In the pleasant sunset hour there was great excitement in Delphi village. Men and women of the aristocratic families of the town were all upon the street. Since women were abroad, it could be nothing other than a wedding. Nikander’s daughter to be married! And the circumstances were so unusual that not one relative would miss it. Nikander was marrying her to a foreigner, a strange choice where Delphic youths abounded. But it was said that the choice was the girl’s own, that she loved the young man.
She had managed to see him, and the young man had seen Theria’s face not once, but twice. This, however, was stoutly denied by the nearest of kin. The bridegroom had some wealth. That was a comfort; but he was as peculiar as the girl herself.
The girl had seen Apollo in a vision and was now going to carry the god’s worship over seas to a place where Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant, still lived and might at any time sally forth from some sequestered forest. Where also were men with heads turned backward. This from the women. The men knew better.
So they all gathered to the festive house with laughter, cousinly greetings, and jests. Nikander, richly clad and crowned with myrtle, received them at the door. Ah, there was the bridegroom, too. He was certainly handsome even though no Delphian. His dark head was crowned. He was clad in the crimson purple so dear to the Greeks. And here was Dryas, limping from his honourable wounds and greeting them all in his friendly way. How bright the torches burned in the aula! The smell of roast lamb was wafted from the kitchen to mingle with the odour of rose garlands everywhere. The slaves were bringing in the wine. Would the bride come soon?
In the midst of this worldly clatter the love that was between the pair burned, a thing apart like an altar flame on a still day, clear, unswerving toward the sky.
The ceremonies had begun in the morning when Nikander sacrificed the lamb to Hera Teleia. In the afternoon had come Theria’s maiden cousin bearing a pitcher of pure water from Castalia spring. Theria had received her bridal bath knowing that at the spring itself Eëtíon likewise was being purified.
Theria had been all joy, full of excited laughter, pranks, and dancing. But now her joy swept into an exaltation which kept her still and wistfully kind to all who served her.
As said her own Greek poet:
Young life grows in those sheltered regions of its own,
And the sungod’s heat vexes it not,
Nor rain nor any wind
But it rejoices in its sweet untroubled being.
Toward evening her mother and Baltè dressed Theria in her robes. They draped her beauty in the bridal saffron in which it glowed, they crowned her dark head with myrtle, accenting its symmetry. Then they covered all with the bridal veil and took her below into the torch-lighted aula.
Sorry might those well be who missed the wonder of her hidden eyes.
The guests received her with shouts and laughter. For the wedding was a revel and a romp, the subject of raillery and joke. The women sat at table apart; the men at their feast table. How merrily they laughed when Eëtíon kept glancing away from the board toward his bride and forgot to talk. It was not the bride’s beauty but Eëtíon’s which was remarked by the guests.
So they drank the wine and poured it to the gods, and flung it each in turn from his glass into a whirling cup. Whoever flung without spilling won a prize.
The young couple, in spite of their curious history, made a good impression upon the guests, and several that evening asked to become members of the new colony.
Then in the midst of the kottabus game went up the shout:
“The marriage car at the door!”
Only a moment had Theria to gaze about her at the dear familiar place seen all dimly through her veil. Then her mother took her hand and led her out into the coolness of the night.
There the full round of the marriage-moon made a whiter day. Eëtíon lifted his bride, a slim, swathed figure, into the chariot, then sat at her side. Karamanor, as paranymphos, sat with them.
The procession started, Melantho behind the chariot carrying the marriage torches whose ruddy burning sent aloft the mystic smoke. Out from the house into the silvery radiance of the moon-lit road poured forth the youths and maidens, singing, shouting:
“Ho Hymen! Hymen Hymenæos. Io!”
Up the Delphi highroad they danced toward the little house beyond the Precinct, which Nikander had given to the pair. A mad and merry rout, they followed the jolting car. One played the sounding pipes, and behind him a boy clashed aloft the thin, glittering cymbals. In a burst of joyous music they stopped at the bridegroom’s door.
There stood Baltè with torches to receive them. Eëtíon’s mother should have been the one to hold that welcoming torch. No doubt she guessed this in her dark house of Hades and wept with tearless eyes to be near her son upon his marriage night.
Now Eëtíon lifts his bride from the chariot, carries her carefully over the high threshold that no stumble of her foot may bring ill luck. And they go into the marriage chamber. The door is shut and Eëtíon with reverent hand lifts the bridal veil to behold at last the wondering, half-frightened, yet happy face for which he has longed these many days.
Soberly he gives to her the quince, symbolic food of those who are to be the mothers of men. Her hands, as she eats, tangle in the long enmeshing veil, and with a quick breath Eëtíon sweeps it off upon the floor. Her comely head is liberate, her shoulders and arms free.
Suddenly he catches her away from ritual into a high shining reality. He folds her in his arms, kissing her forehead and mouth.
“Oh, be free,” he whispers. “Your hands to act, your eyes to see, my Theria, giver of my freedom.”
Meanwhile, the guests outside the closed door make merry, chanting the epithalamion, calling rudely to the bridal pair as the ancient custom is, but they—they hear it not.