Chapter 292

"By me?" cried Hermon, amazed by the injustice of this severe reproach; but Ledscha answered his question with the resolute assertion, "By you and you alone!" and then impatiently added: "You, who, by your art, could transform mortal women into goddesses, wished to make me a humiliated creature, with the rope which was to strangle her about her neck, and at the same time the most repulsive of creeping insects. 'The hideous, gray, eight-legged spider!' I exclaimed to myself, when I raised my arms and saw my shadow on the sunlit ground. 'The spider!' I thought, when I shook the distaff to draw threads from the flax in leisure hours. 'Your image!' I said, when I saw spiders hanging in dusty corners, and catching flies and gnats. All these things made me a horror to myself. And at the same time to know that the Demeter, on whom you bestowed the features of the daughter of Archias, was kindling the whole great city of Alexandria with enthusiasm, and drawing countless worshippers to her sanctuary! She, an object of adoration to thousands, I--the much-praised beauty--a horror to myself! This is what fed my desire for vengeance with fresh food by day and night; this urged me to remain with yonder wretch; for he had promised, after pillaging the royal palaces, to shatter your Demeter, the image of the daughter of Archias, which they lauded and which brought you fame and honour--it was to be done before my eyes--into fragments."

"Mad woman!" Hermon again broke forth indignantly, and hastily told her how she had been misinformed.

Ledscha's large black eyes dilated as if some hideous spectre was rising from the ground before her, while she heard that the Demeter was the work of Myrtilus and not his; that his friend's legacy had long since ceased to belong to him, and that he was again as poor as when he was in Tennis during the time of their love.

"And the blindness?" she asked sadly.

"It transformed life for me into one long night, illumined by no single ray of light," was the reply; "but, the immortals be praised, I was cured of it, and it was old Tabus, on the Owl's Nest at Tennis, whose wisdom and magic arts you so often lauded, who gave the remedy and advice to which I owe my recovery."

Here he hesitated, for Ledscha had seized the rope with one hand and the stake at her right with the other, in order not to fall upon her knees; but Hermon perceived how terribly his words agitated her, and spoke to her soothingly. Ledscha did not seem to hear him, for while still clinging to the rope she looked sometimes at the sand at her feet, sometimes up to the full moon, which was now flooding both sky and earth with light.

At last she dropped it, and said in a hollow tone: "Now I understand everything. You met her when Bias gave her the bridal dowry which was to purchase my release from my husband. How it must have enraged her! I thought of it all, pondered and pondered how to spare her; but through whom, except Tabus, could I return to Hanno the property, won in battle by his blood, which he had thrown away for me? Tabus kept the family wealth. And she--the marriage bond which two persons formed was sacred and unassailable--the woman who broke her faith with her husband and turned from him--was an abomination to her. How she loved her sons and grandsons! I knew that she would never forgive the wrong I did Hanno. From resentment to me she cured the man whom I hated."

"Yet probably also," said Hermon, "because my blighted youth aroused her pity."

"Perhaps so," replied Ledscha hesitatingly, gazing thoughtfully into vacancy. "She was what her demons made her. Hard as steel and gentle as a tender girl. I have experienced it. Oh, that she should die with rancour against me in her faithful old heart! She could be so kind!--even when I confessed that you had won my love, she still held me dear. But there are many great and small demons, and most of them were probably subject to her. Tabus must have learned through them how deeply I offended her son Satabus, and how greatly his son Hanno's life was darkened through me. That is why she thwarted my vengeance, and her spirits aided her. Thus all these things happened. I suspected it when I heard that she had succumbed to death, which I--yes, I here--had held back from her with severe toil through many a sleepless night. O these demons! They will continue to act in the service of the dead. Wherever I may go, they will pursue me and, at their mistress's bidding, baffle what I hope and desire. I have learned this only too distinctly!"

