The Etruscan Read Free

guidance I found the sacred fountain, laid my pack on the ground, divested myself of my muddy garments, and dived into the purifying waters. The rain had made the round pool murky, but the water pouring from the lions’ maws cleansed my hair and body. I stepped naked into the sunlight and the ecstasy still lingered, so that my limbs were like fire and I felt no cold.
    Seeing the temple servants hastening toward me with fluttering robes and heads bound with sacred ribbons, I glanced upward. There, towering above everything and mightier even than the temple, was the black cliff over whose edge the guilty were flung. Black birds hovered over the gorge in the wake of the storm. I began running up the terraces toward the temple between the statues and monuments, disregarding the sacred way.
    Before the temple I laid my hand on the massive altar and shouted, “I, Turms of Ephesus, evoke the protection of the deity and submit to the judgment of the oracle!”
    I raised my eyes and on the frieze of the temple saw Artemis racing with her dog and Dionysus feasting. I knew then that I had farther to go. The servants tried to stop me but I pulled away and ran into the temple. Through the forecourt, by the giant silver urns, the costly statues and votive offerings I ran. In the innermost chamber I saw the eternal flame at a small altar and beside it the Omphalos, the center of the earth, black from the smoke of the centuries. On that sacred stone I laid my hand and surrendered to divine protection.
    An indescribable feeling of peace emanated from the stone, and I looked around me, unafraid. I saw the holy tomb of Dionysus, the eagles of the great deity in the temple shadows above me, and knew that I was safe. The servants dared not enter. Here I would encounter only the priests, the consecrated, the interpreters of the divine word.
    Alerted by the servants, the four holy men came in haste, adjusting their headbands and gathering their robes around them. Their faces were wry, their eyes swollen from sleep. They lived already on the threshold of winter, and they expected few pilgrims. That day, because of the storm, they had expected no one. Thus my arrival had disturbed them.
    So long as I lay naked on the floor of the inner shrine with both arms around the Omphalos, they could not use violence on me. Nor were they anxious to lay hands on me before they had learned my identity.
    They consulted one another in low tones, then asked, “Have you blood on your hands?”
    I said quickly that I had not, and they were obviously relieved. Had I been guilty, they would have had to purify the temple. “Have you sinned against the gods?” they asked then. I deliberated for a moment and replied, “I have not sinned against the Hellenic gods. On the contrary, the sacred virgin, the sister of your deity, watches over me.”
    “Who are you then and what do you want?” they demanded querulously. “Why do you come dancing out of the storm and dive into the holiest waters without permission? How dare you disturb the order and customs of the temple?”
    Fortunately it was not necessary for me to reply, for at that moment the Pythia entered, supported by her attendants. She was still a young woman, with a bare and direful face, dilated eyes and a swaying walk. She looked at me as though she had known me all her life, a glow suffusing her face as she began to speak.
    “At last you have come, expected one! Naked you came on dancing feet, purified by the fountain. Son of the moon, the seashell, the sea horse, I know you. You come from the West.”
    It was in my mind to tell her that she erred badly, since I came from the East, as fast as oars and sails could travel. Nevertheless, her words moved me.
    “Holy woman, do you really know me?”
    She burst into wild laughter and drew still nearer. “Should I not know you! Arise and look into my face.”
    Under the compulsion of those eyes I released the sacred stone and stared at the woman. Before my eyes