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 THE 
 
 TEMPLE OF GNIDUS, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU.
 
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 Car Riien Jfl
 
 Charles de Secondat 
 BARON DE MONTESQI 
 
 i, Srac/ua. twn HeJera; , nan, tnncant a/cula. Concha: c 3
 
 THE 
 
 TEMPLE OF GNIDUS; 
 
 FOLLOWED BY 
 
 CEPHISA AND CUPID, AND ARSACES 
 AND ISMENIA. 
 
 C. DE SECONDAT, BARON DE MONTESQUIEU, 
 
 WITH *A 
 
 OCTAVE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH THE ORIGINAL COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS 
 FROM THE DESIGNS OF C. EISEN AND LE BARBIER. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 nZETELLT fcf CO., 16, HEN^IETT^f STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 LETTER TO A LADY BY WAY OF PREFACE . . vii 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE, BY OCTAVE UZANNE . xxi 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GNIDUS ... 25 
 CEPHISA AND CUPID *. . . . 67 
 
 ARSACES AND ISMENIA .... 71 
 
 2021051
 
 LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 CHARLES DE SECONDAT, BARON DE MONTESQUIEU . Frontispiece. 
 THE TEMPLE OF GNIDUS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ENGRAVED TITLE. 
 
 CANTO I. THE NUPTIALS OF VULCAN AND VENUS . . 25 
 
 CANTO II. THE ORACLE OF VENUS 35 
 
 CANTO III. VENUS BESTOWING THE PRIZE OF BEAUTY . 38 
 CANTO IV. THE DREAM OF THEMIRA'S LOVER . . -44 
 
 CANTO V. ARIST^US AND CAMILLA 51 
 
 CANTO VI. THE CAVERN OF JEALOUSY 56 
 
 CANTO VII. THEMIRA AND HER LOVER IN THE WOOD . 62 
 
 CEPHISA AND CUPID 
 
 CEPHISA CLIPPING CUPID'S PINIONS 67 
 
 CUPID IN THE ARMS OF VENUS 6g 
 
 ARSACES AND ISMENIA 
 
 ARDASIRA THREATENING TO DESTROY HERSELF . . -70 
 ARSACES SOLICITING THE SPURIOUS PRINCESS ... 95 
 THE DEATH OF THE TYRANT PRINCE 103
 
 LETTER TO <A L^DT 
 
 OF 
 
 'O Venus Regina Gnidi Paphique 1 "Horace 
 
 HE author of The Persian Letters, that 
 passionate lover of antiquity, was we 
 are assured, ever ready to say like 
 Pliny : " it is to Athens that you are 
 bound ; respect the gods." To-day, 
 Madam, we are about to repair to 
 Gnidus, to a pretty temple of pink 
 marble, with a rococo pediment covered with cupids not 
 a Parthenon corresponding with a temple of the Virgin, 
 but an edifice of less haughty majesty and more entrancing 
 aspect. And there is no need for me to parody Pliny and 
 Montesquieu and murmur in your ear, " Respect the 
 goddess," for I am aware that you are fully disposed to 
 revere a divinity to whom your beauty renders perpetual 
 homage.
 
 viii LSTTS^ TO 
 
 Picture the departure for Cythera, in a world where 
 everything is exquisitely conventional. Here dancing 
 upon the crystal waters appear the nacreous shells of 
 Venus, which her white doves will presently conduct. 
 The balmy and breezeless atmosphere is charged with 
 subtle perfumes. With delicious harmony the nymphs 
 and dryads mingle their voices in the depths of the woods, 
 and far away in the blurred distance the bluey land of 
 dreams one can espy the coquettish little altar, lighted 
 by a soft ruby tinted sun, whither we are about to repair 
 on pilgrimage. 
 
 Quickly don that Watteau costume which becomes you 
 so well, and those vair-trimmed shoes worthy of Cinderella. 
 Skilfully place a few patches on your cheeks to ensure a 
 languid glance or an ironical smile. Scatter a cloudlet of 
 powder in your hair, that your black velvetty eyes may 
 acquire a more voluptuous expression beneath the snowy 
 hoar so truly charming. Take, I pray you, that fantas- 
 tical Chinese fan, and let us start. 
 
 What ! you have not read the little Greek book I sent 
 you ? " What times are ours," said the author, " when 
 there are so many judges and critics and so few readers ? " 
 Still, I will not scold you too severely for not having filled 
 up this blank in your stock of erudition indeed, how 
 could I do so since to your charming negligence I owe the 
 great happiness of serving as your guide to the book, the 
 perusal of which you are about to begin like the pretty 
 delicate gourmet you are, with a taste for delightful trifles. 
 
 I suspect that, like myself, you already know the 
 celebrated President de Montesquieu by his works, The 
 Spirit of the Laws, The Essay upon Taste, and the Familiar 
 Letters; however that may be, I cannot refrain from
 
 'BY w^ir OF 
 
 placing before you this malicious literary pastel, forming 
 part of the portrait-gallery of that querulous but witty 
 monkey, the little Abbe de Voisenon : 
 
 " Montesquieu is one of the men who have conferred the 
 most honour upon France. He is not like those authors 
 who incessantly revolve in the same circle and spend their 
 lives in re-writing the same one book under twenty 
 different titles. The Temple of Gnidus, The Persian 
 Letters, The Decline of the Romans, and the Spirit of the 
 Laws are all four of very different styles. The author 
 appears in turn as the painter of the Graces, as a shrewd 
 and amusing censor, as a philosophical historian, and as a 
 learned legislator. He was elected a member of the 
 French Academy for having written The Persian Letters, 
 but on the condition that he would disavow them; and 
 The Temple of Gnidus procured him the favours of beauty 
 upon condition that he should keep his good fortune a 
 secret. He was very fond of women, and extremely well 
 acquainted with men, whom he consequently held in scant 
 esteem. However, as he was not unsociable, he con- 
 sorted with them, being indeed of the opinion that we need 
 the society of our fellow creatures. He was so fond a 
 father that in all good faith he believed his son to be 
 superior to himself. He was an affectionate and firm 
 friend. His converse was diversified like his writings. 
 ~ He was gay and thoughtful in turn, an adept in argument, 
 and at the same time a ready narrator. He was also 
 extremely absent-minded. He started one day from Fon- 
 tainebleau and sent his carriage on before him, purposing 
 to follow it upon foot for an hour or so, in view of taking 
 exercise. He thus went as far as Villejuif, fancying that 
 
 he had gone no farther than Chailly. His book, the 
 
 B 2
 
 x LETTER TO <A L.A'DT 
 
 Spirit of the Laws, has been translated into every language 
 and will become a classical work in every country, despite 
 the clamour of devotees and the criticisms of the Sorbonne, 
 of Freron, and even of M. Dupin. The Gazette Ecclesias- 
 tique considered it necessary to censure this work severely 
 out of Christian charity ; whereupon the President de 
 Montesquieu made so bold as to reply by an apology 
 which is a model of eloquence and delicate wit. When 
 the Jansenist writer of the criticism in the Gazette found 
 himself thus confounded, he declared that the President 
 was an Atheist. M. de Montesquieu died, however, 
 professing Christian sentiments, and saying that the 
 morality of the New Testament was excellent and the 
 finest gift that God could have made to man ! In spite 
 of this, those who are expert in such matters assert that 
 he is damned." 
 
 Is not the Abbe's pen and ink sketch delicately executed ? 
 One may especially commend the final shaft "Those 
 who are expert in such matters assert that he is damned." 
 Voisenon himself " that little handful of fleas," as 
 the Marquis de Polignac called him was very expert 
 in regard to damnation. Did he not carry his dissolute 
 behaviour into the hermitage of the Favarts, and the fiend 
 alone knows how shrewd and cunning he then proved. 
 But I must call your attention to a remark which I am 
 bound to explain to you : " The Temple of Gnidus,' 1 says 
 Voisenon, " procured him the favours of beauty upon the 
 condition that he should keep his good fortune a secret." 
 This is, indeed, one of those bitterly ironical remarks an 
 example of the nescio quid acetum, which is to be found 
 throughout the writings of the author of Sultan Misapouf. 
 It leads me to relate to you without further preamble the
 
 -BY WtAT OF T%F,ACe. xi 
 
 origin of this pretty Temple of Gnidus, which you are about 
 to peruse so devoutly. 
 
 Montesquieu, who penned the charming mot : " I am in 
 love with friendship," was also the friend, indeed, the great 
 friend, of love, and I can easily support this statement by 
 quoting to you these various avowals which he has made 
 in his works : " In my youth," he says, " I was sufficiently 
 fortunate to attach myself to women who, to my belief, 
 loved me ; as soon as I ceased to believe this I abruptly 
 drew away from them." Farther on he writes : " I have 
 been rather fond of saying soft things to women, and of 
 rendering them those services which cost one so little." 
 Again : " At the age of five-and-thirty I was still in love." 
 Couple the foregoing declarations with this one : " I have 
 been so foolish as to write books and to feel ashamed of 
 them when I had written them " and then you will in 
 some wise have the synthesis of The Temple of Gnidus. 
 
 I will not assert with serene assurance like Voisenon 
 that this pretty poem in prose procured its author the 
 favours of women ; I rather incline to the belief that it 
 was a piece of good fortune of the kind that induced the 
 President to erect this dainty little temple as an ex voto to 
 the divinity of Paphos. 
 
 Montesquieu was over four-and-thirty when he penned 
 this Grecian booklet, which appears to have had a key, 
 nowadays as difficult to find intact as that of The 
 Dangerous Connections, lost no one knows where ; and 
 this key would appear to have been formed of the following 
 alloy age : 
 
 " President-a-Mortier " of the Bordeaux Parliament 
 since the year 1716, already renowned for his wit and 
 literary talents, Montesquieu towards 1723 was made
 
 xii LSTTS^ TO *A L^A'DT 
 
 welcome and much of both in Paris and at Court. He 
 also had free access to Chantilly, and those were the 
 palmy days of Chantilly, which the precieuses of the 
 previous century had named Cyprus, at the period when 
 the Duchess de Longueville was sighing in the arbours of 
 Sylvia. But in Montesquieu's time there was less preciosite 
 and more gallantry in this princely abode. Here the 
 Marchioness de Prie reigned, and in the brilliant dissolute 
 little Court around her a prominent place was held by 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont, sister of the Duke de Bourbon, 
 who became Minister to Louis XV. upon the death of the 
 Regent. 
 
 I might here weave a romance or some kind of fairy tale 
 to interest you ; but this would be treating you like a child, 
 or turning you into a dupe ; so I will content myself with 
 simply chronicling the facts to allay your impatience, and 
 keep this epistle within bounds. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont was about twenty-seven years 
 of age at the time I speak of. Natier painted her at this 
 period in all her nymph-like freshness, amid an allegorical 
 scene in which Youth and Love were shown attentive to her 
 service. Nothing can be more graceful and more 
 provoking than her voluptuous face as it appears amid 
 these surroundings borrowed from Grecian mythology. 
 You are no doubt acquainted with this curious painting 
 which has often been engraved ; it is perfect, and would 
 have furnished a fitting frontispiece for The Temple of 
 Gnidus, since she whom it represents inspired that dainty 
 masterpiece. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont was not, however, one of 
 those ideal vestals who kindle fires but to fan the flames, 
 and never extinguish them. The example set her by her
 
 <BT W<AY OF 
 
 two brothers, the Duke de Bourbon and the Count de 
 Clermont was in no wise calculated to ensure the practice 
 of virtue. A friend of Madame de Prie, the wittiest 
 but also the most cunning and most perverted of 
 marchionesses, participating in every diversion, joining in 
 the hunting parties during the day-time, and in the little 
 orgies at night, elbowing the damsels of the opera, and 
 listening to scandalous tales and anecdotes, Mademoiselle 
 de Clermont had already tripped upon one occasion, falling 
 into the arms of the Duke de Melun, who had subsequently 
 died from an accident in the hunting field July, 1722. 
 This adventure alone would be of small importance, 
 but the author of a Histoire de Montesquieu adds: "She 
 ate a great deal, she drank more than was good for her, 
 and she composed songs of so filthy a character that the 
 king called her ' The Muse of the Dunghill ! ' " 
 
 This is horrible ; and it must be supposed that this dragon 
 of vice could, when she chose, exercise great powers of 
 fascination, since Montesquieu succumbed to her like the 
 Duke de Melun had done. History has chronicled the 
 fact that he was wont to kiss Mademoiselle de Clermont 
 on the lips, and the rough drafts of three of his letters, 
 published in recent times, 1 show us that there was a 
 thorough intrigue between them. The first of these letters 
 is a declaration in passionate language ; another alludes to 
 a tete-h-tete which was unfortunately interrupted by the 
 arrival of a visitor ; and the third, which is of a fragmentary 
 character, runs as follows : 
 
 " Your haughtiness does not intimidate me. Why 
 should I not live under the sway of her whom I love ? I 
 will comply with your orders in every respect. I am 
 
 1 Histoire de Montesquieu, by Louis Vian, Paris, 1875, pp. 76-77.
 
 xiv LBTTS,^ TO JL L,AT>r 
 
 sorry that your people do not start for Versailles and that I 
 am condemned to live so near to you without seeing you. 
 You wholly occupy my thoughts, you are both the worry 
 of my mind and the delight of my heart. 
 
