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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Sisters, by Georg Ebers, v2
+#24 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: The Sisters, v2
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5462]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 12, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SISTERS, BY EBERS, V2 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SISTERS
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+In the very midst of the white wall with its bastions and ramparts, which
+formed the fortifications of Memphis, stood the old palace of the kings,
+a stately structure built of bricks, recently plastered, and with courts,
+corridors, chambers and halls without number, and veranda-like out-
+buildings of gayly-painted wood, and a magnificent pillared banqueting-
+hall in the Greek style.  It was surrounded by verdurous gardens, and a
+whole host of laborers tended the flower-beds and shady alleys, the
+shrubs and the trees; kept the tanks clean and fed the fish in them;
+guarded the beast-garden, in which quadrupeds of every kind, from the
+heavy-treading elephant to the light-footed antelope, were to be seen,
+associated with birds innumerable of every country and climate.
+
+A light white vapor rose from the splendidly fitted bath-house, loud
+barkings resounded from the dog-kennels, and from the long array of open
+stables came the neighing of horses with the clatter and stamp of hoofs,
+and the rattle of harness and chains.  A semicircular building of new
+construction adjoining the old palace was the theatre, and many large
+tents for the bodyguard, for ambassadors and scribes, as well as others,
+serving as banqueting-halls for the various court-officials, stood both
+within the garden and outside its enclosing walls.  A large space leading
+from the city itself to the royal citadel was given up to the soldiers,
+and there, by the side of the shady court-yards, were the houses of the
+police-guard and the prisons.  Other soldiers were quartered in tents
+close to the walls of the palace itself.  The clatter of their arms and
+the words of command, given in Greek, by their captain, sounded out at
+this particular instant, and up into the part of the buildings occupied
+by the queen; and her apartments were high up, for in summer time
+Cleopatra preferred to live in airy tents, which stood among the broad-
+leaved trees of the south and whole groves of flowering shrubs, on the
+level roof of the palace, which was also lavishly decorated with marble
+statues.  There was only one way of access to this retreat, which was
+fitted up with regal splendor; day and night it was fanned by currents of
+soft air, and no one could penetrate uninvited to disturb the queen's
+retirement, for veteran guards watched at the foot of the broad stair
+that led to the roof, chosen from the Macedonian "Garde noble," and owing
+as implicit obedience to Cleopatra as to the king himself.  This select
+corps was now, at sunset, relieving guard, and the queen could hear the
+words spoken by the officers in command and the clatter of the shields
+against the swords as they rattled on the pavement, for she had come out
+of her tent into the open air, and stood gazing towards the west, where
+the glorious hues of the sinking sun flooded the bare, yellow limestone
+range of the Libyan hills, with their innumerable tombs and the separate
+groups of pyramids; while the wonderful coloring gradually tinged with
+rose-color the light silvery clouds that hovered in the clear sky over
+the valley of Memphis, and edged them as with a rile of living gold.
+
+The queen stepped out of her tent, accompanied by a young Greek girl--the
+fair Zoe, daughter of her master of the hunt Zenodotus, and Cleopatra's
+favorite lady-in-waiting--but though she looked towards the west, she
+stood unmoved by the magic of the glorious scene before her; she screened
+her eyes with her hand to shade them from the blinding rays, and said:
+
+"Where can Cornelius be staying!  When we mounted our chariots before the
+temple he had vanished, and as far as I can see the road in the quarters
+of Sokari and Serapis I cannot discover his vehicle, nor that of Eulaeus
+who was to accompany him.  It is not very polite of him to go off in this
+way without taking leave; nay, I could call it ungrateful, since I had
+proposed to tell him on our way home all about my brother Euergetes, who
+has arrived to-day with his friends.  They are not yet acquainted, for
+Euergetes was living in Cyrene when Publius Cornelius Scipio landed in
+Alexandria.  Stay! do you see a black shadow out there by the vineyard at
+Kakem; That is very likely he; but no--you are right, it is only some
+birds, flying in a close mass above the road.  Can you see nothing more?
+No!--and yet we both have sharp young eyes.  I am very curious to know
+whether Publius Scipio will like Euergetes.  There can hardly be two
+beings more unlike, and yet they have some very essential points in
+common."
+
+"They are both men," interrupted Zoe, looking at the queen as if she
+expected cordial assent to this proposition.
+
+"So they are," said Cleopatra proudly.  "My brother is still so young
+that, if he were not a king's son, he would hardly have outgrown the
+stage of boyhood, and would be a lad among other Epheboi,--[Youths above
+18 were so called]--and yet among the oldest there is hardly a man who is
+his superior in strength of will and determined energy.  Already, before
+I married Philometor, he had clutched Alexandria and Cyrene, which by
+right should belong to my husband, who is the eldest of us three, and
+that was not very brotherly conduct--and indeed we had other grounds for
+being angry with him; but when I saw him again for the first time after
+nine months of separation I was obliged to forget them all, and welcome
+him as though he had done nothing but good to me and his brother--who is
+my husband, as is the custom of the families of Pharaohs and the usage of
+our race.  He is a young Titan, and no one would be astonished if he one
+day succeeded in piling Pelion upon Ossa.  I know well enough how wild he
+can often be, how unbridled and recalcitrant beyond all bounds; but I can
+easily pardon him, for the same bold blood flows in my own veins, and at
+the root of all his excesses lies power, genuine and vigorous power.  And
+this innate pith and power are just the very thing we most admire in men,
+for it is the one gift which the gods have dealt out to us with a less
+liberal hand than to men.  Life indeed generally dams its overflowing
+current, but I doubt whether this will be the case with the stormy
+torrent of his energy; at any rate men such as he is rush swiftly
+onwards, and are strong to the end, which sooner or later is sure to
+overtake them; and I infinitely prefer such a wild torrent to a shallow
+brook flowing over a plain, which hurts no one, and which in order to
+prolong its life loses itself in a misty bog.  He, if any one, may be
+forgiven for his tumultuous career; for when he pleases my brother's
+great qualities charm old and young alike, and are as conspicuous and as
+remarkable as his faults--nay, I will frankly say his crimes.  And who in
+Greece or Egypt surpasses him in grasp and elevation of mind?"
+
+You may well be proud of him," replied Zoe.  Not even Publius Scipio
+himself can soar to the height reached by Euergetes."
+
+"But, on the other hand, Euergetes is not gifted with the steady, calm
+self-reliance of Cornelius.  The man who should unite in one person the
+good qualities of those two, need yield the palm, as it seems to me, not
+even to a god!"
+
+"Among us imperfect mortals he would indeed be the only perfect one,"
+replied Zoe.  "But the gods could not endure the existence of a perfect
+man, for then they would have to undertake the undignified task of
+competing with one of their own creatures."
+
+"Here, however, comes one whom no one can accuse!"  cried the young
+queen, as she hastened to meet a richly dressed woman, older than
+herself, who came towards her leading her son, a pale child of two years
+old.  She bent down to the little one, tenderly but with impetuous
+eagerness, and was about to clasp him in her arms, but the fragile child,
+which at first had smiled at her, was startled; he turned away from her
+and tried to hide his little face in the dress of his nurse--a lady of
+rank-to whom he clung with both hands.  The queen threw herself on her
+knees before him, took hold of his shoulder, and partly by coaxing and
+partly by insistence strove to induce him to quit the sheltering gown and
+to turn to her; but although the lady, his wet-nurse, seconded her with
+kind words of encouragement, the terrified child began to cry, and
+resisted his mother's caresses with more and more vehemence the more
+passionately she tried to attract and conciliate him.  At last the nurse
+lifted him up, and was about to hand him to his mother, but the wilful
+little boy cried more than before, and throwing his arms convulsively
+round his nurse's neck he broke into loud cries.
+
+In the midst of this rather unbecoming struggle of the mother against the
+child's obstinacy, the clatter of wheels and of horses' hoofs rang
+through the court-yard of the palace, and hardly had the sound reached
+the queen's ears than she turned away from the screaming child, hurried
+to the parapet of the roof, and called out to Zoe:
+
+"Publius Scipio is here; it is high time that I should dress for the
+banquet.  Will that naughty child not listen to me at all?  Take him
+away, Praxinoa, and understand distinctly that I am much dissatisfied
+with you.  You estrange my own child from me to curry favor with the
+future king.  That is base, or else it proves that you have no tact, and
+are incompetent for the office entrusted to you.  The office of wet-nurse
+you duly fulfilled, but I shall now look out for another attendant for
+the boy.  Do not answer me! no tears!  I have had enough of that with the
+child's screaming."  With these words, spoken loudly and passionately,
+she turned her back on Praxinoa--the wife of a distinguished Macedonian
+noble, who stood as if petrified--and retired into her tent, where
+branched lamps had just been placed on little tables of elegant
+workmanship.  Like all the other furniture in the queen's dressing-tent
+these were made of gleaming ivory, standing out in fine relief from the
+tent-cloth which was sky-blue woven with silver lilies and ears of corn,
+and from the tiger-skins which covered all the cushions, while white
+woollen carpets, bordered with a waving scroll in blue, were spread on
+the ground.
+
+The queen threw herself on a seat in front of her dressing-table, and sat
+staring at herself in a mirror, as if she now saw her face and her
+abundant, reddish-fair hair for the first time; then she said, half
+turning to Zoe and half to her favorite Athenian waiting-maid, who stood
+behind her with her other women:
+
+"It was folly to dye my dark hair light; but now it may remain so, for
+Publius Scipio, who has no suspicion of our arts, thought this color
+pretty and uncommon, and never will know its origin.  That Egyptian
+headdress with the vulture's head which the king likes best to see me in,
+the young Greek Lysias and the Roman too, call barbaric, and so every one
+must call it who is not interested in the Egyptians.  But to-night we are
+only ourselves, so I will wear the chaplet of golden corn with sapphire
+grapes.  Do you think, Zoe, that with that I could wear the dress of
+transparent bombyx silk that came yesterday from Cos?  But no, I will not
+wear that, for it is too slight a tissue, it hides nothing and I am now
+too thin for it to become me.  All the lines in my throat show, and my
+elbows are quite sharp--altogether I am much thinner.  That comes of
+incessant worry, annoyance, and anxiety.  How angry I was yesterday at
+the council, because my husband will always give way and agree and try to
+be pleasant; whenever a refusal is necessary I have to interfere,
+unwilling as I am to do it, and odious as it is to me always to have to
+stir up discontent, disappointment, and disaffection, to take things on
+myself and to be regarded as hard and heartless in order that my husband
+may preserve undiminished the doubtful glory of being the gentlest and
+kindest of men and princes.  My son's having a will of his own leads to
+agitating scenes, but even that is better than that Philopator should
+rush into everybody's arms.  The first thing in bringing up a boy should
+be to teach him to say 'no.'  I often say 'yes' myself when I should not,
+but I am a woman, and yielding becomes us better than refusal--and what
+is there of greater importance to a woman than to do what becomes her
+best, and to seem beautiful?
+
+"I will decide on this pale dress, and put over it the net-work of gold
+thread with sapphire knots; that will go well with the head-dress.  Take
+care with your comb, Thais, you are hurting me!  Now--I must not chatter
+any more.  Zoe, give me the roll yonder; I must collect my thoughts a
+little before I go down to talk among men at the banquet.  When we have
+just come from visiting the realm of death and of Serapis, and have been
+reminded of the immortality of the soul and of our lot in the next world,
+we are glad to read through what the most estimable of human thinkers has
+said concerning such things.  Begin here, Zoe."
+
+Cleopatra's companion, thus addressed, signed to the unoccupied waiting-
+women to withdraw, seated herself on a low cushion opposite the queen,
+and began to read with an intelligent and practised intonation; the
+reading went on for some time uninterrupted by any sound but the clink of
+metal ornaments, the rustle of rich stuffs, the trickle of oils or
+perfumes as they were dropped into the crystal bowls, the short and
+whispered questions of the women who were attiring the queen, or
+Cleopatra's no less low and rapid answers.
