Amasis received his son with a burst of laughter, and without noticing
Psamtik's pale and troubled countenance, shouted: "Did not I tell thee,
that a simple Egyptian would find it no easy task to catch such a Greek
fox? I would have given ten cities to have been by, when thy captive
proved to be the stammering Lydian instead of the voluble Athenian."
Psamtik grew paler and paler, and trembling with rage, answered in a
suppressed voice: "Is it well, my father, thus to rejoice at an affront
offered to thy son? I swear, by the eternal gods, that but for Cambyses'
sake that shameless Lydian had not seen the light of another day. But
what is it to thee, that thy son becomes a laughing-stock to these
beggarly Greeks!"
"Abuse not those who have outwitted thee."
"Outwitted! my plan was so subtly laid, that . . .
"The finer the web, the sooner broken."
"That that intriguing Greek could not possibly have escaped, if, in
violation of all established precedents; the envoy of a foreign power had
not taken it upon himself to rescue a man whom we had condemned."
"There thou art in error, my son. We are not speaking of the execution
of a judicial sentence, but of the success or failure of an attempt at
personal revenge."
"The agents employed were, however, commissioned by the king, and
therefore the smallest satisfaction that I can demand of thee, is to
solicit from Cambyses the punishment of him who has interfered in the
execution of the royal decrees. In Persia, where men bow to the king's
will as to the will of a god, this crime will be seen in all its
heinousness. The punishment of Gyges is a debt which Cambyses owes us."
"But I have no intention of demanding the payment of this debt," answered
Amasis. "On the contrary, I am thankful that Phanes has escaped. Gyges
has saved my soul from the guilt of shedding innocent blood, and thine
from the reproach of having revenged thyself meanly on a man, to whom thy
father is indebted."
"Wilt thou then conceal the whole affair from Cambyses?"
"No, I shall mention it jestingly in a letter, as my manner is, and at
the same time caution him against Phanes. I shall tell him that he has
barely escaped my vengeance, and will therefore certainly endeavor to
stir up the power of Persia against Egypt; and shall entreat my future
son-in-law to close his ears to this false accuser. Croesus and Gyges
can help us by their friendship more than Phanes can injure by his
hatred."
"Is this then thy final resolve? Can I expect no satisfaction?"
"None. I abide by what I have said."
"Then tremble, not alone before Phanes, but before another--before one
who holds thee in his power, and who himself is in ours."
"Thou thinkest to alarm me; thou wouldst rend the bond formed only
yesterday? Psamtik, Psamtik, I counsel thee to remember, that thou
standest before thy father and thy king."
"And thou, forget not that I am thy son! If thou compell'st me to forget
that the gods appointed thee to be my father--if I can hope for no help
from thee, then I will resort to my own weapons."
"I am curious to learn what these may be."
"And I need not conceal them. Know then that the oculist Nebenchari is
in our power."
Amasis turned pale.
"Before thou couldst possibly imagine that Cambyses would sue for the
hand of thy daughter, thou sentest this man to the distant realm of
Persia, in order to rid thyself of one who shared thy knowledge of the
real descent of my, so-called, sister Nitetis. He is still there, and at
a hint from the priests will disclose to Cambyses that he has been
deceived, and that thou hast ventured to send him, instead of thine own,
the child of thy dethroned predecessor Hophra. All Nebenchari's papers
are in our possession, the most important being a letter in thine own
hand promising his father, who assisted at Nitetis' birth, a thousand
gold rings, as an inducement to secrecy even from the priests."
"In whose hands are these papers?" asked Amasis in a freezing tone.
"In the hands of the priesthood."
"Who speak by thy mouth?"
"Thou hast said it."
"Repeat then thy requests."
"Entreat Cambyses to punish Gyges, and grant me free powers to pursue the
escaped Phanes as it shall seem good in mine eyes."
"Is that all?"
"Bind thyself by a solemn oath to the priests, that the Greeks shall be
prevented from erecting any more temples to their false gods in Egypt,
and that the building of the temple to Apollo, in Memphis, shall be
discontinued."
"I expected these demands. The priests have discovered a sharp weapon to
wield against me. Well, I am prepared to yield to the wishes of my
enemies, with whom thou hast leagued thyself, but only on two conditions.
First, I insist that the letter, which I confess to have written to the
father of Nebenchari in a moment of inconsideration, be restored to me.
If left in the hands of thy party, it could reduce me from a king to the
contemptible slave of priestly intrigue."
"That wish is reasonable. The letter shall be returned to thee, if....."
"Not another if! on the contrary, know that I consider thy petition for
the punishment of Gyges so imprudent, that I refuse to grant it. Now
leave me and appear not again before mine eyes until I summon thee!
