BY
THOMAS MOORE.
The Publishers beg to inform the Composers of Music, and Music Sellers, that Mr. James Power, of the Strand, Music Seller, is the only person authorized by them to publish the Songs or Verses in this Work connected with Music.
TO
LORD JOHN RUSSELL
THIS VOLUME
IS INSCRIBED
BY ONE WHO ADMIRES HIS CHARACTER
AND TALENTS,
AND IS PROUD OF HIS FRIENDSHIP.
[pg v]
A
LETTER TO THE TRANSLATOR,
FROM
——, Esq.
Cairo, June 19. 1800.
My dear Sir,
In a visit I lately paid to the monastery of St. Macarius,—which is situated, as you know, in the Valley of the Lakes of Natron,—I was lucky enough to obtain possession of a curious Greek manuscript, which, in the hope that you may be induced to translate it, I herewith send you. Observing one of the monks very busily occupied in tearing up, into a variety of fantastic shapes, some papers [pg vi]which had the appearance of being the leaves of old books, I enquired of him the meaning of his task, and received the following explanation:—
The Arabs, it seems, who are as fond of pigeons as the ancient Egyptians, have a superstitious notion that, if they place in their pigeon-houses small scraps of paper, written over with learned characters, the birds are always sure to thrive the better for the charm; and the monks, who are never slow in profiting by superstition, have, at all times, a supply of such amulets for purchasers.
In general, the holy fathers have been in the habit of scribbling these mystic fragments, themselves; but a discovery, which they have lately made, saves them this trouble. Having dug up (as my informant stated) a chest of old manuscripts, which, being chiefly on the subject of alchemy, must have been buried in the time of Dioclesian, “we thought we could not,” added the monk, “employ such [pg vii]rubbish more properly, than in tearing it up, as you see, for the pigeon-houses of the Arabs.”
On my expressing a wish to rescue some part of these treasures from the fate to which his indolent fraternity had consigned them, he produced the manuscript which I have now the pleasure of sending you,—the only one, he said, remaining entire,—and I very readily paid him the price he demanded for it.
You will find the story, I think, not altogether uninteresting; and the coincidence, in many respects, of the curious details in Chap. VI. with the description of the same ceremonies in the Romance of Sethos[1], will, I have no doubt, strike [pg viii]you. Hoping that you may be tempted to give a translation of this Tale to the world,
I am, my dear Sir,
Very truly yours,
——
THE EPICUREAN.
CHAPTER I.
It was in the fourth year of the reign of the late Emperor Valerian, that the followers of Epicurus, who were at that time numerous in Athens, proceeded to the election of a person to fill the vacant chair of their sect;—and, by the unanimous voice of the School, I was the individual chosen for their Chief. I was just then entering on my twenty-fourth year, and no instance had ever before occurred, of a person so young being selected for that office. Youth, however, and the personal advantages that adorn it, were not, it may be supposed, among the least valid recommendations, to a sect that included within its circle all the beauty as well as wit of Athens, and which, though dignifying its [pg 2]pursuits with the name of philosophy, was little else than a pretext for the more refined cultivation of pleasure.
The character of the sect had, indeed, much changed, since the time of its wise and virtuous founder, who, while he asserted that Pleasure is the only Good, inculcated also that Good is the only source of Pleasure. The purer part of this doctrine had long evaporated, and the temperate Epicurus would have as little recognised his own sect in the assemblage of refined voluptuaries who now usurped its name, as he would have known his own quiet Garden in the luxurious groves and bowers among which the meetings of the School were now held.
Many causes, besides the attractiveness of its doctrines, concurred, at this period, to render our school the most popular of any that still survived the glory of Greece. It may generally be observed, that the prevalence, in one half of a community, of very rigid notions on the subject of religion, [pg 3]produces the opposite extreme of laxity and infidelity in the other; and this kind of re-action it was that now mainly contributed to render the doctrines of the Garden the most fashionable philosophy of the day. The rapid progress of the Christian faith had alarmed all those, who, either from piety or worldliness, were interested in the continuance of the old established creed—all who believed in the Deities of Olympus, and all who lived by them. The consequence was, a considerable increase of zeal and activity, throughout the constituted authorities and priesthood of the whole Heathen world. What was wanting in sincerity of belief was made up in rigour;—the weakest parts of the Mythology were those, of course, most angrily defended, and any reflections, tending to bring Saturn, or his wife Ops, into contempt, were punished with the utmost severity of the law.
In this state of affairs, between the alarmed bigotry of the declining Faith, [pg 4]and the simple, sublime austerity of her rival, it was not wonderful that those lovers of ease and pleasure, who had no interest, reversionary or otherwise, in the old religion, and were too indolent to enquire into the sanctions of the new, should take refuge from the severities of both under the shelter of a luxurious philosophy, which, leaving to others the task of disputing about the future, centered all its wisdom in the full enjoyment of the present.
The sectaries of the Garden had, ever since the death of their founder, been accustomed to dedicate to his memory the twentieth day of every month. To these monthly rites had, for some time, been added a grand annual Festival, in commemoration of his birth. The feasts, given on this occasion by my predecessors in the Chair, had been invariably distinguished for their taste and splendour; and it was my ambition, not merely to imitate this example, but even to render the anniversary, now celebrated under my auspices, [pg 5]so brilliant, as to efface the recollection of all that went before it.
Seldom, indeed, had Athens witnessed such a scene. The grounds that formed the original site of the Garden had, from time to time, received considerable additions; and the whole extent was laid out with that perfect taste, which knows how to wed Nature to Art, without sacrificing her simplicity to the alliance. Walks, leading through wildernesses of shade and fragrance—glades, opening, as if to afford a play-ground for the sunshine—temples, rising on the very spots where imagination herself would have called them up, and fountains and lakes, in alternate motion and repose, either wantonly courting the verdure, or calmly sleeping in its embrace,—such was the variety of feature that diversified these fair gardens; and, animated as they were on this occasion, by all the living wit and loveliness of Athens, it afforded a scene such as my own youthful fancy, rich as it was then in [pg 6]images of luxury and beauty, could hardly have anticipated.
The ceremonies of the day began with the very dawn, when, according to the form of simpler and better times, those among the disciples who had apartments within the Garden, bore the image of our Founder in procession from chamber to chamber, chanting verses in praise of—what had long ceased to be objects of our imitation—his frugality and temperance.
Round a beautiful lake, in the centre of the garden, stood four white Doric temples, in one of which was collected a library containing all the flowers of Grecian literature; while, in the remaining three, Conversation, the Song, and the Dance, held, uninterrupted by each other, their respective rites. In the Library stood busts of all the most illustrious Epicureans, both of Rome and Greece—Horace, Atticus, Pliny the elder, the poet Lucretius, Lucian, and the biographer of the Philosophers, lately lost to us, Dio[pg 7]genes Laertius. There were also the portraits, in marble, of all the eminent female votaries of the school—Leontium and her fair daughter Danae, Themista, Philænis, and others.
It was here that, in my capacity of Heresiarch, on the morning of the Festival, I received the felicitations of the day from some of the fairest lips of Athens; and, in pronouncing the customary oration to the memory of our Master (in which it was usual to dwell on the doctrines he inculcated) endeavoured to attain that art, so useful before such an audience, of diffusing over the gravest subjects a charm, which secures them listeners even among the simplest and most volatile.
Though study, as may easily be supposed, engrossed but little of the mornings of the Garden, yet the lighter part of learning,—that portion of its attic honey, for which the bee is not obliged to go very deep into the flower—was zealously cultivated. Even here, however, the student [pg 8]had to encounter distractions, which are, of all others, least favourable to composure of thought; and, with more than one of my fair disciples, there used to occur such scenes as the following, which a poet of the Garden, taking his picture from the life, described:—
“As o’er the lake, in evening’s glow,
That temple threw its lengthening shade,
Upon the marble steps below,
There sate a fair Corinthian maid,
Gracefully o’er some volume bending;
While, by her side, the youthful Sage
Held back her ringlets, lest, descending,
They should o’er-shadow all the page.”
But it was for the evening of that day, that the richest of our luxuries were reserved. Every part of the Garden was illuminated, with the most skilful variety of lustre; while over the Lake of the Temples were scattered wreaths of flowers, through which boats, filled with beautiful children, floated, as through a liquid parterre.
Between two of these boats a perpetual combat was maintained;—their respective [pg 9]commanders, two blooming youths, being habited to represent Eros and Anteros; the former, the Celestial Love of the Platonists, and the latter, that more earthly spirit, which usurps the name of Love among the Epicureans. Throughout the evening their conflict was carried on with various success; the timid distance at which Eros kept from his more lively antagonist being his only safeguard against those darts of fire, with showers of which the other continually assailed him, but which, luckily falling short of their mark upon the lake, only scorched the flowers upon which they fell, and were extinguished.
