Читать книгу An Egyptian Princess (Historical Novel) - Георг Эберс - Страница 10

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On the night following the banquet just described, Amasis allowed himself only three hours’ rest. On this, as on every other morning, the young priests wakened him at the first cock-crow, conducted him as usual to the bath, arrayed him in the royal vestments and led him to the altar in the court of the palace, where in presence of the populace he offered sacrifice. During the offering the priests sang prayers in a loud voice, enumerated the virtues of their king, and, that blame might in no case light on the head of their ruler, made his bad advisers responsible for every deadly sin committed in ignorance.

They exhorted him to the performance of good deeds, while extolling his virtues; read aloud profitable portions of the holy writings, containing the deeds and sayings of great men, and then conducted him to his apartments, where letters and information from all parts of the kingdom awaited him.

Amasis was in the habit of observing most faithfully these daily-repeated ceremonies and hours of work; the remaining portion of the day he spent as it pleased him, and generally in cheerful society.

The priests reproached him with this, alleging that such a life was not suited to a monarch; and on one occasion he had thus replied to the indignant high-priest: “Look at this bow! if always bent it must lose its power, but, if used for half of each day and then allowed to rest, it will remain strong and useful till the string breaks.”

Amasis had just signed his name to the last letter, granting the petition of a Nornarch—[Administrator of a Province]—for money to carry on different embankments rendered necessary by the last inundation, when a servant entered, bringing a request from the crown-prince Psamtik for an audience of a few minutes.

Amasis, who till this moment had been smiling cheerfully at the cheering reports from all parts of the country, now became suddenly serious and thoughtful. After long delay he answered: “Go and inform the prince that he may appear.”

Psamtik appeared, pale and gloomy as ever; he bowed low and reverentially, on entering his father’s presence.

Amasis nodded silently in return, and then asked abruptly and sternly: “What is thy desire? my time is limited.”

“For your son, more than for others,” replied the prince with quivering lips. “Seven times have I petitioned for the great favor, which thou grantest for the first time to-day.”

“No reproaches! I suspect the reason of thy visit. Thou desirest an answer to thy doubts as to the birth of thy sister Nitetis.”

“I have no curiosity; I come rather to warn thee, and to remind thee that I am not the only one who is acquainted with this mystery.”

“Speakest thou of Phanes?”

“Of whom else should I speak? He is banished from Egypt and from his own country, and must leave Naukratis in a few days. What guarantee hast thou, that he will not betray us to the Persians?”

“The friendship and kindness which I have always shown him.”

“Dost thou believe in the gratitude of men?”

“No! but I rely on my own discernment of character. Phanes will not betray us! he is my friend, I repeat it!”

“Thy friend perhaps, but my mortal enemy!”

“Then stand on thy guard! I have nothing to fear from him.”

“For thyself perhaps nought, but for our country! O father, reflect that though as thy son I may be hateful in thine eyes, yet as Egypt’s future I ought to be near thy heart. Remember, that at thy death, which may the gods long avert, I shall represent the existence of this glorious land as thou dost now; my fall will be the ruin of thine house, of Egypt!”

Amasis became more and more serious, and Psamtik went on eagerly: “Thou knowest that I am right! Phanes can betray our land to any foreign enemy; he is as intimately acquainted with it as we are; and beside this, he possesses a secret, the knowledge of which would convert our most powerful ally into a most formidable enemy.”

“There thou art in error. Though not mine, Nitetis is a king’s daughter and will know how to win the love of her husband.”

“Were she the daughter of a god, she could not save thee from Cambyses’ wrath, if he discovers the treachery; lying is to a Persian the worst of crimes, to be deceived the greatest disgrace; thou hast deceived the highest and proudest of the nation, and what can one inexperienced girl avail, when hundreds of women, deeply versed in intrigue and artifice, are striving for the favor of their lord?”

“Hatred and revenge are good masters in the art of rhetoric,” said Amasis in a cutting tone. “And think’st thou then, oh, foolish son, that I should have undertaken such a dangerous game without due consideration? Phanes may tell the Persians what he likes, he can never prove his point. I, the father, Ladice the mother must know best whether Nitetis is our child or not. We call her so, who dare aver the contrary? If it please Phanes to betray our land to any other enemy beside the Persians, let him; I fear nothing! Thou wouldst have me ruin a man who has been my friend, to whom I owe much gratitude, who has served me long and faithfully; and this without offence from his side. Rather will I shelter him from thy revenge, knowing as I do the impure source from which it springs.”

