An Egyptian Princess — Volume 08, Georg Ebers [best ebook reader for laptop txt] 📗

companion. To- morrow I intend to sue for the hand of Oroetes' pretty daughter. We've talked a good deal of love with our eyes already. I don't know whether we spoke Persian or Syrian, but we said the most charming things to one another."

The friends laughed, and Darius, joining in their merriment, said: "Now you shall hear a piece of very good news. I have kept it to the last, because it is the best I have. Now, Bartja, prick up your ears. Your mother, the noble Kassandane, has been cured of her blindness! Yes, yes, it is quite true.—Who cured her? Why who should it be, but that crabbed old Nebenchari, who has become, if possible, moodier than ever. Come, now, calm yourselves, and let me go on with my story; or it will be morning before Bartja gets to sleep. Indeed. I think we had better separate now: you've heard the best, and have something to dream about What, you will not? Then, in the name of Mithras, I must go on, though it should make my heart bleed.

"I'll begin with the king. As long as Phanes was in Babylon, he seemed to forget his grief for Nitetis.

"The Athenian was never allowed to leave him. They were as inseparable as Reksch and Rustem. Cambyses had no time to think of his sorrow, for Phanes had always some new idea or other, and entertained us all, as well as the king, marvellously. And we all liked him too; perhaps, because no one could really envy him. Whenever he was alone, the tears came into his eyes at the thought of his boy, and this made his great cheerfulness —a cheerfulness which he always managed to impart to the king, Bartja,— the more admirable. Every morning he went down to the Euphrates with Cambyses and the rest of us, and enjoyed watching the sons of the Achaemenidae at their exercises. When he saw them riding at full speed past the sand-hills and shooting the pots placed on them into fragments with their arrows, or throwing blocks of wood at one another and cleverly evading the blows, he confessed that he could not imitate them in these exercises, but at the same time he offered to accept a challenge from any of us in throwing the spear and in wrestling. In his quick way he sprang from his horse, stripped off his clothes—it was really a shame—and, to the delight of the boys, threw their wrestling-master as if he had been a feather.

[In the East, nudity was, even in those days, held to be disgraceful, while the Greeks thought nothing so beautiful as the naked human body. The Hetaira Phryne was summoned before the judges for an offence against religion. Her defender, seeing that sentence was about to be pronounced against his client, suddenly tore away the garment which covered her bosom. The artifice was successful. The judges pronounced her not guilty, being convinced that such wondrous grace and beauty could only belong to a favorite of Aphrodite. Athen. XIII. p. 590]

"Then he knocked over a number of bragging fellows, and would have thrown me too if he had not been too fatigued. I assure you, I am really stronger than he is, for I can lift greater weights, but he is as nimble as an eel, and has wonderful tricks by which he gets hold of his adversary. His being naked too is a great help. If it were not so indecent, we ought always to wrestle stripped, and anoint our skins, as the Greeks do, with the olive-oil. He beat us too in throwing the spear, but the king, who you know is proud of being the best archer in Persia, sent his arrow farther. Phanes was especially pleased with our rule, that in a wrestling-match the one who is thrown must kiss the hand of his victor. At last he showed us a new exercise:—boxing. He refused, however, to try his skill on any one but a slave, so Cambyses sent for the biggest and strongest man among the servants—my groom, Bessus—a giant who can bring the hind legs of a horse together and hold them so firmly that the creature trembles all over and cannot stir. This big fellow, taller by a head than Phanes, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously on hearing that he was to box with the little foreign gentleman. He felt quite sure of victory, placed himself opposite his adversary, and dealt him a blow heavy enough to kill an elephant. Phanes avoided it cleverly, in the same moment hitting the giant with his naked fist so powerfully under the eyes, that the blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and the huge, uncouth fellow fell on the ground with a yell. When they picked him up his face looked like a pumpkin of a greenish-blue color. The boys shouted with delight at his discomfiture; but we admired the dexterity of this Greek, and were especially glad to see the king in such good spirits; we noticed this most when Phanes was singing Greek songs and dance-melodies to him accompanied by the lute.

"Meanwhile Kassandane's blindness had been cured, and this of course tended not a little to disperse the king's melancholy.

"In short it was a very pleasant time, and I was just going to ask for Atossa's hand in marriage, when Phanes went off to Arabia, and everything was changed.

