“For this reason is a musical education
most essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony
to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking
the strongest hold upon it, filling it with beauty
and making the man beautiful-minded. ...
He will praise and admire the beautiful,
will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon
it, and assimilate his own condition with it.”
Ibid. lib. 3. Music had, however, among the Athenians,
a far more comprehensive signification than with us.
It included not only the harmonies of time and of
tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation,
each in its widest sense. The study of music
was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of
the taste—of that which recognizes the
beautiful—in contradistinction from reason,
which deals only with the true.]
* * * *
*
I will bring fire to thee.
Euripides.—’Androm’.
‘Eiros’.
Why do you call me Eiros?
‘Charmion’.
So henceforward will you always be called.
You must forget, too, my
earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.
‘Eiros’.
This is indeed no dream!
‘Charmion’.
Dreams are with us no more;—but
of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you
looking life-like and rational. The film of the
shadow has already passed from off your eyes.
Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted
days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself
induct you into the full joys and wonders of your
novel existence.
‘Eiros’.
True—I feel no stupor—none
at all. The wild sickness and the terrible
darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice of
many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered,
Charmion, with the keenness of their perception of
the new.
‘Charmion’.
A few days will remove all this;—but
I fully understand you, and feel for you. It
is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you
undergo—yet the remembrance of it hangs
by me still. You have now suffered all of pain,
however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.
‘Eiros’.
In Aidenn?
‘Charmion’.
In Aidenn.
‘Eiros’.
O God!—pity me, Charmion!—I
am overburthened with the majesty of all
things—of the unknown now known—of
the speculative Future merged in
the august and certain Present.
‘Charmion’.
Grapple not now with such thoughts.
To-morrow we will speak of this. Your mind
wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise
of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward—but
back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the
details of that stupendous event which threw you
among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse
of familiar things, in the old familiar language
of the world which has so fearfully perished.
‘Eiros’.
