Cypriotes gave Klea ample time to reach the second court, which was more
brightly lighted even than the first, that they might there surround her
with insolent importunity.

The helpless and persecuted girl felt the blood run cold in her veins,
and for a few minutes she could see nothing but a bewildering confusion
of flashing eyes and weapons, of beards and hands, could hear nothing but
words and sounds, of which she understood and felt only that they were
revolting and horrible, and threatened her with death and ruin.  She had
crossed her arms over her bosom, but now she raised her hands to hide her
face, for she felt a strong hand snatch away the veil that covered her
head.  This insolent proceeding turned her numb horror to indignant rage,
and, fixing her sparkling eyes on her bearded opponents, she exclaimed:

"Shame upon you, who in the king's own house fall like wolves on a
defenceless woman, and in a peaceful spot snatch the veil from a young
girl's head.  Your mothers would blush for you, and your sisters cry
shame on you--as I do now!"

Astonished at Klea's distinguished beauty, startled at the angry glare in
her eyes, and the deep chest-tones of her voice which trembled with
excitement, the Cypriotes drew back, while the same audacious rascal that
had pulled away her veil came closer to her, and cried:

"Who would make such a noise about a rubbishy veil!  If you will be my
sweetheart I will buy you a new one, and many things besides."

At the same time he tried to throw his arm round her; but at his touch
Klea felt the blood leave her cheeks and mount to her bloodshot eyes, and
at that instant her hand, guided by some uncontrollable inward impulse,
grasped the handle of the knife which Krates had lent her; she raised it
high in the air though with an unsteady arm, exclaiming:

"Let me go or, by Serapis whom I serve, I will strike you to the heart!"

The soldier to whom this threat was addressed, was not the man to be
intimidated by a blade of cold iron in a woman's hand; with a quick
movement he seized her wrist in order to disarm her; but although Klea
was forced to drop the knife she struggled with him to free herself from
his clutch, and this contest between a man and a woman, who seemed to be
of superior rank to that indicated by her very simple dress, seemed to
most of the Cypriotes so undignified, so much out of place within the
walls of a palace, that they pulled their comrade back from Klea, while
others on the contrary came to the assistance of the bully who defended
himself stoutly.  And in the midst of the fray, which was conducted with
no small noise, stood Klea with flying breath.  Her antagonist, though
flung to the ground, still held her wrist with his left hand while he
defended himself against his comrades with the right, and she tried with
all her force and cunning to withdraw it; for at the very height of her
excitement and danger she felt as if a sudden gust of wind had swept her
spirit clear of all confusion, and she was again able to contemplate her
position calmly and resolutely.

If only her hand were free she might perhaps be able to take advantage of
the struggle between her foes, and to force her way out between their
ranks.

Twice, thrice, four times, she tried to wrench her hand with a sudden
jerk through the fingers that grasped it; but each time in vain.
Suddenly, from the man at her feet there broke a loud, long-drawn cry of
pain which re-echoed from the high walls of the court, and at the same
time she felt the fingers of her antagonist gradually and slowly slip
from her arm like the straps of a sandal carefully lifted by the surgeon
from a broken ankle.

"It is all over with him!" exclaimed the eldest of the Cypriotes.  "A man
never calls out like that but once in his life!  True enough--the dagger
is sticking here just under the ninth rib!  This is mad work!  That is
your doing again, Lykos, you savage wolf!"

"He bit deep into my finger in the struggle--"

"And you are for ever tearing each other to pieces for the sake of the
women," interrupted the elder, not listening to the other's excuses.
"Well, I was no better than you in my time, and nothing can alter it!
You had better be off now, for if the Epistrategist learns we have fallen
to stabbing each other again--"

The Cypriote had not ceased speaking, and his countrymen were in the very
act of raising the body of their comrade when a division of the civic
watch rushed into the court in close order and through the passage near
which the fight for the girl had arisen, thus stopping the way against
those who were about to escape, since all who wished to get out of the
court into the open street must pass through the doorway into which Klea
had been forced by the horseman.  Every other exit from this second court
of the citadel led into the strictly guarded gardens and buildings of the
palace itself.