 " Farewell, Madam, I should be happy if to-night but 
 it is of no avail for me to speak of my desires and my 
 regret." 
 
 Believe me, my dear Madam, Montesquieu's desires 
 were ultimately satisfied, and if he afterwards retained any 
 regret it was the regret one feels in stirring up the embers 
 of a passion that has been requited but is so no longer. 
 However, let us return to the little temple of which I have 
 promised you the history, to the work which Madame du 
 Deffant, imitating D'Alembert, called " The Apocalypse 
 of Gallantry." 
 
 The Count de Clermont and the Marchioness de Prie 
 took part in a burlesque mythological fete given at the 
 Chateau of Bell6bat in 1724. Voltaire, who contributed 
 some verses on this occasion verses set to music by the 
 village priest of Courdemanche, " whose head was full of 
 rhymes and melodies" afterwards penned a narrative of 
 this fete, couched in very obscene language, and boldly 
 offered a copy of his work to Mademoiselle de Clermont. 
 It was then that Montesquieu, in his indignation, erected 
 The Temple of Gnidus to show the cynical Voltaire how an 
 amorous subject should be treated, without offending 
 against the laws of decency. The Fete of Bellebat had 
 been sent to the Duke de Bourbon's sister ; and it was for her 
 alone that the President composed this voluptuous prose 
 poem of the Temple, the various scenes of which resemble 
 so many paintings by Boucher and Lancret, executed with 
 that delicacy of touch and displaying that freshness of
 
 <BT WtAY OF 
 
 colouring peculiar to the so-called " peintres des fetes 
 galantes." 
 
 This poem between the lines of which one could easily 
 read at the time of its publication literally teems with 
 allusions. Gnidus is Chantilly with its palace, its shady 
 underwoods, its groves, its fountains, its cosy little corners 
 where merry beauties disported themselves at blind man's 
 buff, at hide-and-seek, at swinging to and fro when 
 not engaged in more naughty and dangerous pastimes. 
 "There," says the writer, "the sacrifices are sighs and 
 the offerings are tender hearts. Each lover addresses his 
 vows to his mistress, and Venus receives them for her." 
 
 In the goddess one seems to recognise the proud 
 Marchioness de Prie 
 
 Get esprit juste, gracieux, 
 
 Solide dans le serieux 
 
 Et charmant dans les bagatelles 
 
 that haughty favourite who would not survive her disgrace 
 but died of despair, like a Cleopatra of the Regency, in 
 the bitterness of exile. The name of Themira is but 
 a transparent muslin mask set before Mademoiselle 
 de Clermont's face ; and Montesquieu was intimately 
 acquainted with the prototype of Aristseus (President 
 Renault, so it is said), and indeed with the originals of all 
 the characters whom he brings upon the scene. I will 
 add nothing further else I might rob you of the pleasure 
 which one derives from the unexpected ; and besides to 
 my mind, nothing can be more agreeable than to muse in 
 uncertainty upon the allusions of such a book as this. Your 
 imagination has already fled to the land of dreams and I 
 abandon it to its resources. It is more competent than all 
 the Cuviers of history to unravel the details of this 
 narrative of a passion long dead and buried.
 
 xvi Lerre^ ro <A 
 
 But lo ! here steps in the tiresome bibliographer, the 
 historian of books, learned in the genealogies of multi- 
 tudinous editions. Pray do not pout. I will exert myself 
 to make the lesson as short and as free from pedantry as 
 possible. I have no intention of emptying into your brain 
 a whole cartload of editions of every size and style, or 
 of compiling a list of the many piracies, squibs, and 
 repetitions to which Montesquieu's little book gave rise. 
 No, I will simply tell you what it is fitting you should not 
 remain ignorant of. There shall be no learned symphony, 
 merely a modest little overture before the rise of the 
 curtain. 
 
 The Temple of Gnidus was not intended for the press. 
 It was but an argument ad mulierem, and Montesquieu, in 
 penning it, displayed rather a lover's vanity than an 
 author's care. But curiosity pokes its nose everywhere, 
 exerting itself in proportion to the amount of mystery 
 and intrigue that it desires to unravel. Scarcely had 
 Mademoiselle de Clermont received the manuscript of her 
 admirer than numerous copies of it began to circulate in 
 society, and in September, 1724, a publication called 
 La Bibliotheque Fran$aise, appearing at Amsterdam, 
 published the full text, just referring to the author in the 
 following paragraph : " This composition has been too 
 well received by the public not to be included among those 
 fugitive writings which are worthy of being preserved. 
 We are assured that the style is that of the author who 
 gave us The Persian Letters" 
 
 The first separate edition of The Temple of Gnidus 
 appeared anonymously in Paris in the early part of the 
 following year. It was issued by Nicholas Simart, book- 
 seller, and comprised eighty-two pages, i2mo. Besides
 
 r W.AT OF 
 
 writing a preface, which you will find further on, 
 Montesquieu had slightly revised the text for this edition. 
 It was just referred to by Matthieu Marais who wrote as 
 follows in his Journal, under date April 10, 1725 : " The 
 Temple of Gnidus, a little semi-Grecian book, the allusions 
 of which are full of transparent obscenity. It is printed 
 with the King's approbation and privilege. It appeared 
 during Holy Week and caused a scandal. It is attributed 
 to President de Montesquieu of Bordeaux, author of The 
 Persian Letters." 
 
 It was very absurd and audacious on Marais' part to 
 talk of the obscenity of a work in which the Graces alone 
 reign supreme. Still the President would not acknowledge 
 himself to be the architect of the little Temple, declaring 
 that his time was otherwise employed, either in attending 
 to his judicial functions or in writing serious works. 
 Indeed, he had long been engaged upon his Spirit of the 
 Laws, and was upon the point of publishing his Considera- 
 tions upon the Greatness and Decline of the Romans. " With 
 reference to the works that are attributed to me," he wrote 
 to his friend Moncrif, " I am situated like La Fontaine- 
 Martel was in regard to the ridiculous characteristics 
 imputed to him. They are ascribed to me but I deny 
 them." The deceitful fellow ! That monster, the Marquis 
 de Sade, never more flatly denied the paternity of Justine. 
 
 Meanwhile The Temple of Gnidus went through numerous 
 editions and appeared at Paris, London, and Leyden with 
 Montesquieu's name upon the title-page. The father, 
 who, for fear of compromising himself, shrinks from 
 acknowledging his illegitimate offspring, is exposed to see 
 his child boldly assume his name upon attaining his 
 majority. As it is in human life so it is with books. The 
 
 C 2
 
 xviii LETTER TO *A 
 
 President at last acknowledged himself conquered and 
 even revised his preface, inserting in it the following 
 tender declaration : " With regard to the fair sex to whom 
 I am indebted for the few happy moments I have known 
 in life, I trust with all my heart that this work will please 
 it. I still adore the sex, and though it is no longer the 
 object of my occupations it is that of my regrets." 
 
 To complete these remarks I must quote the following 
 passage concerning The Temple of Gnidus from D'Alem- 
 bert's Elogium of Montesquieu. The great admirer of 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse shows himself favourable to 
 the tender lover of Mademoiselle de Clermont : "The 
 Temple of Gnidus," he says, " followed soon after The 
 Persian Letters. In the latter, Montesquieu had figured 
 as Horace, Theophrastes, and Lucian, in this new effort he 
 appeared as Ovid and Anacreon. He no longer purposed 
 depicting the despotic love of the East but the delicacy 
 and naivete of pastoral love, such as may exist in a heart 
 which has not yet been corrupted by intercourse with 
 mankind. Fearing, perhaps, that a picture of something 
 so foreign to our customs might appear tame and 
 monotonous the author has endeavoured to improve it by 
 giving it a gay and animated setting. He conducts the 
 reader to enchanted spots, which although they may be of 
 little interest to the ardent lover are of a nature to flatter 
 the imagination when the desires are satisfied. Carried 
 away by his subject, the writer has employed that 
 animated, figurative, poetical style, of which the romance 
 of Telemachus furnished us with the first pattern. We do 
 not know why certain censors of The Temple of Gnidus 
 should have asserted that it needed to be written in verse. 
 Poetical style, if by this term one understands as should
 
 <BY W<AY OF 
 
 be the case a style full of warmth and imagery, does not 
 need the uniform cadence of versification to prove 
 agreeable ; but if one merely understands by poetical 
 .style an abundance of useless epithets, cold, trivial 
 descriptions of Cupid's wings and bow, versification, 
 however rhythmical, will not impart any merit to such 
 writing as this. Life and soul will ever be wanting in it. 
 But whatever be the case in that respect, The Temple of 
 Gnidus being a species of poem in prose, it is for our most 
 celebrated writers in that department to decide what rank 
 it should occupy : it is deserving of such judges ; and for 
 our own part we believe that the pictures of this work 
 would successfully sustain one of the greatest tests that 
 can be applied to poetical descriptions that of being 
 conveyed to canvas. Moreover, what should be more 
 especially remarked in The Temple of Gnidus is that 
 Anacreon here shows himself both an observer and a 
 philosopher." 
 
 The fact that the book was " a poem in prose " became 
 a positive charge against Montesquieu, whom Voltaire, 
 author of The Temple of Taste, accused of treason 
 against poetry. But this was trivial criticism. Montes- 
 quieu did right to avoid the shoals and breakers which 
 only presumptuous mediocrity dares to brave. It was he 
 himself who wrote: " Poets are authors who make it their 
 business to fetter common sense and who bury reason 
 beneath ornaments, just as women were formerly entombed 
 in a mass of finery and jewels." And indeed, if in that 
 time of poetical insipidity anyone was more guilty than 
 others of treason, it was not Montesquieu, but Colardeau 
 who was destined to avenge him upon Voltaire. 
 
 I am not quite sure whether some madman did not
 
 xx LBTTE^ TO *A LtA'DY. 
 
 disguise Fenelon's Telemachus in alexandrines, but at all 
 events I know right well that Colardeau, the author of 
 The Trickery in Fashion, covered himself with ridicule by 
 arraying the Temple of Gnidus in a carnival dress of 
 paltry verses, worthy at the utmost of being cut up for 
 insertion in the " demon-crackers " and other sweetmeats 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 I shall not speak to you of the edition you are about to 
 examine a counterpart of one of the most wonderful 
 volumes of the last century one of the rare works only 
 found in the cabinets of wealthy bibliophilists. I perceive 
 that I have neglected to tell you many things in the course 
 of this hastily written letter, but I know that you willingly 
 forgive the absent-minded, and besides I agree with the 
 Prince de Ligne in thinking that women are too witty 
 already and need the curb. So I will stop here, the 
 better to restrain you the shortest lessons are said to be 
 the best. Now turn the page, for Montesquieu is awaiting 
 you to do you the honours of his Temple. Farewell, 
 Themira, we must part ! 
 
 OCTAVE UZANNE.
 
 FRENCH ambassador at the Sub- 
 lime Porte, well-known by his taste 
 for letters, purchased several Greek 
 manuscripts and took them with him 
 to France. Some of these manu- 
 scripts having fallen into my hands, 
 I found among them the work of which I here offer a 
 translation. 
 
 Few Greek poets have reached us. Many of them 
 perished in the destruction of the libraries, or through 
 the negligence of the families which possessed them. 
 
 From time to time we recover some fragments of 
 these treasures. Certain writings have even been found 
 in the tombs of their authors ; and, what amounts to 
 the same, this work was found among the books of 
 a Greek bishop. 
 
 * This is Montesquieu's original preface, he desiring it to be supposed 
 that the work was simply a translation from the Greek,
 
 xxii T^.AW SL-JiTO^S 
 
 This poem does not resemble any work of the kind 
 that we possess, though the rules which the poetical 
 authors found in nature are observed. 
 
 The description of Gnidus contained in the first Canto 
 is the more felicitous as it, so to say, gives birth to the 
 poem. It is not an adornment of the subject, but part 
 of the subject itself, thus being very different from those 
 foreign and far-fetched descriptions which the Ancients 
 so strongly blamed : 
 
 Purpureus late qui splendeat, unus et alter 
 Assuitur pannus. 
 
 The episodes of the second and third Cantos are also 
 the outcome of the subject, and the poet has proceeded 
 with so much art that the ornaments of his poem 
 are also necessary parts thereof. 
 
 There is as much art in the fourth and fifth Cantos. 
 The poet having to show Aristaeus narrating his amours 
 with Camilla does not allow the son of Autilochus 
 to recount his adventures farther than his meeting with 
 Themira, his object being to impart some variety to the 
 narratives. 
 
 The story of Aristaeus and Camilla is uncommon 
 inasmuch as it is purely a story of sentiments. 
 
 The crisis occurs in the sixth Canto, and the close is 
 very ably brought about in the seventh by a mere 
 glance from Themira. 
 
 The poet does not enter into details upon the 
 reconciliation of Aristseus and Camilla. He just
 
 mentions it, that the reader may know it has taken 
 place, but he adds nothing further, wishing to avoid a 
 defective uniformity. 
 
 The purpose of the poem is to show that we owe our 
 happiness to the sentiments of the heart, and not 
 to the pleasures of the senses, and that no bliss is 
 ever so complete that it may not be disturbed by 
 misadventures. 
 
 It should be remarked that the Cantos are not 
 separated from one another in the Greek manuscript, 
 which is very ancient. There is merely a note upon 
 the margin at the beginning of each of them. 
 
