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Fantasy Fan, v. 2, issue 4, whole no. 16, December 1934
Page 59
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December, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN 59 PROSE PASTELS by Clark Ashton Smith 5. The Passing of Aphrodite In all the lands of Illarion, from mountain-valleys rimmed with unmelting snow, to the great cliffs of sard whose reflex darkens a sleepy, tepid sea, where lit as of old the green and amethyst fires of summer. Spices were on the wind that mountaineers had met in the high glaciers; and the eldest wood of cypress, frowning on a sky-clear bay, was illumined by scarlet orchids...But the heart of the poet Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love with sodden ashes. And because he wished to forget for a time the mockery of myrtles, Phaniol walked alone in the waste bordering upon Illarion; in a place that great fires had blackened long ago, and which knew not the pine or the violet, the cypress or the myrtle. There as the day grew old, he came to an unsailed ocean, whose waters were dark and still under the falling sun, and bore not the memorial voices of other seas. And Phaniol paused, and lingered upon the ashen shore; and dreamt awhile of that sea whose name is Oblivion. Then, from beneath the westering sun, whose bleak light was prone on his forehead, a barge appeared and swiftly drew to the land: albeit there was no wind, and the oars hung idly on the foamless wave. And Phaniol saw that the barge was wrought of ebony fretted with curious anaglyphs, and carved with luxurious forms of gods and beasts, of satyrs and goddesses and women; and the figurehead was a black Eros with full unsmiling mouth and implacable sapphire eyes averted, as if intent upon things not lightly to be named or revealed. Upon the deck of the barge were two women, one pale as the northern moon, and the swart as equatorial midnight. But both were clad imperially, and bore the mein of goddesses or of those who dwell near to the goddesses, without word or gesture, they regarded Phaniol; and, marvelling, he inquired, "What seek ye?" Then, with one voice that was like the voice of hesperian airs among palms at evening twilight in the Fortunate Isles, they answered saying: "We wait the goddess Aphrodite, who departs in weariners and sorrow from Illarion, and from all the lands of this world of petty loves and pettier mortalities. Thou, because thou art a poet, and hast known the great sovereignity of love, shall behold her departure. But they, the men of the court, the market-place and the temple, shall receive no message nor sign of her going-forth, and will scarcely dream that she is gone...Now, O Phaniol, the time, the goddess and the going forth are at hand." Even as they ceased, One came across the desert; and her coming was a light on the far hills; and where she trod the lengthening shadows shrunk, and the grey waste put on the purple asphodels and the deep verdure it had worn when those queens were young, that now are a darkening legend and a dust of mummia. Even to the shore she came and stood before Phaniol,
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December, 1934, THE FANTASY FAN 59 PROSE PASTELS by Clark Ashton Smith 5. The Passing of Aphrodite In all the lands of Illarion, from mountain-valleys rimmed with unmelting snow, to the great cliffs of sard whose reflex darkens a sleepy, tepid sea, where lit as of old the green and amethyst fires of summer. Spices were on the wind that mountaineers had met in the high glaciers; and the eldest wood of cypress, frowning on a sky-clear bay, was illumined by scarlet orchids...But the heart of the poet Phaniol was an urn of black jade overfraught by love with sodden ashes. And because he wished to forget for a time the mockery of myrtles, Phaniol walked alone in the waste bordering upon Illarion; in a place that great fires had blackened long ago, and which knew not the pine or the violet, the cypress or the myrtle. There as the day grew old, he came to an unsailed ocean, whose waters were dark and still under the falling sun, and bore not the memorial voices of other seas. And Phaniol paused, and lingered upon the ashen shore; and dreamt awhile of that sea whose name is Oblivion. Then, from beneath the westering sun, whose bleak light was prone on his forehead, a barge appeared and swiftly drew to the land: albeit there was no wind, and the oars hung idly on the foamless wave. And Phaniol saw that the barge was wrought of ebony fretted with curious anaglyphs, and carved with luxurious forms of gods and beasts, of satyrs and goddesses and women; and the figurehead was a black Eros with full unsmiling mouth and implacable sapphire eyes averted, as if intent upon things not lightly to be named or revealed. Upon the deck of the barge were two women, one pale as the northern moon, and the swart as equatorial midnight. But both were clad imperially, and bore the mein of goddesses or of those who dwell near to the goddesses, without word or gesture, they regarded Phaniol; and, marvelling, he inquired, "What seek ye?" Then, with one voice that was like the voice of hesperian airs among palms at evening twilight in the Fortunate Isles, they answered saying: "We wait the goddess Aphrodite, who departs in weariners and sorrow from Illarion, and from all the lands of this world of petty loves and pettier mortalities. Thou, because thou art a poet, and hast known the great sovereignity of love, shall behold her departure. But they, the men of the court, the market-place and the temple, shall receive no message nor sign of her going-forth, and will scarcely dream that she is gone...Now, O Phaniol, the time, the goddess and the going forth are at hand." Even as they ceased, One came across the desert; and her coming was a light on the far hills; and where she trod the lengthening shadows shrunk, and the grey waste put on the purple asphodels and the deep verdure it had worn when those queens were young, that now are a darkening legend and a dust of mummia. Even to the shore she came and stood before Phaniol,
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