Sulamith: A Romance of Antiquity Part 7

In the temple of Isis, upon Mount Beth-El-Khav, the first part of the great mystery, to which the faithful of the lesser initiation were admitted, was just over. The priest on duty,--an ancient elder in white vestment, with shaven head, and neither moustache nor beard,--had turned from the elevation of the altar toward the people, and p.r.o.nounced in a quiet, tired voice:

"Dwell in peace, my sons and daughters. Wax perfect through deeds.

Extoll the name of the G.o.ddess. And may her blessings be over ye for ever and aye."

He raised his hands on high over the people, in benediction. And immediately all the initiates into the lesser rank of the mysteries prostrated themselves on the floor, and then, arising, softly and in silence made their way to the exit.

To-day was the seventh day of the month Phamenoth, sacred to the mysteries of Osiris and Isis. Since evening the solemn procession had thrice made the circuit of the temple with lamps, palm-leaves, and amphorae; with the occult symbols of the G.o.ds and the sacred images of the Phallus. In the midst of the procession, upon the shoulders of the priests and the minor prophets, was reared the closed _naos_ of costly wood, ornamented with pearl, ivory, and gold. Therein dwelt the G.o.ddess herself,--She, The Invisible, The Bestower of Fecundity, The Mysterious; Mother, Sister, and Wife of G.o.ds.

The evil Seth had enticed his brother, the divine Osiris, to a feast; through craftiness he made him to lie down in a magnificent sarcophagus, and, having clapped down the lid over him, cast the sarcophagus with the body of the great G.o.d into the Nile. Isis, who had just given birth to Horus, with yearning and tears searches all the world over for the body of her spouse, and for long can not find it. Finally, slaves inform her that the body had been borne out to sea by the waves, and that it had been cast up at Byblos, where an enormous tree had sprung up about it, enclosing within its trunk the body of the G.o.d and his floating dwelling. The king of that domain had commanded a mighty column to be made out of the enormous tree, not knowing that within it reposed the G.o.d Osiris himself, the great bestower of life. Isis goes to Byblos; she arrives there fatigued with sultriness, thirst, and the toilsome, stony road. She liberates the sarcophagus out of the midst of the tree, carries it with her, and buries it in the earth near the city wall.

But Seth again secretly steals away the body of Osiris, cuts it up into fourteen parts, and strews them over all the towns and settlements of Upper and Lower aegpyt.

And again with great grief and lamentations Isis set out in search of the sacred members of her spouse and brother. Her sister, the G.o.ddess Nephthys, and the mighty Thoth, and the son of the G.o.ddess, the radiant Horus,--Horus of the Horizon,--all join their plaints to her weeping.

Such was the hidden meaning of the present procession in the first half of the sacred service. Now, upon the departure of the common believers, and after a short rest, the second part of the great mystery was about to be consummated. In the temple were left only those initiated into the higher degrees,--mystagogues, epopts, prophets and sacrificators.

Boys in white vestments bore about, upon salvers of silver, flesh, bread, dried fruits, and sweet wine of Pelusium. Others poured hippocras out of narrow-necked Tyrian vessels,--a drink given in those days to condemned criminals before execution, to arouse their manhood, but which also possessed the great virtue of generating and sustaining in men the fire of a sacred madness.

At a sign from the priest on duty the boys withdrew. A priest who was also the keeper of the gates locked all doors. Then he attentively made the rounds of all those who remained, scrutinizing their faces and testing them with secret words that const.i.tuted the pa.s.s-orders for this night. Two other priests drew a silvern thurible upon wheels down the length of the temple and around each of its columns. The temple filled with the blue, thick, heady, aromatic fumes of incense, and through the layers of smoke grew barely visible the vari-coloured flames of the lamp,--lamps made of translucent stones, lamps set in carved gold and suspended from the ceiling upon long chains of silver. In the times of eld this temple of Osiris and Isis was known for its small extent and its poverty, and was hollowed out like a cavern in the heart of the mountain. A narrow subterranean corridor led to it from without. But in the days of the reign of Solomon, who had taken under his protection all religions save those which permitted the offering of children in sacrifice, and thanks to the zeal of Queen Astis, an aegyptian born, the temple had expanded in depth and height, and had become adorned with rich offerings.

The former altar still remained inviolate in its primordial, austere simplicity, together with a great number of small chambers surrounding it and serving for the keeping of treasures, sacrificial objects, and priestly appurtenances, as well as for special secret purposes during the most occult mystic orgies.

But then, the outer court was truly magnificent, with its pylons in honour of the G.o.ddess Hathor, and with a four-sided colonnade of four and twenty columns. The inner, subterranean, hypostylic hall for worshippers was built still more magnificently. Its mosaic floor was all adorned with cunningly wrought images of fishes, beasts, amphibians and reptiles; while the ceiling was overlaid with blue lazure, and upon it shone a sun of gold, glowed a moon of silver, innumerable stars twinkled, and birds soared upon outspread wings. The floor was the earth, the ceiling the sky, and they were joined by round and many-sided columns, like mighty tree trunks; and since all the columns were surmounted by capitals in the form of the tender flowers of lotus or the slender cylinders of the papyrus, the ceiling they supported did in reality seem as light and aethereal as the sky.

