Semiramis: A Tale of Battle and of Love. Edward Peple
which were barren and unfulfilled; playing with passion, yet drinking not its flame—a reckless sprite who mocked at hell, while she danced on a thread that stretched across its throat.
Then Dagon, troubled at her wickedness, brought forth from some far eastern land a warrior youth who sighed and sang before Derketo's shrine. Slender was he and shapely, with deep blue eyes and locks that shone as a flame of golden red; so the goddess came out to him and was pleased because of the sweetness of his song. Through the long blue night he sang and whispered in her ear, till by his arts and a subtle tongue he wrought her fall, then straightway disappeared.
A babe was born, and Derketo, in her shame and grief, stole out by night upon the hills and left her child among the rocks to die; then, weeping, she crept into her temple, hiding behind its altar's shadow from the sight of men. By day she slept; by night she crouched beside the water's edge, to fling shrill curses at Dagon across the lake.
Then Dagon in wrath waxed terrible, and sent a lightning bolt which destroyed the goddess and her temple utterly, so that Syria knew her beauty and her wiles no more.
Now a farmer who dwelt in Ascalon was sorely vexed because of theft, yet never could he lay his hands upon the pilferer, albeit he watched together with his wife and sons. The goats' milk left in crocks outside his door would disappear in the broad of day, and after a space his cheeses began to suffer likewise. Marveling, he set himself to watch again, and at dawn a flock of doves dropped down before his door. They pecked at his cheeses, or filled their beaks with milk, then winged their flight to a distant point on the hillside over against the lake. The farmer and his sons marked out the spot and journeyed thither, to find a babe that was sheltered among the stones—the same which Derketo left to perish, and now was nurtured by these sacred birds.[#]
[#] This is the accepted legend of the origin of Semiramis.
The farmers bore her tenderly to the house of Simmas, chief warden of the royal flocks, a kindly man who reared her as his own; and they called her Shammuramat, which name, in the Syrian tongue, means Dove.
Thus the offspring of a goddess, and adopted child of doves and mortal man, grew swiftly to a strength and beauty of the gods themselves. From early childhood she loved the lake, where she sported among the waves till none might match her in speed or grace of stroke; yet, truly, born of Derketo, goddess of the fishes, what marvel, then? Again, as her mystic father hunted through far off eastern lands, so the girl soon turned to hunting through the hills of Syria, with a passion which made her bow and spear a wonder among the simple shepherd folk.
"And now," said Semiramis, as she toyed with Menon's hand, "and now am I a woman grown, with lovers who come in droves as the cattle come, yet daring not to voice the yearnings of their hearts. Great, stupid youths are they, the sons of farmers and tenders of our herds, who stare at me in tongue-tied wonderment; aye, like unto the yearling calves whose thoughts we may not fathom because of their foolishness."
The Assyrian laughed and drew her down till her lips met his and clung; and she joined his merriment, in that he seemed so unakin to the yearlings of which she spoke. Then, presently, she thought to ask his name.
"Menon," he answered simply, whereat she started, pushed his head from out her lap and edged away.
"Menon—thou!" she cried. "Ah, no, my lord! A jest! That man is but a devil's leech who clingeth to the throat of Syria, taxing, taxing, till its very blood is sucked in tax! Thou—!" She paused to laugh. "The Governor is ugly, fat—and thou—"
Again she stopped, with suddenness, and blushed.
"Nay, harken," said Menon, "of a truth I am the Governor; and it cometh to me that I would tax thy country further still—tax it till I snatch from thy foster-father, Simmas, his choicest store of all."
"Eh—what!" she demanded, angered at his words. "My father—that kind old man? Shame! Shame, my lord!"
Menon pursed his lips and ridged his brow with his sternest frown.
"I fain would rob him as I say; yea, even thy sacred doves and the very gods themselves, of Syria's Pearl—Shammuramat."
The girl said naught, but gazed in silence out across the lake, while a smile played softly at the corners of her mouth. She was not ill pleased to be called the Pearl of Syria, albeit she herself had long been conscious of the pretty truth. Moreover, t'was most unseemly in a maid to gainsay a mighty Governor; and in her heart she could find no dread of this weighty tax on Syria's birds and gods. Therefore she waited for his further speech, which came at length with earnestness:
"Now as to these taxes, concerning which I am called a devil's leech, it grieveth me sorely to oppress a simple folk, and it causeth my soul's unrest by night and day."
Again the maiden laughed.
"Aye, truly," she answered, spreading out her locks for the sun to dry; "I well can believe thy words, for never have I looked upon a youth so melancholy, or one on whom his sorrows ride with a tighter knee. Yet tell me, O Prince of Woe, what in truth may chance to be thy station and thy name?"
Menon spread his hands, though he could not help but smile at the maiden's doubt of him.
"Nay, believe me," he urged, "I speak the truth. I swear it on thy fish-god's altar. I am indeed the Governor, sent hither at the King's command, to do his bidding, not my will alone. King Ninus buildeth a city for himself on a far off river bank, a city which is like unto a huge, devouring monster, swallowing up the stores of men, the fruits of the earth, and the children of every land. This, then, is why I come to tax thine honest neighbors of their wealth."
He told her of the city's walls and of how they rose from out the waste of sand; of the temples, palaces, the towers and the soaring citadel. He told of millions toiling through the nights and days, and of an army which girt the walls around, while Semiramis sat listening, drinking in his words.
"Ah!" she breathed. "Ah, now I understand! And what is this city called?"
"Nineveh—the Opal of the East."
Again Semiramis came close to Menon's side, and, at his pleading, once more took his head into her lap.
"This monarch of thine," said she, as she nodded thoughtfully, "is right. He is wise and strong. My people are fools to murmur against the justice of his tax. For listen! I, too, will some day build a city, more grand, more vast in its reach and splendour, aye, even than this Opal of the East. Its walls shall top thine highest towers—its gardens shall hang between the earth and sky. Ah, laugh if thou wilt, yet Schelah hath seen it all—as I have seen—as it rises on her kettle's smoke."
At Menon's look of wonder, she told him that Schelah was a witch who dwelt in a cave among the hills, who wrought strange spells, told fortunes, and healed disease with her arts and herbs.
"A withered crone is she," the maiden said, "ugly and of crooked limbs, whose very name the farmers fear; and yet she is not an evil witch, but kind and gentle to those who understand. Why, I fear her no more than—than—"
"Than me?" asked Menon, with a smile.
"Than thou," she nodded happily, "and I fear thee none at all. Yet tell me more."
He told her of the battles he had seen; of the siege of Zariaspa, where Ninus, baffled of desire, needs turn away till a mightier army could be raised, and engines devised to batter down the walls. He told her of other wars, long, fierce, triumphant in the end; and as he spoke Semiramis saw it all, even as she once had seen a dim and ghostly Babylon which rose from out old Schelah's kettle-smoke.
She saw vast, rolling plains, where armies met with a rending crash and roar; where warriors, locked in a grip of rage, fought desperately and died; where chariots charged as against a cliff, to totter and overturn, and the sands ran red with blood. She heard the cries of men and the clang of blows, exultant shouts of victory and the shrieks of those who fled—the rumble of wheels and hoofs that shook the earth—the clamour of ranks that reeled through tossing clouds of dust. Her bosom heaved; her cheeks, her lips, grew crimson with the rush of blood; her dark eyes kindled, and she trembled as in a chill.
"Ishtar!"