“He poured down fire and bitter smoke,The vineyards were blasted, the barley, the wheat.Day-night, week-month fell fire and ashes.The flocks and the herds went down to death.The antlered deer ran out of the earth.The fish drank the fire, the river sank.Arzan threw stones from the mountain-top.They fell like rain, they smote and slewThe sons and daughters, the leaf-wrought folk,And the pebble-bondmen who drudged for love.Arja and Arjaya hid under a hill.Arzan ceased to thunder and pour down fire.But the land was a withered and briery place.Arja and Arjaya crept from the cave.And Arja had sorrow for that great sin.But Arjaya had Izd coiled round her heart.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘For vineyard and wheat that grow of themselves,For golden bow and golden dart,For antlered deer that never fail,For ox and horse of a mighty breed,For shining fish that love the net,For boats adorned that are never lost,For houses large and heaps of goods,For sons of Arja who live in bliss,For work-folk strong who are glad of toil,For always-spring, for life all sweet,Arja, O Arja! tarry and seeWhat shall fall to you from out my mount,Because you drank of the tabu-water,Because you held my power so light,Because Izd came between you and me!’Arzan thundered and Arja feared.Arjaya kneeled upon the ground.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘Woman I made from the lesser bough,And gave for help and gave for play.Now woman shall have the greater pain!Hers is the sin of the tabu-water,She turned to Izd and made her her god,Half Izd she is, that evil snake,And Arja she harmed, the Arzan-man,And shut him from the blissful land!Now take from her her anklets bright,And take from her her armlets gold.And take from her her frontlet of stars,And mark her brow with the mark I show.In all that is done man shall be head,Man shall rule and woman serve,Man shall speak and woman be mute,Man shall own and woman own not.Folk shall she bear to fill the land.The sons shall rule, the daughters serve,The sons shall speak, the daughters be mute,The sons shall own, the daughters not.For the sons are Arzan, the daughters Izd!’”
“He poured down fire and bitter smoke,The vineyards were blasted, the barley, the wheat.Day-night, week-month fell fire and ashes.The flocks and the herds went down to death.The antlered deer ran out of the earth.The fish drank the fire, the river sank.Arzan threw stones from the mountain-top.They fell like rain, they smote and slewThe sons and daughters, the leaf-wrought folk,And the pebble-bondmen who drudged for love.Arja and Arjaya hid under a hill.Arzan ceased to thunder and pour down fire.But the land was a withered and briery place.Arja and Arjaya crept from the cave.And Arja had sorrow for that great sin.But Arjaya had Izd coiled round her heart.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘For vineyard and wheat that grow of themselves,For golden bow and golden dart,For antlered deer that never fail,For ox and horse of a mighty breed,For shining fish that love the net,For boats adorned that are never lost,For houses large and heaps of goods,For sons of Arja who live in bliss,For work-folk strong who are glad of toil,For always-spring, for life all sweet,Arja, O Arja! tarry and seeWhat shall fall to you from out my mount,Because you drank of the tabu-water,Because you held my power so light,Because Izd came between you and me!’Arzan thundered and Arja feared.Arjaya kneeled upon the ground.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘Woman I made from the lesser bough,And gave for help and gave for play.Now woman shall have the greater pain!Hers is the sin of the tabu-water,She turned to Izd and made her her god,Half Izd she is, that evil snake,And Arja she harmed, the Arzan-man,And shut him from the blissful land!Now take from her her anklets bright,And take from her her armlets gold.And take from her her frontlet of stars,And mark her brow with the mark I show.In all that is done man shall be head,Man shall rule and woman serve,Man shall speak and woman be mute,Man shall own and woman own not.Folk shall she bear to fill the land.The sons shall rule, the daughters serve,The sons shall speak, the daughters be mute,The sons shall own, the daughters not.For the sons are Arzan, the daughters Izd!’”
“He poured down fire and bitter smoke,The vineyards were blasted, the barley, the wheat.Day-night, week-month fell fire and ashes.The flocks and the herds went down to death.The antlered deer ran out of the earth.The fish drank the fire, the river sank.Arzan threw stones from the mountain-top.They fell like rain, they smote and slewThe sons and daughters, the leaf-wrought folk,And the pebble-bondmen who drudged for love.Arja and Arjaya hid under a hill.Arzan ceased to thunder and pour down fire.But the land was a withered and briery place.Arja and Arjaya crept from the cave.And Arja had sorrow for that great sin.But Arjaya had Izd coiled round her heart.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘For vineyard and wheat that grow of themselves,For golden bow and golden dart,For antlered deer that never fail,For ox and horse of a mighty breed,For shining fish that love the net,For boats adorned that are never lost,For houses large and heaps of goods,For sons of Arja who live in bliss,For work-folk strong who are glad of toil,For always-spring, for life all sweet,Arja, O Arja! tarry and seeWhat shall fall to you from out my mount,Because you drank of the tabu-water,Because you held my power so light,Because Izd came between you and me!’Arzan thundered and Arja feared.Arjaya kneeled upon the ground.Arzan spoke from the Arzan-stone.‘Woman I made from the lesser bough,And gave for help and gave for play.Now woman shall have the greater pain!Hers is the sin of the tabu-water,She turned to Izd and made her her god,Half Izd she is, that evil snake,And Arja she harmed, the Arzan-man,And shut him from the blissful land!Now take from her her anklets bright,And take from her her armlets gold.And take from her her frontlet of stars,And mark her brow with the mark I show.In all that is done man shall be head,Man shall rule and woman serve,Man shall speak and woman be mute,Man shall own and woman own not.Folk shall she bear to fill the land.The sons shall rule, the daughters serve,The sons shall speak, the daughters be mute,The sons shall own, the daughters not.For the sons are Arzan, the daughters Izd!’”
Ramiki ceased his singing. His heart was freed, and he felt relief and escape, and a cheerful largeness of mood. The anger against Halmis was fallen. There even stole again over his being a fondness for that prophetess. The energy that had boiled within, thick and murky red, had been beautifully worked off by the late improvisation. Diffused and expanded through quite vast ranges, it was no longer an aching and concentrated desire to pay Halmis back and to make evident his own superiority. He became conscious of a tranquillity, of something like vision above vision.... Through this pushed suddenly up, for all the world like a lily in a pond, a willingness, a desire, that Halmis should keep the red band upon her forehead, that she should go, if she would, like a young man, walking alone! But he had made it too late for that!
The people of the river-plain thought it best that women should break no more tabus....
Thecountry of the Amazonian women ran in deep mountain gorges back from the sea to a tableland and certain forested peaks. At the foot of the gorge spread salt meadows, flat and green, overbreathed by the fragrant sea wind. Here was capital pasturage, and here on a day came down from the plateau a dozen mounted women driving before them flock and herd. The day was warm, the meadows bright. These gave to shining sands, the sands to sapphire sea. Behind the level green sprang the wood. Lowing and bleating, cattle and sheep came to the grass. The drovers saw all disposed, then, hot and tired with much work from dawn till noon, dismounted, fastened their horses in the wood and went down to the sea. Having bathed, with laughter and play, they stretched themselves upon the sand and opened a great wallet that held bread and dried meat, and untied the mouth of a wine skin.
