The Infernal Marriage by Benjamin Disraeli (best books to read txt) 📕

might have been endured; but to be baffled by an Olympian _juste milieu_, and to find, after all the clamour, that nothing has been changed save the places, is, you will own, somewhat mortifying.'

'But how do you reconcile,' inquired the ingenuous Proserpine, 'the success of Jupiter with the character which you ascribed last night to the spirit of the age?'

'Why, in truth,' said Saturn, 'had I not entirely freed myself from all party feeling, I might adduce the success of my perfidious and worthless relative as very good demonstration that the spirit of the age is nothing better than an _ignis fatuus_. Nevertheless, we must discriminate. Even the success of Jupiter, although he now conducts himself in direct opposition to the emancipating principles he at first professed, is no less good evidence of their force; for by his professions he rose. And, for my part, I consider it a great homage to public opinion to find every scoundrel now-a-days professing himself a Liberal.'

'You are candid;' said Proserpine. 'I should like very much to see the Titans.'

'My friends are at least consistent,' observed Saturn; 'though certainly at present I can say little more for them. Between the despair of one section of the party, and the over-sanguine expectations of the other, they are at present quite inactive, or move only to ensure fresh rebuffs.'

'You see little of them, then?'

'They keep to themselves: they generally frequent a lonely vale in the neighbourhood.'

'I should so like to see them!' exclaimed Proserpine.

'Say nothing to Tiresias,' said old Saturn, who was half in love with his fair friend, 'and we will steal upon them unperceived.' So saying, the god struck the earth with his cane, and there instantly sprang forth a convenient car, built of curiously carved cedar, and borne by four enormous tawny-coloured owls. Seating himself by the side of the delighted Proserpine, Saturn commanded the owls to bear them to the Valley of Lamentations.

'Twas an easy fly: the chariot soon descended upon the crest of a hill: and Saturn and Proserpine, leaving the car, commenced, by a winding path, the slight ascent of a superior elevation. Having arrived there, they looked down upon a valley, apparently land-locked by black and barren mountains of the most strange, although picturesque forms. In the centre of the valley was a black pool or tarn, bordered with dark purple flags of an immense size, twining and twisting among which might be observed the glancing and gliding folds of several white serpents; while crocodiles and alligators, and other horrible forms, poked their foul snouts with evident delight in a vast mass of black slime, which had, at various times, exuded from the lake. A single tree only was to be observed in this desolate place, an enormous and blasted cedar, with scarcely a patch of verdure, but extending its black and barren branches nearly across the valley. Seated on a loosened crag, but leaning against the trunk of the cedar, with his arms folded, his mighty eyes fixed on the ground, and his legs crossed with that air of complete repose which indicates that their owner is in no hurry again to move them, was


'A form, some granite god we deemed,
Or king of palmy Nile, colossal shapes
Such as Syene's rosy quarries yield
To Memphian art; Horus, Osiris called,
Or Amenoph, who, on the Theban plain,
With magic melody the sun salutes;
Or he, far mightier, to whose conquering car
Monarchs were yoked, Rameses: by the Greeks
Sesostris styled. And yet no sculptor's art
Moulded this shape, for form it seemed of flesh,
Yet motionless; its dim unlustrous orbs
Gazing in stilly vacancy, its cheek
Grey as its hairs, which, thin as they might seem,
No breath disturbed; a solemn countenance,
Not sorrowful, though full of woe sublime,
As if despair were now a distant dream
Too dim for memory.'


''Tis their great leader,' said Saturn, as he pointed out the Titan to Proserpine, 'the giant Enceladus. He got us into all our scrapes, but I must do him the justice to add, that he is the only one who can ever get us out of them. They say he has no heart; but I think his hook nose is rather fine.'

'Superb!' said Proserpine. 'And who is that radiant and golden-haired youth who is seated at his feet?'

''Tis no less a personage than Hyperion himself,' replied Saturn, 'the favourite counsellor of Enceladus. He is a fine orator, and makes up by his round sentences and choice phrases for the rhetorical deficiencies of his chief, who, to speak the truth, is somewhat curt and husky. They have enough now to do to manage their comrades and keep a semblance of discipline in their routed ranks. Mark that ferocious Briareus there scowling in a corner! Didst ever see such a moustache! He glances, methinks, with an evil eye on the mighty Enceladus; and, let me tell you, Briareus has a great following among them; so they say of him you know, that he hath fifty heads and a hundred arms. See! how they gather around him.'

'Who speaks now to Briareus?' 'The young and valiant Mimas. Be assured he is counselling war. We shall have a debate now.'

'Yon venerable personage, who is seated by the margin of the pool, and weeping with the crocodiles------'

'Is old Oceanus.'

'He is apparently much affected by his overthrow.' 'It is his wont to weep. He used to cry when he fought, and yet he was a powerful warrior.' 'Hark!' said Proserpine.