In another part of the gardens, on a wide verdant glade, lighted only by the moon, an imitation of the torch-race of the Panathenæa was performed, by young boys chosen for their fleetness, and arrayed with wings, like Cupids; while, not far off, a group of seven nymphs, with each a star on her forehead, represented the movements of the planetary choir, and embodied the [pg 10]dream of Pythagoras into real motion and song.
At every turning some new enchantment broke upon the ear or eye. Sometimes, from the depth of a grove, from which a fountain at the same time issued, there came a strain of music, which, mingling with the murmur of the water, seemed like the voice of the spirit that presided over its flow;—while sometimes the strain rose breathing from among flowers; and, again, would appear to come suddenly from under ground, as if the foot had just touched some spring that set it in motion.
It seems strange that I should now dwell upon these minute descriptions; but every thing connected with that memorable night—even its long-repented follies—must for ever live sacredly in my memory. The festival concluded with a banquet, at which I, of course, presided; and, feeling myself to be the ascendant spirit of the whole scene, gave life to all around me, and saw my own happiness reflected in that of others.
CHAP. II.
The festival was over;—the sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I was now left in those luxurious gardens, alone. Though so ardent and active a votary of pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of melancholy;—an imagination that presented sad thoughts, even in the midst of mirth and happiness, and threw the shadow of the future over the gayest illusions of the present. Melancholy was, indeed, twin-born in my soul with Passion; and, not even in the fullest fervour of the latter, were they separated. From the first moment that I was conscious of thought and feeling, the same dark thread had run across the web; and images of death and annihilation mingled themselves with the most smiling scenes through which my career of enjoyment led me. My very passion for pleasure but deepened these gloomy [pg 12]fancies. For, shut out, as I was by my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow horizon of this, every minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness in my eyes, and pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more luxuriant from the neighbourhood of death.
This very night my triumph, my happiness had seemed complete. I had been the presiding genius of that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my love of pleasure had drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted. Looked up to by the learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had seen, in every eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs already won, or the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me. Yet, even in the midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented themselves;—the perishableness of myself and all around me every instant recurred to my mind. Those hands I had prest—those eyes, in [pg 13]which I had seen sparkling, a spirit of light and life that should never die—those voices, that had talked of eternal love—all, all, I felt, were but a mockery of the moment, and would leave nothing eternal but the silence of their dust!
Oh, were it not for this sad voice,
Stealing amid our mirth to say,
That all, in which we most rejoice,
Ere night may be the earth-worm’s prey;—
But for this bitter—only this—
Full as the world is brimm’d with bliss,
And capable as feels my soul
Of draining to its depth the whole,
I should turn earth to heaven, and be,
If bliss made gods, a deity!
Such was the description I gave of my own feelings, in one of those wild, passionate songs, to which this ferment of my spirits, between mirth and melancholy, gave birth.
Seldom had my heart more fully abandoned itself to such vague sadness than at the present moment, when, as I paced [pg 14]thoughtfully among the fading lights and flowers of the banquet, the echo of my own step was all that sounded, where so many gay forms had lately been revelling. The moon was still up, the morning had not yet glimmered, and the calm glories of night still rested on all around. Unconscious whither my pathway led, I wandered along, till I, at length, found myself before that fair statue of Venus, with which the chisel of Alcamenes had embellished our Garden;—that image of deified woman, the only idol to which I had ever bent the knee. Leaning against the pedestal, I raised my eyes to heaven, and fixing them sadly and intently on the ever-burning stars, as if I sought to read the mournful secret in their light, asked, wherefore was it that Man alone must perish, while they, less wonderful, less glorious than he, lived on in light unchangeable and for ever!—“Oh, that there were some spell, some talisman,” I exclaimed, “to make the spirit within us [pg 15]deathless as those stars, and open to its desires a career like theirs, burning and boundless throughout all time!”
While I gave myself up to this train of thought, that lassitude which earthly pleasure, however sweet, leaves behind,—as if to show how earthly it is,—came drowsily over me, and I sunk at the base of the statue to sleep.
Even in sleep, however, my fancy was still busy; and a dream, so vivid as to leave behind it the impression of reality, thus passed through my mind. I thought myself transported to a wide desert plain, where nothing seemed to breathe, or move, or live. The very sky above it looked pale and extinct, giving the idea, not of darkness, but of light that had died; and, had that region been the remains of some older world, left broken up and sunless, it could not have looked more dead and desolate. The only thing that bespoke life, in this melancholy waste, was a small moving spark, that at first glimmered in the dis[pg 16]tance, but, at length, slowly approached the spot where I stood. As it drew nearer, I could perceive that its feeble gleam was from a taper in the hand of a pale venerable man, who now stood, like a messenger from the grave, before me. After a few moments of awful silence, during which he looked at me with a sadness that thrilled my very soul, he said,—“Thou, who seekest eternal life, go unto the shores of the dark Nile—go unto the shores of the dark Nile, and thou wilt find the eternal life thou seekest!”
No sooner had he said these words than the death-like hue of his cheek brightened into a smile of more than human promise. The small torch that he held sent forth a radiance, by which suddenly the whole surface of the desert was illuminated, even to the far horizon’s edge, along whose line were now seen gardens, palaces, and spires, all bright and golden, like the architecture of the clouds at sunset. Sweet music, too, was heard every where, floating [pg 17]around, and, from all sides, such varieties of splendour poured, that, with the excess both of harmony and of light, I woke.
That infidels should be superstitious is an anomaly neither unusual nor strange. A belief in superhuman agency seems natural and necessary to the mind; and, if not suffered to flow in the obvious channels, it will find a vent in some other. Hence, many who have doubted the existence of a God, have yet implicitly placed themselves under the patronage of Fate or the stars. Much the same inconsistency I was conscious of in my own feelings. Though rejecting all belief in a Divine Providence, I had yet a faith in dreams, that all my philosophy could not conquer. Nor was experience wanting to confirm me in my delusion; for, by some of those accidental coincidences, which make the fortune of soothsayers and prophets, dreams, more than once, had been to me
Oracles, truer far than oak,
Or dove, or tripod, ever spoke.
It was not wonderful, therefore, that the vision of that night, touching, as it did, a chord so ready to vibrate, should have affected me with more than ordinary power, and sunk deeper into my memory with every effort I made to forget it. In vain did I mock at my own weakness;—such self-derision is seldom sincere. In vain did I pursue my accustomed pleasures. Their zest was, as usual, for ever new; but still came the saddening consciousness of mortality, and, with it, the recollection of this visionary promise, to which my fancy, in defiance of my reason, still clung.
Sometimes indulging in reveries, that were little else than a continuation of my dream, I even contemplated the possible existence of some secret, by which youth might be, if not perpetuated, at least prolonged, and that dreadful vicinity of death, within whose circle love pines and pleasure sickens, might be for a while averted. “Who knows,” I would ask, “but that in Egypt, that land of wonders, where Mystery [pg 19]hath yet unfolded but half her treasures,—where so many dark secrets of the antediluvian world still remain, undeciphered, upon the pillars of Seth—who knows but some charm, some amulet, may lie hid, whose discovery, as this phantom hath promised, but waits my coming—some compound of the same pure atoms, that scintillate in the eternal stars, and whose infusion into the frame of man might make him, too, fadeless and immortal!”
Thus did I fondly speculate, in those rambling moods, when the life of excitement which I led, acting upon a warm heart and vivid fancy, produced an intoxication of spirit, during which I was not wholly myself. This bewilderment, too, was not a little increased by the constant struggle between my own natural feelings, and the cold, mortal creed of my sect, in endeavouring to escape from whose deadening bondage I but broke loose into the realms of romance and fantasy.
Even, however, in my calmest and soberest moments, that strange vision per[pg 20]petually haunted me. In vain were all my efforts to chase it from my mind; and the deliberate conclusion to which I came at last, was, that without, at least, a visit to Egypt, I could not rest, nor, till convinced of my folly by disappointment, be reasonable. I, therefore, announced without delay to my associates of the Garden, the intention which I had formed to pay a visit to the land of Pyramids. To none of them did I dare to confess the vague, visionary impulse that actuated me. Knowledge was the object that I alleged, while Pleasure was that for which they gave me credit. The interests of the School, it was apprehended, would suffer by my absence; and there were some tenderer ties, which had still more to fear from separation. But for the former inconvenience a temporary remedy was provided; while the latter a skilful distribution of vows and sighs alleviated. Being furnished with recommendatory letters to all parts of Egypt, in the summer of the year 257, A.D. I set sail for Alexandria.
CHAP. III.
To one, who extracted such sweets from every moment on land, a sea-voyage, however smooth and favourable, appeared the least agreeable mode of losing time that could be devised. Often did my imagination, in passing some isle of those seas, people it with fair forms and kind hearts, to whom most willingly, if I might, would I have paused to pay homage. But the wind blew direct towards the land of Mystery; and, still more, I heard a voice within me, whispering for ever “On.”