The noisy strife round Klea, and the cry of the wounded man had attracted
the watch; the Cypriotes and the maiden soon found themselves surrounded,
and they were conducted through a narrow side passage into the court-yard
of the prison.  After a short enquiry the men who had been taken were
allowed to return under an escort to their own phalanx, and Klea gladly
followed the commander of the watch to a less brilliantly illuminated
part of the prison-yard, for in him she had recognized at once Serapion's
brother Glaucus, and he in her the daughter of the man who had done and
suffered so much for his father's sake; besides they had often exchanged
greetings and a few words in the temple of Serapis.

"All that is in my power," said Glaucus--a man somewhat taller but not so
broadly built as his brother--when he had read the recluse's note and
when Klea had answered a number of questions, "all that is in my power I
will gladly do for you and your sister, for I do not forget all that I
owe to your father; still I cannot but regret that you have incurred such
risk, for it is always hazardous for a pretty young girl to venture into
this palace at a late hour, and particularly just now, for the courts are
swarming not only with Philometor's fighting men but with those of his
brother, who have come here for their sovereign's birthday festival.  The
people have been liberally entertained, and the soldier who has been
sacrificing to Dionysus seizes the gifts of Eros and Aphrodite wherever
he may find them.  I will at once take charge of my brother's letter to
the Roman Publius Cornelius Scipio, but when you have received his answer
you will do well to let yourself be escorted to my wife or my sister, who
both live in the city, and to remain till to-morrow morning with one or
the other.  Here you cannot remain a minute unmolested while I am away--
Where now--Aye!  The only safe shelter I can offer you is the prison down
there; the room where they lock up the subaltern officers when they have
committed any offence is quite unoccupied, and I will conduct you
thither.  It is always kept clean, and there is a bench in it too."

Klea followed her friend who, as his hasty demeanor plainly showed, had
been interrupted in important business.  In a few steps they reached the
prison; she begged Glaucus to bring her the Roman's answer as quickly as
possible, declared herself quite ready to remain in the dark--since she
perceived that the light of a lamp might betray her, and she was not
afraid of the dark--and suffered herself to be locked in.

As she heard the iron bolt creak in its brass socket a shiver ran through
her, and although the room in which she found herself was neither worse
nor smaller than that in which she and her sister lived in the temple,
still it oppressed her, and she even felt as if an indescribable
something hindered her breathing as she said to herself that she was
locked in and no longer free to come and to go.  A dim light penetrated
into her prison through the single barred window that opened on to the
court, and she could see a little bench of palm-branches on which she sat
down to seek the repose she so sorely needed.  All sense of discomfort
gradually vanished before the new feeling of rest and refreshment, and
pleasant hopes and anticipations were just beginning to mingle themselves
with the remembrance of the horrors she had just experienced when
suddenly there was a stir and a bustle just in front of the  prison--and
she could hear, outside, the clatter of harness and words of command.
She rose from her seat and saw that about twenty horsemen, whose golden
helmets and armor reflected the light of the lanterns, cleared the wide
court by driving the men before them, as the flames drive the game from a
fired hedge, and by forcing them into a second court from which again
they proceeded to expel them.  At least Klea could hear them shouting 'In
the king's name' there as they had before done close to her.  Presently
the horsemen returned and placed themselves, ten and ten, as guards at
each of the passages leading into the court.  It was not without interest
that Klea looked on at this scene which was perfectly new to her; and
when one of the fine horses, dazzled by the light of the lanterns, turned
restive and shied, leaping and rearing and threatening his rider with a
fall--when the horseman checked and soothed it, and brought it to a
stand-still--the Macedonian warrior was transfigured in her eyes to
Publius, who no doubt could manage a horse no less well than this man.

No sooner was the court completely cleared of men by the mounted guard
than a new incident claimed Klea's attention.  First she heard footsteps
in the room adjoining her prison, then bright streaks of light fell
through the cracks of the slight partition which divided her place of
retreat from the other room, then the two window-openings close to hers
were closed with heavy shutters, then seats or benches were dragged about
and various objects were laid upon a table, and finally the door of the
adjoining room was thrown open and slammed to again so violently, that
the door which closed hers and the bench near which she was standing
trembled and jarred.