Their town was built three leagues away, in a cup of the mountain excellently guarded by grey crags. They thought that it had always been there, though indeed the old wise women said no. They said that their mothers had told them that their mothers’ mothers had heard of a time when there was a battle at the edge of the world, and that then fifty women, fleeing, had climbed to these mountains and here built a town and kept ancient customs. These were the ancestresses and divine! However that might be, here was now the town and the people. A queen ruled them.On certain ritual days of the year they had intercourse with men of two neighbouring nations. Of the children born they kept the girls, but when the boys had seen twelve summers they sent these to the father nation. Year by year their ways of life, at first not so strange, grew to seem strange and stranger yet to the peoples who heard of them and elaborated and legended what they heard. To themselves it was old nature, very right and proper, dear, familiar life!
The drovers lying upon the sand, between the blue sea and the salt meadow, were all on the younger side of prime. Among them was Lindane, the Queen’s daughter. The sea-wind caressed them, they heard the contented voices and movements of the grazing beasts, they had bread and red wine and sweet rest. When they had eaten they posted two watchers, and the rest closed their eyes.
To the left of where they lay dipped into the sea a hook of land, a long, crooked finger of Mother Earth. The watchers looked inland toward the wealth in the meadows, the horses fastened in the wood. The world hereabouts went little to sea; the sea made no danger save to small fishing craft in rough weather. The watchers never saw until too late the long, dark boat, fifty-oared, with sails beside, with carven prow, that stole around the crooked finger.... The watchers heard the sails when they rattled down, and sharply turned to see the prow touch the sand and the men leap forth—and all so close the eyes might be seen! “Awake! Awake!” cried the watchers and snatched bow and quiver. The ten sprang up, seized weapons; all raced for the wood and those tied steeds. Close after them, with shouts, came the sea-rovers.
There were fifty and five strong young men, strong anduntamed as eagles, swoopers from islands below the horizon. The chief was Sandanis. Elsewhere upon the far-stretching mainland coast they had lifted spoil in their talons, robbing towns that spoke a dialect akin to their own. The long boat held wrought gold and brass, rich woven goods, strange weapons, objects of value. Here upon this strand was stopping only to fill the water casks. But when they saw the sleeping forms the sea-eagles again set beak and talon.
At first they did not know the twelve for women, for they were not habited like the women of the islands or of any country that the sea-rovers knew, and they were tall and deeply bronzed, and they showed a practised hand with javelin and with bow and arrow. They ran like deer, and the sea-rovers ran at their heels. They menaced the pursuit as they ran, then, reaching the wood, plunged past tree and swinging vines to the tethered horses. They waited not to untie, but each stripping knife from sheath, severed the bridle and sprang to steed. One further minute and they might have shown clean heels, won away to their mountain fastness. But the fifty were on them, keen as winter wolves, knife-armed, javelin-armed, knowing their quarry now for the famed women! A hundred hands caught at bridle and mane, or used knife or flung javelin against the horses. Of these several sank to earth, others, rearing, beat with their hooves at the foe. One only escaped, making with its rider at a furious gallop for the trail, the upward-running gorge and the crag-guarded town.
Yet mounted or with foot upon the ground, the remaining Amazons fought for life and freedom. They fought with knife and shortened javelin, being unable to use bowand arrow in the close conflict. They fought strongly, with skill, with desperation and tenacious courage. Lives were lost from among the sea-rovers, bitter wounds were given. But the sea-rovers were fifty and they who had brought the cattle to the salt meadows were twelve. And one was gone and two were slain and two had death hurts. The seven that were left were overpowered, dragged to earth and bound with thongs and cords.
Lindane, the Queen’s daughter, fought with Sandanis, the king of the sea-rovers, a second strong man giving him needed help. It took the two to bind her. Sandanis’s hands upon her wrists, the other’s against her shoulders, they forced her down the sands, they lifted and flung her over the boat side. All the seven were brought to the boat and guarded there while the sea-rovers gathered wood and burned their dead.
The sea-rovers drew out to no great length the details of that rite. In their minds was a humming thought of the fled Amazon and of possible rescue. Kindling the pyre, they left it blazing there, at the edge of the wood. A forewind had sprung up and they took advantage. Making sail in haste, they left behind the golden sands and the salt meadows and the dark, mounting forests of that land.
The sun went down, the moon came up. The women yet lay where they had been flung. Then Lindane rose to her knees, and with her two or three of the more resilient sort. They looked astern, and by the light of the great full moon saw, sinking from them, their country-shore and all it held of home and friends. Lindane, straining at her bonds, broke them, and with her doubled hands struck Sandanis that was nearest to her. Sandanis, thinking himself conqueror, laughed. He seized the Amazon’s wrists,struggled with her, and nodded to his helper to wrap the thong about her arms. Enmeshed again, she turned her head and prayed to the sea.
When the moon was an hour high they came to an islet known to be desolate, a mere hand’s breadth of waste sand and rock, blanched by the moon. The favourable wind had fallen, and the rowers wished not to row through this night. They pushed prow upon the shelving sand, they left the boat and took with them those captured women. They had store of meat and wine. They ate and drank, sitting in the moonlight upon the sand, above the murmuring sea, and they set food and drink before their captives. Their tongue and the women’s tongue had one origin. Victor and vanquished understood much of each other’s speech. “Eat, drink!” said the sea-rovers. “Our country is going to be your country.” When they themselves had finished their meal, then, with noise and laughter, they cast lots. The moon shone very brightly, a soft daylight seemed to visit the place.
Sandanis was the island king. He cast no lot, but made his choice at once, and her he chose was for the king alone. “I take the flame-top,” he said.
The king’s comrades laughed and clamoured. “O Sandanis, she will turn thee red too! She is demon!”
“I am her demon bridegroom,” said Sandanis with answering laughter. “I have come from afar to her!”
The moon climbed to her meridian, and all the islet was bathed in light. It was light upon the beach where life lay, shaped into men and women; it was light where the sea-rovers’ king held between his arms Lindane whom he had bound. The dawn when it came hardly made it seem more light. The dawn reddened, burned scarlet in sea and insky. The wide-winged birds sailed and circled and with harsh voices uttered their cry to the morning. The sun sprang out of the sea, and he was red and strong. Sandanis and his companions once more bestowed those captive women in the boat and pushing from the desolate isle, themselves leaped in and lifted oars. The favourable wind sprang forth again; they hoisted sails and steered for the island that they called home.
Five days they sailed or rowed as the wind sent them on or failed them. The second night Lindane’s teeth met in Sandanis’s shoulder. In return he struck her so mighty a blow that she lay stunned, the moonlight blanching her backward-drawn face. Sandanis, regarding her, felt he knew not what of ruth. He bathed his own wound with wine and he forced wine between the Amazon’s lips. She stirred, opened her eyes and raised herself upon her hand. “Flame-top!” he said, “where did you learn to bite so hard?”
But “Let me go!” was all her answer. “Let me go!” and the ruth passed for that time from his heart.
When the sixth morning broke it showed the island. The sea-rovers broke into a chant of rejoicing for home, but the women they had rapt away looked on a picture of their own home, their home that the morning did not show.