+
+All the waiting-women not immediately occupied about the queen's person--
+perhaps twenty in all, young and old-ranged themselves along the sides of
+the great tent, either standing or sitting on the ground or on cushions,
+and awaiting the moment when it should be their turn to perform some
+service, as motionless as though spellbound by the mystical words of a
+magician.  They only made signs to each other with their eyes and
+fingers, for they knew that the queen did not choose to be disturbed
+when she was being read to, and that she never hesitated to cast aside
+anything or anybody that crossed her wishes or inclinations, like a tight
+shoe or a broken lutestring.
+
+Her features were irregular and sharp, her cheekbones too strongly
+developed, and the lips, behind which her teeth gleamed pearly white-
+though too widely set--were too full; still, so long as she exerted her
+great powers of concentration, and listened with flashing eyes, like
+those of a prophetess, and parted lips to the words of Plato, her face
+had worn an indescribable glow of feeling, which seemed to have come upon
+her from a higher and better world, and she had looked far more beautiful
+than now when she was fully dressed, and when her women crowded round
+leer--Zoe having laid aside the Plato--with loud and unmeasured flattery.
+
+Cleopatra delighted in being thus feted, and, in order to enjoy the
+adulation of a throng, she would always when dressing have a great number
+of women to attend her toilet; mirrors were held up to her on every side,
+a fold set right, and the jewelled straps of her sandals adjusted.
+
+One praised the abundance of her hair, another the slenderness of her
+form, the slimness of her ankles, and the smallness of her tiny hands
+and feet.  One maiden remarked to another--but loud enough to be heard--
+on the brightness of her eyes which were clearer than the sapphires on
+her brow, while the Athenian waiting-woman, Thais, declared that
+Cleopatra had grown fatter, for her golden belt was less easy to clasp
+than it had been ten days previously.
+
+The queen presently signed to Zoe, who threw a little silver ball into a
+bowl of the same metal, elaborately wrought and decorated, and in a few
+minutes the tramp of the body-guard was audible outside the door of the
+tent.
+
+Cleopatra went out, casting a rapid glance over the roof--now brightly
+illuminated with cressets and torches--and the white marble statues that
+gleamed out in relief against the dark clumps of shrubs; and then,
+without even looking at the tent where her children were asleep, she
+approached the litter, which had been brought up to the roof for her by
+the young Macedonian nobles.  Zoe and Thais assisted her to mount into
+it, and her ladies, waiting-women, and others who had hurried out of the
+other tents, formed a row on each side of the way, and hailed their
+mistress with loud cries of admiration and delight as she passed by,
+lifted high above them all on the shoulders of her bearers.  The diamonds
+in the handle of her feather-fan sparkled brightly as Cleopatra waved a
+gracious adieu to her women, an adieu which did not fail to remind them
+how infinitely beneath her were those she greeted.  Every movement of her
+hand was full of regal pride, and her eyes, unveiled and untempered, were
+radiant with a young woman's pleasure in a perfect toilet, with
+satisfaction in her own person, and with the anticipation of the festive
+hours before her.
+
+The litter disappeared behind the door of the broad steps that led up to
+the roof, and Thais, sighing softly, said to herself, "If only for once I
+could ride through the air in just such a pretty shell of colored and
+shining mother-of-pearl, like a goddess! carried aloft by young men, and
+hailed and admired by all around me!  High up there the growing Selene
+floats calmly and silently by the tiny stars, and just so did she ride
+past in her purple robe with her torch-bearers and flames and lights-past
+us humble creatures, and between the tents to the banquet--and to what a
+banquet, and what guests!  Everything up here greets her with rejoicing,
+and I could almost fancy that among those still marble statues even the
+stern face of Zeno had parted its lips, and spoken flattering words to
+her.  And yet poor little Zoe, and the fair-haired Lysippa, and the
+black-haired daughter of Demetrius, and even I, poor wretch, should be
+handsomer, far handsomer than she, if we could dress ourselves with fine
+clothes and jewels for which kings would sell their kingdoms; if we could
+play Aphrodite as she does, and ride off in a shell borne aloft on
+emerald-green glass to look as if it were floating on the waves; if
+dolphins set with pearls and turquoises served us for a footstool, and
+white ostrich-plumes floated over our heads, like the silvery clouds that
+float over Athens in the sky of a fine spring day.  The transparent
+tissue that she dared not put on would well become me!  If only that were
+true which Zoe was reading yesterday, that the souls of men were destined
+to visit the earth again and again in new forms!  Then perhaps mine might
+some day come into the world in that of a king's child.  I should not
+care to be a prince, so much is expected of him, but a princess indeed!
+That would be lovely!"
+
+These and such like were Thais' dreams, while Zoe stood outside the tent
+of the royal children with her cousin, the chief-attendant of prince
+Philopator, carrying on an eager conversation in a low tone.  The child's
+nurse from time to time dried her eyes and sobbed bitterly as she said:
+"My own baby, my other children, my husband and our beautiful house in
+Alexandria--I left them all to suckle and rear a prince.  I have
+sacrificed happiness, freedom, and my nights'-sleep for the sake of the
+queen and of this child, and how am I repaid for all this?  As if I were
+a lowborn wench instead of the daughter and wife of noble men; this
+woman, half a child still, scarcely yet nineteen, dismisses me from her
+service before you and all her ladies every ten days!  And why?  Because
+the ungoverned blood of her race flows in her son's veins, and because he
+does not rush into the arms of a mother who for days does not ask for him
+at all, and never troubles herself about him but in some idle moment when
+she has gratified every other whim.  Princes distribute favor or disgrace
+with justice only so long as they are children.  The little one
+understands very well what I am to him, and sees what Cleopatra is.
+If I could find it in my heart to ill-use him in secret, this mother--who
+is not fit to be a mother--would soon have her way.  Hard as it would be
+to me so soon to leave the poor feeble little child, who has grown as
+dear to my soul as my own--aye and closer, even closer, as I may well
+say--this time I will do it, even at the risk of Cleopatra's plunging us
+into ruin, my husband and me, as she has done to so many who have dared
+to contravene her will."
+
+The wet-nurse wept aloud, but Zoe laid her hand on the distressed woman's
+shoulder, and said soothingly: "I know you have more to submit to from
+Cleopatra's humors than any of us all, but do not be overhasty.  Tomorrow
+she will send you a handsome present, as she so often has done after
+being unkind; and though she vexes and hurts you again and again, she
+will try to make up for it again and again till, when this year is over,
+your attendance on the prince will be at an end, and you can go home
+again to your own family.  We all have to practise patience; we live like
+people dwelling in a ruinous house with to-day a stone and to-morrow a
+beam threatening to fall upon our heads.  If we each take calmly whatever
+befalls us our masters try to heal our wounds, but if we resist may the
+gods have mercy on us! for Cleopatra is like a strung bow, which sets the
+arrow flying as soon as a child, a mouse, a breath of air even touches
+it--like an over-full cup which brims over if a leaf, another drop, a
+single tear falls into it.  We should, any one of us, soon be worn out by
+such a life, but she needs excitement, turmoil and amusement at every
+hour.  She comes home late from a feast, spends barely six hours in
+disturbed slumber, and has hardly rested so long as it takes a pebble to
+fall to the ground from a crane's claw before we have to dress her again
+for another meal.  From the council-board she goes to hear some learned
+discourse, from her books in the temple to sacrifice and prayer, from the
+sanctuary to the workshops of artists, from pictures and statues to the
+audience-chamber, from a reception of her subjects and of foreigners to
+her writing-room, from answering letters to a procession and worship once
+more, from the sacred services back again to her dressing-tent, and
+there, while she is being attired she listens to me while I read the most
+profound works--and how she listens! not a word escapes her, and her
+memory retains whole sentences.  Amid all this hurry and scurry her
+spirit must need be like a limb that is sore from violent exertion, and
+that is painfully tender to every rough touch.  We are to her neither
+more nor less than the wretched flies which we hit at when they trouble
+us, and may the gods be merciful to those on whom this queen's hand may
+fall!  Euergetes cleaves with the sword all that comes in his way.
+Cleopatra stabs with the dagger, and her hand wields the united power of
+her own might and of her yielding husband's.  Do not provoke her.  Submit
+to what you cannot avert; just as I never complain when, if I make a
+mistake in reading, she snatches the book from my hand, or flings it at
+my feet.  But I, of course, have only myself to fear for, and you have
+your husband and children as well."
+
+Praxinoa bowed her head at these words in sad assent, and said:
+
+"Thank you for those words!  I always think only from my heart, and you
+mostly from your head.  You are right, this time again there is nothing
+for me to do but to be patient; but when I have fulfilled the duties
+here, which I undertook, and am at home again, I will offer a great
+sacrifice to Asclepias and Hygiea, like a person recovered from a severe
+illness; and one thing I know: that I would rather be a poor girl,
+grinding at a mill, than change with this rich and adored queen who, in
+order to enjoy her life to the utmost, carelessly and restlessly hurries
+past all that our mortal lot has best to offer.  Terrible, hideous to me
+seems such an existence with no rest in it! and the heart of a mother
+which is so much occupied with other things that she cannot win the love
+of her child, which blossoms for every hired nurse, must be as waste as
+the desert!  Rather would I endure anything--everything--with patience
+than be such a queen!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"What!  No one to come to meet me?"  asked the queen, as she reached the
+foot of the last flight of porphyry steps that led into the ante-chamber
+to the banqueting-hall, and, looking round, with an ominous glance, at
+the chamberlains who had accompanied her, she clinched her small fist.
+"I arrive and find no one here!"
+
+The "No one" certainly was a figure of speech, since more than a hundred
+body-guards-Macedonians in rich array of arms-and an equal number of
+distinguished court-officials were standing on the marble flags of the
+vast hall, which was surrounded by colonnades, while the star-spangled
+night-sky was all its roof; and the court-attendants were all men of
+rank, dignified by the titles of fathers, brothers, relatives, friends
+and chief-friends of the king.
+
+These all received the queen with a many-voiced "Hail!" but not one of
+them seemed worthy of Cleopatra's notice.  This crowd was less to her
+than the air we breathe in order to live--a mere obnoxious vapor, a whirl
+of dust which the traveller would gladly avoid, but which he must
+nevertheless encounter in order to proceed on his way.
+
+The queen had expected that the few guests, invited by her selection and
+that of her brother Euergetes to the evening's feast, would have welcomed
+her here at the steps; she thought they would have seen her--as she felt
+herself--like a goddess borne aloft in her shell, and that she might have
+exulted in the admiring astonishment of the Roman and of Lysias, the
+Corinthian: and now the most critical instant in the part she meant to
+play that evening had proved a failure, and it suggested itself to her
+mind that she might be borne back to her roof-tent, and be floated down
+once more when she was sure of the presence of the company.  But there
+was one thing she dreaded more even than pain and remorse, and that was
+any appearance of the ridiculous; so she only commanded the bearers to
+stand still, and while the master of the ceremonies, waiving his dignity,
+hurried off to announce to her husband that she was approaching, she
+signed to the nobles highest in rank to approach, that she might address
+a few gracious words to them, with distant amiability.  Only a few
+however, for the doors of thyia wood leading into the banqueting hall
+itself, presently opened, and the king with his friends came forward to
+meet Cleopatra.
+
+"How were we to expect you so early?"  cried Philometor to his wife.
+
+"Is it really still early?"  asked the queen, "or have I only taken you
+by surprise, because you had forgotten to expect me?"
+
+"How unjust you are!"  replied the king.  "Must you now be told that,
+come as early as you will, you always come too late for my desires."
