 Chapter 20, Part I of Hypatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley, Chapter 20, She Stoops to Conquer Part I. But Ferris Hypatia, conceive yourself struck in the face by a great stone. Several hundred howling wretches leaping up at you like wild beasts. Two minutes more, and you are torn limb from limb. What would even you do in such a case? Let them tear me limb from limb, and die as I have lived. Ah, but when it came to fact, and death was staring you in the face. And why should man fear death? Ahem. No, not death, of course, but the act of dying. That may be surely under such circumstances to say the least disagreeable. If our ideal, Julian the Great, found a little dissimulation necessary, and was even a better Christian than I have ever presented to be, till he found himself able to throw off the mask. Why should not I consider me as a lower being than yourself? One of the herd, if you will, but a pertinent member. Thereof, who comes to make the fullest possible reparation by doing any desperate deed on which you may choose to put him, improve myself as able and willing, if once I have the power, as Julian himself. Such was the conversation which passed between Hipatia and Orestes half an hour after Phil Ammon had taken possession of his new abode. Hipatia looked at the prefect with calm penetration, not unmixed with scorn and fear. And pray, what has produced the sun and chain generic excellencies earnestness? For four months your promises have been lying fallow. He did not confess how glad he would have been, at heart, to see them lying fallow still. Because this morning I have news, which I tell to you, the first as a compliment. We will take care that all Alexandria knows it before sundown. Here a client has conquered. Conquered cried Hipatia, springing from her seat. Conquered and utterly destroyed the emperor's forces at Ostia. So says a messenger on whom I can depend. And even if the news should prove false, I can prevent the contrary report from spreading. Or what is the use of being prefect? Your demure? Do you not see that if we can keep the notion alive but a weak our own cause is one? How so? I have treated already with all the officers of the city, and every one of them has acted like a wise man. And giving me a promise of help, conditional, of course, on Heraclion's success. Being as tired as I am of that priest-ridden court by Byzantium. Moreover, the stationaries are mine already. So are the soldery all the way up the Nile. Ah, you have been fancying me idle for these four months. But you forget that you yourself were the prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard with that goal in sight? Hipatia shuddered, but was silent, and heresties went on. I have unladen several of the wheat ships for enormous largeses of bread, though those rascally monks of Tabin had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding graciously half the poor of the city. What possible business have they with Alexandria? The wish for popularity, I presume. Just so, and then what hold can the government have on a set of rogues whose stomachs are filled without our help? Julian made the same compliment to the High Priest of Galantia in that priceless letter of his. Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly. Then again I do not fear Cyrus' power just now. He has injured himself deeply. I am happy to say, in the opinion of the wealthy and educated, by expelling the Jews, and as for his mob, exactly at the right moment, the deities. There are no monks here, so I can attribute my blessings to the right source, have sent us such a boon as may put them into as good a humor as we need. And what is that? asked Hypatia, a white elephant. A white elephant? Yes, he answered, mistaking or ignoring the tone of her answer. A real, live, white elephant. A thing which has not been seen in Alexandria for a hundred years. It was passing through with two tame tigers as a present to the boy at Byzantium. From some hundred-wifed kinglet of the Hyperborean Taprobane, or other no man's land, in the Far East, I took the liberty of laying an embargo on them, and after little argumentation and a few hints of torture, elephant and tigers are at our service. And what of service are they to be? My dearest madame, conceive, how are we to win the mob without a show? When were there more than two ways of gaining either the whole or part of the Roman Empire by force of arms or force of trump fury? Can even you invent a third? The former is unpleasantly exciting and hardly practicable just now. The latter remains, and thanks to the white elephant may be triumphantly successful. I have to exhibit something every week. The people are getting tired of that pantomine, and since the Jews were driven out, the fellow has grown stupid and lazy, having lost the more enthusiastic half of his spectators. As for horse racing, they are sick of it. Now suppose we announce for the earliest possible day a spectacle, such a spectacle as never was seen before in this generation, you and I, I as exhibitor, you as representative, for the time being only, of the vestals of old, sit side by side. Some worthy friend has his instructions when the people are beside themselves with rapture to cry long live Orestes Caesar. Another reminds them of Heraklion's victory, another couples her name with mine, the people's applaud. Some Mark Antony steps forward, salutes me as Imperator, Augustus. What you will, the cry is taken up. I refuse as meekly as Julia Caesar himself, and compelled, blushing to accept the honor. I rise, make an oration about the future independence of the southern continent, union of Africa and Egypt. The empire no longer to be divided into the eastern and western, but northern and southern, shouts of applause at two drachmas per man, shake the skies. Everybody believes that everybody else approves and follows the lead, and the thing is won. And pray as Hypatia, crushing down her contempt and despair, how was this to bear on the worship of the gods? Why? Why? If you thought that people's minds were sufficiently prepared, you might rise in your turn and make an oration, you can conceive one. Set forth how these spectacles, formerly the glory of the empire, had withered under Galeon's superstition, how the only path toward the full enjoyment of eye and ear was a frank return to those deities, from whose worship they originally sprang and connected with, which they could alone be enjoyed in their perfection. But I need not teach you how to do that which you have so often taught me. So now to consider a spectacle, which next to the largest, is the most important part of our plans, I ought to have exhibited to them the monk, who so nearly killed me yesterday. That would indeed have been a triumph of the laws over Christianity. He and the wild beast might have given the people ten minutes amusement, but wrath conquered prudence, and the fellow has been crucified these two hours. Suppose then we had a little exhibition of gladiators, there forbidden by law, certainly. Thank heaven they are, but do you not see, that is the very reason why we, to assert our own independence, should employ them? No, they are gone. Let them never reappear to disgrace the earth. My dear lady, you must not in your present character say it in public, lest Cyril should be impertinent enough to remind you that Christian emperors and bishops put them down. Hypatia bit her lip and was silent. While I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to you, if we could but contrive a few martyrdoms, but I really fear you must wait a year or two longer, in the present state of public opinion, before we can attempt that. Wait. Wait forever. Did not Julian, and he must be our model, forbid the persecution of the galleons, considering them sufficiently punished by their own atheism and self-tormenting superstition? Another small error of that great man. He should have recollected that for three hundred years nothing, not even the gladiators themselves, had been found to put the mob in such good humor as to see a few Christians, especially young and handsome women, burned alive or thrown to the lions. Hypatia bit her lip once more. I can hear no more of this, sir. You forget that you are speaking to a woman. Most supreme wisdom, answered Orestes in his blindest tone, you cannot suppose that I wish to pain your ears, but allow me to observe, as a general theorem, that if one wishes to affect any purpose, it is necessary to use the means, and on the whole, those which have been tested by four hundred years' experience, will be the safest. I speak as a plain, practical statesman, but surely your philosophy will not dissent. Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could she answer, was it not too true, had not Orestes fact an experience on his side? Well, if you must, but I cannot have gladiators, why not a one of those battles with wild beasts? They are disgusting enough, but still they are less inhuman than the others, and you might surely take precautions to prevent the men being hurt. Ah, that would indeed be a sentless rose. If there is neither danger nor bloodshed, the charm is gone. But really, wild beasts are too expensive just now, and if I kill down my present menagerie, I can afford no more. Why not have something which costs no money, like prisoners? What, do you rank human beings below brutes? Heaven forbid, but they are practically less expensive. Remember that without money we are powerless, we must husband our resources for the cause of the gods. Hypatia was silent. Now, there are fifty or sixty Libyan prisoners just brought in from the desert. Why not let them fight an equal number of soldiers? They are rebels to the empire, taken in war. Ah, then, said Hypatia, catching at any thread of self-justification, their lives are forfeit in any case. Of course, so the Christians could not complain of us for that. Did not the most Christian empire, Constantine, set some three hundred German prisoners to butcher each other in the amphitheater of Trevis? But they were refused, and died like heroes, each falling on his own sword. Ah, those Germans are always unmanageable. My guards now are just a stiff-necked. To tell you the truth, I have asked them already to exhibit their prowess on these Libyans, and what do you suppose they answered? They refused, I hope. They told me in the most insolent tone that they were men, and not stage-players, and hired to fight, and not to butcher. I expected a Socratic dialogue after such a display of dialectic, and bowed myself out. They were right, not a doubt of it. From a philosophic point of view, from a practical one, they were great pendants, and I, an ill-used master. However, I can find unfortunate and misunderstood heroes enough in the prisons, who for the chance of their liberty will acquit themselves valiantly enough, and I know