Hyperion to Bellarmin
Now came the day of parting.
Throughout the morning I’d remained up in Notara’s garden, in the fresh winter air, beneath the evergreen cypresses and cedars. I was composed. The great energies of youth sustained me, and the suffering I sensed bore me aloft like a cloud.
Diotima’s mother had asked that Notara and the other friends and I should spend the last day together at her home. The good people all had taken their joy in me and Diotima, and what was godly in our love had not been lost on them. They were now to bless my leaving too.
I went down. I found the dear maiden at the hearth. It seemed for her a holy priestly office to tend to the house on this day. She had prepared everything, made everything in the house beautiful, and no one was allowed to help. She had gathered all the flowers that still remained in the garden, and managed to put together roses and fresh grapes even in this late season.
She knew my footfall when I approached, and came softly towards me; her pale cheeks glowed from the flame of the hearth and her earnest swollen eyes were glistening from tears. She saw how overcome I was. ‘Go in, my dear,’ she said, ‘mother’s inside and I shall follow shortly.’
I went in. There the noble woman sat and held out her lovely hand to me — ‘are you come,’ she cried, ‘are you come, my son! I should be angry with you, you have taken my child from me, have talked all reason and sense out of me, and you do what you list and make off; but forgive him, you heavenly powers! if what he intends is wrong, and if it is right, oh, then do not hold back with your help for the dear youth!’ I wanted to speak, but just then Notara came in with the other friends and behind them Diotima.
We were silent for a while. We honoured the grieving love that was in us all, we were fearful to make free with it in speeches and lofty thoughts. Finally, after a few fleeting words, Diotima asked me to tell of Agis and Cleomenes: I’d often mentioned those great souls with fiery reverence and claimed that they were demi-gods as surely as Prometheus, and their struggle with the fate of Sparta more heroic than any in the lustrous myths. The genius of these men, Id said, was the golden sunset of the Greek day, just as Homer and Theseus had been its aurora.
I told their story and at the end we all felt stronger and uplifted.
‘Happy the man,’ cried one of the friends, ‘whose life alternates between heartfelt joy and fresh battles.’
‘Yes!’ cried another, ‘that is eternal youth when there are always ample energies at play and we can keep ourselves wholly in pleasure and toil.’
‘Oh, that I could go with you!’ Diotima cried to me.
‘But it’s good you stay behind, Diotima!’ I said. ‘The priestess may not leave the temple. You shall be the keeper of the holy flame, in quiet seclusion the keeper of the beautiful, that I may find it again in you.’
‘Yes, you're right, my dear, that’s best,’ she said, and her voice trembled and her ethereal eyes were hidden behind her handkerchief, so their tears, their confusion shouldn’t be seen.
O Bellarmin! it almost tore my breast asunder to have made her so blush with shame. ‘Friends!’ I cried, ‘keep this angel safe for me. I can be sure of nothing more if I can’t be sure of her. O heaven! I dread to think what I could do if I were to lose her.’
‘Be calm, Hyperion!’ Notara interjected.
‘Calm?’ I cried; ‘O you good people! you're ready enough to worry how the garden’s going to bloom or what the harvest will be like, you’re capable of praying for your vines, and I’m supposed to part without wishes from the only thing my soul serves?’
‘No, good Hyperion!’ cried Notara, moved, ‘no! you shall not part from her without wishes! no, by the godly innocence of your love! of my blessing you both may be sure.’
‘You remind me,’ I quickly cried. ‘She shall bless us, this dear mother, with all of you she shall be our witness — come Diotima! your mother shall hallow our union until the beautiful community, which is our hope, join us in marriage.’
So I fell upon one knee; with a wide gaze, blushing and solemnly smiling, she too sank down by my side.
‘Long since, O nature!’ I cried, ‘has our life been one with you, and heavenly-youthful, like you and all your gods, is our own world become through love.’
‘In your groves we wandered,’ Diotima continued, ‘and were like you, by your springs we sat, and were like you; over yon mountains we went, with your children the stars, like you.’