+
+"But for ours," cried Lysias, "neither too early nor too late, but at the
+very right time--like returning health and happiness, or the victor's
+crown."
+
+"Health as taking the place of sickness?"  asked Cleopatra, and her eyes
+sparkled keenly and merrily.  "I perfectly understand Lysias," said
+Publius, intercepting the Greek.  "Once, on the field of Mars, I was
+flung from my horse, and had to lie for weeks on my couch, and I know
+that there is no more delightful sensation than that of feeling our
+departed strength returning as we recover.  He means to say that in your
+presence we must feel exceptionally well."
+
+"Nay rather," interrupted Lysias, "our queen seems to come to us like
+returning health, since so long as she was not in our midst we felt
+suffering and sick for longing.  Thy presence, Cleopatra, is the most
+effectual remedy, and restores us to our lost health."
+
+Cleopatra politely lowered her fan, as if in thanks, thus rapidly turning
+the stick of it in her hand, so as to make the diamonds that were set in
+it sparkle and flash.  Then she turned to the friends, and said:
+
+"Your words are most amiable, and your different ways of expressing your
+meaning remind me of two gems set in a jewel, one of which sparkles
+because it is skilfully cut, and reflects every light from its mirrorlike
+facets, while the other shines by its genuine and intrinsic fire.  The
+genuine and the true are one, and the Egyptians have but one word for
+both, and your kind speech, my Scipio--but I may surely venture to call
+you Publius--your kind speech, my Publius seems to me to be truer than
+that of your accomplished friend, which is better adapted to vainer ears
+than mine.  Pray, give me your hand."
+
+The shell in which she was sitting was gently lowered, and, supported by
+Publius and her husband, the queen alighted and entered the banqueting-
+hall, accompanied by her guests.
+
+As soon as the curtains were closed, and when Cleopatra had exchanged a
+few whispered words with her husband, she turned again to the Roman, who
+had just been joined by Eulaeus, and said:
+
+"You have come from Athens, Publius, but you do not seem to have followed
+very closely the courses of logic there, else how could it be that you,
+who regard health as the highest good--that you, who declared that you
+never felt so well as in my presence--should have quitted me so promptly
+after the procession, and in spite of our appointment?  May I be allowed
+to ask what business--"
+
+"Our noble friend," answered Eulaeus, bowing low, but not allowing the
+queen to finish her speech, "would seem to have found some particular
+charm in the bearded recluses of Serapis, and to be seeking among them
+the key-stone of his studies at Athens."
+
+"In that he is very right," said the queen.  "For from them he can learn
+to direct his attention to that third division of our existence,
+concerning which least is taught in Athens--I mean the future--"
+
+"That is in the hands of the gods," replied the Roman.  "It will come
+soon enough, and I did not discuss it with the anchorite.  Eulaeus may be
+informed that, on the contrary, everything I learned from that singular
+man in the Serapeum bore reference to the things of the past."
+
+"But how can it be possible," said Eulaeus, "that any one to whom
+Cleopatra had offered her society should think so long of anything else
+than the beautiful present?"
+
+"You indeed have good reason," retorted Publius quickly, "to enter the
+lists in behalf of the present, and never willingly to recall the past."
+
+"It was full of anxiety and care," replied Eulaeus with perfect self-
+possession.  "That my sovereign lady must know from her illustrious
+mother, and from her own experience; and she will also protect me from
+the undeserved hatred with which certain powerful enemies seem minded to
+pursue me.  Permit me, your majesty, not to make my appearance at the
+banquet until later.  This noble gentleman kept me waiting for hours in
+the Serapeum, and the proposals concerning the new building in the temple
+of Isis at Philae must be drawn up and engrossed to-day, in order that
+they may be brought to-morrow before your royal husband in council and
+your illustrious brother Euergetes--"
+
+"You have leave, interrupted Cleopatra."
+
+As soon as Eulaeus had disappeared, the queen went closer up to Publius,
+and said:
+
+"You are annoyed with this man--well, he is not pleasant, but at any rate
+he is useful and worthy.  May I ask whether you only feel his personality
+repugnant to you, or whether actual circumstances have given rise to your
+aversion--nay, if I have judged rightly, to a very bitterly hostile
+feeling against him?"
+
+"Both," replied Publius.  "In this unmanly man, from the very first,
+I expected to find nothing good, and I now know that, if I erred at all,
+it was in his favor.  To-morrow I will ask you to spare me an hour when
+I can communicate to your majesty something concerning him, but which is
+too repulsive and sad to be suitable for telling in an evening devoted to
+enjoyment.  You need not be inquisitive, for they are matters that belong
+to the past, and which concern neither you nor me."
+
+The high-steward and the cup-bearer here interrupted this conversation by
+calling them to table, and the royal pair were soon reclining with their
+guests at the festal board.
+
+Oriental splendor and Greek elegance were combined in the decorations of
+the saloon of moderate size, in which Ptolemy Philometor was wont to
+prefer to hold high-festival with a few chosen friends.  Like the great
+reception-hall and the men's hall-with its twenty doors and lofty
+porphyry columns--in which the king's guests assembled, it was lighted
+from above, since it was only at the sides that the walls--which had no
+windows--and a row of graceful alabaster columns with Corinthian
+acanthus-capitals supported a narrow roof; the centre of the hall was
+quite uncovered.  At this hour, when it was blazing with hundreds of
+lights, the large opening, which by day admitted the bright sunshine, was
+closed over by a gold net-work, decorated with stars and a crescent moon
+of rock-crystal, and the meshes were close enough to exclude the bats and
+moths which at night always fly to the light.  But the illumination of
+the king's banqueting-hall made it almost as light as day, consisting of
+numerous lamps with many branches held up by lovely little figures of
+children in bronze and marble.  Every joint was plainly visible in the
+mosaic of the pavement, which represented the reception of Heracles into
+Olympus, the feast of the gods, and the astonishment of the amazed hero
+at the splendor of the celestial banquet; and hundreds of torches were
+reflected in the walls of polished yellow marble, brought from Hippo
+Regius; these were inlaid by skilled artists with costly stones, such as
+lapis lazuli and malachite, crystals, blood-stone, jasper, agates and
+chalcedony, to represent fruit-pieces and magnificent groups of game or
+of musical instruments; while the pilasters were decorated with masks of
+the tragic and comic Muses, torches, thyrsi wreathed with ivy and vine,
+and pan-pipes.  These were wrought in silver and gold, and set with
+costly marbles, and they stood out from the marble background like metal
+work on a leather shield, or the rich ornamentation on a sword-sheath.
+The figures of a Dionysiac procession, forming the frieze, looked down
+upon the feasters--a fine relievo that had been designed and modelled for
+Ptolemy Soter by the sculptor Bryaxis, and then executed in ivory and
+gold.
+
+Everything that met the eye in this hall was splendid, costly, and above
+all of a genial aspect, even before Cleopatra had come to the throne; and
+she--here as in her own apartments--had added the busts of the greatest
+Greek philosophers and poets, from Thales of Miletus down to Strato, who
+raised chance to fill the throne of God, and from Hesiod to Callimachus;
+she too had placed the tragic mask side by side with the comic, for at
+her table--she was wont to say--she desired to see no one who could not
+enjoy grave and wise discourse more than eating, drinking, and laughter.
+
+Instead of assisting at the banquet, as other ladies used, seated on a
+chair or at the foot of her husband's couch, she reclined on a couch of
+her own, behind which stood busts of Sappho the poetess, and Aspasia the
+friend of Pericles.
+
+Though she made no pretensions to be regarded as a philosopher nor even
+as a poetess, she asserted her right to be considered a finished
+connoisseur in the arts of poetry and music; and if she preferred
+reclining to sitting how should she have done otherwise, since she was
+fully aware how well it became her to extend herself in a picturesque
+attitude on her cushions, and to support her head on her arm as it rested
+on the back of her couch; for that arm, though not strictly speaking
+beautiful, always displayed the finest specimens of Alexandrian
+workmanship in gem-cutting and goldsmiths' work.
+
+But, in fact, she selected a reclining posture particularly for the sake
+of showing her feet; not a woman in Egypt or Greece had a smaller or more
+finely formed foot than she.  For this reason her sandals were so made
+that when she stood or walked they protected only the soles of her feet,
+and her slender white toes with the roseate nails and their polished
+white half-moons were left uncovered.
+
+At the banquet she put off her shoes altogether, as the men did; hiding
+her feet at first however, and not displaying them till she thought the
+marks left on her tender skin by the straps of the sandals had completely
+disappeared.
+
+Eulaeus was the greatest admirer of these feet; not, as he averred, on
+account of their beauty, but because the play of the queen's toes showed
+him exactly what was passing in her mind, when he was quite unable to
+detect what was agitating her soul in the expression of her mouth and
+eyes, well practised in the arts of dissimulation.
+
+Nine couches, arranged three and three in a horseshoe, invited the guests
+to repose, with their arms of ebony and cushions of dull olive-green
+brocade, on which a delicate pattern of gold and silver seemed just to
+have been breathed.
+
+The queen, shrugging her shoulders, and, as it would seem, by no means
+agreeably surprised at something, whispered to the chamberlain, who then
+indicated to each guest the place he was to occupy.  To the right of the
+central group reclined the queen, and her husband took his place to the
+left; the couch between the royal pair, destined for their brother
+Euergetes, remained unoccupied.
+
+On one of the three couches which formed the right-hand angle with those
+of the royal family, Publius found a place next to Cleopatra; opposite to
+him, and next the king, was Lysias the Corinthian.  Two places next to
+him remained vacant, while on the side by the Roman reclined the brave
+and prudent Hierax, the friend of Ptolemy Euergetes and his most faithful
+follower.
+
+While the servants strewed the couches with rose leaves, sprinkled
+perfumed waters, and placed by the couch of each guest a small table-made
+of silver and of a slab of fine, reddish-brown porphyry, veined with
+white-the king addressed a pleasant greeting to each guest, apologizing
+for the smallness of the number.
+
+"Eulaeus," he said, "has been forced to leave us on business, and our
+royal brother is still sitting over his books with Aristarchus, who came
+with him from Alexandria; but he promised certainly to come."
+
+"The fewer we are," replied Lysias, bowing low, "the more honorable is
+the distinction of belonging to so limited a number of your majesty's
+most select associates."
+
+"I certainly think we have chosen the best from among the good," said the
+queen.  "But even the small number of friends I had invited must have
+seemed too large to my brother Euergetes, for he--who is accustomed to
+command in other folks' houses as he does in his own--forbid the
+chamberlain to invite our learned friends--among whom Agatharchides, my
+brothers' and my own most worthy tutor, is known to you--as well as our
+Jewish friends who were present yesterday at our table, and whom I had
+set down on my list.  I am very well satisfied however, for I like the
+number of the Muses; and perhaps he desired to do you, Publius,
+particular honor, since we are assembled here in the Roman fashion.  It
+is in your honor, and not in his, that we have no music this evening; you
+said that you did not particularly like it at a banquet.  Euergetes
+himself plays the harp admirably.  However, it is well that he is late in
+coming as usual, for the day after tomorrow is his birthday, and he is to
+spend it here with us and not in Alexandria; the priestly delegates
+assembled in the Bruchion are to come from thence to Memphis to wish him
+joy, and we must endeavor to get up some brilliant festival.  You have no
+love for Eulaeus, Publius, but he is extremely skilled in such matters,
+and I hope he will presently return to give us his advice."
+
+"For the morning we will have a grand procession," cried the king.
+"Euergetes delights in a splendid spectacle, and I should be glad to show
+him how much pleasure his visit has given us."
+
+The king's fine features wore a most winning expression as he spoke these
+words with heart-felt warmth, but his consort said thoughtfully: "Aye!
