THE PHARAOH
Thou art a sorceress with thine eyes blue as the sky and thine hair where the sunlight gleams enmeshed.
Who, in past ages, stole thee from those languid beaches where the sunny waters ripple and where the cadenced songs of the Sirens rise to enchant the hearts of men? Or didst thou come from the shadowy woodland, born of some clear, cool spring and the sunbeams glancing among the trees?
Even the least word of thy lips is like a song; the glory of thine eyes is priceless happiness; within thine arms, one could dream forever or burn forever insatiate. And when thou smilest . . . I am a god in the wonder of that smile.
The city of Alexandria clamored beneath the full moon. From one end to the other, the mass of colonnades, temples and houses, from the Pharos to Rhacotis, quivered with a tide of life and movement, mingled with music and laughter. In the Royal Palace, the banquet hall of the Pharaohs blazed with lights and resounded, above the rumor of the city; for Ptolemy the Twelfth, Auletes Nothus Dionysos, was pleased to feast the elect of his kingdom.
Lying on the couches about the tables in the great hall were the chief priests of the city, priests of Isis, Amon, Serapis, Zeus and Aphrodite, teachers and philosophers from the schools, chief functionaries and officers, the most important visitors on the lists of the city, and a sprinkling of keen-eyed Romans. Auletes, in the prime of his life, quick, graceful, lay at a table slightly raised on a dais. At his right hand, Quintus Secundus, from the Roman Republic, at his left Nargases, Hight Priest of Amon. His idle hand caressed the head of a tamed lioness of whom he was passionately fond and who stretched her neck over the edge of the couch, with half closed eyes. At his feet, behind him, stood a group of slave girls, attentive, of selected beauty, nude except for their conventional girdles.
All about, a host of slaves ministered to the guests with a profusion of meats and viands, oysters, lampreys, quails, roasted swans, wild boar, sauces and relishes, cakes of various grains mingled with honey, fruits and sherbets: all that the caprices of taste could suggest, was present in abundance. Kraters of rich wine, cooled in snow brought laboriously from great distances, were wheeled about, emptied and refilled.
The guests ate and drank copiously, furtively loosening their bright-colored, heavy ceremonial robes as the banquet progressed.
Auletes brooded, amidst the festival.
***
Above, in her chamber overlooking the sea, his Idumean wife, beautiful as a goddess, lay with her new-born child; a daughter: his fourth daughter. Berenice, his sister, had borne him three daughters and had died. It was not unfitting for her to die. He had hoped now, for a son, for an heir beyond question to the kingdom he had so struggled to hold. The oracles had, in fact promised him a child who should rule Egypt; this very priest, Nargases, had assured him of it. So he had expected a son; but the oracles had deceived men since time began. He was bitterly disappointed. A son and heir held aloft to meet the plaudits of a nation . . .
What chance had Egypt, in the hands of a woman, before the Roman wolves? Osiris blast them with their big hands and urbane, smiling faces! . . . A daughter—a plaything for the sons of other men! Should he beget only playthings for the sons of other men? . . .
His eye caught a glimpse of mobile flesh.
True, women were not without power; he knew that. Their way was different from that of a man, but, forewarned, they were not without resource. Hatshepsu had ruled; no one had known her for a woman . . . The glory of the Lagidae was a heavy trust. He himself had bribed the Romans with prodigious sums. A son might bribe again, or fight. A daughter—true, a daughter might obtain again all the riches, and more. That was not beyond thought. The Romans, his enemies, who cast covetous eyes on his kingdom: they were notoriously weak before women.
He gazed intently at Quintus, who lay silent, a half smile on his lips, watching the slave girls. Auletes followed his glance toward a girl with plumb, languorous limbs.
This Roman had been recalled and was leaving at sunrise; yet, even this slave girl might tempt him to delay. And the famous Caesar—did not his soldiers, in his Triumph, cry "Romans, look to your wives!" and call him "Adulterer", laughing the while, and without rebuke? With this Caesar, if he lived, or with another like him, Egypt had to deal, Egypt and the glory of Egypt on the flushed brow of a woman.
If this should be the will of the gods, he, Auletes, would prepare her. Every artifice and cunning strategy known to men, every scheme to make power of her weakness, every ingenuity and play of love: she should be taught all these things. The most subtle ministers should assist her; the most skilled priests of Aphrodite should reveal their greatest secrets and their most voluptuous arts. He would sacrifice heavily to the goddess whose true art could make the strongest men pliable as wax. Perhaps the oracle had not deceived him. He could, at least, fit this girl for the smile of the gods and the weakness of men . . . More than one kingdom had balanced on a woman's smile.
***
The Roman's cool voice aroused him.
"Thou shouldst rejoice, with thy guests, at the birth of thy daughter. I drink her health, and thine."
"For that, I thank thee. Didst thou know?—The oracles say she shall rule over Egypt. What thinkest thou of that?"
The Roman was polite.
"It is not impossible. Women have ruled."
Auletes was silent; but slowly, at some inward thought, at a new hope, and for the first time that evening, he smiled.