Limestone cliffs had the island with woods climbing to mountain pastures, and above these a rounded mountain-top. Many springs it had, and sunny glades, and deep ravines where the shade was black. Huge spreading trees it had, and blossomy meads and hillsides planted with the vine, and fields of waving grain. It owned sheep and goats and oxen, horses and herds of swine, fed by the each-year-renewed rain of beech-nut and acorn. Coming to the human, herdsmen were there, shepherds and shepherdesses, and tillers of the earth, both men and women. Artisans also the island held, though not so many of these. But carpenter, mason, and smith were there, shipwright and bowyer and others beside. And old prowess in such lines and now old custom had given these and like crafts to men. Certain crafts leaned to women and women were traders-in-little. Household offices fell to women, and women ground at the mills, and all the garments, whether for use or ornament that the people wore, were of their weaving and fashioning, and the food they prepared and cooked, and in their hands was the cleanliness of all, and they kept alight the fires. Also they bore and long suckled the children, and gave them their early training.
Above the mass of the island population, men and women, bond and free, stood in self-seized and self-confirmed rank the warlike sort, the fillers of long boats, the sea-eagles swooping upon other islands and the shadowy mainland, traders-in-great on occasion, raptors of goods and of lives when that better suited. Out of this body of war men, young and in prime and old, had risen by degrees the elder-wise, the firm and politic, to become a council and point the road their history should tread, and at last from captains, chiefs, and counsellors had come the chief of chiefs, the casting voice, the king. And all these were men, and when they died they left to their sons. Next in caste stood the attendants and ministers and interpreters of the gods, and these were men and women, as the gods themselves were male and female. But, aided by that topmost caste, the priest was gaining over the priestess, the god over the goddess. The highest god, the ruler of the rest, was held to be by nature male. In the island, man andwoman professed to heal the body. But the dominant wind blew for the man-physician and against the woman. Both men and women made minstrelsy, and men and women wove the dance. But in the island they that bore rule and heaped together the fruit of war and directed public action were men. And the servants of the gods that were strongest to persuade or to awe were men.
To this island came the Amazon.
The cliffs lifted higher, the green grew brighter, the sea-eagles saw their harbour and its small white quay, and their town on the hill above the sea, saw the folk hastening down from the gates. They raised a home-coming song, welcoming shouts rang from the water-side. The boat flew on with sail and oar. The sails rattled down, the oars sent it forward, it lay beside the gleaming, landing place. Arms were outstretched, there prevailed a leaning down, a springing up, shouts, vaunts, welcomes, a swarm of bodies, a humming of the mind. Here was home-in-triumph for the sea-eagles; here was land-of-captivity for the women from that old continent.
The house of Sandanis! That was a very great house according to the notions of the island and the time. It was filled with bond and free, but with more of the bond than the free. When they reached it, built above the town, and entered a court that enclosed for shade two vast sycamores, forth from the inner rooms to meet her son came the widowed woman, the old island queen. With her moved her two daughters, Lindace and Ardis, and behind them pressed the women of the household.
The king’s men who had robbed with the king took each to his own house his share of the spoil that had been heapedin the king’s court and portioned there. Brass and gold had been heaped, and weapons and implements and rich stuffs and adornments, and among these had place the captives from that ancient strand. With a beating of voices a crowd entered the court. Sun and shade struggled there. Women were weighed against gold and brass. All things were parted and in the mean time the feast was made and set in Sandanis’s hall. Bondsmen took away to each sea-rover’s house his chosen spoil. To the six of greatest fame went the six Amazons, companions of Lindane. But in the court, beneath the hugest sycamore, yet rested the gold and brass, the weapons, the rich stuff and the woman set apart to Sandanis the king. The crowd of the unconsidered dwindled. The chief men passed with Sandanis into his kingly hall, there to feast and carouse and recite mighty deeds.
The island folk had looked with curiosity upon those stranger women, unlike other women, different from what the gods had created women to be! Hands had touched them, voices had beaten against them. But now six of the seven had been taken away, and all the crowd was dwindling. There came and stood before the Amazon shared to the king three priests of the island, priests of a warlike god who was become the chief deity. One was a man past middle-age, a dark enthusiast. The other two were younger.
“Woman-out-of-nature,” said the first, “who is your country-god?”
Lindane sat silent among goods and weapons and cunningly wrought matters in silver and brass and gold. “She is dumb,” said those who had gathered behind the priests. “Maybe the king has cut out her tongue!”
“Speak, man-woman!” said the second priest, inferiorto the first. “Who is the god of your country? Whoever he be he is less than our god!”
“They have,” said one behind, “a goddess only, no god!”
“Woman and captive, answer the chief priest!” said the youngest priest, and he turned red as he spoke.
But the Amazon did not answer. The chief priest’s look darkened over her. “Not to us the offence, but to the god!” he said; and turning with the two, went away.
The press in the king’s court further lessened. Came, threading her way through the groups, an old handmaid, one named Eunica. She spoke to Lindane. “My mistresses, the old queen and her daughters, would have speech with you, Amazon!”
Lindane followed her across the court and by a passage to a steep stair, and so to an upper room lined with oak. Here sat the old queen with a silver distaff in her hands, and beside her a basket of coloured wool. The daughters sat near her on cushions, and they, too, had distaffs, and in the back of the room handmaids wove at a mighty loom.
Spoke the old queen. “Stranger woman, were you bond or free before my son the king took you?”
Said Lindane, “My mother is the queen of my country.”
“Then you shall have,” answered the old queen, “an ivory distaff to spin with. There are here three daughters of kings, and they all have ivory distaffs. Sit down and spin.”
There was but an hour to spin before dusk fell, with supper for that great house. All descended from the upper room, but they did not eat, that eve, in hall, because the king and his chief men were feasting there, and wine, wine, wine was flowing.
In Sandanis’s hall the torchlight was bright, but through the rest of the house it flared dim. At last the Amazon came to a place where was hardly any light, to a cell in the wall where she would sleep that night with Eunica, the old handmaid. So near was it to the great central room of the house that there might be heard in waves the mingled voices of the feasting men. What light there was seemed to come from that place of triumph, stealing through cracks in the wall.
Eunica had a bed of straw spread with sheepskins. The two bondwomen sat upon it, in the cell narrow as a tomb.
“I was the daughter of a king,” said old Eunica. “Sandanis’s father brought me here. Then I was young like you, but my hair was never red like yours. The old queen was young, too. She made herself a terror to me, but Myrtus cared more for my hand than he did for her whole body. But Myrtus died. Long, long ago, Myrtus died.... Sandanis was to have wed the king’s sister of the next island. But the maiden perished at sea, being brought here by her brothers. Now there is talk of a bride from another island. When she comes, if Sandanis yet holds you in liking, she will hate you. She will find occasion against you. When Sandanis likes you no longer, then, if you break a water-jar, or if there is a knot in your weaving, she will have you beaten. And when Sandanis likes you no longer, he will not care—he will not lift a finger to help you!”
“Sandanis.... That is his voice now in the hall. It is as though the sea were behind me and about and before.... Ah, Sandanis! I hate thee!”
“Hate or love, be wolf or dog—by all the dark gods, what does it matter?” said Eunica.
“Has it been always, in your earth, that a man could do so with a woman?”
“Always that ever I heard of,” answered Eunica. “I do not know where time goes to, behind us.”
“Will not the women conspire and slay them?”
But Eunica laughed at that. “When creatures are tamed, the power to bound and to rend is there and is not there!”
“Now, by the goddess! I would untame them!”
Eunica laughed again. “Then, to show the way, each must rend its own hunter! Now I had Milon by Myrtus, and I could not rend Myrtus.—I have wonder if you would rend King Sandanis.”