At the same moment a deep sonorous voice called out with a loud and
hearty shout of laughter:

"A mirror--give me a mirror, Eulaeus.  By heaven!  I do not look much
like prison fare--more like a man in whose strong brain there is no lack
of deep schemes, who can throttle his antagonist with a grip of his fist,
and who is prompt to avail himself of all the spoil that comes in his
way, so that he may compress the pleasures of a whole day into every
hour, and enjoy them to the utmost!  As surely as my name is Euergetes
my uncle Antiochus was right in liking to mix among the populace.  The
splendid puppets who surround us kings, and cover every portion of their
own bodies in wrappings and swaddling bands, also stifle the expression
of every genuine sentiment; and it is enough to turn our brain to reflect
that, if we would not be deceived, every word that we hear--and, oh dear!
how many words we must needs hear-must be pondered in our minds.  Now,
the mob on the contrary--who think themselves beautifully dressed in a
threadbare cloth hanging round their brown loins--are far better off.
If one of them says to another of his own class--a naked wretch who wears
about him everything he happens to possess--that he is a dog, he answers
with a blow of his fist in the other's face, and what can be plainer than
that!  If on the other hand he tells him he is a splendid fellow, he
believes it without reservation, and has a perfect right to believe it.

"Did you see how that stunted little fellow with a snub-nose and bandy-
legs, who is as broad as he is long, showed all his teeth in a delighted
grin when I praised his steady hand?  He laughs just like a hyena, and
every respectable father of a family looks on the fellow as a god-
forsaken monster; but the immortals must think him worth something to
have given him such magnificent grinders in his ugly mouth, and to have
preserved him mercifully for fifty years--for that is about the rascal's
age.  If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with those
teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash his bones with his fist."

"But, my lord," replied Eulaeus dryly and with a certain matter-of-fact
gravity to King Euergetes--for he it was who had come with him into the
room adjoining Klea's retreat, "the dry little Egyptian with the thin
straight hair is even more trustworthy and tougher and nimbler than his
companion, and, so far, more estimable.  One flings himself on his prey
with a rush like a block of stone hurled from a roof, but the other,
without being seen, strikes his poisoned fang into his flesh like an
adder hidden in the sand.  The third, on whom I had set great hopes, was
beheaded the day before yesterday without my knowledge; but the pair whom
you have condescended to inspect with your own eyes are sufficient.  They
must use neither dagger nor lance, but they will easily achieve their end
with slings and hooks and poisoned needles, which leave wounds that
resemble the sting of an adder.  We may safely depend on these fellows."

Once more Euergetes laughed loudly, and exclaimed: What criticism!
Exactly as if these blood-hounds were tragic actors of which one could
best produce his effects by fire and pathos, and the other by the
subtlety of his conception.  I call that an unprejudiced judgment.  And
why should not a man be great even as a murderer?  From what hangman's
noose did you drag out the neck of one, and from what headsman's block
did you rescue the other when you found them?

"It is a lucky hour in which we first see something new to us, and,
by Heracles!  I never before in the whole course of my life saw such
villains as these.  I do not regret having gone to see them and talked to
them as if I were their equal.  Now, take this torn coat off me, and help
me to undress.  Before I go to the feast I will take a hasty plunge in my
bath, for I twitch in every limb, I feel as if I had got dirty in their
company.

"There lie my clothes and my sandals; strap them on for me, and tell me
as you do it how you lured the Roman into the toils."

Klea could hear every word of this frightful conversation, and clasped
her hand over her brow with a shudder, for she found it difficult to
believe in the reality of the hideous images that it brought before her
mind.  Was she awake or was she a prey to some horrid dream?

She hardly knew, and, indeed, she scarcely understood half of all she
heard till the Roman's name was mentioned.  She felt as if the point of a
thin, keen knife was being driven obliquely through her brain from right
to left, as it now flashed through her mind that it was against him,
against Publius, that the wild beasts, disguised in human form, were
directed by Eulaeus, and face to face with this--the most hideous, the
most incredible of horrors--she suddenly recovered the full use of her
senses.  She softly slipped close to that rift in the partition through
which the broadest beam of light fell into the room, put her ear close to
it, and drank in, with fearful attention, word for word the report made
by the eunuch to his iniquitous superior, who frequently interrupted him
with remarks, words of approval or a short laugh-drank them in, as a man
perishing in the desert drinks the loathsome waters of a salt pool.