of a few old gladiators still lingering about the wine shops, who will be proud enough to give them a week's training. So that may pass. Now for some lighter species of representation to follow, something more or less dramatic. You forget that you speak to one who trusts to be, as soon as she has the power, the high priestess of Athenae, and who, in the meanwhile, is bound to obey her tutor Julian's commands to the priest of his day, and intimate the galleons as much in their abhorrence for the theater as she hopes hereafter to do in their care for the widow and the stranger. Far be it from me to impugn that great man's wisdom, but allow me to remark that to judge by the present state of the empire, one has a right to say that he failed. The sun god, whom he loved, took him to himself, too early, by a hero's death. And the moment he was removed, the wave of Christian barbarism, rolled back again into its old channel. Ah, had he but lived twenty years longer, the sun god perhaps was not so solitius as we are for the success of his high priest's project. Hypatia Reddend was Orestes after all laughing in his sleeve at her and her hopes. Do not blasphemy, she said solemnly. Heaven forbid, I only offer one possible explanation of a plain fact. The other is, that as Julian was not going quite the right way to work to restore the worship of the Olympians, the sun god found it expedient to withdraw him from his post, and now sends in his place, Hypatia, the philosopher who will be wise enough to avoid Julian's error, and not copy the Galileans too closely by imitating a severity of morals at which they are the only true and natural adepts. So Julian's error was that of being too virtuous? If it be so, let me copy him and fail like him. The fault will then not be mine, but fates. Not in being too virtuous himself, most stainless likeness of athene, but in trying to make others so, he forgot one half of Julian's great dictum about pantheum insuransius as the absolute and overruling necessity of rulers. He tried to give the people the bread without the games, and what thanks he received for his enormous munificence? Let himself and the good folks of Antioch tell, you just quoted his misopogon. I, the lament of a man too pure for his age. Exactly so. He should rather have been content to keep his purity to himself, and have gone to Antioch, not merely as a philosophic high priest with a beard of questionable cleanliness, to offer sacrifices to a god in whom, forgive me, nobody in Antioch had believed for many a year, if he had made his entrance with ten thousand gladiators, and our white elephant built a theater of ivory and glass and Daphne, and proclaimed games in honor of the sun, or of any other member in the pantheum. He would have acted unworthily of a philosopher. But instead of that one priest draggling up poor devil through the wet grass, to the deserted altar with his solitary goose under his arm, he would have had every goose in Antioch, forgive my sealing upon from aristophanes, running open mouth to worship any god known or unknown, and to see the sights. Well said Hypatia, yielding pre-force to our resty's cutting arguments, let us then restore the ancient glories of the Greek drama, let us give them a trilogy of askylus or esothicals. To call my dear madam, the eminides might do certainly, or phylocteates, if we could but put phylocteates to real pain, and make the spectator sure that he was yelling in good earnest, disgusting, but necessary like many disgusting things. Why not try Prometheus, a magnificent field for stage effect, certainly? What with those ocean nymphs in their wing chariot, an ocean on his griffin? But I should hardly think it's safe to reintroduce Zeus and Hermes to the people under the somewhat ugly light in which askylus exhibits them. I forgot that, said Hypatia. The Eurystian trilogy will be best after all. Best? Perfect divine. Ah, that it were to be my fate to go down to posterity as the happy man who once more revived askylus' masterpieces on a Grecian stage. But is there not, begging the pardon of the great Tragedian, too much reserve in the agamnin for our modern taste? If we could have the bath scene represented on the stage and on agamnin, who could he really killed? Though I would not insist on that, because a good actor might make it a reason for refusing the part, but still the murder ought to make a place in public. Shocking in outrage on all the laws of the drama does not even the Roman Horus lay down as a rule the nage purus corum poplu midia trutidae? Fairest and wisest, I am as willing a pupil of the dear old Epirion as any man living, even to the furnishing of my chamber, of which fact the empress of Africa may someday assure herself. But we are not now discussing the art of poetry, but the art of reigning, and after all, while Horus was sitting in his easy chair, giving his countrymen good advice, a private man who knew somewhat better than he, what the mass admired, was exhibiting forty thousand gladiators at his mother's funeral. But the canon has its foundation in the eternal laws of beauty, it has been accepted and observed. Not by the people for whom it was written, the learned Hypatia was surely not forgotten, that within sixty years after the Ars Poetia was written, Anius Seneca, or whosoever, wrote that very bad tragedy called the midia, found it so necessary that she, should, in despite of Horus, kill her children before the people that he actually made her do it. End of Chapter 20 Part 1 Chapter 20 Part 2 of Hypatia This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 20 She Stoops to Conquer Part 2 Hypatia was still silent, foiled at every point while her resties ran on with provoking glibness, and consider, too even if we dare alter, ex-kylis a little, we could find no one to act in. Ah, true, fallen, fallen days, and really after all, omitting the questionable compliment to me, as candidate for a certain dignity, of having my namesake kill his mother and then be haunted over the stage by theories, but Apollo vindicates and purifies him at last. What a noble occasion that last scene would give for winning them back to their old reverence for the God. True, but at present the majority of spectators will believe more strongly in the horrors of matricide and theories than in Apollo's power to dispense therewith, so that I fear must be one of your laborers of the future. And it shall be, said Hypatia, but she did not speak cheerfully. Do you not think moreover, went on the tempter, that those old tragedies might give somewhat too gloomy a notion of those deities whom we wish to reintroduce? I beg pardon to re-honor. The history of the house of the Etrius is hardly more cheerful in spite of its beauty than one of Cyril's sermons on the Day of Judgment, and the Tartarus prepared for hapless rich people. Well said, Hypatia, more and more listlessly. It might be more prudent to show them first the fairer and more graceful side of the old myths. Certainly the great age of Athenian tragedy had its playful reserves in the old comedy. And in certain Dionysiac sports and processions which shall be nameless in order to awaken a proper devotion for the gods and those who might not be able to appreciate a skyless and soft focals, you would not introduce them, palace forbid, but give as fair a substitute for them as we can. And are we to degrade ourselves because the masses are degraded? Not in the least, for my own part. This whole business, like the catering for the weekly pantomimes, is as great a bore to me as it could have been to Julian himself. But my dearest madame, panium insurgencies, they must be put into good humor, and there is but one way, by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, as a certain Galilean correctly defines the time-honored Roman method. Put them into good humor, I wish to lustrate them afresh for the service of the gods. If we must have comic representations, we can only have them conjoin to tragedy, which, as Aristotle defines it, will purify their affections by pity and terror. Orestes smiled. I certainly can have no objection to so good a purpose, but do not think that the battle between the Gladiators and the Libyans will have done that sufficiently beforehand. I can conceive nothing more fit for that end, unless it be Nero's method of sending his guards among the spectators themselves, and throwing them down to the wild beasts in the arena. How thoroughly purified by pity and terror must every worthy shopkeeper have been, when he sat uncertain whether he might not follow his fat wife into the claws of the nearest lion. You are pleased to be witty, sirs at Hypatia, hardly able to conceal or discuss. My dearest bride-elect, I only meant the most harmless of Ridek Shionis ad Absurdum, of an abstract canon of Aristotle, with which I, who am a Platonist, after my mistresses' model, do not happen to agree. But do I beseek you, be ruled, not by me, but by your own wisdom. You cannot bring the people to appreciate your designs at the first sight. You are too wise, too pure, too lofty, too far-sighted for them, and therefore you must get power to compel them. Julian, after all, found it necessary to compel if he had lived seven years more, he would have found it necessary to persecute. The gods forbid that such a necessity should ever arise here. The only way to avoid it, believe me, is to allure and to indulge. After all, it is for their good. True, sighed Hypatia, have your way, sir. Believe me, you shall have yours in turn. I ask you to be ruled by me now, only that you may be in a position to rule me in Africa hereafter. And such in Africa? Well, if they are born low and earthly, they must, I suppose. He treated as such, and the fault of such a necessity is nature's, and not ours. Yet it is most degrading, but still, if the only method by which the philosophic view can assume their rights, as the divinely appointed rulers of the world, is by indulging those lower beings whom they govern for their good. Why, be it so, it is no worse necessity than many other which the servant of the gods must endure in days like these. Ah, said Orestes, refusing to hear the sigh, or to see the bitterness of the lip which accompanied the speech, now Hypatia is herself again, and my counselor and giver of deep and celestial reasons for all things at which poor I can only snatch and guess by Volpean cunning. So now for our lighter entertainment, what shall it be? What you will provided it be not, as most such are, unfit for the eyes of modest woman. I have no skill in catering for foley. A pantomime, then? We may make that as grand and as significant as we will, and expand, too, on it all our treasures in the way of Jew gods and wild beasts, as you like. Just consider, too, what a scope for mythologic learning a pantomime affords. Why not have a triumph of some deity? Could I commit