One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances

ing Candaules was going to marry. The people were affected with that sort of pleasurable interest and aimless emotion wherewith any royal eve

and coming, mounting or descending the marble stairways leading from the city to the waters of the Pactolus, that opulent river whose sands Midas filled with tiny sparks o

ains, all with urns gracefully balanced upon their heads, or sustained by their white arms as with natural handles, so as to procure early the necessary water provision for the household, and thus obtain leisure at the hour when the nuptial procession should pass. Washerwomen hastily folded

palaces were suspended by little rings of bronze rich tapestries, whereon the needles of industrious captives-intermingling wool, silver, and gold-had represented various scenes in the history of the gods and heroes: Ixion embracing the cloud; Diana surprised in the bath by Act?on; the shepherd Paris as judge in the contest of beauty held upon Mount Ida between Hera, the snowy-armed, Athena of the sea-green eyes, and Aphrodite, girded with her magic c

her arrival, conversation naturally turned upon the beauty of the bride, whereof the renown had spread throughout all Asia; and upon the character of

broad by the female slaves who attended her, and a few female friends who had accompanied her to the bath; for no man could boast of knowing aught

danced ungarmented before the altar of Diana, those of Persepolis, Ebactana, and Bactria, attaching more importance to chastity of the body than to chastity of mind, considered those liberties allowed to the pleasure of the e

all Lydia, and become popular there to such a degree that it had reached even Candaules, although kings are ordinarily the most illy i

the banks of the Indus, the blonde girls brought at a vast expense from the depths of the Cimmerian fogs, were heedful never to utter in the presence of Candaules, whether within hearing or

r, and that was Gyges, chief of the guards of Candaules. One day Gyges, his mind filled with various projects and vague ambitions, had been wandering among the Bactrian hills, whither his master had sent him upon an important and secret mission. He was dreaming of the intoxication of omnipo

d Boreas, his locks bristling with Thracian frosts, his cheeks puffed out, his arms folde

tionless at the sight of that Medusa of beauty, and not till long after the folds of Nyssia's robe had disappeared beyond the gates of the city could he think of proceeding on his way. Although there was nothing to justify such a conjecture, he cherished the belief that he had seen the satrap's daughter; and that meeting, which affected him almost like an apparition, accorded so fully with the thoughts which were occupying him at the moment of its occurrence, that he could not help perceiving therein something fateful and ordained of the gods. In truth it was upon that brow that he would have wished to place the diadem. What other could be more worthy of it? But what probability was there that Gyges would ever have a throne to share? He had not sought to follow up this adventure, and assure himself whether it was indeed the daughter of Megabazus whose mysterious face had been revealed to him by Chance, the great filcher. Nyssia had fled so swiftly that it would have been impossible for him then to overtake her; and, moreover, he had been dazzled, fascinated, thunder-st

ander abroad in solitary dreaming, like a mortal who has beheld a divinity. At night he was haunted by dreams in

heir own conjectures in her regard; and their conjectures, it must be confessed, were fantastic and altogether fabulous. The beauty of Nyssia

anassa, nor Thais can be compared with this marvellous barbarian; yet I can scarce believe that she equals Theano of Colophon, from whom I once bought a

than any other person upon all manner of subjects, "beside her the d

hrodite be a kind and indulgent goddess, b

of some weight in a city ruled by one of hi

e seen h

who once belonged to Nyssia, and who h

ched pretensions to a youth long passed away-" is it true that Nyssia has two pupils in each eye? It seems to me that must be very ugly, and I cannot und

ignificant peep in a small mirror of cast metal which she drew from her bosom, and which enabl

" observed the well-informed patrician; "but it is a fact that Nyssia's eyes are

s that the daughter of Megabazus cannot naturally see through a wall any better than you or I, but the Egyptian priest Thoutmosis, who knows so many-wondrous secrets, has given her the mysterious stone which is found in the heads of dragons, and whose prop

he group whose conversation we are endeavoring to reproduce, and th

to me that I hear the clarions sounding in the distance, and though Nyssia is still invisible, I can see the herald yonder

out having skinned their knees against the bark, succeeded in perching themselves comfortably enough in the Y of some tree-branch. The women lifted their little children upon their shoulders, warning them to hold tightly to their necks. Those

gh the crowd, which had already been waiting many long hours

ith nails, emblazoned bucklers, and swords of brass, rode behind a line of trumpeters who blew with might and main upon their long tubes, which gleamed under the sunlight. The horses of these warriors wer

isite regularity, seemed chiselled in marble, owing to his intense pallor, for he had just discovered in Nyssia, although she was veiled wi

a spell on him? Has that cabalistic ring (which he is said to have found hidden within the flanks of a brazen horse in the midst of some forest) lost its virtue, and s

Palamedes, or else it may be that he is disappointed at not having won th

ectures was true. A

after the Lydian manner, accompanying themselves upon lyres of ivory, which they played with bows. All were clad in rose-

half-nude bodies exposed to view such interlacements

ming pans, with perforated covers; cedar-wood or ivory coffers of marvellous workmanship, which opened with a secret spring that none save the inventor could find, and which contained bracelets wrought from the gold of Ophir, necklaces of the most lustrous pearls, mantle-brooches constellated with rubies and carbuncles; toilet boxes containing blonde sponges, curling-irons, sea-wolves' teeth to polish the nails, the green rouge of Egypt, which turns to a most beautiful pink on touching the skin, powders to darken the eyelashes and eyebrows, and all the refinements that feminin

he effort to uphold their burden, carried in great pomp a statue of Hercules, the ancestor of Candaules, of colossal size, wrought of ivory and go

transparency seemed expressly created for the representation of the ever-youthful flesh of the immortals, were borne after the statue of

uty of its design, the truthfulness of the attitude of its figures, and the harmony of its coloring, although the artist had only employed in its production the four primitive colors: Attic ochre, white, Pontic si

performing upon drums and cymbals, carried the gilded stakes, the cords, and the mate

ection, and it was not without a certain feeling of impatience that they watched this portion of the procession file by. The young maidens and the handsome boys, be

sun, all rolling their golden bits in foam, shaking their purple-decked manes, and restrained with great difficu

poet rather than that of the warrior. In fact, although he was brave, skilled in all bodily exercises, could subdue a wild horse as well as any of the Lapith?, or swim across the current of rivers when they descended, swollen with melted snow, from the mountains, although he might have bent the bow of Odysseus or borne the shield of Achilles, he seemed little occupied with dreams of conquest; and war, usually so fascinating to young kings, had little attraction for him. He contented himself with repelling the attacks of his ambitious neighbors, and sought not to extend his own dominions. He prefer

ader undoubtedly feels like the people of Sard

bes and rims of which had been pierced, were adorned with ornaments in the form of little cups, crescents, and balls; necklaces of gold and silver beads, which had been hollowed out and carved, thrice encircled her neck and descended with a metallic tinkling upon her bosom; emerald serpents with topaz or ruby eyes coiled themselves in many folds about her arms, and clasped themselves by biting their own tails. These bracelets were connected by chains of precious stones, and so great was their weight that two attendants were required to kneel beside Nyssia and support her elbows. She was clad in a robe embroidered by Syrian workmen with shining designs of golden foliage and diamond fruits, and over this she wore the short tunic of Persepolis, which hardly descended to the knee, and of which the sleeves were slit and fastened b

t uncover her face for fear of showing her double pupil. The young libertine remained convinced that Theano of Colophon was more beautiful than the queen of Sardes; and Gyges sighed when he beheld Nyssia, after having made her elephan