+if only we were in Alexandria--but here, among all the Egyptian people--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A loud laugh re-echoing from the marble walls of the state-room
+interrupted the queen's speech; at first she started, but then smiled
+with pleasure as she recognized her brother Euergetes, who, pushing aside
+the chamberlains, approached the company with an elderly Greek, who
+walked by his side.
+
+"By all the dwellers on Olympus!  By the whole rabble of gods and beasts
+that live in the temples by the Nile!"  cried the new-comer, again
+laughing so heartily that not only his fat cheeks but his whole immensely
+stout young frame swayed and shook.  "By your pretty little feet,
+Cleopatra, which could so easily be hidden, and yet are always to be
+seen--by all your gentle virtues, Philometor, I believe you are trying to
+outdo the great Philadelphus or our Syrian uncle Antiochus, and to get up
+a most unique procession; and in my honor!  Just so!  I myself will take
+a part in the wonderful affair, and my sturdy person shall represent Eros
+with his quiver and bow.  Some Ethiopian dame must play the part of my
+mother Aphrodite; she will look the part to perfection, rising from the
+white sea-foam with her black skin.  And what do you think of a Pallas
+with short woolly hair; of the Charities with broad, flat Ethiopian feet;
+and an Egyptian, with his shaven head mirroring the sun, as Phoebus
+Apollo?"
+
+With these words the young giant of twenty years threw himself on the
+vacant couch between his brother and sister, and, after bowing, not
+without dignity, to the Roman, whom his brother named to him, he called
+one of the young Macedonians of noble birth who served at the feast as
+cup-bearers, had his cup filled once and again and yet a third time,
+drinking it off quickly and without setting it down; then he said in a
+loud tone, while he pushed his hands through his tossed, light brown
+hair, till it stood straight up in the air from his broad temples and
+high brow:
+
+"I must make up for what you have had before I came.--Another cup-full
+Diocleides."
+
+"Wild boy!"  said Cleopatra, holding up her finger at him half in jest
+and half in grave warning.  "How strange you look!"
+
+"Like Silenus without the goat's hoofs," answered Euergetes.  "Hand me a
+mirror here, Diocleides; follow the eyes of her majesty the queen, and
+you will be sure to find one.  There is the thing!  And in fact the
+picture it shows me does not displease me.  I see there a head on which
+besides the two crowns of Egypt a third might well find room, and in
+which there is so much brains that they might suffice to fill the skulls
+of four kings to the brim.  I see two vulture's eyes which are always
+keen of sight even when their owner is drunk, and that are in danger of
+no peril save from the flesh of these jolly cheeks, which, if they
+continue to increase so fast, must presently exclude the light, as the
+growth of the wood encloses a piece of money stuck into a rift in a tree-
+or as a shutter, when it is pushed to, closes up a window.  With these
+hands and arms the fellow I see in the mirror there could, at need, choke
+a hippopotamus; the chain that is to deck this neck must be twice as long
+as that worn by a well-fed Egyptian priest.  In this mirror I see a man,
+who is moulded out of a sturdy clay, baked out of more unctuous and solid
+stuff than other folks; and if the fine creature there on the bright
+surface wears a transparent robe, what have you to say against it,
+Cleopatra?  The Ptolemaic princes must protect the import trade of
+Alexandria, that fact was patent even to the great son of Lagus; and what
+would become of our commerce with Cos if I did not purchase the finest
+bombyx stuffs, since those who sell it make no profits out of you, the
+queen--and you cover yourself, like a vestal virgin, in garments of
+tapestry.  Give me a wreath for my head--aye and another to that, and new
+wine in the cup!  To the glory of Rome and to your health, Publius
+Cornelius Scipio, and to our last critical conjecture, my Aristarchus--
+to subtle thinking and deep drinking!"
+
+"To deep thinking and subtle drinking!"  retorted the person thus
+addressed, while he raised the cup, looked into the wine with his
+twinkling eyes and lifted it slowly to his nose--a long, well-formed and
+slightly aquiline nose--and to his thin lips.
+
+"Oh! Aristarchus," exclaimed Euergetes, and he frowned.  "You please me
+better when you clear up the meaning of your poets and historians than
+when you criticise the drinking-maxims of a king.  Subtle drinking is
+mere sipping, and sipping I leave to the bitterns and other birds that
+live content among the reeds.  Do you understand me?  Among reeds, I say-
+-whether cut for writing, or no."
+
+"By subtle drinking," replied the great critic with perfect indifference,
+as he pushed the thin, gray hair from his high brow with his slender
+hand.  "By subtle drinking I mean the drinking of choice wine, and did
+you ever taste anything more delicate than this juice of the vines of
+Anthylla that your illustrious brother has set before us?  Your
+paradoxical axiom commends you at once as a powerful thinker and
+as the benevolent giver of the best of drinks."
+
+"Happily turned," exclaimed Cleopatra, clapping her hands, "you here see,
+Publius, a proof of the promptness of an Alexandrian tongue."
+
+"Yes!"  said Euergetes, "if men could go forth to battle with words
+instead of spears the masters of the Museum in Alexander's city, with
+Aristarchus at their head, they might rout the united armies of Rome and
+Carthage in a couple of hours."
+
+"But we are not now in the battle-field but at a peaceful meal," said the
+king, with suave amiability.  "You did in fact overhear our secret
+Euergetes, and mocked at my faithful Egyptians, in whose place I would
+gladly set fair Greeks if only Alexandria still belonged to me instead of
+to you.--However, a splendid procession shall not be wanting at your
+birthday festival."
+
+"And do you really still take pleasure in these eternal goose-step
+performances?"  asked Euergetes, stretching himself out on his couch,
+and folding his hands to support the back of his head.  "Sooner could I
+accustom myself to the delicate drinking of Aristarchus than sit for
+hours watching these empty pageants.  On two conditions only can I
+declare myself ready and willing to remain quiet, and patiently to dawdle
+through almost half a day, like an ape in a cage: First, if it will give
+our Roman friend Publius Cornelius Scipio any pleasure to witness such a
+performance--though, since our uncle Antiochus pillaged our wealth, and
+since we brothers shared Egypt between us, our processions are not to be
+even remotely compared to the triumphs of Roman victors--or, secondly, if
+I am allowed to take an active part in the affair."
+
+"On my account, Sire," replied Publius, "no procession need be arranged,
+particularly not such a one as I should here be obliged to look on at."
+
+"Well!  I still enjoy such things," said Cleopatra's husband.  "Well-
+arranged groups, and the populace pleased and excited are a sight I am
+never tired of."
+
+"As for me," cried Cleopatra, "I often turn hot and cold, and the tears
+even spring to my eyes, when the shouting is loudest.  A great mass of
+men all uniting in a common emotion always has a great effect.  A drop,
+a grain of sand, a block of stone are insignificant objects, but millions
+of them together, forming the sea, the desert or the pyramids, constitute
+a sublime whole.  One man alone, shouting for joy, is like a madman
+escaped from an asylum, but when thousands of men rejoice together it
+must have a powerful effect on the coldest heart.  How is it that you,
+Publius Scipio, in whom a strong will seems to me to have found a
+peculiarly happy development, can remain unmoved by a scene in which the
+great collective will of a people finds its utterance?"
+
+"Is there then any expression of will, think you," said the Roman, "in
+this popular rejoicing?  It is just in such circumstances that each man
+becomes the involuntary mimic and duplicate of his neighbor; while I love
+to make my own way, and to be independent of everything but the laws and
+duties laid upon me by the state to which I belong."
+
+"And I," said Euergetes, "from my childhood have always looked on at
+processions from the very best places, and so it is that fortune punishes
+me now with indifference to them and to everything of the kind; while the
+poor miserable devil who can never catch sight of anything more than the
+nose or the tip of a hair or the broad back of those who take part in
+them, always longs for fresh pageants.  As you hear, I need have no
+consideration for Publius Scipio in this, willing as I should be to do
+so.  Now what would you say, Cleopatra, if I myself took a part in my
+procession--I say mine, since it is to be in my honor; that really would
+be for once something new and amusing."
+
+"More new and amusing than creditable, I think," replied Cleopatra dryly.
+
+"And yet even that ought to please you," laughed Euergetes.  "Since,
+besides being your brother, I am your rival, and we would sooner see our
+rivals lower themselves than rise."
+
+"Do not try to justify yourself by such words," interrupted the king
+evasively, and with a tone of regret in his soft voice.  "We love you
+truly; we are ready to yield you your dominion side by side with ours,
+and I beg you to avoid such speeches even in jest, so that bygones may be
+bygones."
+
+"And," added Cleopatra, "not to detract from your dignity as a king and
+your fame as a sage by any such fool's pranks."
+
+"Madam teacher, do you know then what I had in my mind?  I would appear
+as Alcibiades, followed by a train of flute-playing women, with
+Aristarchus to play the part of Socrates.  I have often been told that he
+and I resemble each other--in many points, say the more sincere; in every
+point, say the more polite of my friends."
+
+At these words Publius measured with his eye the frame of the royal young
+libertine, enveloped in transparent robes; and recalling to himself, as
+he gazed, a glorious statue of that favorite of the Athenians, which he
+had seen in the Ilissus, an ironical smile passed over his lips.  It was
+not unobserved by Euergetes and it offended him, for there was nothing he
+liked better than to be compared to the nephew of Pericles; but he
+suppressed his annoyance, for Publius Cornelius Scipio was the nearest
+relative of the most influential men of Rome, and, though he himself
+wielded royal power, Rome exercised over him the sovereign will of a
+divinity.
+
+Cleopatra noticed what was passing in her brother's mind, and in order to
+interrupt his further speech and to divert his mind to fresh thoughts,
+she said cheerfully:
+
+"Let us then give up the procession, and think of some other mode of
+celebrating your birthday.  You, Lysias, must be experienced in such
+matters, for Publius tells me that you were the leader in all the games
+of Corinth.  What can we devise to entertain Euergetes and ourselves?"
+
+The Corinthian looked for a moment into his cup, moving it slowly about
+on the marble slab of the little table at his side, between an oyster
+pasty and a dish of fresh asparagus; and then he said, glancing round to
+win the suffrages of the company:
+
+"At the great procession which took place under Ptolemy Philadelphus--
+Agatharchides gave me the description of it, written by the eye-witness
+Kallixenus, to read only yesterday--all kinds of scenes from the lives of
+the gods were represented before the people.  Suppose we were to remain
+in this magnificent palace, and to represent ourselves the beautiful
+groups which the great artists of the past have produced in painting or
+sculpture; but let us choose those only that are least known."
+
+"Splendid," cried Cleopatra in great excitement, who can be more like
+Heracles than my mighty brother there--the very son of Alcmene, as
+Lysippus has conceived and represented him?  Let us then represent the
+life of Heracles from grand models, and in every case assign to Euergetes
+the part of the hero."
+
+"Oh! I will undertake it," said the young king, feeling the mighty
+muscles of his breast and arms, "and you may give me great credit for
+assuming the part, for the demi-god who strangled the snakes was lacking
+in the most important point, and it was not without due consideration
+that Lysippus represented him with a small head on his mighty body; but I
+shall not have to say anything."
+
+"If I play Omphale will you sit at my feet?"  asked Cleopatra.
+
+"Who would not be willing to sit at those feet?"  answered Euergetes.
+"Let us at once make further choice among the abundance of subjects
+offered to us, but, like Lysias, I would warn you against those that are
+too well-known."
+
+"There are no doubt things commonplace to the eye as well as to the ear,"
+said Cleopatra.  "But what is recognized as good is commonly regarded as
+most beautiful."
