# Hyperion (Longfellow)/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
Homunculus
After all, a journey up the Rhine, in the mists and solitude of December, is not so unpleasant as the reader may imagine. You have the whole road and river to yourself. Nobody is on the wing; hardly a single traveller. The ruins are the same; and the river, and the outlines of the hills; and there are few living figures in the landscape to wake you from your musings, distract your thoughts, and cover you with dust.
Thus likewise thought our traveller, as he continued his journey on the morrow. The day is overcast, and the clouds threaten rain or snow. Why does he stop at the little village of Capellen? Because, right above him on the high cliff, the glorious ruin of Stolzenfels is looking at him with its hollow eyes, and beckoning to him with its gigantic finger, as if to say, “Come up hither, and I will tell thee an old talc.” Therefore he alights, and goes ​up the narrow village lane, and up the stone steps, and up the steep pathway, and throws himself into the arms of that ancient ruin, and holds his breath, to hear the quick footsteps of the falling snow, like the footsteps of angels descending upon earth. And that ancient ruin speaks to him with its hollow voice, and says:—
“Beware of dreams! Beware of the illusions of fancy! Beware of the solemn deceivings of thy vast desires! Beneath me flows the Rhine, and, like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the Past. I see myself therein, and I know that I am old. Thou, too, shalt be old. Be wise in season. Like the stream of thy life runs the stream beneath us. Down from the distant Alps,—out into the wide world, it bursts away, like a youth from the house of his fathers. Broad-breasted and strong, and with earnest endeavors, like manhood, it makes itself a way through these difficult mountain-passes. And at length, in its old age, it falters, and its steps are weary and slow, and it sinks into the sand, and, through its grave, passes into the great ocean, which is its eternity. Thus shall it be with thee.
​In ancient times, there dwelt within these halls a follower of Jesus of Jerusalem,—an Archbishop in the Church of Christ. He gave himself up to dreams; to the illusions of fancy; to the vast desires of the human soul. He sought after the impossible. He sought after the Elixir of Life,—the Philosopher’s Stone. The wealth that should have fed the poor was melted in his crucibles. Within these walls the Eagle of the clouds sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and received the spiritual love of the Green Dragon; but, alas! was childless. In solitude and utter silence did the disciple of the Hermetic Philosophy toil from day to day, from night to night. From the place where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon hills, and vales, and waters spread beneath him; and saw how the setting sun had changed them all to gold, by an alchemy more cunning than his own. He saw the world beneath his feet; and said in his heart, that he alone was wise. Alas! he read more willingly in the book of Paracelsus than in the book of Nature; and, believing that ‘where reason hath experience, faith hath no mind,’ would fain have made unto himself a child, as the Philosopher taught,—a poor homunculus, in a glass bottle. And he died poor and childless!”
​Whether it were worth while to climb the Stolzenfels to hear such a homily as this, some persons may perhaps doubt. But Paul Flemming doubted not. He laid the lesson to heart; and it would have saved him many an hour of sorrow, if he had learned that lesson better, and remembered it longer.
In ancient times, there stood in the citadel of Athens three statues of Minerva. The first was of olive-wood, and, according to popular tradition, had fallen from heaven. The second was of bronze, commemorating the victory of Marathon; and the third of gold and ivory,—a great miracle of art, in the age of Pericles. And thus in the citadel of Time stands Man himself. In childhood, shaped of soft and delicate wood, just fallen from heaven; in manhood, a statue of bronze, commemorating struggle and victory; and, lastly, in the maturity of age, perfectly shaped in gold and ivory,—a miracle of art!
Flemming had already lived through the olive age. He was passing into the age of bronze, into his early manhood; and in his hands the flowers of Paradise were changing to the sword and shield.
And this reminds me that I have not yet ​described my hero. I will do it how, as he stands looking down on the glorious landscape;—but in few words. Both in person and character he resembled Harold the Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the old Icelandic Death-Song of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as “the young chief so proud of his flowing locks; he who spent his mornings among the young maidens; he who loved to converse with the handsome widows.” This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul each image floated double, “swan and shadow.”
These traits of character, a good heart, and a poetic imagination, made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death cut down the sweet blue flower that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet blue flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became earnest. It would have been well, if he could ​have forgotten the past; that he might not so mournfully have lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved the present. But this his heart refused to do; and ever, as he floated upon the great sea of life, he looked down through the transparent waters, checkered with sunshine and shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty deep in which his happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying still visible, like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls; and, half in despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after them again, and drew back his hand, filled only with sea-weed, and dripping with briny tears! And between him and those golden sands a radiant image floated, like the spirit in Dante’s Paradise, singing, “Ave Maria!” and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing away.
In all things he acted more from impulse than from fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed, his principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all up, every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted,—to see if they are growing. Yet there was much in him which was good; for underneath the flowers and ​greensward of poetry, and the good principles which would have taken root had he given them time, there lay a strong and healthy soil of common sense,—freshened by living springs of feeling, and enriched by many faded hopes, that had fallen upon it like dead leaves.