And what she heard was indeed well fitted to deprive her of her senses,
but the more definite the facts to which the words referred that she
could overhear, the more keenly she listened, and the more resolutely she
collected her thoughts.  Eulaeus had used her own name to induce the
Roman to keep an assignation at midnight in the desert close to the Apis-
tombs.  He repeated the words that he had written to this effect on a
tile, and which requested Publius to come quite alone to the spot
indicated, since she dare not speak with him in the temple.  Finally he
was invited to write his answer on the other side of the square of clay.
As Klea heard these words, put into her own mouth by a villain, she could
have sobbed aloud heartily with anguish, shame, and rage; but the point
now was to keep her ears wide open, for Euergetes asked his odious tool:

"And what was the Roman's answer?"  Eulaeus must have handed the tile to
the king, for he laughed loudly again, and cried out:

"So he will walk into the trap--will arrive by half an hour after
midnight at the latest, and greets Klea from her sister Irene.  He
carries on love-making and abduction wholesale, and buys water-bearers
by the pair, like doves in the market or sandals in a shoe maker's stall.
Only see how the simpleton writes Greek; in these few words there are two
mistakes, two regular schoolboys' blunders.

"The fellow must have had a very pleasant day of it, since he must have
been reckoning on a not unsuccessful evening--but the gods have an ugly
habit of clenching the hand with which they have long caressed their
favorites, and striking him with their fist.

"Amalthea's horn has been poured out on him today; first he snapped up,
under my very nose, my little Hebe, the Irene of Irenes, whom I hope to-
morrow to inherit from him; then he got the gift of my best Cyrenaan
horses, and at the same time the flattering assurance of my valuable
friendship; then he had audience of my fair sister--and it goes more to
the heart of a republican than you would believe when crowned heads are
graciously disposed towards him--finally the sister of his pretty
sweetheart invites him to an assignation, and she, if you and Zoe speak
the truth, is a beauty in the grand style.  Now these are really too many
good things for one inhabitant of this most stingily provided world; and
in one single day too, which, once begun, is so soon ended; and justice
requires that we should lend a helping hand to destiny, and cut off the
head of this poppy that aspires to rise above its brethren; the thousands
who have less good fortune than he would otherwise have great cause to
complain of neglect."

"I am happy to see you in such good humor," said Eulaeus.

"My humor is as may be," interrupted the king.  "I believe I am only
whistling a merry tune to keep up my spirits in the dark.  If I were on
more familiar terms with what other men call fear I should have ample
reason to be afraid; for in the quail-fight we have gone in for I have
wagered a crown-aye, and more than that even.  To-morrow only will decide
whether the game is lost or won, but I know already to-day that I would
rather see my enterprise against Philometor fail, with all my hopes of
the double crown, than our plot against the life of the Roman; for I was
a man before I was a king, and a man I should remain, if my throne, which
now indeed stands on only two legs, were to crash under my weight.

"My sovereign dignity is but a robe, though the costliest, to be sure, of
all garments.  If forgiveness were any part of my nature I might easily
forgive the man who should soil or injure that--but he who comes too near
to Euergetes the man, who dares to touch this body, and the spirit it
contains, or to cross it in its desires and purposes--him I will crush
unhesitatingly to the earth, I will see him torn in pieces.  Sentence is
passed on the Roman, and if your ruffians do their duty, and if the gods
accept the holocaust that I had slain before them at sunset for the
success of my project, in a couple of hours Publius Cornelius Scipio will
have bled to death.

"He is in a position to laugh at me--as a man--but I therefore--as a man
--have the right, and--as a king--have the power, to make sure that that
laugh shall be his last.  If I could murder Rome as I can him how glad
should I be! for Rome alone hinders me from being the greatest of all the
great kings of our time; and yet I shall rejoice to-morrow when they tell
me Publius Cornelius Scipio has been torn by wild beasts, and his body is
so mutilated that his own mother could not recognize it more than if a
messenger were to bring me the news that Carthage had broken the power of
Rome."

Euergetes had spoken the last words in a voice that sounded like the roll
of thunder as it growls in a rapidly approaching storm, louder, deeper,
and more furious each instant.  When at last he was silent Eulaeus said:
"The immortals, my lord, will not deny you this happiness.  The brave
fellows whom you condescended to see and to talk to strike as certainly
as the bolt of our father Zeus, and as we have learned from the Roman's
horse-keeper where he has hidden Irene, she will no more elude your grasp
than the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.--Now, allow me to put on your
mantle, and then to call the body-guard that they may escort you as you
return to your residence."

