With the dawn all was astir. From behind rocks and trees the curious
stared as Zillah's litter was carried along. At every spot where the
path widened, so as to allow them to gather in crowds, many people
prostrated themselves as if before a sacred ark. The day was yet young
when the denser throngs indicated the immediate vicinity of the holy
place. The servants of Ahimelek had gone before Zillah and prepared her
pavilion, so that when she stepped veiled from the litter she entered
alone the seclusion of her own chamber.
A vast amphitheatre of rocks, rising almost perpendicularly hundreds of
feet, abruptly closes the valley of the Adonis. A deep and dark cave
opens at the base of this precipice, like some ominous portal of Sheol
itself. From its black jaws issues the torrent, hailing its first
glimpse of the light with wild roar, like that of some beast startled in
its den by the flash of the hunter's torch. Tossing high its mane of
spray, it leaps wildly down from ledge to ledge, until it stretches
itself for its long race through the deep ravine below. Its course is
lined with trees--gigantic oaks, their limbs gnarled and torn, like
those of veteran gladiators, by conflict with the storms of centuries;
tall pines whose lofty tufts at noonday throw shadows, like patches of
night, into the gorge below. Nature here seems to resent the intrusion
of men, and drops a sense of solitude among the noisy crowds, or lifts
them in spite of their revelry to an awe of her own vast mysteries. It
is a spot where men, if they have no genuine revelation, are tempted to
invent gods; to shape them into phantasies of overwrought imagination,
and clothe them in the shadowy habits of their fears.
Close beside the Fountain of Adonis rose the Temple of Astarte. In front
was a quadrangular court, in the open portion of which the throngs of
votaries walked, and beneath whose cloistered sides they rested in
extravagant ease and sanctioned vice. In the centre of the court stood
the great conical stone, the symbol of deity, on the top of which, twice
a year, a chosen priest sat and presented to the divinity the prayers of
those who sent their petitions up to him winged with sufficient gifts to
warrant their flight to the goddess. White doves flitted through the
air, perched upon the projecting stone-work of the porticos, and flocked
on the marble pavement regardless of the convenience of human beings,
whose superstition made reverent space for the birds which Astarte had
chosen to be her favorite symbol. The cooing of the doves, intermingled
with the softest notes of flutes floating lasciviously from hidden
places, melted into the murmur of the stream. The natural perfume of
plants and flowers was supplemented by the incense of rarest spices,
which loaded the atmosphere with the illusion of some other world beyond
the shores of Araby the Blest.
Back of the great court an ascent of steps led to the temple. Folding
gates of bronze guarded the sacred precincts from unhallowed intrusion.
Gilded beams held aloft the roof of cedar, carved with grotesque
symbols.
The statue of the goddess stood colossal in size and exquisite in form
and decoration. In her right hand she held the sceptre, in her left the
distaff; for, while she swayed the hearts of women, she was at the same
time the patroness and rewarder of their domestic industry. On her head
was a tower of gold, whose gleaming spikes well imitated the rays of the
sun by day. But at night her peculiar glory was revealed. Then the
sacred stone that was set in her crown glowed with mysterious light, and
filled the temple with soft rays as of the moon. The central gleam from
the stone followed the beholder as an eye, shooting the beam from the
omniscience of the goddess into the very soul of the devotee. A statue
of Baal sometimes floated in the air, and invited the questions of
worshippers, to which it gave oracular response by swaying forward if
the answer were affirmative, and backward if a request were refused.
There were varieties of worship adapted to the caprice of all comers.
Some bent over the pool, where the torrent, issuing from the cave and
plunging from the ledge, makes its first halting-place. Into the
swirling waters they cast jewels and gems. If these sank to the bottom,
they were presumed to have been accepted by the divinity; if they were
cast up by the swift and turbulent eddies, the worshipper retired
without assurance of favor. Perhaps the devotee did not confess to
himself the selfishness of his motive for making his offering of goodly
weight; nor did the priests confess to the people the motive with which
every night they dragged the pool and took up the sunken basins they had
placed in the bottom.
In the temple court were daily hung some golden caskets containing the
hair and beards of young men, their first manly offering to the goddess,
whose favors they entreated with the fair sex; and other caskets or bags
of golden thread held the similar offerings of the maidens.
A less attractive sight was that of one who had sacrificed a sheep, and,
while its skin was still warm with life, placed its head upon his own,
tied its forelegs about his neck, the greasy inside against his face,
and, doubling his body so that he could kneel upon the lower part of the
skin, prayed to the Sheep-goddess--one of the appellations of the Queen
of Heaven.
The most imposing offering was that of the Fire Night, the preparation
for which occupied many days. A large area in front of the temple court
was filled with standing trees which had been cut from the sides of
Lebanon, and made an artificial grove. The offerings of devotees were
hung among the branches--rich jewels, and the handiwork ornaments of the
poorer class; garments of priceless stuffs, and the discarded only
raiment of some pauper; birds of all plumage, some in cages of bronze or
carved alabaster, some tied by strings to the trees; wild animals, the
captive pets of the hunter; sheep, and at times living bulls, swung in
girdles from the stancher branches of the trees. The combustible nature
of the wood was augmented by smearings of resinous matter gathered in
great quantities in the forest.
After the images of the gods had been carried about the grove, at a
given signal torches were applied at many places simultaneously. Then
there burst through the night a spectacle of wildest magnificence. The
spark sprites sprang rapidly from the lower to the topmost limbs of each
tree; then roofed the intervals with arches of fire; then flung far and
high over all a hundred sheets of flame, banners and streamers that
signalled the event to the very sky. The intense heat so rarefied the
air that, though scarce a leaf quivered on Lebanon, a mighty wind was
created, which swayed the forest around, whose roar answered back the
roar of the burning timber. This was not unreasonably interpreted by
ignorant people to be the response of nature to the honor paid to its
queen.
The day on which Zillah reached the shades of Apheca was the one
devoted to mourning for Tammuz. The box containing the image of the god
had been borne on the shoulders of six priestesses of Astarte, followed
by a procession of maidens with dishevelled hair and torn garments, who
threw handfuls of ashes into the air, and filled the grove with their
wailing for the brief widowhood of their goddess. At nightfall the
coffin was buried. As at the time of real death the lights are
extinguished in the house, so now every tent was darkened. Only sounds
of lamentation floated through the ravine and among the sacred trees,
prompted at brief intervals by the lugubrious wailing of a trumpet blown
in the temple precincts.
With the first blush of the new day all was changed; hilarity took the
place of mourning. The woods rang with shouts and song and merry
laughter. The image of the god was exhumed, and carried in the arms of
dancing women to the temple. On this day maidens, hoping to be married
before the year elapsed, gave their hair in offering to Astarte or their
persons to the embrace of strangers. The latter was the more sacred
service, the performance of which could not be omitted in the case of
one highly born or ambitious of entering the aristocratic circles of
matronhood. The women entered the booths prepared. With locks entwined
into the conventional sacred node, arrayed in elegance rivalling that of
the bridal raiment they hoped to wear, glittering with the gems that
betokened their dowry, they sat and waited for the rite.