nt. "But.  . . ." The  artist paused before choosing his next
words.
     "He wants too much," his wife finished the sentence for him.
     "Yes, he wants a lot and much has  been granted him by the  gods. There
is nobody to teach him, I cannot give him  what  he's seeking," said the old
artist with a note of sorrow in his voice.
     "It  seems  to me  that he's  too uncertain,  he  can't  find  his  own
vocation; he's not like other lads," the woman said in a low voice. "I can't
imagine what he wants and sometimes I feel sorry for him."
     "You're right,  my dear;  no  happiness will be  his  if  he strives to
achieve that which nobody else has ever been able to. You are worried. . . .
And I know why, you're afraid for Thessa, aren't you?"
     "No, I'm not afraid, my daughter is proud  and brave. Still I feel that
her love for Pandion may bring  her sorrow. It's a bad thing for a man to be
afflicted,  like Pandion,  with the passion of the seeker-not even love will
heal his eternal yearning. . . ."
     "As it healed me." The sculptor smiled fondly at his wife. "I suppose I
was like Pandion, once. . . ."
     "Oh, no, you were always  stronger  and more  balanced," said his wife,
stroking Agenor's greying head.
     The artist gazed into the distance beyond the pines amidst which Thessa
had disappeared.
     The girl hurried on to the  sea, frequently glancing back, although she
knew that so early on the morning of a holiday nobody would go to the sacred
grove.
     Waves of heat were already surging from the white stones of the  barren
hills. At first the path led  across flat land covered with thorn bushes and
Thessa  walked  warily so as not to tear  the  skirts of her best chiton  of
fine, almost  transparent material brought  from  overseas. Farther  on, the
ground  rose  in  a low,  rounded hill  covered with brilliant red  flowers,
blazing in the bright sunlight like a mass of dark flames.  Here  there were
no thorns and the girl took up the  folds  of her chiton, lifted it high and
ran on.
     Thessa passed quickly by  the isolated trees and soon found  herself in
the grove.  The straight trunks of  the pines shone  like purple wax,  their
wide  crowns  rustled noisily  in the wind  and  their  spreading  branches,
bristling with needles as  long as  a man's hand, were turned to golden dust
in the sun's rays.
     An odour of hot resin and pine needles  mingled with  the breath of the
sea filled the whole grove.
     The  girl slackened  her pace, unconsciously submitting  to the  solemn
calm of the grove.
     To her  right  a grey  rock sprinkled with fallen pine needles  rose up
amongst the trees.
     A  shaft of  sunlight slanted  down  into  a  small  glade  turning the
surrounding trees  into columns  of red gold. Here  the rumbling roar of the
sea could be more  clearly heard; although it could not be seen the sea made
its presence felt by the low, measured chords of its music.
     Pandion ran out from behind the rock to meet  Thessa, caught her by her
outstretched arms and pulled her towards him, then, pushing her a little way
back, gazed intently at her as though he were  trying to absorb her image to
the full.
     Locks of her  shining black  hair quivered on her smooth  forehead, her
thin eyebrows, slightly arched, rose towards  her  temples; the shape of her
brows gave her big dark blue eyes an elusive expression of mocking pride.
     With a gentle movement Thessa escaped the youth.
     "Make  haste,  people  will be  coming here soon!''  she said,  looking
fondly at Pandion.
     "I'm ready,"  he  said, going  towards the  rock  in which was a narrow
vertical crevice.
     On a  block  of limestone stood an  unfinished statue  of  kneaded clay
about three  feet high. Beside  it the  sculptor's  wooden  tools were  laid
out-curved saws, knives and trowels.
     The  girl threw  off  her himation  and slowly  raised her hands to the
brooch which fastened the folds of the flimsy chiton on her shoulder.
     Pandion  watched  her, smiling  and selecting  his  tools, but  when he
turned  towards the  statue the triumphant  smile gradually  vanished.  That
crude figure was still far from  possessing Thessa's ravishing beauty. Still
the clay had already  assumed the proportions of her body. Today must decide
everything. At long  last he would give the piece  of dead clay the charm of
living lines.
     With  a  frown  of  determination  Pandion  turned towards Thessa.  She
glanced  sideways at him and nodded  her  head. With downcast eyes the  girl
leaned against  the  trunk of  a  pine-tree  with  one arm behind her  head.
Immersed in  his work Pandion did not  speak. The  youth's penetrating  gaze
shifted  from the body of his  model to  the clay and  back again, changing,
measuring, comparing. This struggle between  the  dead clay, indifferent  to
the  form it was given,  and the creative hands of the  artist who strove to
give it the beauty of the living girl, had been going on for many days.
