The Oracle of the Corycian Cave

“Men like Ruh,” said good King Zas of Corycus to his minister, “are the curse of the country. They inflame the minds of the people with strange fancies; they obstruct the administration; they obscure justice with their erratic ideals.”

“I would,” replied the minister, “that the King would graciously be pleased to pardon his servant for what he is about to say. The gods send me many dreams by night, O King, and these dreams are not true, as they should be. I have caused them to be recorded by a scribe, that I might know certainly concerning this. Now therefore I have thought—and may the gods pardon me!—that the incoherence of Ruh is like my dreams. May it not be, O King, that the man is not inspired by the gods, but is afflicted by them to say that which is not? The heathen barbarians about us have also their prophets, and these we know to be possessed of devils. Might it not be therefore that for some sin of this people, perhaps that very spirit of discontent which—as your Majesty deigns to conceive—Ruh encourages, our own prophet is falsely inspired?”

The king mused awhile. “I will meditate upon this matter,” he said at length, “and speak further of it in an auspicious hour. You have my leave to go.” The minister bower low, and went, not without apprehension. This proved just, for the King rightly reasoned that, thought of this order being subversive of religion, it might next be doubted whether his own ancestor had really been begotten by a thunderbolt upon the great Mother Goddess. He sent therefore an executioner to the house of the minister, with orders to bring back the head that thought so freely. Good King Zas was very sorry to have had to act thus; for the minister was shrewd and loyal. If he could only have acted thus to Ruh! But the prophet's fortune hung too closely with his own; their powers were founded on a single corner-stone, and he must find a way to defeat his enemy without upsetting popular beliefs, or seeming to act against the gods.

Now Ruh was without question an unusually holy man. He was entirely incorruptible, always refusing the gifts which the people were only too ready to pour upon him, except what was necessary to bare sustenance; and he would have nothing whatever to do with women. He dwelt beneath a shelter of branches amid a grove of myrtles, pomegranates and roses in a sea-resounding cove about four miles from the city. Here he tended the sacred saffron, and always insisted on giving to those who brought him presents three time the equivalent of their value in handfuls of fragrant purple or in the yellow dye itself. He said that he, being the prophet of the gods, should be generous as they, and give more than he received.

He had one disciple, a slim lad of fifteen years of age, who tended the goats which supplied him with milk, and the three dogs which guarded him against surprise by night. Close to his shelter, on the very edge of the sea, bubbled a spring of pure cold water, which was the reason for his choice of abode. For in Corycus and the surrounding country it was fully recognized that water was the giver of all good things; and in the springs and rivers of the earth, as well as in the rain of heaven, was all holiness. It was in fact understood that this spring was inhabited by a nymph, daughter of Zeus himself, and that this nymph was the wife of Ruh. He was therefore held excused for not following the example of other prophets and causing the barren women of the city to bear sons; he was an absolutely reliable rain maker, and had never once been known to fail. The only trouble was that he was sharp of temper; he would never make rain without consulting the oracle of the spring, and at times, even in great droughts, when his services were sorely needed, he had driven the people away, cursing them and saying that he would do nothing to help them. At other times, again, he was not to be found, and the disciple would explain that he had gone to heaven to talk with God, which confirmed the people in the high value they set upon their prophet, but only partially consoled them for his absence.

Ruh was a man of thirty years of age, tall and unusually strong, with long limbs capable of endless endurance. His favorite pastime was wrestling, which he practiced with his dogs, whom he had trained admirably. He was also a fine swimmer; during the summer months he and his disciple passed most of their time in the sea.

II.

One morning in early autumn Ruh noticed a beginning of down on his disciple's chin. “From now you are a man,” he said, “and as you have been obedient and brave for three years I shall teach you at nightfall the secret of making rain. And I shall tell you also another secret; for if I should be killed it is necessary to full my place.”