 Neither the name of the author nor the period at 
 which he lived is known. All that one can say on this 
 point is, that he was not prior to Sappho, since he 
 mentions her in his work. There is reason, however, 
 to believe that he lived prior to Terence, and that 
 the latter has imitated a passage at the close of the 
 second Canto ; for there is no proof that our author 
 was a plagiarist, whereas Terence stole from the 
 Greeks, to such an extent indeed, that in one of his 
 comedies he combined two plays by Menander. 
 
 I at first had the design of publishing the original 
 side by side with the translation; but I have been 
 advised to issue the Greek text in a separate edition 
 with the learned notes, which an erudite scholar is 
 preparing, and which will soon be ready for the light. 
 
 As for my translation, it is a faithful one. I considered
 
 that such beauties as I did not find in my author were 
 not beauties, and I selected the expressions which 
 seemed to me to render his meaning most closely, even 
 when these expressions were not of the best. 
 
 I was encouraged to make this translation by the 
 success which has attended that of Tasso. He who 
 made the latter will not take it amiss if I venture upon 
 the same course as himself. He has distinguished 
 himself in such a manner that he has nothing whatever 
 to fear, even from those whom he has invested with the 
 greatest spirit of emulation.
 
 Chant I .
 
 THE TEMTLE OF 
 
 NIDUS is the favourite abode of 
 Venus; she prefers it to that of 
 Paphos, or of Amathonta. She never 
 descends from Olympus without 
 visiting the Gnidians ; and she has 
 so much accustomed that happy 
 people to behold her, that they are no 
 longer affected with the sacred horror which 
 the presence of a deity inspires. Sometimes 
 she conceals herself in a cloud, but the 
 celestial odour which exhales from her locks, 
 perfumed with ambrosia, betrays the goddess. 
 The city stands in the midst of a country 
 upon which heaven has poured forth its 
 
 choicest blessings with a liberal hand : here 
 
 D 2
 
 26 TH TScMTLe OF 
 
 reign the glories of eternal spring ; the bountiful earth 
 anticipates every wish ; innumerable flocks feed on the 
 plains ; the winds breathe only to convey the perfume 
 of the flowers ; the birds sing with unceasing melody ; 
 you would think that the woqds were vocal ; the rivulets 
 murmur through the valleys ; a genial warmth makes 
 everything teem with life ; and pleasure is inhaled with 
 every breeze. 
 
 Near the city stands the palace of Venus. Vulcan 
 himself laid its foundations, and reared it for his false 
 spouse, when he wished to make her forget the cruel 
 affront that he had offered her in the presence of all 
 the gods. 
 
 It is impossible for a mortal to describe the beauties 
 of this palace : the Graces alone are equal to the task. 
 Gold and azure, and rubies and diamonds shine in 
 every corner but I am painting its riches, not its 
 beauties. 
 
 The gardens seem the work of enchantment : Flora 
 and Pomona have made them their peculiar care, and 
 they are cultivated by the nymphs of these goddesses : 
 the fruits grow under the hand that gather them, and 
 flowers succeed the fruits. When Venus walks in these 
 enchanted gardens, surrounded by her fair votaries, the 
 young Gnidian women, you would think that, in their 
 wanton sports, the delicate beauties of the delightful 
 place would be entirely destroyed ; but, by some secret 
 power, every injury is repaired in a moment. 
 
 Venus takes pleasure in beholding the artless dances 
 of the daughters of Gnidus ; her nymphs mingle among 
 them ; the goddess herself takes part in their sports ;
 
 THB TStMTLS OF g^I-7)US. 27 
 
 she lays aside the majesty of her divinity, seats 
 herself in the midst of them, and views with delight 
 the joy and innocence that reign in their hearts. 
 
 A spacious meadow is discovered at a distance, quite 
 enamelled with flowers ; these the shepherd comes to 
 gather with his fair shepherdess ; but the flower that 
 she gathers is always the most beautiful, and he fancies 
 that Flora has made it on purpose for her. 
 
 The river Cepheus waters this meadow, through 
 which he makes a thousand meanders. He stays the 
 flying shepherdesses, and forces them to give the tender 
 kiss they have promised him. 
 
 When the nymphs approach his banks, he stops ; he 
 smooths the undulation of his waters: but when any 
 one of them bathes, he becomes still more amorous, 
 and his waves surround her ; sometimes he swells that 
 he may the more perfectly embrace her ; he lifts her 
 up, he flies, he bears her away. Her alarmed com- 
 panions begin to weep ; but he supports her upon his 
 bosom ; and charmed with so precious a burden, he 
 carries her over his liquid plain, till at last, with sorrow 
 at being obliged to quit her, he sets her down in safety 
 on the shore, and relieves the anxiety of her weeping 
 companions. 
 
 Near this meadow there is a myrtle wood with a 
 thousand winding pathways. Hither come the love-sick 
 swains and the amorous shepherdesses, to relate the 
 story of their pleasing pains. Love, who consoles them, 
 leads them through paths that become more and more 
 retired. 
 
 At no great distance there is an ancient and sacred
 
 28 THE. TScMTLe OF 
 
 forest, into which the light of day can hardly penetrate. 
 Oaks, that look as if they were immortal, hide their 
 heads in the clouds. Here a religious awe takes 
 possession of the mind. You would think this spot had 
 been the dwelling-place of the gods before men came 
 forth from the bosom of the earth. 
 
 Upon issuing from the solemn obscurity of the wood, 
 a little hill presents itself, on which stands the temple 
 of Venus. The universe has nothing more sacred, 
 nothing more venerable than this place. 
 
 It was in this temple that the young Adonis first 
 appeared before Venus. The sweet poison instantly 
 darted into the heart of the goddess. " What ! " said 
 she, " must I love a mortal ? Alas ! I feel that I 
 adore him. Let no more vows be paid to me at 
 Gnidus ; no deity resides there but Adonis." 
 
 It was to this place that she summoned the Loves, 
 when, on the point of contending for the prize of 
 beauty, she consulted them and the Graces. She was 
 in doubt whether she should expose herself naked to 
 the eyes of the Trojan shepherd : she hid her cestus in 
 the tresses of her hair ; her nymphs sprinkled her with 
 perfumes ; she mounted her car drawn by swans, and 
 repaired to Phrygia. The shepherd was hesitating 
 between Juno and Pallas when Venus appeared ; he 
 looked, his eyes wandered, they were dazzled, they 
 became dim ; the golden apple dropped from his hand, 
 and fell at the feet of the goddess : he would have 
 spoken ; his confusion was decisive. 
 
 It was to this temple also that the young Psyche came 
 with her mother, when Cupid, who was fluttering about
 
 THE TScMTLS OF gO^I'DUS. 29 
 
 the gilded roof, found himself captivated with a look. 
 He felt all the pains he inflicts. " Is it thus," said he, 
 " that I wound ? I can no longer support my bow or 
 my arrows." He fell on the bosom of Psyche : 
 "Ah!" said he, "I begin to feel that I am the god 
 of pleasure." 
 
 Upon entering this temple we feel a secret charm 
 thrilling through the heart, which it is impossible to 
 describe : the soul is seized with rapturous sensations, 
 which even the gods do not feel, except when they 
 approach the celestial abodes. 
 
 The gayest and most exhilarating productions of 
 Nature conspire with the noblest and most perfect 
 works of art to produce this effect. 
 
 A hand, undoubtedly immortal, has everywhere 
 adorned this temple with paintings that seem imbued 
 with life. Here is represented the birth of Venus, the 
 rapture of the gods when they first saw her, her con- 
 fusion at finding herself naked, and that modesty which 
 takes precedence of all the other graces. 
 
 Here also are seen the loves of Mars and the goddess. 
 The painter has represented the god sitting in his 
 chariot, fierce and even terrible : Fame flies beside 
 him; Fear and Death march before his foaming 
 coursers. He pushes through the throng, and a cloud 
 of dust envelops him. On the other hand, we see him 
 languishingly reclining on a bed of roses : he smiles upon 
 Venus, and you would no longer know him but by some 
 features of the divinity still visible in his countenance. 
 The Pleasures fashion garlands, with which they bind 
 the two lovers ; the eyes of the latter are fixed ; they
 
 30 THS TEcMTLS OF 
 
 sigh ; and, entirely occupied with each other, they pay 
 no heed to the little Loves that flutter around them. 
 
 There is a retired apartment in which the painter has 
 portrayed the marriage of Venus and Vulcan. The 
 whole celestial court is assembled there : the god seems 
 less gloomy than usual, but not less pensive. The 
 goddess views the general mirth without partaking of it : 
 she allows her lame lover to take her hand ; he looks 
 as if he had stolen it ; she raises her eyes, uncertain 
 where to fix them ; at last she turns them towards the 
 Graces. 
 
 In another picture we see Juno performing the 
 marriage ceremony. Venus takes the cup to swear 
 eternal fidelity to Vulcan, who hears her with rapture. 
 The gods look at one another and laugh. 
 
 In another piece we find the god who has become 
 impatient, seizing in his arms his divine spouse ; she 
 makes so much resistance that you would think she was 
 the daughter of Ceres, whom Pluto is about to ravish ; 
 but the eye that sees Venus can never be deceived. 
 
 Farther on we view Vulcan bearing her away, to 
 deposit her on the nuptial couch. The gods throng 
 around ; the goddess continues to resist ; she struggles, 
 and endeavours to escape from the arms that enfold her ; 
 her robe streams about her and her knees are exposed ; 
 but Vulcan immediately repairs this beautiful disorder, 
 more attentive to conceal her charms than eager to 
 enjoy them. 
 
 Lastly, we find the god successful ; he holds her fast 
 in the bed that Hymen has prepared for them : he draws 
 the curtains, and thinks that she is now his for ever.
 
 THE TSeMTLS OF g^I'DUS. 31 
 
 The troublesome crowd at last retire ; he is delighted 
 at their departure. The goddesses laugh, and jest, and 
 make merry ; but the gods appear thoughtful and 
 disconsolate, and the sorrow of Mars has something dark 
 and horrid in it, like the vengeful broodings of jealousy. 
 
 Delighted with the magnificence of the temple, the 
 goddess has chosen it as the place where she desires to 
 be worshipped. Here she has established rites, regu- 
 lated ceremonies, and instituted festivals ; and here she 
 is at once both deity and priestess. 
 
 The worship which is paid her, over almost the whole 
 earth, is rather a profanation than a religion. There 
 are temples erected to her in some cities in which all 
 the young women prostitute themselves to her honour, 
 and gain a dowry from the profits of their devotion. 
 There are others, whither every married woman goes 
 once in her life, to yield herself up to the man that 
 chooses her, and throws into the sanctuary the money 
 that she receives. There are others still, to which the 
 courtesans of all countries, more honoured than the 
 matrons, repair to offer their gifts. And, lastly, there 
 are some where the men make themselves eunuchs, 
 and assume the habits of women, that they may serve in 
 the sanctuary ; dedicating to the goddess the sex they 
 no longer possess, as well as that which they cannot 
 acquire. 
 
 But at Gnidus she has demanded from the people a 
 purer worship, and has instituted honours more worthy 
 of herself. There the sacrifices are sighs and the 
 offerings a tender heart. Each lover addresses his 
 
 vows to his mistress, and Venus receives them for her. 
 
 E
 
 32 -THS TEtMTLe OF 
 
 Wherever beauty is found, it is adored like Venus 
 herself; for beauty is divine like her. 
 
 Those whose hearts are full of love, come to the 
 temple and embrace the altars of fidelity and con- 
 stancy. 
 
 Those who languish under the cruelty of their 
 mistresses come to sigh in the temple ; they feel their 
 torments alleviated, and flattering hope enters their 
 hearts. 
 
 The goddess who has promised happiness to true 
 lovers, always bestows it in proportion to the pangs they 
 endure. 
 
 Jealousy is a passion which the lover may feel but 
 which he should never show. We secretly adore the 
 caprices of our fair tyrants, as we adore the decrees of 
 heaven, which become just when we dare to complain 
 of them. 
 
 The fire, the transports, and even the fury of love are 
 reckoned among the number of the favours she bestows ; 
 for the less we are masters of our hearts, the more we 
 are devoted to the goddess. 
 
 They who have not given away their hearts are 
 considered as the profane, and are not permitted to 
 enter the temple : they address their vows to the 
 goddess from a distance, and implore her to deliver them 
 from that liberty which is nothing but the lack of 
 power to form desires. 
 
 The goddess inspires the young women with modesty, 
 that charming quality which enhances the value of the 
 treasures it conceals. 
 
 But never in these happy shades has any one blushed
 
 'THE -TS<^f PLS OF g\I*DUS. 33 
 
 for a sincere passion, for a pure sentiment, a tender 
 confession. 
 
 The heart itself always fixes the moment for yielding ; 
 but it is profanation to yield without having loved. 
 
 Cupid is solicitous for the felicity of the Gnidians ; 
 he selects with care the arrows with which he wounds 
 them. When he sees a forlorn fair one, sinking under the 
 neglect of an uncomplying lover, he chooses an arrow 
 dipped in the waters of the river of oblivion. When 
 he finds two lovers beginning to feel the approaches 
 of passion, he never ceases to assail them with new 
 darts. When he meets with any whose love is beginning 
 to decay, he either suddenly rekindles it, or allows it to 
 expire : for he always spares the last sparks of a waning 
 passion : and in this happy spot, love ceases without 
 being expelled by disgust ; the stronger ecstacies being 
 past, the weaker are forgotten. 
 