“My father!”

“Thou desirest the ruin of this man, because he hindered thee from taking forcible possession of the granddaughter of Rhodopis, and because thine own incapacity moved me to place him in thy room as commander of the troops. Ah! thou growest pale! Verily, I owe Phanes thanks for confiding to me your vile intentions, and so enabling me to bind my friends and supporters, to whom Rhodopis is precious, more firmly to my throne.”

“And is it thus thou speakest of these strangers, my father? dost thou thus forget the ancient glory of Egypt? Despise me, if thou wilt; I know thou lovest me not; but say not that to be great we need the help of strangers! Look back on our history! Were we not greatest when our gates were closed to the stranger, when we depended on ourselves and our own strength, and lived according to the ancient laws of our ancestors and our gods? Those days beheld the most distant lands subjugated by Rameses, and heard Egypt celebrated in the whole world as its first and greatest nation. What are we now? The king himself calls beggars and foreigners the supporters of his throne, and devises a petty stratagem to secure the friendship of a power over whom we were victorious before the Nile was infested by these strangers. Egypt was then a mighty Queen in glorious apparel; she is now a painted woman decked out in tinsel!”

[Rameses the Great, son of Sethos, reigned over Egypt 1394-1328 B.

C. He was called Sesostris by the Greeks; see Lepsius (Chron. d.

Aegypter, p. 538.) on the manner in which this confusion of names

arose. Egypt attained the zenith of her power under this king,

whose army, according to Diodorus (I. 53-58). consisted of 600,000

foot and 24,000 horsemen, 27,000 chariots and 400 ships of war.

With these hosts he subdued many of the Asiatic and African nations,

carving his name and likeness, as trophies of victory, on the rocks

of the conquered countries. Herodotus speaks of having seen two of

these inscriptions himself (II. 102-106.) and two are still to be

found not far from Bairut. His conquests brought vast sums of

tribute into Egypt. Tacitus annal. II. 60. and these enabled him to

erect magnificent buildings in the whole length of his land from

Nubia to Tanis, but more especially in Thebes, the city in which he

resided. One of the obelisks erected by Rameses at Heliopolis is

now standing in the Place de la Concorde at Paris, and has been

lately translated by E. Chabas. On the walls of the yet remaining

palaces and temples, built under this mighty king, we find, even to

this day, thousands of pictures representing himself, his armed

hosts, the many nations subdued by the power of his arms, and the

divinities to whose favor he believed these victories were owing.

Among the latter Ammon and Bast seem to have received his especial

veneration, and, on the other hand, we read in these inscriptions

that the gods were very willing to grant the wishes of their

favorite. A poetical description of the wars he waged with the

Cheta is to be found in long lines of hieroglyphics on the south

wall of the hall of columns of Rameses II. at Karnal, also at Luxor

and in the Sallier Papyrus, and an epic poem referring to his mighty

deeds in no less than six different places.]

“Have a care what thou sayest!” shouted Amasis stamping on the floor. “Egypt was never so great, so flourishing as now! Rameses carried our arms into distant lands and earned blood; through my labors the products of our industry have been carried to all parts of the world and instead of blood, have brought us treasure and blessing. Rameses caused the blood and sweat of his subjects to flow in streams for the honor of his own great name; under my rule their blood flows rarely, and the sweat of their brow only in works of usefulness. Every citizen can now end his days in prosperity and comfort. Ten thousand populous cities rise on the shores of the Nile, not a foot of the soil lies untilled, every child enjoys the protection of law and justice, and every ill-doer shuns the watchful eye of the authorities.

“In case of attack from without, have we not, as defenders of those god-given bulwarks, our cataracts, our sea and our deserts, the finest army that ever bore arms? Thirty thousand Hellenes beside our entire Egyptian military caste? such is the present condition of Egypt! Rameses purchased the bright tinsel of empty fame with the blood and tears of his people. To me they are indebted for the pure gold of a peaceful welfare as citizens—to me and to my predecessors, the Saitic kings!”

