The Tales of Ancient Egypt (10 Historical Novels). Georg Ebers
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newly-arrived Lydian warriors had been scattering gold broadcast among the flower-girls. This excited suspicion, and induced the Toparch to send an officer here to enquire from whence you come, and what is the object of your journey hither. I was obliged to use a little stratagem to impose upon him, and told him, as I believe you wish, that you were rich young men from Sardis, who had fled on account of having incurred the satrap’s ill-will. But I see the government officer coming, and with him the secretary who is to make out passports which will enable you to remain on the Nile unmolested. I have promised him a handsome reward, if he can help you in getting admitted into the king’s mercenaries. He was caught and believed my story. You are so young, that nobody would imagine you were entrusted with a secret mission.”
The talkative Greek had scarcely finished speaking when the clerk, a lean, dry-looking man, dressed in white, came in, placed himself opposite the strangers and asked them from whence they came and what was the object of their journey.
The youths held to their first assertion, that they were Lydian Hekatontarchs, and begged the functionary to provide them with passes and tell them in what way they might most easily obtain admittance into the king’s troop of auxiliaries.
The man did not hesitate long, after Theopompus had undertaken to be their surety, and the desired documents were made out.
Bartja’s pass ran thus:
“Smerdis, the son of Sandon of Sardis, about 22 years of age—figure, tall and slender-face, well-formed:—nose, straight:—forehead, high with a small scar in the middle:—is hereby permitted to remain in those parts of Egypt in which the law allows foreigners to reside, as surety has been given for him.
“In the King’s name.
“Sachons, Clerk.”
Darius and Zopyrus received passports similarly worded.
When the government official had left the houses, Theopompus rubbed his hands and said: “Now if you will follow my advice on all points you can stay in Egypt safely enough. Keep these little rolls as if they were the apple of your eye, and never part from them. Now, however, I must beg you to follow me to breakfast and to tell me, if agreeable to you, whether a report which has just been making the round of the market is not, as usual, entirely false. A trireme from Kolophon, namely, has brought the news that your powerful brother, noble Bartja, is preparing to make war with Amasis.”
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On the evening of the same day, Bartja and Sappho saw each other again. In that first hour surprise and joy together made Sappho’s happiness too great for words. When they were once more seated in the acanthus-grove whose blossoming branches had so often seen and sheltered their young love, she embraced him tenderly, but for a long time they did not speak one word. They saw neither moon nor stars moving silently above them, in the warm summer night; they did not even hear the nightingales who were still repeating their favorite, flute-like, Itys-call to one another; nor did they feel the dew which fell as heavily on their fair heads as on the flowers in the grass around them.
At last Bartja, taking both Sappho’s hands in his own, looked long and silently into her face, as if to stamp her likeness for ever on his memory. When he spoke at last, she cast down her eyes, for he said: “In my dreams, Sappho, you have always been the most lovely creature that Auramazda ever created, but now I see you again, you are more lovely even than my dreams.”
And when a bright, happy glance from her had thanked him for these words, he drew her closer to him, asking: “Did you often think of me?”
“I thought only of you.”
“And did you hope to see me soon?”
“Yes; hour after hour I thought, ‘now he must be coming.’ Sometimes I went into the garden in the morning and looked towards your home in the East, and a bird flew towards me from thence and I felt a twitching in my right eyelid; or when I was putting my box to rights and found the laurel crown which I put by as a remembrance, because you looked so well in it,—Melitta says such wreaths are good for keeping true love—then I used to clap my hands with joy and think, ‘to-day he must come;’ and I would run down to the Nile and wave my handkerchief to every passing boat, for every boat I thought must be bringing you to me.”
[A bird flying from the right side, and a twitching of the right eye
were considered fortunate omens. Theokrirus, III. 37]
“But you did not come, and then I went sadly home, and would sit down by the fire on the hearth in the women’s room, and sing, and gaze into the fire till grandmother would wake me out of my dream by saying: ‘Listen to me, girl; whoever dreams by daylight is in danger of lying awake at night, and getting up in the morning with a sad heart, a tired brain and weary limbs. The day was not given us for sleep, and we must live in it with open eyes, that not a single hour may be idly spent. The past belongs to the dead; only fools count upon the future; but wise men hold fast by the ever young present; by work they foster all the various gifts which Zeus, Apollo, Pallas, Cypris lend; by work they raise, and perfect and ennoble them, until their feelings, actions, words and thoughts become harmonious like a well-tuned lute. You cannot serve the man to whom you have given your whole heart,—to whom in your great love you look up as so much higher than yourself—you cannot prove the steadfastness and faithfulness of that love better, than by raising and improving your mind to the utmost of your power. Every good and beautiful truth that you learn is an offering to him you love best, for in giving your whole self, you give your virtues too. But no one gains this victory in dreams. The dew by which such blossoms are nourished is called the sweat of man’s brow.’ So she would speak to me, and then I started up ashamed and left the hearth, and either took my lyre to learn new songs, or listened to my loving teacher’s words—she is wiser than most men—attentively and still. And so the time passed on; a rapid stream, just like our river Nile, which flows unceasingly, and brings such changing scenes upon its waves, sometimes a golden boat with streamers gay,—sometimes a fearful, ravenous crocodile.”
“But now we are sitting in the golden boat. Oh, if time’s waves would only cease to flow! If this one moment could but last for aye. You lovely girl, how perfectly you speak, how well you understand and remember all this beautiful teaching and make it even more beautiful by your way of repeating it. Yes, Sappho, I am very proud of you. In you I have a treasure which makes me richer than my brother, though half the world belongs to him.”
“You proud of me? you, a king’s son, the best and handsomest of your family?”
“The greatest worth that I can find in myself is, that you think me worthy of your love.”
“Tell me, ye gods, how can this little heart hold so much joy without breaking? ‘Tis like a vase that’s overfilled with purest, heaviest gold?”
“Another heart will help you to bear it; and that is my own, for mine is again supported by yours, and with that help I can laugh at every evil that the world or night may bring.”
“Oh, don’t excite the envy of the gods; human happiness often vexes them. Since you left us we have passed some very, very sad days. The two poor children of our kind Phanes—a boy as beautiful as Eros, and a little girl as fair and rosy as a summer morning’s cloud just lit up by the sun,—came for some happy days to stay with us. Grandmother grew quite glad and young again while looking on these little ones, and as for me I gave them all my heart, though really it is your’s and your’s alone. But hearts, you know, are wonderfully made; they’re like the sun who sends his rays everywhere, and loses neither warmth nor light by giving much, but gives to all their due. I loved those little ones so very much. One evening we were sitting quite alone with Theopompus in the women’s room, when suddenly we heard aloud, wild noise. The good old Knakias, our faithful slave, just reached the door as all the bolts gave way, and, rushing through the entrance-hall into the peristyle, the andronitis, and so on to us, crashing the door between, came a troop of soldiers. Grandmother showed them the letter by which Amasis secured our house from all attack and made it a sure refuge, but they laughed the writing to scorn and showed us on their side a document with the crown-prince’s seal, in which we were sternly commanded to deliver