"No, Ledscha, no," Hermon protested. "Every power ceases with death, even that of the sorceress over spirits. You shall be freed, poor woman! You will be permitted to go wherever you desire; and I shall model no spider after your person, but the fairest of women. Thousands will see and admire her, and--if the Muse aids me--whoever, enraptured by her beauty, asks, 'Who was the model for this work which inflames the most obdurate heart?' will be told, 'It was Ledscha, the daughter of Shalit, the Biamite, whom Hermon of Alexandria found worthy of carving in costly marble."

Ledscha uttered a deep sigh of relief, and asked: "Is that true? May I believe it?"

"As true," he answered warmly, "as that Selene, who promised to grant you in her full radiance the greatest happiness, is now shedding her mild, forgiving light upon us both."

"The full moon," she murmured softly, gazing upward at the shining disk.

Then she added in a louder tone: "Old Tabus's demons promised me happiness--you know. It was the spider which so cruelly shadowed it for me on every full moon, every day, and every night. Will you now swear to model a statue from me, the statue of a beautiful human being that will arouse the delight of all who see it? Delight--do you hear?--not loathing--I ask again, will you?"

"I will, and I shall succeed," he said earnestly, holding out his hand across the rope. She clasped it, looked up to the full moon again, and whispered: "This time--I will believe it--you will keep your promise better than when you were in Tennis. And I--I will cease to wish you evil, and I will tell you why. Bend your ear nearer, that I may confess it openly." Hermon willingly obeyed the request, but she leaned her head against his, and he felt her laboured breathing and the warm tears that coursed silently down her cheeks as she said, in a low whisper: "Because the moon is full, and will yet bring me what the demons promised, and because, though strong, I am still a woman. Happiness! How long ago I ceased to expect it!--but now-yes, it is what I now feel! I am happy, and yet can not tell why. My love--oh, yes! It was more ardent than the burning hate. Now you know it, too, Hermon. And I--I shall be free, you say? And Tabus, how she lauded rest--eternal rest! Oh dearest--this sorely tortured heart, too--you can not even imagine how weary I am!"

Here she was silent, but the man into whose face she was gazing with loving devotion felt a sudden movement at his side as she uttered the exclamation.

He did not notice it, for the sweet tone of her voice was penetrating the inmost depths of his heart. It sounded as though she was speaking from the happiest of dreams.

"Ledscha!" he exclaimed warmly, extending his arm toward her--but she had already stepped back from his side, and he now perceived the terrible object--she had snatched his sword from its sheath, and as, seized by sudden terror, he gazed at her, he saw the shining blade glitter in the moonlight and suddenly vanish.

In an instant he swung his agile body over the rope and rushed to her. But she had already sunk to her knees, and while he clasped her in is arms to support her, he heard her call his own name tenderly, then murmur it in a lower tone, and the words "Full moon" and "Happiness" escape her lips.

Then she was silent, and her beautiful head dropped on her breast like a flower broken by a tempest.

CHAPTER XVII.

"It was best so for her and for us," said Eumedes, after gazing long at Ledscha's touchingly beautiful, still, dead face.

Then he ordered her to be buried at once and shouted to the guards: "Everything must be over on this strip of land early to-morrow morning! Let all who bear arms begin at once. Selene will light the men brightly enough for the work."

The terrible order given in mercy was fulfilled, and hunger and thirst were robbed of their numerous prey. When the new day dawned the friends were still on deck, engaged in grave conversation. The cloudless sky now arched in radiant light above the azure sea. White seagulls came flying from the right across the ship, and sportive dolphins gambolled around her keel.

The flutes of the musicians, marking time for the rowers, echoed gaily up from the hold, and, obedient to quick words of command, the seamen were spreading the sails.

The voyage began with a favourable wind. As Hermon looked back for the last time, the flat, desolate tongue of land appeared like a line of gray mist in the southeastern horizon; but over it hovered, like a gloomy thundercloud, the flocks of vultures and ravens, whose numbers were constantly increasing. Their greedy screaming could still be heard, though but faintly, yet the eye could no longer distinguish anything in the fast-vanishing abode of horror, save the hovering whirl of dark spots--ravens and vultures, vultures and ravens.