Rising, she moved to the wall and with her fingers loosened a wedge of wood, broad as an axe-head. The cell became more light, the sound of revel fuller and more plain. The old handmaid came back to the pallet. In the hall they sang war the glorious, the chief exalted, the warlike gods. They sang man-strength and what they called freedom. They sang the rape of gold and land, the rape of women and the rape of lives. The harp-strings were struck, wine flowed, men beat fist against board. With flashing eyes, with eloquence of gesture, starting to their feet, men declaimed their virtues. All through the king’s house was listening; up and down ran an hypnotized, inner murmuring. “It must be so. It must be so.”
The night passed, and the next day and night, other days and other nights. Sandanis the king and Lindane from the Amazon country drew together, dragged apart, and neither knew at times whether a passion of love or a passion of hatred was what their souls meant....
In this island stood a principal fane, built to the god ofthe sea-rovers, in a wood that topped a cliff that fell sheer to a foaming sea. Here came Sandanis and his following to sacrifice, and to hear from the dark priest who lived by the fane if a bride from the island that on clear days might be seen afar would bring luck to the king’s house, binding in amity Sandanis and the king of that land. The wood was dark, the poplars shook in a whistling wind, the priest divined, and brought the king an answer from the god. “The bride will bring fortune if the prow of the ship sent to bring her is touched with the life of the king’s latest prey.”
Sandanis heard. “That would mean,” he said, “the bulls I took from the herdsmen of the red island.” And he sent for the bulls and sacrificed them.
That done with due ceremonies, a fifty-oared ship, the prow smeared with bull’s blood, quitted quay and harbour for the myriad-painted sea and the island like a little cloud upon the horizon. No great number of days and back it came, broken-winged, less twenty of its oarsmen. No bride was with it, but a story of disaster, sudden inexplicable enmity of that island folk, found arrayed against them when they landed.... There arose a murmur in King Sandanis’s town.
Said Sandanis in council, “That island woman is not fair, and her brother who is king much resembles a quicksand. As well not treat with him, nor be called his friend!”
The cattle of the island fell sick. From every dell and meadow and mountain pasture came herdsmen ominously shaking the head, bringing to the town one tale. A solemn procession wound, men and women, and the king at the head, up to the fane above the sea. The god was propitiated; the priest, a poplar wand in his hand, stood as in a trance, then opened his mouth and gave forth the words of the god. “The cattle will grow strong when the horns of a black, a white, and a red bull are touched with the life of the king’s latest prey.”
The crowd murmured like the sacred grove. “That would mean,” said Sandanis, “the hare that yesterday ran through the court and was taken from under my cloak where it lay on the ground.” And he sent for the hare and sacrificed it, and touched the horns of the bulls with the blood. Likewise he gave to the god three great pots of brass and an image of silver.
That was one day. The next he took bow and quiver and with eight companions went hunting in the forest that stretched to the mountain-top. “I will shoot stag or doe that shall be latest prey,” said Sandanis to himself. But, going, a prodigy occurred. The sky blackened, then lightning rived an oak before him, and the spread of the bolt caused the king to reel, and made as dead for an hour right arm and right knee. The eight wove a litter of branches and brought him down through the forest. In sight of the king’s house vigour returned, and he stepped from the litter and made them scatter the branches. But he spoke no more of hunting, but held silence and a knitted brow. Entering the house, he went into his chamber and shutting out all, lay there in darkness and strife of mind. The eight, parting from the king, were not silent.
The cattle continued to sicken and to die. A monstrous hailstorm came and cut down the wheat and beat into ruin the dusters of young grapes. The fishermen of the island took few fish in their nets and those not the ones desired. At last the people said openly, “The king’s latestprey, that he took with his two hands, who is it but that woman from the Amazon country?”
Sandanis, in his house, listened to the chief priest of the island, and he listened with a hunted mind and a divided will. “Man cannot avoid the god!” warned the dark priest. “If the god’s hand points to this abhorrent and barbarian woman, will King Sandanis say him nay?”
“And if I did?” said Sandanis.
The priest rose and stood in the shadowy place. The king of men, the priest of the gods—these two were, or seemed to be, the greatest of the shapes that trod the earth! The king-shape appeared to have sinew and bulk, the priest-shape height. Sometimes the king-shape twisted the neck of the priest-shape, but ever the next hour it rose the same. Sometimes the priest-shape made the king-shape creep upon the earth, but never could it keep it there. Sometimes the two were friends, and though they used differing darts, pursued the same quarry. Sometimes the two were one, priest-kings. In the countries where that was so the ruler-shape had power indeed.... In this island of the blue sea king and priest were two. But the priest had in his quiver awe of the huge supernatural. And all shapes, king-shapes and others, deeply feared those arrows, dipped in juices not of earth.
When now the chief priest stood in the dusk of the king’s chamber, Sandanis saw the bow in his hands and the arrow headed against himself. “King Sandanis! King Sandanis! The god will part your house from you, all your friends and your island—”
Sandanis, sitting upon his couch, clenched hands upon the wrought cedar. The chief priest felt for and found a master arrow, and found it the sooner for that he, also, attimes, knew lands deeper than the land of worldly loss. He towered, he became the invulnerable Archer. “Are you more great, O man! than God? Are you more wise than the Immortal? Do you withstand? Then your part in him will dissolve like a cloud! It will pass like a cry when he is not listening!”
A seabird went by the king’s door with a whistling cry. Rose the priest’s voice, “A portent!—A portent!—”
Men took and bound the Amazon in the king’s house. The priests made proclamation of a great and solemn procession to the fane and the altar above the sea. That was to be in the morning. In the deep middle of the night stole King Sandanis to the room hollowed in stone where there was wont to be kept the sacrifice until the east was red.
The two men without the door said naught, but rested on the earth, their heads wrapped in their mantles. The king went in, and there were two torches, burning gold-coloured and straight, and between them, bound to a stone sat Lindane.
Sandanis took station opposite. “Lindane! Lindane!”
Lindane opened her eyes. “Thou who would slay me! Are there no queens and priestesses to draw breath and cry ‘Save’?”
“Queens are but kings’ wives or mothers. If the god says ‘Sacrifice!’ will the priestesses say him nay?”
“The god! O Thou-who-bringest-forth! where art thou, my goddess?”
“Lindane, I love thee—and yet thou must die!”
“O Earth! this love!”
“Such as love is on earth, I have it for thee.”
“Maybe so,” answered the Amazon. “I have beenweary of the sun since you took me by numbers on my own sea-strand.”
“By strength of my own arm, also!”
“Strong arm, dull wit, unjust heart!”
“O woman, are you so different from me?”
“If I had here an apple,” said Lindane, “I would cut it in two, and give Sandanis half, keeping half myself. The two halves would not be different, but the king would have one, and a slave for the sacrifice the other!”
Sandanis came nearer to her. They kept silence in the rock-hewn place, then the island king uttered a cry. “When we fought that day in the wood by the salt meadow, yea, by the god! when I sent a javelin through the neck of your great white horse and dragged you down, it was as though many times we had fought and loved before!”
“Much fighting, little loving.—O my mother! O my queen!”
“Thou art for the sacrifice. I may not touch thee to help thee. The god has said it.”
“O Earth! This love that a god can make to be put off and on like a garment!”
