DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2532#0108
THE VIEW FROM THE IIERAEUM 87
puts forward has often stood in the way of the due appreciation of the transcendent beauty of its
natural scenery, so that this feature often takes the visitor by surprise.
Of all the many beautiful views in Greece, that from the Heraeum is certainly one of the most
beautiful. If in this brilliant atmosphere, clear and lucid, yet never lapsing- into flaring vulgarity,
without ever having the coarseness of the too-manifest, we stand on the temple platform and gaze
over the Argive plain, we see on the left, to the southwest, the peaks of Parnon and Parthenion
rise in a pale blue limpid light, which seems but a continuation of the blue strip of sea in the
Nauplian Gulf, and which causes the azure sky behind, cut into graceful fretwork by the delicate
outlines of the mountains, to appear a paler blue. This delicate line of mountain range, chiseled
in its finely cut yet never hard features, like beautiful profiles on Greek gems, continuous in its
course, harmoniously varied, flows in one long-drawn sweep from our left to our right. And in
this evenly flowing outline we can distinguish Artemisium opposite, shelving down by steps, Lycone
and Larisa, to where Argos lies, its white monastery of the Panagia crouching and nestling to the
rock, a bright white sjjeck above the town. The line of mountains is carried on to the more distant
and higher ranges grouping round Cyllene, until, at our right, it is lost in the hills that encircle
Nemea. And you know that, jealously guarding the plain where the passes lead to these northern-
most mountains, Mycenae crouches among its rocky glens, like a mediaeval keep, wilder, more
dismal, as if it stood on guard against a northern land and people. But on our left again, to the
south, where Tiryns lies, when the sun turns after noon, the rock fortress of Palamidi juts forth
into the blue sea ; the sun's rays beat upon its walls, and the windows from the houses of Nauplia
gleam and twinkle in the distance, like earth-born daylight stars. And before us, all the time, in
peaceful languor, stretches the generous plain of broad-breasted mother Gaia, with all shades of
green vegetation in its wheat, barley, and oats, and clumps of olive-trees. Between this green are
the bared, dark, red-brown patches of earth where the rude metal-tipped wooden plough, drawn
by oxen goaded on by the long-pointed rod, has cut its furrows. These await the tobacco plant,
which in its delicate infancy has been sheltered from the rough winds by wicker hurdles, and is
growing happily, as from the distance it paints the bright, golden strips between the brown and
green. As the sun shines on the snow of the peaks, they gleam like broadened lance-heads of
polished silver ; and farther down their sides, in the gullies and beneath the rocky ledges, the
strong ribs and sinewy flanks of these lofty giants, where the snow has remained, the silver gleam
flows out into winding threads.
And all this rich variety of line, form, and color is changed and multiplied in its aspect, though
harmonized in its unity of tone, by the succession of the seasons, of the day's lights, and of the
capricious effects of atmosphere. But even in the still moonlight nights, when the bells of the
sheep, grazing on the slopes of Euboea, sounded in our tents as if they were but a few feet from
the canvas and awakened us, and the owl screeched its shrill and monotonous call, the sight at
our feet — the plain, the mountains, the sea, and sky — exercised a spell of beauty unrivaled in
any part of the globe.
To the effect of this natural beauty come the historical associations of the spot to intensify the
artistic charm : for where can such condensed historical associations, big with man's history, and
rising out of the very earth before you and from the remains recovered from her womb, crowd in
upon the imagination? They stamp their most characteristic features on your mind in the form
of a general artistic mood (which often years of learned reading and thought fail to produce in
the scholar), which represents the quintessence and living soul of each past period. And this mood
is evoked, not by vague and uncertain and nebulous suggestion, but by the very handiwork of
the men who in the distant past produced these remains now restored to the present, — nay,
made part of the present and its spiritual life by the pick and spade of the excavator ; for the
clay moulded, the stones cut, the metal wrought, is now as it was then, and contains the life and
the soul infused into them from the worker's hands, now as they did thousands of years ago, —
..." pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts heat hard
And brains, high-blooded, ticked [long] centuries ago."
puts forward has often stood in the way of the due appreciation of the transcendent beauty of its
natural scenery, so that this feature often takes the visitor by surprise.