Whatever human life had moved there yesterday, now rested from bloody greed for booty, after victory and defeat, mortal terror, fury, and despair.

Eumedes pointed out the quiet grave by the sea to his parents, saying: "The King's command is fulfilled. Not even the one man who is usually spared to carry the news remains out of the four thousand."

"I thank you," exclaimed Alexander's gray-haired comrade, shaking his son's right hand, but Thyone laid her hand on Hermon's arm, saving: "Where the birds are darkening the air behind us lies buried what incensed Nemesis against you. You must leave the soil of Egypt. True, it is said that to live in foreign lands, far from the beloved home, darkens the existence; yet Pergamus, too, is Grecian soil, and there I see the two noblest of stars illumine your path with their pure light-art and love."

And his old friend's premonition was fulfilled.

.......................

The story of Arachne is ended. It closed on the Nile. Hermon's new life began in Pergamus.

As Daphne's husband, under the same roof with the wonderfully invigorated Myrtilus, his Uncle Archias, and faithful Bias, Hermon found in the new home what had hovered before the blind man as the fairest goal of existence in art, love, and friendship.

He did not long miss the gay varied life of Alexandria, because he found a rich compensation for it, and because Pergamus, too, was a rapidly growing city, whose artistic decoration was inferior to no other in Greece.

Of the numerous works which Hermon completed in the service of the first three art-loving rulers of the new Pergamenian kingdom, Philetaerus, Eumenes, and Attalus, nothing was preserved except the head of a Gaul. This noble masterpiece proves how faithful Hermon remained to truth, which he had early chosen for the guiding star of his art. It is the modest remnant of the group in which Hermon perpetuated in marble the two Gallic brothers whom he saw before his last meeting with Ledscha, as they offered their breasts to the fatal shafts.

One had gazed defiantly at the arrows of the conquerors; the other, whose head has been preserved, feeling the inevitable approach of death, anticipates, with sorrowful emotion, the end so close at hand. Philetaerus had sent this touching work to King Ptolemy to thank him for the severity with which he had chastised the daring of the barbarians, who had not spared his kingdom also. The Gaul's head was again found on Egyptian soil.

[Copied in Th. Schrieber's The Head of the Gaul in the Museum of Ghizeh in Cairo. Leipsic, 1896. With appendix. By H. Curschmann.]

Hermon also took other subjects in Pergamus from the domain of real life, though, in most of his work he crossed the limits which he had formerly imposed upon himself. But one barrier, often as he rushed forward to its outermost verge, he never dared to pass--moderation, the noblest demand, to which his liberty-loving race subjected themselves willingly in life as well as in art. The whole infinite, limitless world of the ideal had opened itself to the blind man.

He made himself at home in it by remaining faithful to the rule which he had found in the desert for his creative work, and the genuine happiness which he enjoyed through Daphne's love and the great fame his sculptures brought him increased the strong individuality of his power.

The fruits of his tireless industry, the much-admired god of light, Phoebus Apollo, slaying the dragons of darkness, as well as his bewitching Arachne, gazing proudly at the fabric with which she thinks she has surpassed the skill of the goddess, were overtaken by destruction. In this statue Bias recognised his countrywoman Ledscha, and often gazed long at it with devout ecstasy. Even Hermon's works of colossal size vanished from the earth: the Battle of the Amazons and the relief containing numerous figures: the Sea Gods, which the Regent Eumenes ordered for the Temple of Poseidon in Pergamus.

The works of his grandson and grandson's pupils, however, are preserved on the great altar of victory in Pergamus.

The power and energy natural to Hermon, the skill he had acquired in Rhodes, everything in the changeful life of Alexandria which had induced him to consecrate his art to reality, and to that alone, and whatever he had, finally, in quiet seclusion, recognised as right and in harmony with the Greek nature and his own, blend in those works of his successor, which a gracious dispensation of Providence permits us still to admire at the present day, and which we call in its entirety, the art of Pergamus.

