_ BOOK III. THE TWO GODS
CHAPTER XII
CAITILIN NI MURRACHU was sitting alone in the little cave behind Gort na
Cloca Mora. Her companion had gone out as was his custom to walk in the
sunny morning and to sound his pipe in desolate, green spaces whence,
perhaps, the wanderer of his desire might hear the guiding sweetness. As
she sat she was thinking. The last few days had awakened her body, and
had also awakened her mind, for with the one awakening comes the other.
The despondency which had touched her previously when tending her
father's cattle came to her again, but recognizably now. She knew the
thing which the wind had whispered in the sloping field and for which
she had no name--it was Happiness. Faintly she shadowed it forth,
but yet she could not see it. It was only a pearl-pale wraith, almost
formless, too tenuous to be touched by her hands, and too aloof to be
spoken to. Pan had told her that he was the giver of happiness, but he
had given her only unrest and fever and a longing which could not be
satisfied. Again there was a want, and she could not formulate, or
even realize it with any closeness. Her new-born Thought had promised
everything, even as Pan, and it had given--she could not say that it had
given her nothing or anything. Its limits were too quickly divinable.
She had found the Tree of Knowledge, but about on every side a great
wall soared blackly enclosing her in from the Tree of Life--a wall which
her thought was unable to surmount even while instinct urged that
it must topple before her advance; but instinct may not advance when
thought has schooled it in the science of unbelief; and this wall will
not be conquered until Thought and Instinct are wed, and the first son
of that bridal will be called The Scaler of the Wall.
So, after the quiet weariness of ignorance, the unquiet weariness
of thought had fallen upon her. That travail of mind which, through
countless generations, has throed to the birth of an ecstasy, the
prophecy which humanity has sworn must be fulfilled, seeing through
whatever mists and doubtings the vision of a gaiety wherein the
innocence of the morning will not any longer be strange to our maturity.
While she was so thinking Pan returned, a little disheartened that he
had found no person to listen to his pipings. He had been seated but a
little time when suddenly, from without, a chorus of birds burst into
joyous singing. Limpid and liquid cadenzas, mellow flutings, and the
sweet treble of infancy met and danced and piped in the airy soundings.
A round, soft tenderness of song rose and fell, broadened and soared,
and then the high flight was snatched, eddied a moment, and was borne
away to a more slender and wonderful loftiness, until, from afar, that
thrilling song turned on the very apex of sweetness, dipped steeply and
flashed its joyous return to the exultations of its mates below, rolling
an ecstasy of song which for one moment gladdened the whole world and
the sad people who moved thereon; then the singing ceased as suddenly
as it began, a swift shadow darkened the passage, and Angus Og came into
the cave.
Caitilin sprang from her seat Frighted, and Pan also made a half
movement towards rising, but instantly sank back again to his negligent,
easy posture.
The god was slender and as swift as a wind. His hair swung about his
face like golden blossoms. His eyes were mild and dancing and his lips
smiled with quiet sweetness. About his head there flew perpetually a
ring of singing birds, and when he spoke his voice came sweetly from a
centre of sweetness.
"Health to you, daughter of Murrachu," said he, and he sat down.
"I do not know you, sir," the terrified girl whispered.
"I cannot be known until I make myself known," he replied. "I am called
Infinite Joy, O daughter of Murrachu, and I am called Love."
The girl gazed doubtfully from one to the other.
Pan looked up from his pipes.
"I also am called Love," said he gently, "and I am called Joy."
Angus Og looked for the first time at Pan.
"Singer of the Vine," said he, "I know your names-they are Desire and
Fever and Lust and Death. Why have you come from your own place to spy
upon my pastures and my quiet fields?"
Pan replied mildly.
"The mortal gods move by the Immortal Will, and, therefore, I am here."
"And I am here," said Angus.
"Give me a sign," said Pan, "that I must go."
Angus Og lifted his hand and from without there came again the
triumphant music of the birds.
"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Dana speaking in the air," and,
saying so, he made obeisance to the great mother.
Pan lifted his hand, and from afar there came the lowing of the cattle
and the thin voices of the goats.
"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Demeter speaking from the earth,"
and he also bowed deeply to the mother of the world.
Again Angus Og lifted his hand, and in it there appeared a spear, bright
and very terrible.
But Pan only said, "Can a spear divine the Eternal Will?" and Angus Og
put his weapon aside, and he said: "The girl will choose between us, for
the Divine Mood shines in the heart of man."
Then Caitilin Ni Murrachu came forward and sat between the gods, but
Pan stretched out his hand and drew her to him, so that she sat resting
against his shoulder and his arm was about her body.
"We will speak the truth to this girl," said Angus Og.
"Can the gods speak otherwise?" said Pan, and he laughed with delight.
"It is the difference between us," replied Angus Og. "She will judge."
"Shepherd Girl," said Pan, pressing her with his arm, "you will
judge between us. Do you know what is the greatest thing in the
world?--because it is of that you will have to judge."
"I have heard," the girl replied, "two things called the greatest
things. You," she continued to Pan, "said it was Hunger, and long ago my
father said that Commonsense was the greatest thing in the world."
"I have not told you," said Angus Og, "what I consider is the greatest
thing in the world."
"It is your right to speak," said Pan.
"The greatest thing in the world," said Angus Og, "is the Divine
Imagination."
"Now," said Pan, "we know all the greatest things and we can talk of
them."
"The daughter of Murrachu," continued Angus Og, "has told us what you
think and what her father thinks, but she has not told us what she
thinks herself. Tell us, Caitilin Ni Murrachu, what you think is the
greatest thing in the world."
So Caitilin Ni Murrachu thought for a few moments and then replied
timidly.
"I think that Happiness is the greatest thing in the world," said she.
Hearing this they sat in silence for a little time, and then Angus
Og spoke again "The Divine Imagination may only be known through the
thoughts of His creatures. A man has said Commonsense and a woman has
said Happiness are the greatest things in the world. These things are
male and female, for Commonsense is Thought and Happiness is Emotion,
and until they embrace in Love the will of Immensity cannot be fruitful.
For, behold, there has been no marriage of humanity since time began.
Men have but coupled with their own shadows. The desire that sprang from
their heads they pursued, and no man has yet known the love of a woman.
And women have mated with the shadows of their own hearts, thinking
fondly that the arms of men were about them. I saw my son dancing with
an Idea, and I said to him, 'With what do you dance, my son?' and he
replied, 'I make merry with the wife of my affection,' and truly she was
shaped as a woman is shaped, but it was an Idea he danced with and not
a woman. And presently he went away to his labours, and then his Idea
arose and her humanity came upon her so that she was clothed with beauty
and terror, and she went apart and danced with the servant of my son,
and there was great joy of that dancing--for a person in the wrong place
is an Idea and not a person. Man is Thought and woman is Intuition, and
they have never mated. There is a gulf between them and it is called
Fear, and what they fear is, that their strengths shall be taken from
them and they may no longer be tyrants. The Eternal has made love blind,
for it is not by science, but by intuition alone, that he may come to
his beloved; but desire, which is science, has many eyes and sees so
vastly that he passes his love in the press, saying there is no love,
and he propagates miserably on his own delusions. The finger-tips are
guided by God, but the devil looks through the eyes of all creatures so
that they may wander in the errors of reason and justify themselves
of their wanderings. The desire of a man shall be Beauty, but he has
fashioned a slave in his mind and called it Virtue. The desire of a
woman shall be Wisdom, but she has formed a beast in her blood and
called it Courage: but the real virtue is courage, and the real courage
is liberty, and the real liberty is wisdom, and Wisdom is the son of
Thought and Intuition; and his names also are Innocence and Adoration
and Happiness."
When Angus Og had said these words he ceased, and for a time there was
silence in the little cave. Caitilin had covered her face with her hands
and would not look at him, but Pan drew the girl closer to his side and
peered sideways, laughing at Angus.
"Has the time yet come for the girl to judge between us?" said he.
"Daughter of Murrachu," said Angus Og, "will you come away with me from
this place?"
Caitilin then looked at the god in great distress. "I do not know what
to do," said she. "Why do you both want me? I have given myself to Pan,
and his arms are about me."
"I want you," said Angus Og, "because the world has forgotten me. In all
my nation there is no remembrance of me. I, wandering on the hills of my
country, am lonely indeed. I am the desolate god forbidden to utter
my happy laughter. I hide the silver of my speech and the gold of my
merriment. I live in the holes of the rocks and the dark caves of the
sea. I weep in the morning because I may not laugh, and in the evening I
go abroad and am not happy. Where I have kissed a bird has flown; where
I have trod a flower has sprung. But Thought has snared my birds in
his nets and sold them in the market-places. Who will deliver me from
Thought, from the base holiness of Intellect, the maker of chains
and traps? Who will save me from the holy impurity of Emotion, whose
daughters are Envy and Jealousy and Hatred, who plucks my flowers to
ornament her lusts and my little leaves to shrivel on the breasts of
infamy? Lo, I am sealed in the caves of nonentity until the head and the
heart shall come together in fruitfulness, until Thought has wept for
Love, and Emotion has purified herself to meet her lover. Tirna-nog is
the heart of a man and the head of a woman. Widely they are separated.
Self-centred they stand, and between them the seas of space are flooding
desolately. No voice can shout across those shores. No eye can bridge
them, nor any desire bring them together until the blind god shall find
them on the wavering stream--not as an arrow searches straightly from
a bow, but gently, imperceptibly as a feather on the wind reaches the
ground on a hundred starts; not with the compass and the chart, but by
the breath of the Almighty which blows from all quarters without care
and without ceasing. Night and day it urges from the outside to the
inside. It gathers ever to the centre. From the far without to the deep
within, trembling from the body to the soul until the head of a woman
and the heart of a man are filled with the Divine Imagination. Hymen,
Hymenaea! I sing to the ears that are stopped, the eyes that are sealed,
and the minds that do not labour. Sweetly I sing on the hillside. The
blind shall look within and not without; the deaf shall hearken to
the murmur of their own veins, and be enchanted with the wisdom of
sweetness; the thoughtless shall think without effort as the lightning
flashes, that the hand of Innocence may reach to the stars, that the
feet of Adoration may dance to the Father of Joy, and the laugh of
Happiness be answered by the Voice of Benediction."
Thus Angus Og sang in the cave, and ere he had ceased Caitilin Ni
Murrachu withdrew herself from the arms of her desires. But so strong
was the hold of Pan upon her that when she was free her body bore the
marks of his grip, and many days passed away before these marks faded.
Then Pan arose in silence, taking his double reed in his hand, and the
girl wept, beseeching him to stay to be her brother and the brother of
her beloved, but Pan smiled and said: "Your beloved is my father and
my son. He is yesterday and to-morrow. He is the nether and the upper
millstone, and I am crushed between until I kneel again before the
throne from whence I came," and, saying so, he embraced Angus Og most
tenderly and went his way to the quiet fields, and across the slopes of
the mountains, and beyond the blue distances of space.
And in a little time Caitilin Ni Murrachu went with her companion
across the brow of the hill, and she did not go with him because she had
understood his words, nor because he was naked and unashamed, but only
because his need of her was very great, and, therefore, she loved
him, and stayed his feet in the way, and was concerned lest he should
stumble. _