Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy. Margaret Horton Potter
who, hearing a story of the living goddess, Istar of Babylon, becomes inspired with the desire to see and worship her, and sets out from Selinous to journey to Babylon.
Kabir: A Phœnician trader, shipwrecked off the harbor of Selinous, with whom Charmides travels as far as Tyre.
Abdosir: The brother of Kabir, a citizen of Tyre.
Hodo: A Babylonian trader, head of a caravan travelling between Babylon and Tyre, with whom Charmides goes from Tyre to the Great City.
Allaraine: The archetype of song; once a companion spirit of Istar of Babylon.
Book II
Istar: The archetype of womanhood, made mortal as a punishment for having doubted the mercy of God. She became incarnate in Babylon, and was worshipped there as the famous Babylonian goddess "Istar," though her archetypal name was "Narahmouna."
Nabonidus: Or "Nabu-Nahîd," last native king of Babylon, through his mother a grandson of Nebuchadrezzar. He reigned from B.C. 555–538, when Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great.
Belshazzar: Or Belti-shar-uzzur, son of Nabonidus, and governor of Babylon. He was never proclaimed king of Babylon.
Belitsum: The second queen of Nabonidus; a woman of plebeian origin.
Cyrus: The Great, conqueror of Media, Persia, and Elam, to whom Babylon fell by treachery.
Cambyses: The elder son of Cyrus, who, after him, became king of Babylon. He afterwards committed suicide in Egypt, on being accused of the murder of his brother.
Bardiya: The younger son of Cyrus, afterwards murdered by his brother, Cambyses.
Gobryas: Cyrus' general: the conqueror of Sippar; once governor of Gutium under the king of Babylon.
Lord Ribâta Bit-Shumukin: A royal councillor of Nabonidus, a member of the prince's suite, and the intimate companion of Belshazzar: also landlord of the tenement of Ut.
Daniel: The Hebrew prophet, also called Beltishazzar, who, after the death of Nebuchadrezzar, lost his position at court, and at the time of the fall of Babylon was living in a small house in the Jewish quarter.
Amraphel: The high-priest of Babylon, and priest of Bel; a traitor to the crown.
Vul-ramân of Bit-Yakin: Priest of Nebo and Nergal, and second in power to Amraphel.
Ludar: President of the college of priests at Sippar, and high-priest of the temple of Shamash. A traitor to the crown.
Nânâ-Babilû: Governor of Sippar. Loyal to Nabonidus.
Bunanitû: A Jewess, the head of the historic banking-firm of "Êgibi."
Kalnea: A Jew, the son of Bunanitû.
Kabtiya: The son of Kalnea, a Jewish boy.
Beltani: A Babylonish widow of the lower class, living in the tenement of Ut. The mother of Ramûa and Baba.
Ramûa: A flower-girl, the daughter of Beltani, afterwards married to Charmides.
Baba: Younger daughter of Beltani, afterwards the slave of Lord Ribâta.
Bazuzu: Beltani's negro slave.
Zor: Baba's pet goat.
Hodo: The Babylonish trader.
Charmides: The Greek rhapsode.
Allaraine: The archetype of song.
PROLOGUE
THE INCARNATION
Thronged in Uranian mists, all the archtype spirits of heaven,
Gathered in slow-firing wrath against one of their natural number,
Watched her who, first of them all since Jehovah created their order,
Daring the Almighty ire, did forget her transcendence for man.
Wonder divine o'er the sorrow and sin of the earth-condemned races
Dwelt in the heart of the moon-daughter, now beyond ken of her kindred.
They who, betwixt the one Godhead, His logos, creation, and man,
Infinite, soulless, essential, divine, were highest ideas,
Perfect observance forever had kept of their order, till now,
Seemingly fearless in great disobedience, Istar, the moon-child,
Caught and had struck to her heart a great earth-flown vibration: so learned
All that her high-worshipped fellows knew not of mankind and of woe.
Fleeing the loud-rolling world with her new apperception, she sped
Far to the heart of the moon, where her father, the moon-god, received her.
Then, on her silence of wisdom and grief, rose a fast-winging plaint
Carried across vasty deeps by the loud-surging breath of the wind.
Host upon host, then, the infinite tide, the reflectors of being
Swept towards the refuge of Istar. Their voices, in anger uplifted,
Crashed in a thunderous whirlwind through space; and their far-flowing light
Gleaming and streaming in chaos of bright iridescence, in flames
Violet, yellow and green, silver, crimson, and shimmering gold,
Glorified space and struck down the world-dwellers to terrified prayer.
Sin, the great moon-god, the father of her who sought refuge alone,
Mourned in his mystical home; cried aloud through the uprising clamor,
Asking indulgence for Istar the woman. Him answered but one:
Allaraine, son of the stars, the bard of Æolian songs,
Lord of white clouds, who, begot of a sunset, went winging his way
Far through the star-vault at midnight, full-sprung, with his heavenly path
Marked by mellifluous song—'twas he who to Sin made reply.
He, who alone, from the earth's evening glow had beheld earthly passion,
Tranced by the high, fearless wrong of incarnate humanity's power,
Fearlessly now, before all the tumultuous host, voiced his pity.
Vain were his words, though they fell into space like the pearls of the sea,
Melting round God's very throne, with melodious ecstasy fraught.
Silent the archtypes heard, and in silence of trembling delight
Istar, the lover of souls, concealed in the moon's dim retreat,
Heard him. And silent the earth-world revolved and Time's pulses were stilled.
Finally, out of the deep, where space is not and time cannot be,
God, the Almighty Jehovah, made answer to Allaraine's plea:
"Istar, who knowledge of incarnate souls was forbidden to hold,
Thou, who unknowing, daredst pity men's sorrows and sins manifold.
Go to the earth-world as one among men, and there shalt thou behold
Life, and its correlate, Death. Sentient there thou shalt live, but shalt be