The city was a second beloved home to him, as well as to his wife and Myrtilus. The rulers of the country took the old Alexandrian Archias into their confidence and knew how to honour him by many a distinction. He understood how to value the happiness of his only daughter, the beautiful development of his grandchildren, and the high place that Hermon and Myrtilus, whom he loved as if they were his own sons, attained among the artists of their time. Yet he struggled vainly against the longing for his dear old home. Therefore Hermon deemed it one of the best days of his life when his turn came to make Daphne's father a happy man.

King Ptolemy Philadelphus had sent laurel to the artist who had fallen under suspicion in Egypt, and his messenger invited him and Myrtilus, and with them also the exiled merchant, to return to his presence. In gratitude for the pleasure which Hermon's creation afforded him and his wife, the cause that kept the fugitive Archias from his home should be forgiven and forgotten.

The gray-haired son of the capital returned with the Bithynian Gras to his beloved Alexandria, as if his lost youth was again restored. There he found unchanged the busy, active life, the Macedonian Council, the bath, the marketplace, the bewitching conversation, the biting wit, the exquisite feasts of the eyes--in short, everything for which his heart had longed even amid the happiness and love of his dear ones in Pergamus.

For two years he endeavoured to enjoy everything as before; but when the works of the Pergamenian artists, obtained by Ptolemy, had been exhibited in the royal palaces, he returned home with a troubled mind. Like the rest of the world, he thought that the reliefs of Myrtilus, representing scenes of rural life, were wonderful.

The Capture of Proserpina, a life-size marble group by his son-in-law Hermon, seemed to him no less perfect; but it exerted a peculiar influence upon his paternal heart, for, in the Demeter, he recognised Daphne, in the Proserpina her oldest daughter Erigone, who bore the name of Hermon's mother and resembled her in womanly charm. How lovely this budding girl, who was his grand-daughter, seemed to the grandfather! How graceful, in spite of the womanly dignity peculiar to her, was the mother, encircling her imperilled child with her protecting arm!

No work of sculpture had ever produced such an effect upon the old patron of art.

Gras heard him, in his bedroom, murmur the names "Daphne" and "Erigone," and therefore it did not surprise him when, the next morning, he received the command to prepare everything for the return to Pergamus. It pleased the Bithynian, for he cared more for Daphne, Hermon, and their children than all the pleasures of the capital.

A few weeks later Archias found himself again in Pergamus with his family, and he never left it, though he reached extreme old age, and was even permitted to gaze in wondering admiration at the first attempts of the oldest son of Hermon and Daphne, and to hear them praised by others.

This grandson of the Alexandrian Archias afterward became the master who taught the generation of artists who created the Pergamenian works, in examining which the question forced itself upon the narrator of this story: How do these sculptures possess the qualities which distinguish them so strongly from the other statues of later Hellenic antiquity?

Did the great weaver Imagination err when she blended them, through the mighty wrestler Hermon, with a tendency of Alexandrian science and art, which we see appearing again among us children of a period so much later?

Science, which is now once more pursuing similar paths, ought and will follow them further, but Hermon's words remain applicable to the present clay: "We will remain loyal servants of the truth; yet it alone does not hold the key to the holy of holies of art. To him for whom Apollo, the pure among the gods, and the Muses, friends of beauty, do not open it at the same time with truth, its gates will remain closed, no matter how strongly and persistently he shakes them."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARK:

Regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE ARACHNE:

Aimless life of pleasure Camels, which were rarely seen in Egypt Cast my warning to the winds, pity will also fly away with it Cautious inquiry saves recantation Forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse Must--that word is a ploughshare which suits only loose soil Nature is sufficient for us Regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established Tender and uncouth natural sounds, which no language knows There is nothing better than death, for it is peace There are no gods, and whoever bows makes himself a slave Tone of patronizing instruction assumed by the better informed Two griefs always belong to one joy Wait, child! What is life but waiting? Waiting is the merchant's wisdom Woman's hair is long, but her wit is short

THE BRIDE OF THE NILE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.