As we approached the coast of Egypt, our course became less prosperous; and we had a specimen of the benevolence of the divinities of the Nile, in the shape of a storm, or rather whirlwind, which had nearly sunk our vessel, and which, the Egyptians on board said, was the work of their God, Typhon. After a day and night [pg 22]of danger, during which we were driven out of our course to the eastward, some benigner influence prevailed above; and, at length, as the morning freshly broke, we saw the beautiful city of Alexandria rising from the sea, with its Palace of Kings, its portico of four hundred columns, and the fair Pillar of Pillars, towering up to heaven in the midst.
After passing in review this splendid vision, we shot rapidly round the Rock of Pharos, and, in a few minutes, found ourselves in the harbour of Eunostus. The sun had risen, but the light on the Great Tower of the Rock was still burning; and there was a languor in the first waking movements of that voluptuous city—whose houses and temples lay shining in silence round the harbour—that sufficiently attested the festivities of the preceding night.
We were soon landed on the quay; and, as I walked, through a line of palaces and shrines, up the street which leads from the sea to the Gate of Canopus, fresh as I was [pg 23]from the contemplation of my own lovely Athens, I felt a glow of admiration at the scene around me, which its novelty, even more than its magnificence, inspired. Nor were the luxuries and delights, which such a city promised, among the least of the considerations on which my fancy, at that moment, dwelt. On the contrary, every thing around seemed prophetic of future pleasure. The very forms of the architecture, to my Epicurean imagination, appeared to call up images of living grace; and even the dim seclusion of the temples and groves spoke only of tender mysteries to my mind. As the whole bright scene grew animated around me, I felt that though Egypt might not enable me to lengthen life, she could teach the next best art,—that of multiplying its enjoyments.
The population of Alexandria, at this period, consisted of the most motley miscellany of nations, religions, and sects, that had ever been brought together in one city. Beside the school of the Grecian [pg 24]Platonist was seen the oratory of the cabalistic Jew; while the church of the Christian stood, undisturbed, over the crypts of the Egyptian Hierophant. Here, the adorer of Fire, from the east, laughed at the superstition of the worshipper of cats, from the west. Here Christianity, too, unluckily, had learned to emulate the vagaries of Paganism; and while, on one side, her Ophite professor was seen kneeling down gravely before his serpent, on the other, a Nicosian was, as gravely, contending that there was no chance of salvation out of the pale of the Greek alphabet. Still worse, the uncharitableness of Christian schism was already distinguishing itself with equal vigour; and I heard of nothing, on my arrival, but the rancour and hate, with which the Greek and Latin churchmen persecuted each other, because, forsooth, the one fasted on the seventh day of the week, and the others fasted upon the fourth and sixth!
To none of those religions or sects, however, except for purposes of ridicule, did I pay much attention. I was now in the most luxurious city of the universe, and gave way, without reserve, to the seductions that surrounded me. My reputation, as a philosopher and a man of pleasure, had preceded me; and Alexandria, the second Athens of the world, welcomed me as her own. My celebrity, indeed, was as a talisman, that opened hearts and doors at my approach. The usual noviciate of acquaintance was dispensed with in my favour, and not only intimacies, but loves and friendships, ripened in my path, as rapidly as vegetation springs up where the Nile has flowed. The dark beauty of the Egyptian women had a novelty in my eyes that enhanced its other charms; and that hue of the sun on their rounded cheeks was but an earnest of the ardour he had kindled in their hearts—
Th’ imbrowning of the fruit, that tells
How rich within the soul of sweetness dwells.
Some weeks rolled on in such perpetual and ever-changing pleasures, that even the melancholy voice in my heart, though it still spoke, was but seldom listened to, and soon died away in the sound of the siren songs that surrounded me. At length, however, as the novelty of these scenes wore off, the same gloomy bodings began to mingle with all my joys; and an incident that occurred, during one of my gayest revels, conduced still more to deepen their gloom.
The celebration of the annual festival of Serapis took place during my stay, and I was, more than once, induced to mingle with the gay multitudes, that crowded to his shrine at Canopus on the occasion. Day and night, while this festival lasted, the canal, which led from Alexandria to Canopus, was covered with boats full of pilgrims of both sexes, all hastening to avail themselves of this pious licence, which lent the zest of a religious sanction to pleasure, and gave a holiday to the passions of earth, in honour of heaven.
I was returning, one lovely night, to Alexandria. The north wind, that welcome visitor, freshened the air, while the banks, on either side, sent forth, from groves of orange and henna, the most delicious odours. As I had left all the crowd behind me at Canopus, there was not a boat to be seen on the canal but my own; and I was just yielding to the thoughts which solitude at such an hour inspires, when my reveries were broken by the sound of some female voices, coming, mingled with laughter and screams, from the garden of a pavilion, that stood, brilliantly illuminated, upon the bank of the canal.
On rowing nearer, I perceived that both the mirth and the alarm had been caused by the efforts of some playful girls to reach a hedge of jasmin which grew near the water, and in bending towards which they had nearly fallen into the stream. Hastening to proffer my assistance, I soon recognised the voice of one of my fair Alexandrian [pg 28]friends, and, springing on the bank, was surrounded by the whole group, who insisted on my joining their party in the pavilion, and flinging the tendrils of jasmin, which they had just plucked, around me, led me, no unwilling captive, to the banquet-room.
I found here an assemblage of the very flower of Alexandrian society. The unexpectedness of the meeting gave it an additional zest on both sides; and seldom had I felt more enlivened myself, or contributed more successfully to circulate life among others.
Among the company were some Greek women, who, according to the fashion of their country, wore veils; but, as usual, rather to set off than conceal their beauty, some gleams of which were continually escaping from under the cloud. There was, however, one female, who particularly attracted my attention, on whose head was a chaplet of dark-coloured flowers, and who sat veiled and silent during the whole [pg 29]of the banquet. She took no share, I observed, in what was passing around: the viands and the wine went by her untouched, nor did a word that was spoken seem addressed to her ear. This abstraction from a scene so sparkling with gaiety, though apparently unnoticed by any one but myself, struck me as mysterious and strange. I inquired of my fair neighbour the cause of it, but she looked grave and was silent.
In the mean time, the lyre and the cup went round; and a young maid from Athens, as if inspired by the presence of her countryman, took her lute, and sung to it some of the songs of Greece, with a feeling that bore me back to the banks of the Ilissus, and, even in the bosom of present pleasure, drew a sigh from my heart for that which had passed away. It was daybreak ere our delighted party rose, and unwillingly re-embarked to return to the city.
Scarcely were we afloat, when it was discovered that the lute of the young [pg 30]Athenian had been left behind; and, with my heart still full of its sweet sounds, I most readily sprung on shore to seek it. I hastened to the banquet-room, which was now dim and solitary, except that—there, to my astonishment, still sat that silent figure, which had awakened my curiosity so strongly during the night. A vague feeling of awe came over me, as I now slowly approached it. There was no motion, no sound of breathing in that form;—not a leaf of the dark chaplet on its brow stirred. By the light of a dying lamp which stood before the figure, I raised, with a hesitating hand, the veil, and saw—what my fancy had already anticipated—that the shape underneath was lifeless, was a skeleton! Startled and shocked, I hurried back with the lute to the boat, and was almost as silent as that shape for the remainder of the voyage.
This custom among the Egyptians of placing a mummy, or skeleton, at the banquet-table, had been for some time disused, except at particular ceremonies; [pg 31]and, even on such occasions, it had been the practice of the luxurious Alexandrians to disguise this memorial of mortality in the manner just described. But to me, who was wholly unprepared for such a spectacle, it gave a shock from which my imagination did not speedily recover. This silent and ghastly witness of mirth seemed to embody, as it were, the shadow in my own heart. The features of the grave were now stamped on the idea that haunted me, and this picture of what I was to be mingled itself with the sunniest aspect of what I was.
The memory of the dream now recurred to me more livelily than ever. The bright assuring smile of that venerable Spirit, and his words, “Go to the shores of the dark Nile, and thou wilt find the eternal life thou seekest,” were for ever before my mind. But as yet, alas, I had done nothing towards realising this splendid promise. Alexandria was not Egypt;—the very soil on which it stood was not in existence, [pg 32]when Thebes and Memphis already counted ages of glory.
“It is beneath the Pyramids of Memphis,” I exclaimed, “or in the mystic Halls of the Labyrinth, that I must seek those holy arcana of science, of which the antediluvian world has made Egypt its heir, and among which—blest thought!—the key to eternal life may lie.”
Having formed my determination, I took leave of my many Alexandrian friends, and departed for Memphis.
CHAP. IV.
Egypt was the country, of all others, from that mixture of the melancholy and the voluptuous, which marked the character of her people, her religion, and her scenery, to affect deeply a temperament and fancy like mine, and keep tremblingly alive the sensibilities of both. Wherever I turned, I saw the desert and the garden, mingling their bloom and desolation together. I saw the love-bower and the tomb standing side by side, and pleasure and death keeping hourly watch upon each other. In the very luxury of the climate there was the same saddening influence. The monotonous splendour of the days, the solemn radiance of the nights—all tended to cherish that ardent melancholy, the offspring of passion and of thought, which had so long been the inmate of my soul.