“Unless a king were god, he could not help—”
“And would he then?... O my goddess, hear me!”
“The god’s word is over every goddess.... Lindane that diest, live if thou canst!”
“The grey rock town upon the grey mountains—”
“I that thought it was sweet, find it bitter to be king—”
“O my goddess! Back to me comes every sin.... The cock is crowing!”
The door was opened by the men without. King Sandanis hid head and face in his mantle and went from therock chamber, hallowed to the sacrifice. The cock crew again, the dawn opened slowly, like a red flower.
The processions formed in the town, in the countryside, before the king’s high house. The participants carried a sacred torch, they carried images of the god, they carried baskets of flowers and burning incense. Music went with them. The priests and King Sandanis walked at the head, and behind them walked the Amazon. “Now the god will smile upon us!” sang the people. “For here is the king’s latest prey!”
In the wood, before the image of the god, upon the altar, they took the life of the sacrifice, and they touched with it the prows of the ships in the harbour, and the horns of bulls, red, white and black.
Babylon, builded of brick, lay four-square in its fat plain. Fields of the best grain in the world shimmered out and afar, westward, beyond Euphrates to the desert edge, eastward to Tigris, to Akkad north, and south to the sea where stood Eridu, city of Ea, the old Father-God. Babylon was moated, Babylon was walled, a great, slow river ran through Babylon. Houses stood thick in Babylon, and the narrow streets were many, and every building was made of baked clay, for there was little stone in the land, and where long and long since had waved uncounted trees now waved the heavy-eared grain. The houses where the people dwelled were small and low. The house where the king dwelled was not high, but huge of breadth, and brazen-gated. Likewise the houses of the gods were huge, where-ever they rose in the city. And hugest of all, huge as two or three of the others put together, covering no mere hands’ breadth of earth floor, spread the house of Marduk, son of Ea, once god of this city only, now strongest god of many gods in a wide land.
Many-courted and many-roomed was the house of Marduk.
A blue sky hung over Babylon, and the sun rode in strength with Marduk and with Sharrâni the king. The sun and Marduk and Sharrâni the king were somehow one....
Temple wall, palace wall, walls of tall gateways had astrange and effective decoration of glazed tiles coloured blue and red and white and black and yellow. On the tiles were painted, colour against colour, huge winged men, genii, together with great beasts, unicorns, lions, bulls. Repeated and repeated, these became processions, troops of creatures inside and outside temple and palace. Sometimes, in the heated, quivering air, they seemed to palpitate, to move in their places.
The vast house of Marduk, thus coloured and adorned, reared itself from a yet vaster platform of earth and brick. Beside it, within the wide temple enclosure, rose higher and higher yet, the “mountain of the god,” the tower of seven stages. Each stage spread wider, rose taller than the next that was built upon it, until at the top was only the chamber of the god and the pathway around, and each stage was mounted by an outward stair, a broad, gradual and parapetted ascent, and each stage contained a ritual number of rooms, looking out upon a surrounding, guarded walkway. From top to bottom the wall space glowed with those coloured tile-pictures, with winged genii, trees of life, bull and lion and dragon. The sunshine of Babylon lit them as with fire behind; in the moonlight of Babylon they still showed. Then they were faintly-hued, but they seemed vaster and more solemn than in the daytime. The “mountain of the god,” the “lofty house of Marduk,” sprang two hundred feet and more above the low roofs of Babylon. From its stages was watched the life of the city, the movements on the plain, the glittering presence and solemn actions of sun, moon and stars.
Iltani, the mother of Iltani, had died at Iltani’s birth. Lugal-naid, her father, had taken another wife, Ramtû, who was kind enough to Iltani, but a passionate and cruelmistress to Ina-banat and Belatum, slaves and concubines of Lugal-naid. Iltani dwelled in the house with the three women, and now took the side of one and now of another, though for the most part secretly. Evil would it be if any of the three, conceiving dislike to her, should blacken her forehead in the sight of her father who owned her to do what he would with her! Lugal-naid was not unkind, and Iltani fetched and carried for him, and regarded him with awe, and with pride in his weight among the people, for he was superintendent of the temple granaries.
“Iltani is leaving childhood,” said Ramtû to Lugal-naid.
“Let her be a little longer,” answered Lugal-naid. “She is use and ornament in the house.”
Iltani grew for another year. “O Lugal-naid, you must be thinking what you will do with Iltani!”
“I will think,” said Lugal-naid.
“There is Ninmar, son of Ur-Enlil—”
“I will think,” said Lugal-naid.
On the other side of Euphrates flowing through Babylon, dwelled the brother of Lugal-naid, Ibni-Shamash, who had an office in the king’s palace. Ibni-Shamash had sons and two daughters, Innina-nûri and Tuda-Ishtar. The latter were older than Iltani, who had child’s admiration for them and their ways and adornments. Ibni-Shamash gave Innina-nûri for wife to Nanâ-iddin, son of the assistant of the under-governor.
That had been in the spring time when the plain was green and there were blossoms in every garden. When it was autumn, and all the land was brown and dry and the heart longed for rain, Iltani heard Ramtû and Ina-banat and Belatum talking all together.
It seemed that Innina-nûri was doing wrong.... It seemed that Nanâ-iddin was going to accuse her before the judges in the temple court.... It seemed that all the kindred of Ibni-Shamash were deeply concerned. It seemed that they were angry with Innina-nûri, that they sent and exhorted her, even pleaded with her.... It seemed that Innina-nûri had listened, though with the air of the skies in rain and storm, and at last, pushed against by all, had bowed her head before Nanâ-iddin.... It seemed that there had followed a time of stillness and that the kindred all had congratulated themselves.... It seemed that then, suddenly, with a crash, all was wrong again! Nanâ-iddin and his father the assistant of the under-governor were gone to the judges, who summoned before them Innina-nûri.
A wind ran through the houses of Ibni-Shamash’s kindred. Iltani, too, heard the wind.
“Justice of Marduk and the King. Innina-nûri, that will not be wife to her husband, Nanâ-iddin, shall be thrown into the river.... Mercy of Marduk and the King. Two days are given to Innina-nûri for repentance and returning to Nanâ-iddin.”
“O women!” said Lugal-naid when he returned to his house that eve. “See what comes of wrong-doing!”
On a summer day, some time after Innina-nûri returned finally to Nanâ-iddin, Iltani went with Ramtû across the river to Ibni-Shamash’s house to see Gin-Enlil his wife and Tuda-Ishtar that was not yet wed. The year before, Tuda-Ishtar was, indeed, to have been given for wife to a very fine young man, son of one in favour with the King. But in a war with Elam the man had been killed. And now Tuda-Ishtar would not be wed until the savour of hisdeath was gone from the general mind. Tuda-Ishtar was beautiful, and who took her would give Ibni-Shamash a good price, and out of this Ibni-Shamash would give to Tuda-Ishtar herself garments, two slave women and a wheat field.
Ramtû and Iltani found at Ibni-Shamash’s door slaves waiting, staves in hand. They had in keeping an ass with an embroidered cloth upon its back, and strung along the bridle rein little silver bells. “For whom is all this?” asked Ramtû. “For Tuda-Ishtar, mistress,” answered the old man, the head slave.