 Cupid banishes from his quiver the cruel arrows with 
 which he wounded Phedra and Ariadne ; arrows whicn 
 infuse hatred with love and serve to show his power as 
 the thunder demonstrates the dominion of Jupiter. 
 
 In proportion as Cupid inspires the pleasure of loving 
 Venus adds the delight of pleasing. 
 
 Every day the young girls enter the sanctuary to 
 offer up their prayers to Venus. There they express 
 sentiments as guileless as the heart that dictates them. 
 " Queen of Amathonta ! " said one of them, " the flame 
 that once glowed in my bosom forThirsis is extinguished : 
 I do not ask you to rekindle it ; I only implore you to 
 grant that Ixiphilus may love me." 
 
 Another said in a low voice : " O powerful goddess ! 
 
 E 2
 
 34 THS TSWPLS OF 
 
 give me resolution enough to conceal for a time my love 
 from my shepherd, in order to enhance the value of that 
 soft confession which I mean to make to him." 
 
 " Goddess of Cythera! " said a third, " I am pleased 
 with solitude ; the sports of my companions no longer 
 delight me. I am in love, perhaps. Ah ! If I love, it 
 can be none but Daphnis." 
 
 On holidays the girls and youths assemble to recite 
 hymns in honour of Venus ; they sing her praise while 
 they relate the story of their loves. 
 
 Thus sang a young Gnidian, while he held his mistress 
 by the hand: "O Love ! when thou first beheldst Psyche, 
 thou didst undoubtedly wound thyself with the same 
 arrows that have now pierced my heart ; thy happiness 
 was not different from mine, for thou didst feel the 
 same flame that now glows in my bosom, and I rejoice 
 in the same pleasures with which thou wast rewarded. 
 
 " I have been a witness of everything I now describe. 
 I went to Gnidus ; there I saw Themira, and I loved 
 her : I saw her again, and I loved her still more. I 
 will remain at Gnidus all my life with her : and I shall 
 be the happiest of mortals. 
 
 " We will go together to the temple, and never have 
 truer lovers crossed its threshold. We will enter the 
 palace of Venus, and I shall believe it to be the palace 
 of Themira ; I will hasten to the meadow, and gather 
 flowers which I will place on her bosom ; perhaps I may 
 persuade her to enter the grove where so many winding 
 paths cross and intermingle ; and when I have thus led 
 her astray but Love, who inspires me, forbids his 
 mysteries to be revealed."
 
 T Gnidus there is a sacred grotto which 
 the nymphs inhabit, and where the 
 goddess promulgates her oracles. There 
 the earth does not roar under one's feet, 
 nor does one's hair stand on end ; 
 there is no priestess as at Delphi, 
 where Apollo agitates the Pythia: Venus herself 
 inclines her ear to the prayers of mortals, without 
 making a jest of their hopes or scoffing at their fears. 
 
 A coquette from the isle of Crete came once to 
 Gnidus ; whenever she appeared, the Gnidian youths 
 flocked around her : she smiled upon one, she whispered 
 in the ear of another, she leaned on the arm of a third, 
 and beckoned two others to follow her. She was 
 handsome, and dressed with taste; the sound of her 
 voice was as delusive as her eyes. O Heavens ! what 
 
 cruel alarms did she not raise in the hearts of the 
 
 x 
 
 Gnidian beauties. She presented herself to the oracle 
 with as much confidence as if she had been a goddess ;
 
 36 Th TScMTLS OF 
 
 when suddenly we heard a voice issue from the sanctuary: 
 " Perfidious woman, how darest thou bring thy artifices 
 to a place where I reign over candid hearts ? I will 
 punish thee in an exemplary manner; I will g deprive 
 thee of thy charms, but leave thy heart as it is ; 
 thou shalt invite all the men as they pass, but they will 
 fly thee as a complaining phantom, and thou shalt 
 die loaded with refusals and contempt." 
 
 A courtesan of Nocretis came next, sparkling in the 
 spoils of her lovers. " Away ! " said the goddess, " thou 
 art deceived if thou thinkest to increase the glory of my 
 empire ; thy beauty shows that there are pleasures, but 
 it does not bestow them ; thy heart is like iron ; and 
 though thou shouldst behold my son himself, thou 
 couldst not feel the passion of love. Go, lavish thy 
 favours on the worthless who seek them, but are 
 soon disgusted with them ; go and display those charms 
 that inflame but for a moment, then perish for ever ! 
 Thou art good for nothing, but to bring my power into 
 contempt." 
 
 Some time after there appeared a rich man, who 
 levied the tribute of the King of Lydia. " You ask of 
 me," said the goddess, " what I cannot grant, although I 
 am the goddess of love. You buy mistresses that you 
 may love them, and you do not love them because you 
 buy them. Your treasures will not be altogether 
 useless, since they will serve to make you loathe 
 whatever is most enchanting and most lovely in nature." 
 
 Aristaeus, a young man of Doris, next presented 
 himself. He had seen the charming Camilla at Gnidus, 
 and had conceived the most violent passion for her ;
 
 THE T<MTLe OF Q^I'DUS. 37 
 
 he felt the whole excess of his love, and he came 
 to entreat Venus that she would render him still more 
 enamoured. 
 
 " I know thy heart," said the goddess to him ; 
 " thou canst love, and I have found Camilla worthy of 
 thee ; I might have given her to the greatest king upon 
 earth ; but kings do not deserve her so well as a 
 faithful shepherd." 
 
 It was then that I appeared with Themira. The 
 goddess addressed me thus : " There is not in all my 
 empire one of mortal birth so much devoted to me as thou 
 art ; but what wouldst thou have me do ? I cannot make 
 thy love more ardent, nor Themira more charming." 
 
 " Ah ! great goddess," I replied, " I have a thousand 
 favours to demand ; grant that Themira may think 
 only of me ; that she may see only me ; that I may be 
 the subject of her dreams ; that she may dread to lose 
 me when I am present ; that she may sigh for my 
 return when I am absent ; and that, ever happy whilst 
 beside me, she may regret every moment that she 
 spends without me."
 
 HERE are certain sacred games 
 which are celebrated every year at 
 Gnidus. Thither the women of all 
 the neighbouring countries repair 
 to dispute the prize of beauty. 
 There shepherdesses are mingled 
 with the daughters of kings, for beauty alone confers 
 royalty. Venus presides in person ; she decides 
 without hesitation ; she well knows who is the happy 
 mortal whom she has most highly favoured. 
 
 Helen, the famous Helen, several times gained this 
 prize. She triumphed when Theseus carried her off; 
 she triumphed when stolen away by the son of Priam ; 
 and, lastly, she triumphed when the gods restored her 
 to Menelaus after ten years' expectation : thus, in the 
 judgment of Venus, this prince became as happy a 
 husband as Theseus and Paris had been happy lovers. 
 Thirty of the daughters of Corinth came to Gnidus, 
 their hair flowing in large ringlets on their shoulders.
 
 rne T SETTLE OF go^i'ous. 39 
 
 Ten others came from Salamis, who had seen but 
 thirteen summers. From the Isle of Lesbos came 
 fifteen virgins : they said to one another, " I am all 
 admiration ; nothing can be more charming than you 
 are ; if Venus saw you with my eyes, she would 
 crown you in the midst of all the beauties of the 
 universe." 
 
 There came fifty women from Miletus : nothing 
 could equal the fairness of their complexion, or the 
 regularity of their features ; all presented to the eye or 
 to the imagination a lovely form ; and the gods who 
 fashioned them would never have made anything more 
 worthy of their art had they not sought to endow them 
 with perfections rather than graces. 
 
 A hundred women came from the Island of Cyprus. 
 " We have passed our youth," said they, " in the 
 temple of Venus ; we have consecrated our virginity, 
 and even our modesty to her : we do not blush for our 
 charms ; our manners, sometimes forward and always 
 free, should give us the advantage over a modesty that 
 is subject to continual alarms." 
 
 I saw the daughters of the proud Lacedaemon : their 
 robes were open at the side from the girdle downwards, 
 in a manner that seemed exceedingly immodest ; yet 
 they were prudish, and pretended that they never 
 violated modesty but out of love for their country. 
 
 O sea, famous for so many shipwrecks, thou art 
 careful to preserve the precious burdens that are some- 
 times entrusted to thee. Thou didst calm thy troubled 
 billows when the ship Argo transported the Golden 
 Fleece over thy watery plain : and when fifty beauties
 
 4 o THE Te<MTL OF 
 
 departed from Colchis and confided themselves to thy 
 waves, thou didst waft them safely to their destined 
 shore. 
 
 I likewise saw Oriana, lovely as a goddess : all the 
 beauties of Lydia surrounded their queen. She had 
 sent before her a hundred virgins, who had presented 
 to Venus an offering of two hundred talents. Candaules, 
 too, was there, more distinguished by his love than by 
 the purple of royalty. He spent day and night in 
 devouring the charms of Oriana with his eyes 
 which wandered over her lovely person, and never 
 wearied of contemplating her. " Alas ! " said he, " I 
 am happy, but my happiness is known only to Venus 
 and myself; it would be increased if it created envy. 
 Fair queen, quit those vain ornaments, throw aside 
 that envious veil and show yourself to the universe ; 
 leave the contest for the prize of beauty, and claim 
 what is thy due, altars and adoration." 
 
 At a little distance were assembled twenty Baby- 
 lonian women arrayed in robes of purple embroidered 
 with gold. They supposed that the magnificence of 
 their apparel would enhance their own value. Some 
 of them indeed bore, as a proof of their beauty, the 
 riches it had enabled them to acquire. 
 
 At a greater distance I beheld a hundred women 
 from the plains of Egypt. They had black eyes and 
 jet black hair ; their husbands attended them, and 
 said : " The laws have made us subject to you in 
 honour of Isis; but your beauty has acquired a 
 dominion over us, much stronger than that of the 
 laws : we yield obedience to you with as much pleasure
 
 THS TS<MTL OF g^I<DUS. 41 
 
 as we pay it to the gods : we are the happiest slaves in 
 the universe ; our duty assures you of our fidelity ; but 
 to Love alone are we indebted for yours. 
 
 " Be less sensible to the glory which you acquire at 
 Gnidus, than to the homage which is paid you at home 
 by a submissive husband ; who, whilst you are occupied 
 abroad, waits with patience, in the bosom of your 
 family, for the heart you vouchsafe to give him." 
 
 There came women from that powerful city which 
 sends its ships from one end of the earth to the other. 
 Their heads were scarcely able to support the variety 
 of ornaments with which they were loaded ; and every 
 quarter of the world seemed to have contributed to 
 adorn them. 
 
 Ten beauties came from the regions which the sun 
 first irradiates with his early beams : they were 
 daughters of Aurora ; and in order to behold her, they 
 arose every day before her. They complained of the sun, 
 who made their mother disappear; they complained 
 of their mother, who never showed herself to them 
 otherwise than she appears to the rest of the world. 
 
 Under a tent I saw the queen of a nation of the 
 Indies ; she was surrounded by her daughters, who 
 already promised to equal their mother in beauty. She 
 was served by eunuchs whose eyes were cast sorrow- 
 fully on the ground : for, ever since they had breathed 
 the air of Gnidus, they had felt the whole misery of 
 their condition, and their fearful melancholy had 
 redoubled. 
 
 The women of Cadiz, who live at the extremity of 
 
 the earth, likewise contended for the prize. There is 
 
 F 2
 
 OF 
 
 no country in the world in which a. beautiful woman 
 does not meet with admiration : but nothing short of 
 the greatest homage can content the ambition of a 
 beauty. 
 
 At last appeared the daughters of Gnidus, beautiful 
 in simplicity, exhibiting their graces instead of pearls and 
 rubies. The presents of Flora were the only ornaments 
 upon their heads ; but they were thereby rendered the 
 more worthy of the embraces of Zephyrus. Their robes 
 had no other merit than that of displaying an elegant 
 shape, and of being wrought by their own hands. 
 
 Amongst all these beauties Camilla was not to be 
 seen. She had said : " I will not contend for the prize 
 of beauty; it is enough for me that I should appear lovely 
 in the eyes of my dear Aristasus." 
 
 Diana added fame to these games by her presence. 
 She did not come to dispute the prize ; for the goddesses 
 do not contend with mortals. I saw her alone : she 
 seemed as beautiful as Venus ; I saw her afterwards by 
 the side of Venus, and I acknowledged that she was 
 only Diana. 
 
 Never was there so magnificent a spectacle. The 
 people of every different nation were assembled ; the eye 
 wandered from country to country, from the eastern 
 mountains to the western sea; it appeared as if 
 Gnidus were the universe. 
 
 The gods have distributed beauty among the nations, 
 as nature has divided it among the goddesses. Here 
 you might see the noble beauty of Pallas, there the 
 grandeur and majesty of Juno, at a little distance 
 the simplicity of Diana, the delicacy of Thetis, the
 
 THS TSeM'TLS OF gy^I'DUS. 43 
 
 attractions of the Graces, and sometimes the smile of 
 Venus. 
 
