An Egyptian Princess Part 5

[Isis, the wife or sister of Osiris, is the phenomena of nature, by means of which the G.o.d is able to reveal himself to human contemplation.]

While Psamtik was making every preparation for the capture of Phanes, Croesus, accompanied by his followers, had embarked on board a royal bark, and was on his way down the Nile to spend the evening with Rhodopis.

His son Gyges and the three young Persians remained in Sais, pa.s.sing the time in a manner most agreeable to them.

Amasis loaded them with civilities, allowed them, according to Egyptian custom, the society of his queen and of the twin-sisters, as they were called, taught Gyges the game of draughts, and looking on while the strong, dexterous, young heroes joined his daughters in the game of throwing b.a.l.l.s and hoops, so popular among Egyptian maidens, enlivened their amus.e.m.e.nts with an inexhaustible flow of wit and humor.

[The Pharaohs themselves, as well as their subjects, were in the habit of playing at draughts and other similar games. Rosellini gives its Rameses playing with his daughter; see also two Egyptians playing together, Wilkinson II. 419. An especially beautiful draught-board exists in the Egyptian collection at the Louvre Museum. The Egyptians hoped to be permitted to enjoy these pleasures even in the other world.]

[b.a.l.l.s that have been found in the tombs are still to be seen; some, for instance, in the Museum at Leyden.]

"Really," said Bartja, as he watched Nitetis catching the slight hoop, ornamented with gay ribbons, for the hundredth time on her slender ivory rod, "really we must introduce this game at home. We Persians are so different from you Egyptians. Everything new has a special charm for us, while to you it is just as hateful. I shall describe the game to Our mother Ka.s.sandane, and she will be delighted to allow my brother's wives this new amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Yes, do, do!" exclaimed the fair Tachot blus.h.i.+ng deeply. "Then Nitetis can play too, and fancy herself back again at home and among those she loves; and Bartja," she added in a low voice, "whenever you watch the hoops flying, you too must remember this hour."

"I shall never forget it," answered he with a smile, and then, turning to his future sister-in-law, he called out cheerfully, "Be of good courage, Nitetis, you will be happier than you fancy with us. We Asiatics know how to honor beauty; and prove it by taking many wives."

Nitetis sighed, and the queen Ladice exclaimed, "On the contrary, that very fact proves that you understand but poorly how to appreciate woman's nature! You can have no idea, Bartja, what a woman feels on finding that her husband-the man who to her is more than life itself, and to whom she would gladly and without reserve give up all that she treasures as most sacred-looks down on her with the same kind of admiration that he bestows on a pretty toy, a n.o.ble steed, or a well-wrought wine-bowl. But it is yet a thousand-fold more painful to feel that the love which every woman has a right to possess for herself alone, must be shared with a hundred others!"

"There speaks the jealous wife!" exclaimed Amasis. "Would you not fancy that I had often given her occasion to doubt my faithfulness?"

"No, no, my husband," answered Ladice, "in this point the Egyptian men surpa.s.s other nations, that they remain content with that which they have once loved; indeed I venture to a.s.sert that an Egyptian wife is the happiest of women.

[According to Diodorus (I. 27) the queen of Egypt held a higher position than the king himself. The monuments and lists of names certainly prove that women could rule with sovereign power. The husband of the heiress to the throne became king. They had their own revenues (Diodorus I. 52) and when a princess, after death, was admitted among the G.o.ddesses, she received her own priestesses.

(Edict of Canopus.) During the reigns of the Ptolemies many coins were stamped with the queen's image and cities were named for them.

We notice also that sons, in speaking of their descent, more frequently reckon it from the mother's than the father's side, that a married woman is constantly alluded to as the "mistress" or "lady"

of the house, that according to many a Greek Papyrus they had entire disposal of all their property, no matter in what it consisted, in short that the weaker s.e.x seems to have enjoyed equal influence with the stronger.]