Yesterday I gained a son, only to lose him to-day. Rise! I demand no
tokens of a love and humility, which thou hast never felt. Go to the
priests when thou needest comfort and counsel, and see if they can supply
a father's place. Tell Neithotep, in whose hands thou art as wax, that
he has found the best means of forcing me to grant demands, which
otherwise I should have refused. Hitherto I have been willing to make
every sacrifice for the sake of upholding Egypt's greatness; but now,
when I see that, to attain their own ends, the priests can strive to move
me by the threat of treachery to their own country, I feel inclined to
regard this privileged caste as a more dangerous enemy to Egypt, than
even the Persians. Beware, beware! This once, having brought danger
upon Egypt through my own fatherly weakness, I give way to the intrigues
of my enemies; but, for the future, I swear by the great goddess Neith,
that men shall see and feel I am king; the entire priesthood shall be
sacrificed rather than the smallest fraction of my royal will! Silence
--depart!"
The prince left, but this time a longer interval was necessary, before
the king could regain even outward cheerfulness sufficient to enable him
to appear before his guests.
Psamtik went at once to the commander of the native troops, ordered him
to banish the Egyptian captain who had failed in executing his revengeful
plans, to the quarries of Thebais, and to send the Ethiopians back to
their native country. He then hurried to the high-priest of Neith, to
inform him how much he had been able to extort from the king,
Neithotep shook his head doubtfully on hearing of Amasis' threats, and
dismissed the prince with a few words of exhortation, a practice he never
omitted.
Psamtik returned home, his heart oppressed and his mind clouded with a
sense of unsatisfied revenge, of a new and unhappy rupture with his
father, a fear of foreign derision, a feeling of his subjection to the
will of the priests, and of a gloomy fate which had hung over his head
since his birth.
His once beautiful wife was dead; and, of five blooming children, only
one daughter remained to him, and a little son, whom he loved tenderly,
and to whom in this sad moment he felt drawn. For the blue eyes and
laughing mouth of his child were the only objects that ever thawed this
man's icy heart, and from these he now hoped for consolation and courage
on his weary road through life.
"Where is my son?" he asked of the first attendant who crossed his path.
"The king has just sent for the Prince Necho and his nurse," answered the
man.
At this moment the high-steward of the prince's household approached, and
with a low obeisance delivered to Psamtik a sealed papyrus letter, with
the words: "From your father, the king."
In angry haste he broke the yellow wax of the seal bearing the king's
name, and read: "I have sent for thy son, that he may not become, like
his father, a blind instrument in the hands of the priesthood, forgetful
of what is due to himself and his country. His education shall be my
care, for the impressions of childhood affect the whole of a man's later
life. Thou canst see him if thou wilt, but I must be acquainted with thy
intention beforehand."
[Signet rings were worn by the Egyptians at a very early period.
Thus, in Genesis 41. 42., Pharaoh puts his ring on Joseph's hand.
In the Berlin Museum and all other collections of Egyptian
antiquities, numbers of these rings are to be found, many of which
are more than 4000 years old.]
Psamtik concealed his indignation from the surrounding attendants with
difficulty. The mere wish of a royal father had, according to Egyptian
custom, as much weight as the strictest command. After reflecting a few
moments, he called for huntsmen, dogs, bows and lances, sprang into a
light chariot and commanded the charioteer to drive him to the western
marshes, where, in pursuing the wild beasts of the desert, he could
forget the weight of his own cares and wreak on innocent creatures his
hitherto baffled vengeance.
Gyges was released immediately after the conversation between his father
and Amasis, and welcomed with acclamations of joy by his companions. The
Pharaoh seemed desirous of atoning for the imprisonment of his friend's
son by doubling his favors, for on the same day Gyges received from the
king a magnificent chariot drawn by two noble brown steeds, and was
begged to take back with him to Persia a curiously-wrought set of
draughts, as a remembrance of Sais. The separate pieces were made of
ebony and ivory, some being curiously inlaid with sentences, in
hieroglyphics of gold and silver.
Amasis laughed heartily with his friends at Gyges' artifice, allowed the
young heroes to mix freely with his family, and behaved towards them
himself as a jovial father towards his merry sons. That the ancient
Egyptian was not quite extinguished in him could only be discerned at
meal-times, when a separate table was allotted to the Persians. The
religion of his ancestors would have pronounced him defiled, had he eaten
at the same table with men of another nation.
[Herodotus II. 41. says that the Egyptians neither kissed, nor ate
out of the same dish with foreigners, nay, indeed, that they refused
to touch meat, in the cutting up of which the knife of a Greek had
been used. Nor were the lesser dynasties of the Delta allowed,
according to the Stela of Pianchi, to cross the threshold of the
Pharaohs because they were unclean and ate fish. In the book of
Genesis, the brethren of Joseph were not allowed to eat bread with
the Egyptians.]