 The women of each different nation seemed to entertain 
 different notions of modesty, but they were all inclined 
 to sport with the eyes of beholders. Some of them dis- 
 played the neck and concealed the shoulders, while 
 others exhibited the shoulders and hid the neck. Those 
 who covered the foot repaid you with the sight of other 
 charms ; and there one blushed at what another con- 
 sidered to be authorised by decency itself. 
 
 The gods are so charmed with Themira, that they 
 never behold her without a smile of complacency and 
 congratulation on their own work. But of the goddesses 
 Venus is the only one who views her with pleasure, and 
 whom the gods do not rally for an inclination to jealousy. 
 
 As a rose is remarked among the flowers of the field, 
 so was Themira distinguished among the beauties 
 assembled at Gnidus. They had not time to become 
 her rivals ; they were conquered before they began to 
 dread her. No sooner did she appear than Venus 
 looked at none but her. She summoned the Graces : 
 " Go and crown her," said the goddess; "of all the 
 beauties before me she alone resembles you."
 
 URING the time that Themira was 
 employed with her companions in the 
 worship of the goddess, I entered a 
 solitary wood, where I found the tender 
 Aristaeus. We had seen each other for 
 the first time on the day when we went 
 to consult the oracle : it was enough to engage us in 
 conversation ; for Venus inspires the heart, in the 
 presence of an inhabitant of Gnidus, with that secret 
 charm which is felt by two friends, when, after a tedious 
 absence, they receive into their arms the dear object of 
 their solicitude. 
 
 Delighted with each other, we felt that our hearts 
 were akin; the genius of friendship seemed to have 
 descended from heaven, to have taken a place between 
 us. We related, by turns, a thousand incidents of our 
 lives, and this is what I said to him : 
 
 " I was born at Sybaris, where my father Antilochus 
 was the priest of Venus. In that city no difference is
 
 Car Kuctt dtl
 
 THS TB^TLt. OF QO^I'DUS. 45 
 
 made between voluptuous pleasures and necessities ; all 
 the arts are banished that might disturb gentle sleep ; 
 a reward is given at the expense of the state to those 
 who can invent a new pleasure. The citizens retain 
 only the memory of the buffoons who have amused them, 
 and quickly lose all remembrance of the magistrates 
 who have governed them. 
 
 " The soil produces an eternal abundance, but its 
 fertility is abused ; the favours of the gods bestowed on 
 Sybaris serve only to encourage luxury and foster sloth. 
 
 " The men are so effeminate ; their apparel is so like 
 that of the women; they take so much care of their 
 complexion ; they dress their hair with so much art ; 
 they waste so much time at their toilet, that you would 
 think there was only one sex in the city. 
 
 " The women cannot be said to yield, for they make 
 no resistance whatever ; each day sees the hopes and 
 the desires of each day conceived and accomplished: the 
 pleasure of loving and of being loved is unknown ; and 
 what is so falsely called enjoyment is the only occupation. 
 
 " Favours there have nothing but their own intrinsic 
 value ; all those circumstances that so naturally accom- 
 pany them, all those nothings that are valued so highly, 
 those engagements that always appear of such con- 
 sequence, those little things that seem so great, every- 
 thing which paves the way for the happy moment, so 
 many conquests preparatory to the great one, so many 
 enjoyments previous to the last, all are unknown at 
 Sybaris. 
 
 " Still, if they were possessed of the smallest portion 
 of modesty, that feeble image of virtue might please ;
 
 46 THE TScMTLS OF g 
 
 but, alas ! the eyes are accustomed to see everything 
 without a veil, and the ears to hear everything without 
 concealment. 
 
 " This multiplicity of pleasures, far from inspiring the 
 Sybarites with greater delicacy, renders them incapable 
 of distinguishing one sentiment from another. 
 
 " They pass their lives in purely sensual enjoyments; 
 they quit one pleasure of which they are tired for 
 another pleasure which will also soon disappoint them. 
 Whatever wish their imagination forms is but a new 
 subject of disgust. 
 
 " Their souls, incapable of the sentiment of pleasure, 
 seem only alive to the impression of pain : a citizen 
 was unable to rest the whole night long from a rose 
 having been folded under him in his bed. 
 
 " Effeminacy has so debilitated their frames that they 
 are unable to move the smallest weight ; they can 
 hardly support themselves on their limbs ; the motion 
 of the easiest carriage makes them swoon ; and, at 
 feasts, their appetites fail them, and their stomachs 
 reject the most delicate food. 
 
 " They pass their lives on the softest couches, upon 
 which they are obliged to repose the whole day long, 
 without the excuse of fatigue ; they are bruised and 
 hurt when they recline on anything harder. 
 
 " They are incapable of bearing the weight of arms ; 
 they are timid before their fellow citizens, cowardly 
 before strangers, and accordingly they are destined to 
 be the slaves of the first master who may come to 
 conquer them. 
 
 "No sooner was I able to exercise the faculty of
 
 THE Te^fTLS OF g^I'DUS. 47 
 
 reason than I became disgusted with this miserable 
 Sybaris. I love virtue, and have always feared the 
 immortal gods. ' No,' said I, ' I will no longer breathe 
 this tainted air ; these slaves of effeminacy are made 
 for living in their native country, I for quitting it.' 
 
 " I repaired for the last time to the temple ; and 
 approaching the altar where my father had so often 
 sacrificed: ' Great goddess ! ' cried I in a loud voice, ' I 
 abandon thy temple, but not thy worship : in whatever 
 place of the world I may be, I will never fail to burn 
 incense at thy shrine ; but it shall be purer than that 
 which is offered to thee at Sybaris ! ' 
 
 "I departed, and arrived in Crete. That island is 
 filled with monuments of the madness of love. There is 
 preserved the brazen bull, the workmanship of Daedalus, 
 invented to deceive or to satisfy the corrupt desires of 
 Pasiphae ; the labyrinth of which Cupid alone could 
 elude the artifices still exists there ; there is the tomb 
 of a Phedra, who made the sun start back as her mother 
 had done ; and there too is the temple of Ariadne, who, 
 though left alone in a desert, and abandoned by a false 
 and ungrateful lover, did not repent of having followed 
 him. 
 
 " There is seen the palace of Idomeneus, whose return 
 was happier than that of the other Grecian leaders : for 
 those who escaped the dangers of an outrageous element, 
 found their own homes still more fatal. Venus, enraged, 
 led them to embrace perfidious wives, and they perished 
 by the hands they most tenderly loved. 
 
 " I quitted that island, so odious to a goddess, who 
 was soon to bring about the felicity of my life.
 
 48 THS TS<&fTLe OF 
 
 " I embarked, and a tempest threw me on Lesbos. 
 That also is an island but little favoured by Venus : 
 she has banished modesty from the faces of the women, 
 delicacy from their frames, and timidity from their souls. 
 O powerful Venus ! let the women of Lesbos burn with 
 a legitimate flame ; and preserve human nature from a 
 sight of so much horror ! 
 
 " Mitylene is the capital of Lesbos ; it is the native 
 city of the tender Sappho. Immortal as the Muses, 
 this ill-fated maiden burns with a fire she is unable to 
 extinguish. Odious to herself, and finding subject 
 of chagrin in her own charms, she hates her sex, 
 though for ever in pursuit of it. ' Alas ! ' said she, 
 ' can so vain a passion be so cruel ? O love ! thou art 
 a thousand times more terrible in thy sports than in 
 thy rage.' 
 
 " At last I quitted Lesbos, and chance led me to 
 an island yet more profane, that of Lemnos. Venus 
 has here no temple : the Lemnians never address a 
 single vow to her. ' We reject,' say they, ' a worship 
 which enervates the heart.' The goddess has often 
 punished them for this impiety, and they suffer the 
 punishment without expiating their crime ; growing 
 always more impious as they are more afflicted. 
 
 " I again committed myself to the sea, ever seeking 
 some country favoured by the gods : the winds carried 
 me to Delos. I remained for some months in that sacred 
 island : but whether the gods inspire us sometimes 
 with a foresight of what is to happen to us, or whether 
 our souls retain a portion of the divinity from which 
 they emanate, some slight knowledge of futurity, I
 
 THS TScM-TLS OF g^ITtUS. 49 
 
 found that my destiny, that my happiness itself, called 
 me to another climate. 
 
 " One night, when I was in that state of tranquillity 
 in which the soul, more master of itself, seems detached 
 from the chain which holds it captive, there appeared 
 to me a female form, I knew not at first whether of 
 mortal or of celestial origin. A secret charm was 
 diffused over this being's person ; she was not so beautiful 
 as Venus, but like her she was alluring : all her features 
 were not regular, but combined they were enchanting ; 
 you did not find in her so much of that which is admired 
 as of that which stirs the senses : her hair fell negli- 
 gently over her shoulders, but that negligence was felici- 
 tous : her shape was elegant, she possessed that air 
 which nature alone can give, and the secret of which she 
 conceals even from the most masterly painters. The 
 apparition saw my astonishment, and smiled at it. 
 Ye gods, what a smile ! 
 
 " ' I am,' she said to me, in a voice that thrilled my 
 heart ; ' the second of the Graces : Venus, by whose 
 orders I appear, means to render you happy, but you 
 must go to worship her in her temple at Gnidus.' She 
 disappeared ; my arms were stretched out to detain her ; 
 but my dream vanished, and nothing remained save a 
 soft regret at seeing her no more, mingled with the 
 pleasure of having seen her. 
 
 " I accordingly left the island of Delos, and I arrived 
 at Gnidus. I can affirm, that the moment I landed I 
 drew in at every breath the sweet passion of love : I 
 felt but I cannot express what I felt : I was not as yet 
 in love, but I wished to be so ; my heart warmed as in 
 
 c 2
 
 50 THS TStMTLS OF 
 
 the presence of some divine beauty. I advanced, and 
 saw at a little distance some young girls who were 
 sporting in a meadow ; I was at once irresistibly 
 drawn towards them. ' Madman that thou art ! ' said I 
 to myself; ' without being in love, thy soul is agitated 
 with all the transports which attend that passion : thy 
 heart already flies to unknown objects, and those objects 
 already give it inquietude. I approached ; I beheld the 
 charming Themira ; no doubt we must have been made 
 for each other ; my eyes constantly dwelt upon her, and 
 I think I should have died had she not now and then 
 turned hers also upon me. ' Great Venus ! ' cried I, 
 ' since thou hast promised to make me happy, grant 
 that it may be with this shepherdess : I renounce every 
 other beauty ; she alone will I accept as the accomplish- 
 ment of your promise, and of all the wishes I shall ever 
 form.'"
 
 thus told the young Aristaeus the 
 story of my love ; it made him sigh 
 for his own ; I wished to pour 
 consolation into his heart, by begging 
 him to relate to me in his turn the 
 story of his passion. The following 
 is what he told me : I have not 
 forgotten a word of it, for I am inspired by the same god 
 that made him speak. 
 
 "Throughout my recital," said he, "you will find 
 nothing but simple occurrences ; my adventures are 
 only the sentiments of a tender heart : nothing but my 
 pleasures and my pains ; and as my love for Camilla 
 forms all the happiness, so does it form all the history 
 of my life. 
 
 " Camilla is the daughter of one of the principal 
 inhabitants of Gnidus : she is beautiful, but she is 
 endowed with graces more captivating than beauty 
 itself: she has a look which instantly penetrates the
 
 52 THS TScMTLS OF 
 
 heart of every beholder: women, when they wish for 
 beauty, demand from the gods the graces of Camilla ; 
 the men who see her long to gaze upon her for ever, or 
 dread to see her again. 
 
 " She has a charming figure, a noble, but modest air, 
 lively eyes, that seem formed for the expression of 
 tenderness and sensibility ; the most regular features ; 
 and, in a word, an assemblage of charms inexpressibly 
 fitted to hold every heart in subjection. 
 
 "Camilla is not solicitous about her dress; but she 
 is always better dressed than other women. 
 
 " She has a mind such as nature nearly always denies 
 to women whose persons have been formed to please. 
 She is equally disposed to thoughtfulness and gaiety : if 
 you are serious, she will discourse to you like Pallas ; if 
 merry, she becomes as sprightly as the Graces. 
 
 " The more wit one has, the more one finds in Camilla. 
 There is so much native simplicity in her thoughts, that 
 her words are always the language of her heart : what- 
 ever she says, whatever she does, has this charm : you 
 will always find her the simple shepherdess ; but one 
 whose gentle, refined, and delicate graces never fail to 
 be observed, never fail to be felt. 
 
 " With all this, Camilla loves me : she is happy when 
 she sees me ; she becomes sorrowful when I leave her : 
 and, as if I could exist without her, she makes me 
 promise to return. I am ever telling her how much I 
 love her, and she believes me ; I say that I adore her, 
 and she knows it ; but she is as delighted with my 
 assurances as if she heard them for the first time. I 
 tell her that she constitutes the happiness of my life ;
 
 THS TStMTLS OF g^ITtUS. 53 
 
 she replies, that I am all her felicity : in a word, she 
 loves me so much, that she makes me almost believe 
 myself worthy of her love. 
 
 " I had opportunities of seeing Camilla during a whole 
 month before I dared to tell her that I loved her, and 
 even scarcely dared to tell it to myself: the more 
 amiable I found her, the less did I hope to be the 
 happy man who would make an impression on her heart. 
 Camilla ! I was sensible to thy charms, but they pro- 
 claimed that I was not worthy of thee ! 
 