     Time passed  and the  youth's attentive  ear had  on  several occasions
caught the suppressed sighs of the tired girl.
     Pandion stopped work, stepped back from the statue  and Thessa gave  an
involuntary  shudder as she heard the bitter  groan of  disappointment  that
escaped him. The  clay figure  had grown much worse. There had  been life in
it,  hinted at by scarcely perceptible lines,  but  now that these  had been
made prominent the statue was dead.  It had become nothing more than a crude
semblance  of  Thessa's swarthy  body standing  before the trunk  of a  huge
pine-tree the colour of old gold.
     Biting  his lips the  youth compared the  statue with Thessa, making  a
desperate effort to find out what was wrong. Actually there was nothing that
could be called wrong,  it was  simply his failure to  breathe life into his
work, to  catch the changing forms of the living body. He  had thought  that
the  strength of  his  love, his  frank admiration of Thessa's beauty  would
enable him  to rise to great heights, to a tremendous feat  of creation that
would give the world a statue such as it had never before seen. . . . He had
thought  so yesterday, half an  hour ago, even!... But  he could not, he had
not the ability, it  was beyond  his powers. . . . Not even for Thessa, whom
he loved  so well! What should he do?  The  whole  world  had grown  dark to
Pandion,  the  tools  fell from his hands, the blood rushed to his  head. In
despair at the realization  of his impotence, the  youth rushed to  the girl
and fell on his knees before her.
     The girl, embarrassed and perplexed, placed her hands on Pandion's hot,
upturned face.
     With the intuition of a woman  she suddenly realized the  struggle that
was going on in the soul of the artist. With maternal love she bent over the
youth,  whispered consoling words to him, pressed his head to  her bosom and
ran her fingers through his short curls.
     The youth's burst of despair was slowly ebbing away.
     Voices  came from the  distance.  Pandion looked round; his passion had
gone and with it went  his  proud  hopes. He felt  that his  youthful dreams
would never come true. The sculptor  went up to his statue and  stood before
it wrapped in thought. Thessa laid her tiny hand on the crook of his arm.
     "Don't you dare, you foolish boy," whispered the girl.
     "I  can't,  I dare not,  Thessa," agreed Pandion, never once taking his
eyes off the statue. "If that. . ." the youth stammered,  "if  that had  not
been modelled from you, if it were not you, I would destroy  it on the spot.
The thing is  so  crude-and ugly that it has no right to exist  and  somehow
resemble you." With those words the youth pushed the block of stone together
with the statue  back  into  the crevice in  the rock  and closed the narrow
entrance with stones and a few handfuls of dry pine needles.
     Pandion and Thessa set off in the direction of the sea. For a long time
they walked on in  silence.  Then  Pandion spoke, he wanted  his beloved  to
share his  grief and disappointment. The girl tried to  persuade Pandion not
to  give  up  trying, she  told him how confident she was of  him and of his
ability to carry  out his plans. Pandion,  however, was implacable. For  the
first  time  that day he had realized how far he was  from real  virtuosity,
that the road to real art lay through many years of dogged toil.
     "No, Thessa, only now have I at last understood that I can't embody you
in a statue!''' he exclaimed passionately.  "I'm too poor here and here," he
touched his heart and his eyes, "to be able to depict your beauty."
     "Is  it not  all yours, Pandion?" The  girl threw her  arms impetuously
round the artist's neck.
     "Yes, Thessa, but how I sometimes  suffer on account  of it! I'll never
cease to adore  you,  Thessa, and at  the same time I can't make a statue of
you. I must  embody you in  clay,  in  stone. I  must understand why it's so
difficult to depict life; if I cannot  understand this myself how can I ever
hope to make my creations live?"
     Thessa was all attention as she listened to the youth, feeling that now
Pandion was  opening up his  heart to her in full although  the  realization
that she was unable to help him made her sad. The artist's grief  was  hers,
too, and there arose in her heart a still unformed alarm.
     Pandion  suddenly  smiled  and  before  Thessa could  realize what  was
happening  his strong arms lifted her off her feet. Pandion ran  lightly  to
the beach, sat the  girl down  on  the  sand and disappeared behind  a round
hill.
     A  second later the girl saw Pandion's head rise above the crest  of an
incoming  wave.  Soon  the youth returned to  her.  Muscles  that played and
flexed shook  the drops of water from his skin and not a trace of his recent
sorrow  was left.  It seemed to Thessa that nothing serious  had happened in
the grove. She laughed softly as she recalled her pitiful clay image and the
woeful countenance of its creator.
     Pandion also made  fun of himself and boasted boyishly of his  strength
and prowess before the girl. Then slowly and with frequent halts on the way,
they returned to the house. But  deep  down at the bottom of  Thessa's heart
the faint alarm still made itself felt.