+
+"Permit me," said Lysias, "to direct your attention to a piece of
+sculpture in marble of the noblest workmanship, which is both old and
+beautiful, and yet which may be known to few among you.  It exists on the
+cistern of my father's house at Corinth, and was executed many centuries
+since by a great artist of the Peloponnesus.  Publius was delighted with
+the work, and it is in fact beautiful beyond description.  It is an
+exquisite representation of the marriage of Heracles and Hebe--of the
+hero, raised to divinity, with sempiternal youth.  Will Your Majesty
+allow yourself to be led by Pallas Athene and your mother Alcmene to your
+nuptials with Hebe?"
+
+"Why not?"  said Euergetes.  "Only the Hebe must be beautiful.  But one
+thing must be considered; how are we to get the cistern from your
+father's house at Corinth to this place by to-morrow or next day?  Such a
+group cannot be posed from memory without the original to guide us; and
+though the story runs that the statue of Serapis flew from Sinope to
+Alexandria, and though there are magicians still at Memphis--"
+
+"We shall not need them," interrupted Publius, "while I was staying as a
+guest in the house of my friend's parents--which is altogether more
+magnificent than the old castle of King Gyges at Sardis--I had some gems
+engraved after this lovely group, as a wedding-present for my sister.
+They are extremely successful, and I have them with me in my tent."
+
+"Have you a sister?"  asked the queen, leaning over towards the Roman.
+"You must tell me all about her."
+
+"She is a girl like all other girls," replied Publius, looking down at
+the ground, for it was most repugnant to his feelings to speak of his
+sister in the presence of Euergetes.
+
+"And you are unjust like all other brothers," said Cleopatra smiling,
+"and I must hear more about her, for"--and she whispered the words and
+looked meaningly at Publius--"all that concerns you must interest me."
+
+During this dialogue the royal brothers had addressed themselves to
+Lysias with questions as to the marriage of Heracles and Hebe, and all
+the company were attentive to the Greek as he went on: "This fine work
+does not represent the marriage properly speaking, but the moment when
+the bridegroom is led to the bride.  The hero, with his club on his
+shoulder, and wearing the lion's skin, is led by Pallas Athene, who, in
+performing this office of peace, has dropped her spear and carries her
+helmet in her hand; they are accompanied by his mother Alcmene, and are
+advancing towards the bride's train.  This is headed by no less a
+personage than Apollo himself, singing the praises of Hymenaeus to a
+lute.  With him walks his sister Artemis and behind them the mother of
+Hebe, accompanied by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, as the envoy of
+Zeus.  Then follows the principal group, which is one of the most lovely
+works of Greek art that I am acquainted with.  Hebe comes forward to meet
+her bridegroom, gently led on by Aphrodite, the queen of love.  Peitho,
+the goddess of persuasion, lays her hand on the bride's arm,
+imperceptibly urging her forward and turning away her face; for what she
+had to say has been said, and she smiles to herself, for Hebe has not
+turned a deaf ear to her voice, and he who has once listened to Peitho
+must do what she desires."
+
+"And Hebe?"  asked Cleopatra.
+
+"She casts down her eyes, but lifts up the arm on which the hand of
+Peitho rests with a warning movement of her fingers, in which she holds
+an unopened rose, as though she would say; 'Ah! let me be--I tremble at
+the man'--or ask: 'Would it not be better that I should remain as I am
+and not yield to your temptations and to Aphrodite's power?'  Oh! Hebe is
+exquisite, and you, O Queen!  must represent her!"
+
+"I!"  exclaimed Cleopatra.  "But you said her eyes were cast down."
+
+"That is from modesty and timidity, and her gait must also be bashful and
+maidenly.  Her long robe falls to her feet in simple folds, while Peitho
+holds hers up saucily, between her forefinger and thumb, as if stealthily
+dancing with triumph over her recent victory.  Indeed the figure of
+Peitho would become you admirably."
+
+"I think I will represent Peitho," said the queen interrupting the
+Corinthian.  "Hebe is but a bud, an unopened blossom, while I am a
+mother, and I flatter myself I am something of a philosopher--"
+
+"And can with justice assure yourself," interrupted Aristarchus, "that
+with every charm of youth you also possess the characters attributed to
+Peitho, the goddess, who can work her spells not only on the heart but on
+the intellect also.  The maiden bud is as sweet to look upon as the rose,
+but he who loves not merely color but perfume too--I mean refreshment,
+emotion and edification of spirit--must turn to the full-blown flower; as
+the rose--growers of lake Moeris twine only the buds of their favorite
+flower into wreaths and bunches, but cannot use them for extracting the
+oil of imperishable fragrance; for that they need the expanded blossom.
+Represent Peitho, my Queen! the goddess herself might be proud of such a
+representative."
+
+"And if she were so indeed," cried Cleopatra, "how happy am I to hear
+such words from the lips of Aristarchus.  It is settled--I play Peitho.
+My companion Zoe may take the part of Artemis, and her grave sister that
+of Pallas Athene.  For the mother's part we have several matrons to
+choose from; the eldest daughter of Epitropes appears to me fitted for
+the part of Aphrodite; she is wonderfully lovely."
+
+"Is she stupid too?"  asked Euergetes.  "That is also an attribute of the
+ever-smiling Cypria."
+
+"Enough so, I think, for our purpose," laughed Cleopatra.  "But where are
+we to find such a Hebe as you have described, Lysias?  The daughter of
+Alimes the Arabarch is a charming child."
+
+"But she is brown, as brown as this excellent wine, and too thoroughly
+Egyptian," said the high-steward, who superintended the young Macedonian
+cup-bearers; he bowed deeply as he spoke, and modestly drew the queen's
+attention to his own daughter, a maiden of sixteen.  But Cleopatra
+objected, that she was much taller than herself, and that she would have
+to stand by the Hebe, and lay her hand on her arm.
+
+Other maidens were rejected on various grounds, and Euergetes had already
+proposed to send off a carrier-pigeon to Alexandria to command that some
+fair Greek girl should be sent by an express quadriga to Memphis--where
+the dark Egyptian gods and men flourish, and are more numerous than the
+fair race of Greeks--when Lysias exclaimed:
+
+"I saw to-day the very girl we want, a Hebe that might have stepped out
+from the marble group at my father's, and have been endued with life and
+warmth and color by some god.  Young, modest, rose and white, and just
+about as tall as Your Majesty.  If you will allow me, I will not tell you
+who she is, till after I have been to our tent to fetch the gems with the
+copies of the marble."
+
+"You will find them in an ivory casket at the bottom of my clothes-
+chest," said Publius; "here is the key."
+
+"Make haste," cried the queen, "for we are all curious to hear where in
+Memphis you discovered your modest, rose and white Hebe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+An hour had slipped by with the royal party, since Lysias had quitted the
+company; the wine-cups had been filled and emptied many times; Eulaeus
+had rejoined the feasters, and the conversation had taken quite another
+turn, since the whole of the company were not now equally interested in
+the same subject; on the contrary, the two kings were discussing with
+Aristarchus the manuscripts of former poets and of the works of the
+sages, scattered throughout Greece, and the ways and means of obtaining
+them or of acquiring exact transcripts of them for the library of the
+Museum.  Hierax was telling Eulaeus of the last Dionysiac festival, and
+of the representation of the newest comedy in Alexandria, and Eulaeus
+assumed the appearance--not unsuccessfully--of listening with both ears,
+interrupting him several times with intelligent questions, bearing
+directly on what he had said, while in fact his attention was exclusively
+directed to the queen, who had taken entire possession of the Roman
+Publius, telling him in a low tone of her life--which was consuming her
+strength--of her unsatisfied affections, and her enthusiasm for Rome and
+for manly vigor.  As she spoke her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled,
+for the more exclusively she kept the conversation in her own hands the
+better she thought she was being entertained; and Publius, who was
+nothing less than talkative, seldom interrupted her, only insinuating a
+flattering word now and then when it seemed appropriate; for he
+remembered the advice given him by the anchorite, and was desirous of
+winning the good graces of Cleopatra.
+
+In spite of his sharp ears Eulaeus could understand but little of their
+whispered discourse, for King Euergetes' powerful voice sounded loud
+above the rest of the conversation; but Eulaeus was able swiftly to
+supply the links between the disjointed sentences, and to grasp the
+general sense, at any rate, of what she was saying.  The queen avoided
+wine, but she had the power of intoxicating herself, so to speak, with
+her own words, and now just as her brothers and Aristarchus were at the
+height of their excited and eager question and answer--she raised her
+cup, touched it with her lips and handed it to Publius, while at the same
+time she took hold of his.
+
+The young Roman knew well enough all the significance of this hasty
+action; it was thus that in his own country a woman when in love was wont
+to exchange her cup with her lover, or an apple already bitten by her
+white teeth.
+
+Publius was seized with a cold shudder--like a wanderer who carelessly
+pursues his way gazing up at the moon and stars, and suddenly perceives
+an abyss yawning; at his feet.  Recollections of his mother and of her
+warnings against the seductive wiles of the Egyptian women, and
+particularly of this very woman, flashed through his mind like lightning;
+she was looking at him--not royally by any means, but with anxious and
+languishing gaze, and he would gladly have kept his eyes fixed on the
+ground, and have left the cup untouched; but her eye held his fast as
+though fettering it with ties and bonds; and to put aside the cup seemed
+to the most fearless son of an unconquered nation a deed too bold to be
+attempted.  Besides, how could he possibly repay this highest favor with
+an affront that no woman could ever forgive--least of all a Cleopatra?
+
+Aye, many a life's happiness is tossed away and many a sin committed,
+because the favor of women is a grace that does honor to every man, and
+that flatters him even when it is bestowed by the unloved and unworthy.
+For flattery is a key to the heart, and when the heart stands half open
+the voice of the tempter is never wanting to whisper: "You will hurt her
+feelings if you refuse."
+
+These were the deliberations which passed rapidly and confusedly through
+the young Roman's agitated brain, as he took the queen's cup and set his
+lips to the same spot that hers had touched.  Then, while he emptied the
+cup in long draughts, he felt suddenly seized by a deep aversion to the
+over-talkative, overdressed and capricious woman before him, who thus
+forced upon him favors for which he had not sued; and suddenly there rose
+before his soul the image, almost tangibly distinct, of the humble water-
+bearer; he saw Klea standing before him and looking far more queenly as,
+proud and repellent, she avoided his gaze, than the sovereign by his side
+could ever have done, though crowned with a diadem.
+
+Cleopatra rejoiced to mark his long slow draught, for she thought the
+Roman meant to imply by it that he could not cease to esteem himself
+happy in the favor she had shown him.  She did not take her eyes off him,
+and observed with pleasure that his color changed to red and white; nor
+did she notice that Eulaeus was watching, with a twinkle in his eyes, all
+that was going on between her and Publius.  At last the Roman set down
+the cup, and tried with some confusion to reply to her question as to how
+he had liked the flavor of the wine.
+
+"Very fine--excellent--" at last he stammered out, but he was no longer
+looking at Cleopatra but at Euergetes, who just then cried out loudly:
+
+"I have thought over that passage for hours, I have given you all my
+reasons and have let you speak, Aristarchus, but I maintain my opinion,
+and whoever denies it does Homer an injustice; in this place 'siu' must
+be read instead of 'iu'."
+
+Euergetes spoke so vehemently that his voice outshouted all the other
+guests; Publius however snatched at his words, to escape the necessity
+for feigning sentiments he could not feel; so he said, addressing himself
+half to the speaker and half to Cleopatra:
+
+"Of what use can it be to decide whether it is one or the other--'iu' or
+'siu'.  I find many things justifiable in other men that are foreign to
+my own nature, but I never could understand how an energetic and vigorous
+man, a prudent sovereign and stalwart drinker--like you, Euergetes--can
+sit for hours over flimsy papyrus-rolls, and rack his brains to decide
+whether this or that in Homer should be read in one way or another."