The walls to the height of a man were faced with plates of red granite, brought at the desire of Queen Astis out of Thebes, where the local master workers could impart to the granite a smoothness like that of a mirror, together with an amazing polish. Higher, to the very ceiling, the walls, as well as the columns, were gay with graven and limned images with the symbols of the G.o.ds of both aegypts. Here was Sebekh, honoured in Fayum in the form of a crocodile; and Thoth, the G.o.d of the moon, depicted as an ibis in the city of Khmunu; and the sun-G.o.d Horus, to whom a small idol-temple was consecrated in Edfu; and Bast of Bubastis, in the form of a cat; Shu, the G.o.d of the air, as a lion; Ptah,--an Apis; Hathor, the G.o.ddess of mirth,--a heifer; Anubis, the G.o.d of embalming, with the head of a jackal; and Menthu out of Hermon; and the Coptic Minu; and Neith of Sais, the G.o.ddess of the sky; and, finally, in the form of a ram,--the dread G.o.d whose name was never uttered, and who was called Khenti-Amentiu, which signifieth: The Dweller in the West.

The half-dark altar reared above the entire temple, and the gold upon the walls of the sanctuary that hid the images of Isis gleamed within its depths. Three gates,--a large one in the middle, and two small ones flanking it,--opened into the sanctuary. Before the middle one stood a small sacrificial altar with a sacred stone knife of aethiopian obsidian.

Steps led up to the altar, and upon them were disposed young priests and priestesses with tympani and sistrums, with flutes and tabours.

Queen Astis was reclining within a little, secret chamber. A small quadrangular opening, artfully concealed by a large curtain, led directly to the altar, and permitted one to follow all the details of the sacred service without betraying one's presence. A light, closely-fitting dress of linen gauze, interwoven with silver, tightly enveloped the body of the queen, leaving the arms bare up to the shoulders, and the legs half-way to the calf. Her skin gleamed pinkly through the diaphanous material, and one could see the pure lines and elevations of her graceful body, which, despite the queen's age of thirty, still had lost none of its litheness, beauty and freshness. Her hair, stained a blue colour, was spread loosely over her shoulders and back, and was adorned with innumerable little aromatic pomanders. Her face was much rouged and whitened; while her eyes, finely outlined by kohl, seemed enormous and glowed in the darkness, like those of some powerful beasts of the feline species. A sacred uraeus of gold hung down from her neck, separating the half-bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Ever since Solomon had cooled toward Queen Astis, tired of her unbridled sensuality, she, with all the ardour of southern love-pa.s.sion, and with all the jealousy of a woman scorned, had given herself up to those secret orgies of perverted l.u.s.t that const.i.tuted the highest cult of the castrates' service of Isis. She always showed herself surrounded by priests-castrates, and, even now, as one of them fanned her head with measured strokes of a fan made of peac.o.c.k feathers, others were seated upon the floor drinking in the beauty of the queen with eyes of insane bliss. Their nostrils were dilating and quivering from the scent of her body wafted to them, and they sought with trembling fingers to touch unperceived the hem of her light raiment, barely stirring in the breeze.

Their excessive, never satiated sensuousness spurred on their imagination to its utmost limits. Their inventiveness in the pleasures of Kybele and Ashera surpa.s.sed all human possibilities. And being jealous of the queen toward one another, toward all men, women, and children--being jealous of her own self--they adored her even more than Isis, and, loving her, hated her as an inexhaustible, fiery fountain-head of delectable and cruel sufferings.

Dark, evil, fearful, and fascinating rumours were current about Queen Astis in Jerusalem. The parents of beautiful boys and girls hid their children from her gaze; men dreaded to utter her name upon the conjugal couch, as an omen of defilement and disaster. But agitating, irresistible curiosity drew all souls to her, and gave all bodies up into her power. They who had but once experienced her ferocious, sanguinary caresses could nevermore forget her, and became her lifelong, pitiful, spurned slaves. Ready, for a renewed possession of her, to commit every sin, to endure every degradation and crime, they came to resemble those unfortunates who, having once tasted of the bitter drink of the poppy from the Land of Ophir,--the drink that bestoweth sweet dreams,--will never more draw away from it, bowing down before it only and honouring it alone, until exhaustion and madness cut short their life.

The fan swayed slowly in the sultry air. In silent rapture the priests contemplated their dread sovereign. But she seemed to have forgotten their presence. Having moved the curtain slightly aside, she was ceaselessly gazing across toward that part of the altar where at one time, out of the dark fissures of the ancient curtains of beaten gold, was to be seen the beautiful, radiant countenance of the king of Israel.

