Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy. Margaret Horton Potter
be, could not but be struck by the stranger's theme, gathered closer to him, and listened with an intensity flattering enough to spur Kabir to great efforts in his narrative. He, however, well aware that, at his best, he could never dream of rivalling the Greek professional in this art of arts, chose rather to treat his subject in the simplest possible manner.
"Two years ago, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Nabu-Nahid, King of Babylon,[3] men say that Istar, the great goddess—our Astarte—Aphrodite to you—came in the flesh to Babylon. For three days and three nights flames of white fire hung over the temples of Bel, of Marduk, and of Nebo, while the images of the gods in their shrines chanted unceasingly in an unknown tongue. On the morning of the fourth day the hierodules attached to the temple of Istar, ascending her ziggurat to the sanctuary on the seventh stage, found the goddess herself, asleep upon her golden couch.
"How she awoke, what she said to her priestesses, or in what manner she first descended to take up her abode in the temple below, I have never heard. But before a month was past, all Babylon, and in three months all the East, from Sidon to Gaza, and from Ur to Damascus, rang with the wonder of her divinity and her beauty. It is now long since I heard of her, having been so many months away from my country. But formerly every caravan that came from the great city held some that had seen her, or perhaps had heard her speak, and throngs would assemble in the marketplaces to listen to the least story of her personality. It was said—"
"Yes, yes. She was beautiful, you say? How beautiful? How did she look?" interrupted Charmides, in stumbling haste.
Kabir, noting the flush upon the shepherd's cheek, smiled a little to himself. "She is the most fair of any goddess, yet none has ever beheld so much as her face quite clearly, it is said. Always she is surrounded by a dazzling white radiance, an aureole, which the strongest eyes have not been able to pierce. Yet men declare that her face has the clear whiteness of alabaster, her eyes are like the moon, and her hair like a floating, silken veil. More I cannot truthfully say.
"Her vestments have been offered her by the King himself and by the priests of the great gods. They are such as Nitokris never wore and queens might sigh over with envy. Yet they seem too coarse and poor to proffer to such a being.
"The first sign of Istar's divinity is the music that continually follows her presence. They say that those who hear the sounds as she passes are overcome, and fall upon the dust, or reel away like drunken men affected by fumes of wine. What this music is—bells or chords of the lyre or notes from the flute—no man has ever told, for when the sounds cease, every memory of them, save that of the ecstasy of listening, leaves him who has heard. And at sunset every night, when the goddess has retired to her sanctuary to commune with the great gods in solitude, there issue from the ziggurat sounds so marvellous that the priestesses and hierodules flee the neighborhood of the tower in the fear that, hearing, they may lose their reason.
"Istar is possessed of all knowledge. She speaks to each man in his native tongue—Chaldaic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phœnician, or Egyptian—and on feast days she converses with the gods, her brothers, in that unknown language spoken by their statues. Bel and Nebo come forth from their shrines to receive her; Marduk and Shamash embrace her, their sister. Sin, her father, sends to her temple blood-offerings and heave-offerings of oxen and of doves."
"And men," asked the shepherd, still staring into the flames—"what do the men who have eyes to look upon her?"
"Of those that have dared, some become as children that know no more what they do. A few, it is said, have died, but these she raises from the kingdom of death and returns again to the world to fulfil their rightful time. Others still have given their manhood in order to join the order of temple-servants attached to her sanctuary.
"For all these reasons the temple of Istar has become more famous than any other in the East, and the name of Istar, the living goddess, is in every mouth. Many Egyptians from Memphis and Thebes have taken the long journey to Babylon for the purpose of beholding her; and in the land of the Nile each man prays that Isis may show her people favor and appear before them incarnate. She has shaken the faith of the Jews in their one God. Phrygia and Lydia send yearly offerings to her in the great city. And in Tyre itself we were to build a new temple to Astarte, where a six months' sacrifice and festival would be held, in the hope that our great goddess of fertility might appear before us in her double form. And that, O Charmides, is all that I can relate to you concerning the Lady of Babylon."
"It seems that Charmides sleeps over the tale, or else that he is drunken with the mere thought of the divine personage. Wake, rhapsode! Tune your lyre and sing for us the inspired ode that hangs upon your lips!" cried Phalaris, rather ill-naturedly, and with a supercilious smile at his brother.
Charmides did not stir. A thoughtful frown puckered his forehead, and he appeared oblivious of Phalaris' mockery. Theron, seeing that the Phœnician was a little crestfallen with the ill-success of his story, made haste to express his interest in it, and to ask a further question or two upon the matter, without, however, infusing much enthusiasm into his tone. Heraia followed her husband's lead with less effort. She had in her the original strain of poetry that had been extended to her younger son, but was entirely lacking in Theron and Phalaris. Therefore, being imaginative and a woman, Heraia had no difficulty in crediting Kabir's words, and she also understood Charmides' present mood as none of the others could.
Now ensued a pause extremely uncomfortable to three of the group. Only Phalaris was undisturbed by, and Charmides oblivious of, its distressing length. The shepherd finally turned his head and shifted his gaze to the Phœnician's face, where his eyes remained fixed for two or three minutes in a contemplative scrutiny. Then he drew a long breath, returned into the present, and, rising, moved slowly to the door again. From there he glanced at his mother, and was about to speak, when Phalaris reached over to the chest near which he sat, drew forth from it a lyre inlaid with ivory, and held it out to his brother.
"A hymn, Charmides, to Astarte. I can read one written in your eyes."
Charmides flushed scarlet. The eyes of the stranger were on him, and he felt a sudden pang of inexpressible shame at the laughter of his brother's tone.
"Have no fear, little athlete!" he responded, slowly, "an ode will be ready for you when you overthrow Theocles in the festival games. But I think I need not hurry in composing it. Morpheus attend you all. I am going to my bed." And, turning upon his heel, without looking at the still proffered instrument, he strode off to the room which he was to share with Phalaris and the stranger.
Charmides' anger always passed as rapidly as it rose. To-night, by the time he had disrobed and made his prayer to Apollo and Father Zeus, his mind was once more in a state of truce with Phalaris, and he determined to make peace with his brother as soon as he found opportunity; for Phalaris felt the sting of a sharp speech till it was healed by the balm of a very humble apology.
Once ready for the night the shepherd drew his light couch under the one unshuttered window of the room, and laid him down so that his eyes might rest upon the heavens before he slept, and where he could watch the rising of the sun when he woke again. By this time the last shred of the storm-cloud had disappeared from on high, and the moon, which was all but in the full, flooded the night with silver. Its luminous radiance melted over the shepherd's face and caused his locks to shine palely. Charmides lay watching the beams with wide-open eyes. In spite of his very unusual exertions of the afternoon, and the nervous strain that he had endured in watching for men from the wreck, he had never been further from sleep than to-night. His mind was unusually active, and, try as he would, he could not turn his thoughts from one subject—the thing that Phalaris had tried to shame away, the incredible tale told by the Phœnician about the Aphrodite of the East. Charmides knew well enough how his father and brother would laugh at him for allowing himself to think seriously for one moment about that idealized being, who, in all probability, lived only in the depths of the trader's imagination. Nevertheless, Kabir's few words had conjured up to Charmides' quick fancy a singularly real shape, and in the solitary night his thoughts played about her continually, now with eager delight, again reluctantly and irresistibly. Once, twice, thrice he tried to escape from her, but she refused to be banished. He saw her slipping down towards him from a great height, on the path of a moonbeam. With a