"No sooner had he turned his back on the gates of Babylon than all the evil Divs seemed to have entered into the king. He went about, a moody, silent man, speaking to no one; and to drown his melancholy would begin drinking, even at an early hour in the morning, quantities of the strongest Syrian wine. By the evening he was generally so intoxicated that he had to be carried out of the hall, and would wake up the next morning with headache and spasms. In the day-time he would wander about as if looking for something, and in the night they often heard him calling Nitetis. The physicians became very anxious about his health, but when they sent him medicine he threw it away. It was quite right of Croesus to say, as he did once 'Ye Magi and Chaldaeans! before trying to cure a sick man we must discover the seat of his disease. Do you know it in this case? No? Then I will tell you what ails the king. He has an internal complaint and a wound. The former is called ennui, and the latter is in his heart. The Athenian is a good remedy for the first, but for the second I know of none; such wounds either scar over of themselves, or the patient bleeds to death inwardly.'"

"I know of a remedy for the king though," exclaimed Otanes when he heard these words. "We must persuade him to send for the women, or at least for my daughter Phaedime, back from Susa. Love is good for dispersing melancholy, and makes the blood flow faster." We acknowledged that he was right, and advised him to remind the king of his banished wives. He ventured to make the proposal while we were at supper, but got such a harsh rebuff for his pains, that we all pitied him. Soon after this, Cambyses sent one morning for all the Mobeds and Chaldaeans, and commanded them to interpret a strange dream which he had bad. In his dream he had been standing in the midst of a dry and barren plain: barren as a threshing-floor, it did not produce a single blade of grass. Displeased at the desert aspect of the place, he was just going to seek other and more fruitful regions, when Atossa appeared, and, without seeing him, ran towards a spring which welled up through the arid soil as if by enchantment. While he was gazing in wonder at this scene, he noticed that wherever the foot of his sister touched the parched soil, graceful terebinths sprang up, changing, as they grew, into cypresses whose tops reached unto heaven. As he was going to speak to Atossa, he awoke.

The Mobeds and Chaldaeans consulted together and interpreted the dream thus? 'Atossa would be successful in all she undertook.'

"Cambyses seemed satisfied with this answer, but, as the next night the vision appeared again, he threatened the wise men with death, unless they could give him another and a different interpretation. They pondered long, and at last answered, 'that Atossa would become a queen and the mother of mighty princes.'

"This answer really contented the king, and he smiled strangely to himself as he told us his dream. "The same day Kassandane sent for me and told me to give up all thoughts of her daughter, as I valued my life.

"Just as I was leaving the queen's garden I saw Atossa behind a pomegranate-bush. She beckoned. I went to her; and in that hour we forgot danger and sorrow, but said farewell to each other for ever. Now you know all; and now that I have given her up—now that I know it would be madness even to think of her again—I am obliged to be very stern with myself, lest, like the king, I should fall into deep melancholy for the sake of a woman. And this is the end of the story, the close of which we were all expecting, when Atossa, as I lay under sentence of death, sent me a rose, and made me the happiest of mortals. If I had not betrayed my secret then, when we thought our last hour was near, it would have gone with me to my grave. But what am I talking about? I know I can trust to your secrecy, but pray don't look at me so deplorably. I think I am still to be envied, for I have had one hour of enjoyment that would outweigh a century of misery. Thank you,—thank you: now let me finish my story as quickly as I can.

"Three days after I had taken leave of Atossa I had to marry Artystone, the daughter of Gobryas. She is beautiful, and would make any other man happy. The day after the wedding the Angare reached Babylon with the news of your illness. My mind was made up at once; I begged the king to let me go to you, nurse you, and warn you of the danger which threatens your life in Egypt—took leave of my bride, in spite of all my father-in- law's protestations, and went off at full speed with Prexaspes, never resting till I reached your side, my dear Bartja. Now I shall go with you and Zopyrus to Egypt, for Gyges must accompany the ambassador to Samos, as interpreter. This is the king's command; he has been in better spirits the last few days; the inspection of the masses of troops coming up to Babylon diverts him, besides which, the Chaldaeans have assured him that the planet Adar, which belongs to their wargod Chanon, promises a great victory to the Persian arms. When do you think you shall be able to travel, Bartja?"

"To-morrow, if you like," was the answer. "The doctors say the sea- voyage will do me good, and the journey by land to Smyrna is very short."

"And I can assure you," added Zopyrus, "that Sappho will cure you sooner than all the doctors in the world."

"Then we will start in three days;" said Darius after some consideration, "we have plenty to do before starting. Remember we are going into what may almost be called an enemy's country. I have been thinking the matter over, and it seems to me that Bartja must pass for a Babylonian carpet- merchant, I for his brother, and Zopyrus for a dealer in Sardian red."

"Couldn't we be soldiers?" asked Zopyrus. "It's such an ignominious thing to be taken for cheating pedlers. How would it be, for instance, if we passed