Vexatious Estate of Queen Helen
"But how can I travel with the Equinox, with a thing, with a convention?" Jurgen had said. "To any such of me is preposterous."
"Is it any more than to travel with an like a centaur?" they had retorted. "Why, Prince Jurgen, we wonder how you, who have done that perfectly unheard-of thing, can have the to call anything else preposterous! Is there no at all in you? Why, are respectable, and that is a more than can be said for a great many centaurs. Would you be at respectability, Prince Jurgen? Why, we are at your to any such well-known as the Equinox!" And so on, and so on, and so on, said they.
And in fine, they at him until Jurgen was too to argue, and his was in a whirl, and one thing as as another: and he to notice any in his traveling with the Equinox, and so passed without any or about it, from Cocaigne to Leukê. But he would not have been thus had Jurgen not been all the while of Queen Helen and of the that was hers.
So he the way that one might come into the presence of Queen Helen.
"Why, you will Queen Helen," he was told, "in her at Pseudopolis." His was a hamadryad, Jurgen upon the of a the city from the west. Beyond of corn, you saw Pseudopolis as a city of gold and ivory, now all a under a hard-seeming sky that appeared from earth.
"And is the Queen as as people report?" Jurgen.
"Men say that she all other women," the Hamadryad, "as as all we her husband to all other men--"
"But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen.
"--Although, for one, I see nothing in Queen Helen's looks. And I cannot but think that a woman who has been so much talked about ought to be more in the way she dresses."
"So this Queen Helen is already provided with a husband!" Jurgen was displeased, but saw no for despair. Then Jurgen as to the Queen's husband, and learned that Achilles, the son of Peleus, was now to Helen, the Swan's daughter, and that these two in Pseudopolis.
"For they report," said the Hamadryad, "that in Adês' Achilles her beauty, and by this memory was to the of Adês: so did Achilles, King of Men, and all his come upon a second of this Helen, people call--and as I think, with exaggeration--the wonder of this world. Then the Gods the of Achilles, because, they said, the man who has once Queen Helen will any more so long as his life this wonder of the world. Personally, I would to think that all men are so foolish."
"Men are not always rational, I you: but then," says Jurgen, slyly, "so many of their are feminine."
"But an is always feminine. Nobody of a man being an ancestress. Men are ancestors. Why, are you talking about?"
"Well, we were speaking, I believe, of Queen Helen's marriage."
"To be sure we were! And I was telling you about the Gods, when you that mistake about ancestors. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, however, and are always to confused. I see at once you were a foreigner--"
"Yes," said Jurgen, "but you were not telling me about myself but about the Gods."
"Why, you must know the Gods tranquillity. So we will give her to Achilles, they said; and then, it may be, this King of Men will her so safely that his will despair, and will to for Helen: and so we shall not be any longer by their and other foolishnesses. For this it was that the Gods gave Helen to Achilles, and sent the pair to in Leukê: though, for my part," the Hamadryad, "I shall to wonder what he saw in her--no, not if I live to be a thousand."
"I must," says Jurgen, "observe this Achilles the world is a day older. A king is all very well, of course, but no husband a so as to prevent the of other head-gear."
And Jurgen into Pseudopolis, swaggering.
* * * * *
So in the evening, just after sunset, Jurgen returned to the Hamadryad: he walked now with the of the staff which Thersitês had Jurgen, and Jurgen was and humble.
"I have your King Achilles," Jurgen says, "and he is a man than I. Queen Helen, as I with regret, is mated."
"And what have you to say about her?" the Hamadryad.
"Why, there is nothing more to say than that she is mated, and fit to be the wife of Achilles." For once, Jurgen was miserable. "For I this man Achilles, I him, and I him," says Jurgen: "and it is not that he should have been my superior."
"But is not Queen Helen the of ladies that you have seen?"
"As to that--!" says Jurgen. He the Hamadryad to a hard-by the oak-tree in which she resided. The water unruffled, a natural mirror. "Look!" said Jurgen, and he spoke with a of his staff.
The in the was wonderful. Here the air was sweet and pure: and the little wind which about the in search of night was a and peaceful wind, it that the all-healing night was close at hand.
The Hamadryad replied, "But I see only my own face."