The awful voice of Briareus broke the silence. What a terrible personage was Briareus! His wild locks hung loose about his shoulders, and blended with his unshorn beard.

'Titans!' shouted the voice which made many a heart tremble, and the breathless Proserpine clasp the arm of Saturn. 'Titans! Is that spirit dead that once heaped Ossa upon Pelion? Is it forgotten, even by ourselves, that a younger born revels in our heritage? Are these forms that surround me, indeed, the shapes at whose dread sight the base Olympians fled to their fitting earth? Warriors, whose weapons were the rocks, whose firebrands were the burning woods, is the day forgotten when Jove himself turned craven, and skulked in Egypt? At least my memory is keen enough to support my courage, and whatever the dread Enceladus may counsel, my voice is still for war!'

There ensued, after this harangue of Briareus, a profound and thrilling silence, which was, however, broken in due time by the great leader of the Titans himself.

'You mouth it well, Briareus,' replied Enceladus calmly. 'And if great words would re-seat us in Olympus, doubtless, with your potent aid, we might succeed. It never should be forgotten, however, that had we combined at first, in the spirit now recommended, the Olympians would never have triumphed; and least of all our party should Briareus and his friends forget the reasons of our disunion.'

'I take thy sneer, Enceladus,' said the young and chivalric Mimas, 'and throw it in thy teeth. This learn, then, from Briareus and his friends, that if we were lukewarm in the hour of peril, the fault lies not to our account, but with those who had previously so conducted themselves, that, when the danger arrived, it was impossible for us to distinguish between our friends and our foes. Enceladus apparently forgets that had the Olympians never been permitted to enter Heaven, it would have been unnecessary ever to have combined against their machinations.'

'Recrimination is useless,' said a Titan, interposing. 'I was one of those who supported Enceladus in the admission of the Olympians above, and I regret it. But at the time, like others, I believed it to be the only mode of silencing the agitation of Jupiter.'

'I separated from Enceladus on that question,' said a huge Titan, lying his length on the ground and leaning one arm on a granite crag; 'but I am willing to forget all our differences and support him with all my heart and strength in another effort to restore our glorious constitution.'

'Titans,' said Enceladus, 'who is there among you who has found me a laggard in the day of battle?'

When the Olympians, as Briareus thinks it necessary to remind you, fled, I was your leader. Remember, however, then, that there were no thunderbolts. As for myself, I candidly confess to you, that, since the invention of these weapons by Jove, I do not see how war can be carried on by us any longer with effect.'

'By the memory of old Coelus and these fast-flowing tears,' murmured the venerable Oceanus, patting at the same time a crocodile on the back, 'I call you all to witness that I have no interest to deceive you. Nevertheless, we should not forget that, in this affair of the thunderbolts, it is the universal opinion that there is a very considerable reaction. I have myself, only within these few days, received authentic information that several have fallen of late without any visible ill effects; and I am credibly assured that, during the late storm in Thessaly, a thunderbolt was precipitated into the centre of a vineyard, without affecting the flavour of a single grape.'

Here several of the Titans, who had gathered round Enceladus, shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, and a long and desultory conversation ensued upon the copious and very controversial subject of Re-action. In the meantime Rhoetus, a young Titan, whispered to one of his companions, that for his part he was convinced that the only way to beat the Olympians was to turn them into ridicule; and that he would accordingly commence at once with the pasquinade on the private life of Jupiter, and some peculiarly delicate criticisms on the characters of the goddesses.


PART IV.


Containing the First View of Elysium


THE toilsome desert was at length passed, and the royal cavalcade ascended the last chasm of mountains that divided Elysium, or the Regions of Bliss, from the Realm of Twilight. As she quitted those dim and dreary plains, the spirit of Proserpine grew lighter, and she indulged in silent but agreeable anticipations of the scene which she was now approaching. On reaching, however, the summit of the mountainous chain, and proceeding a short distance over the rugged table-land into which it now declined, her Majesty was rather alarmed at perceiving that her progress was impeded by a shower of flame that extended, on either side, as far as the eye could reach. Her alarm, however, was of short continuance; for, on the production of his talisman by Tiresias, the shower of flame instantly changed into silvery drops of rose-water and other delicious perfumes. Amid joyous peals of laughter, and some slight playful screams on the part of the ladies, the cavalcade ventured through the ordeal. Now the effect of this magical bath was quite marvellous. A burthen seemed suddenly to have been removed from the spirits of the whole party; their very existence seemed renewed; the blood danced about their veins in the liveliest manner imaginable; and a wild but pleasing titillation ran like lightning through their nerves, their countenances sparkled with excitement; and they all talked at the same time. Proserpine was so occupied with her own sensations, that she did not immediately remark the extraordinary change that had occurred in the appearance of the country immediately on passing