"One thing more," cried the king, detaining Eulaeus.  "There are always
troops by the Tombs of Apis placed there to guard the sacred places; may
not they prove a hindrance to your friends?"

"I have withdrawn all the soldiers and armed guards to Memphis down to
the last man," replied Eulaeus, and quartered them within the White Wall.
Early tomorrow, before you proceed to business, they will be replaced by
a stronger division, so that they may not prove a reinforcement to your
brother's troops here if things come to fighting."

"I shall know how to reward your foresight," said Euergetes as Eulaeus
quitted the room.

Again Klea heard a door open, and the sound of many hoofs on the pavement
of the court-yard, and when she went, all trembling, up to the window,
she saw Euergetes himself, and the powerfully knit horse that was led in
for him.  The tyrant twisted his hand in the mane of the restless and
pawing steed, and Klea thought that the monstrous mass could never mount
on to the horse's back without the aid of many men; but she was mistaken,
for with a mighty spring the giant flung himself high in the air and on
to the horse, and then, guiding his panting steed by the pressure of his
knees alone, he bounded out of the prison-yard surrounded by his splendid
train.

For some minutes the court-yard remained empty, then a man hurriedly
crossed it, unlocked the door of the room where Klea was, and informed
her that he was a subaltern under Glaucus, and had brought her a message
from him.

"My lord," said the veteran soldier to the girl, "bid me greet you, and
says that he found neither the Roman Publius Scipio, nor his friend the
Corinthian at home.  He is prevented from coming to you himself; he has
his hands full of business, for soldiers in the service of both the kings
are quartered within the White Wall, and all sorts of squabbles break out
between them.  Still, you cannot remain in this room, for it will shortly
be occupied by a party of young officers who began the fray.  Glaucus
proposes for your choice that you should either allow me to conduct you
to his wife or return to the temple to which you are attached.  In the
latter case a chariot shall convey you as far as the second tavern in
Khakem on the borders of the desert-for the city is full of drunken
soldiery.  There you may probably find an escort if you explain to the
host who you are.  But the chariot must be back again in less than an
hour, for it is one of the king's, and when the banquet is over there may
be a scarcity of chariots."

"Yes--I will go back to the place I came from," said Klea eagerly,
interrupting the messenger.  "Take me at once to the chariot."

"Follow me, then," said the old man.

"But I have no veil," observed Klea, "and have only this thin robe on.
Rough soldiers snatched my wrapper from my face, and my cloak from off my
shoulders."

"I will bring you the captain's cloak which is lying here in the
orderly's room, and his travelling-hat too; that will hide your face with
its broad flap.  You are so tall that you might be taken for a man, and
that is well, for a woman leaving the palace at this hour would hardly
pass unmolested.  A slave shall fetch the things from your temple
to-morrow.  I may inform you that my master ordered me take as much care
of you as if you were his own daughter.  And he told me too--and I had
nearly forgotten it--to tell you that your sister was carried off by the
Roman, and not by that other dangerous man, you would know whom he meant.
Now wait, pray, till I return; I shall not be long gone."

In a few minutes the guard returned with a large cloak in which he
wrapped Klea, and a broad-brimmed travelling-hat which she pressed down
on her head, and he then conducted her to that quarter of the palace
where the king's stables were.  She kept close to the officer, and was
soon mounted on a chariot, and then conducted by the driver--who took her
for a young Macedonian noble, who was tempted out at night by some
assignation--as far as the second tavern on the road back to the
Serapeum.




CHAPTER XIX.

While Klea had been listening to the conversation between Euergetes and
Eulaeus, Cleopatra had been sitting in her tent, and allowing herself to
be dressed with no less care than on the preceding evening, but in other
garments.

It would seem that all had not gone so smoothly as she wished during the
day, for her two tire-women had red eyes.  Her lady-in-waiting, Zoe, was
reading to her, not this time from a Greek philosopher but from a Greek
translation of the Hebrew Psalms: a discussion as to their poetic merit
having arisen a few days previously at the supper-table.  Onias, the
Israelite general, had asserted that these odes might be compared with
those of Alcman or of Pindar, and had quoted certain passages that had
pleased the queen.  To-day she was not disposed for thought, but wanted
something strange and out of the common to distract her mind, so she
desired Zoe to open the book of the Hebrews, of which the translation was
considered by the Hellenic Jews in Alexandria as an admirable work--nay,
even as inspired by God himself; it had long been known to her through
her Israelite friends and guests.

