The Last Days of Pompeii - Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

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with dark and sable garments, with a brooding and solemn brow: a robe that dazzled the sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold and gems, blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with the emerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his raven locks. He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the glory of a second youth—his features seemed to have exchanged thought for beauty, and he towered amidst the loveliness that surrounded him, in all the beaming and relaxing benignity of the Olympian god.

      'Drink, feast, love, my pupil!' said he, 'blush not that thou art passionate and young. That which thou art, thou feelest in thy veins: that which thou shalt be, survey!'

      With this he pointed to a recess, and the eyes of Apaecides, following the gesture, beheld on a pedestal, placed between the statues of Bacchus and Idalia, the form of a skeleton.

      'Start not,' resumed the Egyptian; 'that friendly guest admonishes us but of the shortness of life. From its jaws I hear a voice that summons us to ENJOY.'

      As he spoke, a group of nymphs surrounded the statue; they laid chaplets on its pedestal, and, while the cups were emptied and refilled at that glowing board, they sang the following strain:

BACCHIC HYMNS TO THE IMAGE OF DEATHI

              Thou art in the land of the shadowy Host,

                 Thou that didst drink and love:

               By the Solemn River, a gliding ghost,

                 But thy thought is ours above!

                      If memory yet can fly,

                      Back to the golden sky,

                 And mourn the pleasures lost!

               By the ruin'd hall these flowers we lay,

                 Where thy soul once held its palace;

               When the rose to thy scent and sight was gay,

                 And the smile was in the chalice,

                      And the cithara's voice

                      Could bid thy heart rejoice

                 When night eclipsed the day.

      Here a new group advancing, turned the tide of the music into a quicker and more joyous strain.

II

              Death, death is the gloomy shore

                 Where we all sail—

              Soft, soft, thou gliding oar;

                 Blow soft, sweet gale!

               Chain with bright wreaths the Hours;

                 Victims if all

               Ever, 'mid song and flowers,

                 Victims should fall!

      Pausing for a moment, yet quicker and quicker danced the silver-footed music:

              Since Life's so short, we'll live to laugh,

                 Ah! wherefore waste a minute!

               If youth's the cup we yet can quaff,

                 Be love the pearl within it!

      A third band now approached with brimming cups, which they poured in libation upon that strange altar; and once more, slow and solemn, rose the changeful melody:

III

              Thou art welcome, Guest of gloom,

                 From the far and fearful sea!

               When the last rose sheds its bloom,

                 Our board shall be spread with thee!

                    All hail, dark Guest!

                 Who hath so fair a plea

                 Our welcome Guest to be,

                 As thou, whose solemn hall

                 At last shall feast us all

                 In the dim and dismal coast?

                 Long yet be we the Host!

                 And thou, Dead Shadow, thou,

                 All joyless though thy brow,

                     Thou—but our passing GUEST!

      At this moment, she who sat beside Apaecides suddenly took up the song:

IV

              Happy is yet our doom,

                 The earth and the sun are ours!

               And far from the dreary tomb

                 Speed the wings of the rosy Hours—

                Sweet is for thee the bowl,

                    Sweet are thy looks, my love;

                 I fly to thy tender soul,

                    As bird to its mated dove!

                      Take me, ah, take!

                 Clasp'd to thy guardian breast,

                 Soft let me sink to rest:

                      But wake me—ah, wake!

                 And tell me with words and sighs,

                 But more with thy melting eyes,

                      That my sun is not set—

               That the Torch is not quench'd at the Urn

                 That we love, and we breathe, and burn,

                      Tell me—thou lov'st me yet!

      BOOK THE SECOND

      Chapter I

      A FLASH HOUSE IN POMPEII, AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE CLASSIC RING

      TO one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not by the lords of pleasure, but by its minions and its victims; the haunt of gladiators and prize-fighters; of the vicious and the penniless; of the savage and the obscene; the Alsatia of an ancient city—we are now transported.

      It was a large room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose hardy and reckless countenances, indicated the champions of the arena. On a shelf, without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was inserted in the wall a coarse painting, which exhibited gladiators drinking—so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! Within the room were placed several small tables, arranged somewhat in the modern fashion of 'boxes', and round these were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some playing at dice, some at that more skilful game called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the assistance of dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable time itself denoted

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