On a verdant slope of Mount Maenalus, in Arcadia,
there stands an olive grove about the ruins of a villa. Close by is a tomb,
once beautiful with the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great
decay as the house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots displacing
the time-stained blocks of Panhellic marble, grows an unnaturally large
olive tree of oddly repellent shape; so like to some grotesque man, or
death-distorted body of a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at
night when the moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Maenalus
is a chosen haunt of dreaded Pan, whose queer companions are many, and
simple swains believe that the tree must have some hideous kinship to these
weird Panisci; but an old bee-keeper who lives in the neighboring cottage
told me a different story.
Many years ago, when the hillside villa was new and resplendent,
there dwelt within it the two sculptors Kalos and Musides. From Lydia to
Neapolis the beauty of their work was praised, and none dared say that
the one excelled the other in skill. The Hermes of Kalos stood in a marble
shrine in Corinth, and the Pallas of Musides surmounted a pillar in Athens
near the Parthenon. All men paid homage to Kalos and Musides, and marvelled
that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled the warmth of their brotherly
friendship.
But though Kalos and Musides dwelt in unbroken harmony, their natures
were not alike. Whilst Musides revelled by night amidst the urban gaieties
of Tegea, Saios would remain at home; stealing away from the sight of his
slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he would meditate
upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devise the forms of beauty
which later became immortal in breathing marble. Idle folk, indeed, said
that Kalos conversed with the spirits of the grove, and that his statues
were but images of the fauns and dryads he met there for he patterned his
work after no living model.
So famous were Kalos and Musides, that none wondered when the Tyrant
of Syracuse sent to them deputies to speak of the costly statue of Tyche
which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning workmanship
must the statue be, for it was to form a wonder of nations and a goal of
travellers. Exalted beyond thought would be he whose work should gain acceptance,
and for this honor Kalos and Musides were invited to compete. Their brotherly
love was well known, and the crafty Tyrant surmised that each, instead
of concealing his work from the other, would offer aid and advice; this
charity producing two images of unheard of beauty, the lovelier of which
would eclipse even the dreams of poets.
With joy the sculptors hailed the Tyrant's offer, so that in the
days that followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of chisels. Not
from each other did Kalos and Musides conceal their work, but the sight
was for them alone. Saving theirs, no eyes beheld the two divine figures
released by skillful blows from the rough blocks that had imprisoned them
since the world began.
At night, as of yore, Musides sought the banquet halls of Tegea whilst
Kalos wandered alone in the olive Grove. But as time passed, men observed
a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Musides. It was strange, they said
amongst themselves that depression should thus seize one with so great
a chance to win art's loftiest reward. Many months passed yet in the sour
face of Musides came nothing of the sharp expectancy which the situation
should arouse.
Then one day Musides spoke of the illness of Kalos, after which none
marvelled again at his sadness, since the sculptors' attachment was known
to be deep and sacred. Subsequently many went to visit Kalos, and indeed
noticed the pallor of his face; but there was about him a happy serenity
which made his glance more magical than the glance of Musides who was clearly
distracted with anxiety and who pushed aside all the slaves in his eagerness
to feed and wait upon his friend with his own hands. Hidden behind heavy
curtains stood the two unfinished figures of Tyche, little touched of late
by the sick man and his faithful attendant.
As Kalos grew inexplicably weaker and weaker despite the ministrations
of puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend, he desired to be carried
often to the grove which he so loved. There he would ask to be left alone,
as if wishing to speak with unseen things. Musides ever granted his requests,
though his eyes filled with visible tears at the thought that Kalos should
care more for the fauns and the dryads than for him. At last the end drew
near, and Kalos discoursed of things beyond this life. Musides, weeping,
promised him a sepulchre more lovely than the tomb of Mausolus; but Kalos
bade him speak no more of marble glories. Only one wish now haunted the
mind of the dying man; that twigs from certain olive trees in the grove
be buried by his resting place-close to his head. And one night, sitting
alone in the darkness of the olive grove, Kalos died. Beautiful beyond
words was the marble sepulchre which stricken Musides carved for his beloved
friend. None but Kalos himself could have fashioned such basreliefs, wherein
were displayed all the splendours of Elysium. Nor did Musides fail to bury
close to Kalos' head the olive twigs from the grove.
As the first violence of Musides' grief gave place to resignation,
he labored with diligence upon his figure of Tyche. All honour was now
his, since the Tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of none save him
or Kalos. His task proved a vent for his emotion and he toiled more steadily
each day, shunning the gaieties he once had relished. Meanwhile his evenings
were spent beside the tomb of his friend, where a young olive tree had
sprung up near the sleeper's head. So swift was the growth of this tree,
and so strange was its form, that all who beheld it exclaimed in surprise;
and Musides seemed at once fascinated and repelled.
Three years after the death of Kalos, Musides despatched a messenger
to the Tyrant, and it was whispered in the agora at Tegea that the mighty
statue was finished. By this time the tree by the tomb had attained amazing
proportions, exceeding all other trees of its kind, and sending out a singularly
heavy branch above the apartment in which Musides labored. As many visitors
came to view the prodigious tree, as to admire the art of the sculptor,
so that Musides was seldom alone. But he did not mind his multitude of
guests; indeed, he seemed to dread being alone now that his absorbing work
was done. The bleak mountain wind, sighing through the olive grove and
the tomb-tree, had an uncanny way of forming vaguely articulate sounds.
The sky was dark on the evening that the Tyrant's emissaries came
to Tegea. It was definitely known that they had come to bear away the great
image of Tyche and bring eternal honour to Musides, so their reception
by the proxenoi was of great warmth. As the night wore on a violent storm
of wind broke over the crest of Maenalus, and the men from far Syracuse
were glad that they rested snugly in the town. They talked of their illustrious
Tyrant, and of the splendour of his capital and exulted in the glory of
the statue which Musides had wrought for him. And then the men of Tegea
spoke of the goodness of Musides, and of his heavy grief for his friend
and how not even the coming laurels of art could console him in the absence
of Kalos, who might have worn those laurels instead. Of the tree which
grew by the tomb, near the head of Kalos, they also spoke. The wind shrieked
more horribly, and both the Syracusans and the Arcadians prayed to Aiolos.
In the sunshine of the morning the proxenoi led the Tyrant's messengers
up the slope to the abode of the sculptor, but the night wind had done
strange things. Slaves' cries ascended from a scene of desolation, and
no more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of that vast
hall wherein Musides had dreamed and toiled. Lone and shaken mourned the
humble courts and the lower walls, for upon the sumptuous greater peri-style
had fallen squarely the heavy overhanging bough of the strange new tree,
reducing the stately poem in marble with odd completeness to a mound of
unsightly ruins. Strangers and Tegeans stood aghast, looking from the wreckage
to the great, sinister tree whose aspect was so weirdly human and whose
roots reached so queerly into the sculptured sepulchre of Kalos. And their
fear and dismay increased when they searched the fallen apartment, for
of the gentle Musides, and of the marvellously fashioned image of Tyche,
no trace could be discovered. Amidst such stupendous ruin only chaos dwelt,
and the representatives of two cities left disappointed; Syracusans that
they had no statue to bear home, Tegeans that they had no artist to crown.
However, the Syracusans obtained after a while a very splendid statue in
Athens, and the Tegeans consoled themselves by erecting in the agora a
marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues, and brotherly piety of
Musides.
But the olive grove still stands, as does the tree growing out of
the tomb of Kalos, and the old bee-keeper told me that sometimes the boughs
whisper to one another in the night wind, saying over and over again. "Oida!
Oida! -I know! I know!"