Cleopatra had been listening for about a quarter of an hour to Zoe's
reading when the blast of a trumpet rang out on the steps which led up
her tent, announcing a visitor of the male sex.  The queen glanced
angrily round, signed to her lady to stop reading, and exclaimed:

"I will not see my husband now!  Go, Thais, and tell the eunuchs on the
steps, that I beg Philometor not to disturb me just now.  Go on, Zoe."

Ten more psalms had been read, and a few verses repeated twice or thrice
by Cleopatra's desire, when the pretty Athenian returned with flaming
cheeks, and said in an excited tone:

"It is not your husband, the king, but your brother Euergetes, who asks
to speak with you."

"He might have chosen some other hour," replied Cleopatra, looking round
at her maid.  Thais cast down her eyes, and twitched the edge of her robe
between her fingers as she addressed her mistress; but the queen, whom
nothing could escape that she chose to see, and who was not to-day in the
humor for laughing or for letting any indiscretion escape unreproved,
went on at once in an incensed and cutting tone, raising her voice to a
sharp pitch:

"I do not choose that my messengers should allow themselves to be
detained, be it by whom it may--do you hear!  Leave Me this instant and
go to your room, and stay there till I want you to undress me this
evening.  Andromeda--do you hear, old woman?--you can bring my brother to
me, and he will let you return quicker than Thais, I fancy.  You need not
leer at yourself in the glass, you cannot do anything to alter your
wrinkles.  My head-dress is already done.  Give me that linen wrapper,
Olympias, and then he may come!  Why, there he is already!  First you ask
permission, brother, and then disdain to wait till it is given you."

"Longing and waiting," replied Euergetes, "are but an ill-assorted
couple.  I wasted this evening with common soldiers and fawning
flatterers; then, in order to see a few noble countenances, I went into
the prison, after that I hastily took a bath, for the residence of your
convicts spoils one's complexion more, and in a less pleasant manner,
than this little shrine, where everything looks and smells like
Aphrodite's tiring-room; and now I have a longing to hear a few good
words before supper-time comes."

"From my lips?"  asked Cleopatra.

"There are none that can speak better, whether by the Nile or the
Ilissus."

"What do you want of me?"

"I--of you?"

"Certainly, for you do not speak so prettily unless you want something."

"But I have already told you!  I want to hear you say something wise,
something witty, something soul-stirring."

"We cannot call up wit as we would a maid-servant.  It comes unbidden,
and the more urgently we press it to appear the more certainly it remains
away."

"That may be true of others, but not of you who, even while you declare
that you have no store of Attic salt, are seasoning your speech with it.
All yield obedience to grace and beauty, even wit and the sharp-tongued
Momus who mocks even at the gods."

"You are mistaken, for not even my own waiting-maids return in proper
time when I commission them with a message to you."

"And may we not to be allowed to sacrifice to the Charites on the way to
the temple of Aphrodite?"

"If I were indeed the goddess, those worshippers who regarded my hand-
maidens as my equals would find small acceptance with me."

"Your reproof is perfectly just, for you are justified in requiring that
all who know you should worship but one goddess, as the Jews do but one
god.  But I entreat you do not again compare yourself to the brainless
Cyprian dame.  You may be allowed to do so, so far as your grace is
concerned; but who ever saw an Aphrodite philosophizing and reading
serious books?  I have disturbed you in grave studies no doubt; what is
the book you are rolling up, fair Zoe?"

"The sacred book of the Jews, Sire," replied Zoe; "one that I know you do
not love."

And you--who read Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, and Plato--do you like it?"
asked Euergetes.

