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PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN
ing, this I would counsel, — On the day we answer the Ionians,
we shall tell them, ‘What ye ask, we long since proposed to do.’
And Dorcis is already on the seas as successor to Pausanias.”
“When will Dorcis leave?” said Agesilaus, curtly.
“If the other Ephors concur, to-morrow night.”
“Here we are at my doors, wilt thou not enter?”
“No. I have others yet to see. I knew we should be of
the same mind.”
Agesilaus made no reply; but as he entered the courtyard of his house, he muttered uneasily, — “And if Lysander
is right, and Sparta is too small for Pausanias, do not we bring
back a giant who will widen it to his own girth, and rase the old
foundations to make room for the buildings he would add?”
* * * * *
(UNFINISHED.) The pages covered by the manuscript of
this uncompleted story of “Pausanias” are scarcely more numerous than those which its author has filled with the notes
made by him from works consulted with special reference to
the subject of it. Those notes (upon Greek and Persian antiquities) are wholly without interest for the general public.
They illustrate the author’s conscientious industry, but they
afford no clue to the plot of his romance. Under the sawdust,
however, thus fallen in the industrial process of an imaginative work, unhappily unfinished, I have found two specimens of original composition. They are rough sketches of
songs expressly composed for “Pausanias;” and, since they are
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EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
not included in the foregoing portion of it, I think they may
properly be added here. The unrhymed lyrics introduced by
my father into some of the opening chapters of this romance
appear to have been suggested by some fragments of Mimnermus, and composed about the same time as “The Lost Tales of
Miletus.” Indeed, one of them has been already printed in that
work. The following verses, however, which are rhymed, bear
evidence of having been composed at a much earlier period.
I know not whether it was my father’s intention to discard
them altogether, or to alter them materially, or to insert them
without alteration in some later portion of the romance. But
I print them here precisely as they are written.
L.
* * * * *
FOR PAUSANIAS.
Partially borrowed from Aristophanes’ “Peace,” v. 1127, etc.
Away, away, with the helm and greaves,
Away with the leeks and cheese!
I have conquer’d my passion for wounds and blows,
And the worst that I wish to the worst of my foes
Is the glory and gain
Of a year’s campaign
On a diet of leeks and cheese.
33
[Greek: Turou te kai kromuon]. Cheese and onions, the ra-
tions furnished to soldiers in campaign.
33
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PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN
* * * * *
I love to drink by my own warm hearth,
Nourisht with logs from the pine-clad heights,
Which were hewn in the blaze of the summer sun
To treasure his rays for the winter nights
On the hearth where my grandam spun.
I love to drink of the grape I press,
And to drink with a friend of yore;
Quick! bring me a bough from the myrtle tree
Which is budding afresh by Nicander’s door.
Tell Nicander himself he must sup with me,
And along with the bough from his myrtle tree
We will circle the lute, in a choral glee
To the goddess of corn and peace.
For Nicander and I were fast friends at school.
Here he comes! We are boys once more.
When the grasshopper chaunts in the bells of thyme
I love to watch if the Lemnian grape
34
Is donning the purple that decks its prime;
And, as I sit at my porch to see,
With my little one trying to scale my knee,
To join in the grasshopper’s chaunt, and sing
34
It ripened earlier than the others. The words of the Chorus
are, [Greek: tas Laemnias ampelous ei pepainousin aedae]
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EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
To Apollo and Pan from the heart of Spring.
35
Listen, O list!
Hear ye not, neighbours, the voice of Peace?
“The swallow I hear in the household eaves.”
Io Aegien! Peace!
“And the skylark at poise o’er the bended sheaves,”
Io Aegien! Peace!
Here and there, everywhere, hear we Peace,
Hear her, and see her, and clasp her — Peace!
The grasshopper chaunts in the bells of thyme,
And the halcyon is back to her nest in Greece!
IN PRAISE OF THE ATHENIAN KNIGHTS.
Imitated from the “Knights” of Aristophanes, v. 505, etc.
Chaunt the fame of the Knights, or in war or in peace,
36
Chaunt the darlings of Athens,
the bulwarks of Greece
Pressing foremost to glory, on wave and on shore,
Where the steed has no footing they win with the oar.
35
Variation — “What a blessing is life in a noon of Spring.”
36
Variation — “The adorners of Athens, the bulwarks of
Greece.”
37
Variation — “Keenest racers to glory, on wave or on shore, By
the rush of the steed or the stroke of the oar!”
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37
PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN
On their bosoms the battle splits, wasting its shock.
If they charge like the whirlwind, they stand like the rock.
Ha! they count not the numbers, they scan not the ground,
When a foe comes in sight on his lances they bound.
Fails a foot in its speed? heed it not. One and all
38
Spurn the earth that they spring from, and own not a fall.
O the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece,
Wherefore envy the lovelocks they perfume in peace!
Wherefore scowl if they fondle a quail or a dove,
Or inscribe on a myrtle, the names that they love?
Does Alcides not teach us how valour is mild?
Lo, at rest from his labours he plays with a child.
When the slayer of Python has put down his bow,
By his lute and his lovelocks Apollo we know.
Fear’d, O rowers, those gallants their beauty to spoil
When they sat on your benches, and shared in your toil!
When with laughter they row’d to your cry “Hippopai,”
“On, ye coursers of wood, for the palm wreath, away!”
Did those dainty youths ask you to store in your holds
Or a cask from their crypt or a lamb from their folds?
38
Variation — “Falls there one? never help him! Our knights
one and all.”
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EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
No, they cried, “We are here both to fight and to fast,
Place us first in the fight, at the board serve us last!
Wheresoever is peril, we knights lead the way,
Wheresoever is hardship, we claim it as pay.
“Call us proud, O Athenians, we know it full well,
And we give you the life we’re too haughty to sell.”
Hail the stoutest in war, hail the mildest in peace,
Hail the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece!
THE HAUNTED AND
THE HAUNTERS:
OR, THE HOUSE
AND THE BRAIN
A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, — “
Fancy! since we last met, I have discovered a haunted house in
the midst of London.”
“Really haunted? — and by what? ghosts?”
“Well, I can’t answer that question; all I know is this — six
weeks ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of
the houses a bill, ‘Apartments Furnished.’ The situation suited
us: we entered the house — liked the rooms — engaged them
by the week — and left them the third day. No power on earth
could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don’t wonder at it.”
“What did you see?”
“Excuse me — I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer — nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible
without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this,
it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might
fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away,
as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us when-
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EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
ever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in
which we neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest
marvel of all was, that for once in my life I agreed with my
wife, silly woman though she be — and allowed, after the third
night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman
who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that
the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our
week. She said, dryly, ‘I know why; you have stayed longer than
any other lodger. Few ever stayed a second night; none before
you a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you.’
“’They — who?’ I asked, affecting to smile.
“’Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are.
I don’t mind them; I remember them many years ago, when
I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be
the death of me some day. I don’t care — I’m old, and must die
soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house
still.’ The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness, that really
it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and
I to get off so cheaply.”
“You excite my curiosity,” said I; “nothing I should like
better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously.”
My friend gave me the address; and when we parted,
I walked straight towards the house thus indicated.
It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull
but respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up — no
bill at the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turn-
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