Philae—Karnak. Mourn rather that you have not seen the Rameses at Aboo Simbel, looking at which makes it so easy to think of God, the maker of the heavens and earth. Or why should you mourn at all? Let us go on to the river; and if I cannot sing—she laughed—because I have said I would not, yet I can tell you stories of Egypt.
Go on! Ay, till morning comes, and the evening, and the next morning! he said, vehemently.
Of what shall my stories be? Of the mathematicians?
Oh no.
Of the philosophers?
No, no.
Of the magicians and genii?
If you will.
Of war?
Yes.
Of love?
Yes.
I will tell you a cure for love. It is the story of a queen. Listen reverently. The papyrus from which it was taken by the priests of Philae was wrested from the hand of the heroine herself. It is correct in form, and must be true:
NE-NE-HOFRA.
I.
There is no parallelism in human lives.
No life runs a straight line.
The most perfect life develops as a circle, and terminates in its beginning, making it impossible to say, This is the commencement, that the end.
Perfect lives are the treasures of God; of great days he wears them on the ring-finger of his heart hand.
II.
Ne-ne-hofra dwelt in a house close by Essouan, yet closer to the first cataract—so close, indeed, that the sound of the eternal battle waged there between river and rocks was of the place a part.
She grew in beauty day by day, so that it was said of her, as of the poppies in her father’s garden, What will she not be in the time of blooming?
Each year of her life was the beginning of a new song more delightful than any of those which went before.
Child was she of a marriage between the North, bounded by the sea, and the South, bounded by the desert beyond the Luna mountains; and one gave her its passion, the other its genius; so when they beheld her, both laughed, saying, not meanly, ‘She is mine,’ but generously, ‘Ha, ha! she is ours.’
All excellences in nature contributed to her perfection and rejoiced in her presence. Did she come or go, the birds ruffled their wings in greeting; the unruly winds sank to cooling zephyrs; the white lotus rose from the water’s depth to look at her; the solemn river loitered on its way; the palm-trees, nodding, shook all their plumes; and they seemed to say, this one, I gave her of my grace; that, I gave her of my brightness; the other, I gave her of my purity: and so each as it had a virtue to give.
At twelve, Ne-ne-hofra was the delight of Essouan; at sixteen, the fame of her beauty was universal; at twenty, there was never a day which did not bring to her door princes of the desert on swift camels, and lords of Egypt in gilded barges; and, going away disconsolate, they reported everywhere, ‘I have seen her, and she is not a woman, but Athor herself.’
III.
Now of the three hundred and thirty successors of good King Menes, eighteen were Ethiopians, of whom Oraetes was one hundred and ten years old. He had reigned seventy-six years. Under him the people thrived, and the land groaned with fatness of plenty. He practised wisdom because, having seen so much, he knew what it was. He dwelt in Memphis, having there his principal palace, his arsenals, and his treasure-house. Frequently he went down to Butos to talk with Latona.
The wife of the good king died. Too old was she for perfect embalmment; yet he loved her, and mourned as the inconsolable; seeing which, a colchyte presumed one day to speak to him.
‘O Oraetes, I am astonished that one so wise and great should not know how to cure a sorrow like this.’
‘Tell me a cure,’ said the king.
Three times the colchyte kissed the floor, and then he replied, knowing the dead could not hear him, ‘At Essouan lives Ne-ne-hofra, beautiful as Athor the beautiful. Send for her. She has refused all the lords and princes, and I know not how many kings; but who can say no to Oraetes?’
IV.
Ne-ne-hofra descended the Nile in a barge richer than any ever before seen, attended by an army in barges each but a little less fine. All Nubia and Egypt, and a myriad from Libya, and a host of Troglodytes, and not a few Macrobii from beyond the Mountains of the Moon, lined the tented shores to see the cortege pass, wafted by perfumed winds and golden oars.
Through a dromos of sphinxes and couchant double-winged lions she was borne, and set down before Oraetes sitting on a throne specially erected at the sculptured pylon of the palace. He raised her up, gave her place by his side, clasped the uraeus upon her arm, kissed her, and Ne-ne-hofra was queen of all queens.
That was not enough for the wise Oraetes; he wanted love, and a queen happy in his love. So he dealt with her tenderly, showing her his possessions, cities, palaces, people; his armies, his ships: and with his own hand he led her through his treasure-house, saying, ‘O. Ne-ne-hofra! but kiss me in love, and they are all thine.’
And, thinking she could be happy, if she was not then, she kissed him once, twice, thrice—kissed him thrice, his hundred and ten years notwithstanding.
The first year she was happy, and it was very short; the third year she was wretched, and it was very long; then she was enlightened: that which she thought love of Oraetes was only daze of his power. Well for her had the daze endured! Her spirits deserted her; she had long spells of tears, and her women could not remember when they heard her laugh; of the roses on her cheeks only ashes remained; she languished and faded gradually, but certainly. Some said she was haunted by the Erinnyes for cruelty to a lover; others, that she was stricken by some god envious of Oraetes. Whatever the cause of her decline, the charms of the magicians availed not to restore her, and the prescript of the doctor was equally without virtue. Ne-ne-hofra was given over to die.