Even the Greeks, who in so many things may serve as patterns to us, do not know how to appreciate woman rightly. Most of the young Greek girls pa.s.s their sad childhood in close rooms, kept to the wheel and the loom by their mothers and those who have charge of them, and when marriageable, are transferred to the quiet house of a husband they do not know, and whose work in life and in the state allows him but seldom to visit his wife's apartments. Only when the most intimate friends and nearest relations are with her husband, does she venture to appear in their midst, and then shyly and timidly, hoping to hear a little of what is going on in the great world outside. Ah, indeed! we women thirst for knowledge too, and there are certain branches of learning at least, which it cannot be right to withhold from those who are to be the mothers and educators of the next generation. What can an Attic mother, without knowledge, without experience, give to her daughters? Naught but her own ignorance. And so it is, that a h.e.l.lene, seldom satisfied with the society of his lawful, but, mentally, inferior wife, turns for satisfaction to those courtesans, who, from their constant intercourse with men, have acquired knowledge, and well understand how to adorn it with the flowers of feminine grace, and to season it with the salt of a woman's more refined and delicate wit. In Egypt it is different. A young girl is allowed to a.s.sociate freely with the most enlightened men. Youths and maidens meet constantly on festive occasions, learn to know and love one another. The wife is not the slave, but the friend of her husband; the one supplies the deficiencies of the other. In weighty questions the stronger decides, but the lesser cares of life are left to her who is the greater in small things. The daughters grow up under careful guidance, for the mother is neither ignorant nor inexperienced. To be virtuous and diligent in her affairs becomes easy to a woman, for she sees that it increases his happiness whose dearest possession she boasts of being, and who belongs to her alone. The women only do that which pleases us! but the Egyptian men understand the art of making us pleased with that which is really good, and with that alone. On the sh.o.r.es of the Nile, Phocylides of Miletus and Hipponax of Ephesus would never have dared to sing their libels on women, nor could the fable of Pandora have been possibly invented here!"

[Simonides of Amorgos, an Iambic poet, who delighted in writing satirical verses on women. He divides them into different cla.s.ses, which he compares to unclean animals, and considers that the only woman worthy of a husband and able to make him happy must be like the bee. The well-known fable of Pandora owes its origin to Simonides. He lived about 650 B. C. The Egyptians too, speak very severely of bad women, comparing them quite in the Simonides style to beasts of prey (hyenas, lions and panthers). We find this sentence on a vicious woman: She is a collection of every kind of meanness, and a bag full of wiles. Chabas, Papyr. magrque Harris.

p. 135. Phocylides of Miletus, a rough and sarcastic, but observant man, imitated Simonides in his style of writing. But the deformed Hipponax of Ephesus, a poet crushed down by poverty, wrote far bitterer verses than Phocylides. He lived about 550 B. C. "His own ugliness (according to Bernhardy) is reflected in every one of his Choliambics." ]

"How beautifully you speak!" exclaimed Bartja. "Greek was not easy to learn, but I am very glad now that I did not give it up in despair, and really paid attention to Croesus' lessons."

"Who could those men have been," asked Darius, "who dared to speak evil of women?"

"A couple of Greek poets," answered Amasis, "the boldest of men, for I confess I would rather provoke a lioness than a woman. But these Greeks do not know what fear is. I will give you a specimen of Hipponax's Poetry: "There are but two days when a wife, Brings pleasure to her husband's life, The wedding-day, when hopes are bright, And the day he buries her out of his sight."

"Cease, cease," cried Ladice stopping her ears, that is too had. Now, Persians, you can see what manner of man Amasis is. For the sake of a joke, he will laugh at those who hold precisely the same opinion as himself. There could not be a better husband.

"Nor a worse wife," laughed Amasis. "Thou wilt make men think that I am a too obedient husband. But now farewell, my children; our young heroes must look at this our city of Sais; before parting, however, I will repeat to them what the malicious Siuionides has sung of a good wife: "Dear to her spouse from youth to age she grows; Fills with fair girls and st.u.r.dy boys his house; Among all women womanliest seems, And heavenly grace about her mild brow gleams.

A gentle wife, a n.o.ble spouse she walks, Nor ever with the gossip mongers talks.

Such women sometimes Zeus to mortals gives, The glory and the solace of their lives."

"Such is my Ladice! now farewell!"

"Not yet!" cried Bartja. "Let me first speak in defence of our poor Persia and instil fresh courage into my future sister-in-law; but no! Darius, thou must speak, thine eloquence is as great as thy skill in figures and swordsmans.h.i.+p!"

