Forests In Minds And A Fight At A Meal?

The Golden Slave, XVII.

"Indeed the soul of man is a forest at night." (p. 227)

Not bad. Like Hopkins:

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,

Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
-copied from here.

The meal in this chapter is a minor addition to our Food Thread:

"...little more than a roast ox and several kinds of fowl, stuffed with rice and olives." (p. 230)

Flavius, Eodan and Tjorr threaten to fight but Mithradates will not countenance violence between his guests. When he has shouted them down:

"The room grew very quiet, until only the crackling fires and the breathing of men had voice. And outside the wind prowled under the walls." (p. 232)

The wind prowls like an outside enemy waiting to take advantage of inner strife. Yet again it both underlines dialogue and comments on actions.

Flavius addresses Mithradates:

"'Great King, beyond our realms are the barbarians, the howling folk without law or knowledge.'" (p. 233)

Anderson's characters propagate this questionable idea that only civilization holds us back from "howling."

We also remember the:

lesser breeds without the Law
-copied from here.

Flavius continues:

that Mithradates served Rome when he broke the Scythians;
that "'...Rome served Pontus on the Raudian plain.'" (p. 234);
that Hellas is the mother of both Rome and Pontus;
that the barbarian enemy, Eodan, would stable horses in the Parthenon and light fires with Homer;
that he, Flavius, hunts not one barbarian but barbarism;
that a barbarian is not a man and a slave even less;
that Phryne, whom Mithradates consults, is a Greekling slave.

Phryne replies:

that Flavius was a better man's (Eodan's) slave after Arausio;
that, if ancestors must be raised from Hades, then where were Flavius' at Salamis?;
that, although Mithradates' ancestors were with the Persians, he is now "protector of the Greeks" (p. 235);
that Eodan freed her, a Greek, whereas Romans devastated Corinth.

Mithradates decides:

"'These people are still of my household... Let no man do them harm. The king has spoken.'" (p. 235)

I reply to Flavius:

that barbarians and slaves are men and women;
that it is better to hunt barbarism by civilizing, not killing, barbarians.

As a final note on this chapter, Eodan plays pachisi (p. 236), of which I had never heard.

Eodan realizes that Phryne and he are effectively slaves of Mithradates but that issue remains to be addressed in the ensuing chapters.