[The science of fortification was very fairly understood by the

ancient Egyptians. Walled and battlemented forts are to be seen

depicted on their monuments. We have already endeavored to show

(see our work on Egypt. I. 78 and following) that, on the northeast,

Egypt defended from Asiatic invasion by a line of forts extending

from Pelusium to the Red Sea.]

“And yet I tell thee,” cried the prince, “that a worm is gnawing at the root of Egypt’s greatness and her life. This struggle for riches and splendor corrupts the hearts of the people, foreign luxury has given a deadly blow to the simple manners of our citizens, and many an Egyptian has been taught by the Greeks to scoff at the gods of his fathers. Every day brings news of bloody strife between the Greek mercenaries and our native soldiery, between our own people and the strangers. The shepherd and his flock are at variance; the wheels of the state machinery are grinding one another and thus the state itself, into total ruin. This once, father, though never again, I must speak out clearly what is weighing on my heart. While engaged in contending with the priests, thou hast seen with calmness the young might of Persia roll on from the East, consuming the nations on its way, and, like a devouring monster, growing more and more formidable from every fresh prey. Thine aid was not, as thou hadst intended, given to the Lydians and Babylonians against the enemy, but to the Greeks in the building of temples to their false gods. At last resistance seemed hopeless; a whole hemisphere with its rulers lay in submission at the feet of Persia; but even then the gods willed Egypt a chance of deliverance. Cambyses desired thy daughter in marriage. Thou, however, too weak to sacrifice thine own flesh and blood for the good of all, hast substituted another maiden, not thine own child, as an offering to the mighty monarch; and at the same time, in thy soft-heartedness, wilt spare the life of a stranger in whose hand he the fortunes of this realm, and who will assuredly work its ruin; unless indeed, worn out by internal dissension, it perish even sooner from its own weakness!”

Thus far Amasis had listened to these revilings of all he held dearest in silence, though pale, and trembling with rage; but now he broke forth in a voice, the trumpet-like sound of which pealed through the wide hall: “Know’st thou not then, thou boasting and revengeful son of evil, thou future destroyer of this ancient and glorious kingdom, know’st thou not whose life must be the sacrifice, were not my children, and the dynasty which I have founded, dearer to me than the welfare of the whole realm? Thou, Psamtik, thou art the man, branded by the gods, feared by men—the man to whose heart love and friendship are strangers, whose face is never seen to smile, nor his soul known to feel compassion! It is not, however, through thine own sin that thy nature is thus unblessed, that all thine undertakings end unhappily. Give heed, for now I am forced to relate what I had hoped long to keep secret from thine ears. After dethroning my predecessor, I forced him to give me his sister Tentcheta in marriage. She loved me; a year after marriage there was promise of a child. During the night preceding thy birth I fell asleep at the bedside of my wife. I dreamed that she was lying on the shores of the Nile, and complained to me of pain in the breast. Bending down, I beheld a cypress-tree springing from her heart. It grew larger and larger, black and spreading, twined its roots around thy mother and strangled her. A cold shiver seized me, and I was on the point of flying from the spot, when a fierce hurricane came from the East, struck the tree and overthrew it, so that its spreading branches were cast into the Nile. Then the waters ceased to flow; they congealed, and, in place of the river, a gigantic mummy lay before me. The towns on its banks dwindled into huge funereal urns, surrounding the vast corpse of the Nile as in a tomb. At this I awoke and caused the interpreters of dreams to be summoned. None could explain the vision, till at last the priests of the Libyan Ammon gave me the following interpretation ‘Tentcheta will die in giving birth to a son. The cypress, which strangled its mother, is this gloomy, unhappy man. In his days a people shall come from the East and shall make of the Nile, that is of the Egyptians, dead bodies, and of their cities ruinous heaps; these are the urns for the dead, which thou sawest.”

Psamtik listened as if turned into stone; his father continued; “Thy mother died in giving birth to thee; fiery-red hair, the mark of the sons of Typhon, grew around thy brow; thou becam’st a gloomy man. Misfortune pursued thee and robbed thee of a beloved wife and four of thy children. The astrologers computed that even as I had been born under the fortunate sign of Amman, so thy birth had been watched over by the rise of the awful planet Seb. Thou...” But here Amasis broke off, for Psamtik, in the anguish produced by these fearful disclosures had given way, and with sobs and groans, cried:

“Cease, cruel father! spare me at least the bitter words, that I am the only son in Egypt who is hated by his father without cause!”

