The Crock of Gold
by James Stephens
BOOK I
THE COMING OF PAN
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
BOOK II
THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOURNEY
Chapter X
Chapter XI
BOOK III
THE TWO GODS
Chapter XII
BOOK IV
THE PHILOSOPHER'S RETURN
Chapter XIII
BOOK V
THE POLICEMEN
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
BOOK VI
THE THIN WOMAN'S JOURNEY AND THE HAPPY MARCH
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
BOOK III THE TWO GODS
CHAPTER XII
CAITILIN NI MURRACHU was sitting alone in the little
cave behind Gort na Cloca Mora. Her companion had
gone out as was his custom to walk in the sunny morning
and to sound his pipe in desolate, green spaces whence,
perhaps, the wanderer of his desire might hear the guid-
ing sweetness. As she sat she was thinking. The last
few days had awakened her body, and had also awakened
her mind, for with the one awakening comes the other.
The despondency which had touched her previously when
tending her father's cattle came to her again, but recog-
nizably now. She knew the thing which the wind had
whispered in the sloping field and for which she had no
name--it was Happiness. Faintly she shadowed it forth,
but yet she could not see it. It was only a pearl-pale
wraith, almost formless, too tenuous to be touched by her
hands, and too aloof to be spoken to. Pan had told her
that he was the giver of happiness, but he had given her
only unrest and fever and a longing which could not be
satisfied. Again there was a want, and she could not
formulate, or even realize it with any closeness. Her
new-born Thought had promised everything, even as
Pan, and it had given--she could not say that it had
given her nothing or anything. Its limits were too
quickly divinable. She had found the Tree of Knowl-
edge, but about on every side a great wall soared blackly
enclosing her in from the Tree of Life--a wall which
her thought was unable to surmount even while instinct
urged that it must topple before her advance; but in-
stinct may not advance when thought has schooled it in
the science of unbelief; and this wall will not be con-
quered until Thought and Instinct are wed, and the first
son of that bridal will be called The Scaler of the Wall.
So, after the quiet weariness of ignorance, the unquiet
weariness of thought had fallen upon her. That travail
of mind which, through countless generations, has throed
to the birth of an ecstasy, the prophecy which humanity
has sworn must be fulfilled, seeing through whatever
mists and doubtings the vision of a gaiety wherein the
innocence of the morning will not any longer be strange
to our maturity.
While she was so thinking Pan returned, a little dis-
heartened that he had found no person to listen to his
pipings. He had been seated but a little time when sud-
denly, from without, a chorus of birds burst into joyous
singing. Limpid and liquid cadenzas, mellow flutings,
and the sweet treble of infancy met and danced and
piped in the airy soundings. A round, soft tenderness of
song rose and fell, broadened and soared, and then the
high flight was snatched, eddied a moment, and was
borne away to a more slender and wonderful loftiness,
until, from afar, that thrilling song turned on the very
apex of sweetness, dipped steeply and flashed its joyous
return to the exultations of its mates below, rolling an
ecstasy of song which for one moment gladdened the
whole world and the sad people who moved thereon;
then the singing ceased as suddenly as it began, a swift
shadow darkened the passage, and Angus Og came into
the cave.
Caitilin sprang from her seat Frighted, and Pan also
made a half movement towards rising, but instantly sank
back again to his negligent, easy posture.
The god was slender and as swift as a wind. His hair
swung about his face like golden blossoms. His eyes
were mild and dancing and his lips smiled with quiet
sweetness. About his head there flew perpetually a ring
of singing birds, and when he spoke his voice came
sweetly from a centre of sweetness.
"Health to you, daughter of Murrachu," said he, and
he sat down.
"I do not know you, sir," the terrified girl whispered.
"I cannot be known until I make myself known," he
replied. "I am called Infinite Joy, O daughter of Mur-
rachu, and I am called Love."
The girl gazed doubtfully from one to the other.
Pan looked up from his pipes.
"I also am called Love," said he gently, "and I am
called Joy."
Angus Og looked for the first time at Pan.
