“Oh, what a pity that she did not come here with you!—But now you must tell me your name.”
“My name is Bartja.”
“Bartja! that is a strange name! Bartja-Bartja. Do you know, I like it. How was the son of Croesus called, who saved our Phanes so generously?”
“Gyges. Darius, Zopyrus and he are my best friends. We have sworn never to part, and to give up our lives for one another, and that is why I came to-day, so early and quite in secret, to help my friend Gyges, in case he should need me.”
“Then you rode here for nothing.”
“No, by Mithras, that indeed I did not, for this ride brought me to you. But now you must tell me your name.”
“I am called Sappho.”
“That is a pretty name, and Gyges sings me sometimes beautiful songs by a poetess called Sappho. Are you related to her?”
“Of course. She was the sister of my grandfather Charaxus, and is called the tenth muse or the Lesbian swan. I suppose then, your friend Gyges speaks Greek better than you do?”
“Yes, he learnt Greek and Lydian together as a little child, and speaks them both equally well. He can speak Persian too, perfectly; and what is more, he knows and practises all the Persian virtues.”
“Which are the highest virtues then according to you Persians?”
“Truth is the first of all; courage the second, and the third is obedience; these three, joined with veneration for the gods, have made us Persians great.”
“But I thought you worshipped no gods?”
“Foolish child! who could live without a god, without a higher ruler? True, they do not dwell in houses and pictures like the gods of the Egyptians, for the whole creation is their dwelling. The Divinity, who must be in every place, and must see and hear everything, cannot be confined within walls.”
“Where do you pray then and offer sacrifice, if you have no temples?”
“On the grandest of all altars, nature herself; our favorite altar is the summit of a mountain. There we are nearest to our own god, Mithras, the mighty sun, and to Auramazda, the pure creative light; for there the light lingers latest and returns earliest.”
[From Herodotus (I. 131 and 132.), and from many other sources, we
see clearly that at the time of the Achaemenidae the Persians had
neither temples nor images of their gods. Auramazda and
Angramainjus, the principles of good and evil, were invisible
existences filling all creation with their countless train of good
and evil spirits. Eternity created fire and water. From these
Ormusd (Auramazda), the good spirit, took his origin. He was
brilliant as the light, pure and good. After having, in the course
of 12000 years, created heaven, paradise and the stars, he became
aware of the existence of an evil spirit, Ahriman (Angramainjus),
black, unclean, malicious and emitting an evil odor. Ormusd
determined on his destruction, and a fierce strife began, in which
Ormusd was the victor, and the evil spirit lay 3000 years
unconscious from the effects of terror. During this interval Ormusd
created the sky, the waters, the earth, all useful plants, trees and
herbs, the ox and the first pair of human beings in one year.
Ahriman, after this, broke loose, and was overcome but not slain.
As, after death, the four elements of which all things are composed,
Earth, Air, Fire and Water, become reunited with their primitive
elements; and as, at the resurrection-day, everything that has been
severed combines once more, and nothing returns into oblivion, all
is reunited to its primitive elements, Ahriman could only have been
slain if his impurity could have been transmuted into purity, his
darkness into light. And so evil continued to exist, and to produce
impurity and evil wherever and whenever the good spirit created the
pure and good. This strife must continue until the last day; but
then Ahriman, too, will become pure and holy; the Diws or Daewa
(evil spirits) will have absorbed his evil, and themselves have
ceased to exist. For the evil spirits which dwell in every human
being, and are emanations from Ahriman, will be destroyed in the
punishment inflicted on men after death. From Vuller’s Ulmai Islam
and the Zend-Avesta.]
“Light alone is pure and good; darkness is unclean and evil. Yes, maiden, believe me, God is nearest to us on the mountains; they are his favorite resting-place. Have you never stood on the wooded summit of a high mountain, and felt, amid the solemn silence of nature, the still and soft, but awful breath of Divinity hovering around you? Have you prostrated yourself in the green forest, by a pure spring, or beneath the open sky, and listened for the voice of God speaking from among the leaves and waters? Have you beheld the flame leaping up to its parent the sun, and bearing with it, in the rising column of smoke, our prayers to the radiant Creator? You listen now in wonder, but I tell you, you would kneel and worship too with me, could I but take you to one of our mountain-altars.”
“Oh! if I only could go there with you! if I might only once look down from some high mountain over all the woods and meadows, rivers and valleys. I think, up there, where nothing could be hidden from my eyes, I should feel like an all-seeing Divinity myself. But hark, my grandmother is calling. I must go.”
“Oh, do not leave me yet!”
“Is not obedience one of the Persian virtues?”
“But my rose?”
“Here it is.”
“Shall you remember me?”
“Why should I not?”
“Sweet maiden, forgive me if I ask one more favor.”
“Yes, but ask it quickly, for my grandmother has just called again.”
“Take my diamond star as a remembrance of this hour.”
“No, I dare not.”
“Oh, do, do take it. My father gave it me as a reward, the first time that I killed a bear with my own hand, and it has been my dearest treasure till to-day, but now you shall have it, for you are dearer to me than anything else in the world.”
Saying this, he took the chain and star from his breast, and tried to hang it round Sappho’s neck. She resisted, but Bartja threw his arms round her, kissed her forehead, called her his only love, and looking down deep into the eyes of the trembling child, placed it round her neck by gentle force.
Rhodopis called a third time. Sappho broke from the young prince’s embrace, and was running away, but turned once more at his earnest entreaty and the question, “When may I see you again?” and answered softly, “To-morrow morning at this rose-bush.”
“Which held you fast to be my friend.”
Sappho sped towards the house. Rhodopis received Bartja, and communicated to him all she knew of his friend’s fate, after which the young Persian departed for Sais.
When Rhodopis visited her grandchild’s bed that evening, she did not find her sleeping peacefully as usual; her lips moved, and she sighed deeply, as if disturbed by vexing dreams.
On