     Agenor placed his hand on Pandion's knee.
     "Our people are still young and poor, my son. Hundreds of years must we
live in plenty before a few hundred people will be able to devote themselves
to  the lofty calling of the artist, before hundreds of  people will be able
to devote themselves to the study of the beauty of man and of the world. The
time is not  long past when we depicted our gods by hewing them from a stone
or a tree trunk. But  I can tell you, who are striving to penetrate the laws
of beauty, that our people will  go further and will transcend all others in
depicting the beautiful. Today, however, the artists of the older and richer
lands are more skilled than ours. . . ."
     The old artist  got up and brought from the corner of the room a box of
yellow  wood from which he took something  wrapped  in red cloth. He removed
the wrapper and with great  care placed before Pandion a statuette of ivory,
about a cubit ( Cubit-the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the
middle finger-18  inches.) in height.  Time had given the ivory a pink tinge
and its polished surface was covered with a network of tiny black cracks.
     The carving depicted a woman holding snakes in her outstretched  hands,
with the reptiles coiled round her arms as far as the elbow  joints. A tight
belt  with raised edges encircled her slender waist, supporting a long skirt
that reached to  her heels and was ornamented by five transverse stripes  of
gold. The back, shoulders, sides and upper parts of the arms were covered by
a light veil leaving the breast undraped.
     The  heavy tresses  of waving  hair were not caught up in a knot on the
nape  of the neck as was  the  custom  with the  women of Hellas,  but  were
gathered on the crown. From this knot heavy  locks fell on the neck and back
of the woman.
     Pandion  had  never  seen  anything like it.  He  could feel  that  the
statuette was  the work of a great master. His attention was focussed on the
strangely listless  face;  it was  flat and broad, the cheek-bones very well
defined with the lower jaw slightly protruding.
     The  straight, thick brows augmented  the impression of listlessness on
the woman's  face, but  the  bosom  was heaving  as though  with  a sigh  of
impatience.
     Pandion  was  dumbfounded.  If  only he had the  skill of  the  unknown
artist! If only his chisel  could depict  with such precision and beauty the
form that lived under the rosy-yellow surface of that old ivory!
     Agenor was pleased with the impression he had produced; he watched  the
youth closely, stroking his cheek with the tips of his fingers.
     At last Pandion broke off his silent meditation and placed  the carving
at some distance from  him.  He did not take his eyes off the dully gleaming
work of the old master.
     "Is that  from the ancient eastern cities?" the youth asked his teacher
in a low, sad voice.
     (  The eastern cities: Pandion  is referring  to the  cities of Eastern
Greece (Hellas)  where the Mycenaean civilization flourished from  1600-1200
B.C. This  civilization was the direct descendant  of  the Aegean or  Cretan
civilization, a pre-Hellenic  culture  that  is still little known. Mycenae,
Tirinthus and Orchomenus were the cultural centres of the Mycenaean period.)
     "Oh, no,"  answered Agenor. "That statuette is  older than  the ancient
towns  of Mycenae, Tirinthus and Orchomenus with  all their gold.  I took it
from Chrisaor to  show you. When  his father  was a young  man he sailed  to
Crete with a raiding party and found this statuette amidst the remains of an
ancient palace some twenty stadia from the ruins of Cnossus, the City of the
Sea Kings that was destroyed by terrible earthquakes."
     "Father," said the youth with suppressed excitement, touching the beard
of his master as a sign of request, "you know so much. Could you not, if you
wanted to,  copy the art  of the old masters, teach us and take  us to those
places  where these wonderful creations are  still stored?  Is1 it  possible
that you have  never  seen  these  palaces that the legends tell of?  When I
listened to my grandfather's songs I often thought of them!"
     Agenor lowered his eyes and a dark shadow marred his calm and  pleasant
face.
     "I can't  explain it to you," he began  after  a moment's thought, "but
soon you'll feel it  yourself: that which is dead and gone cannot be brought
back. It doesn't belong  to our world, to our souls ... it is  beautiful but
hopeless ... it charms but it -doesn't live."
     "I understand, father!"  the youth exclaimed passionately.  "We  should
only be slaves to  dead wisdom, even though we imitate it to perfection.  We
have to become the equals of the  old  masters or even better than they, and
then.  .  . . Oh,  then.  . . ."  Pandion stopped,  unable to  find words to
express his thoughts.
     Agenor's eyes  gleamed as he looked at his apprentice and his hard, old
hand pressed the lad's elbow in approbation.
     "You said  that well,  Pandion,  I could not express it so well myself.