‘When we were far from one another,’ I cried, ‘when, like a harp’s whispering, our coming rapture barely began to thrum for us, when we found one another, when there was no more sleep and all the tones within us woke into the full chords of life, divine nature! then we were always like you, and now too when we part and joy dies, we are, like you, full of sorrow and yet good, therefore a pure mouth shall witness for us that our love is hallowed and eternal, like you.’
‘I witness to it,’ said the mother.
“We witness to it,’ cried the others.
Now no words remained for us to speak. I felt my heart at its highest; I felt myself ripe for parting. ‘Now I will forth, dear friends!’ I said, and the life drained from all their faces. Diotima stood like a marble image and I felt her hand die in mine. I had killed everything around me, I was alone and reeled before the boundless silence in which my overflowing life no longer found a hold.
‘Ohl’ I cried, ‘my heart burns hot within me, and you all stand there so cold, dear friends! and only the house-gods bend their ears? — Diotima! — you are silent, you don’t see! — oh, it’s well for you that you don’t see!’
‘Go then,’ she sighed, ‘it has to be; go then, you dear heart!’
‘O sweet sound from these blissful lips!’ I cried, and stood as in adoration before the lovely statue — ‘sweet sound! one more time breathe upon me, dawn one more time, dear light of these eyes!’
‘Don’t speak that way, dearest!’ she cried, ‘speak in more earnest, speak with more greatness of heart to me!’
I wanted to hold myself back, but I was as ina dream.
‘Woe!’ I cried, ‘this is a parting without return.’
‘You'll kill her,’ cried Notara. ‘See how gentle she is, and you so beside yourself.’
I looked at her and tears burst from my burning eyes.
‘Farewell then, Diotima!’ I cried, ‘heaven of my love, farewell! — Let us be strong, dear friends! dear mother! I gave you joy and grief. Farewell! farewell!’
I staggered forth. Diotima followed me alone.
Evening had come and the stars rose in the heavens. Below the house we stood in stillness. Eternity was in us, above us. Soft as the aether Diotima enfolded me. ‘Foolish man, what is separation?’ she whispered to me mysteriously, with the smile of an immortal.
‘I do feel different now,’ I said, ‘and I cannot tell which of the two is a dream, my sorrow or my joyfulness.’
‘They both are,’ she answered, ‘and both are good.’
‘Perfect one!’ I cried, ‘Ill speak like you. By the starry heaven shall we know each other. Let it be the token between me and you for so long as our lips are mute.’
‘Let it be!’ she said with a lingering tone I’d never heard before — it was her last. Her image vanished away from me in the twilight, and I cannot tell if it was really she when I turned for the last time and the fading figure quivered one more moment before my eyes and then died into the night.
Hyperion to Bellarmin [XXXVI]J]
Why am I telling you, repeating my pain and stirring up again my restless youth in me? Isn’t it enough to have gone through mortality once? why do I not remain still, in the peace of my spirit?
This is why, my Bellarmin! because every breath in life remains dear to the heart, because all changes in pure nature belong equally to her beauty. Our soul, when it casts off its mortal experiences and only lives alone in holy peace, is it not like a leafless tree? like a head without locks? Dear Bellarmin! I have rested a while; like a child I’ve been living among the quiet hills of Salamis, mindless of fate and the striving of men. Much has since changed in my eyes, and now I have peace enough within me to stay calm at every glance into human life. O friend! in the end the spirit reconciles us with all things. You won’t believe it, at least not of me. But I think you should even see from my letters how daily my soul grows stiller and stiller. And I will go on speaking of it till you do believe it.
Here are letters from Diotima and me that we wrote to each other after my parting from Calauria. They are the most precious thing I confide to you. They are the warmest image from those days of my life. Of the clamour of war they tell you little. So much the more of my very own life, and that of course is what you want. And, oh, you must also see how loved I was. That I could never tell you, that Diotima alone can tell.