Ramtû and Iltani, entering the house, met there an air of business and excitement. Gin-Enlil and Lamazi, wives of Ibni-Shamash, and a dozen handmaids were gathered in the next to the greatest room in the house about Tuda-Ishtar who stood in the middle of the floor. They were putting upon Tuda-Ishtar fine garments and ornaments of gold and silver and gems. Tuda-Ishtar was more beautiful than ever for there was a red stain upon her lips and cheeks and her eyes were quite like stars, and on her head was a curious, crown-like headdress.
When Ramtû saw this she smote her hands together and cried: “Why did you not send word that Tuda-Ishtar was going to-day to the temple of Mylitta? I would have brought her my chain that I wore the day I sat beneath the palm trees!—You, also, were there that day, Gin-Enlil!”
“Yes. Twenty years ago.... We did not have to return, Ramtû, day after day, like some we know!”
“By Ishtar, no!—And Tuda-Ishtar will not have to return, nor, indeed, have to wait at all! The first man that sees her—the bee and the honey-bloom!—You should have let us know!”
“She would go now and have it over with, and her debt to Mylitta paid.—After all, even though we are told it is a high duty, a woman wants the day behind her and out of mind!”
Iltani, going home with Ramtû, crossing the river in a boat, looked at the walls of the temple of Mylitta. There could be made out the court, surrounded by palm trees, where, for one time in her life, every woman of Babylon, saving only priestesses and votaries of a god, must sit until there came some man, no matter whom, who dropped a piece of silver in her lap. Then would the woman rise and go away with the man and pay her debt to Mylitta, keeping the silver piece ever after to show clearance.
The young Iltani saw behind her forehead Tuda-Ishtar sitting there under palm trees. They said that she would not have long to wait. That was because she was beautiful. Everybody admired that in Tuda-Ishtar, and served her because of it.
The young Iltani did not think of all that; she only saw a picture of her cousin sitting under the palm trees, and of a man coming near and then standing still before Tuda-Ishtar. Her fancy made the man young, and also beautiful.... Iltani looked at the palm tree and the blue sky behind them, and then she looked over the side of the boat at her own image in the still water. When she had regarded the image for some moments, she glanced aside at Ramtû. She longed that Ramtû should say to her, “Why you, too, Iltani, are beautiful!” But Ramtû talked to the boatman of the price of food....
Iltani grew apace. Said Ramtû to Lugal-naid, “What will you do with this girl? Younger than she have sat their day in the temple of Mylitta! And Ninmar haswed Beligunu!—Do you mean to present Iltani to the god?”
“That is what I intend,” said Lugal-naid. “It is an old oath that I swore if I prospered. I waited to see if I did so prosper. This year I am made superintendent of superintendents. Now Iltani shall become bride of Marduk!”
Iltani went with all her ornaments to the temple of Marduk. She went not unhappily, though she wept at parting with Ramtû, Ina-banat and Belatum. She was going to a life of honour that, so far as it went, and did she always follow righteousness, would reflect honour upon her kindred. A votary of Marduk gave up certain sweetnesses in life, but also she found others. Iltani’s kindred and their friends brought her in procession to the temple. Priests and priestesses ritually met her, Lugal-naid ritually renounced his part in her to the god, her dower that she brought was ritually spread around her, music was made, incense hung in the air....
That had been some months ago. Now that part of the huge temple which she inhabited was familiar to Iltani. Familiar were the rooms and rooms within rooms, the courts in sun and shade, the rites and duties, service of the temple, spirit of the hive!
Huge was the temple, many were its inmates, multifarious its activities. The god and the king who ruled under his shield so merged that the king was half-divine and the god more than half-royal. All life moved under the glance of the god and his fingers pushed it here, withdrew it there, or, resting underneath, held it steadfast. The fingers of the god, clothed in flesh, became his most numerous priesthood. Learning was of the god, judgement and law were ofthe god, administration was of the god, though the king was named with him.
Marduk was served by a mighty host of priests. Priestesses there were also and in number, but by no means in so great a number. But men and women together, his servants swarmed in his enormous temple. The people likewise filed or poured through the long series of temple rooms and passageways and small and large courts. The people came to the temple for knowledge, for law, for healing, for divination, for exorcism of the innumerable evil ones, for directions as to paths through every thorny desert, for comfort, for glow, for subtle excuses, for life anew, for spiritual wine, and for direct, practical, everyday business. They brought covenanted-for produce of every description, they poured into the temple treasury the temple-tax, that was a broad and deep and continuing stream.
Much life was there, centring in, flowing through the temple, for any to view who had vision, and to grow by who had the seed of growth.
The priestesses of the temple taught, judged, divined, exorcised, healed, performed work of scribe and notary, directed, executed, much as did the priests, and as well. They received honour as did the priests. From their status there fell a fairly broad shaft of warmth and light upon all women of their land. In Egypt, too, fell by the goddess-way a certain light and warmth and colour upon the entire mother hemisphere. In Egypt there was Isis, in Babylonia, Ishtar. And all the Babylonian gods had consorts, goddesses with powers and with devotees. There was Ninlil for Ea, and Antum for Anu, and Sarpanit for Marduk.
That was all true. Yet all was in the convention. Ishtar, indeed, remained dimly, hugely, outside, but Ishtar to an extent undefined, general, like the air that you breathed without thinking of it. But all the others were as wives of men, honourable, free in much, in much powerful, but with distinctness secondary. All men and gods, by virtue of manship, rose by a head above women and goddesses. That was held to be the nature of things, fundamental and unalterable. Faint, old trails of old, old story, old, inexplicable customs resting like crones in nooks and corners, might breathe of a time when the indubitable truth was hardly so firmly established. But the time must have been ancient, ancient! Now ever the truth seemed to grow more established.
The young Iltani came to a wide corner of the temple quarter, rooms below, small, low rooms above, twisting, outside stairs, passageways, large court and small courts, and in the central court a well and old trees. In many places the walls, within and without, had those great pictures of gods and goddesses and sacred beasts and all their huge adventure. It was like living, in a far later time, with a child’s gay picture book or blocks. In the long hot summer, these pictures struck like brands upon the tissues of the mind. In the short, chill winter, with their red and their yellow, they gave out warmth and light.
Inmates of this part of the temple, and they were many, were not at all without steady, even employment. The whole, huge place worked, religion being so official, Marduk so actually pervading all that the land knew of the actual.... Iltani found herself with others under the orders of the votary Â-rishat, who kept the room where were kept the clay tablets upon which were written, week by week,the simpler annals of the house of the women of the deity. Iltani had been taught to write. Now with a bride of Marduk a little older than herself, she copied defective tablets upon fresher clay. She worked in a little room from which one stepped into a little court in which there grew a great and old fig tree.
Amat-Tashmit loved to talk. When the votary Â-rishat was near, when other, older votaries passed or stood talking among themselves, the two novices were silent enough. But when none was by, Amat-Tashmit talked, and Iltani also, though less than the other.
Amat-Tashmit, having had the longer residence here, could instruct her sister in devotion. Iltani learned the round of life, so far as Amat-Tashmit had trodden it or could report upon others’ treading. Iltani heard from Amat-Tashmit of the idiosyncrasies of her many and many companion votaries of Marduk. There was a votary of Marduk for every day and night of Marduk’s year. And Amat-Tashmit talked of the bands and bands of priests, the huge number of servants of Marduk. She talked of individual priests of fame, persons of high rank in the court of Marduk. When she spoke of these reverence sat upon her tongue and in the ears of Iltani. But she talked also of priests of no especial fame whom she had chanced to observe. The most of these were young—young men under guidance in the house of Marduk. If was all harmless talk enough that Amat-Tashmit made, but around it and through it ran a haunting warmth and colour.
