Apollo on Earth

A god falls among the mortals

Apollo in Mourne by Richard Rowley, with woodcuts by Lady Mabel Annesley

We open in the heights, the elevated heights, of Olympus. Where Jove is using every tool he has rhetorical to upbraid another one, a member, of the gods. You have, he says, dishonoured this place and our breed; you have done much harm; and you must suffer the consequences. What consequence can there be for one such as you? You are still endowed with the second sight that the gods have; you live forever, as gods do. You are above, in every sense, the lot and life of men. No punishment that you may suffer as a god fits quite your crimes.

But there is one thing I may yet do. I may banish you from among the gods. You might go to earth, live among the mortals — live a cold and desolate and brief life, as they do. You might be scarred by age, tormented by love. You may yet feel fear as they feel fear, fear in every moment, in every sensation, of their bitter lives.

Thus, says Jove, are you, Apollo, despatched. Thus are you punished by the gods.

And Apollo finds himself so punished, and finds himself waking up in early twentieth century Ireland, in the middle of a bitter storm.

Now in the form of a mortal, Apollo is still himself: a beautiful youth clad in white Greek wear. He is not built, he was not made, for the winds and rains of Ireland. His body is wracked by new sensations. He feels the cold, as if for the first time. He feels the weakness and futility of the flesh. And he believes, is quite sure, that in this place, this cold, dark place, far from the heights, Apollo the god will die.

But luckily enough for Apollo, he is happened upon by a local man. Not an interesting local man, not a man extraordinary, but a local man who had business along the way. A man who might give a bottle to his grandfather. And a man who wanted to stop off at a nearby pub so he could talk to the fair maid who minds the bar, the girl he loves in a small and reticent and unromantic way.

Apollo talks in rich plain verse, and this man talks in prose — in dialect. The contrast here is effective. Apollo, even as he is weak and not himself, speaks in polished phrases. Even as he feels the cold taking fatal effect, he is talking as if delivering a fine speech on a stage. And the local man talks to him as if he ought to stop being quite so foolish, ought to pull himself together, and when Apollo seems really apt to die, the local man gives the god something strong from his flask that he keeps on his hip.

This produces an instantaneous reaction. Apollo is not only revived; he is revivified. He starts talking as the drink gets to him — what is this liquid? Surely it is the finest of man’s creations, rivalling and excelling the nectar of the gods?

What divine elixir
Was that recalled me from a grisly dream?
A splendid fire goes coursing thro’ my veins,
My heart is full of courage, I will live
Be it but to drink again a glorious draught
Of that inspiring wine. Let me once more
Taste it, and tasting be once more a god.

and later

I have drunk the nectar poured by Ganymede,
In high Olympus amid feasting gods,
On earth I have drunk the wine of mighty kings,
But never till this day, in this wild land,
Have my lips tasted waves of liquid gold
Melted by mellow fire.

To which the man, Paddy, says, steady on fella. That’s strong stuff.

I want to say again that this mixing of prose and poem — the fine verse with the vernacular — is charming and effective and I like it very much.

Apollo himself is then taken by Paddy onto the pub, where Paddy promises him an enticing barmaid to speak to while he gets warm and more drink to put him right. But Paddy does not know the half of it. What Apollo sees in the girl in question goes beyond mere pleasantness.

The girl, Mary, is just thinking about how dull her life is, how all the romance she once hoped for has fled away as the time has slowly passed — when into her pub, and into her life, walks a Greek god, a ‘fine looking boy,’ who talks to her like this:

There was a maiden in Cyrene once
Had hair like yours, woven of ruddy gold,
The colour of spilt sunshine on low clouds
When the dawn-glory sets the East a-flame.
I loved her to her hurt—she had violet eyes—
Now that earth covers her I had not thought
Her memory lived in my forgetful heart
Nor her beauty’s equal in this desolate world.

Mary is meant to be Paddy’s girl. No wonder there’s trouble to come.