of a demiurgic
Mind. Therefore
I’ve devoted myself to forgetfulness. For every joy, even the joy of gods, is as fragile as a dream — a
distraction
from the Absolute, where all individual will is
abandoned
and all is nothing and nothing is everything, and all
paradox
melts. My friend, I was an ant in a thousand thousand
lives,
and in a thousand thousand lives a Zeus, and in others
a king,
a slave, a rat, a beautiful woman. I have wept and torn my hair and longed for death at the graves of a
billion billion
daughters and sons; a billion billion of those I loved have died in wars, plagues, earthquakes, floods. And
with every stroke
of catastrophe, my chest has screamed in pain. All
these
are feeble metaphors — as I am metaphor, a passing
dream,
and you, and all our talk. But this is true: Life seeks to pierce the veil of the dream. I seek forgetfulness,
silence.’
“Abruptly, the holy man ceased and immediately
vanished, and the boy,
in the same flicker of an eyelid, vanished as well.
And Zeus
was in his bed, with Hera in his arms. And he saw,
despite his dream,
that she was beautiful. Then Zeus, King of the Gods,
wept.
At dawn when he opened his eyes and remembered,
Zeus smiled.
He commanded the craftsman to create a magnificent
arbor for Hera,
and after that he demanded nothing more of him.” So the harper of the gods sang, and so he closed. With his last word, the hall of the gods went dark.
I was alone.
“Strange visions, goddess!” I whispered, “stranger and
stranger!” She was gone.
Then, like a sea-blurred echo of Apollo’s harp, I heard the music of Kreon’s minstrel. Soon I saw Kreon’s hall, the sea-kings gathered in their glittering array, and
Kreon himself
at the high table, his daughter beside him, blushing,
shy—
like a spirit, I thought: more child than woman. Beside
her, Jason
stood with his strong arms folded, muscular shoulders
bare,
his cloak a luminous crimson, bound at the waist with
a belt
gold-studded, blacker than onyx. Behind him, to his
left, stood the shadow
of Hera; at his feet sat Aphrodite, and behind his
right shoulder,
lovely as rooftops at dawn, the matchless, gray-eyed
Athena.
“Ipnolebes,” Kreon whispered, “command that the
meal be brought.”
The old king chuckled, patted his hands together,
winked.
Ipnolebes bowed and, moving off quickly, quietly,
was gone.
The hall waited — dim, it seemed to me: discolored as if by age or smoke. The sea-kings’ treasures, piled high
against
walls that seemed, when I first saw them, to be
gleaming sheets
of chalcedony and mottled jade, with beams of ebony, were dark, ambiguous hues, uncertain forms in the
flicker
of torches. There were figures of goldlike substance—
curious ikons
with staring eyes. There were baskets, carpets, bowls,
weapons,
animals staring like owls from their lashed wooden
cages. The hall
was heavy, oppressive with the wealth of Kreon’s
visitors.
The harpsong ended. In a shadowy corner of the great
dim room
dancing girls — slaves with naked breasts — jangled
their bracelets
and fled. A horn of bone sang out. A silence. Then … as flash floods burst in their headlong rush down
mountain flumes
when melting snowcaps join with the first warm
summer rains,
sweeping off all that impedes them, swelling the