"Thou speakst of me as if I were a gossip or a shopkeeper,"-[This nickname, which Darius afterwards earned, is more fully spoken of]-answered the son of Hystaspes. "Be it so; I have been burning all this time to defend the customs of our country. Know then, Ladice, that if Auramazda dispose the heart of our king in his own good ways, your daughter will not be his slave, but his friend. Know also, that in Persia, though certainly only at high festivals, the king's wives have their places at the men's table, and that we pay the highest reverence to our wives and mothers. A king of Babylon once took a Persian wife; in the broad plains of the Euphrates she fell sick of longing for her native mountains; he caused a gigantic structure to be raised on arches, and the summit thereof to be covered with a depth of rich earth; caused the choicest trees and flowers to be planted there, and watered by artificial machinery. This wonder completed, he led his wife thither; from its top she could look down into the plains below, as from the heights of Rachined, and with this costly gift he presented her. Tell me, could even an Egyptian give more?"

[This stupendous erection is said to have been constructed by Nebuchadnezzar for his Persian wife Amytis. Curtius V. 5.

Josephus contra Apion. I. 19. Antiquities X. II. 1. Diod. II. 10.

For further particulars relative to the hanging-gardens, see later notes.]

"And did she recover?" asked Nitetis, without raising her eyes.

"She recovered health and happiness; and you too will soon feel well and happy in our country."

"And now," said Ladice with a smile, "what, think you, contributed most to the young queen's recovery? the beautiful mountain or the love of the husband, who erected it for her sake?"

"Her husband's love," cried the young girls.

"But Nitetis would not disdain the mountain either," maintained Bartja, "and I shall make it my care that whenever the court is at Babylon, she has the hanging-gardens for her residence."

"But now come," exclaimed Amasis, "unless you wish to see the city in darkness. Two secretaries have been awaiting me yonder for the last two hours. Ho! Sachons! give orders to the captain of the guard to accompany our n.o.ble guests with a hundred men."

"But why? a single guide, perhaps one of the Greek officers, would be amply sufficient."

"No, my young friends, it is better so. Foreigners can never be too prudent in Egypt. Do not forget this, and especially be careful not to ridicule the sacred animals. And now farewell, my young heroes, till we meet again this evening over a merry wine-cup."

The Persians then quitted the palace, accompanied by their interpreter, a Greek, but who had been brought up in Egypt, and spoke both languages with equal facility.

[Psamtik I. is said to have formed a new caste, viz.: the caste of Interpreters, out of those Greeks who had been born and bred up in Egypt. Herod. II. 154. Herodotus himself was probably conducted by such a "Dragoman."]

Those streets of Sais which lay near the palace wore a pleasant aspect. The houses, many of which were five stories high, were generally covered with pictures or hieroglyphics; galleries with bal.u.s.trades of carved and gaily-painted wood-work, supported by columns also brightly painted, ran round the walls surrounding the courts. In many cases the proprietor's name and rank was to be read on the door, which was, however, well closed and locked. Flowers and shrubs ornamented the flat roofs, on which the Egyptians loved to spend the evening hours, unless indeed, they preferred ascending the mosquito-tower with which nearly every house was provided. These troublesome insects, engendered by the Nile, fly low, and these little watch-towers were built as a protection from them.

The young Persians admired the great, almost excessive cleanliness, with which each house, nay, even the streets themselves, literally shone. The door-plates and knockers sparkled in the sun; paintings, balconies and columns all had the appearance of having been only just finished, and even the street-pavement looked as if it were often scoured.

[The streets of Egyptian towns seem to have been paved, judging from the ruins of Alabastron and Memphis. We know at least with certainty that this was the case with those leading to the temples.]

But as the Persians left the neighborhood of the Nile and the palace, the streets became smaller. Sais was built on the slope of a moderately high hill, and had only been the residence of the Pharaohs for two centuries and a half, but, during that comparatively short interval, had risen from an unimportant place into a town of considerable magnitude.

On its river-side the houses and streets were brilliant, but on the hill-slope lay, with but few more respectable exceptions, miserable, poverty-stricken huts constructed of acacia-boughs and Nile-mud. On the north-west rose the royal citadel.

"Let us turn back here," exclaimed Gyges to his young companions. During his father's absence he was responsible as their guide and protector, and now perceived that the crowd of curious spectators, which had hitherto followed them, was increasing at every step.

"I obey your orders," replied the interpreter, "but yonder in the valley, at the foot of that hill, lies the Saitic city of the dead, and for foreigners I should think that would be of great interest."

"Go forward!" cried Bartja. "For what did we leave Persia, if not to behold these remarkable objects?"

On arriving at an open kind of square surrounded by workmen's booths, and not far from the city of the dead, confused cries rose among the crowd behind them.