 " I sought by every means to forget thee ; I wanted 
 to efface thy adorable image from my heart : how happy 
 I am that my efforts were ineffectual ; there that image 
 still remains, and it shall never be erased. 
 
 " I said to Camilla, ' I once was fond of the bustle of 
 the world, but now I court solitude : my soul glowed 
 with ambition, and now my only wish is thy presence : 
 I longed to range through foreign countries, but now 
 my heart abides solely in the place which you inhabit : 
 you are the only object that my eyes desire, or that 
 my heart covets.' 
 
 " When Camilla talks to me of her love, she even has 
 something more to say : she thinks she has forgotten to 
 tell me what she has sworn to me a thousand times. I 
 am so charmed with listening to her, that I sometimes 
 feign not to believe her, that she may still continue to 
 touch my heart : and soon our discourse gives place to 
 that sweet silence which is the tenderest eloquence of 
 lovers. 
 
 " When I have been absent from Camilla, I begin to 
 give her an account of the things I may have seen or
 
 54 THS TEWPLS OF 
 
 heard. ' What are these things to me ? ' she will say : 
 ' if you would entertain me, talk to me only of our love ; 
 but if your imagination suggest nothing to you, if you 
 have nothing to say on the subject, cruel man ! then 
 let me speak.' 
 
 " Sometimes, throwing her arms around me, ' You 
 are melancholy,' she will say. ' It is true,' I reply ; 
 ' but the melancholy of lovers is luxurious ; I feel my 
 tears flow, and I know not why, for thou lovest me : 
 I have no cause of complaint, and yet I complain. 
 Ah ! do not seek to disturb this soft languor ; allow 
 me to sigh at both my pleasures and my pains. 
 
 " ' In the transports of love my soul is too greatly 
 agitated : it is hurried towards its happiness, without 
 enjoying it ; but at present my very sorrow is volup- 
 tuous ; do not wipe away my tears ; what matters it 
 though I weep, provided I am happy.' 
 
 " Sometimes Camilla says to me, ' Dost thou love 
 me ? ' ' Yes, I love thee.' ' But how dost thou love 
 me ? ' ' Alas ! ' I say, ' I love thee now as I loved 
 thee before ; for I can only compare the love I now 
 feel to that I have formerly felt.' 
 
 " I hear the praises of Camilla resound from the lips 
 of all who know her. I am flattered with these praises 
 as if they were my own, and I feel at that moment how 
 selfish I am. 
 
 " When there is any one beside us, she speaks with 
 so much wit that I am enchanted with her most 
 ordinary expressions ; but I rather wish she were 
 silent. 
 
 " When she does a favour to any one, I wish I were
 
 THS TSWTLe OF QS^I'DUS. 55 
 
 the person on whom she confers that favour, when 
 suddenly I reflect that then I should not be the person 
 she loves. 
 
 " 'Beware, O Camilla! of the deceitfulness of lovers ; 
 they will tell you that they love, and they will tell you 
 the truth ; they will say that they love you as much as I 
 do; but I swear to you, by the gods, that I love you most.' 
 
 " When I behold her at a distance, my spirits are 
 inflamed ; when she draws near, my heart is agitated: 
 I approach her, and my soul seems ready to quit me ; 
 seems to belong only to Camilla, and she appears ready 
 to animate it. 
 
 " Sometimes, when I want to snatch a favour from her, 
 she refuses it, but an instant later grants me another : 
 this is not the effect of artifice struggling at once with 
 her modesty and her love, she wishes to refuse me 
 everything, and yet she wishes she could grant me all. 
 
 " She says to me, ' Is it not enough that I love you ? 
 What can you desire when you possess my heart ? ' 
 ' I desire,' I reply, ' that, for my sake, you will consent 
 to commit a fault which love always prompts to, and 
 which powerful love always justifies.' 
 
 " ' Camilla ! if ever I cease to love you, may the 
 Fates make a mistake, and, thinking that moment the 
 last of my existence, cut the fatal thread ! may they 
 efface the remainder of a life which I should find 
 insupportable when I reflected on the pleasures I enjoyed 
 in loving you.' " 
 
 Aristseus sighed and was silent ; and I plainly saw 
 that he only ceased to speak of Camilla in order that 
 he might occupy his mind in thinking of her.
 
 HILE we were thus talking of our 
 loves, we had strayed from the 
 road, and after we had wandered 
 about for some time, we entered 
 a spacious meadow. We were 
 conducted by a path strewed with 
 flowers to the foot of a fearful rock : we saw a dark 
 cavern ; we entered it, thinking it the habitation of 
 some mortal. O gods ! who would have thought that 
 such a place had been so fatal ! Scarcely had I set 
 my foot within the entrance, than I felt my whole 
 frame tremble ; my hair stood on end ; an invisible 
 hand dragged me into the dread abode ; and in pro- 
 portion as my heart was agitated, it grew desirous of 
 further agitation. " Friend," cried I, " let us proceed, 
 though every step should augment our uneasiness." 
 I accordingly advanced into this place, where the sun 
 had never entered, and which the winds never refresh. 
 I there saw Jealousy ; her aspect was more sullen than
 
 THS TScM-TLS OF g^IT>US. 57 
 
 terrrible ; paleness, and sorrow, and silence surrounded 
 her; and languor and lethargy hovered about. She 
 breathed upon us, she placed her hand upon our hearts, 
 she struck us on the head, and we saw nothing, our 
 imaginations presented nothing to us but monsters. 
 " Enter farther," said she, "unhappy mortals! proceed 
 farther, and you will find a goddess more powerful 
 than I." We saw a frightful deity by the light of the 
 flames that issued from the mouths of a hundred 
 serpents which hissed upon her head. This was 
 Frenzy. She unloosed one of the serpents, and threw 
 him on to me : I would have caught him ; but, before 
 I perceived it, he had slid into my heart. I remained 
 for a moment confounded ; but, as soon as the poison 
 entered into my veins, I thought myself engulphed in 
 the horrors of hell : my soul was on fire, and moved to 
 such violence that my body could scarcely restrain it. 
 I thought myself abandoned to the scourge of the 
 Furies. At last I gave myself up to despair : we went 
 round and round this horrible cavern a hundred 
 times : we passed from Jealousy to Frenzy, and from 
 Frenzy to Jealousy : we cried " Themira ! " we cried 
 " Camilla ! " If Themira or Camilla had come to our call, 
 we should have torn them to pieces with our own hands. 
 At last we escaped, and beheld the light of day ; it 
 appeared offensive to our eyes, and we almost regretted 
 the frightful cave we had just quitted. We fell down 
 from sheer fatigue, but repose itself seemed insupport- 
 able to us : our eyes refused us the consolation of 
 tears, and our hearts were incapable of heaving a 
 
 single sigh. 
 
 H 2
 
 5 8 THE T<JWTLS OF 
 
 I was however for a moment calm : Sleep began to 
 shed his sweet poppies over my eyes. O ye gods! 
 how cruel even this sleep became ! Images presented 
 themselves to my imagination more terrible to me than 
 the ghosts of the dead : I awoke every instant with the 
 idea of Themira's infidelity : I saw her no, I dare not 
 even reflect on it ; and what I had only imagined 
 before, I now found realised in the horrors of that sleep. 
 
 " Must I then," said I as I awoke, " fly the darkness 
 as well as the light ? Themira, cruel Themira agitates 
 me like the Furies. Who could have imagined that my 
 happiness would consist in forgetting her for ever." 
 
 Another fit of frenzy assailed me. " Friend," said I, 
 " arise ; let us go and exterminate the flocks which feed 
 in this meadow ; let us pursue those shepherds whose 
 lives are so peaceful. But no ; I see a temple at a 
 distance ; it is perhaps the temple of Love ; let us go 
 and raze it to the foundations ; let us break Love's 
 statue, and make our fury dreadful to him." We ran, 
 and you would have thought that our eagerness to 
 commit a crime had given us fresh strength. We 
 traversed the woods, the meads, and the fields ; we 
 stopped not an instant ; a hill vainly rose before us ; we 
 at once ascended it, and entered the temple. It was 
 consecrated to Bacchus. How great is the power of 
 the gods ! our frenzy was instantly calmed. We looked 
 at each other, and with astonishment beheld the disorder 
 in which we were involved. 
 
 " Great god ! " cried I, " I give thee thanks, not so 
 much that thou hast appeased my fury, as that thou 
 hast withheld me from committing a great crime."
 
 <IHS TBeMTLS OF Cf^ITtUS. 59 
 
 And approaching the priestess, " We are favoured by 
 the god whom you serve ; he has calmed the dreadful 
 transports with which we were agitated ; scarcely had 
 we entered this sacred place, than we experienced his 
 instant favour ; we wish to offer him a sacrifice ; deign 
 to present it for us, divine priestess ! " Then I went and 
 sought for a victim, and laid it at her feet. 
 
 While the priestess was preparing to deal the fatal 
 stroke, Aristseus pronounced these words : " Divine 
 Bacchus ! thou dost delight to see joy upon the human 
 countenance ; our pleasures are the worship thou 
 requirest ; and thou dost only desire the adoration of 
 the happiest mortals. 
 
 " Sometimes thou dost gently lead our reason astray ; 
 but when some cruel divinity has bereft us of it entirely, 
 it is thou alone that canst restore it. 
 
 " Black jealousy, that horrid fiend, holds Love in 
 bondage ; but thou rescuest our hearts from the empire 
 she exercises over them, and compellest her to retreat 
 within her fearful abode." 
 
 After the sacrifice had been performed, all the people 
 flocked around us ; and I was relating to the priestess 
 how we had been tortured in the habitation of Jealousy, 
 when all at once we heard a great noise, and a confused 
 mingling of voices and instruments of music. We 
 issued from the temple, and saw approaching a troop of 
 Bacchantes who struck the ground with their thirsi, 
 crying with a loud voice, " Evohe, evohe ! " Old 
 Silenus was in the rear, mounted on his ass ; his head 
 seemed to seek the ground ; and whenever his escort 
 ceased to support his body, it rocked from side to side
 
 60 THS TScMTLS OF 
 
 as if it beat time to music. The whole troop had their 
 faces besmeared with wine lees. Pan next appeared 
 with his flute, and the satyrs surrounded their king. 
 Joy reigned in the midst of confusion ; and sport and 
 raillery, the dance and the song, were mingled together 
 in happy delirium ; the wine disposed the satyrs to 
 mirth, and mirth again enticed them to wine. At length 
 I saw Bacchus : he was seated in his car drawn by 
 tigers, even as the Ganges, at the extremity of the 
 universe, beheld him, when he appeared in his glory, 
 spreading joy and victory on every hand. 
 
 At his side was the beautiful Ariadne. Fair princess ! 
 you were still lamenting the infidelity of the cruel 
 Theseus, when the god took your crown and placed it 
 in heaven. He wiped the tears from your eyes : ah ! 
 if you had not ceased to weep, you would have rendered 
 a god still more unhappy than yourself, who were but a 
 mortal. " Love me," he said ; " Theseus has fled from 
 you ; think of his love no more ; forget even his perfidy. 
 I make you immortal, that I may love you for ever." 
 
 I saw Bacchus descend from his car ; I saw Ariadne 
 descend, and enter into the temple. " Amiable god ! " 
 cried she, " let us remain in this charming place, and 
 here let us sigh out our loves ; let us command that 
 eternal joy shall abide in this happy climate. It is near 
 this place that the queen of hearts has established her 
 dominion ; let the god of joy reign beside her, and 
 augment the felicity of a people already so highly 
 favoured. 
 
 " For myself, divine Bacchus, I already feel my love 
 increased : who would have thought that you could one
 
 TH 
 
 OF 
 
 61 
 
 day appear still more amiable in my eyes ? The im- 
 mortals alone are capable of loving to excess, of loving 
 still more and more : they alone obtain pleasures that 
 exceed their hopes, and are more moderate in their 
 desires than in their enjoyments. 
 
 " You shall here be the object of my eternal passion. 
 In heaven we are occupied with nothing but our glory, 
 it is only upon earth and in these rural solitudes that 
 true love is to be found : and whilst this troop gives 
 way to its intemperate delight, my joy, my sighs, nay, 
 my very tears shall incessantly tell you of my love." 
 
 The god smiled on Ariadne, and led her to the 
 sanctuary. Joy took possession of our hearts ; we felt 
 a divine emotion : infected by the transports of Silenus 
 and the Bacchantes, we each seized a thyrsus, and 
 mingled in the dances and the concert.
 
 VENTUALLY we quitted the place 
 consecrated to Bacchus ; but we 
 soon began to imagine that our 
 miseries had only been suspended. 
 It is true that we no longer felt the 
 frenzy with which we had been 
 agitated; but sadness and melan- 
 choly had taken possession of our souls, and we were 
 tortured with suspicions and inquietude. 
 
 We imagined that the cruel goddesses in the gloomy 
 cavern had inflicted this suffering upon us to give us a 
 foretaste of the miseries to which we were destined. 
 
 Sometimes we regretted the temple of Bacchus ; but 
 soon we were attracted towards that of Gnidus : we 
 wished to see Themira and Camilla, those powerful 
 objects of our love and our jealousy. 
 