Matters of fact, serenely accepted as the right and proper will of the god, the king and all Babylon, came also into the talk of the two. As they worked they might look up from the clay and from the fine wedge-shaped styluswhich each used, look up and forth, and beyond the fig tree see the “mountain of the god,” the tower, rising by stages high, high against the blue heaven. They saw the broad, winding way leading from stage to stage, and the figures, small at that distance, ascending, descending, ascending. And they might see the chamber atop, room and shrine of Marduk, high up, high up, goal of the seven stairs! The light struck against the bright pictures of the chamber’s outer walls. Sometimes the tower top dazzled like the sun, sometimes it was cosy or golden, a star of morn or eve.
Iltani with Amat-Tashmit watched with a kind of fascination this tower of seven levels, one above the other. It was the “mountain of the god.” Within that topmost room stood the great figure of the god, overlaid with gold, and all around were ranged the most precious votive figures, figures given by kings and by the queens of kings. And in the room was the bed of the god, hung with gold, the bed of Marduk, god of gods, whom to serve was honour and felicity, whom to represent was honour and felicity, the bed of Marduk and the goddess Sarpanit, his spouse.
Each day the novices saw borne around the tower and upward the votary whose name was set against that day in the year of Marduk. She was borne in procession, with music and song. The two watched her and that sister throng mount from stage to stage. Arrived upon the seventh the company circled three times the mountain-top. Then the bride of Marduk went alone into the freshly swept and garlanded Marduk-room. The two watching from the court of the fig tree might see the company part from her it had brought, reabsorb into itself the votary whose place she took, whose day this year was passed, andagain with music descend the spiral way. The day went. Iltani and Amat-Tashmit, working with stylus and clay, gave not much thought to the tower and the votary who praised Marduk alone in the chamber where was reared the great gold-covered image.
But when the rays of the sun were slant they stepped from their own small room into the court of the fig tree, for they heard trumpets and knew that the priest who that night would represent the god now went to the mountain-top. Small figures in the distance, they saw him and the band that bore him thither. The strong chanting of the priests came to them, the light glinted upon the lifted, waved, gilded, many-shaped symbols and insignia of Marduk. They watched this company also from stage to stage, to the tower height, watched the company part there from the human Marduk, watched it descend in the red sunset light.... Up there the votary was no longer alone. Up there were Marduk and Sarpanit.
The days passed, the weeks and the months. The temple, or her corner of the temple, grew home-like to Iltani. Around her were much folk and manifold business. She laboured with others, rested and played, ate and drank and slept in a field of crowded bloom, of a thousand bees that gathered honey. All was under rule, all that was done was done ritually, arrows drawn to hit the sun. But many had forgotten the aim of the arrows. The marked rhythm pleased Iltani. Her body seemed to move with it, and that within her body, the worker that had spun the body from itself....
Amat-Tashmit had been given by her parents to the god some months before the coming of Iltani. Now Amat-Tashmit was shown her name written against such a day“for the holy room in the lofty house of Marduk.” Even the seeing of her name written made a gala day for the votary concerned. That day she was excused from work, she was served first at meal time, she was given a wreath of flowers. The next day she went to a range of rooms across the great court of the well and the trees. There, for so many days, would be training, instruction, purification, lasting until the day they adorned her and bore her with timbrel and song to the door of Marduk. As, every day, through the year of Marduk there wound the procession to the “mountain of the god,” so, every day, there moved through the courts of the votaries a woman crowned with flowers.... Iltani watched with a thrill Amat-Tashmit set the flower wreath upon her head.
The next day Amat-Tashmit was gone across the court of the well. Iltani, alone, copied accounts in the small room behind the great tree.
The thrill did not go away. Behind it arose a strange feeling that turned the tree into a forest through which Iltani wandered. The young Iltani, for all her copper-coloured hair, could not remember ever once having been in any forest, but that was what she felt. She worked all day in a dream; whether she sat alone, or found the humming of other women about her, in a dream. When the sun’s rays came slant and the trumpets blew Iltani turned face to the tower, and through her poured and thrilled and pulsed something new in the forest that seemed to turn red and purple and splendid.
At night, lying awake in a room with many young, sleeping women, the glow seemed to Iltani to pass into glory.... In the morning one of her companions said to her, “You look differently!”
That day the votary Â-rishat installed beside her two writers upon clay, and there was no more loneliness in that kind. But Iltani wandered in the forest of the inner world.
Lugal-naid had brought her to the temple in the spring of the year. She had been given in the days just following the New Year high festival, the god day of god days, the day when Marduk and Sarpanit remembered and celebrated their eternal wedding, immortal, without beginning, without ending, the day when out of his power and bliss Marduk portioned, for the year to come, the lot of mankind, the high day, rising like a tower out of ten preceding, marked days during which Babylonia remembered its sins and cleansed its heart, the day of the Sun when he put off his winter mourning. All the rest of the year fell away from that shining point, then turned upon itself and climbed again to the golden mark. Six months it fell away, six months it climbed.... The wreathed day, the high day, looked forward to by all Babylon, the huge festival, the day of mystic union and good omen, the day when to serve Marduk was fame and joy, Marduk who came in fulness of power, raying light....
To Iltani the votary the forest seemed to fill with light, rose light. Within it sprang desire like a strong tree, desire to be the Sarpanit of that day.
So high an honour was the dream, the aspiration, vague or distinct of every maiden in the house of the women. It was ever a maiden, chosen halfway in the year, in the autumn, then at once set aside, honoured, instructed, purified, made beautiful within and without against that high New Year day. There were many in the continually fed house of the women who might have that dream. Iltani, daughter of Lugal-naid, knew no reason why Iltani should be chosen.
But now, day and night, she saw before her the winged Marduk, shining one, god of gods! Desire held her, to be, that day, of the mountain-top. It sprang like a strong tree in the rose-lit forest, or rather it stood the forest itself....
Dav after day went by, and here was autumn. The votary Â-rishat spoke to Iltani. “The rulers of the temple sit to-day in the room of the lion. You and twenty more are chosen to pass before them.”
Priests and priestesses, chiefs in sanctity, sat in the room of the lion. Iltani saw them as huge veiled forms, guardians of the way to Marduk, god of gods, raying light—
Three days, and she went again to the room of the lion. One day more, and voices told her that Iltani, daughter of Lugal-naid, was chosen for the New Year Sarpanit. With trumpets it was proclaimed in the temple. Babylon knew it presently.... Lugal-naid gave a feast.
Iltani went to a part of the temple mass that was called the house of the New Year, and to a room therein that was named the room of Sarpanit. This chamber was built high, and it gave upon the flat roof of a congeries of attendant rooms. Upon the roof stood great earthen jars, filled with growing plants, and around it ran a brick parapet. The outer wall of the Sarpanit room was overpainted with a great tree of life, and beside it, tall as the tree, the winged Marduk. The whole faced the east, and when the sun had passed the zenith, stood in the shadow of the “mountain of the god.”