[Artisans, as well among the ancient as the modern Egyptians, were accustomed to work in the open air.]

The children shouted for joy, the women called out, and one voice louder than the rest was heard exclaiming: "Come hither to the fore-court of the temple, and see the works of the great magician, who comes from the western oases of Libya and is endowed with miraculous gifts by Chunsu, the giver of good counsels, and by the great G.o.ddess Hekt."

"Follow me to the small temple yonder," said the interpreter, "and you will behold a strange spectacle." He pushed a way for himself and the Persians through the crowd, obstructed in his course by many a sallow woman and naked child; and at length came back with a priest, who conducted the strangers into the fore-court of the temple. Here, surrounded by various chests and boxes, stood a man in the dress of a priest; beside him on the earth knelt two negroes. The Libyan was a man of gigantic stature, with great suppleness of limb and a pair of piercing black eyes. In his hand he held a wind-instrument resembling a modern clarionet, and a number of snakes, known in Egypt to be poisonous, lay coiling themselves over his breast and arms.

On finding himself in the presence of the Persians he bowed low, inviting them by a solemn gesture to gaze at his performances; he then cast off his white robe and began all kinds of tricks with the snakes.

He allowed them to bite him, till the blood trickled down his cheeks; compelled them by the notes of his flute to a.s.sume an erect position and perform a kind of dancing evolution; by spitting into their jaws he transformed them to all appearance into motionless rods; and then, das.h.i.+ng them all on to the earth, performed a wild dance in their midst, yet without once touching a single snake.

Like one possessed, he contorted his pliant limbs until his eyes seemed starting from his head and a b.l.o.o.d.y foam issued from his lips.

Suddenly he fell to the ground, apparently lifeless. A slight movement of the lips and a low hissing whistle were the only signs of life; but, on hearing the latter, the snakes crept up and twined themselves like living rings around his neck, legs and body. At last he rose, sang a hymn in praise of the divine power which had made him a magician, and then laid the greater number of his snakes in one of the chests, retaining a few, probably his favorites, to serve as ornaments for his neck and arms.

The second part of this performance consisted of clever conjuring-tricks, in which he swallowed burning flax, balanced swords while dancing, their points standing in the hollow of his eye; drew long strings and ribbons out of the noses of the Egyptian children, exhibited the well-known cup-and-ball trick, and, at length, raised the admiration of the spectators to its highest pitch, by producing five living rabbits from as many ostrich-eggs.

The Persians formed no unthankful portion of the a.s.sembled crowd; on the contrary, this scene, so totally new, impressed them deeply.

They felt as if in the realm of miracles, and fancied they had now seen the rarest of all Egyptian rarities. In silence they took their way back to the handsomer streets of Sais, without noticing how many mutilated Egyptians crossed their path. These poor disfigured creatures were indeed no unusual sight for Asiatics, who punished many crimes by the amputation of a limb. Had they enquired however, they would have heard that, in Egypt, the man deprived of his hand was a convicted forger, the woman of her nose, an adulteress; that the man without a tongue had been found guilty of high treason or false witness; that the loss of the ears denoted a spy, and that the pale, idiotic-looking woman yonder had been guilty of infanticide, and had been condemned to hold the little corpse three days and three nights in her arms. What woman could retain her senses after these hours of torture?-[Diodorus I. 77.]

The greater number of the Egyptian penal laws not only secured the punishment of the criminal, but rendered a repet.i.tion of the offence impossible.

The Persian party now met with a hindrance, a large crowd having a.s.sembled before one of the handsomest houses in the street leading to the temple of Neith. The few windows of this house that could be seen (the greater number opening on the garden and court) were closed with shutters, and at the door stood an old man, dressed in the plain white robe of a priest's servant. He was endeavoring, with loud cries, to prevent a number of men of his own cla.s.s from carrying a large chest out of the house.

"What right have you to rob my master?" he shrieked indignantly. "I am the guardian of this house, and when my master left for Persia (may the G.o.ds destroy that land!) he bade me take especial care of this chest in which his ma.n.u.scripts lay."

"Compose yourself, old Hib!" shouted one of these inferior priests, the same whose acquaintance we made on the arrival of the Asiatic Emba.s.sy. "We are here in the name of the high-priest of the great Neith, your master's master. There must be queer papers in this box, or Neithotep would not have honored us with his commands to fetch them."