 But we felt none of those sweet sensations which it 
 is usual to feel when, after a long absence, and on the 
 point of again seeing the beloved object, the soul
 
 Car-KiJfn </</
 
 THE TStMTLE OF g^I'DUS. 63 
 
 already experiences delight and enjoys a foretaste of all 
 the happiness it has promised itself. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Aristaeus, " I shall find.the shepherd 
 Lycas with Camilla; how do I know but that he is 
 speaking to her at this moment ? O ye gods ! the false 
 one listens to him with pleasure ! " 
 
 " It was said the other day," replied I, " that Thirsis, 
 who was once so enamoured of Themira, was about to 
 return to Gnidus. He loved her once ! undoubtedly he 
 must love her still ; and I shall be forced to dispute a 
 heart that I had fondly believed was wholly mine." 
 
 " The other day Lycas sang in praise of my Camilla : 
 O fool that I was ! I was charmed at hearing him praise 
 her." 
 
 " I remember that Thirsis brought some new-blown 
 flowers to my Themira : unhappy mortal that I am ! 
 she put them in her bosom ! ' They are a present from 
 Thirsis,' said she. Ah ! I ought to have torn them 
 away, and trampled them under my feet." 
 
 " Not long ago, I went with Camilla to sacrifice two 
 turtle doves to Venus, when suddenly they escaped 
 from me, and flew away." 
 
 " I had written my name and that of Themira on a 
 tree ; I had carved on it the story of our loves ; I read 
 that story again and again, and was never tired of 
 reading it ; but one morning I found it all effaced." 
 
 " Do not, Camilla, do not drive to despair an un- 
 happy man who loves you ; love when it is outraged 
 may produce all the effects of hatred." 
 
 " The first Gnidian youth that dares to look at my 
 Themira I will pursue even into the temple ; and I will 
 
 i
 
 64 THE TBWPLE OF g 
 
 punish him though he take refuge at the feet of Venus 
 herself." 
 
 Whilst we were thus venting our jealousy we arrived 
 at the sacred grotto where the goddess pronounces her 
 oracles. The people appeared like the waves of the 
 agitated ocean. Some had just received, and others 
 were hastening to receive an answer to their 
 petitions. 
 
 We entered with the crowd. I lost the happy 
 Aristaeus ; he had already embraced his Camilla, whilst 
 I was still in search of my Themira. 
 
 At last I found her : I felt my jealousy redouble when 
 I beheld her ; I felt my former frenzy rekindle ; but she 
 looked at me, and I became calm : thus the Furies, 
 when they have issued from hell, instantly fly back at 
 the sight of a god. 
 
 " O heaven," cried she, " how many tears have you 
 cost me ! three times has the sun performed his course ; 
 I thought I had lost you for ever." These words made 
 me tremble. " I came to consult the oracle ; I did not 
 ask if you loved me, I only wished to know if you were 
 alive : Venus has just given me an answer ; she has 
 declared that your love is undiminished." 
 
 " Excuse," said I, " an unfortunate man who might 
 have hated you, had his soul been capable of it. The 
 gods, in whose hands I am, may take from me the 
 faculty of reason ; but no god can prevent me from 
 loving you. 
 
 " I have been agitated by cruel jealousy as the guilty 
 shades are tormented in Tartarus : but I derive this 
 advantage from it, that I am more sensible of the
 
 THE TBeM-PLB OF Q^l'DUS. 65 
 
 happiness of being loved by you, since the frightful situa- 
 tion in which I found myself from the fear of losing you. 
 
 " Come, then, Themira, come with me into the 
 solitary woods, and let me expiate my crime by showing 
 the ardour of my love ; for it was a great crime, Themira, 
 to believe you false." 
 
 Never were the woods of Elysium which the gods have 
 planted for the tranquillity of the shades they love ; 
 never were the forests of Dodona that discourse to 
 mortals of their future felicity ; never were the gardens 
 of the Hesperides where the trees bend to the earth 
 under the weight of golden fruit ; never were any of 
 these so delightful as that hallowed grove, made 
 voluptuous by the presence of Themira ! 
 
 I remember that a satyr who was pursuing a nymph, 
 who fled from him all in tears, saw us and stopped. 
 " Happy lovers ! " cried he, "your eyes understand and 
 reply to each other ; your sighs are repaid with sighs ! 
 whilst I waste my days in pursuing a coy nymph, 
 unhappy whilst I pursue, and still more unhappy when 
 I have overtaken her." 
 
 A young nymph, wandering alone in the wood, also 
 perceived us and sighed. " No," said she, " it is only 
 to augment my distress that cruel Cupid has shown me 
 so tender a lover." 
 
 We found Apollo seated on the brink of a fountain. 
 He was following Diana, whom a timid doe had 
 seduced into the wood. I knew him by his golden 
 hair and by the retinue of immortals that surrounded 
 him. He tuned his lyre ; it attracted the rocks ; the 
 trees ranged themselves around it, and the lions became 
 
 I 2
 
 66 THE TScXrTLS OF 
 
 motionless ; but we penetrated still farther into the 
 forest, solicited in vain by this heavenly harmony. 
 
 Where do you think I found the little god of love ? 
 I found him on the lips of Themira ; I found him after- 
 wards in her bosom : he took refuge at her feet, and I 
 pursued him thither ; he hid himself amid the folds of 
 her garments and I followed him ; and I would have 
 followed him still, had not Themira all in tears, 
 Themira angry and alarmed, withheld me : the god 
 had found a secure retreat, which proved so charming 
 that he could not quit it. Thus the tender redbreast, 
 whom fear and love retain upon her young, remains 
 motionless under the eager hand that approaches, and 
 cannot resolve to abandon them. 
 
 Unhappy being that I am ! Themira heard my com- 
 plaints, and was not touched with them. She heard 
 my prayers, but continued inexorable ; at last I became 
 rash, she grew angry; I trembled, and she seemed vexed; 
 she thrust me away, I fell to the ground ; and I became 
 sensible that my sighs would have been the last of my 
 life had not Themira laid her hand upon my heart, 
 and revived me. 
 
 " No," said she, " I am not so cruel as you are ; for 
 I never desired to make you die, whereas you wish to 
 drag me to the night of the grave. 
 
 " Open those dying eyes, if you do not wish that 
 mine should close for ever." 
 
 She embraced me, and I received my pardon, but, 
 alas, without the hope of becoming guilty !
 
 CEPHISA 
 AND CUPID. 
 
 NE day as I was straying in the woods 
 of Idalia with the young Cephisa, I 
 stumbled upon Cupid, who lay 
 sleeping on the flowers beneath a 
 few branches of myrtle that gently 
 yielded to the breath of the zephyrs. 
 The little Smiles and Sports, that are 
 ever in his train, had gone to frolic at a distance, and he 
 was alone. I had him in my power ; his bow and his 
 quiver were at his side ; and if I had chosen I might 
 have stolen the arms of Cupid. Cephisa seized the bow 
 of the greatest of the gods : she fixed in it an arrow, 
 without my perceiving her, and shot it at me. I smiled, 
 and said to her. 
 
 " Take another, Cephisa, and give me another wound ; 
 that is too gentle." 
 
 She was preparing another arrow when it fell upon 
 her foot, and she gave a slight cry ; it was the heaviest 
 arrow in the quiver of love. She took it up, and let it 
 fly at me : it struck me and I was conquered.
 
 68 CZTHISvl <AXJD 
 
 " Ah ! Cephisa ! are you resolved then on my death ! " 
 
 She drew near to Cupid. " He sleeps soundly," said 
 she ; "he is fatigued with shooting his arrows ; we 
 must gather flowers and tie his hands and feet " 
 
 " Ah ! I can never consent to that," said I, " for he 
 has always favoured us." 
 
 " I will take his weapons then," said she, " and shoot 
 at him with all my strength. " 
 
 " But he will awake," said I. 
 
 " Let him," she replied ; " what can he do but wound 
 us still more ? " 
 
 " No, no, let him lie there ; we will remain near him, 
 and we shall feel our flame increase." 
 
 Cephisa then took some roses and myrtle leaves : " I 
 will cover him with these," said she ; " and the Smiles 
 and the Sports will seek for him but will not find him." 
 
 She strewed them over him, and she laughed to see 
 the little god almost buried. " But why am I trifling ? " 
 said she. " I must cut his wings, that there may no 
 longer be any false and fickle men in the world ; 
 for the little god flies from heart to heart, and plants 
 levity and inconstancy everywhere." 
 
 She sat down, she took out her scissors, and held 
 with one hand the tips of Love's gilded pinions. I felt 
 my heart shrink for fear. 
 
 " Stop, Cephisa." 
 
 She heard me not; she cut off the tips of Cupid's 
 wings, let fall her scissors, and ran away. 
 
 When Cupid awoke he wished to fly, but felt a 
 weight which was new to him : he saw the tips of his 
 wings lying upon the flowers and began to weep.
 
 CSTHIS.A 
 
 Jupiter, observing him from the summit of Olympus, 
 sent a cloud which carried him to the palace of Gnidus, 
 and laid him in the lap of Venus. 
 
 " Mother," said he, " I used to flutter with my wings 
 on your bosom ; but they have been cut, alas, and what 
 will become of me ! " 
 
 " My son," said the fair Cypris, " do not weep ; stay 
 where you are, do not move from my bosom, its heat 
 will make your pinions grow again ; do you not already 
 see that they are longer ? Kiss me ; they grow ; you 
 will soon have them as they were before ; now I see 
 the tips acquiring their golden colour again in another 
 instant enough, fly, fly, my child." 
 
 " Yes," said he, " I will venture." 
 
 He flew ; he lighted at her side ; but instantly 
 returned to her bosom. He resumed his flight, he 
 settled at a greater distance, and again returned to the 
 bosom of Venus. He embraced her, she smiled upon 
 him : he embraced her again and toyed with her : at 
 last he rose into the air, whence he now reigns over all 
 nature. 
 
 Cupid, to be revenged of Cephisa, has made her the 
 most fickle of the fair. He makes her burn every day 
 with a new flame. She loved me ; she loved Daphnis, 
 and now she loves Cleon. Cruel Cupid ! it is I you 
 punish. I am willing to suffer for her crime, but may 
 you not have other torments to afflict me with ?
 
 ac A teM i/fft/' /if/r .)/H>H.M' t/iftf 
 . ^ J/ t f/c{<i/ " 
 
 '' ------ -------- ."-' y .-
 
 ARSACES AND ISMENIA. 
 
 EAR the close of the reign of Arta- 
 menes, Bactra was harassed with 
 civil broils. The king, overwhelmed 
 with care, died, and left the throne 
 to his daughter Ismenia. Aspar, 
 chief of the royal eunuchs, had the 
 principal management of affairs. He was anxious 
 for the prosperity of the kingdom, but by no means for 
 power. He knew mankind, and could judge with some 
 certainty of events. He was naturally inclined to con- 
 ciliatory measures ; indeed his heart seemed to cleave 
 to the human race. Peace at length was unexpectedly 
 established ; and, such was the influence of Aspar, that 
 everyone returned to his duty almost without knowing 
 that he had departed from it ; for without bustle or 
 ostentation the minister was able to perform great 
 things. 
 
 The peace was disturbed by the King of Hircania, 
 who sent ambassadors to demand Ismenia in marriage ; 
 
 K
 
 72 
 
 and, upon being refused, marched into Bactra. His 
 approach was singular. Sometimes he appeared armed 
 at all points, and ready to encounter his enemies : 
 sometimes he was seen habited like a lover whom Cupid 
 is conducting to his mistress. He carried with him all 
 that was necessary for a wedding ; such as dancers, 
 musicians, players, cooks, eunuchs, and women ; and 
 he also brought with him a formidable army. He wrote 
 the most tender letters to the queen ; and he ravaged 
 the whole country : one day was spent in feasting, the 
 next in military expeditions. Never had such a perfect 
 representation of war and peace been seen ; never so 
 much dissipation, nor so much discipline : one village 
 fled from the cruelty of the conqueror ; another was all 
 joy, merriment, and riot : for, by a strange caprice, he 
 strove to attain two things that are incompatible : he 
 wished to be feared, and at the same time loved. But 
 he was neither feared nor loved. An army was sent to 
 oppose him, and a single battle finished the war. A 
 soldier who had lately joined the Bactrian army 
 performed prodigies of valour. He penetrated to the 
 place where the King of Hircania was fighting bravely, 
 and took him prisoner. He gave this prince in 
 charge to an officer ; and without telling his name, fell 
 back into the ranks, but he was followed by acclama- 
 tions, and led in triumph to the general's tent. He 
 appeared before the general with a noble boldness ; and 
 spoke with modesty of his exploit. The general offered 
 him rewards, but he appeared insensible to them ; 
 honours would have been heaped upon him, but with 
 these he seemed familiar,
 
 IStMS^J^A. 73 
 
 Aspar judged that such a man could not be of ordi- 
 nary birth. He invited him to Court, and, when he saw 
 him, he was still more confirmed in his opinion. His 
 figure struck the eunuch with admiration ; even the 
 melancholy that appeared on his countenance inspired 
 him with respect. Aspar praised his valour, and said 
 the most civil things to him. 
 
 " Sir," responded the stranger, " forgive an unhappy 
 man, if the dreadful state of his mind renders him 
 almost incapable of feeling your kindness, or of making 
 any return to it." 
 
 Tears then rushed into his eyes, and the eunuch 
 was moved. 
 