The art  of  the  ancients must be a  measure and  an  example  for  us  but
certainly nothing more. We must go our own way. To make that way  shorter we
must learn from  the ancients and from life ... you are clever, Pandion. . .
."
     Pandion suddenly dropped to the earthen floor and embraced the knees of
the artist.
     "My father and teacher, let me  go to  see the ancient cities. .  . . I
must, by all the gods, I must see it all  for myself. I feel that I have the
power to achieve great things. . . . I must learn to know the countries that
gave birth to those rare things which are met with  amongst  our people  and
which astonish them  so  greatly. Perhaps  I. . .  ." The  youth stopped, he
blushed to  his  very ears but still his  bold, direct glance sought that of
Agenor.
     With knitted brows the latter stared away from him in concentration but
did not speak.
     "Get up, Pandion," said the old man at last. "I've  been expecting this
for a long time. You  are no longer a boy and I can't detain you even though
I should like to. You're free to go wherever you will, but  I tell you, as a
son and as an apprentice, more than that, I tell you as my friend and equal,
that your wish is fatal. It promises you nothing but dire catastrophe."
     "Father,  I  fear nothing!"  Pandion threw  back his head, his nostrils
dilated.
     "Then I was mistaken-you are  still  a boy,"  objected  Agenor  in calm
tones. "Listen to me with an open heart if you really love me."
     Agenor began to  tell Pandion his story in a loud, tense voice: "In the
eastern cities the old customs are still observed and there are many ancient
works of  art there.  Women dress today as they did a  thousand years ago in
Crete-in long  stiff skirts extremely richly ornamented, with bared  breasts
and the  shoulders and  back covered. The men wear short, sleeveless tunics,
have long hair and are armed with short bronze swords.
     "The city of Tirinthus is surrounded by a gigantic wall fifty cubits in
height. The wall  is  built of huge blocks of  dressed stone decorated  with
bronze  and gold ornaments that reflect the sunlight so that from a distance
they look like fires dotting the wall.
     "Mycenae is still more magnificent. The city is built on the  summit of
a high hill,  gateways made of huge  blocks of stone  are closed with bronze
grilles. The city's buildings can  be  seen  from  a great distance  on  the
surrounding plain.
     "Although the colours of the frescoes are still bright and fresh in the
palaces of  Mycenae, Tirinthus and  Orchomenus, although the chariots of the
rich landowners still race  along smooth roads paved with  huge white stones
as they did in former times, the grass of oblivion is gaining headway on the
roads,  in the courtyards of the empty houses and  even  on the sides of the
mighty walls."
     Gone were the days  of great wealth, Agenor told his pupil, the days of
long journeys to fabulous Aigyptos. ( Aigyptos-the Greek name from which the
modern  word Egypt  is derived. It  is  a Greek distortion  of  the Egyptian
Het-Ka-Ptah, the Palace of the Spirit of Ptah, another name for Memphis, the
City of the White Walls.) The environs of these cities were now inhabited by
strong  phratries  with  large   numbers  of   warriors.  Their  chiefs  had
subordinated  very large territories, had  made  the  cities  part of  their
domains, had subjugated the weaker  clans and declared themselves the rulers
of the lands and the peoples.
     In  Oeniadae, where they  lived, there were no  mighty  chiefs, just as
there were no cities and beautiful temples. But then, in the east there were
more  slaves, more  men and  women who had lost their liberty. Amongst them,
apart  from the  captives  seized  in  foreign lands, were members of poorer
clans,  the fellow-countrymen of their masters. What then  would be the fate
of a  stranger in these lands?  If he  was not backed by a powerful  phratry
with whom it was dangerous  for even a strong chief to quarrel or if he were
not accompanied by  a strong armed  escort  of his own,  there were only two
ways open to him -slavery or death.
     "Remember, Pandion," the artist  took the youth by both hands, "we live
in a troubled and dangerous time-clans and phratries are at enmity with each
other, there  are no common  laws and  the threat of slavery  hangs over the
head of  all  travellers. This  beautiful  country is no place to travel in.
Remember that  if you leave us you will be without hearth or rights, anybody
can humiliate or kill you without fear of invoking a  blood  feud or  paying
blood  money. You're alone and poor, I can't help you  in any way, you can't
gather even a  small band  of fighting  men!  Alone you must  surely  perish
unless the gods make you invisible! You see, Pandion,  although it seems the
simplest thing in the world  to you to sail a thousand stadia across the bay
from our Cape Achelous to Corinth whence it is but a half  day's  journey to
Mycenae,  a  day's to  Tirinthus and three days to Orchomenus, in reality it
would be the same to you as a journey beyond the bounds of Oicumene!" Agenor
got up and went to the door, drawing the boy with him. "You're like a son to
me and  my  wife, but  I'm not  thinking  of  us.  . . . Try  to imagine the
sufferings  of my Thessa if  you were to languish in slavery in some foreign
land! ..."
