CHAPTER I

ABOUTANHOUR after midnight Kebren was roused from his sleep by a voice crying in his ear: To Aulis! To Aulis! Why to Aulis? he asked, as he lay between sleeping and waking, certain that he must obey the voice, but uncertain whether he should wait till morning or begin the journey now. By walking all night I shall arrive at Aulis in the afternoon, Aulis? In Boeotia, he muttered, and lying on his side he strove to associate the name with some great event; but he groped in vain till his eyes fell on the quires of the Iliad which he had laid on a stool by his bedside. The Greek fleet sailed from the bay of Aulis for Troy! he said, and dozed a while longer, foreseeing the journey that lay before him, losing sight of the road in the hills, sleep closing it to him; and then, awakening a little, he sat up in his bed so that he might hear better. But the voice that had spoken did not speak again. All the same, I am bidden by a God — there can be no doubt of that, he cried, springing from his bed naked and shapely as the sculpture of his time, an Athenian of the time of Pericles, a young man in the early twenties, a figure that the Gods bring to birth in their own likeness, with a head and shoulders that a sculptor had said were the finest in Athens.

A fair sight he was as he sought his clothes, finding them instinctively, like a somnambulist; and after knotting his sandals several times, as if aware of the length of the journey he was about to undertake, and having strapped his knapsack on his back without asking why he should burden himself with the quires of the Iliad, he stumbled out of the house repeating the words: To Aulis! To Aulis! to himself and afterwards to the soldiers at the Acharnian Gate when challenged by them, adding his name, though they had not asked for it, saying: Kebren, an actor from the theatre, on his way to Aulis. A pleasant moonlight stroll! a soldier cried as he shook the dice-box, but the implied warning of the length of the journey passed unheeded, and almost before the rattle of the dice had passed out of his ears he was walking like an animal, without a thought in his head, his brain benumbed. On arriving at the bridge-head the murmur of the water roused him a little. A mysterious sound is that of water running, he said. All the same, I cannot spend the night listening to the warble of the Kephisos under its oleanders! And he continued his journey thinking that perhaps the Gods, having knowledge of many things and being responsible for many happenings in the battles before Troy, were anxious that their expounder should be learned in history and able to answer any questions that might be put to him. Should a caviller ask me if the bay of Aulis be large enough to contain the entire Greek fleet it might throw discredit upon me, and indeed upon the Gods themselves, if I were not ready with an answer. Or it may be that I shall return from Aulis with the quires of the Iliad on my back, to take my passage in the next ship that looses for Cnidus and pursue my calling as a rhapsodist, dying without having ever understood the design of the Gods in sending me on this long journey. The power of the Gods over men is not stinted to one generation, and it may be that this journey to Aulis lies beyond the scope and business of my life, that I am but an instrument, to be thrown aside when that which is decreed is on its way to fulfilment.... He stoppe