When I sailed from Alexandria, the inundation of the Nile was at its full. The whole valley of Egypt lay covered by its flood; and, as I saw around me, in the light of the setting sun, shrines, palaces, and monuments, encircled by the waters, I could almost fancy that I beheld the sinking island of Atalantis, on the last evening its temples were visible above the wave. Such varieties, too, of animation as presented themselves on every side!—
While, far as sight can reach, beneath as clear
And blue a heaven as ever bless’d this sphere,
Gardens, and pillar’d streets, and porphyry domes,
And high-built temples, fit to be the homes
Of mighty gods, and pyramids, whose hour
Outlasts all time, above the waters tower!
Then, too, the scenes of pomp and joy, that make
One theatre of this vast, peopled lake,
Where all that Love, Religion, Commerce gives
Of life and motion, ever moves and lives.
Here, up the steps of temples, from the wave
Ascending, in procession slow and grave,
Priests, in white garments, go, with sacred wands
And silver cymbals gleaming in their hands:
While, there, rich barks—fresh from those sunny tracts
Far off, beyond the sounding cataracts—
Glide with their precious lading to the sea,
Plumes of bright birds, rhinoceros’ ivory,
Gems from the isle of Meröe, and those grains
Of gold, wash’d down by Abyssinian rains.
Here, where the waters wind into a bay
Shadowy and cool, some pilgrims, on their way
To Saïs or Bubastus, among beds
Of lotus-flowers, that close above their heads,
Push their light barks, and hid, as in a bower,
Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour;
While haply, not far off, beneath a bank
Of blossoming acacias, many a prank
Is play’d in the cool current by a train
Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she, whose chain
Around two conquerors of the world was cast,
But, for a third too feeble, broke at last!
Enchanted with the whole scene, I lingered on my voyage, visiting all those luxurious and venerable places, whose names have been consecrated by the wonder of ages. At Saïs I was present during her Festival of Lamps, and read, by the blaze of innumerable lights, those sublime words [pg 36]on the temple of Neitha: “I am all that has been, that is, and that will be, and no man hath ever lifted my veil.” I wandered among the prostrate obelisks of Heliopolis, and saw, not without a sigh, the sun smiling over her ruins, as if in mockery of the mass of perishable grandeur, that had once called itself, in its pride, “The City of the Sun.” But to the Isle of the Golden Venus was my fondest pilgrimage;—and as I explored its shades, where bowers are the only temples, I felt how far more fit to form the shrine of a Deity are the ever-living stems of the garden and the grove, than the most precious columns that the inanimate quarry can supply.
Every where new pleasures, new interests awaited me; and though Melancholy, as usual, stood always near, her shadow fell but half-way over my vagrant path, and left the rest more welcomely brilliant from the contrast. To relate my various adventures, during this short voyage, would only detain me from events, far, far more [pg 37]worthy of record. Amidst such endless variety of attractions, the great object of my journey was forgotten;—the mysteries of this land of the sun were, to me, as much mysteries as ever, and I had as yet been initiated in nothing but its pleasures.
It was not till that evening, when I first stood before the Pyramids of Memphis, and saw them towering aloft, like the watch-towers of Time, from whose summit, when he expires, he will look his last,—it was not till this moment that the great secret, of which I had dreamed, again rose, in all its inscrutable darkness, upon my thoughts. There was a solemnity in the sunshine that rested upon those monuments—a stillness, as of reverence, in the air around them, that stole, like the music of past times, into my heart. I thought what myriads of the wise, the beautiful, and the brave, had sunk into dust since earth first beheld those wonders; and, in the sadness of my soul, I exclaimed,—“Must man alone, then, perish? must [pg 38]minds and hearts be annihilated, while pyramids endure? Death, Death, even on these everlasting tablets,—the only approach to immortality that kings themselves could purchase,—thou hast written our doom, saying, awfully and intelligibly, ‘There is, for man, no eternal mansion, but the tomb!’ ”
My heart sunk at the thought; and, for the moment, I yielded to that desolate feeling, which overspreads the soul that hath no light from the future. But again the buoyancy of my nature prevailed, and again, the willing dupe of vain dreams, I deluded myself into the belief of all that I most wished, with that happy facility which makes imagination stand in place of happiness. “Yes,” I cried, “immortality must be within man’s reach; and, as wisdom alone is worthy of such a blessing, to the wise alone must the secret have been revealed. Deep, it is said, under yonder pyramid, has for ages lain concealed the Table of Emerald, on which [pg 39]the Thrice-Great Hermes engraved, before the flood, the secret of Alchemy, that gives gold at will. Why may not the mightier, the more god-like secret, that gives life at will, be recorded there also? It was by the power of gold, of endless gold, that the kings, who repose in those massy structures, scooped earth to the centre, and raised quarries into the air, to provide themselves with tombs that might outstand the world. Who can tell but that the gift of immortality was also theirs? who knows but that they themselves, triumphant over decay, still live—those mansions, which we call tombs, being rich and everlasting palaces, within whose depths, concealed from this withering world, they still wander, with the few who are sharers of their gift, through a sunless, but illuminated, elysium of their own? Else, wherefore those structures? wherefore that subterraneous realm, by which the whole valley of Egypt is undermined? Why, else, those labyrinths, which none [pg 40]of earth hath ever beheld—which none of heaven, except that God, with the finger on his hushed lip, hath trodden!”
While I indulged in these dreams, the sun, half sunk beneath the horizon, was taking, calmly and gloriously, his leave of the Pyramids,—as he had done, evening after evening, for ages, till they had become familiar to him as the earth itself. On the side turned to his ray they now presented a front of dazzling whiteness, while, on the other, their great shadows, lengthening to the eastward, looked like the first steps of Night, hastening to envelope the hills of Araby in her shade.
No sooner had the last gleam of the sun disappeared, than, on every house-top in Memphis, gay, gilded banners were seen waving aloft, to proclaim his setting,—while a full burst of harmony pealed from all the temples along the shores.
Startled from my musing by these sounds, I at once recollected, that, on that very evening, the great festival of the Moon [pg 41]was to be celebrated. On a little island, half-way over between the gardens of Memphis and the eastern shore, stood the temple of that goddess,
Whose beams
Bring the sweet time of night-flowers and dreams.
Not the cold Dian of the North, who chains
In vestal ice the current of young veins;
But she, who haunts the gay, Bubastian grove,
And owns she sees, from her bright heav’n above,
Nothing on earth, to match that heav’n, but love!
Thus did I exclaim, in the words of one of their own Egyptian poets, as, anticipating the various delights of the festival, I cast away from my mind all gloomy thoughts, and, hastening to my little bark, in which I now lived, like a Nile-bird, on the waters, steered my course to the island-temple of the Moon.
CHAP. V.
The rising of the Moon, slow and majestic, as if conscious of the honours that awaited her upon earth, was welcomed with a loud acclaim from every eminence, where multitudes stood watching for her first light. And seldom had she risen upon a scene more beautiful. Memphis,—still grand, though no longer the unrivalled Memphis, that had borne away from Thebes the crown of supremacy, and worn it undisputed through so many centuries,—now, softened by the moonlight that harmonised with her decline, shone forth among her lakes, her pyramids, and her shrines, like a dream of glory that was soon to pass away. Ruin, even now, was but too visible around her. The sands of the Libyan desert gained upon her like a sea; and, among solitary columns and sphinxes, already half sunk from sight, Time seemed to stand [pg 43]waiting, till all, that now flourished around, should fall beneath his desolating hand, like the rest.
On the waters all was life and gaiety. As far as eye could reach, the lights of innumerable boats were seen, studding, like rubies, the surface of the stream. Vessels of all kinds,—from the light coracle, built for shooting down the cataracts, to the large yacht that glides to the sound of flutes,—all were afloat for this sacred festival, filled with crowds of the young and the gay, not only from Memphis and Babylon, but from cities still farther removed from the scene.
As I approached the island, I could see, glittering through the trees on the bank, the lamps of the pilgrims hastening to the ceremony. Landing in the direction which those lights pointed out, I soon joined the crowd; and, passing through a long alley of sphinxes, whose spangling marble shone out from the dark sycamores around them, in a short time reached [pg 44]the grand vestibule of the temple, where I found the ceremonies of the evening already commenced.
In this vast hall, which was surrounded by a double range of columns, and lay open over-head to the stars of heaven, I saw a group of young maidens, moving in a sort of measured step, between walk and dance, round a small shrine, upon which stood one of those sacred birds, that, on account of the variegated colour of their wings, are dedicated to the moon. The vestibule was dimly lighted,—there being but one lamp of naptha on each of the great pillars that encircled it. But, having taken my station beside one of those pillars, I had a distinct view of the young dancers, as in succession they passed me.
