After we had heard the harper, the Queen wished us good rest, and got up from her chair. The King also bade me good night and rose. Once again my eyes met his, and my heart felt bursting with what I wished to say; but it fell away from me, leaving me silent. As they reached the stair I saw her take his hand.
The tables were taken out, and the men’s beds made in the hall; the women were led away, to the grief of those who had become lovers since we left the Bull Court. Of these were Telamon and Nephele. But from what I had heard of the rite tomorrow, it was only a fast before a feast.
Ariadne and I were given a fine room on the royal floor. This was our first night in a great bed. So although the wind had eased, I did not say much of the delay, except that to be at home would be still better. She answered, “Yes, but it would be a pity to miss the festival. I have never seen it as they do it here.” As no one had told her what I knew, I said no more, and soon we slept.
Early next morning, the singing woke us. We dressed and joined the others, and went with the people down to the shore. Already they were dancing, and the jars of unmixed wine, dark and strong, sweet as ripe grapes, were going from hand to hand. People greeted us; we caught fire from the wine and laughter, and began to feel that oneness with the feast which is Iakchos’ magic gift.
Everyone looked seawards; soon shouts of rapture greeted a sail. The ship came round the point toward the holy islet just off-shore; and all the women began to slip away. The Naxians took our girls along; and Ariadne too was drawn from my side. I saw no harm in it, knowing the honor they held her in.
The ship approached, all bound with green boughs and wreaths; the mast and oar blades and the beak were gilded, the sail was scarlet. Young girls were singing on the deck, playing the tabor and the pipes, and clashing cymbals. Standing in the prow, girt with a fawnskin, crowned with green ivy and young vine-shoots, stood the King. He was very drunk, with wine and with the god; as he waved to the people, I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes.
On the sacred isle his train and his car were waiting. They waded to the ship and pulled her in, and lifted the King ashore to a crash of music.
Soon the car was coming through the knee-deep ford. Men drew it wearing leopardskins and the horns of bulls. They pulled on the ropes and yokes; those dancing round them wore strapped to their loins great leather phalluses that bounced as they sprang along. They sang and clowned and called out broad jests to the people. Then came the gilded car, and round it the women.
They came beating the cymbals, or bearing long garlands twined among them, or waving the sacred thyrsos on long poles. As they danced they sang, but the song was wild and blurred, for the maenads had on their masks already. Above smooth shoulders and wreathing arms and dancing breasts, were the heads of lions and leopards, of lynxes and of wolves. Their dark Cretan hair flowed free behind them. I thought that one could not have picked out among them even one’s own sister or one’s wife. The King stood up in the gilded chariot, laughing wild-eyed, and swaying tipsily as it bounded on. Sometimes he would take a handful of corn from a bin beside him, and scatter it on the people, or jerk his gold cup to sprinkle them with wine. Then they would leap for the blessing to fall on them, and the women would scream, “Euoi! Euoi!” The men who drew the car began to leap and run, pulling toward the hill road. As they went the King’s arm waved the cup, and I heard that he was singing.
The people began to stream up from the shore toward the bills; and I felt one with the feast, for that is the magic of the god. But I waited for Ariadne to come back from the island, now the rite was done, so that we could go up together, and share the madness and the love. The car and the music were far ahead, and I grew impatient, but I waited still. I did not want her running about without me. One must not be angry at what women do in Iakchos’ frenzy; the way to keep your girl is to have her yourself.
Some lads were dancing to the double flute; I danced with them till they cried, “To the hills!” and ran after the rest. Still she did not come. A few women waded the ford to shore, but they were old, or great-bellied with child. I asked one such if she had seen her. She stared, and said, “Why, she is with the Queen and the maenads, following the god.”
You do not last long with the bulls unless your wind is sound, and I soon caught up with the crowd. Alone upon the road I felt angry and anxious; but some of the Cranes were drinking and dancing in an orchard all in flower; they held out their hands to me, and I was one with the feast again. The farm people brought out their best wine in honor of the god, and it would have been boorish to rush away. But presently we went on, up to the goat pastures where the hills are high. I had seen already that on the tops there was snow.
We came out far above tilled land, among thyme and heath and smoothed gray boulders, rain-scoured and hot with sun, where lizards basked and darted. From these tall mountains one sees sea and sky all one, a great round ether of shimmering blue, and the gray isles floating weightless in it. With the young men I threw myself on the springing turf, panting and laughing and drinking. We had picked up somewhere a big wine jug painted with wreathing squids and seaweed. Amyntor and I and some youth from Naxos aimed the wine stream into each other’s open mouths, shouting and spluttering. Then the Naxian looked past us and jumped up and ran off. I saw him chasing a girl among the boulders.
It is on the lower ridges that the women begin to fall away from the god’s maenad train, those whom the madness does not wholly possess. They throw off their beast-masks, leaving the mystery to those it calls, and wander dreaming or half wild about the hillside, and give themselves to love.
“Now,” I thought, “for certain I shall find her.” She was only a guest, and had done all that was due. The rest she would be glad to miss. So I went upward with the others. I was full of wine now, and one with the feast, and last night’s grief had left me. It was Earthling business, and nothing was asked of us strangers except rejoicing. A long way off, somewhere beyond the ridge, I heard a thin shrilling, like the cry of birds, from the maenads still about the King. But it was far away. Soon I should find my girl; “or,” I thought as we reeled up singing toward the snowline, “a girl at any rate.”
We linked arms in a line, and sang and shouted and passed the wine along; I and the Minyan next me leaned our heads together and bawled our life stories in each other’s ears and swore eternal friendship. Soon we came to the first snow, lying in pools and lakes among the green-brown mountain grasses lush with its moisture. We knelt and flung it on our faces to cool them from the climbing and the wine.
I stood up, and saw above us the snow pools broken. There was the track of many feet, a crushed vine-shoot, and a broken flute. They must have left the car when the ground got stony. Not far off was a streak of scarlet; a scarf, I thought, dropped by a girl. But when I got nearer, it was, or had been, a fawn. There was not much left to know it by, but further on I saw the head. I stood silent, staring; for a moment the dance of my blood was stilled and chilled.
As I stood there, something cold struck my neck, and I turned round. There was a little pine wood just above, in a fold of the mountain; laughter came from it, and a girl ducked behind a tree. Putting up my hand I found a snowball in my hair. So I gave a shout, and ran.
The pines were thick, the mats of the needles soft and dry. She squealed and dodged among the pine boles, half frightened and half not. I caught her at the edge of a little hollow, and we rolled in a tangle to the bottom. She was a Naxian girl, with long sloe eyes and a nose tip-tilted. I don’t know how long we stayed there; the time of Dionysos is not like the time of men. After a while I heard a giggle, and saw another girl watching us from up above, and climbed up to make her pay for it. In the end we stayed all three together, and time was lost again. All the strain and stretch of danger was loosened out of me, the fierceness of war and the care of kingship. This seemed the only good, to be one with the living mountain, with her birds and goats and wolves and her sunning snakes and flower-bells, drinking the strong honey from her thriftless breast, living each breath just as it came.