Amasis looked down on the wretched man who had sunk to the earth before him, his face hidden in the folds of his robe, and the father’s wrath was changed to compassion. He thought of Psamtik’s mother, dead forty years before, and felt he had been cruel in inflicting this poisonous wound on her son’s soul. It was the first time for years, that he had been able to feel towards this cold strange man, as a father and a comforter. For the first time he saw tears in the cold eyes of his son, and could feel the joy of wiping them away. He seized the opportunity at once, and bending clown over the groaning form, kissed his forehead, raised him from the ground and said gently:

“Forgive my anger, my son! the words that have grieved thee came not from my heart, but were spoken in the haste of wrath. Many years hast thou angered me by thy coldness, hardness and obstinacy; to-day thou hast wounded me again in my most sacred feelings; this hurried me into an excess of wrath. But now all is right between us. Our natures are so diverse that our innermost feelings will never be one, but at least we can act in concert for the future, and show forbearance one towards the other.”

In silence Psamtik bowed down and kissed his father’s robe “Not so,” exclaimed the latter; “rather let my lips receive thy kiss, as is meet and fitting between father and son! Thou needest not to think again of the evil dream I have related. Dreams are phantoms, and even if sent by the gods, the interpreters thereof are human and erring. Thy hand trembles still, thy cheeks are white as thy robe. I was hard towards thee, harder than a father....”

“Harder than a stranger to strangers,” interrupted his son. “Thou hast crushed and broken me, and if till now my face has seldom worn a smile, from this day forward it can be naught but a mirror of my inward misery.”

“Not so,” said Amasis, laying his hand on his son’s shoulder. “If I wound, I can also heal. Tell me the dearest wish of thy heart, it shall be granted thee!”

Psamtik’s eyes flashed, his sallow cheeks glowed for a moment, and he answered without consideration, though in a voice still trembling from the shock he had just received: “Deliver Phanes, my enemy, into my power!”

The king remained a few moments in deep thought, then answered: “I knew what thou wouldst ask, and will fulfil thy desire: but I would rather thou hadst asked the half of my treasures. A thousand voices within warn me that I am about to do an unworthy deed and a ruinous—ruinous for myself, for thee, the kingdom and our house. Reflect before acting, and remember, whatever thou mayst meditate against Phanes, not a hair of Rhodopis’ head shall be touched. Also, that the persecution of my poor friend is to remain a secret from the Greeks. Where shall I find his equal as a commander, an adviser and a companion? He is not yet in thy power, however, and I advise thee to remember, that though thou mayst be clever for an Egyptian, Phanes is a clever Greek. I will remind thee too of thy solemn oath to renounce the grandchild of Rhodopis. Methinks vengeance is dearer to thee than love, and the amends I offer will therefore be acceptable! As to Egypt, I repeat once again, she was never more flourishing than now; a fact which none dream of disputing, except the priests, and those who retail their foolish words. And now give ear, if thou wouldst know the origin of Nitetis. Self-interest will enjoin secrecy.”

Psamtik listened eagerly to his father’s communication, indicating his gratitude at the conclusion by a warm pressure of the hand.

“Now farewell,” said Amasis. “Forget not my words, and above all shed no blood! I will know nothing of what happens to Phanes, for I hate cruelty and would not be forced to stand in horror of my own son. But thou, thou rejoicest! My poor Athenian, better were it for thee, hadst thou never entered Egypt!”

Long after Psamtik had left, his father continued to pace the hall in deep thought. He was sorry he had yielded; it already seemed as if he saw the bleeding Phanes lying massacred by the side of the dethroned Hophra. “It is true, he could have worked our ruin,” was the plea he offered to the accuser within his own breast, and with these words, he raised his head, called his servants and left the apartment with a smiling countenance.

Had this sanguine man, this favorite of fortune, thus speedily quieted the warning voice within, or was he strong enough to cloak his torture with a smile?