When Amasis, at last, three days after the release of Gyges, declared
that his daughter Nitetis would be prepared to depart for Asia in the
course of two more weeks, all the Persians regretted that their stay in
Egypt was so near its close.
Croesus had enjoyed the society of the Samian poets and sculptors. Gyges
had shared his father's preference for Greek art and artists. Darius,
who had formerly studied astronomy in Babylon, was one evening observing
the heavens, when, to his surprise, he was addressed by the aged
Neithotep and invited to follow him on to the temple-roof. Darius, ever
eager to acquire knowledge, did not wait to be asked twice, and was to be
found there every night in earnest attention to the old priest's lessons.
On one occasion Psamtik met him thus with his master, and asked the
latter what could have induced him to initiate a Persian in the Egyptian
mysteries.
"I am only teaching him," answered the high-priest, "what is as well
known to every learned Chaldee in Babylon as to ourselves, and am thereby
gaining the friendship of a man, whose stars as far outshine those of
Cambyses as the sun outshines the moon. This Darius, I tell thee, will
be a mighty ruler. I have even seen the beams of his planet shining over
Egypt. The truly wise man extends his gaze into the future, regards the
objects lying on either side of his road, as well as the road itself.
Thou canst not know in which of the many houses by which thou passest
daily, a future benefactor may not have been reared for thee. Leave
nought unnoticed that lies in thy path, but above all direct thy gaze
upward to the stars. As the faithful dog lies in wait night after night
for thieves, so have I watched these pilgrims of the heavens fifty years
long--these foretellers of the fates of men, burning in ethereal space,
and announcing, not only the return of summer and winter, but the arrival
of good and bad fortune, honor and disgrace. These are the unerring
guides, who have pointed out to me in Darius a plant, that will one day
wax into a mighty tree."
To Bartja, Darius' nightly studies were especially welcome; they
necessitated more sleep in the morning, and so rendered Bartja's stolen
early rides to Naukratis, (on which Zopyrus, to whom he had confided his
secret, accompanied him), easier of accomplishment. During the
interviews with Sappho, Zopyrus and the attendants used all their
endeavors to kill a few snipes, jackals or jerboas. They could then, on
their return, maintain to their Mentor Croesus, that they had been
pursuing fieldsports, the favorite occupation of the Persian nobility.
The change which the power of a first love had wrought in the innermost
character of Bartja, passed unnoticed by all but Tachot, the daughter of
Amasis. From the first day on which they had spoken together she had
loved him, and her quick feelings told her at once that something had
happened to estrange him from herself. Formerly his behavior had been
that of a brother, and he had sought her companionship; but now he
carefully avoided every approach to intimacy, for he had guessed her
secret and felt as if even a kind look would have been an offence against
his loyalty to Sappho.
In her distress at this change Tachot confided her sorrows to Nitetis.
The latter bade her take courage, and the two girls built many a castle
in the air, picturing to themselves the happiness of being always
together at one court, and married to two royal brothers. But as the
days went by, the visits of the handsome prince became more and more
rare, and when he did come, his behavior to Tachot was cold and distant.
Yet the poor girl could not but confess that Bartja had grown handsomer
and more manly during his stay in Egypt. An expression of proud and yet
gentle consciousness lay beaming in his large eyes, and a strange dreamy
air of rest often took the place of his former gay spirits. His cheeks
had lost their brilliant color, but that added to his beauty, while it
lessened hers, who, like him, became paler from day to day.
Melitta, the old slave, had taken the lovers under her protection. She
had surprised them one morning, but the prince had given her such rich
presents, and her darling had begged, flattered and coaxed so sweetly,
that at last Melitta promised to keep their secret, and later, yielding
to that natural impulse which moves all old women to favor lovers, had
even given them every assistance in her power. She already saw her
"sweet child" mistress of a hemisphere, often addressed her as "my
Princess" and "my Queen" when none were by to hear, and in many a weak
moment imagined a brilliant future for herself in some high office at the
Persian court.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A kind word hath far more power than an angry one
Abuse not those who have outwitted thee
Cannot understand how trifles can make me so happy
Confess I would rather provoke a lioness than a woman
Curiosity is a woman's vice
I cannot . . . Say rather: I will not
In this immense temple man seemed a dwarf in his own eyes
Know how to honor beauty; and prove it by taking many wives
Mosquito-tower with which nearly every house was provided
Natural impulse which moves all old women to favor lovers
Sent for a second interpreter
Sing their libels on women (Greek Philosophers)
Those are not my real friends who tell me I am beautiful
Young Greek girls pass their sad childhood in close rooms