The Tales of Ancient Egypt (10 Historical Novels). Georg Ebers
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who could take your place?”
“The Lydian captain of the eunuchs, Kandaules. He is true as gold, and inflexibly severe. One day of rest would restore me to health. Have mercy, O King!”
“No one is so badly served as the king himself. Kandaules may take your place to-morrow, but give hum the strictest orders, and say that the slightest neglect will put his life in danger.—Now depart.”
“Yet one word, my King: to-morrow night the rare blue lily in the hanging-gardens will open. Hystaspes, Intaphernes, Gobyras, Croesus and Oropastes, the greatest horticulturists at your court, would very much like to see it. May they be allowed to visit the gardens for a few minutes? Kandaules shall see that they enter into no communication with the Egyptian.”
“Kandaules must keep his eyes open, if he cares for his own life.—Go!”
Boges made a deep obeisance and left the king’s apartment. He threw a few gold pieces to the slaves who bore the torches before him. He was so very happy. Every thing had succeeded beyond his expectations:—the fate of Nitetis was as good as decided, and he held the life of Kandaules, his hated colleague, in his own hands.
Cambyses spent the night in pacing up and down his apartment. By cock-crow he had decided that Nitetis should be forced to confess her guilt, and then be sent into the great harem to wait on the concubines. Bartja, the destroyer of his happiness, should set off at once for Egypt, and on his return become the satrap of some distant provinces. He did not wish to incur the guilt of a brother’s murder, but he knew his own temper too well not to fear that in a moment of sudden anger, he might kill one he hated so much, and therefore wished to remove him out of the reach of his passion.
Two hours after the sun had risen, Cambyses was riding on his fiery steed, far in front of a Countless train of followers armed with shields, swords, lances, bows and lassos, in pursuit of the game which was to be found in the immense preserves near Babylon, and was to be started from its lair by more than a thousand dogs.
[The same immense trains of followers of course accompanied the
kings on their hunting expeditions, as on their journeys. As the
Persian nobility were very fond of hunting, their boys were taught
this sport at an early age. According to Strabo, kings themselves
boasted of having been mighty hunters in the inscriptions on their
tombs. A relief has been found in the ruins of Persepolis, on which
the king is strangling a lion with his right arm, but this is
supposed to have a historical, not a symbolical meaning. Similar
representations occur on Assyrian monuments. Izdubar strangling a
lion and fighting with a lion (relief at Khorsabad) is admirably
copied in Delitzsch’s edition of G. Smith’s Chaldean Genesis.
Layard discovered some representations of hunting-scenes during his
excavations; as, for instance, stags and wild boars among the reeds;
and the Greeks often mention the immense troops of followers on
horse and foot who attended the kings of Persia when they went
hunting. According to Xenophon, Cyrop. I. 2. II. 4. every hunter
was obliged to be armed with a bow and arrows, two lances, sword and
shield. In Firdusi’s Book of Kings we read that the lasso was also
a favorite weapon. Hawking was well known to the Persians more than
900 years ago. Book of Kabus XVIII. p. 495. The boomerang was
used in catching birds as well by the Persians as by the ancient
Egyptians and the present savage tribes of New Holland.]
CHAPTER II.
The hunt was over. Waggons full of game, amongst which were several enormous wild boars killed by the king’s own hand, were driven home behind the sports men. At the palace-gates the latter dispersed to their several abodes, in order to exchange the simple Persian leather hunting-costume for the splendid Median court-dress.
In the course of the day’s sport Cambyses had (with difficulty restraining his agitation) given his brother the seemingly kind order to start the next day for Egypt in order to fetch Sappho and accompany her to Persia. At the same time he assigned him the revenues of Bactra, Rhagae and Sinope for the maintenance of his new household, and to his young wife, all the duties levied from her native town Phocaea, as pin-money.
Bartja thanked his generous brother with undisguised warmth, but Cambyses remained cold as ice, uttered a few farewell words, and then, riding off in pursuit of a wild ass, turned his back upon him.
On the way home from the chase the prince invited his bosom-friends Croesus, Darius, Zopyrus and Gyges to drink a parting-cup with him.
Croesus promised to join them later, as he had promised to visit the blue lily at the rising of the Tistarstar.
He had been to the hanging-gardens that morning early to visit Nitetis, but had been refused entrance by the guards, and the blue lily seemed now to offer him another chance of seeing and speaking to his beloved pupil. He wished for this very much, as he could not thoroughly understand her behavior the day before, and was uneasy at the strict watch set over her.
The young Achaemenidae sat cheerfully talking together in the twilight in a shady bower in the royal gardens, cool fountains plashing round them. Araspes, a Persian of high rank, who had been one of Cyrus’s friends, had joined them, and did full justice to the prince’s excellent wine.
“Fortunate Bartja!” cried the old bachelor, “going out to a golden country to fetch the woman you love; while I, miserable old fellow, am blamed by everybody, and totter to my grave without wife or children to weep for me and pray the gods to be merciful to my poor soul.”
“Why think of such things?” cried Zopyrus, flourishing the wine-cup. “There’s no woman so perfect that her husband does not, at least once a day, repent that he ever took a wife. Be merry, old friend, and remember that it’s all your own fault. If you thought a wife would make you happy, why did not you do as I have done? I am only twenty-two years old and have five stately wives and a troop of the most beautiful slaves in my house.”
Araspes smiled bitterly.
“And what hinders you from marrying now?” said Gyges. “You are a match for many a younger man in appearance, strength, courage and perseverance. You are one of the king’s nearest relations too—I tell you, Araspes, you might have twenty young and beautiful wives.”
“Look after your own affairs,” answered Araspes. “In your place, I certainly should not have waited to marry till I was thirty.”
“An oracle has forbidden my marrying.”
“Folly? how can a sensible man care for what an oracle says? It is only by dreams, that the gods announce the future to men. I should have thought that your own father was example enough of the shameful way in which those lying priests deceive their best friends.”
“That is a matter which you do not understand, Araspes.”
“And never wish to, boy, for you only believe in oracles because you don’t understand them, and in your short-sightedness call everything that is beyond your comprehension a miracle. And you place more confidence in anything that seems to you miraculous, than in the plain simple truth that lies before your face. An oracle deceived your father and plunged him into ruin, but the oracle is miraculous, and so you too, in perfect confidence, allow it to rob you of happiness!”
“That is blasphemy, Araspes. Are the gods to