myself more boldly to the service of the gods? Now who shall it be? Palas, unless, as I suppose, she is too modest and too sober for your Alexandrians? Yes, it does not seem, to me, that she would be appreciated. At all events for the present, why not try Aphrodite? Christians as well as pagans will thoroughly understand her, and I know no one who would not degrade the virgin goddess by representing her, except a certain lady who has already, I hope, consented to sit in that very character by the side of her too much honored slave, and one Palas is enough at a time in any theater. Hypatia shuddered. He took it all for granted, then, and claimed her conditional promise to the uttermost. Was there no escape? She longed to spring up and rush away into the streets, into the desert, anything to break the hideous net, which she had wound around herself, and yet was it not the cause of the gods, the one object of her life? And after all, if he the hateful was to be her emperor, she at least was to be an empress, and do what she would, and half an irony, and half in the attempt to hurl herself perforce into that which she knew that she must go through and forget misery and activity, she answered as cheerfully as she could. Then, my goddess, thou must wait the pleasure of these base ones, at least the young Apollo will have charms even for them. Ah, but who will represent him? This puny generation does not produce such figures as Pilates and Bathulis, except among those gods. Besides, Apollo must have golden hair, and our Greek race has intermixed itself so shamefully with these Egyptians, that our stage troop is as dark as Andromedia, and we should have to apply again to those accursed Goths, who have nearly with a bow, all the beauty, and nearly all the money and power, and will, I suspect, have the rest of it before I am safe out of this wicked world, because they have not nearly, but quite all the courage. Now, shall we ask a Goth to dance Apollo, for we can get no one else? Hypatia smiled in spite of herself at the notion, that would be too shameful, I must forego the god of light himself, if I am to see him in the person of a clumsy barbarian. Then why not try my despise and rejected aphrodite? Suppose we had her triumph, finishing with a dance of Venus and Ad Diomene, surely that is a graceful myth enough. As a myth, but on the stage in reality, not worse than what this Christian city has been looking at for many a year, we shall not run any danger of corrupting mortality, be sure, Hypatia blushed, then you must not ask for my help, or for your presence at the spectacle, for that be sure is a necessary point. You are too great a person, my dearest madame, in the eyes of these good folks to be allowed to absent yourself on such an occasion. If my little stratagem succeeds, it will be half owing to the fact of the people knowing that in crowning me they crowned Hypatia. Come now, do you not see that as you must be present at their harmless scrap of mythology, taken from the authentic and undoubted histories of those very gods whose worship we intend to restore? You will consult your own comfort, most in agreeing to it cheerfully, and in lending me your wisdom towards arranging it? Just conceive now a triumph of aphrodite, entering preceded by wild beasts, led and chained by cupids, the white elephant and all, what a field for the plastic art. You might have a thousand groupings, dispersions, regroupings, in as perfect baserleaf style, as those of any Sophoclean drama. Allow me only to take this paper and pen, and he began sketching rapidly group after group, not so ugly surely. They are very beautiful I cannot deny, said poor Hypatia. Ah, sweetness empress, you forgot sometimes that I, too world warm as I am, am a Greek with as intense a love of the beautiful as even you yourself have. Do not fancy that every violation of correct taste does not torture me as keenly as it does you. Someday, I hope, you will have learned to pity and to excuse the wretched compromise between that which ought to be and that which can be, in which we hapless statesmen must struggle on, half-stunted, and wholly misunderstood. Ah, well, look now at these fawns and dryads among the shrubs upon the stage. Pausing in, started wonder at the first blast of music, which proclaims the exit of the goddess, former temple. The temple? Why, where are you going to exhibit? In the theater, of course. Where else pantomines? But will the spectators have time to move all the way from the amphitheater after that, those, the amphitheater? We shall exhibit the Libyans, too, in the theater. Combats in the theater, sacred to Dainousos? My dear lady, penitently, I know it is an offense against all the laws of the drama. Oh, worse than that. Consider what an impiety toward the god to desecrate his altar with bloodshed. Ferris devotee, recollect that, after all, I may fairly borrow Dainousos' altar, in this my extreme need, for I saved its very existence for him, by preventing the magistrates from filling up the whole orchestra with benches for the patricians after the barbarous Roman fashion. And besides, what possible sort of representation or misrepresentation has not been exhibited in every theater of the empire for the last four hundred years? Have we not had tumblers, conjurers, allegories, martyrdoms, marriages, elephants on the tightrope, learned horses, and learned asses, too, if we may trust Apulius of Mediora, with the good many other spectacles, of which we must not speak in the presence of a vestal? It is an age of exacrable taste, and we must act accordingly. Ah, answered Hypatia, the first step in the downward career of the drama began when the successors of Alexander dared to profane theaters which had re-echoed the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides, by degrading the altar of Dainousos into a stage for pantomimes, which your pure mind must doubtless consider not so very much better than a little fighting, but, after all, the poltomies could not do otherwise. You can only have Sophoclean dramas in a Sophoclean age, and theirs was no more of one than ours is, and so the drama died a natural death, and when that happens to man or thing, you may weep over it, if you will, but you must, after all, bury it, and get something else in its place, except, of course, the worship of the gods. I am glad that you accept that, at least, said Hypatia somewhat bitterly, but why not use the amphitheater for both spectacles? What can I do? I am overhead in ears and dead already, and the amphitheater is half in ruins, thanks to that fanatic edict of the late emperors against gladiators. There is no time or money for repairing it, and besides how pitiful a poor hundred of combatants will look an arena built to hold two thousand, consider my dearest lady in what fallen times we live. I do indeed, said Hypatia, but I will not see the altar polluted by blood. It is the desecration which it has undergone already, which was provoked the God to withdraw the poetic inspiration. I do not doubt the fact, some curse from heaven certainly has fallen on our poets to judge by their exceeding badness. Indeed I am inclined to attribute the insane vagaries of the water-drinking monks and nuns, like those of the Argyve woman, to the same celestial anger. But I will see that the sanctity of the altar is preserved by confining the combat to the stage, and as for the pantomeme, which will all follow. If you would only fall in with my fancy of the triumph of Aphrodite, Dinosus would hardly refuse his altar for the glorification of his own lady-love. Ah, that myth is so late, and in my opinion a degraded one. Be it so, but recollect that another myth makes her, and not without reason, the mother of all living beings. Be sure that Dinosus will have no objection, or any other God either, to allow her to make her children feel her conquering might, for they all know well enough that if we can once get her well-worshiped here, all Olympians will follow in her train. That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, who simple is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity, not of that baser, pandemic one. Then we will take care to make the people aware of whom they are admiring by exhibiting in the triumph whole legions of tortoises, and you yourself shall write the chant, while I will see that the chorus is worthy of what it has to sing, no mere squeaking, double flute, and a pair of boys, but a whole army of cyclops and graces, with such trebles and such bass voices, it shall make Cyril's ears tingle in his palace. The chant, a noble office for me truly. That is very part of the absurd spectacle, to which we use to say the people never dreamed of attending, all which is worth, settling you, seem to have settled for yourself, before you designed to consult me. I said so, surely you must mistake, but if any hired potasers chant, do pass unheeded, what is that to do with hypodias eloquence and science, glowing with the treble inspiration of Athenae, Phoebus, and Dionysos? And as for having arranged beforehand, my adorable mistress, what more delicate compliment could I have paid you? I cannot say that it seems to me to be one. How, after saving you every treble which I could, and racking my overburded wits for stage effects and prophecies, I have I not brought hither the darling children of my own brain, and laid them down ruthlessly for life or death, before the judgment seat of your lofty and unsparing criticism? Hypodia felt herself tricked, but there was no escape now. And who, pray, is to disgrace herself and me, as Venus and Adiomene? Ah, that is the most exquisite article in all my bill affair. What if the kind gods have enabled me to exact a promise from whom think you? What care I? How can I tell? asked Hypodia, who suspected and dreaded that she could tell. Pelgia herself, Hypodia, rose angrily. This, sir, at least is too much. It was not enough for you, it seems, to claim or rather to take for granted, so imperiously, so mercilessly, a conditional promise, weekly, weekly made, in the vain, hope that you would help forward aspirations of mine, which you have let lie fallow for months, in which I do not believe that you sympathize now. It was not enough for you to declare yourself publicly yesterday a Christian, and to come hither this morning to flatter me into the belief that you will dare, ten days hence, to restore the worship of the gods whom you have endured. It was not enough to plan without me, all those movements in which you told me, I was to be your fellow counselor, the very condition which you yourself offered. It was not enough for you to command me to sit in that theater, as your bait, your puppet, your victim, blushing and shuddering at sights, unfit for the eyes of gods and men. But over and above all this I must assist in the renewed triumph of a woman, who has