     Pandion flushed a deep red but did not answer.
     Agenor felt  that he had not convinced Pandion and  that the  youth was
floundering in a sea of indecision between two strong affections,  one  that
chained him to the house and the other that beckoned him from afar,  despite
the certainty of danger.
     Thessa did not know what  to do for the best-first she would oppose the
journey and then, with noble pride, would tell Pandion to go.


     Several months passed, and when  the winds of spring blowing across the
Gulf of Corinth, brought with them  the faint aroma of  the flowering  hills
and mountains of Peloponnesus, Pandion at last chose his life's road.
     He was  determined  to  enter into  single  combat with  a  strange and
distant world.  The  half year that  he intended to  spend  in foreign parts
seemed like an eternity to him. At times Pandion was dismayed by the thought
that he was leaving his native shores for ever. . . . Agenor and other  wise
men  of  their clan  advised  Pandion  to  go to  Crete,  the  home  of  the
descendants of the Sea People, the home of an ancient civilization. Although
the huge island was much farther than  the ancient  cities  of  Boeotia  and
Argolis, the journey would be safer for a single traveller.
     The island  lay at  the  junction of several  sea  routes and  was  now
inhabited   by  different   tribes.  Foreigners-   merchants,  sailors   and
porters-were constantly to be met on its shores. The multilingual population
of Crete engaged in commerce  and were more peaceful than the inhabitants of
Hellas  and, in  general, were  kinder to strangers.  In the interior of the
island,  behind  the  mountain  barriers,  however,  there  still  lived the
descendants of ancient tribes who were hostile to all strangers.
     Pandion was to cross the Gulf of Calydon to a sharp promontory opposite
Lower Achaia where he would hire himself  out as a rower on one of the boats
carrying wool to Crete after the  period of  winter storms during which  the
frail boats of the Greeks avoided long journeys.
     On the  night of the full moon  the youth of the district  gathered for
dances on the big glade of the sacred grove.
     In the  little  courtyard of  Agenor's  house  Pandion  sat  in deepest
thought, oppressed by his sorrow. The inevitable must come on the morrow, he
must thrust  out of his heart everything  that was  near and dear to him and
face  an  unknown destiny. He must part  with his beloved  and  an uncertain
future and loneliness awaited him.
     Thessa's clothing rustled inside the silent house, then she appeared in
the dark opening of the doorway, adjusting the folds of a mantle thrown over
her shoulders. The girl called softly to  Pandion' who immediately jumped up
and went to meet her. Thessa's hair was folded into a heavy knot on the nape
of her neck  and three ribbons crossed the top of her  head, coming together
under the knot.
     "You've done your hair like an Attic  girl  today,"  exclaimed Pandion.
"It's very pretty."
     Thessa smiled and asked him somewhat sadly:
     "Aren't you going to dance for the last time, Pandion?"
     "Do you want to go?"
     "Yes,"  answered Thessa firmly, "I'm going  to dance  for Aphrodite and
also the crane dance."
     "You're  going to dance the Attic crane dance,  so that's why your hair
is done that way! I don't think we've ever danced the crane dance before."
     "Today everything is for you, Pandion!"
     "Why is it for me?" asked the astonished youth.
     "Surely you haven't forgotten that in Attica they dance the crane dance
in memory," Thessa's voice quivered, "of the successful return of  Theseus (
Theseus-the  hero of  Greek mythology  who  went to Crete  and defeated  the
monster, Minotaur, in its underground labyrinth; the most handsome girls and
youths of  Attica had been sacrificed annually to the monster,  and  Theseus
freed his country  of this bloody tribute to the ruler of Crete. )from Crete
and in honour of  his victory. . . . Come on, dearest." Thessa stretched out
both  hands to  Pandion  and, pressing  close to each  other,  the two young
people disappeared under the trees of the sacred grove beyond the  houses. .
. .


     The  sea  met  them noisily,  beckoning  and opening  up its  boundless
waters.  In the rays of the early morning sun the distant surface of the sea
bulged in the convex lines of a gigantic bridge.
     The slow,  rolling  waves,  tinged  pink in the  dawning  sun,  carried
tatters  of golden foam from  some distant shore,  perhaps even from  fabled
Aigyptos  itself.  And  the  sun's  rays  danced, broke  and  rocked on  the
tireless,  ever-moving  waters, giving a  faint,  flickering radiance to the
air.