When night came, Ruh went to the spring and took from it a bowl of blue porcelain. This he wiped carefully with a linen cloth, and set it far from the fire, over which they were cooking their meal. “Set the dogs!” said he, “for this is the most secret secret of all the secrets of the world.” The boy obeyed. When he returned , Ruh took the bowl and held it over the pot in which boar's flesh was seething. In a few moments he withdrew it. “See!” he cried, “there is water upon the bowl.” The boy bowed deeply, looking with awestruck eyes upon his master. Ruh put the bowl among the ashes. In a few moments he gave the bowl, now quite warm, to the lad. “You make rain!” he cried. The boy held the bowl as the master had done before him, but it remained perfectly dry. The boy fell on his knees in an ecstasy of adoration; Ruh was so much cleverer and more powerful than he would ever be. “Listen,” said the master, “and I will tell you how to make it rain. The sun is like this fire; the cooking-pot of water is like the sea. When the sea receives the fire of the sun, she gives smoke; but you do not see it, because it is thin. Even so, if I leave water in this pot at dawn, by sunset it is gone. Where is it gone? Unto the sun. Now this is the great secret, that the blue sky that we see above the sun is the belly of a great blue cow; sometimes at night you can see the milk flowing from her.” The boy was more awe-stricken than ever. “Now,” continued his master, “the blue bowl is the blue cow; when I put it over the pot it was cold and water came on it; when you took it, it was warm, and there was no water. Now, therefore, when the water of the sea goes up to heaven it strikes the belly of the cow, and when her belly is warm there is no rain; but if it be cold, then water collects upon it, and presently there is a shower.”

“Then,” said the boy, “how can I make her belly cold?” “You cannot,” said the master. “But listen! When the wind is from the sea both by night and day, and when the clouds are dark or vaporish and not like the fleece of sheep, it may be she is cold. For the wool of the sheep is warm against her belly! But also you can smell rain in the air, and this is the surest way to know. When therefore you are certain that it will rain, say to the people, ‘I will make rain for you’; when none of these signs are to be seen or smelt, curse them for their iniquities and drive them from you. Thus shall you have power over them, provided always that you do not want the things that they are sure you must want, gold, and women, and soft living.” “That is fine,” said the boy; “and what shall I do with the power?” “This is my other secret. Zas is a great tyrant; he rules the people ill; he slays many, and he robs all. You shall use your power to break his power, and you shall make the people free and happy and prosperous, asking nothing for yourself.”

“But why should I do that?” asked the boy. The magician was dumbfounded. It was a question he had never asked himself. “Boy!” said he sternly, “as I have often told you, idleness leads to curiosity and insolence. Go and watch with the dogs; learn from them to be silent in the presence of the great, and only to bark at those who are as worthless as you are.” The boy rose trembling, and obeyed. “I don't believe in Zeus,” mused Ruh when he had gone, “I don't believe in anything much. I don't want anything in particular except to see men free and happy. Why? Why? Why? Perhaps I am like Tzad, who cares only to cut figures of men upon the rock. Who knows why he should do thus? It is a sickness perhaps. Then I am sick. Meanwhile, the boy is sad; I will call him into the bower.”

The boy appeared among the leaves in answer to the summons; and the sight struck a sudden thought into the mind of Ruh. “That can't possibly have anything to do with it! Anything more contrary to what I know of cause and effect could hardly be; and yet—well, it is a strange coincidence. Luckily there is one safe way, to try, and see what happens.”

“Boy,” he said aloud, “I have told you the secret of the rain. I have treated you as a man, not as a boy. Now the great master magician of all the magicians who lives in the mountain above Er of the Chaldees, with whom I studied, told me two things when I became a man. First was this saying, that it is more pleasant to give than to receive; and next—this precept, to do unto others as I would wish them to do to me. For men being but apes, they mimic the deeds of their betters. On these pillars is founded the temple of initiation. I shall now instruct you in the means by which I communicate in spirit with the most high gods.” Then he put the boy through a complicated magical ceremony which had the effect of sending him, ultimately, into a singularly profound sleep, lucid with celestial dreams.

In the morning the boy woke, and stood dutifully with folded hands before Ruh, awaiting his awakening. Presently the magician rose on his elbow. “Hcip!” he said, “for the first time I call you by the new name that I gave you from the god; tell me, what is your record?” “O Ruh, I am thine initiate; I am a man, not a boy; and I wish other men to be free and happy, I do not know why, but it is so.” “Very well,” answered Ruh, “Then see to it that you tell no man. For they will not understand you, much less believe you; yet if they guess your purpose, they will slay you. Wrap yourself therefore in a veil of mystery; make yourself feared; learn to know the secrets of Nature which give power; and when power is in your hands, remember this night; that your will was to make men free and happy. Else you do violence on your own true nature and suffer the punishments which the gods inflict on suicides.” The boy smiled proudly. “I shall not forget,” was his answer.

III.

From the cove where Ruh had his dwelling the road leads steeply upwards through the woods to a great tableland; about a mile from the sea the woods give place toa tumbled wilderness of jagged rocks, where the path becomes narrow and winds sinuous as a snake. Quite suddenly the traveller finds himself upon the brink of a vast chasm; but the path leads resolutely into its depths, and soon becomes a walk in Paradise.