laughed down my teaching, seduced away my scholars, braved me in my very lecture room, who for four years has done more than even Cyril himself to destroy all the virtue and truth, which I have toiled to sow, and toiled in vain. O beloved gods, where will end the tortures through, which your martyr must witness for you to a fallen race? And in spite of all our pride, and of our arrestee's presence, her eyes filled with scalding tears. Part 3 Arrestee's eyes had sunk before the vehemence of her just passion, but as she added the last sentence in a softer and sadder tone, he raised them again, with a look of sorrow and an entreaty, at his heart, whispered, Fool, fanatic, but she is too beautiful, win her I must and will. Ah, dearest, noblest hypodia, what have I done, on thinking fool that I was, in the wish to save your trouble, in the hope that I could show you? By the aptness of my own plans, that my practical statesmanship was not altogether an unworthy help, mate, for your lofty wisdom, the wretch that I am, I have offended you, and I have ruined the cause, of those very gods for whom I swear, I am as ready to sacrifice myself as ever you can be. The last sentence had the effect, which it was meant to have, ruin the cause of the gods, as she, in a startled tone, it is not ruined without your help, and what am I to understand from your words but that, hapless man that I am, you leave me, and them henceforth, in our own unassisted strength? The unassisted strength of the gods is omnipotence, be it so, but why is Cyril, and not hypodia, master of the masses of Alexandria this day? Why but because he and his have fought, and suffered, and died too, many a hundred of them, for their god Omnipotent, as they believe him to be? Why are the old gods forgotten, my fairest logician? For forgotten they are, hypodia trembled from head to foot, and arrestees went on more blandly than ever. I will not ask an answer to that question of mine, all I entreat is forgiveness for, what I know not, but I have sinned, that is enough for me. What if I've been too confident, too hasty? Are you not the price for which I strain, and will not the preciousness of the victor's wreath excuse some impatience in the struggle for it? Hypodia has forgotten who and what the gods have made her. She is not even consulted her own mirror, when she blames one of her innumerable adores for a forwardness, which ought to be rather imputed to him as a virtue. And arrestees stole meekly such a glance of adoration, that hypodia blushed, and turned her face away. After all, she was woman, and she was a fanatic. And she was to be an empress, and arrestees' voice was as melodious, and as manner as graceful as ever charmed the heart of woman. But Pelagia, she said, at last recovering herself, would that I had never seen the creature, but after all, I really fancied that in doing what I have done I should gratify you. Me, surely, if revenge be sweet, as they say it, it could hardly find a more delicate satisfaction than in degradation of one who, revenge, sir, do you dream that I am capable of so base a passion? I, palace forbid, said arrestees, finding himself on the wrong path again, but recollect that the allowing this spectacle to take place might rid you forever of an unpleasant, I will not say, rival. How, then, will not her reappearance on the stage after all her proud professions of contempt for it do something towards reducing her in the eyes of this scandalous little town to her true and native level? She will hardly dare, thenceforth, to go about parading herself as the consort of a god, descended hero, or thrusting herself unbidden into Hypatia's presence as if she were the daughter of a consul. But I cannot, I cannot allow it even to her, after all, arrestees, she is a woman, and can I, philosopher, as I am, help to degrade her even one step lower than she lies already? Hypatia had all but said a woman even as I am, but Neoplatonic philosophy taught her better, and she check hasty assertion of anything like a common sex or common humanity between two beings so anapodial. Ah, rejoined arrestees, that unlucky word degrade, on thinking that I was, to use it, forgetting that she herself will be no more, degraded in her own eyes or anyone else, by hearing again the plaudits of those dear Macedonians on whose breath she has lived for years than a peacock when he displays his train. Unbounded vanity and self-conceit are not unpleasant passions, after all, for their victim. After all, she is what she is, and her being so is no fault of yours. Oh, it must be, indeed it must. Poor Hypatia, the bait was too delicate, the temper too willy, and yet she has ashamed to speak aloud the philosophic dogma which flasks array of comfort and resignation, through her mind, and reminded her that after all there was no harm in allowing lower natures to develop themselves freely in that direction which nature had appointed for them, and in which only they could fulfill the laws of their being as necessary varieties in the manifold whole of the universe, so she cut the interview short with, if it must be then, I will now retire and write the ode. Only I refuse to have any communication whatsoever with, I am ashamed of even mentioning her name. I will send the ode to you, and she must adapt her dance to it, as best she can. By her taste, or fancy, rather, I will not be ruled. And I, Ceteressis, with a perfusion of thanks, will retire to rack my faculties over the dispositions. On this day, week, we exhibit and conquer, Farewell, Queen of Wisdom, your philosophy never shows to better advantage than when you thus wisely and gracefully subordinate that which is beautiful in itself to that which is beautiful relatively and practically. He departed, and Hypatia, half dreading her own thoughts, sat down at once to labor at the ode. Certainly it was a magnificent subject. What entomologies, cosmogonies, allegories, myths, symbolisms between all heaven and earth might she not introduce, if she could but banish that figure of Pelgia dancing to it all, which would not be banished but hovered like a spectre. In the background of all her imaginations, she became quite angry first with Pelgia, then with herself, for being weak enough to think of her. Was it not positive to filemen of her mind to be haunted by the image of so defiled a being? She would purify her thoughts by prayer and meditation, but whom of all the gods should she address herself to her chosen favorite, Athene? She who had promised to present at that spectacle, oh how weak she had been to yield, and yet she had been snared into it. Snared, there was no doubt of it, by the very man whom she had fancied that she could guide and mold to her own purposes. He had guided and molded her now against her self-respect, her compassion, her innate sense of right. Already she was his tool. True, she had submitted to be so for a great purpose, but suppose she had to submit again, hereafter, always henceforth, and what made the thought more poignant was her knowledge that he was right, that he knew what to do and how to do it. She could not help admiring him for his address, his quickness, his clear practical insight, and yet she despised, mistrusted, all but hated him. But what if his were the very qualities which were destined to succeed? What if her peerer and loftier arms, her resolutions, now alas, broken, never to act but on the deepest and holiest principles, and by the most sacred means, were destined never to exert themselves in practice, except conjointly, with miserable strat to gems and cajolaries such as these? What if state-crafts and not philosophy and religion were the appointed rulers of mankind? Hidious thought, and yet she who had all her life tried to be self-dependent, originative, to face and crush the hostile mob of circumstance and custom, and to battle single-handed with Christianity and a fallen age. How was it that in her first important and critical opportunity of action, she had been dumb, irresolute, passive, the victim at last, of the very corruption which she was to exterminate? She did not know yet that those who have no other means for regenerating a corrupted time than dhmadipedantries concerning the dead and unreturning past must end in practice by borrowing insincerely and using clumsily the very weapons of that noble age which they depreciate, and sowing new cloth into old garments till the rent become patient and incurable. But in the meanwhile such meditations as these drove from her mind for that day, both Athene and the Ode, and philosophy, at all things but Pelagia the Wanton. In the meanwhile, Alexandrian politics flowed onward in their usual pure and quiet course. The public buildings were place-carded, with the news of Heraklion's victory and groups of longers expressed, loudly enough, their utter indifference as to who might rule at Rome, or even at Byzantium. Let Heraklion, or Honorius, be emperor. The capitals must be fed, and while the Alexandrian wheat trade was uninjured. What matter who received the tribute, certainly as some friends of Orestes found means to suggest, it might not be a bad thing for Egypt, if she could keep the tribute in her own treasury, instead of sending it to Rome without any adequate return, save the presence of an expensive army. Alexandria had been once the metropolis of an independent empire. Why not again? Then came enormous largesse of corn, proving more satisfactorily to the mob than to the ship-owners, that Egyptian wheat was better employed at home than abroad. Nay, there were even rumors of a general amnesty for all prisoners, and as, of course, every evildoer had a kind of friend, who considered him an injured martyr. All parties were well content, on their own accounts, at least, with such a move, and so Orestes bubble swelled, and grew, and glittered every day, with fresh prismatic radiance, while Hypatia sat at home, with a heavy heart writing her ode to Venus Urania, and submitting to Orestes' daily visits. One cloud indeed, not without squalls of wind and rain, disfigured that sky which the prefect had invested, with such serenity, by the simple expedient, well known to politicians, of painting it bright blue, since it would not assume that color of its own accord. For a day or two after a manious execution, the prefect's guards informed him that the corpse of the crucified man, with the cross on which it hung, had vanished. The nitrian monks had come down in a body, and carried them off, before the very eyes of the sentinels. Orestes knew well enough that the fellows must have been bribed to allow the theft, but he dare not say so to men, on whose good humor his very life might depend. So, stomaching the affront as best as he could, he vowed fresh vengeance against Cyril, and went on his way, but behold, within four and twenty hours of the theft, a procession of all the rascality, followed