     The  path, from which the group of  houses and Agenor's  family, waving
their last greetings, could still be seen, disappeared behind a hill.
     The coastal plain was deserted and Pandion was alone with Thessa before
the  sea and the sky.  In front of them, a  tiny boat  loomed black  on  the
beach-in  this  Pandion  was  to sail round the  spit  at the  mouth of  the
Achelous and cross the Gulf of Calydon.
     The youth  and  the  girl walked on  in silence.  Their slow steps were
uncertain: Thessa looked straight at Pandion who could not take his eyes off
her face.
     Soon,  far too soon, they came to the boat.  Pandion  straightened  his
back  and with a deep sigh expanded his  cramped chest. The  moment that had
lain heavily  on him for days and nights had come at last. There was so much
he wanted to say to Thessa in that last moment but the words would not come.
     Pandion stood still in 'embarrassment, his head  filled with incomplete
thoughts, inconsequent and incoherent.
     With a sudden, impetuous movement, Thessa threw her arms round his neck
and whispered to him hurriedly and  brokenly, as though she were afraid they
might be overheard:
     "Swear to me, Pandion, swear by  Hyperion, swear by  the awful  Hecate,
goddess of the moon and sorcery. . . . No, swear by your love and mine  that
you will not go farther than Crete, that you will not go to distant Aigyptos
. . . where you'll be made a  slave and be lost to me for  ever. . . . Swear
that you  will return  soon. .  . ."  Thessa's  whispering  broke  off  in a
suppressed sob.
     Pandion pressed the girl tightly to him and pronounced the oath; before
his  eyes  there passed expanses of sea, rocks, groves, houses and the ruins
of unknown cities, everything that was to keep him away from  Thessa for six
long months, months in which he would know nothing of  his beloved or she of
him.
     Pandion closed his eyes and he could feel Thessa's heart beating.
     The minutes passed, and  the  inevitable  parting drew ever nearer  and
further anticipation had become unbearable.
     "On your way, Pandion, hurry ... good-bye..." whispered the girl.
     Pandion shuddered, released the girl and ran to the boat.
     The boat lay deep in the sand but his strong arms moved it and the keel
grated over the sand. Pandion went knee-deep into the water and  then turned
to look round. The boat, rocked by a wave, struck him on the leg.
     Thessa, motionless as  a statue, stood with her eyes fixed on the  spot
behind which Pandion's boat would soon disappear.
     Something snapped in  the  youth's  breast.  He pushed the boat off the
sand-bank,  jumped into it and  seized  the  oars.  Thessa  turned  her head
sharply and the  westerly breeze caught her hair that she had loosened as  a
sign of mourning.
     Under  mighty  strokes of the oars the boat drew rapidly away from  the
shore but Pandion never once  took his eyes off the girl, standing with  her
face lifted high above her bare shoulder.
     The wind blew Thessa's shining black tresses over her face but the girl
made no  move to  brush them back.  Through the hair Pandion  could see  her
shining eyes, her dilated nostrils and the bright red lips of  her half-open
mouth.  Her hair, fluttering in the wind, fell in  heavy masses on her neck,
its curling ends lying in countless ringlets on her cheeks, temples and high
bosom. The  girl stood motionless until the boat was far from  the shore and
had turned its bows to the south-east.
     It  seemed to Thessa that the boat was  not turning round the spit  but
that the spit, dark and forbidding  in the shadow of the sun's low rays, was
moving  out into the sea, gradually drawing nearer to  the  boat. Now it had
reached a tiny black spot in the glistening sea - now the spot was concealed
behind it.
     Thessa, conscious of nothing more, sank on to the damp sand.


     Pandion's  boat was lost amidst the  countless waves. Cape Achelous had
long  since  been lost  to view but Pandion  continued to  row  with all his
strength as though he were afraid that sorrow would force him to return.  He
thought of nothing at all, he only tried to tire himself out by hard work.
     The sun was soon astern of the boat and  the  slow-moving waves took on
the colour of dark honey. Pandion  dropped his oars on to the  bottom of the
boat  and, balancing  on one leg so as not to overturn the boat, sprang into
the  sea. The water refreshed him and he swam for  a while  pushing the boat
before him; then he climbed back and stood up at full height.