Translated from the German by Clara Bell

PREFACE.

The "Bride of the Nile" needs no preface. For the professional student I may observe that I have relied on the authority of de Goeje in adhering to my own original opinion that the word Mukaukas is not to be regarded as a name but as a title, since the Arab writers to which I have made reference apply it to the responsible representatives of the Byzantine Emperor in antagonism to the Moslem power. I was unfortunately unable to make further use of Karabacek's researches as to the Mukaukas.

I shall not be held justified in placing the ancient Horus Apollo (Horapollo) in the seventh century after Christ by any one who regards the author of the Hieroglyphica as identical with the Egyptian philosopher of the same name who, according to Suidas, lived under Theodosius, and to whom Stephanus of Byzantium refers, writing so early as at the end of the fifth century. But the lexicographer Suidas enumerates the works of Horapollo, the philologer and commentator on Greek poetry, without naming the Hieroglyphica, which is the only treatise alluded to by Stephanus. Besides, all the other ancient writers who mention Horapollo at all leave us quite free to suppose that there may have been two sages of the same name--as does C. Leemans, who is most intimately versed in the Hieroglyphica--and the second certainly cannot have lived earlier than the VIIth century, since an accurate knowledge of hieroglyphic writing must have been lost far more completely in his time than we can suppose possible in the IVth century. It must be remembered that we still possess well-executed hieroglyphic inscriptions dating from the time of Decius, 250 years after Christ. Thus the Egyptian commentator on Greek poetry could hardly have needed a translator, whereas the Hieroglyphica seems to have been first rendered into Greek by Philippus. The combination by which the author called in Egyptian Horus (the son of Isis) is supposed to have been born in Philae, where the cultus of the Egyptian heathen was longest practised, and where some familiarity with hieroglyphics must have been preserved to a late date, takes into due account the real state of affairs at the period I have selected for my story.

GEORG EBERS. October 1st, 1886.

CHAPTER I.

Half a lustrum had elapsed since Egypt had become subject to the youthful power of the Arabs, which had risen with such unexampled vigor and rapidity. It had fallen an easy prey, cheaply bought, into the hands of a small, well-captained troop of Moslem warriors; and the fair province, which so lately had been a jewel of the Byzantine Empire and the most faithful foster-mother to Christianity, now owned the sway of the Khalif Omar and saw the Crescent raised by the side of the Cross.

It was long since a hotter season had afflicted the land; and the Nile, whose rising had been watched for on the Night of Dropping--the 17th of June--with the usual festive preparations, had cheated the hopes of the Egyptians, and instead of rising had shrunk narrower and still narrower in its bed.--It was in this time of sore anxiety, on the 10th of July, A.D. 643, that a caravan from the North reached Memphis.

It was but a small one; but its appearance in the decayed and deserted city of the Pyramids--which had grown only lengthwise, like a huge reed-leaf, since its breadth was confined between the Nile and the Libyan Hills--attracted the gaze of the passers-by, though in former years a Memphite would scarcely have thought it worth while to turn his head to gaze at an interminable pile of wagons loaded with merchandise, an imposing train of vehicles drawn by oxen, the flashing maniples of the imperial cavalry, or an endless procession wending its way down the five miles of high street.

The merchant who, riding a dromedary of the choicest breed, conducted this caravan, was a lean Moslem of mature age, robed in soft silk. A vast turban covered his small head and cast a shadow over his delicate and venerable features.

The Egyptian guide who rode on a brisk little ass by his side, looked up frequently and with evident pleasure at the merchant's face--not in itself a handsome one with its hollow cheeks, meagre beard and large aquiline nose--for it was lighted up by a pair of bright eyes, full of attractive thoughtfulness and genuine kindness. But that this fragile-looking man, in whose benevolent countenance grief and infirmities had graven many a furrow, could not only command but compel submission was legible alike in his thin, firmly-closed lips and in the zeal with which his following of truculent and bearded fighting men, armed to the teeth, obeyed his slightest sign.