Their long, graceful drapery was as white as snow; and each wore loosely, beneath the rounded bosom, a dark-blue zone, or bandelet, studded, like the skies at midnight, with little silver stars. Through their dark locks was wreathed the white [pg 45]lily of the Nile,—that flower being accounted as welcome to the moon, as the golden blossoms of the bean-flower are to the sun. As they passed under the lamp, a gleam of light flashed from their bosoms, which, I could perceive, was the reflection of a small mirror, that, in the manner of the women of the East, each wore beneath her left shoulder.
There was no music to regulate their steps; but, as they gracefully went round the bird on the shrine, some, by the beat of the castanet, some, by the shrill ring of the sistrum,—which they held uplifted in the attitude of their own divine Isis,—harmoniously timed the cadence of their feet; while others, at every step, shook a small chain of silver, whose sound, mingling with those of the castanets and sistrums, produced a wild, but not an unpleasing harmony.
They seemed all lovely; but there was one—whose face the light had not yet reached, so downcast she held it,—who [pg 46]attracted, and, at length, riveted all my attention. I knew not why, but there was a something in those half-seen features,—a charm in the very shadow, that hung over their imagined beauty,—which took me more than all the out-shining loveliness of her companions. So enchained was my fancy by this coy mystery, that her alone, of all the group, could I either see or think of—her alone I watched, as, with the same downcast brow, she glided round the altar, gently and aërially, as if her presence, like that of a spirit, was something to be felt, not seen.
Suddenly, while I gazed, the loud crash of a thousand cymbals was heard;—the massy gates of the Temple flew open, as if by magic, and a flood of radiance from the illuminated aisle filled the whole vestibule; while, at the same instant, as if the light and the sounds were born together, a peal of rich harmony came mingling with the radiance.
It was then,—by that light, which shone [pg 47]full upon the young maiden’s features, as, starting at the blaze, she raised her eyes to the portal, and, as suddenly, let fall their lids again,—it was then I beheld, what even my own ardent imagination, in its most vivid dreams of beauty, had never pictured. Not Psyche herself, when pausing on the threshold of heaven, while its first glories fell on her dazzled lids, could have looked more beautiful, or blushed with a more innocent shame. Often as I had felt the power of looks, none had ever entered into my soul so far. It was a new feeling—a new sense—coming as suddenly as that radiance into the vestibule, and, at once, filling my whole being;—and had that vision but lingered another moment before my eyes, I should have wholly forgotten who I was and where, and thrown myself, in prostrate adoration, at her feet.
But scarcely had that gush of harmony been heard, when the sacred bird, which had, till now, stood motionless as an image, expanded his wings, and flew into the Tem[pg 48]ple; while his graceful young worshippers, with a fleetness like his own, followed,—and she, who had left a dream in my heart never to be forgotten, vanished with the rest. As she went rapidly past the pillar against which I leaned, the ivy that encircled it caught in her drapery, and disengaged some ornament which fell to the ground. It was the small mirror which I had seen shining on her bosom. Hastily and tremulously I picked it up, and hurried to restore it;—but she was already lost to my eyes in the crowd.
In vain I tried to follow;—the aisles were already filled, and numbers of eager pilgrims pressed towards the portal. But the servants of the Temple prevented all further entrance, and still, as I presented myself, their white wands barred the way. Perplexed and irritated amid that crowd of faces, regarding all as enemies that impeded my progress, I stood on tiptoe, gazing into the busy aisles, and with a heart beating as I caught, from [pg 49]time to time, a glimpse of some spangled zone, or lotus wreath, which led me to fancy that I had discovered the object of my search. But it was all in vain;—in every direction, files of sacred nymphs were moving, but nowhere could I see her, whom alone I sought.
In this state of breathless agitation did I stand for some time,—bewildered with the confusion of faces and lights, as well as with the clouds of incense that rolled around me,—till, fevered and impatient, I could endure it no longer. Forcing my way out of the vestibule into the cool air, I hurried back through the alley of sphinxes to the shore, and flung myself into my boat.
There is, to the north of Memphis, a solitary lake (which, at this season of the year, mingles with the rest of the waters,) upon whose shores stands the Necropolis, or City of the Dead—a place of melancholy grandeur, covered over with shrines and pyramids, where many a kingly head, proud [pg 50]even in death, has for ages awaited the resurrection of its glories. Through a range of sepulchral grots underneath, the humbler denizens of the tomb are deposited,—looking out on each successive generation that visits them, with the same face and features they wore centuries ago. Every plant and tree, that is consecrated to death, from the asphodel-flower to the mystic plantain, lends its sweetness or shadow to this place of tombs; and the only noise that disturbs its eternal calm, is the low humming sound of the priests at prayer, when a new inhabitant is added to the silent city.
It was towards this place of death that, in a mood of mind, as usual, half bright, half gloomy, I now, almost unconsciously, directed my bark. The form of the young Priestess was continually before me. That one bright look of hers, the very memory of which was worth all the actual smiles of others, never left my mind. Absorbed in such thoughts, I rowed on, scarce knowing [pg 51]whither I went, till, startled by finding myself within the shadow of the City of the Dead, I looked up, and saw, rising in succession before me, pyramid beyond pyramid, each towering more loftily than the other,—while all were out-topped in grandeur by one, upon whose summit the moon seemed to rest, as on a pedestal.
Drawing near to the shore, which was sufficiently elevated to raise this city of monuments above the level of the inundation, I lifted my oar, and let the boat rock idly on the water, while my thoughts, left equally without direction, fluctuated as idly. How various and vague were the dreams that then passed through my mind—that bright vision of the temple mingling itself with all! Sometimes she stood before me, like an aërial spirit, as pure as if that element of music and light, into which I had seen her vanish, was her only dwelling. Sometimes, animated with passion, and kindling into a creature of earth, she seemed to lean towards me with looks of [pg 52]tenderness, which it were worth worlds, but for one instant, to inspire; and again—as the dark fancies, that ever haunted me, recurred—I saw her cold, parched, and blackening, amid the gloom of those eternal sepulchres before me!
Turning away, with a shudder, from the cemetery at this thought, I heard the sound of an oar plying swiftly through the water, and, in a few moments, saw, shooting past me towards the shore, a small boat in which sat two female figures, muffled up and veiled. Having landed them not far from the spot where I lay,—concealed by the shadow of a monument on the bank,—the boat again departed, with the same fleetness, over the flood.
Never had the prospect of an adventure come more welcome than at this moment, when my fancy was weaving such chains for my heart, as threatened a bondage, of all others, the most difficult to break. To become enamoured thus of a creature of [pg 53]my own imagination, was the worst, because the most lasting, of follies. Reality alone gives a chance of dissolving such spells, and the idol I was now creating to myself must for ever remain ideal. Any pursuit, therefore, that seemed likely to divert me from such thoughts—to bring back my imagination to earth and reality, from the vague region in which it was wandering, was a relief too seasonable not to be welcomed with eagerness.
I had watched the course which the two figures took, and, having hastily fastened my boat to the bank, stepped gently on shore, and, at a little distance, followed them. The windings through which they led were intricate; but, by the bright light of the moon, I was enabled to keep their forms in view, as, with rapid step, they glided among the monuments. At length, in the shade of a small pyramid, whose peak barely surmounted the plane-trees that grew nigh, they vanished from my sight. I hastened to the spot, but there [pg 54]was not a sign of life around; and had my creed extended to another world, I might have fancied that these forms were spirits, sent from thence to mock me,—so instantaneously they disappeared. I searched through the neighbouring grove, but all there was still as death. At length, in examining one of the sides of the pyramid, which, for a few feet from the ground, was furnished with steps, I found, midway between peak and base, a part of the surface, which, though presenting an appearance of smoothness to the eye, gave to the touch, I thought, indications of a concealed opening.
After a variety of efforts and experiments, I, at last, more by accident than skill, pressed the spring that commanded this mysterious aperture. In an instant the portal slid aside, and disclosed a narrow stair-way within, the two or three first steps of which were discernible by the moonlight, while the rest were lost in utter darkness. Though it was difficult to conceive that the persons whom I had followed [pg 55]would have ventured to pass through this gloomy opening, yet to account for their disappearance otherwise was still more difficult. At all events, my curiosity was now too eager in the chase to relinquish it;—the spirit of adventure, once raised, could not be so easily laid. Accordingly, having sent up a gay prayer to that bliss-loving Queen whose eye alone was upon me, I passed through the portal and descended into the pyramid.
CHAP. VI.
At the bottom of the stair-way I found myself in a low, narrow passage, through which, without stooping almost to earth, it was impossible to proceed. Though leading through a multiplicity of dark windings, this way seemed but little to advance my progress,—its course, I perceived, being chiefly circular, and gathering, at every turn, but a deeper intensity of darkness.
“Can this,” I thought, “be the sojourn of any thing human?”—and had scarcely asked myself the question, when the path opened into a long gallery, at the farthest end of which a gleam of light was visible. This welcome glimmer appeared to come from some cell or alcove, in which the right-hand wall of the gallery terminated, [pg 57]and, breathless with expectation, I stole gently towards it.