Myrtles and carobs and pomegranates and many another miracle of flower and leaf shadow the way; rivulets trickle and swell the brooks that purl over the pebbles. From the wilderness, barren and abhorred, one has come in a few minutes to a veritable Garden of Eden. As one follows the chasm, one becomes aware that its lower end is crowned by cliffs: on their edge a small but noble town stands in the sunlight. The chief glory of the town is its temple, built on the very brink of the great precipice. But another and a smaller temple stands at the base of the cliff; through its precincts the water runs in marble channels and disappears behind it in the hollow of a great cave. The path, now of marble adorned with polygons of red and white and black, slopes gently into this cavern for about two hundred feet. Here the cave ends with wonder, for from the rock a column of living water is hurled forth and vanishes again into an invisible abyss. Beneath this arch of water is the most sacred of all the shrines of the whole country.

It was a cone of some twelve feet in height, made so as to revolve upon a pivot. The whole was set upon a cube of amethystine spar. Before it stood a small altar on which burnt incense, and above this hung the perpetual fire. The cone was hollow, and on its upper portion were four fins, a pipe being so arranged that a small adjustment diverted a minute portion of the sacred river on to them; the cone would thus revolve rapidly, throw the priestess concealed therein into an ecstacy, and cause her to utter the oracles of the god. For it was Zeus himself who sprang from the rock in the form of a river. It was a scene such as Coleridge must have had in mind when he wrote

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

This priestess was the only woman in the temple, and she was its absolute ruler. The priests, who were numerous, were vowed to silence, and their faces were perpetually covered by the hoods of their woollen mantles.

IV.

Such then is the shrine of the god to whom Corycus and its neighborhood paid full allegiance. The spot was indeed more sacred than any other, not only because of the manifestation of Zeus in the awful thunder and splendor of the river, but because it was the actual seat of the beginning of his final conflict with Typhon, the god of volcanic fire, and the original lair of Typhon himself, the monster “earth-born, dweller in Cilician caves, hundred-headed,” who rose up against the gods, his jaws frothing with destruction, and the red levin flashing from his eyes. Here in Cilicia he was begotten by Tartarus upon Earth; his upper part was human; below the waist he was an enormous snake. In the battle with the gods in Egypt Typhon caught Zeus in his coils, wrenched his sword from him, and crippled him by cutting the sinews of his hands and feet. Then he carried him to the Corycian cave, where also he hid the several sinews in a bear's pelt. But Hermes and Aegipan stole them and restored them to Zeus, who, thus made whole, renewed his fearful war upon the monster, and drove him from place to place with whirling discs of lightning and bolts of molten steel, until at last he drove him to bay in Sicily, and hurled Mount Etna upon him. Now the lair of Typhon lay but an hundred yards east of the great chasm which we have already visited. It is a far more dreadful spot than any other on earth. It is a pit of about a quarter of a mile in circumference, far deeper than the chasm of the case, the walls on every side overhanging and covered with monstrous stalactites, slimy with a horrible moisture that oozes constantly from the limestone. At the bottom are pools of stagnant water, whose foul smell ascends even to the cliffs above, surrounded by rank and rotten fungi and all poisonous weeds. One of the brood of Typhon still lived here in the time of good King Zas, a dragon breathing flame.

The body was like that of a great crocodile, the forepart resembling man, but covered with shining scales. Ordinarily it lived in the depths of the pit, though no man had dared to try to track it down. But it had been seen now and again, even by daylight, moving slowly and horribly along the edge of the abyss, and had even been observed climbing down into it, or issuing from it. Further, it was known to eat man; for certain criminals, such as blasphemed Zeus or caused sedition in the city, were given to the monster to devour. Under the benign rule of good King Zas it was in no danger of starving, for nothing so undermines society as allowing sedition and blasphemy to go unchecked, and Zas was rightly anxious to preserve his people from those evil communications which corrupt good manners.

It was certainly an awkward for the King to have to suspect Ruh of intriguing against him. For the prophet was officially his right-hand man; he held his office by divine right, on the same terms as good King Zas himself. And he could not accuse the magician of any definite disloyalty; he could not even complain of him in his capacity of rain maker. It was more on intuition than anything else; he felt the hostility rather than saw even the hint of a claw beneath the velvet. All he could say definitely was that Ruh would occasionally visit the city, and be taken with prophetic frenzy in the market-place. This often coincided very suspiciously with the promulgation of new laws intended to benefit the country by filling the coffers of the treasury; and the prophecies made on such occasions, though in no way conflicting with these new laws or in any way referring to them, somehow always made it very difficult to enforce them. The incident which had provoked the outburst which culminated in the minister's losing his head had been of this type. Good King Zas, careful of the succession to his throne, ordered that all virgins, on reaching the age of puberty, should be sent to his harem for seven nights. About a dozen citizens had presumed to grumble at this regulation, and were duly sent off to the lair of Typhon to be devoured. But Ruh had appeared in Corycus, gone into the most appalling fit of inspiration in the temple itself, and declared that Corycus was threatened with a horrible disease as a punishment for the disaffection of the citizens toward their good King Zas. The only way to avert this calamity was for every virgin to anoint her hair and her whole body thrice every day with a sacred ointment, of which he gave the formula. There was really too little camphor in the prescription to conceal the fuller bouquet of the galbanum, scammony and asafetida which formed its menstruum. Short of shaving the girls and boiling them alive, the law was a dead letter.