"Singer of the Vine," said he, "I know your names--
they are Desire and Fever and Lust and Death. Why
have you come from your own place to spy upon my pas-
tures and my quiet fields?"
Pan replied mildly.
"The mortal gods move by the Immortal Will, and,
therefore, I am here."
"And I am here," said Angus.
"Give me a sign," said Pan, "that I must go."
Angus Og lifted his hand and from without there came
again the triumphant music of the birds.
"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Dana speaking in
the air," and, saying so, he made obeisance to the great
mother.
Pan lifted his hand, and from afar there came the
lowing of the cattle and the thin voices of the goats.
"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Demeter speaking
from the earth," and he also bowed deeply to the mother
of the world.
Again Angus Og lifted his hand, and in it there ap-
peared a spear, bright and very terrible.
But Pan only said, "Can a spear divine the Eternal
Will?" and Angus Og put his weapon aside, and he said:
"The girl will choose between us, for the Divine Mood
shines in the heart of man."
Then Caitilin Ni Murrachu came forward and sat be-
tween the gods, but Pan stretched out his hand and drew
her to him, so that she sat resting against his shoulder
and his arm was about her body.
"We will speak the truth to this girl," said Angus Og.
"Can the gods speak otherwise?" said Pan, and he
laughed with delight.
"It is the difference between us," replied Angus Og.
"She will judge."
"Shepherd Girl," said Pan, pressing her with his arm,
"you will judge between us. Do you know what is the
greatest thing in the world?--because it is of that you
will have to judge."
"I have heard," the girl replied, "two things called
the greatest things. You," she continued to Pan, "said
it was Hunger, and long ago my father said that Com-
monsense was the greatest thing in the world."
"I have not told you," said Angus Og, "what I con-
sider is the greatest thing in the world."
"It is your right to speak," said Pan.
"The greatest thing in the world," said Angus Og, "is
the Divine Imagination."
"Now," said Pan, "we know all the greatest things
and we can talk of them."
"The daughter of Murrachu," continued Angus Og,
"has told us what you think and what her father thinks,
but she has not told us what she thinks herself. Tell us,
Caitilin Ni Murrachu, what you think is the greatest
thing in the world."
So Caitilin Ni Murrachu thought for a few moments
and then replied timidly.
"I think that Happiness is the greatest thing in the
world," said she.
Hearing this they sat in silence for a little time, and
then Angus Og spoke again-
"The Divine Imagination may only be known through
the thoughts of His creatures. A man has said Common-
sense and a woman has said Happiness are the greatest
things in the world. These things are male and female,
for Commonsense is Thought and Happiness is Emotion,
and until they embrace in Love the will of Immensity
cannot be fruitful. For, behold, there has been no mar-
riage of humanity since time began. Men have but
coupled with their own shadows. The desire that sprang
from their heads they pursued, and no man has yet
known the love of a woman. And women have mated
with the shadows of their own hearts, thinking fondly
that the arms of men were about them. I saw my son
dancing with an Idea, and I said to him, 'With what do
you dance, my son?' and he replied, 'I make merry with
the wife of my affection,' and truly she was shaped as a
woman is shaped, but it was an Idea he danced with and
not a woman. And presently he went away to his labours,
and then his Idea arose and her humanity came upon her
so that she was clothed with beauty and terror, and she
went apart and danced with the servant of my son, and
there was great joy of that dancing--for a person in the
wrong place is an Idea and not a person. Man is
Thought and woman is Intuition, and they have never
mated. There is a gulf between them and it is called
Fear, and what they fear is, that their strengths shall be
taken from them and they may no longer be tyrants. The
Eternal has made love blind, for it is not by science, but
by intuition alone, that he may come to his beloved; but
desire, which is science, has many eyes and sees so vastly
that he passes his love in the press, saying there is no
love, and he propagates miserably on his own delusions.