+
+"You exercise yourself in other things," replied Euergetes.  "I consider
+that part of me which lies within this golden fillet as the best that I
+have, and I exercise my wits on the minutest and subtlest questions just
+as I would try the strength of my arms against the sturdiest athletes.
+I flung five into the sand the last time I did so, and they quake now
+when they see me enter the gymnasium of Timagetes.  There would be no
+strength in the world if there were no obstacles, and no man would know
+that he was strong if he could meet with no resistance to overcome.  I
+for my part seek such exercises as suit my idiosyncrasy, and if they are
+not to your taste I cannot help it.  If you were to set these excellently
+dressed crayfish before a fine horse he would disdain them, and could not
+understand how foolish men could find anything palatable that tasted so
+salt.  Salt, in fact, is not suited to all creatures!  Men born far from
+the sea do not relish oysters, while I, being a gourmand, even prefer to
+open them myself so that they may be perfectly fresh, and mix their
+liquor with my wine."
+
+"I do not like any very salt dish, and am glad to leave the opening of
+all marine produce to my servants," answered Publius.  "Thereby I save
+both time and unnecessary trouble."
+
+"Oh! I know!"  cried Euergetes.  "You keep Greek slaves, who must even
+read and write for you.  Pray is there a market where I may purchase men,
+who, after a night of carousing, will bear our headache for us?  By the
+shores of the Tiber you love many things better than learning."
+
+"And thereby," added Aristarchus, "deprive yourselves of the noblest and
+subtlest of pleasures, for the purest enjoyment is ever that which we
+earn at the cost of some pains and effort."
+
+"But all that you earn by this kind of labor," returned Publius, "is
+petty and unimportant.  It puts me in mind of a man who removes a block
+of stone in the sweat of his brow only to lay it on a sparrow's feather
+in order that it may not be carried away by the wind."
+
+"And what is great--and what is small?"  asked Aristarchus.  "Very
+opposite opinions on that subject may be equally true, since it depends
+solely on us and our feelings how things appear to us--whether cold or
+warm; lovely or repulsive--and when Protagoras says that 'man is the
+measure of all things,' that is the most acceptable of all the maxims of
+the Sophists; moreover the smallest matter--as you will fully appreciate
+--acquires an importance all the greater in proportion as the thing is
+perfect, of which it forms a part.  If you slit the ear of a cart-horse,
+what does it signify?  but suppose the same thing were to happen to a
+thoroughbred horse, a charger that you ride on to battle!
+
+"A wrinkle or a tooth more or less in the face of a peasant woman matters
+little, or not at all, but it is quite different in a celebrated beauty.
+If you scrawl all over the face with which the coarse finger of the
+potter has decorated a water-jar, the injury to the wretched pot is but
+small, but if you scratch, only with a needle's point, that gem with the
+portraits of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, which clasps Cleopatra's robe round her
+fair throat, the richest queen will grieve as though she had suffered
+some serious loss.
+
+"Now, what is there more perfect or more worthy to be treasured than the
+noblest works of great thinkers and great poets.
+
+"To preserve them from injury, to purge them from the errors which, in
+the course of time, may have spotted their immaculate purity, this is our
+task; and if we do indeed raise blocks of stone it is not to weight a
+sparrow's feather that it may not be blown away, but to seal the door
+which guards a precious possession, and to preserve a gem from injury.
+
+"The chatter of girls at a fountain is worth nothing but to be wafted
+away on the winds, and to be remembered by none; but can a son ever deem
+that one single word is unimportant which his dying father has bequeathed
+to him as a clue to his path in life?  If you yourself were such a son,
+and your ear had not perfectly caught the parting counsels of the dying-
+how many talents of silver would you not pay to be able to supply the
+missing words?  And what are immortal works of the great poets and
+thinkers but such sacred words of warning addressed, not to a single
+individual, but to all that are not barbarians, however many they maybe.
+They will elevate, instruct, and delight our descendants a thousand years
+hence as they do us at this day, and they, if they are not degenerate and
+ungrateful will be thankful to those who have devoted the best powers of
+their life to completing and restoring all that our mighty forefathers
+have said, as it must have originally stood before it was mutilated, and
+spoiled by carelessness and folly.
+
+"He who, like King Euergetes, puts one syllable in Homer right, in place
+of a wrong one, in my opinion has done a service to succeeding
+generations--aye and a great service."
+
+"What you say," replied Publius, "sounds convincing, but it is still not
+perfectly clear to me; no doubt because I learned at an early age to
+prefer deeds to words.  I find it more easy to reconcile my mind to your
+painful and minute labors when I reflect that to you is entrusted the
+restoration of the literal tenor of laws, whose full meaning might be
+lost by a verbal error; or that wrong information might be laid before me
+as to one single transaction in the life of a friend or of a blood-
+relation, and it might lie with me to clear him of mistakes and
+misinterpretation."
+
+"And what are the works of the great singers of the deeds of the heroes-
+of the writers of past history, but the lives of our fathers related
+either with veracious exactness or with poetic adornments?"  cried
+Aristarchus.  "It is to these that my king and companion in study devotes
+himself with particular zeal."
+
+"When he is neither drinking, nor raving, nor governing, nor wasting his
+time in sacrificing and processions," interpolated Euergetes.  "If I had
+not been a king perhaps I might have been an Aristarchus; as it is I am
+but half a king--since half of my kingdom belongs to you, Philometor--and
+but half a student; for when am I to find perfect quiet for thinking and
+writing?  Everything, everything in me is by halves, for I, if the scale
+were to turn in my favor"--and here he struck his chest and his forehead,
+"I should be twice the man I am.  I am my whole real self nowhere but at
+high festivals, when the wine sparkles in the cup, and bright eyes flash
+from beneath the brows of the flute-players of Alexandria or Cyrene--
+sometimes too perhaps in council when the risk is great, or when there is
+something vast and portentous to be done from which my brother and you
+others, all of you, would shrink--nay perhaps even the Roman.  Aye!  so
+it is--and you will learn to know it."
+
+Euergetes had roared rather than spoken the last words; his cheeks were
+flushed, his eyes rolled, while he took from his head both the garland of
+flowers and the golden fillet, and once more pushed his fingers through
+his hair.
+
+His sister covered her ears with her hands, and said: "You positively
+hurt me!  As no one is contradicting you, and you, as a man of culture,
+are not accustomed to add force to your assertions, like the Scythians,
+by speaking in a loud tone, you would do well to save your metallic voice
+for the further speech with which it is to be hoped you will presently
+favor us.  We have had to bow more than once already to the strength of
+which you boast--but now, at a merry feast, we will not think of that,
+but rather continue the conversation which entertained us, and which had
+begun so well.  This eager defence of the interests which most delight
+the best of the Hellenes in Alexandria may perhaps result in infusing
+into the mind of our friend Publius Scipio--and through him into that of
+many young Romans--a proper esteem for a line of intellectual effort
+which he could not have condemned had he not failed to understand it
+perfectly.
+
+"Very often some striking poetical turn given to a subject makes it,
+all at once, clear to our comprehension, even when long and learned
+disquisitions have failed; and I am acquainted with such an one, written
+by an anonymous author, and which may please you--and you too,
+Aristarchus.  It epitomizes very happily the subject of our discussion.
+The lines run as follows:
+
+                   "Behold, the puny Child of Man
+                    Sits by Time's boundless sea,
+                    And gathers in his feeble hand
+                    Drops of Eternity.
+
+                    "He overhears some broken words
+                    Of whispered mystery
+                    He writes them in a tiny book
+                    And calls it 'History!'
+
+"We owe these verses to an accomplished friend; another has amplified the
+idea by adding the two that follow:
+
+                   "If indeed the puny Child of Man
+                    Had not gathered drops from that wide sea,
+                    Those small deeds that fill his little span
+                    Had been lost in dumb Eternity.
+
+                    "Feeble is his hand, and yet it dare
+                    Seize some drops of that perennial stream;
+                    As they fall they catch a transient gleam--
+                    Lo!  Eternity is mirrored there!
+
+"What are we all but puny children?  And those of us who gather up the
+drops surely deserve our esteem no less than those who spend their lives
+on the shore of that great ocean in mere play and strife--"
+
+"And love," threw in Eulaeus in a low voice, as he glanced towards
+Publius.
+
+"Your poet's verses are pretty and appropriate," Aristarchus now said,
+"and I am very happy to find myself compared to the children who catch
+the falling drops.  There was a time--which came to an end, alas! with
+the great Aristotle--when there were men among the Greeks, who fed the
+ocean of which you speak with new tributaries; for the gods had bestowed
+on them the power of opening new sources, like the magician Moses, of
+whom Onias, the Jew, was lately telling us, and whose history I have read
+in the sacred books of the Hebrews.  He, it is true--Moses I mean--only
+struck water from the rock for the use of the body, while to our
+philosophers and poets we owe inexhaustible springs to refresh the mind
+and soul.  The time is now past which gave birth to such divine and
+creative spirits; as your majesties' forefathers recognized full well
+when they founded the Museum of Alexandria and the Library, of which I am
+one of the guardians, and which I may boast of having completed with your
+gracious assistance.  When Ptolemy Soter first created the Museum in
+Alexandria the works of the greatest period could receive no additions in
+the form of modern writings of the highest class; but he set us--children
+of man, gathering the drops--the task of collecting and of sifting them,
+of eliminating errors in them--and I think we have proved ourselves equal
+to this task.
+
+"It has been said that it is no less difficult to keep a fortune than to
+deserve it; and so perhaps we, who are merely 'keepers' may nevertheless
+make some credit--all the more because we have been able to arrange the
+wealth we found under hand, to work it profitably, to apply it well, to
+elucidate it, and to make it available.  When anything new is created by
+one of our circle we always link it on to the old; and in many
+departments we have indeed even succeeded in soaring above the ancients,
+particularly in that of the experimental sciences.  The sublime
+intelligence of our forefathers commanded a broad horizon--our narrower
+vision sees more clearly the objects that lie close to us.  We have
+discovered the sure path for all intellectual labor, the true scientific
+method; and an observant study of things as they are, succeeds better
+with us than it did with our predecessors.  Hence it follows that in the
+provinces of the natural sciences, in mathematics, astronomy, mechanics
+and geography the sages of our college have produced works of unsurpassed
+merit.  Indeed the industry of my associates--"
+
+"Is very great," cried Euergetes.  "But they stir up such a dust that all
+free-thought is choked, and because they value quantity above all things
+in the results they obtain, they neglect to sift what is great from what
+is small; and so Publius Scipio and others like him, who shrug their
+shoulders over the labors of the learned, find cause enough to laugh in
+their faces.  Out of every four of you I should dearly like to set three
+to some handicraft, and I shall do it too, one of these days--I shall do
+it, and turn them and all their miserable paraphernalia out of the
+Museum, and out of my capital.  They may take refuge with you,
+Philometor, you who marvel at everything you cannot do yourself, who are
+always delighted to possess what I reject, and to make much of those whom
+I condemn--and Cleopatra I dare say will play the harp, in honor of their
+entering Memphis."
+
+"I dare say!"  answered the queen, laughing bitterly.  "Still, it is to
+be expected that your wrath may fall even on worthy men.  Until then I
+will practise my music, and study the treatise on harmony that you have
+begun writing.  You are giving us proof to-day of how far you have
+succeeded in attaining unison in your own soul."
+
+"I like you in this mood!"  cried Euergetes.  "I love you, sister, when
+you are like this!  It ill becomes the eagle's brood to coo like the
+dove, and you have sharp talons though you hide them never so well under
+your soft feathers.  It is true that I am writing a treatise on harmony,
+and I am doing it with delight; still it is one of those phenomena which,
+though accessible to our perception, are imperishable, for no god even
+could discover it entire and unmixed in the world of realities.  Where is
+harmony to be found in the struggles and rapacious strife of the life of
+the Cosmos?  And our human existence is but the diminished reflection of
+that process of birth and decease, of evolution and annihilation, which
+is going on in all that is perceptible to our senses; now gradually and
+invisibly, now violently and convulsively, but never harmonyously.