"I find passages in it which show a profound knowledge of life, and
others of which no one can dispute the high poetic flight," replied
Cleopatra.  "Much of it has no doubt a thoroughly barbarian twang, and it
is particularly in the Psalms--which we have now been reading, and which
might be ranked with the finest hymns--that I miss the number and rhythm
of the syllables, the observance of a fixed metre--in short, severity of
form.  David, the royal poet, was no less possessed by the divinity when
he sang to his lyre than other poets have been, but he does not seem to
have known that delight felt by our poets in overcoming the difficulties
they have raised for themselves.  The poet should slavishly obey the laws
he lays down for himself of his own free-will, and subordinate to them
every word, and yet his matter and his song should seem to float on a
free and soaring wing.  Now, even the original Hebrew text of the Psalms
has no metrical laws."

"I could well dispense with them," replied Euergetes; "Plato too
disdained to measure syllables, and I know passages in his works which
are nevertheless full of the highest poetic beauty.  Besides, it has been
pointed out to me that even the Hebrew poems, like the Egyptian, follow
certain rules, which however I might certainly call rhetorical rather
than poetical.  The first member in a series of ideas stands in
antithesis to the next, which either re-states the former one in a new
form or sets it in a clearer light by suggesting some contrast.  Thus
they avail themselves of the art of the orator--or indeed of the painter
--who brings a light color into juxtaposition with a dark one, in order
to increase its luminous effect.  This method and style are indeed not
amiss, and that was the least of all the things that filled me with
aversion for this book, in which besides, there is many a proverb which
may be pleasing to kings who desire to have submissive subjects, and to
fathers who would bring up their sons in obedience to themselves and to
the laws.  Even mothers must be greatly comforted by them,--who ask no
more than that their children may get through the world without being
jostled or pushed, and unmolested if possible, that they may live longer
than the oaks or ravens, and be blessed with the greatest possible number
of descendants.  Aye! these ordinances are indeed precious to those who
accept them, for they save them the trouble of thinking for themselves.
Besides, the great god of the Jews is said to have dictated all that this
book contains to its writers, just as I dictate to Philippus, my hump-
backed secretary, all that I want said.  They regard everyone as a
blasphemer and desecrator who thinks that anything written in that roll
is erroneous, or even merely human.  Plato's doctrines are not amiss, and
yet Aristotle had criticised them severely and attempted to confute them.
I myself incline to the views of the Stagyrite, you to those of the noble
Athenian, and how many good and instructive hours we owe to our
discussions over this difference of opinion!  And how amusing it is to
listen when the Platonists on the one hand and the Aristotelians on the
other, among the busy threshers of straw in the Museum at Alexandria,
fall together by the ears so vehemently that they would both enjoy
flinging their metal cups at each others' heads--if the loss of the wine,
which I pay for, were not too serious to bear.  We still seek for truth;
the Jews believe they possess it entirely.

"Even those among them who most zealously study our philosophers believe
this; and yet the writers of this book know of nothing but actual
present, and their god--who will no more endure another god as his equal
than a citizen's wife will admit a second woman to her husband's house--
is said to have created the world out of nothing for no other purpose but
to be worshipped and feared by its inhabitants.

"Now, given a philosophical Jew who knows his Empedocles--and I grant
there are many such in Alexandria, extremely keen and cultivated men--
what idea can he form in his own mind of 'creation out of nothing?'  Must
he not pause to think very seriously when he remembers the fundamental
axiom that 'out of nothing, nothing can come,' and that nothing which has
once existed can ever be completely annihilated?  At any rate the
necessary deduction must be that the life of man ends in that nothingness
whence everything in existence has proceeded.  To live and to die
according to this book is not highly profitable.  I can easily reconcile
myself to the idea of annihilation, as a man who knows how to value a
dreamless sleep after a day brimful of enjoyment--as a man who if he must
cease to be Euergetes would rather spring into the open jaws of
nothingness--but as a philosopher, no, never!"

"You, it is true," replied the queen, "cannot help measuring all and
everything by the intellectual standard exclusively; for the gods, who
endowed you with gifts beyond a thousand others, struck with blindness or
deafness that organ which conveys to our minds any religious or moral
sentiment.  If that could see or hear, you could no more exclude the
conviction that these writings are full of the deepest purport than I
can, nor doubt that they have a powerful hold on the mind of the reader.

"They fetter their adherents to a fixed law, but they take all bitterness
out of sorrow by teaching that a stern father sends us suffering which is
represented as being sometimes a means of education, and sometimes a
punishment for transgressing a hard and clearly defined law.  Their god,
in his infallible but stern wisdom, sets those who cling to him on an
evil and stony path to prove their strength, and to let them at last
reach the glorious goal which is revealed to them from the beginning."