The finger-tips are guided by God, but the devil looks
through the eyes of all creatures so that they may wan-
der in the errors of reason and justify themselves of
their wanderings. The desire of a man shall be Beauty,
but he has fashioned a slave in his mind and called it
Virtue. The desire of a woman shall be Wisdom, but she
has formed a beast in her blood and called it Courage:
but the real virtue is courage, and the real courage is
liberty, and the real liberty is wisdom, and Wisdom is
the son of Thought and Intuition; and his names also are
Innocence and Adoration and Happiness."
When Angus Og had said these words he ceased, and
for a time there was silence in the little cave. Caitilin
had covered her face with her hands and would not look
at him, but Pan drew the girl closer to his side and peered
sideways, laughing at Angus.
"Has the time yet come for the girl to judge between
us?" said he.
"Daughter of Murrachu," said Angus Og, "will you
come away with me from this place?"
Caitilin then looked at the god in great distress.
"I do not know what to do," said she. "Why do you
both want me? I have given myself to Pan, and his
arms are about me."
"I want you," said Angus Og, "because the world has
forgotten me. In all my nation there is no remembrance
of me. I, wandering on the hills of my country, am
lonely indeed. I am the desolate god forbidden to utter
my happy laughter. I hide the silver of my speech and
the gold of my merriment. I live in the holes of the
rocks and the dark caves of the sea. I weep in the morn-
ing because I may not laugh, and in the evening I go
abroad and am not happy. Where I have kissed a bird
has flown; where I have trod a flower has sprung. But
Thought has snared my birds in his nets and sold them
in the market-places. Who will deliver me from
Thought, from the base holiness of Intellect, the maker
of chains and traps? Who will save me from the holy
impurity of Emotion, whose daughters are Envy and
Jealousy and Hatred, who plucks my flowers to orna-
ment her lusts and my little leaves to shrivel on the
breasts of infamy? Lo, I am sealed in the caves of non-
entity until the head and the heart shall come together
in fruitfulness, until Thought has wept for Love, and
Emotion has purified herself to meet her lover. Tir-na-
nOg is the heart of a man and the head of a woman.
Widely they are separated. Self-centred they stand, and
between them the seas of space are flooding desolately.
No voice can shout across those shores. No eye can
bridge them, nor any desire bring them together until the
blind god shall find them on the wavering stream--not
as an arrow searches straightly from a bow, but gently,
imperceptibly as a feather on the wind reaches the ground
on a hundred starts; not with the compass and the chart,
but by the breath of the Almighty which blows from all
quarters without care and without ceasing. Night and
day it urges from the outside to the inside. It gathers
ever to the centre. From the far without to the deep
within, trembling from the body to the soul until the
head of a woman and the heart of a man are filled with
the Divine Imagination. Hymen, Hymenaea! I sing
to the ears that are stopped, the eyes that are sealed, and
the minds that do not labour. Sweetly I sing on the hill-
side. The blind shall look within and not without; the
deaf shall hearken to the murmur of their own veins, and
be enchanted with the wisdom of sweetness; the thought-
less shall think without effort as the lightning flashes,
that the hand of Innocence may reach to the stars, that
the feet of Adoration may dance to the Father of Joy,
and the laugh of Happiness be answered by the Voice of
Benediction."
Thus Angus Og sang in the cave, and ere he had
ceased Caitilin Ni Murrachu withdrew herself from the
arms of her desires. But so strong was the hold of Pan
upon her that when she was free her body bore the marks
of his grip, and many days passed away before these
marks faded.
Then Pan arose in silence, taking his double reed in
his hand, and the girl wept, beseeching him to stay to be
her brother and the brother of her beloved, but Pan
smiled and said: "Your beloved is my father and my son.
He is yesterday and to-morrow. He is the nether and
the upper millstone, and I am crushed between until I
kneel again before the throne from whence I came," and,
saying so, he embraced Angus Og most tenderly and went
his way to the quiet fields, and across the slopes of the
mountains, and beyond the blue distances of space.
And in a little time Caitilin Ni Murrachu went with
her companion across the brow of the hill, and she did
not go with him because she had understood his words,
nor because he was naked and unashamed, but only be-
cause his need of her was very great, and, therefore, she
loved him, and stayed his feet in the way, and was con-
cerned lest he should stumble.
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