Of all the many beautiful views in Greece, that from the Heraeum is certainly one of the most
beautiful. If in this brilliant atmosphere, clear and lucid, yet never lapsing- into flaring vulgarity,
without ever having the coarseness of the too-manifest, we stand on the temple platform and gaze
over the Argive plain, we see on the left, to the southwest, the peaks of Parnon and Parthenion
rise in a pale blue limpid light, which seems but a continuation of the blue strip of sea in the
Nauplian Gulf, and which causes the azure sky behind, cut into graceful fretwork by the delicate
outlines of the mountains, to appear a paler blue. This delicate line of mountain range, chiseled
in its finely cut yet never hard features, like beautiful profiles on Greek gems, continuous in its
course, harmoniously varied, flows in one long-drawn sweep from our left to our right. And in
this evenly flowing outline we can distinguish Artemisium opposite, shelving down by steps, Lycone
and Larisa, to where Argos lies, its white monastery of the Panagia crouching and nestling to the
rock, a bright white sjjeck above the town. The line of mountains is carried on to the more distant
and higher ranges grouping round Cyllene, until, at our right, it is lost in the hills that encircle
Nemea. And you know that, jealously guarding the plain where the passes lead to these northern-
most mountains, Mycenae crouches among its rocky glens, like a mediaeval keep, wilder, more
dismal, as if it stood on guard against a northern land and people. But on our left again, to the
south, where Tiryns lies, when the sun turns after noon, the rock fortress of Palamidi juts forth
into the blue sea ; the sun's rays beat upon its walls, and the windows from the houses of Nauplia
gleam and twinkle in the distance, like earth-born daylight stars. And before us, all the time, in
peaceful languor, stretches the generous plain of broad-breasted mother Gaia, with all shades of
green vegetation in its wheat, barley, and oats, and clumps of olive-trees. Between this green are
the bared, dark, red-brown patches of earth where the rude metal-tipped wooden plough, drawn
by oxen goaded on by the long-pointed rod, has cut its furrows. These await the tobacco plant,
which in its delicate infancy has been sheltered from the rough winds by wicker hurdles, and is
growing happily, as from the distance it paints the bright, golden strips between the brown and
green. As the sun shines on the snow of the peaks, they gleam like broadened lance-heads of
polished silver ; and farther down their sides, in the gullies and beneath the rocky ledges, the
strong ribs and sinewy flanks of these lofty giants, where the snow has remained, the silver gleam
flows out into winding threads.
And all this rich variety of line, form, and color is changed and multiplied in its aspect, though
harmonized in its unity of tone, by the succession of the seasons, of the day's lights, and of the
capricious effects of atmosphere. But even in the still moonlight nights, when the bells of the
sheep, grazing on the slopes of Euboea, sounded in our tents as if they were but a few feet from
the canvas and awakened us, and the owl screeched its shrill and monotonous call, the sight at
our feet — the plain, the mountains, the sea, and sky — exercised a spell of beauty unrivaled in
any part of the globe.
To the effect of this natural beauty come the historical associations of the spot to intensify the
artistic charm : for where can such condensed historical associations, big with man's history, and
rising out of the very earth before you and from the remains recovered from her womb, crowd in
upon the imagination? They stamp their most characteristic features on your mind in the form
of a general artistic mood (which often years of learned reading and thought fail to produce in
the scholar), which represents the quintessence and living soul of each past period. And this mood
is evoked, not by vague and uncertain and nebulous suggestion, but by the very handiwork of
the men who in the distant past produced these remains now restored to the present, — nay,
made part of the present and its spiritual life by the pick and spade of the excavator ; for the
clay moulded, the stones cut, the metal wrought, is now as it was then, and contains the life and
the soul infused into them from the worker's hands, now as they did thousands of years ago, —
..." pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts heat hard
And brains, high-blooded, ticked [long] centuries ago."