by all the piety of Alexandria. Monks from Nitria, counted by the thousand priests, deacons arch deacons Cyril himself in full pontificials, and borne aloft in the mist upon a splendid beer. The missing corpse is nail-pierced hands, and feet left uncovered for the pettian gaze of the church, under the very palace windows from which Orestes found a expedient to retire for the time being. Out upon the quays, and up the steps of the caesarium, filed that new, portent, and in another half hour a servant entered, breathlessly, to inform the shepherd of people that his victim was lying in state, in the center of the nave, a martyr duly canonized. Ammonious now no more, but henceforth, the mossiest, the wonderful, on whose heroic virtues, and more heroic faithfulness on to the death, Cyril was already discounting from the pulpit amid thunders of applause at every allusion to Cicera at the brook-kission. Sin a cherub in the house of Nisrach, and the rest of the princes of this world who come to not. Here was a storm to order a cohort to enter the church and bring away the body, who was easy enough to make them do it. In the phase of certain death not so easy, besides it was too early yet for so desperate a move as would be involved in the violation of a church. So Orestes added this fresh item to the long column of accounts, which he intended to settle with the patriarch, cursed for half an hour in the name of all divinities, saints, and martyrs, Christian and pagan, and wrote off a lamentable history of his wrongs and sufferings to the very Byzantine court against which he was about to rebel, in the comfortable assurance that Cyril had sent by the same post a counter-statement contradicting it in every particular. Never mind, in case he failed in rebelling, it was as well to be able to prove his allegiance up to the latest possible date, and the more completely the two statements contradicted each other, the longer it would date to sift the truth out of them, and thus so much time was gained, and so much the more chance, meantime, of a new leaf being turned over in that sibling oracle of politicians, the chapter of accidents, and for the time being he would make a pathetic appeal to respectability and moderation in general, of which Alexandria, wherein some hundred thousand tradesmen and merchants had property to lose, possessed a goodly share, respectively responded promptly to the appeal, and loyal addresses and deputations of condolence followed in from every quarter, expressing the extreme sorrow with which the citizens had beheld the late disturbances of civil order, and the contempt which had been so unfortunately evinced for the constituted authorities, but taking nevertheless the liberty to remark that while the extreme danger of property which might ensue from the further exasperation of certain classes prevented their taking those active steps on the side of tranquility to which their feelings inclined them, the nonpiety and wisdom of their esteemed patriarch made it presumptuous in them to offer any opinion on his present conduct beyond the expression of their firm belief that he had been unfortunately misinformed as to those sentiments of affection and respect with his excellency the prefect was well known to entertain towards him, they ventured therefore to express a humble hope that by some mutual compromise to define which would be an unwarrantable intrusion on their part a happy reconciliation would be effected and the stability of law and property and the catholic faith ensured, all which arrestees heard the blandest smiles while his heart was black with curses and Cyril answered by a very violent though a very true and practical herange on the text how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven so respectively and moderation met with their usual hapless fate and soundly cursed by both parties in the vain attempt to please both wisely left the upper powers to settle their own affairs and went home to the desks and counters they did a very brisk business all that week on the strength of the approaching festival one hapless and keeper only tried to carry out and practice the principles which the deputation from his guild had so eloquently advocated and being convicted of giving away bread in the morning to the nitrient monks and wine in the evening to the prefect's guards and his tavern gwedded and his head broken by a joint publicity of both the parties whom he had conciliated who afterwards fought a little together and then luckily for the general peace mutuality ran away from each other Cyril in the meanwhile though he was doing a foolish thing was doing it wisely enough arrestees might curse and respectively might deplore whose nightly sermons which shook the mighty arcades of the cesarean but they could not answer them Cyril was right and knew that he was right arrestees was a scoundrel hateful to god and the enemies of god the middle classes were lukewarm covetous cowards the whole system of government was a swindle and an injustice all men's hearts were mad with crying lord how long the fierce bishop had only to thunder fourth text on text from every book of scripture old and new in order to array on his side not merely the common sense and right feeling but the bigotry and ferocity of the masses in vain did the good or seniors represent to him not only the scandal but the unrighteousness of his new canonization i must have fuel my good father was his answer wherewith to keep alight the flame of zeal if i am to be silent as to her clients defeat i must give them some other irritant which will put them in a proper temper to act on that defeat when they are told of it if they hate or estes does he not deserve it even if he is not altogether as much in the wrong in this particular case as they fancy he is are there not a thousand other crimes of which deserve whorens even more at all events he must proclaim the empire as you yourself say or we shall have no handle against him he will not dare to proclaim it if he knows that we are aware of the truth and if we are to keep the truth in reserve we must have something else to serve meanwhile as a substitute for it and poor our seniors submitted with a sigh as he saw sorrow making a fresh step in that alluring path of evil doing that could might come which led him after years into many a fearful sin and left his name disgraced perhaps forever in the judgment of generations who know as little of the pandemonium against which he fought as they do of the intense belief which sustained him in his warfare and who have therefore neither understanding nor pardon for the occasional outrageous and errors of a man no worse even if no better than themselves end of chapter 20 chapter 21 part one of hypatia this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org hypatia by Charles Kingsley chapter 21 the squire bishop part one in a small and ill furnished upper room of a fortified country house set sinesius the bishop of kirene a goblet of wine stood beside him on the table but it was untasted slowly and sadly by the light of a tiny lamp he went on writing a verse or two and then burying his face in his hand while hot tears dropped between his fingers on the paper till a servant entering announced rafael aben ezra sinesius rose with a gesture of surprise and hurried towards the door no ask him to come hither to me to pass through those deserted rooms at night is more than i can bear and he waited for his guest at the chamber door and as he entered caught both his hands in his and tried to speak but his voice was choked within him do not speak said rafael gently leading him to his chair again i know all you know all and are you then so unlike the rest of the world that you alone have come to visit the bereaved and the deserted in his misery i am like the rest of the world after all for i came to you on my own selfish errand to seek comfort good that i could give it instead but the servants told me all below and yet you persisted in seeing me as if i could help you alas i can help no one now here i am at last utterly alone utterly helpless as i came from my mother's womb so shall i return again my last child my last and first gone after the rest thank god that i have had even a day's peace wherein to lay him by his mother and his brothers though he alone knows how long the beloved graves may remain unrivaled let it have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors the sons of Hercules himself my glory and my pride sinful fool that i was cast to the winds by barbarian plunderers when will though make an end oh lord and slay me and how did the poor boy die ask Raphael in hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in words the pestilence what other fate can we expect who breathe an air tainted with corpses and sit under a sky darkened with carrion birds but i could endure even that if i could work if i could help but to sit here in prison now for months between these hateful towers night after night to watch the sky red with burning homesteads day after day to have my ears ring with the streaks of the dying and the captives for they have begun now to murder every male down to the baby at the breast and to feel myself utterly fettered impotent sitting here like some palsy idiot waiting for my end i long to rush out and fall fighting sword in hand but i am their last their only hope the governors care nothing for our supplications in vain have i memorialized ginnadius and incant with what little eloquence my misery has not stunned in me but there is no resolution no unanimity left in the land the soldiery are scattered in small garrisons employed entirely in protecting the private property of their officers the asurians defeat them piecemeal and armed with their spoils actually have begun to belay 45 towns and now there is nothing left for us but to pray that like ulysses we may be diverse the last what am i doing i am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows instead of listening to yours nay friend you are talking of the sorrows of your country not of your own as for me i have no sorrow only a despair which being irremediable may well wait but you oh you must not stay here why not escape to alexandria i will die at my post as i have lived the father of my people when the last ruin comes and kirini itself is besieged i shall return theta from my present outpost and the conquerors shall find the bishop in his place before the altar there i have offered for years the unbloody sacrifice to him who will perhaps require of me a bloody one so that the sight of an altar polluted by the murder of his priest may end the sum of the pentapolitan hoe and arouse him to avenge his slaughtered sheep there we will talk no more of it this at least i have left in my power to make you welcome and after supper you shall tell me what brings you here and the good bishop