Him alone did the spurned queen, the cruel and lecherous Astis, love with all her flaming and depraved heart. His glance of a fleeting moment, a kind word of his, the touch of his hand, did she seek everywhere, and found not. Upon triumphal levees, court banquets, and upon the days of judgment, did Solomon pay his respects, due a queen and the daughter of a king; but his soul was not quick unto her. And the proud queen would often command herself to be borne at set hours past the House at Lebanon, to glimpse, even though afar and unnoticed, through the heavy stuffs of her litter, the proud, unforgettably splendid visage of Solomon, in the midst of the throng of courtiers. And long since her flaming love had grown so closely joined to searing hatred that Astis herself was unable to tell them apart.

In former days Solomon also had visited the temple of Isis on great festal days, had brought the G.o.ddess offerings, and had even accepted the t.i.tle of her hierophant,--second after that of the Pharaoh of aegypt.

But the horrible mysteries of "The Sanguine Sacrifice of Fecundation"

had turned his mind and heart from the service of the Mother of G.o.ds.

"He that is castrated through ignorance or by force, or through accident or disease, is not abased before G.o.d," the king hath said. "But woe be unto him that doth maim himself with his own hand."

And now for a whole year his couch in the temple had remained vacant.

And in vain did the flaming eyes of the queen now gaze feverishly at the unstirred hangings.

In the meanwhile, the wine, hippocras, and the stupefying burnt perfumes were already having a perceptible effect upon those gathered within the temple. Cries, and laughter, and the ring of silver vessels falling upon the stone floor came with greater frequency. The grand, mysterious moment of the sanguinary sacrifice was approaching. Ecstasy was overcoming the faithful.

With an abstracted gaze the queen surveyed the temple and the believers.

Many honoured and ill.u.s.trious men of Solomon's retinue and many of his generals were here: Ben-Geber, ruler over the region of Argob; and Ahimaaz, who had Basmath, the daughter of the king, to wife; and the witty Ben-Dekar; and Zabud, who bore, in accordance with eastern customs, the high t.i.tle of the King's Friend; and the brother of Solomon by the first marriage of David,--Dalaiah, a debilitated, half-dead man, who had prematurely fallen into idiocy through excesses and drinking.

They were all--some through faith, some through ulterior designs, others out of adulation, and still others for lecherous purposes,--the adorants of Isis.

And now the eyes of the queen rested, long and attentively, intent in thought, on the comely, youthful face of Eliab, one of the officers of the king's bodyguards.

The queen knew why his swarthy face was aflame with such a vivid colour, why his eyes were directed with such pa.s.sionate yearning hitherward, upon the curtains, scarce stirring from the touch of the queen's beautiful hands. Once, almost in jest, submitting to a momentary caprice, she had made Eliab to pa.s.s a whole night of felicity with her.

In the morning she had let him depart, but ever since, for many days running, she had beheld everywhere,--in the palace, in the temple, in the streets,--two enamoured, submissive, yearning eyes, that followed her entranced.

The dark eyebrows of the queen contracted, and her green, elongated eyes suddenly darkened from a fearful thought. With a barely perceptible motion of her hand she ordered the castrate to lower the fan and said quietly:

"Get hence, all of you. Hushai, thou shalt go and summon to me Eliab, the officer of the king's guard. Let him come alone."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

XI.

Ten priests, in white vestments, maculated with red, stepped out to the centre of the altar. Following them came two other priests, clad in feminine garments. It was their duty to-day to represent Nephthys and Isis, bewailing Osiris. Then out of the depths of the altar came one in a white chiton, without a single ornament, and the eyes of all the men and women were eagerly drawn to him. This was the very same desert anchorite who had undergone a heavy trial of ten years' wrestling with the flesh upon the mountains of Lebanon, and was now to bring a great, voluntary b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice to Isis. His face, emaciated by hunger, wind-beaten and scorched, was stern and pallid, the eyes austerely cast down; and a supernatural horror was wafted from him upon the throng.

Finally, the chief priest of the temple also made his appearance,--a centenarian ancient, with a tiara upon his head, with a tiger skin upon his shoulders, in an ap.r.o.n of brocaded samite adorned with the tails of jackals.

Turning to the worshippers, he uttered in a senile voice, meek and tremulous:

"_Suton-di-botpu._" ("The king bringeth the sacrifice.")

And then, turning around to the sacrificial altar, he took from the hands of an acolyte a white dove with little red feet, cut off the bird's head, took the heart out of her breast, and sprinkled the sacrificial altar and the consecrated knife with her blood.

After a brief silence he proclaimed:

"Let us weep for Osiris, the G.o.d of Atum, the Great On-Nefer-Hophra, the G.o.d Ona!"

Two castrates in female garments,--Isis and Nephthys,--at once commenced the lamentation, in harmonious, high-pitched voices:

"Return to thy dwelling, O beauteous youth! To behold thee is bliss.

"Isis charges thee,--Isis, that was conceived in the one womb with thee,--Isis, thy spouse and thy sister.

"Show us thy countenance anew, radiant G.o.d. Here is Nephthys, thy sister. She is deluged in her tears and plucks out her hair in her grief.

"In a yearning like unto death do we seek after thy beauteous body.

Return to thy dwelling, Osiris!"