My intended journey was to the site of the Paphian temple. I take no antiquarian interest in ruins, and care little about them, unless they are either striking in themselves, or else serve to mark some spot on which my fancy loves to dwell. I knew that the ruins of Paphos were scarcely, if at all, discernible, but there was a will, and a longing, more imperious than mere curiosity, that drove me thither.
For this, just then, was my Pagan soul's desire—that (not forfeiting my Christian's inheritance for the life to come), it were yet given me to live through this world—to live a favored mortal under the old Olympian dispensation—to speak out my resolves to the listening Jove and hear him answer with approving thunder—to be blessed with divine counsels from the lips of Pallas Athēnie—to believe—aye, only to believe—to believe for one rapturous moment that in the gloomy depths of the grove, by the mountain's side, there were some leafy pathway that crisped beneath the glowing sandal of Aphrodētie—Aphrodētie, not coldly disdainful of even a mortal's love! And this vain, heathenish longing of mine was father to the thought of visiting the scene of the ancient worship.
The isle is beautiful; from the edge of the rich, flowery fields on which I trod, to the midway sides of the snowy Olympus, the ground could only here and there show an abrupt crag, or a high, straggling ridge, that up-shouldered itself from out of the wilderness of myrtles, and of the thousand bright-leaved shrubs that twined their arms together in lovesome tangles. The air that came to my lips was warm, and fragrant as the ambrosial breath of the goddess, infecting me—not (of course) with a faith of the old religion of the isle, but with a sense, and apprehension of its mystic power—a power that was still to be obeyed—obeyed by me, for why otherwise did I toil on with sorry horses to "where, for HER, the hundred altars glowed with Arabian incense, and breathed with the fragrance of garlands ever fresh?"[1]
- ↑ Æneid i., 415ubi templum illi, centumque Sabæo Thure ealent aræ, sertisque recentibus halant.