"It is the answer to your question, none the less. Now do you tell me your name, my dear, so that I may know who in is the of all the ladies I have seen."
The Hamadryad told him that her name was Chloris, and that she always looked a with her as it was to-day, and that he was a fellow. So he in turn to her he was King Jurgen of Eubonia, from his by reports as to the of Queen Helen. Chloris with him that was in such untrustworthy.
This to talk as deepened: and the while that a little by a little this girl was into a warm shadow, visible to the eye, the of Jurgen from him, and he to talk and better. He had Queen Helen to face, and other now unimportant. Whether or not he got into the of this Hamadryad did not matter, one way or the other: and in Jurgen talked with such fluency, such and such as him.
So he sat with to the of that fellow, Jurgen. For this brown-haired bright-eyed little creature, this Chloris, he was sorry. Into the life of a hamadryad, here in this forest, not possibly have entered much excitement, and it only right to a little. "Why, in to her!" Jurgen reflected. "I must fairly."
Now it and under the trees, and in the dark nobody can see what happens. There were only two voices that talked, with pauses: and they spoke of trifles, like children at play together.
"And how a king come thus to be traveling without any or a about him?"
"Why, I travel with a staff, my dear, as you perceive: and it me."
"Certainly it is large enough, in all conscience. Alas, outlander, who call a king! you the of a highwayman, and I am of it."
"My staff is a from Yggdrasill, the tree of life: Thersitês gave it me, and the that from the Undar fountain, where the Norns make laws for men and their destinies."
"Thersitês is a scoffer, and his gifts are mockery. I would have none of them."
The two to wrangle, not at all angrily, as to what Jurgen had best do with his prized staff. "Do you take it away from me, at any rate!" says Chloris. So Jurgen his staff where Chloris not possibly see it; and he the Hamadryad close to him, and he laughed contentedly.
"Oh, oh! O King," Chloris, "I that you will be the death of me! And you have no right to me in this way, for I am not your subject."
"Rather shall you be my queen, dear Chloris, all that I most prize."
"But you are too domineering: and I am to be alone with you and your big staff! Ah! not without what she talked about did my mother use to her Æolic saying, The king is and takes in bloodshed!"
"Presently you will not be of me, will you be of my staff. Custom is all. For this is an Æolic saying, The taste of the is unpleasant, but the second is good."
Now for a while was save for the small of the forest. One of the large green which the Island of Leukê tentatively.
"Wait now, King Jurgen, for surely I footsteps, and one comes to trouble us."
"It is a wind in the tree-tops: or it is a god who me. I pause for neither."
"Ah, but speak of the Gods! For is not Love a god, and a god that has with which to us?"
"Then am I a god, for in my is love, and in every of me is love, and from me now love emanates."
"But I somebody through the forest--"
"Well, and do you not I have my staff from its hiding-place?"
"Ah, you have great in that staff of yours!"
"I nobody when I it."
Another had answered the one. Now the two were in full dispute, the warm with their whirrings.
"King of Eubonia, it is true, that which you told me about olives."
"Yes, for always love truthfulness."
"I pray it may us truthfulness, and nothing else, King Jurgen."
"Not 'Jurgen' now, but 'love'."
"Indeed, they tell that so, in such darkness, Love came to his Psychê."
"Then why do you complain I the Gods, and offer Love the of flattery?" And Jurgen his staff at her.
"Ah, but you are with your flattery! and Love Psychê with no such staff."
"That is possible: for I am Jurgen. And I with all women, and my staff against none save in the way of kindness."
So they talked nonsense, in darkness, while the locusts, and presently a score of locusts, obstinately. Now Chloris and Jurgen were invisible, to each other, as they talked under her oak-tree: but them the under a gold-dusted dome, for this night of stars. And the white towers of Pseudopolis also Jurgen see, as he laughed there and took his with Chloris. He that very Achilles and Helen were laughing thus, and were not occupied, out yonder, in this night of wonder.
He sighed. But in a while Jurgen and the Hamadryad were speaking again, just as inconsequently, and the were just as obstinately. Later the moon rose, and they all slept.
With the Jurgen arose, and left this Hamadryad Chloris still asleep. He where he the city and the shirt of Nessus in the level sun rays: and Jurgen of Queen Helen. Then he sighed, and to Chloris and her with the of that appeared her just due.