     Ahead of him lay a sharp-pointed cape while away to  the  left he could
see the longish island that closed the harbour of Calydon-the object of  his
journey-from  the  south. Pandion  again set to  work with his oars and  the
island  began to grow in size as it rose from the sea.  Soon the line of its
summit broke up into separate pointed tree-tops which in turn became rows of
stately  cypress-trees looking like gigantic, dark  spearheads.  The curved,
rocky- end of a promontory protected  the cypresses from the wind and on its
southern side they  grew in  profusion, striving ever upwards into the clear
blue  sky.  The youth steered his  boat carefully between rocks fringed with
rust-coloured seaweed.  Through  the greenish gold  of  the water  the clean
sandy  seabed could be clearly seen. Pandion  went ashore,  found a glade of
soft young grass in the vicinity of an old, moss-grown altar and there drank
up the last of the fresh water he had brought with him. He did not feel like
eating. It was no  more  than twenty  stadia to the harbour which lay on the
far side of the island.
     Pandion decided that he would approach the  ship's master fresh and  in
full strength and so lay down to rest awhile.
     A picture  of yesterday's  festival  dances  arose  with  extraordinary
clarity before Pandion's closed eyes. . . .
     Pandion and the other youths  from the district were lying on the grass
waiting until the girls had finished their dance in honour of Aphrodite. The
girls, dressed in light garments caught in at the waist with ribbons of many
colours, were dancing in pairs,  back to back. Linking their  hands each  of
them looked back over her shoulder as though she were admiring the beauty of
her partner.
     The  wide folds of the white tunics rose and fell like  waves of silver
in  the  moonlight, the golden, sun-tanned  bodies of the  dancers bent like
slender reeds to the  strains of  the  flutes-at  the  same  time  soft  and
attenuated, doleful and joyful. ;
     Then the youths mingled with the girls in the crane dance, rising on to
the tips of  their toes and extending their  arms like wings. Pandion danced
beside Thessa whose troubled eyes never left his face.
     The youth of the district  were  more attentive to Pandion  than usual.
There was only one young man, Eurymachus, who was in love with Thessa, whose
face  showed that  he was  glad  of his rival's departure; and there was the
tantalizing Aenoia who could  not help teasing him. Pandion noticed that the
others did not joke with him in their usual  way, there were fewer sarcastic
remarks at his expense-it seemed as though a line had been drawn between the
one who was leaving and those who were to remain.
     The moon sank slowly behind the trees. A heavy curtain of darkness fell
over the glade.
     The  dances were over. Thessa  and  her friends sang  the Hirasiona-the
song of  the swallow  and spring-a  song that Pandion loved to hear. At last
the young people made their way in pairs to their houses. Pandion and Thessa
were the  last, deliberately slowing down  to  be alone. No sooner  had they
reached the ridge of the hill overlooking the village than Thessa shuddered,
stopped and pressed close to Pandion.
     The sheer wall  of white limestone behind  the vine-yards reflected the
moon like a mirror. A transparent curtain of silver light veiled the houses,
the littoral  and the dark sea, a light that was permeated with deadly charm
and silent sorrow.
     "I'm terribly afraid, Pandion," whispered Thessa. "Oh, how great is the
power of  Hecate, goddess of the moonlight, and you are going to the country
where she rules. . . ."
     Pandion, too, caught Thessa's excitement.
     "No,  no, Thessa, Hecate rules in Caria, but I  am not going  there, my
way lies towards Crete," exclaimed the youth, urging the girl towards  their
house. . . .
     Pandion  awoke  from his dream. It was  time to eat  and  continue  his
journey. He made sacrifice to  the God of the Sea, walked down to the beach,
measured  his shadow to judge the time, found that it measured nineteen feet
and realized that he would have to hurry to reach the ship before evening.
     Rounding the island Pandion saw a  white  post standing in the :sea-the
sign of a harbour-and redoubled his efforts at the oars.




        II. THE LAND OF FOAM

     I he wind raised clouds of coarse  sand as it howled mournfully through
the dry bushes. Like a road built by some giants unknown, the ridge ran away
eastwards, curving  round a  broad, green  valley. On  the seaward side  the
mountains descended to the water's edge in a  gentle,  flower-covered slope,
which from a distance gave it  the appearance of a huge piece of gold rising
out of the shimmering blue of the sea.
     Pandion increased his pace.  Today he was more  homesick  than ever for
Oeniadae. He remembered that he had been advised not to penetrate  into that
distant, mountain-encircled  part of Crete where the descendants of  the Sea
People were unkind to strangers.
     Pandion had need to  hurry. He had already spent five months in various
parts of the island that stretched in a chain of mountains rising out of the
sea. The young sculptor had seen many strange and marvellous things that the
ancients had left in the empty temples and almost unpopulated cities.
     He  had  spent many days in  the  gigantic Palace of Cnossus, the older
parts of which went back to times  beyond the memory of man.  As he wandered
up  and down the countless staircases of the palace the youth  saw, for  the
first  time in his life, columns of  red stone  narrowing at the base and he
marvelled at the  cornices brightly painted with black  and white rectangles
or decorated with black and light blue  whorls resembling a series of moving
waves.