From autumn to spring, throughout the winter that knew rain but not snow, the New Year votary dwelled in the Sarpanit room, dwelled watched by aged women who were now but as doorkeepers and gardeners in the great house of the god, dwelled subject to much instruction byvotary and priestess, efficient, famed, appointed to that service, dwelled in the midst of Sarpanit rites, a being set apart in the hive, symbolically, esoterically, the hive itself.
Iltani lived six months in the Sarpanit room. When the rains fell a great brazier filled with coals cast a dull glow upon pictured walls. When the sky cleared and the sun shone out, she might spend hours upon the roof warmed by the sun that again was Marduk. At night she might be a watcher of the stars.
She faced the “mountain of the god.” If it rained, a silver veil fell between her and it, or there was reared a leaden wall. If the weather was bright, all its colours dazzled. In moonshine and starshine it seemed to go yet higher, up among the stars.
Every morning she heard music and singing voices and watched the day’s votary mount to the seventh stage. When the sun’s rays came slant she heard the trumpets and watched the mounting priest of Marduk. When the dark came there was a lamp there, far above, in the Marduk-room.... The priest of the New Year.... She knew that he would be chosen for beauty and strength.
Iltani sat beneath the parapet of the roof by the Sarpanit room. It was night, mild as a spring night of more northern lands. The stars were shining. A young moon gave pale light. The beams fell against the tiled outer wall of the room and showed the huge, pictured forms.
Marduk was winged. He rose tall, tall and full of might! In his face, in his form was what majesty, what beauty the art of Babylonia could put there. He stood winged, his hand upon the tree of life.
Iltani had looked at him so long, saying, “God, God!” to herself, that now the wings and the crowned head seemedto rise among the stars, to rise from earth and become the firmament, the firmament overshadowing, upholding, to be worshipped, and only that to be worshipped.... Iltani of her own motion, bowed herself together, touched her forehead to the ground.
Ishtar!... She did not know why Ishtar, not Sarpanit, should come into her mind—save that Ishtar was in some way Mother Earth and all that grew, and dimly, dimly very great! Ishtar was mother and children, bearing and growing....
But Iltani looked again at Marduk, and was wrapped in magic, fold on fold.
Spring came upon the plains that stretched from Euphrates. Verdure and flowers arose from the dark. The watchers of the stars in the high house of Marduk sent word to the king, and the king proclaimed the word to the people. In the heavens was written the sign that meant rich harvests at home, and abroad, in the king’s wars, victory. Marduk had thrown, before his coming, a handful of jewels. At that the city so rejoiced that the nine days before the high days that were officially days of supplication, repentance and cleansing of heart, humbling and propitiation, went themselves like festival.
In the house of Sarpanit the New Year votary was watched, tended, made in all ways beauteous.... Marduk, coming in power, must find a Sarpanit also in power, kindler of desire!
Babylon, in fresh heat, under a sky from which had passed all the rain clouds, put on holiday garb. The people thronged the temple courts, coming in groups and bands and processions, bringing the sacrifices. There was heard, as on no other day, the bleating of sheep, the lowing ofcattle, the voices of doves. King Sharrâni came in procession, with clangour and throb of instruments of music, with shouts of the populace. The gods from their lesser temples came in procession to visit Marduk, god of gods. Priest-borne, newly-decked, came the images by the Sacred Street, came to huge chanting, to the bowing of the throng. From the pictured walls looked the pictured genii, the pictured sacred beasts, the pictured gods.
Babylon and the brimming river Euphrates and the plain that was to thicken with wheat and barley, millet and sesame, waked through the starlight of the night before the day. Cresset lamps burned in doorways, the young men surged, singing, through the streets. Waned the spring night, arose a breath of balm and spice, came the light in the east. Trumpets blew from the city wall, trumpets blew from the king’s palace, trumpets blew from the temple roofs. Dawned the high day of the round year, the day when Marduk returned to his house in a golden mantle of strength! The children and all the people leaped up to festival. When Marduk the sun rose from where he slept, beyond Tigris, east of India, he was met with ecstasy. All day Marduk the sun rained light upon Babylonia, upon Babylon, and light intense upon his temple there. As ever, on the New Year day, were found men and women who claimed to see the winged Marduk, hovering in the heavens, above his lofty house....
At an early hour in the day the women votaries of the high god came with music, with garlands, with burning frankincense, to the Sarpanit-room in the shadow of the tower. They took Iltani and robed her in fine white figured with gold. They put a veil upon her like the mist upon the morning plain, and over it a twisted circlet ofsilver and gold. They took her from the Sarpanit-room and in the court they placed her at the head of their band, with only musicians going before her. They gave into her hand a stalk with two flowers, they raised over her a red canopy. The music swelled, the voices rose. In a blue, upcurling, incense cloud, Iltani set her foot upon the broad, the worn, the clay and fire made tower stair.
Stage by stage, stage by stage, and the city was below her and the thronged and throbbing temple courts. Stage by stage, and a gulf of blue light, thrilling, tingling was around. It weighed her down, it upheld her. She looked to the sky and thought that she saw Marduk, winged, coming from the sun.
The procession returned to the court whence sprang the tower. All day the temple, all day the king and his chief men, all day Babylon and all Babylonia praised Marduk and did rites before him. All day Marduk was to be felt above the city, the river, the plain, above the temple quarter and its smoking altars, above the tower, the “mountain of the god.” All day the human Sarpanit awaited alone the slant rays of the sun and the human Marduk.
Symbols—symbols that were warm and glowed.... Iltani-Sarpanit sat in the gold-furnished temple room in the prescribed attitude of devotion. She sat still, and light and fire ran through her being. Marduk—Marduk—Marduk!
The sun’s rays came slant. At the mountain-top, she heard at the mountain foot, trumpets blowing.... She veiled her eyes, she quivered. All at once, her strong dream of ecstasy parted a little.... This was a man coming to the mountain-top, a man as she was a woman. Terrorthreatened, a depth of headlong fall.O God, my God! O Marduk, raying light!
The lover was the winged Marduk—never, never must she lose him!... The trumpets were more loudly blowing, and now she might hear rising to her the strong chanting, the rhythmic tread. There was an altar in the room, and upon it a burning fire. Now she rose and, as she had been taught to do, heaped this with the richest spices, with sandalwood and frankincense. The room filled with thin clouds, blue and fragrant, and in the heart of these stood Iltani, and her soul beat about to repel the terror and keep the ecstasy.
Lugal-naid, and Ibni-Shamash and Nanâ-iddin, Ramtû, Ina-banat and Belatum, Innina-nûri, Tuda-Ishtar—teachings formal and informal, conscious, unconscious, word of mouth and blow from hand, long, long, long impressions, tellings and tellings and tellings, repetitions, as it were, before she was born, and repetitions after she was born—very much and very strong drew to themselves, whelmed and coloured the soul of the votary.... Iltani would have still the ecstasy, the abandonment, the feeling of god-presence.If he were not the god, make him such—make him such! Perhaps he was the god—perhaps he was—With man and woman man was highest always—Man was highest—Lugal-naid said it, Ramtû, Ina-banat, Belatum said it! Man was highest—man to woman was as god to votary!
She would not lose the winged Marduk, and she could not believe in her own wings. So she spread the burning frankincense, and she turned the altar of the god somewhat from the east, and in the blue smoke now rising, now flattened to right or left, now rolling downward, she, of herown movement, touched her forehead to the earth and beheld man as god.
The human Marduk, too, was young and chosen for beauty and strength....