"But I will not allow my master's papers to be stolen," shrieked the old man. "My master is the great physician Nebenchari, and I will secure his rights, even if I must appeal to the king himself."

"There," cried the other, "that will do; out with the chest, you fellows. Carry it at once to the high-priest; and you, old man, would do more wisely to hold your tongue and remember that the high-priest is your master as well as mine. Get into the house as quick as you can, or to-morrow we shall have to drag you off as we did the chest to-day!" So saying, he slammed the heavy door, the old man was flung backward into the house and the crowd saw him no more.

The Persians had watched this scene and obtained an explanation of its meaning from their interpreter. Zopyrus laughed on hearing that the possessor of the stolen chest was the oculist Nebenchari, the same who had been sent to Persia to restore the sight of the king's mother, and whose grave, even morose temper had procured him but little love at the court of Cambyses.

Bartja wished to ask Amasis the meaning of this strange robbery, but Gyges begged him not to interfere in matters with which he had no concern. Just as they reached the palace, and darkness, which in Egypt so quickly succeeds the daylight, was already stealing over the city, Gyges felt himself hindered from proceeding further by a firm hand on his robe, and perceived a stranger holding his finger on his lips in token of silence.

"When can I speak with you alone and un.o.bserved?" he whispered.

"What do you wish from me?"

"Ask no questions, but answer me quickly. By Mithras, I have weighty matters to disclose."

"You speak Persian, but your garments would proclaim you an Egyptian."

"I am a Persian, but answer me quickly or we shall be noticed. When can I speak to you alone?"

"To-morrow morning."

"That is too late."

"Well then, in a quarter of an hour, when it is quite dark, at this gate of the palace."

"I shall expect you."

So saying the man vanished. Once within the palace, Gyges left Bartja and Zopyrus, fastened his sword into his girdle, begged Darius to do the same and to follow him, and was soon standing again under the great portico with the stranger, but this time in total darkness.

"Auramazda be praised that you are there!" cried the latter in Persian to the young Lydian; "but who is that with you?"

"Darius, the son of Hystaspes, one of the Achaemenidae; and my friend."

The stranger bowed low and answered, "It is well, I feared an Egyptian had accompanied you."

"No, we are alone and willing to hear you; but be brief. Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Bubares. I served as a poor captain under the great Cyrus. At the taking of your father's city, Sardis, the soldiers were at first allowed to plunder freely; but on your wise father's representing to Cyrus that to plunder a city already taken was an injury to the present, and not to the former, possessor, they were commanded on pain of death to deliver up their booty to their captains, and the latter to cause everything of worth, when brought to them, to be collected in the market-place. Gold and silver trappings lay there in abundance, costly articles of attire studded with precious stones..."

"Quick, quick, our time is short," interrupted Gyges.

"You are right. I must be more brief. By keeping for myself an ointment-box sparkling with jewels, taken from your father's palace, I forfeited my life. Croesus, however, pleaded for me with his conqueror Cyrus; my life and liberty were granted me, but I was declared a dishonored man. Life in Persia became impossible with disgrace lying heavily on my soul; I took s.h.i.+p from Smyrna to Cyprus, entered the army there, fought against Amasis, and was brought hither by Phanes as a prisoner-of-war. Having always served as a horse-soldier, I was placed among those slaves who had charge of the king's horses, and in six years became an overseer. Never have I forgotten the debt of grat.i.tude I owe to your father; and now my turn has come to render him a service."

"The matter concerns my father? then speak-tell me, I beseech you!"

"Immediately. Has Croesus offended the crown prince?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"Your father is on a visit to Rhodopis this evening, at Naukratis?"

"How did you hear this?"

"From himself. I followed him to the boat this morning and sought to cast myself at his feet."

"And did you succeed?"

"Certainly. He spoke a few gracious words with me, but could not wait to hear what I would say, as his companions were already on board when he arrived. His slave Sandon, whom I know, told me that they were going to Naukratis, and would visit the Greek woman whom they call Rhodopis."

"He spoke truly."

"Then you must speed to the rescue. At the time that the market-place was full."

[The forenoon among the Greeks was regulated by the business of the market. "When the market-place begins to fill, when it is full, when it becomes empty." It would be impossible to define this division of time exactly according to our modern methods of computation, but it seems certain that the market was over by the afternoon. The busiest hours were probably from 10 till 1. At the present day the streets of Athens are crowded during those hours; but in Summer from two to four o'clock are utterly deserted.]