A Thorny Path — Complete by Georg Ebers (howl and other poems txt) 📖

song by singing Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite. Pale, and as if obeying some strange compulsion, she seated herself at the instrument, and the prelude sounded clear and tuneful from her skillful fingers.

“Beautiful! Worthy of Mesomedes!” cried Caracalla, but Melissa could not sing, for at the first note her voice was broken by stormy sobs.

“The power of the goddess whom she meant to extol!” said Philostratus, pointing to her; and the tearful, beseeching look with which she met the emperor’s gaze while she begged him in low tones—“Not now! I can not do it to-day!”—confirmed Caracalla in his opinion that the passion he had awakened in the maiden was in no way inferior to his own-perhaps even greater. He relieved his full heart by whispering to Melissa a passionate, “I love you,” and, desiring to show her by a favor how kindly he felt toward her, added: “I will not let your fellow-citizens wait outside any longer—Adventus! The deputation from the Circus!”

The chamberlain withdrew at once, and the emperor throwing himself back on the throne, continued, with a sigh:

“I wonder how any of these rich tradesmen would like to undertake what I have already gone through this day. First, the bath; then, while I rested, Macrinus’s report; after that, the inspection of the sacrifices; then a review of the troops, with a gracious word to every one. Scarcely returned, I had to receive the ambassadors from my mother, and then came the troublesome affair with Vindex. Then the dispatches from Rome arrived, the letters to be examined, and each one to be decided on and signed. Finally the settling of accounts with the idiologos, who, as high-priest of my choosing, has to collect the tribute from all the temples in Egypt.... Next I gave audience to several people—to your father among the rest. He is strange, but a thorough man, and a true Macedonian of the old stock. He repelled both greeting and presents, but he longed to be revenged—heavily and bloodily—on Zminis, who denounced him and brought him to the galleys.... How the old fellow must have raged and stormed when he was a prisoner! I treated the droll old gray-beard like my father. The giant pleases me, and what skillful fingers he has on his powerful hands! He gave me that ring with the portraits of Castor and Pollux.”

“My brothers were the models,” remarked Melissa, glad to find something to say without dissembling.

Caracalla examined the stone in the gold ring more closely, and exclaimed in admiration: “How delicate the little heads are! At the first glance one recognizes the hand of the happily gifted artist. Your father’s is one of the noblest and most refined of the arts. If I can raise a statue to a lute-player, I can do so to a gem-cutter.”

Here the deputation for the arrangement of the festival was announced, but the emperor, calling out once more, “Let them wait,” continued:

“You are a handsome race—the men powerful, the women as lovely as Aphrodite. That is as it should be! My father before me took the wisest and fairest woman to wife. You are the fairest—the wisest?—well, that too, perhaps. Time will show. But Aphrodite never has a high forehead, and, according to Philostratus, beauty and wisdom are hostile sisters with you women.”

“Exceptions,” interposed the philosopher, as he pointed to Melissa, “prove the rule.”

“Describe her in that manner to my mother,” said Caracalla. “I would not let you go from me, were you not the only person who knows Melissa. I may trust in your eloquence to represent her as she deserves. And now,” he continued, hurriedly, “one thing more. As soon as the deputation is dismissed and I have received a few other persons, the feast is to begin. You would perhaps be entertained at it. However, it will be better to introduce you to my ‘friends’ after the marriage ceremony. After dark, to make up for it, there is the Circus, to which you will, of course, accompany me.”

“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed the maiden, frightened and unwilling. But Caracalla cried, decisively: “No refusal, I must beg! I imagine that I have proved sufficiently that I know how to shield you from what is not fitting for a maiden. What I ask of you now is but the first step on the new path of honor that awaits you as future empress.”

Melissa raised both voice and hands in entreaty, but in vain. Caracalla cut her short, saying in authoritative tones:

“I have arranged everything. You will go to the Circus. Not alone with me-that would give welcome work to scandalous tongues. Your father shall accompany you—your brothers, too, if you wish it. I shall not join you till after the performance has begun. Your fellow-citizens will divine the meaning of this visit. Besides, Theocritus and the rest have orders to acquaint the people with the distinction that awaits you and the Alexandrians. But why so pale? Your cheeks will regain their color in the Circus. I know I am right—you will leave it delighted and enthralled. You have only to learn for the first time how the acclamations of tens of thousands take hold upon the heart and intoxicate the senses. Courage, courage, Macedonian maiden! Everything grand and unexpected, even unforeseen happiness, is alarming and bewildering. But we become accustomed even to the impossible. A strong spirit like yours soon gets over anything of the kind. But the time is running on. One word more: You must be in the Circus by sunset. In any case, you must be in your place before I come. Adventus will see that you have a chariot or a litter, whichever you please. Theocritus will be waiting at the entrance to lead you to your seats.”

Melissa could restrain herself no longer, and, carried away by the wild conflict of passions in her breast, she threw control and prudence to the winds, and cried:

“I will not!” Then throwing back her head as if to call the heavens to witness, she raised her great, wide-open eyes and gazed above.

But not for long. Her bold defiance had roused Caesar’s utmost fury, and he broke out with a growl of rage:

“You will not, you say? And you think, unreasoning fool, that this settles the matter?”

He uttered a wild laugh, pressed his hand firmly on his left eyelid, which began to twitch convulsively, and went on in a lower but defiantly contemptuous tone:

“I know better! You shall! And you will not only go to the Circus, but you will do it willingly, or at least with smiling lips. You will start at sunset! At the time appointed I shall find you in your place. If not!—Must I begin so soon to teach you that I can be serious? Have a care, girl! You are dear to me; yet—by the head of my father!—if you defy me, my Numidian lion-keepers shall drag you to the place you belong to!”

Thus far Melissa had listened to the emperor’s raging with panting bosom and quivering nostrils, as at a performance, which must sooner or later come to an end; and now she broke in regardless of the consequences:

“Send for them,” she cried, “and order them to throw me to the wild beasts! It will doubtless be a welcome surprise to the lookers-on. Which of them can say they have ever seen the daughter of a free Roman citizen who never yet came before the law, torn to pieces in the sand of the arena? They