V.

Zas was not brilliant intellectually—it was of such that Kingsley was thinking when he wrote: “Be good, and let who will be clever!”—but he detected the flavor of something insidious in this particular prophecy. “Men like Ruh,” he repeated constantly, “are a curse to the country.” But necessity is the mother of invention, and presently he bethought him that there was a standing feud between Ruh and the Temple of the Cavern. The priestess, as head of an established cult, enriched by gifts from pilgrims from every part of the world, could not but resent the competition of a wandering prophet who lived out of doors and always paid those who consulted him instead of bleeding them. He, on the other hand, retaliated by accusing the Oracle of mercenary motives. “Why toil up the hill in the heat of the day,” he would say to pilgrims, “loaded as you are with gold and ivory and purple and many changes of fine linen, when you can get a better oracle from me for nothing, and some saffron thrown in?” Such appeals were thrown away on the majority, who judged that what cost less than nothing would be worth less than nothing. They only deterred the mean, who had been calculating how little they could give.

So good King Zas thought that he would take advantage of the situation and ask for an oracle from the shrine in the cavern. “I will be circumspect,” he thought, “I will say nothing about Ruh. I will employ one of my private prophets to declare that the city is to be visited by disaster. Then I will go to the Oracle and ask how to be rid of the curse of the country; I will take very great gifts, and I will whisper to the priest that by the curse of the country I mean Ruh. Then, my interests jumping with those of the Oracle, she will tell me a way by which we can both be rid of him.”

This scheme was no sooner conceived than it was put into execution; good King Zas selected a suitable tool, promising him the succession to Ruh if all went well. This man, after a few weeks' practice, imitated perfectly the prophetic frenzy. His first public prophecies were received with such delighted acquiescence that on the third occasion he foretold the visitation of a sea-monster who would swallow Corycus entire. Now Ruh, who was as clever and unscrupulous as Zas was good and not too clever, had sent Hcip to listen to the new prophet.

This third prophecy intrigued the magus mightily. He sat by the spring for a whole hour without moving a muscle. Then he returned to the bower. “Hcip!” said he, “I will eat three partridges for supper, because there are three persons in every true god. I do not believe in this sea-monster. I do not think that this prophet, fool that he is, believes in this sea-monster. Therefore something will be done which will avert the calamity of the sea-monster. Therefore something is being planned which will not be easy to do. Therefore whoever plans it will be careful to get the best authority for carrying out his plans. Therefore he will ask either my authority or the authority of that accurséd humbugging, fraudulent, thieving creature at the Temple of the Cavern.”

“Therefore—ah, my Hcip! you do not understand why 'therefore'!—as soon as I am three partridges in one prophet I will go to talk with the gods. Say so if clients call.” So after supper Ruh disappeared stealthily, taking the sea-road to Corycus.

VI.

Two days later a great procession left Corycus. There was good King Zas in robes of mourning, torn and soiled, with dust upon his head, riding a sorry mule. About him walked his ministers of State, equally humble. Behind this lamentable group came twenty asses led by sturdy slaves. Strong as the beasts were, they staggered beneath their load of gold. Behind the asses fifty mules were heavy laden with saffron and with purple, and with musk from Ind, and ivory from the black people that were dwarfs, and sugar from the yellow folk of the land beyond the rising sun and the great mountains that were the End of the World. Behind these again came fourscore camels groaning under silks and linens and woven wools, dyed and embroidered by the art of gods themselves, that they had taught to virgin priestesses in the convents of the mountain land beyond the Ganges. Last came ten elephants bearing blocks of porphyry and malachite and lapis lazuli. Good King Zas meant to spare no expense in getting the oracle he wanted; and, besides, the people paid. Arrived at the bower of the magician, the good King dismounted, and, bowing low at every step, approached its entrance. Hcip came forward, and expressed regrets that Ruh was even then in heaven, in conference with the gods. Zas, who had deferred his start until he had sure word that Ruh was absent, almost fainted with the surprise and disappointment. However, he brightened in a little; after all, there was the sacred Oracle of the Corycian cave, a bare hour's journey further. With this he took leave, and began to mount the stone of the plateau.