Arrived at the end of the gallery, a scene presented itself to my eyes, for which my fondest expectations of adventure could not have prepared me. The place from which the light proceeded was a small chapel, of whose interior, from the dark recess in which I stood, I had, unseen myself, a full and distinct view. Over the walls of this oratory were painted some of those various symbols, by which the mystic wisdom of the Egyptians loves to shadow out the History of the Soul—the winged globe with a serpent,—the rays descending from above, like a glory, and the Theban beetle, as he comes forth, after the waters have passed away, and the first sunbeam falls on his regenerated wings.
In the middle of the chapel stood a low altar of granite, on which lay a lifeless female form, enshrined within a case of crystal,—as they preserve their dead in Ethiopia,—and looking as freshly beautiful [pg 58]as if the soul had but a few hours departed. Among the emblems of death, on the front of the altar, were a slender lotus-branch, broken in two, and a bird, just winging its flight from the spray.
To these memorials of the dead, however, I but little attended; for there was a living object there upon which my eyes were most intently fixed.
The lamp, by which the whole of the chapel was illuminated, was placed at the head of the pale image in the shrine; and, between its light and me, stood a female form, bending over the monument, as if to gaze upon the silent features within. The position in which this figure was placed, intercepting a strong light, afforded me, at first, but an imperfect and shadowy view of it. Yet even at this mere outline my heart beat high,—and memory, as it proved, had as much share in this feeling as imagination. For, on the head changing its position, so as to let a gleam fall on the features, I saw with a transport, which had almost [pg 59]led me to betray my lurking-place, that it was she—the young worshipper of Isis—the same, the very same, whom I had seen, brightening the holy place where she stood, and looking like an inhabitant of some purer world.
The movement, by which she had now given me an opportunity of recognising her, was made in raising from the shrine a small cross[2] of silver, which lay directly over the bosom of the lifeless figure. Bringing it close to her lips, she kissed it with a religious fervour; then, turning her eyes mournfully upwards, held them fixed with an inspired earnestness, as if, at that moment, in direct communion with heaven, they saw neither roof, nor any other earthly barrier between them and the skies.
What a power hath innocence, whose very helplessness is its safeguard—in whose presence even Passion himself [pg 60]stands abashed, and turns worshipper at the altar which he came to despoil. She, who, but a short hour before, had presented herself to my imagination, as something I could have risked immortality to win—she, whom gladly, from the floor of her own lighted temple, in the very face of its proud ministers, I would have borne away in triumph, and defied all punishments, both human and sacred, to make her mine,—she was now before me, thrown, as if by fate itself, into my power—standing there, beautiful and alone, with nothing but her innocence for her guard! Yet, no—so touching was the purity of the whole scene, so calm and august that protection which the dead seemed to extend over the living, that every earthlier feeling was forgotten as I gazed, and love itself became exalted into reverence.
Entranced, indeed, as I felt in witnessing such a scene, thus to enjoy it by stealth, seemed a wrong, a sacrilege—and, rather [pg 61]than let her eyes meet the flash of mine, or disturb, by a whisper, that sacred silence, in which Youth and Death held communion through Love, I would have let my heart break, without a murmur, where I stood. Gently, as if life depended upon every movement, I stole away from that tranquil and holy scene—leaving it still tranquil and holy as I found it—and, gliding back through the same passages and windings by which I had entered, regained the narrow stair-way, and again ascended into light.
The sun had just risen, and, from the summit of the Arabian hills, was pouring down his beams into that vast valley of waters,—as if proud of the homage that had been paid to his own Isis, now fading away in the superior light of her Lord. My first impulse was to fly from this dangerous spot, and in new loves and pleasures seek forgetfulness of the scene which I had witnessed. “Once out of the circle of this [pg 62]enchantment,” I exclaimed, “I know my own susceptibility to new impressions too well, to doubt that I shall soon break the spell that is around me.”
But vain were my efforts and resolves. Even while I swore to fly, my steps were still lingering round the pyramid—my eyes still turned towards the secret portal, which severed this enchantress from the world of the living. Hour after hour did I wander through that City of Silence,—till, already, it was noon, and, under the sun’s meridian eye, the mighty pyramid of pyramids stood, like a great spirit, shadowless.
Again did those wild and passionate feelings, which had, for a moment, been subdued into reverence by her presence, return to kindle up my imagination and senses. I even reproached myself for the awe, that had held me spell-bound before her. “What would my companions of the Garden say, did they know that their chief,—he, whose path Love had strewed [pg 63]with trophies—was now pining for a simple Egyptian girl, in whose presence he had not dared to give utterance to a sigh, and who had vanquished the victor, without even knowing her triumph!”
A blush came over my cheek at the humiliating thought, and my determination was fixed to await her coming. That she should be an inmate of those gloomy caverns seemed inconceivable; nor did there appear to be any issue from their depths but by the pyramid. Again, therefore, like a sentinel of the dead, did I pace up and down among these tombs, contrasting, in many a mournful reflection, the burning fever within my own veins with the cold quiet of those who slept around.
At length the fierce glow of the sun over my head, and, still more, that ever restless agitation in my heart, were too much for even strength like mine to bear. Exhausted, I lay down at the base of the pyramid—placing myself directly [pg 64]under the portal, where, even should slumber surprise me, my heart, if not my ear, might still be on the watch, and her footstep, light as it was, could not fail to awake me.
After many an ineffectual struggle against drowsiness, I at length sunk into sleep—but not into forgetfulness. The same image still haunted me, in every variety of shape, with which imagination, assisted by memory, could invest it. Now, like Neïtha, upon her throne at Saïs, she seemed to sit, with the veil just raised from that brow, which mortal had never, till then, beheld,—and now, like the beautiful enchantress Rhodope, I saw her rise out of the pyramid in which she had dwelt for ages,—
“Fair Rhodope, as story tells,
The bright, unearthly nymph, who dwells
Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
The Lady of the Pyramid!”
So long, amid that unbroken silence, did my sleep continue, that I found the [pg 65]moon again shining above the horizon, when I awoke. All around was silent and lifeless as before, nor did a print upon the herbage betray that any foot had passed it since my own. Refreshed by rest, and with a fancy still more excited by the mystic wonders of which I had been dreaming, I now resolved to revisit the chapel in the pyramid, and put an end, if possible, to this illusion that haunted me.
Having learned from the experience of the preceding night, the inconvenience of encountering those labyrinths without a light, I now hastened to provide myself with a lamp from my boat. Tracking my way back with some difficulty to the shore, I there found, not only my lamp, but some dates and dried fruits, with a store of which, for my roving life upon the waters, I was always supplied,—and which now, after so many hours of abstinence, were a welcome and necessary relief.
Thus prepared, I again ascended the pyramid, and was proceeding to search [pg 66]out the secret spring, when a loud, dismal noise was heard at a distance, to which all the echoes of the cemetery answered. It came, I knew, from the Great Temple on the shore of the Lake, and was the shriek which its gates—the Gates of Oblivion, as they were called—sent forth from their hinges, in opening at night, to receive within their precincts the newly-landed dead.
I had heard that sound before, and always with sadness; but, at this moment, it thrilled through me, like a voice of ill omen, and I almost doubted whether I should not abandon my enterprise. The hesitation, however, was but momentary;—even while it passed through my mind, I had touched the spring of the portal. In a few seconds more, I was again in the passage beneath the pyramid, and being enabled by my lamp to follow the windings of the way more rapidly, soon found myself at the door of the small chapel in the gallery.
I entered, still awed, though there was now nothing living within. The young Priestess had fled—had vanished, like a spirit, into the darkness. All the rest was as I had left it on the preceding night. The lamp still stood burning upon the crystal shrine—the cross lay where the hands of the young mourner had placed it, and the cold image beneath wore the same tranquil look, as if resigned to the solitude of death—of all lone things the loneliest. Remembering the lips that I had seen kiss that cross, and kindling with the recollection, I raised it passionately to my own;—but, at the same moment, I fancied the dead eyes met mine, and, saddened in the midst of my ardour, I replaced the cross upon the shrine.
I had now lost all clue to the object of my pursuit, and was preparing slowly to retrace my steps to earth, with that gloomy satisfaction which certainty, even when unwelcome, brings,—when, as I held forth my lamp, on leaving the chapel, I [pg 68]could perceive that the gallery, instead of terminating here, took a sudden bend to the left, which had before eluded my eye, and which gave a promise of leading still further into those recesses. Re-animated by this discovery, which opened a new source of hope to my heart, I cast but one hesitating look at my lamp, as if to ask whether it would be faithful through the gloom I was about to encounter, and, without further thought, rushed eagerly forward.
CHAP. VII.
The path led, for some time, through the same sort of narrow windings as those which I had encountered in descending the stair-way; and at length opened, in a similar manner, into a straight and steep gallery, along each side of which stood, closely ranged and upright, a file of lifeless bodies, whose glassy eyes threw a preternatural glare upon me as I passed.