"How strange such words as these sound in the mouth of a Greek,"
interrupted Euergetes.  "You certainly must be repeating them after the
son of the Jewish high-priest, who defends the cause of his cruel god
with so much warmth and skill."

"I should have thought," retorted Cleopatra, "that this overwhelming
figure of a god would have pleased you, of all men; for I know of no
weakness in you.  Quite lately Dositheos, the Jewish centurion--a very
learned man--tried to describe to my husband the one great god to whom
his nation adheres with such obstinate fidelity, but I could not help
thinking of our beautiful and happy gods as a gay company of amorous
lords and pleasure-loving ladies, and comparing them with this stern and
powerful being who, if only he chose to do it, might swallow them all up,
as Chronos swallowed his own children."

"That," exclaimed Euergetes, "is exactly what most provokes me in this
superstition.  It crushes our light-hearted pleasure in life, and
whenever I have been reading the book of the Hebrews everything has come
into my mind that I least like to think of.  It is like an importunate
creditor that reminds us of our forgotten debts, and I love pleasure and
hate an importunate reminder. And you, pretty one, life blooms for you--"

"But  I," interrupted  Cleopatra, "I can  admire all that is great; and
does it not seem a bold and grand thing even to you, that the mighty idea
that it is one single power that moves and fills the world, should be
freely and openly declared in the sacred writings of the Jews--an idea
which the Egyptians carefully wrap up and conceal, which the priests of
the Nile only venture to divulge to the most privileged of those who are
initiated into their mysteries, and which--though the Greek philosophers
indeed have fearlessly uttered it--has never been introduced by any
Hellene into the religion of the people?  If you were not so averse to
the Hebrew nation, and if you, like my husband and myself, had diligently
occupied yourself with their concerns and their belief you would be
juster to them and to their scriptures, and to the great creating and
preserving spirit, their god--"

"You are confounding this jealous and most unamiable and ill-tempered
tyrant of the universe with the Absolute of Aristotle!" cried Euergetes;
"he stigmatises most of what you and I and all rational Greeks require
for the enjoyment of life as sin--sin upon sin.  And yet if my easily
persuadable brother governed at Alexandria, I believe the shrewd priests
might succeed in stamping him as a worshipper of that magnified
schoolmaster, who punishes his untutored brood with fire and torment."

"I cannot deny," replied Cleopatra, "that even to me the doctrine of the
Jews has something very fearful in it, and that to adopt it seems to me
tantamount to confiscating all the pleasures of life.--But enough of such
things, which I should no more relish as a daily food than you do.
Let us rejoice in that we are Hellenes, and let us now go to the banquet.
I fear you have found a very unsatisfactory substitute for what you
sought in coming up here."

"No--no.  I feel strangely excited to-day, and my work with Aristarchus
would have led to no issue.  It is a pity that we should have begun to
talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more
pleasing and more cheering to the mind.  Do you remember how we used to
read the great tragedians and Plato together?"

"And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his
lectures on geography, to point out some mistake!  Did you prosecute
those studies in Cyrene?"

"Of course.  It really is a pity, Cleopatra, that we should no longer
live together as we did formerly.  There is no one, not even Aristarchus,
with whom I find it more pleasant and profitable to converse and discuss
than with you.  If only you had lived at Athens in the time of Pericles,
who knows if you might not have been his friend instead of the immortal
Aspasia.  This Memphis is certainly not the right place for you; for a
few months in the year you ought to come to Alexandria, which has now
risen to be superior to Athens."

"I do not know you to-day!"  exclaimed Cleopatra, gazing at her brother
in astonishment.  "I have never heard you speak so kindly and brotherly
since the death of my mother.  You must have some great request to make
of us."

"You see how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for
once, like other people.  I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf
came!  I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show
the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask.  If I had had
anything special to ask of you I should have waited till to-morrow, for
in this part of the country even a blind beggar does not like to refuse
his lame comrade anything on his birthday."

"If only we knew what you wish for!  Philometor and I would do it more
than gladly, although you always want something monstrous.  Our
performance to-morrow will--at any rate--but--Zoe, pray be good enough
to retire with the maids; I have a few words to say to my brother alone."

As soon as the queen's ladies had withdrawn, she went on: