  BY THE SAME AUTHOR LIMBO LEDA BY ALDOUS HUXLEY
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY All rights reserved CONTENTS
LEDA BROWN and bright as an agate, mountain-cool, Eurotas singing slips from pool to pool; Down rocky gullies; through the cavernous pines And chestnut groves; down where the terraced vines And gardens overhang; through valleys grey With olive trees, into a soundless bay Of the Ægean. Silent and asleep Lie those pools now: but where they dream most deep, Men sometimes see ripples of shining hair And the young grace of bodies pale and bare, Shimmering far down—the ghosts these mirrors hold Of all the beauty they beheld of old, White limbs and heavenly eyes and the hair’s river of gold, For once these banks were peopled: Spartan girls Loosed here their maiden girdles and their curls, And stooping o’er the level water stole His darling mirror from the sun through whole Rapturous hours of gazing. Rapturous hours of gazing.The first star Of all this milky constellation, far Lovelier than any nymph of wood or green, Was she whom Tyndarus had made his queen For her sheer beauty and subtly moving grace— Leda, the fairest of our mortal race. Hymen had lit his torches but one week About her bed (and still o’er her young cheek Passed rosy shadows of those thoughts that sped Across her mind, still virgin, still unwed, For all her body was her own no more), When Leda with her maidens to the shore Of bright Eurotas came, to escape the heat Of summer noon in waters coolly sweet. By a brown pool which opened smooth and clear Below the wrinkled water of a weir They sat them down under an old fir-tree To rest: and to the laughing melody Of their sweet speech the river’s rippling bore A liquid burden, while the sun did pour Pure colour out of heaven upon the earth. The meadows seethed with the incessant mirth Of grasshoppers, seen only when they flew Their curves of scarlet or sudden dazzling blue. Within the fir-tree’s round of unpierced shade The maidens sat with laughter and talk, or played, Gravely intent, their game of knuckle-bones; Or tossed from hand to hand the old dry cones Littered about the tree. And one did sing A ballad of some far-off Spartan king, Who took a wife, but left her, well-away! Slain by his foes upon their wedding-day. “That was a piteous story,” Leda sighed, “To be a widow ere she was a bride.” “Better,” said one, “to live a virgin life Alone, and never know the name of wife And bear the ugly burden of a child And have great pain by it. Let me live wild, A bird untamed by man!” “Nay,” cried another, “I would be wife, if I should not be mother. Cypris I honour; let the vulgar pay Their gross vows to Lucina when they pray. Our finer spirits would be blunted quite By bestial teeming; but Love’s rare delight Wings the rapt soul towards Olympus’ height.” “Delight?” cried Leda. “Love to me has brought Nothing but pain and a world of shameful thought. When they say love is sweet, the poets lie; ’Tis but a trick to catch poor maidens by. What are their boasted pleasures? I am queen To the most royal king the world has seen; Therefore I should, if any woman might, Know at its full that exquisite delight. Yet these few days since I was made a wife Have held more bitterness than all my life, While I was yet a child.” The great bright tears Slipped through her lashes. “Oh, my childish years! Years that were all my own, too sadly few, When I was happy—and yet never knew How happy till to-day!” Her maidens came About her as she wept, whispering her name, Leda, sweet Leda, with a hundred dear Caressing words to soothe her heavy cheer. At last she started up with a fierce pride Upon her face. “I am a queen,” she cried, “But had forgotten it a while; and you, Wenches of mine, you were forgetful too. Undress me. We would bathe ourself.” So proud A queen she stood, that all her maidens bowed In trembling fear and scarcely dared approach To do her bidding. But at last the brooch Pinned at her shoulder is undone, the wide Girdle of silk beneath her breasts untied; The tunic falls about her feet, and she Steps from the crocus folds of drapery, Dazzlingly naked, into the warm sun. God-like she stood; then broke into a run, Leaping and laughing in the light, as though Life through her veins coursed with so swift a flow Of generous blood and fire that to remain Too long in statued queenliness were pain To that quick soul, avid of speed and joy. She ran, easily bounding, like a boy, Narrow of haunch and slim and firm of breast. Lovelier she seemed in motion than at rest, If that might be, when she was never less, Moving or still, than perfect loveliness. At last, with cheeks afire and heaving flank, She checked her race, and on the river’s bank Stood looking down at her own echoed shape And at the fish that, aimlessly agape, Hung midway up their heaven of flawless glass, Like angels waiting for eternity to pass. Leda drew breath and plunged; her gasping cry Splashed up; the water circled brokenly Out from that pearly shudder of dipped limbs; The glittering pool laughed up its flowery brims, And everything, save the poor fish, rejoiced: Their idiot contemplation of the Moist, The Cold, the Watery, was in a trice Ended when Leda broke their crystal paradise. Jove in his high Olympian chamber lay Hugely supine, striving to charm away In sleep the long, intolerable noon. But heedless Morpheus still withheld his boon, And Jove upon his silk-pavilioned bed Tossed wrathful and awake. His fevered head Swarmed with a thousand fancies, which forecast Delights to be, or savoured pleasures past. Closing his eyes, he saw his eagle swift, Headlong as his own thunder, stoop and lift On pinions upward labouring the prize Of beauty ravished for the envious skies. He saw again that bright, adulterous pair, Trapped by the limping husband unaware, Fast in each other’s arms, and faster in the snare— And laughed remembering. Sometimes his thought Went wandering over the earth and sought Familiar places—temples by the sea, Cities and islands; here a sacred tree And there a cavern of shy nymphs. And there a cavern of shy nymphs.He rolled About his bed, in many a rich fold Crumpling his Babylonian coverlet, And yawned and stretched. The smell of his own sweat Brought back to mind his Libyan desert-fane Of mottled granite, with its endless train Of pilgrim camels, reeking towards the sky Ammonian incense to his hornÈd deity; The while their masters worshipped, offering Huge teeth of ivory, while some would bring Their Ethiop wives—sleek wineskins of black silk, Jellied and huge from drinking asses’ milk Through years of tropical idleness, to pray For offspring (whom he ever sent away With prayers unanswered, lest their ebon race Might breed and blacken the earth’s comely face). Noon pressed on him a hotter, heavier weight. O Love in Idleness! how celibate He felt! Libido like a nemesis Scourged him with itching memories of bliss. The satin of imagined skin was sleek And supply warm against his lips and cheek, And deep within soft hair’s dishevelled dusk His eyelids fluttered; like a flowery musk The scent of a young body seemed to float Faintly about him, close and yet remote— For perfume and the essence of music dwell In other worlds among the asphodel Of unembodied life. Then all had flown; His dream had melted. In his bed, alone, Jove sweating lay and moaned, and longed in vain To still the pulses of his burning pain. In sheer despair at last he leapt from bed, Opened the window and thrust forth his head Into Olympian ether. One fierce frown Rifted the clouds, and he was looking down Into a gulf of azure calm; the rack Seethed round about, tempestuously black; But the god’s eye could hold its angry thunders back. There lay the world, down through the chasmÉd blue, Stretched out from edge to edge unto his view; And in the midst, bright as a summer’s day At breathless noon, the Mediterranean lay; And Ocean round the world’s dim fringes tossed His glaucous waves in mist and distance lost; And Pontus and the livid Caspian Sea Stirred in their nightmare sleep uneasily. And ’twixt the seas rolled the wide fertile land, Dappled with green and tracts of tawny sand, And rich, dark fallows and fields of flowers aglow And the white, changeless silences of snow; While here and there towns, like a living eye Unclosed on earth’s blind face, towards the sky Glanced their bright conscious beauty. Yet the sight Of his fair earth gave him but small delight Now in his restlessness: its beauty could Do nought to quench the fever in his blood. Desire lends sharpness to his searching eyes; Over the world his focused passion flies Quicker than chasing sunlight on a day Of storm and golden April. Far away He sees the tranquil rivers of the East, Mirrors of many a strange barbaric feast, Where un-Hellenic dancing-girls contort Their yellow limbs, and gibbering masks make sport Under the moons of many-coloured light That swing their lantern-fruitage in the night Of overarching trees. To him it seems An alien world, peopled by insane dreams. But these are nothing to the monstrous shapes— Not men so much as bastardy of apes— That meet his eyes in Africa. Between Leaves of grey fungoid pulp and poisonous green, White eyes from black and browless faces stare. Dryads with star-flowers in their woolly hair Dance to the flaccid clapping of their own Black dangling dugs through forests overgrown, Platted with writhing creepers. Horrified, He sees them how they leap and dance, or glide, Glimpse after black glimpse of a satin skin, Among unthinkable flowers, to pause and grin Out through a trellis of suppurating lips, Of mottled tentacles barbed at the tips And bloated hands and wattles and red lobes Of pendulous gristle and enormous probes Of pink and slashed and tasselled flesh . . . Of pink and slashed and tasselled flesh . . .He turns Northward his sickened sight. The desert