Arrived at the end of this gallery, I found my hopes a second time vanish. The path, I perceived, extended no further. The only object that I could discern, by the glimmering of my lamp, which now, every minute, burned fainter and fainter, was the mouth of a huge well, that lay gaping before me—a reservoir of darkness, black and unfathomable. It now crossed my memory that I had heard of such wells, as being used occasionally for passages [pg 70]by the Priests. Leaning down, therefore, over the edge, I looked anxiously within, to discover whether it was possible to descend into the chasm; but the sides were hard and smooth as glass, being varnished all over with that dark pitch, which the Dead Sea throws out on its slimy shore.
After a more attentive scrutiny, however, I observed, at the depth of a few feet, a sort of iron step, projecting dimly from the side, and, below it, another, which, though hardly perceptible, was just sufficient to encourage an adventurous foot to the trial. Though all hope of tracing the young Priestess was at an end,—it being impossible that female foot should have dared this descent,—yet, as I had so far engaged in the adventure, and there was, at least, a mystery to be unravelled, I determined, at all hazards, to explore the chasm. Placing my lamp (which was hollowed at the bottom, so as to fit like a helmet) firmly on my head, and having [pg 71]thus both hands at liberty for exertion, I set my foot cautiously on the iron step, and descended into the well.
I found the same footing, at regular intervals, to a considerable depth; and had already counted near a hundred of these steps, when the ladder altogether ceased, and I could descend no farther. In vain did I stretch down my foot in search of support—the hard, slippery sides were all that it encountered. At length, stooping my head, so as to let the light fall below, I observed an opening or window directly above the step on which I stood, and, taking for granted that the way must lie in that direction, with some little difficulty clambered through the aperture.
I now found myself on a rude and narrow stair-way, the steps of which were cut out of the living rock, and wound spirally downward in the same direction as the well. Almost dizzy with the descent, which seemed as if it would never end, I, at last, reached the bottom, where a pair of massy [pg 72]iron gates closed directly across my path, as if to forbid any further progress. Massy, however, and gigantic as they were, I found, to my surprise, that the hand of an infant might have opened them with ease—so readily did their great folds give way to my touch,
“Light as a lime-bush, that receives
Some wandering bird among its leaves.”
No sooner, however, had I passed through, than the din, with which the gates clashed together again, was such as might have awakened death itself. It seemed as if every echo, throughout that vast, subterranean world, from the Catacombs of Alexandria to Thebes’s Valley of Kings, had caught up and repeated the thundering sound.
Startled, however, as I was, not even this supernatural clangour could divert my attention from the light that now broke upon me—soft, warm, and welcome as are the stars of his own South to the mariner [pg 73]who has been wandering through the seas of the north. Looking for the source of this splendour, I saw, through an archway opposite, a long illuminated alley, stretching away as far as the eye could reach, and fenced, on one side, with thickets of odoriferous shrubs, while, along the other, extended a line of lofty arcades, from which the light, that filled the whole area, issued. As soon, too, as the din of the deep echoes had subsided, there stole gradually on my ear a strain of choral music, which appeared to come, mellowed and sweetened in its passage, through many a spacious hall within those shining arcades. Among the voices I could distinguish some female tones, towering high and clear over all the rest, and forming the spire, as it were, into which the harmony tapered, as it rose.
So excited was my fancy by this sudden enchantment, that—though never had I caught a sound from the young Egyptian’s [pg 74]lips,—I yet persuaded myself that the voice I now heard was hers, sounding highest and most heavenly of all that choir, and calling to me, like a distant spirit out of its sphere. Animated by this thought, I flew forward to the archway, but found, to my mortification, that it was guarded by a trellis-work, whose bars, though invisible at a distance, resisted all my efforts to force them.
While occupied in these ineffectual struggles, I perceived, to the left of the archway, a dark, cavernous opening, which seemed to lead in a direction parallel to the lighted arcades. Notwithstanding my impatience, however, the aspect of this passage, as I looked shudderingly into it, chilled my very blood. It was not so much darkness, as a sort of livid and ghastly twilight, from which a damp, like that of death-vaults, exhaled, and through which, if my eyes did not deceive me, pale, phantom-like shapes were, at that very moment, hovering.
Looking anxiously round, to discover some less formidable outlet, I saw, over the vast folding-gates through which I had just passed, a blue, tremulous flame, which, after playing for a few seconds over the dark ground of the pediment, settled gradually into characters of light, and formed the following words:—
You, who would try
Yon terrible track,
To live, or to die,
But ne’er to look back—
You, who aspire
To be purified there,
By the terrors of Fire,
Of Water, and Air,—
If danger, and pain,
And death you despise,
On—for again
Into light you shall rise;
Rise into light
With that Secret Divine,
Now shrouded from sight
By the Veils of the Shrine!
But if——
Here the letters faded away into a dead blank, more awfully intelligible than the most eloquent words.
A new hope now flashed across me. The dream of the Garden, which had been for some time almost forgotten, returned to my mind. “Am I then,” I exclaimed, “in the path to the promised mystery? and shall the great secret of Eternal Life indeed be mine?”
“Yes!” seemed to answer, out of the air, that spirit-voice, which still was heard crowning the choir with its single sweetness. I hailed the omen with transport. Love and Immortality, both beckoning me onward—who could give a thought to fear, with two such bright hopes in view? Having invoked and blessed that unknown enchantress, whose steps had led me to this abode of mystery and knowledge, I plunged into the chasm.
Instead of that vague, spectral twilight which had at first met my eye, I now found, as I entered, a thick darkness, [pg 77]which, though far less horrible, was, at this moment, still more disconcerting, as my lamp, which had been, for some time, almost useless, was fast expiring. Resolved, however, to make the most of its last gleam, I hastened, with rapid step, through this gloomy region, which seemed wider and more open to the air than any that I had yet passed. Nor was it long before the appearance of a bright blaze in the distance announced to me that my first great Trial was at hand. As I drew nearer, the flames burst high and wide on all sides;—and the spectacle that now presented itself was such as might have appalled even hearts more habituated to dangers than mine.
There lay before me, extending completely across my path, a thicket, or grove of the most combustible trees of Egypt—tamarind, pine, and Arabian balm. Around their stems and branches were coiled serpents of fire, which, twisting [pg 78]themselves rapidly from bough to bough, spread their own wild-fire as they went, and involved tree after tree in one general blaze. It was, indeed, rapid as the burning of those reed-beds of Ethiopia, whose light brightens, at night, the distant cataracts of the Nile.
Through the middle of this blazing grove, I perceived, my only pathway lay. There was not a moment to be lost—the conflagration gained rapidly on either side, and already the narrowing path between was strewed with fire. Casting away my now useless lamp, and holding my robe as some protection over my head, with a tremor, I own, in every limb, I ventured through the blaze.
Instantly, as if my presence had given new life to the flames, a fresh outbreak of combustion arose on all sides. The trees clustered into a bower of fire above my head, while the serpents, that hung hissing from the red branches, shot showers of sparkles down upon me, as I passed. [pg 79]Never were decision and activity more serviceable;—one minute later, and I must have perished. The narrow opening, of which I had so promptly availed myself, closed instantly behind me; and, as I looked back, to contemplate the ordeal which I had passed, I saw that the whole grove was already one mass of fire.
Happy at having escaped this first trial, I plucked from one of the pine-trees a bough that was but just kindled, and, with this for my only guide, hastened breathlessly forward. I had gone but a few paces, when the path turned suddenly off,—leading downwards, as I could see by the glimmer of my brand, into a more confined space, through which a chilling air, as if from some neighbouring waters, blew over my brow. Nor had I proceeded very far, when the sound of torrents fell on my ear,—mingled, as I thought, from time to time, with shrill wailings, like the cries of persons in danger or [pg 80]distress. At every step the noise of the dashing waters increased, and I now perceived that I had entered an immense rocky cavern, through the middle of which, headlong as a winter-torrent, the flood, to whose roar I had been listening, rushed. Upon its surface, too, there floated strange, spectre-like shapes, which, as they went by, sent forth those dismal shrieks, as if in fear of some precipice to whose brink they were hurrying.
I saw too plainly that my course must be across that torrent. It was fearful; but in courage lay my only hope. What awaited me on the opposite shore, I knew not; for all there was wrapped in impenetrable gloom, nor could the weak light I held reach half so far. Dismissing, however, all thoughts but that of pressing onward, I sprung from the rock on which I stood into the flood,—trusting that, with my right hand, I should be able to buffet the current, while, with the other, I might contrive to hold my [pg 81]brand aloft, as long as a glimmer of it remained, to guide me to the shore.
Long and formidable was the struggle I had to maintain. More than once, overpowered by the rush of the waters, I had almost given myself up, as destined to follow those apparitions, that still passed me, hurrying, with mournful cries, to their doom in some invisible gulf before them.