The Temple of the Cavern was entirely different to the bower of Ruh. It was run on the best business principles. Almost before the good King Zas had made known his wish to consult the Oracle, the chief priest had marshalled his two hundred assistants, every man hooded in his woollen mantle and girt with a great sword, but extraordinarily active and well-drilled and efficient in bestowing merchandise. The good King's beasts of burden were all unloaded, and started on the homeward journey before the chief priest had conducted Zas as far as the mouth of the cavern.

A messenger of Zas had arranged the matter beforehand, so no embarrassment or confusion was occasioned. The ministers of State and certain citizens of good repute, trusty and well-beloved of all men, accompanied him as witnesses.

“How shall I act in order to remove the curse from the country?” asked Zas of the priestess in firm tones. The hollow cave resounded at his voice. The priestess acted mechanically, as an automaton. She had been lying before the altar, apparently asleep, when the King approached her, and, as the ritual prescribed, sprinkled three drops of the sacred river on her forehead. At this summons she arose, taking no notice whatever of good King Zas and of his train, and entered the cone. She closed the door; the chief priest adjusted the pipe; a stream of water pouring on the fins of the cone caused it to rotate at first slowly and then rapidly, the while the chief priest and a long line of assistants reaching even to the outskirts of the temple, intoned constantly the question of good King Zas. In a few minutes the cries died down; the priest disconnected the pipe. Soon the cone opened; the priestess staggered forth as one drunk on strong wine. She grasped the altar; she gasped the oracle:

“By the sacrifice of Ruh to Typhon shall the curse of the country be removed.”

In these words the obscurity of the original Corycian is to some extent retained. They were practically identical with those previously indicated as acceptable by good King Zas himself. From this it naturally followed that, come what might, they had to be fulfilled; not for ten times the gifts of good King Zas could the Oracle afford to be found out in a mistake.

When Zas came out of the cave the chief priest pressed a handful of saffron into his tunic. “With this,” he said, “thou art safe from the dragon,” and winked. And at that good King Zas knew that the dragon was but a toy of priestcraft. “Go to the lair of Typhon, O King! Vow thy vow of sacrifice. Throw this offering of pig's blood to the demon. Then—I need not indicate the obvious steps to a monarch of such perspicacity as Zas.”

VII.

The good King, leaving his attendants in the temple, proceeded, in accordance with the formality prescribed, to the lair of Typhon; but no sooner had he thrown the packet of pig's blood into the pit than the dragon appeared from the small cavern of the ledge where he habitually concealed his reptilian disguise. Good King Zas recognized Ruh as the latter exclaimed, catching him by the legs, “This is the sacrifice of Ruh to Typhon,” and hurled him into the pit five hundred feet below on the strength of a “genitive of the agent.”

The little drama passed not unperceived by the chief priest; he gave a signal; the assistant priests arrested the ministers of the lat king; Ruh, discarding his dragon costume, joined the assembly, received the blessing of his mother, the priestess of the Temple of the Cavern, addressed the masked priests in encouraging terms, reminding them that as Zas was dead it would be no harm to display their features as those of the seditious and blasphemous citizens whom Typhon had nominally devoured, and observing that if they were to be in peaceable possession of Corycus before sunset, the word was Quick March.

Arrived at the palace, the news of the death of good King Zas had caused a momentary quarrel among his numerous sons. This was appeased by Ruh, who fell into a fit and prophesied that Zas, being a great god, the son of the gods, his children after the flesh were mere bastards; his true heirs would be triplets, born of a blind harlot of sixty years of age who had never known man. Until the appearance of such heirs, the country would be administered by seven men chosen for wisdom and virtue, who would give up the whole of their property to the State, who would vow themselves not to speak to any man during the seven years' term of their office save in the Council itself, and then not more than twelve words on any one day. “Talking,” said Ruh, “is sacred to the prophets of Zeus; woe to the usurper!”

The priests drilled by Ruh were the only organized body in the community; the army, having no ideas of its own, would gladly follow any resolute lead. Dissent from the programme of the magician on the part of the two chief claimants to the throne, the eldest son of good King Zas and the son of his favorite concubine, had been met with all simplicity of sword-stroke; and the republic was established before sundown, as Ruh desired, with sufficient acquiescence to enable him to return without anxiety to his bower, and announce to Hcip that that night also it was his intention to digest yet three more partridges.