Oraetes chose a crypt for her up in the tombs of the queens; and, calling the master sculptors and painters to Memphis, he set them to work upon designs more elaborate than any even in the great galleries of the dead kings.
‘O thou beautiful as Athor herself, my queen!’ said the king, whose hundred and thirteen years did not lessen his ardor as a lover, ‘Tell me, I pray, the ailment of which, alas! thou art so certainly perishing before my eyes.’
‘You will not love me any more if I tell you,’ she said, in doubt and fear.
‘Not love you! I will love you the more. I swear it, by the genii of Amente! by the eye of Osiris, I swear it! Speak!’ he cried, passionate as a lover, authoritative as a king.
‘Hear, then,’ she said. ‘There is an anchorite, the oldest and holiest of his class, in a cave near Essouan. His name is Menopha. He was my teacher and guardian. Send for him, O Oraetes, and he will tell you that you seek to know; he will also help you find the cure for my affliction.’
Oraetes arose rejoicing. He went away in spirit a hundred years younger than when he came.
V.
‘Speak!’ said Oraetes to Menopha, in the palace at Memphis.
And Menopha replied, ‘Most mighty king, if you were young, I should not answer, because I am yet pleased with life; as it is, I will say the queen, like any other mortal, is paying the penalty of a crime.’
‘A crime!’ exclaimed Oraetes, angrily.
Menopha bowed very low.
‘Yes; to herself.’
‘I am not in mood for riddles,’ said the king.
‘What I say is not a riddle, as you shall hear. Ne-ne-hofra grew up under my eyes, and confided every incident of her life to me; among others, that she loved the son of her father’s gardener, Barbec by name.’
Oraetes’s frown, strangely enough, began to dissipate.
‘With that love in her heart, O king, she came to you; of that love she is dying.’
‘Where is the gardener’s son now?’ asked Oraetes.
‘In Essouan.’
The king went out and gave two orders. To one oeris he said, ‘Go to Essouan and bring hither a youth named Barbec. You will find him in the garden of the queen’s father;’ to another, ‘Assemble workmen and cattle and tools, and construct for me in Lake Chemmis an island, which, though laden with a temple, a palace, and a garden, and all manner of trees bearing fruit, and all manner of vines, shall nevertheless float about as the winds may blow it. Make the island, and let it be fully furnished by the time the moon begins to wane.’
Then to the queen he said,
‘Be of cheer. I know all, and have sent for Barbec.’
Ne-ne-hofra kissed his hands.
‘You shall have him to yourself, and he you to himself; nor shall any disturb your loves for a year.’
She kissed his feet; he raised her, and kissed her in return; and the rose came back to her cheek, the scarlet to her lips, and the laughter to her heart.
VI.
For one year Ne-ne-hofra and Barbec the gardener floated as the winds blew on the island of Chemmis, which became one of the wonders of the world; never a home of love more beautiful; one year, seeing no one and existing for no one but themselves. Then she returned in state to the palace in Memphis.
‘Now whom lovest thou best?’ asked the king.
She kissed his cheek and said, ‘Take me back, O good king, for I am cured.’
Oraetes laughed, none the worse, that moment, of his hundred and fourteen years.
‘Then it is true, as Menopha said: ha, ha, ha! it is true, the cure of love is love.’
‘Even so,’ she replied.
Suddenly his manner changed, and his look became terrible.
‘I did not find it so,’ he said.
She shrank affrighted.
‘Thou guilty!’ he continued. ‘Thy offense to Oraetes the man he forgives; but thy offence to Oraetes the king remains to be punished.’
She cast herself at his feet.
‘Hush!’ he cried. ‘Thou art dead!’
He clapped his hands, and a terrible procession came in—a procession of parachistes, or embalmers, each with some implement or material of his loathsome art.
The King pointed to Ne-ne-hofra.
‘She is dead. Do thy work well.’
VII.
Ne-ne-hofra the beautiful, after seventy-two days, was carried to the crypt chosen for her the year before, and laid with her queenly predecessors; yet there was no funeral procession in her honor across the sacred lake.
*
At the conclusion of the story, Ben-Hur was sitting at the Egyptian’s feet, and her hand upon the tiller was covered by his hand.
Menopha was wrong, he said.
How?
Love lives by loving.
Then there is no cure for it?
Yes. Oraetes found the cure.
What was it?
Death.
You are a good listener, O son of Arrius.
And so with conversation and stories, they whiled the hours away. As they stepped ashore, she said,
Tomorrow we go to the city.
But you will be at the games? he asked.
Oh yes.
I will send you my colors.
With that they separated.