The path, from which the group of houses and Agenor’s family, waving their last greetings, could still be seen, disappeared behind a hill.
The coastal plain was deserted and Pandion was alone with Thessa before the sea and the sky. In front of them, a tiny boat loomed black on the beach — in this Pandion was to sail round the spit at the mouth of the Achelous and cross the Gulf of Calydon.
The youth and the girl walked on in silence. Their slow steps were uncertain: Thessa looked straight at Pandion who could not take his eyes off her face.
Soon, far too soon, they came to the boat. Pandion straightened his back and with a deep sigh expanded his cramped chest. The moment that had lain heavily on him for days and nights had come at last. There was so much he wanted to say to Thessa in that last moment but the words would not come.
Pandion stood still in ‘embarrassment, his head filled with incomplete thoughts, inconsequent and incoherent.
With a sudden, impetuous movement, Thessa threw her arms round his neck and whispered to him hurriedly and brokenly, as though she were afraid they might be overheard:
“Swear to me, Pandion, swear by Hyperion, swear by the awful Hecate, goddess of the moon and sorcery… No, swear by your love and mine that you will not go farther than Crete, that you will not go to distant Aigyptos. . where you’ll be made a slave and be lost to me for ever… Swear that you will return soon…” Thessa’s whispering broke off in a suppressed sob.
Pandion pressed the girl tightly to him and pronounced the oath; before his eyes there passed expanses of sea, rocks, groves, houses and the ruins of unknown cities, everything that was to keep him away from Thessa for six long months, months in which he would know nothing of his beloved or she of him.
Pandion closed his eyes and he could feel Thessa’s heart beating.
The minutes passed, and the inevitable parting drew ever nearer and further anticipation had become unbearable.
“On your way, Pandion, hurry… good-bye…” whispered the girl.
Pandion shuddered, released the girl and ran to the boat.
The boat lay deep in the sand but his strong arms moved it and the keel grated over the sand. Pandion went knee-deep into the water and then turned to look round. The boat, rocked by a wave, struck him on the leg.
Thessa, motionless as a statue, stood with her eyes fixed on the spot behind which Pandion’s boat would soon disappear.
Something snapped in the youth’s breast. He pushed the boat off the sand-bank, jumped into it and seized the oars. Thessa turned her head sharply and the westerly breeze caught her hair that she had loosened as a sign of mourning.
Under mighty strokes of the oars the boat drew rapidly away from the shore but Pandion never once took his eyes off the girl, standing with her face lifted high above her bare shoulder.
The wind blew Thessa’s shining black tresses over her face but the girl made no move to brush them back. Through the hair Pandion could see her shining eyes, her dilated nostrils and the bright red lips of her half-open mouth. Her hair, fluttering in the wind, fell in heavy masses on her neck, its curling ends lying in countless ringlets on her cheeks, temples and high bosom. The girl stood motionless until the boat was far from the shore and had turned its bows to the south-east.
It seemed to Thessa that the boat was not turning round the spit but that the spit, dark and forbidding in the shadow of the sun’s low rays, was moving out into the sea, gradually drawing nearer to the boat. Now it had reached a tiny black spot in the glistening sea — now the spot was concealed behind it.
Thessa, conscious of nothing more, sank on to the damp sand.
Pandion’s boat was lost amidst the countless waves. Cape Achelous had long since been lost to view but Pandion continued to row with all his strength as though he were afraid that sorrow would force him to return. He thought of nothing at all, he only tried to tire himself out by hard work.
The sun was soon astern of the boat and the slow-moving waves took on the colour of dark honey. Pandion dropped his oars on to the bottom of the boat and, balancing on one leg so as not to overturn the boat, sprang into the sea. The water refreshed him and he swam for a while pushing the boat before him; then he climbed back and stood up at full height.
Ahead of him lay a sharp-pointed cape while away to the left he could see the longish island that closed the harbour of Calydon — the object of his journey — from the south. Pandion again set to work with his oars and the island began to grow in size as it rose from the sea. Soon the line of its summit broke up into separate pointed tree-tops which in turn became rows of stately cypress-trees looking like gigantic, dark spearheads. The curved, rocky- end of a promontory protected the cypresses from the wind and on its southern side they grew in profusion, striving ever upwards into the clear blue sky. The youth steered his boat carefully between rocks fringed with rust-coloured seaweed. Through the greenish gold of the water the clean sandy seabed could be clearly seen. Pandion went ashore, found a glade of soft young grass in the vicinity of an old, moss-grown altar and there drank up the last of the fresh water he had brought with him. He did not feel like eating. It was no more than twenty stadia to the harbour which lay on the far side of the island.
Pandion decided that he would approach the ship’s master fresh and in full strength and so lay down to rest awhile.
A picture of yesterday’s festival dances arose with extraordinary clarity before Pandion’s closed eyes…
Pandion and the other youths from the district were lying on the grass waiting until the girls had finished their dance in honour of Aphrodite. The girls, dressed in light garments caught in at the waist with ribbons of many colours, were dancing in pairs, back to back. Linking their hands each of them looked back over her shoulder as though she were admiring the beauty of her partner.
The wide folds of the white tunics rose and fell like waves of silver in the moonlight, the golden, sun-tanned bodies of the dancers bent like slender reeds to the strains of the flutes — at the same time soft and attenuated, doleful and joyful.;
Then the youths mingled with the girls in the crane dance, rising on to the tips of their toes and extending their arms like wings. Pandion danced beside Thessa whose troubled eyes never left his face.
The youth of the district were more attentive to Pandion than usual. There was only one young man, Eurymachus, who was in love with Thessa, whose face showed that he was glad of his rival’s departure; and there was the tantalizing Aenoia who could not help teasing him. Pandion noticed that the others did not joke with him in their usual way, there were fewer sarcastic remarks at his expense — it seemed as though a line had been drawn between the one who was leaving and those who were to remain.
The moon sank slowly behind the trees. A heavy curtain of darkness fell over the glade.
The dances were over. Thessa and her friends sang the Hirasiona — the song of the swallow and spring — a song that Pandion loved to hear. At last the young people made their way in pairs to their houses. Pandion and Thessa were the last, deliberately slowing down to be alone. No sooner had they reached the ridge of the hill overlooking the village than Thessa shuddered, stopped and pressed close to Pandion.
The sheer wall of white limestone behind the vine-yards reflected the moon like a mirror. A transparent curtain of silver light veiled the houses, the littoral and the dark sea, a light that was permeated with deadly charm and silent sorrow.
“I’m terribly afraid, Pandion,” whispered Thessa. “Oh, how great is the power of Hecate, goddess of the moonlight, and you are going to the country where she rules…”