burns All life away. Here in the forkÉd shade Of twin-humped towering dromedaries laid, A few gaunt folk are sleeping: fierce they seem Even in sleep, and restless as they dream. He would be fearful of a desert bride As of a brown asp at his sleeping side, Fearful of her white teeth and cunning arts. Further, yet further, to the ultimate parts Of the wide earth he looks, where Britons go Painted among their swamps, and through the snow Huge hairy snuffling beasts pursue their prey— Fierce men, as hairy and as huge as they. Bewildered furrows deepen the Thunderer’s scowl; This world so vast, so variously foul— Who can have made its ugliness? In what Revolting fancy were the Forms begot Of all these monsters? What strange deity— So barbarously not a Greek!—was he Who could mismake such beings in his own Distorted image. Nay, the Greeks alone Were men; in Greece alone were bodies fair, Minds comely. In that all-but-island there, Cleaving the blue sea with its promontories, Lies the world’s hope, the seed of all the glories That are to be; there, too, must surely live She who alone can medicinably give Ease with her beauty to the Thunderer’s pain. Downwards he bends his fiery eyes again, Glaring on Hellas. Like a beam of light, His intent glances touch the mountain height With passing flame and probe the valleys deep, Rift the dense forest and the age-old sleep Of vaulted antres on whose pebbly floor Gallop the loud-hoofed Centaurs; and the roar Of more than human shouting underground Pulses in living palpable waves of sound From wall to wall, until it rumbles out Into the air; and at that hollow shout That seems an utterance of the whole vast hill, The shepherds cease their laughter and are still. Cities asleep under the noonday sky Stir at the passage of his burning eye; And in their huts the startled peasants blink At the swift flash that bursts through every chink Of wattled walls, hearkening in fearful wonder Through lengthened seconds for the crash of thunder— Which follows not: they are the more afraid. Jove seeks amain. Many a country maid, Whose sandalled feet pass down familiar ways Among the olives, but whose spirit strays Through lovelier lands of fancy, suddenly Starts broad awake out of her dream to see A light that is not of the sun, a light Darted by living eyes, consciously bright; She sees and feels it like a subtle flame Mantling her limbs with fear and maiden shame And strange desire. Longing and terrified, She hides her face, like a new-wedded bride Who feels rough hands that seize and hold her fast; And swooning falls. The terrible light has passed; She wakes; the sun still shines, the olive trees Tremble to whispering silver in the breeze And all is as it was, save she alone In whose dazed eyes this deathless light has shone: For never, never from this day forth will she In earth’s poor passion find felicity, Or love of mortal man. A god’s desire Has seared her soul; nought but the same strong fire Can kindle the dead ash to life again, And all her years will be a lonely pain. Many a thousand had he looked upon, Thousands of mortals, young and old; but none— Virgin, or young ephebus, or the flower Of womanhood culled in its full-blown hour— Could please the Thunderer’s sight or touch his mind; The longed-for loveliness was yet to find. Had beauty fled, and was there nothing fair Under the moon? The fury of despair Raged in the breast of heaven’s Almighty Lord; He gnashed his foamy teeth and rolled and roared In bull-like agony. Then a great calm Descended on him: cool and healing balm Touched his immortal fury. He had spied Young Leda where she stood, poised on the river-side. Even as she broke the river’s smooth expanse, Leda was conscious of that hungry glance, And knew it for an eye of fearful power That did so hot and thunderously lour, She knew not whence, on her frail nakedness. Jove’s heart held but one thought: he must possess That perfect form or die—possess or die. Unheeded prayers and supplications fly, Thick as a flock of birds, about his ears, And smoke of incense rises; but he hears Nought but the soft falls of that melody Which is the speech of Leda; he can see Nought but that almost spiritual grace Which is her body, and that heavenly face Where gay, sweet thoughts shine through, and eyes are bright With purity and the soul’s inward light. Have her he must: the teasel-fingered burr Sticks not so fast in a wild beast’s tangled fur As that insistent longing in the soul Of mighty Jove. Gods, men, earth, heaven, the whole Vast universe was blotted from his thought And nought remained but Leda’s laughter, nought But Leda’s eyes. Magnified by his lust, She was the whole world now; have her he must, he must . . . His spirit worked; how should he gain his end With most deliciousness? What better friend, What counsellor more subtle could he find Than lovely Aphrodite, ever kind To hapless lovers, ever cunning, too, In all the tortuous ways of