+
+"Harmony is at home only in the ideal world--harmony which is unknown
+even among the gods harmony, whom I may know, and yet may never
+comprehend--whom I love, and may never possess--whom I long for, and who
+flies from me.
+
+"I am as one that thirsteth, and harmony as the remote, unattainable
+well--I am as one swimming in a wide sea, and she is the land which
+recedes as I deem myself near to it.
+
+"Who will tell me the name of the country where she rules as queen,
+undisturbed and untroubled?  And which is most in earnest in his pursuit
+of the fair one: He who lies sleeping in her arms, or he who is consumed
+by his passion for her?
+
+"I am seeking what you deem that you possess.--Possess--!
+
+"Look round you on the world and on life--look round, as I do, on this
+hall of which you are so proud!  It was built by a Greek; but, because
+the simple melody of beautiful forms in perfect concord no longer
+satisfies you, and your taste requires the eastern magnificence in which
+you were born, because this flatters your vanity and reminds you, each
+time you gaze upon it, that you are wealthy and powerful--you commanded
+your architect to set aside simple grandeur, and to build this gaudy
+monstrosity, which is no more like the banqueting-hall of a Pericles than
+I or you, Cleopatra, in all our finery, are like the simply clad gods and
+goddesses of Phidias.  I mean not to offend you, Cleopatra, but I must
+say this; I am writing now on the subject of harmony, and perhaps I shall
+afterwards treat of justice, truth, virtue; although I know full well
+that they are pure abstractions which occur neither in nature nor in
+human life, and which in my dealings I wholly set aside; nevertheless
+they seem to me worthy of investigation, like any other delusion, if by
+resolving it we may arrive at conditional truth.  It is because one man
+is afraid of another that these restraints--justice, truth, and what else
+you will--have received these high-sounding names, have been stamped as
+characteristics of the gods, and placed under the protection of the
+immortals; nay, our anxious care has gone so far that it has been taught
+as a doctrine that it is beautiful and good to cloud our free enjoyment
+of existence for the sake of these illusions.  Think of Antisthenes and
+his disciples, the dog-like Cynics--think of the fools shut up in the
+temple of Serapis!  Nothing is beautiful but what is free, and he only is
+not free who is forever striving to check his inclinations--for the most
+part in vain--in order to live, as feeble cowards deem virtuously, justly
+and truthfully.
+
+"One animal eats another when he has succeeded in capturing it, either in
+open fight or by cunning and treachery; the climbing plant strangles the
+tree, the desert-sand chokes the meadows, stars fall from heaven, and
+earthquakes swallow up cities.  You believe in the gods--and so do I
+after my own fashion--and if they have so ordered the course of this life
+in every class of existence that the strong triumph over the weak,
+why should not I use my strength, why let it be fettered by those much-
+belauded soporifics which our prudent ancestors concocted to cool the hot
+blood of such men as I, and to paralyze our sinewy fists.
+
+"Euergetes--the well-doer--I was named at my birth; but if men choose to
+call me Kakergetes--the evil-doer--I do not mind it, since what you call
+good I call narrow and petty, and what you call evil is the free and
+unbridled exercise of power.  I would be anything rather than lazy and
+idle, for everything in nature is active and busy; and as, with
+Aristippus, I hold pleasure to be the highest good, I would fain earn the
+name of having enjoyed more than all other men; in the first place in my
+mind, but no less in my body which I admire and cherish."
+
+During this speech many signs of disagreement had found expression, and
+Publius, who for the first time in his life heard such vicious sentiments
+spoken, followed the words of the headstrong youth with consternation and
+surprise.  He felt himself no match for this overbearing spirit, trained
+too in all the arts of argument and eloquence; but he could not leave all
+he had heard uncontroverted, and so, as Euergetes paused in order to
+empty his refilled cup, he began:
+
+"If we were all to act on your principles, in a few centuries, it seems
+to me, there would be no one left to subscribe to them; for the earth
+would be depopulated; and the manuscripts, in which you are so careful to
+substitute 'siu' for 'iu', would be used by strong-handed mothers, if any
+were left, to boil the pot for their children--in this country of yours
+where there is no wood to burn.  Just now you were boasting of your
+resemblance to Alcibiades, but that very gift which distinguished him,
+and made him dear to the Athenians--I mean his beauty--is hardly possible
+in connection with your doctrines, which would turn men into ravening
+beasts.  He who would be beautiful must before all things be able to
+control himself and to be moderate--as I learnt in Rome before I ever saw
+Athens, and have remembered well.  A Titan may perhaps have thought and
+talked as you do, but an Alcibiades--hardly!"
+
+At these words the blood flew to Euergetes' face; but he suppressed the
+keen and insulting reply that rose to his lips, and this little victory
+over his wrathful impulse was made the more easy as Lysias, at this
+moment, rejoined the feasters; he excused himself for his long absence,
+and then laid before Cleopatra and her husband the gems belonging to
+Publius.
+
+They were warmly admired; even Euergetes was not grudging of his praise,
+and each of the company admitted that he had rarely seen anything more
+beautiful and graceful than the bashful Hebe with downcast eyes, and the
+goddess of persuasion with her hand resting on the bride's arm.
+
+"Yes, I will take the part of Peitho," said Cleopatra with decision.
+
+"And I that of Heracles," cried Euergetes.
+
+"But who is the fair one," asked King Philometor of Lysias, whom you have
+in your eye, as fulfilling this incomparably lovely conception of Hebe?
+While you were away I recalled to memory the aspect of every woman and
+girl who frequents our festivals, but only to reject them all, one after
+the other."
+
+"The fair girl whom I mean," replied Lysias, "has never entered this or
+any other palace; indeed I am almost afraid of being too bold in
+suggesting to our illustrious queen so humble a child as fit to stand
+beside her, though only in sport."
+
+"I shall even have to touch her arm with my hand!"  said the queen
+anxiously, and she drew up her fingers as if she had to touch some
+unclean thing.  If you mean a flower-seller or a flute-player or
+something of that kind--"
+
+"How could I dare to suggest anything so improper?"  Lysias hastily
+interposed.  "The girl of whom I speak may be sixteen years old; she is
+innocence itself incarnate, and she looks like a bud ready to open
+perhaps in the morning dew that may succeed this very night, but which as
+yet is still enfolded in its cup.  She is of Greek race, about as tall as
+you are, Cleopatra; she has wonderful gazelle-like eyes, her little head
+is covered by a mass of abundant brown hair, when she smiles she has
+delicious dimples in her cheeks--and she will be sure to smile when such
+a Peitho speaks to her!"
+
+"You are rousing our curiosity," cried Philometor.  "In what garden,
+pray, does this blossom grow?"
+
+"And how is it," added Cleopatra, "that my husband has not discovered it
+long since, and transplanted it to our palace."
+
+"Probably," answered Lysias, "because he who possesses Cleopatra, the
+fairest rose of Egypt, regards the violets by the roadside as too
+insignificant to be worth glancing at.  Besides, the hedge that fences
+round my bud grows in a gloomy spot; it is difficult of access and
+suspiciously watched.  To be brief: our Hebe is a water-bearer in the
+temple of Serapis, and her name is Irene."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Lysias was one of those men from whose lips nothing ever sounds as if it
+were meant seriously.  His statement that he regarded a serving girl from
+the temple of Serapis as fit to personate Hebe, was spoken as naturally
+and simply as if he were telling a tale for children; but his words
+produced an effect on his hearers like the sound of waters rushing into a
+leaky ship.
+
+Publius had turned perfectly white, and it was not till his friend had
+uttered the name of Irene that he in some degree recovered his composure;
+Philometor had struck his cup on the table, and called out in much
+excitement:
+
+"A water-bearer of Serapis to play Hebe in a gay festal performance!  Do
+you conceive it possible, Cleopatra?"
+
+"Impossible--it is absolutely out of the question," replied the queen,
+decidedly.  Euergetes, who also had opened his eyes wide at the
+Corinthian's proposition, sat for a long time gazing into his cup in
+silence; while his brother and sister continued to express their surprise
+and disapprobation and to speak of the respect and consideration which
+even kings must pay to the priests and servants of Serapis.
+
+At length, once more lifting his wreath and crown, he raised his curls
+with both hands, and said, quite calmly and decisively;
+
+"We must have a Hebe, and must take her where we find her.  If you
+hesitate to allow the girl to be fetched it shall be done by my orders.
+The priests of Serapis are for the most part Greeks, and the high-priest
+is a Hellene.  He will not trouble himself much about a half-grown-up
+girl if he can thereby oblige you or me.  He knows as well as the rest of
+us that one hand washes the other!  The only question now is--for I would
+rather avoid all woman's outcries--whether the girl will come willingly
+or unwillingly if we send for her.  What do you think, Lysias?"
+
+"I believe she would sooner get out of prison to-day than to-morrow,"
+replied Lysias.  "Irene is a lighthearted creature, and laughs as clearly
+and merrily as a child at play--and besides that they starve her in her
+cage."
+
+"Then I will have her fetched to-morrow!"  said Euergetes.
+
+"But," interrupted Cleopatra, "Asclepiodorus must obey us and not you;
+and we, my husband and I--"
+
+"You cannot spoil sport with the priests," laughed Euergetes.  "If they
+were Egyptians, then indeed!  They are not to be taken in their nests
+without getting pecked; but here, as I have said, we have to deal with
+Greeks.  What have you to fear from them?  For aught I care you may leave
+our Hebe where she is, but I was once much pleased with these
+representations, and to-morrow morning, as soon as I have slept, I shall
+return to Alexandria, if you do not carry them into effect, and so
+deprive me, Heracles, of the bride chosen for me by the gods.  I have
+said what I have said, and I am not given to changing my mind.  Besides,
+it is time that we should show ourselves to our friends feasting here in
+the next room.  They are already merry, and it must be getting late."
+
+With these words Euergetes rose from his couch, and beckoned to Hierax
+and a chamberlain, who arranged the folds of his transparent robe, while
+Philometor and Cleopatra whispered together, shrugging their shoulders
+and shaking their heads; and Publius, pressing his hand on the
+Corinthian's wrist, said in his ear: "You will not give them any help if
+you value our friendship; we will leave as soon as we can do so with
+propriety."
+
+Euergetes did not like to be kept waiting.  He was already going towards
+the door, when Cleopatra called him back, and said pleasantly, but with
+gentle reproachfulness:
+
+"You know that we are willing to follow the Egyptian custom of carrying
+out as far as possible the wishes of a friend and brother for his
+birthday festival; but for that very reason it is not right in you to try
+to force us into a proceeding which we refuse with difficulty, and yet
+cannot carry out without exposing ourselves to the most unpleasant
+consequences.  We beg you to make some other demand on us, and we will
+certainly grant it if it lies in our power."
+
+The young colossus responded to his sister's appeal with a loud shout of
+laughter, waved his arm with a flourish of his hand expressive of haughty
+indifference; and then he exclaimed:
+
+"The only thing I really had a fancy for out of all your possessions you
+are not willing to concede, and so I must abide by my word--or I go on my
+way."
+
+Again Cleopatra and her husband exchanged a few muttered words and rapid
+glances, Euergetes watching them the while; his legs straddled apart, his
+huge body bent forward, and his hands resting on his hips.  His attitude
+expressed so much arrogance and puerile, defiant, unruly audacity, that
+Cleopatra found it difficult to suppress an exclamation of disgust before
+she spoke.