     Brightly-coloured  pictures  covered  the   walls.   Pandion  gazed  in
breathless amazement at the pictures of the sacred games with the bulls, the
processions of women bearing vessels in their arms, girls dancing within  an
enclosure  outside  which  stood a crowd of  men, unknown,  sinuous" animals
amongst the mountains and strange  plants. Pandion thought  the outlines  of
the figures unnatural and the plants  rose up on exceedingly long and almost
leafless stems.  At  the  same time he realized that the artists  of ancient
days had  deliberately distorted natural proportions in an effort to express
some idea, but the idea was incomprehensible  to the  youth who had grown up
at liberty in the lap of nature, beautiful even when stern.
     In Cnossus,  Tylissos and  Aelira, and in the  mysterious  ruins of the
ancient harbour of the  "slate city" whose name had long been forgotten, all
the houses were built of slabs of smooth,  grey, stratified stone instead of
the usual  blocks. Pandion  saw many female statuettes of  ivory, bronze and
faience,  marvellous vessels and dishes and cups made of  an amalgam of gold
and silver and covered with the most delicate drawings.
     These works  of art astounded the young Hellene but they were as little
understood by him as the mysterious inscriptions in the forgotten symbols of
a dead language that he met amongst the ruins. The magnificent craftsmanship
to  be seen in  the tiniest  detail of any of these things  did  not satisfy
Pandion;  he wanted something  more-he did not  want  to  limit  himself  to
abstract depiction; he strove for an incarnation of the living beauty of the
human body he worshipped.
     Quite  unexpectedly Pandion discovered realistic  images of  people and
animals in the works of art brought from distant Aigyptos.
     The  people of Cnossus, Tylissos  and Aelira, who showed  Pandion these
things,  told him  that  many more of  them were still  to  be  found in the
vicinity  of Phaestos, where the descendants of the Sea People still  lived.
Despite  warnings  of the danger involved, Pandion decided  to penetrate the
ring of mountains on the southern coast of Crete.
     In  a few more  days he would have seen everything there was to see and
would sail back home to Thessa. Pandion was now certain of his  own ability.
Much as he would have liked to learn from the craftsmen of Aigyptos his love
for his own country  and for Thessa  was stronger, and the oath he had sworn
to the girl held him tightly bound.
     How wonderful it would be to sail home with the last ship in autumn, to
look into  the bright, blue eyes of his beloved, to  see the reticent joy of
Agenor, the teacher who had replaced his father and grandfather.
     Pandion screwed up his eyes  and gazed out at the boundless expanse  of
the sea. No, it was not for him; there,  ahead of  him,  lay distant strange
lands, Aigyptos, but his own native land was behind him, beyond the mountain
ridge. And he was still moving onwards, away from his own country. He had to
see  the ancient  temples of Phaestos of which he  had  heard so much in the
coastal  towns.  With  a  sigh  he  increased  his pace  until he was almost
running.  A  spur led down from the mountain  in broad terraces covered with
boulders  like  tufts of  grass,  with dark patches  of  bush between  them.
Amongst  the trees at  the foot  of the slope  he  could see the  indistinct
outlines of the ruins of a  huge building, walls half collapsed, the remains
of  arches and gates still standing in  their framework  of black and  white
columns.  Silence reigned  in the ruins and the curves  of  the broken walls
stretched out towards Pandion  like giant hands ready to seize their victim.
The surfaces of the walls were furrowed with fresh  cracks, the aftermath of
a recent earthquake.
     The  young  sculptor  trod quietly  amongst  the  ruins,  trying not to
disturb the  silence there, peering into  dark corners beneath columns  that
still stood in  their places. Pandion  turned  a projecting corner and found
himself in a rectangular, roofless hall the walls of which were covered with
the  well-known  brightly-coloured frescoes. As ha looked at  the  black and
brown figures that followed each  other  in quick succession, figures of men
carrying shields, swords and bows amongst strange animals and ships, Pandion
remembered the tales of  his grandfather and realized that before him was  a
picture of  a  band  of soldiers on  a  raid  into the land  of the  blacks,
situated, according to ancient legend, on the very borders of Oicumene.
     Pandion was astounded at this evidence of the  tremendous journeys made
by the ancients and gazed long at the frescoes until, turning away from them
at last, he  saw a marble cube standing in the  middle of the hall. The cube
was ornamented  with blue rosettes  and whorls of glass and  at its base lay
heaps of freshly picked flowers.
     Somebody  had  been  there! There must be people  living amongst  those
ruins!  With bate