At length, just as my strength was nearly exhausted, and the last remains of the pine-branch were falling from my hand, I saw, outstretching towards me into the water, a light double balustrade, with a flight of steps between, ascending, almost perpendicularly, from the wave, till they seemed lost in a dense mass of clouds above. This glimpse—for it was no more, as my light expired in giving it—lent new spring to my courage. Having now both hands at liberty, so desperate were my efforts, that after a few minutes’ struggle, I felt my brow strike [pg 82]against the stairway, and, in an instant more, my feet were on the steps.
Rejoiced at my rescue from that perilous flood, though I knew not whither the stairway led, I promptly ascended it. But this feeling of confidence was of short duration. I had not mounted far, when, to my horror, I perceived, that each successive step, as my foot left it, broke away from beneath me,—leaving me in midair, with no other alternative than that of mounting still by the same momentary footing, and with the dreadful doubt whether it would even endure my tread.
And thus did I, for a few seconds, continue to ascend, with nothing beneath me but that awful river, in which—so tranquil it had become—I could hear the plash of the falling fragments, as every step in succession gave way under my feet. It was a trying moment, but still worse remained. I now found the balustrade, by which I had held during my ascent, and which had hitherto seemed firm, [pg 83]grow tremulous in my hand,—while the step to which I was about to trust myself, tottered under my foot. Just then, a momentary flash, as if of lightning, broke around, and I saw, hanging out of the clouds, within my reach, a huge brazen ring. Instinctively I stretched forth my arm to seize it, and, at the same instant, both balustrade and steps gave way beneath me, and I was left swinging by my hands in the dark void. As if, too, this massy ring, which I grasped, was by some magic power linked with all the winds in heaven, no sooner had I seized it than, like the touching of a spring, it seemed to give loose to every variety of gusts and tempests, that ever strewed the sea-shore with wrecks or dead; and, as I swung about, the sport of this elemental strife, each new burst of its fury threatened to shiver me, like a storm-sail, to atoms!
Nor was even this the worst;—still holding, I know not how, by the ring, I felt myself caught up, as if by a thousand [pg 84]whirlwinds, and round and round, like a stone-shot in a sling, whirled in the midst of all this deafening chaos, till my brain grew dizzy, and my recollection confused, and I almost fancied myself on that wheel of the infernal world, whose rotations, it is said, Eternity alone can number!
Human strength could no longer sustain such a trial. I was on the point, at last, of loosing my hold, when suddenly the violence of the storm moderated;—my whirl through the air gradually ceased, and I felt the ring slowly descend with me, till—happy as a shipwrecked mariner at the first touch of land—I found my feet once more upon firm ground.
At the same moment, a light of the most delicious softness filled the whole air. Music, such as is heard in dreams, came floating at a distance; and, as my eyes gradually recovered their powers of vision, a scene of glory was revealed to them, almost too bright for imagination, and yet living and real. As far as the sight [pg 85]could reach, enchanting gardens were seen, opening away through long tracts of light and verdure, and sparkling every where with fountains, that circulated, like streams of life, among the flowers. Not a charm was here wanting, that the imagination of poet or prophet, in their pictures of Elysium, ever yet dreamed or promised. Vistas, opening into scenes of indistinct grandeur,—streams, shining out at intervals, in their shadowy course,—and labyrinths of flowers, leading, by mysterious windings, to green, spacious glades, full of splendour and repose. Over all this, too, there fell a light, from some unseen source, resembling nothing that illumines our upper world—a sort of golden moonlight, mingling the warm radiance of day with the calm and melancholy lustre of night.
Nor were there wanting inhabitants for this sunless Paradise. Through all the bright gardens were wandering, with the serene air and step of happy spirits, groups [pg 86]both of young and old, of venerable and of lovely forms, bearing, most of them, the Nile’s white flowers on their heads, and branches of the eternal palm in their hands; while, over the verdant turf, fair children and maidens went dancing to aërial music, whose source was, like that of the light, invisible, but which filled the whole air with its mystic sweetness.
Exhausted as I was by the trials I had undergone, no sooner did I perceive those fair groups in the distance, than my weariness, both of frame and spirit, was forgotten. A thought crossed me that she, whom I sought, might be among them; and, notwithstanding the awe, with which that unearthly scene inspired me, I was about to fly, on the instant, to ascertain my hope. But in the act of making the effort, I felt my robe gently pulled, and turning, beheld an aged man before me, whom, by the sacred hue of his garb, I knew to be a Hierophant. Placing a branch of the consecrated palm in my hand, he said, [pg 87]in a solemn voice, “Aspirant of the Mysteries, welcome!”—then, regarding me for a few seconds with grave attention, added, in a tone of courteousness and interest, “The victory over the body hath been gained!—Follow me, young Greek, to thy resting place.”
I obeyed in silence,—and the Priest, turning away from this scene of splendour, into a secluded path, where the light faded away, as we advanced, conducted me to a small pavilion, by the side of a whispering stream, where the very spirit of slumber seemed to preside, and, pointing to a bed of dried poppy-leaves within it, left me to repose.
CHAP. VIII.
Though the sight of that splendid scene which opened upon me, like a momentary glimpse into another world, had, for an instant, re-animated my strength and spirit, so completely had fatigue overmastered my whole frame, that, even had the form of the young Priestess stood before me, my limbs would have sunk in the effort to reach her. No sooner had I fallen on my leafy couch, than sleep, like a sudden death, came over me; and I lay, for hours, in the deep, and motionless rest, which not even a shadow of life disturbs.
On awaking I saw, beside me, the same venerable personage, who had welcomed me to this subterranean world on the preceding night. At the foot of my couch stood a statue, of Grecian workmanship, representing a boy, with wings, seated gracefully [pg 89]on a lotus-flower, and having the forefinger of his right hand pressed to his lips. This action, together with the glory round his brows, denoted, as I already knew, the God of Silence and Light.
Impatient to know what further trials awaited me, I was about to speak, when the Priest exclaimed, anxiously, “Hush!”—and pointing to this statue at the foot of the couch, said—“Let the spell of that Spirit be on thy lips, young stranger, till the wisdom of thy instructors shall think fit to remove it. Not unaptly doth the same god preside over Silence and Light; since it is only out of the depth of contemplative silence, that the great light of the soul, Truth, arises!”
Little used to the language of dictation or instruction, I was now preparing to rise, when the priest again restrained me; and, at the same moment, two boys, beautiful as the young Genii of the stars, entered the pavilion. They were habited in long garments of the purest white, and bore [pg 90]each a small golden chalice in his hand. Advancing towards me, they stopped on opposite sides of the couch, and one of them, presenting to me his chalice of gold, said, in a tone between singing and speaking,—
“Drink of this cup—Osiris sips
The same in his halls below;
And the same he gives, to cool the lips
Of the Dead, who downward go.
“Drink of this cup—the water within
Is fresh from Lethe’s stream;
’Twill make the past with all its sin,
And all its pain and sorrows, seem
Like a long-forgotten dream!
“The pleasure, whose charms
Are steep’d in woe;
The knowledge, that harms
The soul to know;
“The hope, that, bright
As the lake of the waste,
Allures the sight,
But mocks the taste;
“The love, that binds
Its innocent wreath,
Where the serpent winds,
In venom, beneath;—
“All that, of evil or false, by thee
Hath ever been known or seen,
Shall melt away in this cup, and be
Forgot, as it never had been!”
Unwilling to throw a slight on this strange ceremony, I leaned forward, with all due gravity, and tasted the cup; which I had no sooner done than the young cup-bearer, on the other side, invited my attention, and, in his turn, presenting the chalice which he held, sung, with a voice still sweeter than that of his companion, the following strain:—
“Drink of this cup—when Isis led
Her boy, of old, to the beaming sky,
She mingled a draught divine, and said—
‘Drink of this cup, thou’lt never die!’
“Thus do I say and sing to thee,
Heir of that boundless heav’n on high,
Though frail, and fall’n, and lost thou be,
Drink of this cup, thou’lt never die!”
Much as I had endeavoured to keep my philosophy on its guard, against the illusions with which, I knew, this region abounded, the young cup-bearer had here touched a spring of imagination, over which, as has been seen, my philosophy had but little controul. No sooner had the words, “thou shalt never die,” struck on my ear, than the dream of the Garden came fully to my mind, and, starting half-way from the couch, I stretched forth my hands to the cup. Recollecting myself, however, and fearful of having betrayed to others a weakness only fit for my own secret indulgence, with an affected smile of indifference I sunk back again on my couch,—while the young minstrel, but little interrupted by my movement, still continued his strain, of which I heard but the concluding words:—
“And Memory, too, with her dreams shall come,
Dreams of a former, happier day,
When Heaven was still the Spirit’s home,
And her wings had not yet fallen away;
“Glimpses of glory, ne’er forgot,
That tell, like gleams on a sunset sea,
What once hath been, what now is not,
But, oh, what again shall brightly be!”