“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--”