calling his servant said to work to show his guest such hospitality as the invaders had left in his power rafael's usual insight had not deserted him when in his utter perplexity he went almost instinctively straight to synesius the bishop of curene to judge from the charming private letters which he has left was one of those many side volatile restless men who taste joy and sorrow if not deeply or permanently yet abundantly and passionately he lived as rafael had told orestes in a whirlwind of good deeds meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of action and as soon as there was nothing to be done which till lately had happened seldom enough with him paid the penalty for past excitement in feats of melancholy a man of magnilocant and flowery style not without a vein of self conceit yet with all of overflowing kindness razor humor and unflinching courage both physical and moral with a very clear practical faculty and a very muddy speculative one though of course like the rest of the world he was especially proud of his own weakest side and professed the most passionate affection of our philosophic meditation while his detractors hinted not without a show of reason that he was far more of an adept in soldiering and dog breaking than in the mysteries of the unseen world to him rafael betook himself he hardly knew why certainly not for philosophic consolation perhaps because cinesius was as rafael used to say the only christian from whom he had ever heard a hearty laugh perhaps because he had some wayward hope unconfessed even to himself that he might meet at cinesius's house the very companions from whom he had just fled he was fluttering around victoria's new and strange brilliance like a moth round the candle as he confessed after supper to his host and now he was come hither on the chance of being able to cinch his wings once more not that his confession was extracted without much trouble to the good old man who seeing at once that rafael had some weight upon his mind which he longed to tell and yet was either too suspicious or too proud to tell said himself to ferret out the secret and forgot all his sorrows for the time as soon as he found a human being to whom he might do good but rafael was inexplicably wayward and unlike himself all his smooth and shallow persiflage even his rude satiric humor had vanished he seemed parched by some inward fever restless moody abrupt even peevish and cinesius's curiosity rose with his disappointment as rafael went on obstinately declining to consult the very physician before whom he presented himself as patient and what can you do for me if i did tell you then allow me my very dear friend to ask this as you deny having visited me on my own account on what account did you visit me can you ask to enjoy the society of the most finished gentleman on pentapolis and was that worth a week's journey in perpetual danger of death as for danger of death that weighs little with the man who is careless of life and as for the week's journey i had a dream one night on my way which make me question whether i were wise in traveling a christian bishop with any thoughts or questions which relate merely to poor human beings like myself who marry and are given in marriage you forget friend that you are speaking to one who has married and loved and lost i did not but you see how rude i am growing i'm no fit company for you or any man i believe i shall end by turning robert chief and heading a party of usurias but set the patience in issues you have forgotten your dream all this while forgotten i did not promise to tell it you did i know but as it seems to have contained some sort of accusation against my capacity do you not think it but fair to tell the accused what it was rafael smiled well then suppose i had dreamt this that the philosopher an academic and a believer in nothing and in no man had met at berenice certain rabbis of the jews and heard them reading and expounding a certain book of salomon the song of songs you as a learned man know into what sort of temporary allegory they would contrive to twist how the bride's eyes were to mean the scribes who were full of wisdom as the bulls of hashburn were of water and her statue spreading like a palm tree the priests who spread out their hands when blessing the people and the left hand which should be under her head the tefillim which these old patents wore on their left wrists and the right hand which should hold her the mesusa which they fixed on the right side of their doors to keep of devils and so forth i have heard of such silly cabalism certainly you have then suppose that i went on and saw in my dream how the same academic and unbeliever being himself also a hebrew of the hebrews snatched the roll out of the rabbis hands and told them that they were party of fools for trying to set forth what the book might possibly mean before they had found out what it really did mean and that they could only find out that by looking honestly at the plain words to see what salomon meant by it and then suppose that the same apostate jew this member of the synagogue of satan in his carnal and lawless imaginations had waxed elegant with the eloquence of devils and told them that the book set forth to those who had eyes to see how salomon the great king with his three score queens and four score concubines and virgins without number forgets all his seraglio and his luxury in pure and noble love for the undefiled who is but one and how as his eyes are opened to see that god made the one man for the one woman and the one woman to the one man even as it was in the garden of eden so all his heart and thoughts become pure and gentle and simple how the song of the birds and the scent of the grapes and the spices southern gales and all the simple country pleasures of the glens of lebanon which is here's with his own wine dressers and slaves become more precious in his eyes than all his palaces and artificial pomp and the man feels that he is in harmony for the first time in his life with the universe of god and with the mystery of the seasons that within him as well as without him the winter is past and the rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the earth and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land and suppose i saw in my dream how the rabbis when they heard those wicked words stop their ears with one accord and ran upon that son of villiar and cast him out because he blasphemed their sacred books by his carnal interpretations and suppose i only say suppose that i saw in my dream how the poor man said in his heart i will go to the christians they acknowledge the sacredness of this same book and they say that their god thought them that in the beginning god made man male and female perhaps they will tell me whether this song of songs does not as it seems to me to do show the passage above us from brutal polychemy to that monogamy which they so solemnly command and agree with me that it is because the song preach is this that it has a right to take its place among the holy writings you as a christian bishop should know what answer such a man would receive your silent then i will tell you what answer he seemed to receive in my dream oh blasphemous and carnal manner who pervert his holy scripture into a cloak for thine own licentiousness as if it spoke of man's base and sensual affections know that this book is to be spiritually interpreted of the marriage between the soul and its creator and that is from this very book that the catholic church derives her strongest arguments in favor of holy virginity and the glories of a celibate life senesius was still silent and what do you think i saw in my dream that the man did when he found these christians enforcing as a necessary article of practice as well as of faith a baseless and bombastic metaphor borrowed from that very neo platonism out of which he had just fled for his life he cursed the day he was born and the hour in which his father was told though has gotten a man child and said philosophers jews and christians farewell forever and a day the clearest words of your most sacred books mean anything or nothing as the case may suit your fancies and there is neither truth nor reason under the sun what better is therefore a man than to follow the example of his people and to turn usura and money getter and casual error of fools in his turn even as his father was before him senesius remained a while in deep thought and at last and yet you came to me i did because you have loved and married because you have stood out manfully against this strange modern insanity and refused to give up when you were made of bishop the wife whom god had given you you i thought could solve the riddle for me if any man could a last friend i have begun to distrust of late my power of solving riddles after all why should they be solved what matters one more mystery in a world of mysteries if though marry though has not seen our saint paul's own words and let them be enough for us do not ask me to argue with you but to help you instead of puzzling me with deep questions and tempting me to set up my private judgment as i have done too often already against the opinion of the church tell me your story and test my sympathy rather than my intellect i shall feel with you and work for you doubt not even though i am unable to explain to myself why i do it then you cannot solve my riddle let me help you said senesius with a sweet smile to solve it for yourself you need not try to deceive me you have a love an undefiled who is but one when you possess her you will be able to judge better whether your interpretation of the song is the true one and if you still think that it is senesius at least will have no quarrel against you he has always claimed for himself the right of philosophizing in private and he will allow the same liberty to you whether the mob do or not then you agree with me of course you do is it fair to ask me whether i accept a novel interpretation which i have only heard of five minutes ago delivered in a somewhat hasty and rhetorical form you are searching the question said raffaelt feverishly and what if i am tell me point blank the most self tormenting of men can i help you in practice even though i choose to leave you to yourself in speculation well then if you will have my story take it and judge for yourself of christian common sense and hurriedly as if ashamed of his own confession and yet compelled in spite of himself to unbosom it he told senesius all from his first meeting with fidcoria to his escape from her at berenice the good bishop to abien ezra's surprise seemed to treat the whole matter as infinitely amusing he chuckled smote his hand on his thigh and nodded approval at every pause perhaps to give the speaker courage perhaps because he really thought that raffaelt's prospects were considerably less desperate