love to do And plan the best? To Paphos then! His will And act were one; and straight, invisible, He stood in Paphos, breathing the languid air By Aphrodite’s couch. O heavenly fair She was, and smooth and marvellously young! On Tyrian silk she lay, and purple hung About her bed in folds of fluted light And shadow, dark as wine. Two doves, more white Even than the white hand on the purple lying Like a pale flower wearily dropped, were flying With wings that made an odoriferous stir, Dropping faint dews of bakkaris and myrrh, Musk and the soul of sweet flowers cunningly Ravished from transient petals as they die. Two stripling cupids on her either hand Stood near with winnowing plumes and gently fanned Her hot, love-fevered cheeks and eyelids burning. Another, crouched at the bed’s foot, was turning A mass of scattered parchments—vows or plaints Or glad triumphant thanks which Venus’ saints, Martyrs and heroes, on her altars strewed With bitterest tears or gifts of gratitude. From the pile heaped at Aphrodite’s feet The boy would take a leaf, and in his sweet, Clear voice would read what mortal tongues can tell In stammering verse of those ineffable Pleasures and pains of love, heaven and uttermost hell. Jove hidden stood and heard him read these lines Of votive thanks— Cypris, this little silver lamp to thee I dedicate. It was my fellow-watcher, shared with me Those swift, short hours, when raised above my fate In Sphenura’s white arms I drank Of immortality. “A pretty lamp, and I will have it placed Beside the narrow bed of some too chaste Sister of virgin Artemis, to be A night-long witness of her cruelty. Read me another, boy,” and Venus bent Her ear to listen to this short lament. Cypris, Cypris, I am betrayed! Under the same wide mantle laid I found them, faithless, shameless pair! Making love with tangled hair. “Alas,” the goddess cried, “nor god, nor man, Nor medicinable balm, nor magic can Cast out the demon jealousy, whose breath Withers the rose of life, save only time and death.” Another sheet he took and read again. Farewell to love, and hail the long, slow pain Of memory that backward turns to joy. O I have danced enough and enough sung; My feet shall be still now and my voice mute; Thine are these withered wreaths, this Lydian flute, Cypris; I once was young. And piÊtous Aphrodite wept to think How fadingly upon death’s very brink Beauty and love take hands for one short kiss— And then the wreaths are dust, the bright-eyed bliss Perished, and the flute still. “Read on, read on.” But ere the page could start, a lightning shone Suddenly through the room, and they were ’ware Of some great terrible presence looming there. And it took shape—huge limbs, whose every line A symbol was of power and strength divine, And it was Jove. “Daughter, I come,” said he, “For counsel in a case that touches me Close, to the very life.” And he straightway Told her of all his restlessness that day And of his sight of Leda, and how great Was his desire. And so in close debate Sat the two gods, planning their rape; while she, Who was to be their victim, joyously Laughed like a child in the sudden breathless chill And splashed and swam, forgetting every ill And every fear and all, save only this: That she was young, and it was perfect bliss To be alive where suns so goldenly shine, And bees go drunk with fragrant honey-wine, And the cicadas sing from morn till night, And rivers run so cool and pure and bright . . . Stretched all her length, arms under head, she lay In the deep grass, while the sun kissed away The drops that sleeked her skin. Slender and fine As those old images of the gods that shine With smooth-worn silver, polished through the years By the touching lips of countless worshippers, Her body was; and the sun’s golden heat Clothed her in softest flame from head to feet And was her mantle, that she scarcely knew The conscious sense of nakedness. The blue, Far hills and the faint fringes of the sky Shimmered and pulsed in the heat uneasily, And hidden in the grass, cicadas shrill Dizzied the air with ceaseless noise, until A listener might wonder if they cried In his own head or in the world outside. Sometimes she shut her eyelids, and wrapped round In a red darkness, with the muffled sound And throb of blood beating within her brain, Savoured intensely to the verge of pain Her own young life, hoarded it up behind Her shuttered lids, until, too long confined, It burst them open and her prisoned soul Flew forth and took possession of the whole Exquisite world about her and was made A part of it. Meanwhile her maidens played, Singing an ancient song of death and birth, Seed-time and harvest, old as the grey earth, And moving to their music in a dance As immemorial. A numbing trance Came gradually over her, as though Flake after downy-feathered flake of snow Had muffled all her senses, drifting deep And warm and quiet. |
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