The Tour

By Louis Couperus.

Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

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Translator’s Note

I am greatly indebted to my friend John Sargeaunt for a number of extremely useful comments and suggestions and to my friend Stephen McKenna for his version of the “Hymn to Aphrodite” in Chapter VII and for assistance in the translation generally.

A. T. de M.

Crowborough 10 July, 1920.

The Tour

A Story of Ancient Egypt

I

The night that hung over the sea was windless and blissfully silver-pure after the glowing splendour of the day; and the great quadrireme glided evenly and softly, as though upon a lake, under a wide firmament of stars. The thin horizon was purely outlined around the oval sea; and on this wide world there was nothing but the stars and the ship.

But the ship resounded with music. There was the constantly repeated melodious phrase of the three hundred rowers, soft and monotone, in a melancholy minor, with ever the same refrain, after which the boatswain gave out the chant, after which the chorus of rowers again threw back their long, hushed phrase of melancholy, the soft, monotonous accompaniment of the wearying work, the musical encouragement to repeat the same movement of the arms and the same bending of the body over the loins.

This music rose in a mournful swell from the ship’s lower deck and harmonizing with it was the soft stroke of the oars, which were like the legs of some graceful sea-animal; the ship herself, with her swanlike raised prow, suggested an elegant monster swimming through the lake-calm waters of that silvery night-world, a monster with a swan’s neck and hundreds of slender, evenly-moving legs and winged with two rose-yellow sails, which rose and bellied gently at the ship’s own motion, but did not swell, because the wind lay still.

While the great, winged navigium glided upon that harmony of slaves’ song and oar-strokes, there came from the rear half-deck the blither song of the sailors idling after their work. It sounded cheerful with deep, bass male voices, without the rowers’ melancholy; and there was one sailor who gave the time in a higher voice, for the seamen were at liberty to sing, but their singing must be artistically led, because melodious music meant a prosperous voyage and averted evil chances and did not let the shrill voices of the sirens ring from under the waters and because the pure sound of the human voice kept away the rocks drifting under the sea and compelled the sea-serpent to dive back into the deep.

And through these two choirs, through the melancholy singing of the rowers and the jubilant seamen’s song, a delicate female voice let fall clear, love-yearning notes, always with a playful and wanton final phrase. It was—while as it were golden beads tinkled from twanged harp-strings: those very bright gold beads which tinkle from the strings of the little four-stringed Lesbian harp—a hymn to the goddess Aphrodite, whose name constantly rang back, plaintively and wantonly, in the singer’s Greek, exotically soft against the harder Latin of the men’s joy-song and the melodious melancholy phrase of the lower deck. …

Publius Lucius Sabinus lay on the prow in a pavilion of Tyrian red-silk curtains and listened. The music sounding up from his ship in the silver-pure, windless night, through the blissful, wide-pure, star-strewn air, brought him a moment’s respite from grief. He lay calmer now, sated with despair, with his soul of sorrow as it were bathed in the melodious music. He stared, as though without thinking, now almost free from grief, at the silver statue of Aphrodite, the patroness of his ship, in front of which an alabaster lamp burned, while a light spiral of nard curled around the goddess’ feet from an incense-boat.

It was not possible to feel always, always, the same vehement grief. Tomorrow, nay, in an hour, the sorrow would resume its violence; now, in this night of coolness and melody, there was just a brief rest, a moment of annihilation, almost a sense of wistful well-being. And, in this calmer mood, Lucius felt a need to speak a friendly word to his old friend and tutor, as he had not done since the voyage began.

He struck the gong beside his couch; and a little black slave appeared.

“Tarrar,” said Lucius, “find Thrasyllus for me and tell him that I await him.”

The little Libyan slave, looking like a monkey in his scanty, many-coloured coat, made a drolly serious movement of reverence, crept backwards and disappeared. It was not long before he lifted the hanging and Thrasyllus stepped into the presence of his young master, Publius Lucius Sabinus.

The pedagogue, or tutor, was an elderly freedman, tall, lean, serious, grey-haired and grey-bearded. His eyes were kindly; his mouth wore a fatherly smile.

Lucius, without rising, stretched out his hand to him:

“Thrasyllus,” he said, “forgive me if I have been unkind.”

This was all that he said. His voice sounded deep, manly and earnest. The old tutor had taken a seat on a footstool beside his master’s couch. And, holding the other’s hand for a moment in his own, he said:

“Lucius, I thank you for that word. But I have nothing to forgive, dear young master. You are the master, I am your slave, your slave still, even though you have given me my freedom. I am your servant, but one who has fatherly feelings for you. I feel a father’s love towards you; and you have never forbidden it. It is well; and I am content. I serve you and I love you. But I thank you for that generous word. That is what you are: generous, just. You are far above all pride. You know how to admit when you are wrong. And I, on my side, if you think that you need it, gladly grant you my forgiveness, though the word is unsuited to my mouth. You were bitter and you were suffering: your sorrow drove you mad. Your nature is violent in all things: in your love, in your sorrow, in your hatred, in all your passions and angers. …”

“I was not generous and not just, Thrasyllus, and I raised my hand against you. Forgive me.”

The old tutor shrugged his shoulders:

“I forgive you, I forgive you. Your blood flows hotly and the red cloud sometimes blinds you. Certainly you must control and master yourself. But I, I am your slave, though I feel for you like a father; and that you raised your hand against me: what of it? It was a movement of anger. You are as mettlesome as a young colt. And sorrow drove you mad.”

“It does so still. Sometimes, sometimes it is as though I felt a fury of frenzy here, inside me, in my breast! Then I must have her, have her back, have her here, beside me, in my arms, at my breast, at my lips! O ye gods, ye gods, ye gods!”

He drew a deep breath, moaned and sobbed.