than he fancied if you love at me senesius i am silent it is quite enough to endure the humiliation of telling you that i am confounded like any boy of sixteen laugh at you with you you mean a convent the old prefect has enough sense i will warrant him not to refuse a good match for his child you forget that i have not the honor of being a christian then we'll make you one you won't let me convert you i know you always used to jive and jeer at my philosophy but augustin comes tomorrow augustin he does indeed and we must be off by daybreak with all the armed men we can must we can must to meet and escort him and to hunt of course going and coming for we have had no food this fourth night but what our own dogs and bows have furnished us he shall take you in hand and cure you of all your judaism in a week and then just leave the rest to me i will manage it somehow or other it is sure to come right no do not be bashful it will be real amusement to a pure wretch who can find nothing else to do hi ho and as for lying under an obligation to me why we can square that by your lending me three or four thousand gold pieces heaven knows i want them on the certainty of never seeing them again rafael could not help laughing in his turn synesius is himself still i see and not unworthy of his ancestor heracles and though he shrinks from cleansing the ogee against table of my soul posts like the warhorse in the valley at the hope of undertaking any lesser labors in my behalf but my dear generous bishop this matter is more serious and i the subject of it have become more serious also than you fancy consider by the uncorrupt honor of your spartan forefathers agis brazidas and the rest of them don't you think that you are in your hasty kindness tempted me to behave in a way which they would have called somewhat rascally how then my dear man you have a very honorable and place for the desire and i am willing to help you to compass it do you think that i have not cast about before now for more than one method of compassing it for myself my good man i have been tempted a dozen times already to turn christian but there has risen up in me the strangest fancy about conscience and honor i never was croplos before heaven knows i am not over scrupulous now except about her i cannot disemble before her i dare not look in her face when i had a lie in my right hand she looks through one into one like a clear eyed awful goddess i never was ashamed in my life till my eyes met hers but if you really became a christian i cannot i should suspect my own motives here is another of these absurd soul anatomizing scrupules which have risen up in me i should suspect that i had changed my creed because i wish to change it that if i was not deceiving her i was deceiving myself if i had not loved her it might have been different but now just because i do love her i will not i dare not listen to augustin's arguments or my own thoughts on the matter most wayward of men cry incidences half previously you seem to take some perverse pleasure in throwing for yourself into the waves again the instant you have climbed a rock of refuge pleasure is there any pleasure in feeling oneself at death grips with the devil i bet given up believing in him for many a year and behold the moment that i awaken to anything noble and right i find the old serpent alive and strong at my throat no wonder that i suspect him you myself i who have been tempted every hour in the last week temptations to become a devil i he went on raising his voice as all the fire of his intense eastern nature flashed from his black eyes to be a devil from my childhood till now never have i known what it was to desire and not to possess it is not often that i have had to travel any poor neighbor for his vineyard but when i have taken a fancy to it neighbor has always found it wiser to give away and now do you fancy that i have not had a dozen hairless plots flashing across me in the last week look here this is the mortgage of her father's whole estate i bought it whether by the instigation of satan or of god of a banker in berenice the very day i left them and now they and every straw which they possess are in my power i can ruin them sell them as slaves betray them to death as rebels and last but not least cannot i hire a dozen worthy men to carry her off and cut the gaudy and not most simply and summarily and yet i dare not i must be pure to approach the pure and right use to kiss the feet of the right use whence came this new conscience to me i know not but come it has and i dare no more do a base thing toward her than i dare to word a god if there be one this very mortgage i hate it occurs it now that i possess it the tempting devil burn it said senesius quietly at least used it never shall be compel her i am too proud or too honorable or something or other even to solicit her she must come to me tell me with her own lips that she loves me that she will take me and make me worthy of her she must have mercy on me of her own free will or let her pine and die in that accursed prison and then a scratch with the trusty old dagger for her father and another for myself will save him from any more superstitions and me from any more philosophic doubts for a few aeons of agey still we start again in new lives he i suppose as a jackass and i as a baboon what matter but unless i possess her by fair means god do so to me and more also if i attempt base ones god be with you my son in the noble warfare said senesius his eyes filling with kindly tears it is no noble warfare at all it is a base coward fear in one who never before feared man or devil and is now fallen low enough to be afraid of a helpless girl not so cried senesius in his turn it is a noble and a holy fear you fear her goodness could you see her goodness much less fear it where they're not a divine light within you which showed you what and how awful goodness was tell me no more rafael i ben Ezra that you do not fear god for he who fears virtue fears him whose likeness virtue is go on go on be brave and his strength will be made manifest in your weakness end of chapter 21 pat 1 chapter 21 part 2 of hypo asia this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org hypo asia by charles kingsley chapter 21 the squire bishop pat 2 it was late at night before senesius compelled his guest to retire after having warned him not to disturb himself if he heard the alarm bell ring as the house was well garrisoned and having set the water clock by which he and his servants measured their respective watches and then the good bishop having disposed his sentinels took his station on the top of his tower close by the warning bell and as he looked out over the broad lands of his forefathers and prayed that their desolation might come to an end at last he did not forget to pray for the desolation of the guest who slept below a happier and more healthy slumber than he had known for many a week for before rafael lay down that night he had torn to shreds majoricus's mortgage and felt a lighter and a better man as he saw the cunning temptation consuming scrap by scrap in the lamp flame and then wearied out with fatigue of body and mind he forgot senesius victoria and the rest and seemed to himself to wander all night among the vineyard glens of lebanon amid the gardens of lilies and the beds of spices while sephir's music lured him on and on and girlish voices chanting the mystic idyll of his mighty ancestor rang soft and fitful through his weary brain before sunrise the next morning rafael was fearing forth gallantly well armed and mounted by senesius's side followed by four or five braids of tall brass tail greyhounds and by the faithful bran whose lob ears and heavy jaws unique in that land of prick ears and fox noses formed the observing subject of conversation among some 20 smart retainers who armed to the teeth for chase and war rode behind the bishop on half-starved raw bone horses inured by desert training and bad times to do the maximum of work upon the minimum of food for the first few miles they rode in silence through ruined villages and desolated farms from which here and there a single inhabitant peeped forth fearfully to pour his tale of woe into the ears of the hapless bishop and then instead of asking alms from him to entreat his acceptance of some paltry remnant of grain or poultry which had escaped the hands of the marauders and as they clung to his hands and blessed him as their only hope and stay poor senesius heard patiently again and again the same purposeless tale of woe and mingled his tears with theirs and then spurred his horse on impatiently as if to escape from the sight of misery which he could not relieve while a voice in rafael's heart seemed to ask him why was thy wealth given to thee but that though mightest dry if for but a day such tears as these and he fell into a meditation which was not without its fruit in due season but which lasted till they had left the enclosed country and were climbing the slopes of the low rolling hills over which lay the road from the distant sea but as they left signs of war behind them the volatile temper of the good bishop began to rise he petted his hounds chatted to his men this course on the most probable quarter for finding game and exhorted them cheerfully enough to play the man as their chance of having anything to eat at night depended entirely on their prowess during the day ah said rafael at last glad of a pretext for breaking his own chain of painful thought there is a wane of your land salt i suspect that you were all at the bottom of the sea once and that the old earth's taken Neptune tired of your bad ways gave you a lift one morning and set you up as dry land in order to be rid of you it may really be so they say that the Argonauts returned back through this country from the southern ocean which must have been there for far nearer us than it is now and that they carried the mystic vessel over these very hills to the suities however we have forgotten all about the sea thoroughly enough since that time i will remember my first astonishment at the side of a galley in alexandria and the roar of slaughter with which my fellow students greeted my not unreasonable remark that it looked very like a centipede and do you really collect too the argument which i had once with your steward about the pickle fish which i brought you from egypt and the way in which when the jar was opened the servant shrieked and ran right and left declaring that the fish bones were the spines of poisonous serpents the old fellow is as obstinate as ever i assure you in his disbelief in salt water he comments me continually by asking me to tell him the story of my shipwreck and does not believe me after all though he has heard it a dozen times sir he said to me solemnly after you were gone will that strange gentleman pretend to persuade me that anything ethereal