+
+"We are indeed brethren," she said, "and so, for the sake of the peace
+which has been restored and preserved with so much difficulty, we give
+in.  The best way will be to request Asclepiodorus--"
+
+But here Euergetes interrupted the queen, clapping his hands loudly and
+laughing:
+
+"That is right, sister! only find me my Hebe!  How you do it is your
+affair, and is all the same to me.  To-morrow evening we will have a
+rehearsal, and the day after we will give a representation of which our
+grandchildren shall repeat the fame.  Nor shall a brilliant audience be
+lacking, for my complimentary visitors with their priestly splendor and
+array of arms will, it is to be hoped, arrive punctually.  Come, my
+lords, we will go, and see what there is good to drink or to listen
+to at the table in the next room."
+
+The doors were opened; music, loud talking, the jingle of cups, and the
+noise of laughter sounded through them into the room where the princes
+had been supping, and all the king's guests followed Euergetes, with the
+exception of Eulaeus.  Cleopatra allowed them to depart without speaking
+a word; only to Publius she said: "Till we meet again!"  but she detained
+the Corinthian, saying:
+
+"You, Lysias, are the cause of this provoking business.  Try now to
+repair the mischief by bringing the girl to us.  Do not hesitate!  I will
+guard her, protect her with the greatest care, rely upon me."
+
+"She is a modest maiden," replied Lysias, "and will not accompany me
+willingly, I am sure.  When I proposed her for the part of Hebe I
+certainly supposed that a word from you, the king and queen, would
+suffice to induce the head of the temple to entrust her to you for a few
+hours of harmless amusement.  Pardon me if I too quit you now; I have the
+key of my friend's chest still in my possession, and must restore it to
+him."
+
+"Shall we have her carried off secretly?"  asked Cleopatra of her
+husband, when the Corinthian had followed the other guests.
+
+"Only let us have no scandal, no violence," cried Philometor anxiously.
+"The best way would be for me to write to Asclepiodorus, and beg him in a
+friendly manner to entrust this girl--Ismene or Irene, or whatever the
+ill-starred child's name is--for a few days to you, Cleopatra, for your
+pleasure.  I can offer him a prospect of an addition to the gift of land
+I made today, and which fell far short of his demands."
+
+"Let me entreat your majesty," interposed Eulaeus, who was now alone with
+the royal couple, "let me entreat you not to make any great promises on
+this occasion, for the moment you do so Asclepiodorus will attribute an
+importance to your desire--"
+
+"Which it is far from having, and must not seem to have," interrupted the
+queen.  "It is preposterous to waste so many words about a miserable
+creature, a water-carrying girl, and to go through so much disturbance--
+but how are we to put an end to it all?  What is your advice, Eulaeus?"
+
+"I thank you for that enquiry, noble princess," replied Eulaeus.  "My
+lord, the king, in my opinion, should have the girl carried off, but not
+with any violence, nor by a man--whom she would hardly follow so
+immediately as is necessary--but by a woman.
+
+"I am thinking of the old Egyptian tale of 'The Two Brothers,' which you
+are acquainted with.  The Pharaoh desired to possess himself of the wife
+of the younger one, who lived on the Mount of Cedars, and he sent armed
+men to fetch her away; but only one of them came back to him, for Batau
+had slain all the others.  Then a woman was sent with splendid ornaments,
+such as women love, and the fair one followed her unresistingly to the
+palace.
+
+"We may spare the ambassadors, and send only the woman; your lady in
+waiting, Zoe, will execute this commission admirably.  Who can blame us
+in any way if a girl, who loves finery, runs away from her keepers?"
+
+"But all the world will see her as Hebe," sighed Philometor, "and
+proclaim us--the sovereign protectors of the worship of Serapis--as
+violators of the temple, if Asclepiodorus leads the cry.  No, no, the
+high-priest must first be courteously applied to.  In the case of his
+raising any difficulties, but not otherwise, shall Zoe make the attempt."
+
+"So be it then," said the queen, as if it were her part to express her
+confirmation of her husband's proposition.
+
+"Let your lady accompany me," begged Eulaeus, "and prefer your request to
+Asclepiodorus.  While I am speaking with the high-priest, Zoe can at any
+rate win over the girl, and whatever we do must be done to-morrow, or the
+Roman will be beforehand with us.  I know that he has cast an eye on
+Irene, who is in fact most lovely.  He gives her flowers, feeds his pet
+bird with pheasants and peaches and other sweetmeats, lets himself be
+lured into the Serapeum by his lady-love as often as possible, stays
+there whole hours, and piously follows the processions, in order to
+present the violets with which you graciously honored him by giving them
+to his fair one--who no doubt would rather wear royal flowers than any
+others--"
+
+"Liar!"  cried the queen, interrupting the courtier in such violent
+excitement and such ungoverned rage, so completely beside herself, that
+her husband drew back startled.
+
+"You are a slanderer! a base calumniator!  The Roman attacks you with
+naked weapons, but you slink in the dark, like a scorpion, and try to
+sting your enemy in the heel.  Apelles, the painter, warns us--the
+grandchildren of Lagus--against folks of your kidney in the picture he
+painted against Antiphilus; as I look at you I am reminded of his Demon
+of Calumny.  The same spite and malice gleam in your eyes as in hers, and
+the same fury and greed for some victim, fire your flushed face!  How you
+would rejoice if the youth whom Apelles has represented Calumny as
+clutching by the hair, could but be Publius!  and if only the lean and
+hollow-eyed form of Envy, and the loathsome female figures of Cunning and
+Treachery would come to your did as they have to hers!  But I remember
+too the steadfast and truthful glance of the boy she has flung to the
+ground, his arms thrown up to heaven, appealing for protection to the
+goddess and the king--and though Publius Scipio is man enough to guard
+himself against open attack, I will protect him against being surprised
+from an ambush!  Leave this room!  Go, I say, and you shall see how we
+punish slanderers!"
+
+At these words Eulaeus flung himself at the queen's feet, but she,
+breathing hurriedly and with quivering nostrils, looked away over his
+head as if she did not even see him, till her husband came towards her,
+and said in a voice of most winning gentleness:
+
+"Do not condemn him unheard, and raise him from his abasement.  At least
+give him the opportunity of softening your indignation by bringing the
+water-bearer here without angering Asclepiodorus.  Carry out this affair
+well, Eulaeus, and you will find in me an advocate with Cleopatra."
+
+The king pointed to the door, and Eulaeus retired, bowing deeply and
+finding his way out backwards.  Philometer, now alone with his wife, said
+with mild reproach:
+
+"How could you abandon yourself to such unmeasured anger?  So faithful
+and prudent a servant--and one of the few still living of those to whom
+our mother was attached--cannot be sent away like a mere clumsy
+attendant.  Besides, what is the great crime he has committed?  Is it a
+slander which need rouse you to such fury when a cautious old man says in
+all innocence of a young one--a man belonging to a world which knows
+nothing of the mysterious sanctity of Serapis--that he has taken a fancy
+to a girl, who is admired by all who see her, that he seeks her out, and
+gives her flowers--"
+
+"Gives her flowers?"  exclaimed Cleopatra, breaking out afresh.  "No, he
+is accused of persecuting a maiden attached to Serapis--to Serapis I say.
+But it is simply false, and you would be as angry as I am if you were
+ever capable of feeling manly indignation, and if you did not want to
+make use of Eulaeus for many things, some of which I know, and others
+which you choose to conceal from me.  Only let him fetch the girl; and
+when once we have her here, and if I find that the Roman's indictment
+against Eulaeus--which I will hear to-morrow morning--is well founded,
+you shall see that I have manly vigor enough for both of us.  Come away
+now; they are waiting for us in the other room."
+
+The queen gave a call, and chamberlains and servants hurried in; her
+shell-shaped litter was brought, and in a few minutes, with her husband
+by her side, she was borne into the great peristyle where the grandees of
+the court, the commanders of the troops, the most prominent of the
+officials of the Egyptian provinces, many artists and savants, and the
+ambassadors from foreign powers, were reclining on long rows of couches,
+and talking over their wine, the feast itself being ended.
+
+The Greeks and the dark-hued Egyptians were about equally represented in
+this motley assembly; but among them, and particularly among the learned
+and the fighting men, there were also several Israelites and Syrians.
+
+The royal pair were received by the company with acclamations and marks
+of respect; Cleopatra smiled as sweetly as ever, and waved her fan
+graciously as she descended from her litter; still she vouchsafed not
+the slightest attention to any one present, for she was seeking Publius,
+at first among those who were nearest to the couch prepared for her,
+and then among the other Hellenes, the Egyptians, the Jews, the
+ambassadors--still she found him not, and when at last she enquired for
+the Roman of the chief chamberlain at her side, the official was sent for
+who had charge of the foreign envoys.  This was an officer of very high
+rank, whose duty it was to provide for the representatives of foreign
+powers, and he was now near at hand, for he had long been waiting for an
+opportunity to offer to the queen a message of leave-taking from Publius
+Cornelius Scipio, and to tell her from him, that he had retired to his
+tent because a letter had come to him from Rome.
+
+"Is that true?"  asked the queen letting her feather fan droop, and
+looking her interlocutor severely in the face.
+
+"The trireme Proteus, coming from Brundisium, entered the harbor of
+Eunostus only yesterday," he replied; "and an hour ago a mounted
+messenger brought the letter.  Nor was it an ordinary letter but a
+despatch from the Senate--I know the form and seal."
+
+"And Lysias, the Corinthian?"
+
+"He accompanied the Roman."
+
+"Has the Senate written to him too?"  asked the queen annoyed, and
+ironically.  She turned her back on the officer without any kind of
+courtesy, and turning again to the chamberlain she went on, in incisive
+tones, as if she were presiding at a trial:
+
+"King Euergetes sits there among the Egyptians near the envoys from the
+temples of the Upper Country.  He looks as it he were giving them a
+discourse, and they hang on his lips.  What is he saying, and what does
+all this mean?"
+
+"Before you came in, he was sitting with the Syrians and Jews, and
+telling them what the merchants and scribes, whom he sent to the South,
+have reported of the lands lying near the lakes through which the Nile is
+said to flow.  He thinks that new sources of wealth have revealed
+themselves not far from the head of the sacred river which can hardly
+flow in from the ocean, as the ancients supposed."
+
+"And now?"  asked Cleopatra.  "What information is he giving to the
+Egyptians?"
+
+The chamberlain hastened towards Euergetes' couch, and soon returned to
+the queen--who meanwhile had exchanged a few friendly words with Onias,
+the Hebrew commander--and informed her in a low tone that the king was
+interpreting a passage from the Timaeus of Plato, in which Solon
+celebrates the lofty wisdom of the priests of Sais; he was speaking with
+much spirit, and the Egyptians received it with loud applause.
+
+Cleopatra's countenance darkened more and more, but she concealed it
+behind her fan, signed to Philometor to approach, and whispered to him:
+
+"Keep near Euergetes; he has a great deal too much to say to the
+Egyptians.  He is extremely anxious to stand well with them, and those
+whom he really desires to please are completely entrapped by his
+portentous amiability.  He has spoiled my evening, and I shall leave you
+to yourselves."
+
+"Till to-morrow, then."
+
+"I shall hear the Roman's complaint up on my roof-terrace; there is
+always a fresh air up there.  If you wish to be present I will send for
+you, but first I would speak to him alone, for he has received letters
+from the Senate which may contain something of importance.  So, till
+to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+And what is great--and what is small
+Behold, the puny Child of Man
+Evolution and annihilation
+Flattery is a key to the heart
+Hold pleasure to be the highest good
+Man is the measure of all things
+Museum of Alexandria and the Library
+One hand washes the other
+Prefer deeds to words
+What are we all but puny children?
+
+
+
+
+
+
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