can come out of his great pond there at alexandria when everyone can see that the best fountain in the country never breeds anything but frogs and leeches as he spoke they left the last field behind them and entered upon a vast sheet of breezy down speckled with shrubs and cobs and split here and there by rocky clans ending in fertile valleys one stick with farms and homesteads here cried sinesius are our hunting grounds and now for one hour's forgetfulness and the joys of the noble art what could old home have been thinking of when he forgot to number it among the pursuits which are glorious to heroes and make a man illustrious and yet could lord in those very words the forum the forum setra file i never saw it yet make men anything but rascals brazen faced rascals my friend i detest the whole breed of lawyers and never meet one without turning him into ridicule a feminine petty foggers who shadow at the very sight of roast venison when they think of the dangers by which it has been procured but it is a cowardly age my friend a cowardly age let us forget it and ourselves and even philosophy and hypatia setra fell largely i have done with philosophy to fight like a heraclade and to die like a bishop is all i have left except hypatia the perfect the wise i tell you friend it is a comfort to me even in my deepest misery to recollect that the corrupt world yet holds one being so divine and he was running on in one of his high flowing laudations of his idol when rafael checked i fear our common sympathy on that subject is rather weakened i have begun to doubt her lately nearly as much as i doubt philosophy not her virtue no friend know her beauty know her vision on simply her power of making me a better man a selfish criterion you will say be it so what a noble horse that is of yours he has been he has been but worn out now like his master and his master's fortunes not so certainly the cult on which you have done me the honor to mount me ah my poor boy's pet you are the first person who has crossed him since is he your own breeding as rafael trying to turn the conversation a cross between that white nisayan which you sent me and one of my own mares not a bad cross though he keeps a little of the bullhead and greyhound flank of your africans so much to better friend give me bone bone and endurance for this rough down country your delicate nisayans are all very well for a few minutes over those flat sands of egypt but here you need a horse who will go 40 miles a day over rough and smooth and dine thankfully of thistles at night a ha poor little man as a gerbuah sprang up from a tuft of bushes at his feet i fear you must help to fill our soup kettle in these hard times and with the dexterous sweep of his long whip the worthy bishop in tang of the gerbuah's long legs whisked him up to his saddle bow and delivered him to the groom and the game back kill him at once don't let him squeak boy he cries too like a child poor little wretz said rafael what more right now have we to eat him than he to eat us if he can eat us let him try how long have you joined the many keys have no fears on that score but as i told you since my wonderful conversion by brander the dog i have begun to hold dumb animals in respect as probably quite as good as myself then you need further conversion friend rafael and to learn what is the dignity of man and when that arrives you will learn to believe with me that the life of every beast upon the face of the earth would be a cheap price to pay in exchange for the life of the meanest human being yes if they be required for food but really to kill them for our amusement friend when i was still a heathen i recall it well how i used to haggle at that story of the cursing of the fig tree but when i learned to know what man was and that i had been all my life mistaking for a part of nature that race which was originally and can be again made in the likeness of god then i began to see that it were well if every fig tree upon earth were cursed if the spirit of one man could be taught thereby a single lesson and so i speak of these my darling field sports on which i have not been ashamed as you know to write a book and a very charming one yet you were still a pagan record when you wrote it i was and then i followed the chase by mere nature and inclination but now i know i have a right to follow it because it gives me endurance promptness courage self-control as well as health and cheerfulness and therefore ah a fresh ostrich track and stopping short synesios began freaking slowly up the hillside back whispered he at last quietly and silently lie down on your horse's neck as i do or the long neck rogues may see you they must be close to us over the brow i know that favorite grassy slope of old round under your hill or they will get wind of us and then farewell to them and synesios and his groom can turn on hanging each to their horses necks by an arm and a leg in a way with raffaella endeavour in vain to imitate two or three minutes more of breathless silence brought them to the edge of the hill where synesios halted peered down a moment and then turned to raffaella his face and limbs covering with delight as he held up two fingers to denote the number of the birds out of arrow range slip the dog cyphax and in another minute raffaella found himself galloping headlong down the hill while two magnificent ostriches their outspread plumes waving in their bright breeze their neck stooped almost to the ground and their long legs flashing out behind them were sweeping away before the greyhounds at a pace which no mortal horse could have held for ten minutes baby that i am still cried synesios tears of excitement glittering in his eyes while raffaella gave himself up to the joy and forgot even victoria in the breadless rush over rock and bush sand hill and watercourse take care of that dry torrent bed hold up old horse this will not last two minutes more they cannot hold their pace against this breeze well try good dog though you did miss him ah that my boy were here there they double spread right and left my children and ride at them as they pass and the ostriches unable as synesios said to keep their pace against the breeze turn sharp on their pursuers and beating the air with outspread wings came down the wind again at rate even more wonderful than before ride at him raffaella ride at him and turn him into those bushes cried synesios fitting an arrow to his bow raffaella obeyed and the birds were into the lowest crab the well-trained horse leapt at him like a cat and raffaella who dare not trust his skill in archery struck with his whip at the long neck as it struggled past him and failed the noble quarry to the ground he was in the act of springing down to secure his prize when a shout from synesios stopped him are you mad he will kick out your heart let the dogs hold him where is the other ask raffaella panting where he ought to be i have not missed running shot for many a month really you rival the emperor camodus himself ah i tried his fancy of crescent headed arous ones and decapitated an ostrich or too tolerably but they are only fit for the amphitheater they will not lie safely in the river on horseback i find but what is that and he pointed to a cloud of white dust about a mile down the valley a herd of antelopes if so god is indeed gracious to us come down whatsoever they are we have no time to lose and collecting his scattered forces synesios pushed on rapidly towards the object which attracted his attention antelopes cried one wild horses cried another tame ones rather cried synesios with a gesture of wrath i saw the flash of arms the osurians and the yell of rage rang from the whole troop will you follow me children to death shouted they i know it oh that i had seven hundred of you as abraham had we would see them whether these scoundrels did not share within a week the fate of shadow lawmakers happy man who can actually trust your own slaves said raffaella as the party galloped on tightening their girdles and getting ready their weapons slaves if the law gives me the power of selling one or two of them who are not yet wise enough to be trusted to take care of themselves it is a fact which both i and they have long forgotten their fathers grew gray at my father's table and god grant that they may grow gray at mine we eat together work together hunt together fight together just together and weave together god help us all for we have but one common will now do you make out the enemy boys osurians your holiness the same party who tried mercenaries last week i know them by the helmets which they took from the markmen and with whom are they fighting no one could see fighting they certainly were but their victims were beyond them and the party galloped on that was a smart business at mercenaries the osurians appeared while the people were at mourning prayers the soldiers of course ran for their lives and hid in the caverns leaving the matter to the priests if they were of your presbytery i doubt not they proved themselves worthy of their dear season ah if all my priests were but like them or my people either says sinesius chatting quietly in full gallop like a true son of the saddle they offered up prayers for victory salute out at the head of the peasants and met the moors in a narrow pass there their hearts failed them a little those two stadecon makes them a speech charges the leader of the robbers like young david with a stone beats his brains out therewith strips him in true hameric fashion and routes to osurians with their leaders sword returns and erects a trophy in new classic form and saves the whole valley you should make him arc deacon i would send him and his townsfolk around the province if i could crown with laurel and proclaim before them at every marketplace these are men of god with whom can those osurians be dealing peasants would have been all killed long ago and soldiers would have run away long ago it is truly important in this country to see a fight last 10 minutes who can they be i see them now and hewing away like men too they are all on foot but too and we have not a cohort of infantry left for many a mile round i know who they are cried rafael suddenly striking spurs into his horse i will swear to that armor among a thousand and there is a litter in the midst of them on and fight men if you ever fought in your lives softly cry synesius trust an old soldier and perhaps alas that he should have to say it the best left in this wretched country round by the hollow and take the barbarians suddenly in flank they will not see us them till we are within 20 paces of them aha you have a thing or two to learn yet aben ezra and chuckling at the prospect of action the gallant bishop wheeled his little troop dashed out of the cops with a shout and a flight of arrows and rushed into the thickest of the fight end of chapter 21 part two