 " Be my friend," said he, " if you are unfortunate. 
 A few moments ago I admired you ; but now my ad- 
 miration is changed into love. I wish to console you ; 
 perhaps my counsel may not be useless to you. Accept 
 of an apartment in my palace, its owner loves virtue, 
 and you will not be a stranger there." 
 
 The next day was a festival over all Bactra. The 
 queen issued from her palace, followed by the whole 
 Court. She appeared in her chariot in the midst of an 
 immense multitude of people. A veil covered her face, 
 but allowed the elegance of her shape to appear*; her 
 countenance was concealed, but the affection of her 
 people pictured it in imagination. 
 
 She descended from her chariot and entered the 
 temple. The nobles of Bactra surrounded her. She 
 prostrated herself, and adored the gods in silence ; then 
 raising her veil, she solemnly pronounced the following 
 words : 
 
 K 2
 
 74 
 
 " Immortal gods ! the Queen of Bactra comes to 
 thank you for the victory with which you have crowned 
 her arms. Fill up the measure of your bounties, by 
 granting that she may not abuse them. May she 
 be neither the slave of passions, nor of weakness, nor 
 caprice ; may all her fears be to commit evil, all her 
 desires to do good : and, since she cannot be happy," 
 continued she, in a voice interrupted by sobbing, " at 
 least grant that her people may be so." 
 
 The priests having finished the ceremonies prescribed 
 for the worship of the gods, the queen left the temple, 
 mounted her chariot, and was followed by the people 
 to the gates of the palace. 
 
 A little while after, Aspar went home, and enquiring 
 for the stranger found him plunged in the deepest 
 melancholy. He sat down beside him, and having 
 ordered the attendants to withdraw, " I conjure you," 
 said he, " to unbosom yourself to me. Do you think 
 that a troubled heart finds no relief in imparting its 
 sorrows to another ? We then seem to enjoy a state of 
 more tranquillity." 
 
 " It would be necessary," said the stranger, " to relate 
 to you all the events of my life." 
 
 " That is exactly what I wish," replied Aspar ; "you 
 will speak to a man who is not devoid of sensibility : 
 conceal nothing from him ; everything is of importance 
 in the eyes of friendship." 
 
 It was not merely sympathy and a sentiment of pity 
 that excited the curiosity of Aspar ; he wished to attach 
 this extraordinary man to the Court of Bactra and was 
 eager to become thoroughly acquainted with a person
 
 <AXJD IScMSXJ^A. 75 
 
 whom in his thoughts he already associated in his 
 schemes and destined to great affairs. 
 
 The stranger meditated for a moment, and then 
 began : 
 
 " Love brought about all the happiness and all the 
 misery of my life. He strewed it at the outset with 
 pleasures mingled with pains ; and in the end he has 
 left it to tears, sorrow, and regret. 
 
 " I was born in Media, and I can number a long train 
 of illustrious ancestors. My father gained many 
 victories at the head of the Median armies. I lost him 
 in my infancy, and those who had the care of my 
 education taught me to consider his virtues as my most 
 valuable inheritance. 
 
 " At the age of fifteen they fixed my establishment. 
 They did not allow me that prodigious number of 
 wives with which in Media people of my birth are 
 usually oppressed : they wished to follow nature, and 
 to teach me that, if the wants of the senses are 
 bounded, those of the heart are still more so. 
 
 " Ardasira was not more distinguished from my other 
 wives by her birth than by my love. Her pride was 
 mingled with something so tender, her sentiments were 
 so noble, so different from those which perpetual sub- 
 mission dictates to the women of Asia, her beauty 
 moreover was so great that my eyes could gaze on 
 none but her, and my heart was a stranger to every 
 other. 
 
 " Her countenance was heavenly ; her shape, her 
 air, her gracefulness, the sound of her voice, the charm 
 of her discourse all conspired to enchant me. I longed
 
 76 
 
 to hear her speak for ever, and I was never tired of 
 beholding her. To me there was nothing so perfect in 
 nature as herself; my imagination could picture 
 nothing which I did not find her possessed of; and, 
 when I contemplated the happiness of which mortals 
 are susceptible, I always thought of my own. 
 
 " My birth, my wealth, my age, and some personal 
 advantages, determined the king to offer me his 
 daughter in marriage. It is an inviolable custom 
 among the Medes that those who receive this honour 
 must send all their other wives away. I saw nothing 
 in this grand alliance but the loss of what was most 
 dear to me in the world : but I was obliged to devour 
 my tears, and to counterfeit gaiety. While all the 
 Court congratulated me on a favour which is there 
 coveted as the highest, Ardasira never asked to see 
 me, and I both dreaded her presence and desired it. 
 I entered her apartment overwhelmed with grief. 
 ' Ardasira,' said I, ' I am about to lose you.' But 
 without either caresses or reproaches, without lifting 
 her eyes or dropping a tear, she remained silent. A 
 deadly paleness overspread her lovely countenance, 
 which expressed a sort of indignation mingled with 
 despair. 
 
 " I would have embraced her, but she seemed averse 
 to it ; and she gave no other sign of emotion save an 
 endeavour to escape from my arms. 
 
 " It was not the fear of death that made me accept 
 the hand of the princess ; and had I not trembled for 
 Ardasira, I should undoubtedly have exposed myself 
 to the most dreadful vengeance. But when I considered
 
 77 
 
 that her death would be the certain consequence of my 
 refusal, my mind was distracted, and I abandoned 
 myself to my fate. 
 
 " I was conducted to the royal palace, which I was 
 not again permitted to leave. I beheld that place, 
 made for the humiliation of many and the gratification 
 of one only ; that place where, notwithstanding its 
 silence, the sighs of love are scarcely heard ; that place 
 in which melancholy and magnificence hold their court ; 
 where everything inanimate is gay, and everything 
 that possesses life is sorrowful ; where all move, and 
 smile, or are sad at the master's nod. 
 
 " I was immediately introduced to the princess, who 
 could survey me with freedom, whilst my looks were 
 fixed on the ground. Strange effects of grandeur ! If 
 her eyes were expressive, mine were not permitted to 
 answer. Two eunuchs were in attendance, each armed 
 with a poniard, that I might expiate with my blood the 
 presumption of a look. 
 
 " How hard was the trial for a heart like mine ! to 
 retire to my chamber a slave of the Court ; to live 
 subject to caprice and proud disdain ; to feel nothing 
 but a sentiment of awe, and to lose for ever what can 
 compensate even for servitude, the pleasure of loving 
 and being loved ! 
 
 " But what was my situation when a eunuch from 
 the princess came to make me sign an order for the 
 removal of all my wives from my palace ! ' Sign,' said 
 he, 'and acknowledge the benignity of this order. I 
 will report to the princess your readiness to obey.' 
 
 " My face was covered with tears ; I began to write,
 
 78 
 
 I hesitated ' For Heaven's sake,' said I to the eunuch, 
 ' have a moment's patience I shall die.' 
 
 " * My lord,' said he, ' your head and mine are at 
 stake; sign we are already becoming guilty the 
 moments are counted ; I should now be on my way back.' 
 
 " My trembling or hasty hand (for my mind was 
 unconscious of its proceedings) traced the most fatal 
 characters it was in its power to form. 
 
 " My wives were carried away on the eve of my 
 marriage ; but Ardasira, who had gained over one of my 
 eunuchs, dressed in her clothes and veil a slave of her own 
 shape, and concealed herself in a secret place. She 
 had made the eunuch believe that she meant to retire 
 among the priestesses of the gods. 
 
 " Ardasira's spirit was too high to conceive that an 
 edict, which without any reason deprived a lawful wife 
 of her rank, could be made for her. She was incapable 
 of respecting power that was abused. She appealed 
 from this tyranny to nature, and from her impotence to 
 her despair. 
 
 " The marriage ceremony was performed in the 
 palace. I carried the princess to my own house. 
 There music, dancing, feasting, and everything around 
 us, seemed to express a joy which my heart was far 
 from feeling. 
 
 "At the approach of night all the courtiers left us. 
 The eunuchs conducted the princess to her apartment : 
 alas ! it was the same in which I had so often sworn 
 eternal fidelity to Ardasira. I retired to mine, full of 
 rage and despair. 
 
 " The moment fixed for my approach to the princess
 
 79 
 
 arrived. I entered a vault, unknown even to my 
 servants, through which love had often led me. I 
 was proceeding in the dark, alone, pensive and melan- 
 choly, when on a sudden there appeared a light. 
 Ardasira, with a dagger in her hand, stood before me. 
 ' Arsaces,' said she, ' go and tell your new spouse that 
 I am dead : tell her that I have disputed your heart to 
 the last sigh.' 
 
 " She was about to strike herself, when I withheld 
 her hand. 'Ardasira,' I cried, 'what a terrible spectacle 
 are you about to present to me ! ' Then extending my 
 arms, ' Begin rather,' said I, 'by striking him who first 
 yielded to a barbarous law.' 
 
 " She turned pale, and the dagger dropped from her 
 hands. I embraced her, and, I know not by what 
 charm, my soul began to grow calm. I held this dear 
 object in my arms, and gave myself up to the pleasure 
 of loving. Every painful idea, even that of my marriage, 
 was obliterated. I thought myself possessed of Ardasira 
 never more to be separated. Strange effect of love ! 
 my heart warmed, and my soul became tranquil. 
 
 " The words of Ardasira recalled me to myself. 
 ' Arsaces,' said she, ' let us fly, let us quit this un- 
 fortunate place. What should we fear ? We can love, 
 and we can die.' 
 
 " ' Ardasira,' said I, ' I swear that you shall ever be 
 mine ; mine, as if you had never been torn from these 
 arms. I will never more leave you. I call the gods to 
 witness that it is to you alone that I shall owe the 
 happiness of my life. You have proposed a generous 
 enterprise Love had already suggested it to me: he 
 
 L
 
 8o 
 
 now again inspires me with it through you ; and you 
 shall judge whether I really love you.' 
 
 " I left her, and full of impatience and love, I went 
 to give the necessary orders. The door of the princess's 
 chamber was shut. I took with me what gold and 
 jewels I had at hand. I bade my slaves take different 
 roads, and departed alone with Ardasira in the dead of 
 night ; full of hopes and full of fears ; sometimes losing 
 my natural courage ; a prey to every passion, even to 
 remorse, and not knowing whether I were following the 
 path of duty, or that of love, which so often leads one 
 astray. 
 
 " I will not detain you with the particulars of the 
 many dangers we encountered. Ardasira, in spite of 
 the weakness of her sex, encouraged me ; and though 
 almost dead with fatigue, she continued to follow me. 
 I shunned the society of man, for all men had now 
 become my enemies, and I sought the deserts. I at 
 last arrived among some mountains where only lions 
 and tigers dwell. The presence of these animals 
 tranquillized me. 
 
 " ' It is not in these inhospitable regions,' said I to 
 Ardasira, * that the eunuchs of the princess, or the 
 guards of the King of Media, will seek us.' 
 
 " But the wild beasts so thronged around us that I 
 began to be alarmed. I killed with my arrows such of 
 them as approached too near; for instead of encumbering 
 myself with the necessaries of life, I had stored myself 
 with weapons that might procure them. Harassed on 
 all sides, I struck fire with flints, and kindled some dry 
 wood. I passed the night beside these fires, and made
 
 Si 
 
 a noise with my weapons. Sometimes I set fire to the 
 woods and drove the terrified animals before me. We 
 at last entered a more open country, and admired the 
 deep peace of nature. It suggested to our imagination 
 the time when the gods were born ; when beauty first 
 appeared, first felt the genial warmth of love, and when 
 all things first sprung into life. 
 
 " At length we passed the confines of Media. It was 
 in the cottage of a shepherd that I fancied myself 
 master of the world ; that I was at last able to say that 
 Ardasira was mine, and that I was wholly hers. 
 
 "We arrived in Margiana, where our slaves rejoined 
 us. There we lived a pastoral life, far from the world 
 and its bustle. Charmed with each other, we enjoyed 
 our present pleasures, and reflected on our past pains. 
 
 " Ardasira related to me what had been her feelings 
 during the time of our separation ; her jealousy, when 
 she believed I no longer loved her ; her grief, when she 
 knew that I loved her still ; her execration of a barbarous 
 law, and her resentment at my submitting to it. She 
 had at first conceived the design of making the princess 
 a victim of her revenge, but soon rejected the idea. 
 She would have been happy in dying before my eyes, 
 for she knew I should be greatly moved. When I held 
 her in my arms, and she proposed to me to quit my 
 native country, then, said she, she had felt sure of me. 
 
 " Ardasira had never been so happy : she was en- 
 chanted. We did not live amid the splendour of Media; 
 but our manner of life was more delightful. Every 
 thing we had lost enabled her to realise the great 
 sacrifice I had made for her. She now wholly enjoyed 
 
 L 2
 
 8i ^A^S^ACSS .A^JD 
 
 me. In seraglios, those destined abodes of pleasure, 
 the idea of a rival is ever present ; and although a tender 
 fair one may enjoy the society of the man she loves, 
 yet, the stronger her affection, the more is it chequered 
 with alarm. 
 
 " But Ardasira now had no distrust ; our hearts were 
 knit together. And surely a love like this impresses an 
 air of gaiety on everything around ; when one object 
 enchants us, all nature appears cheerful and engaging. 
 A love like ours resembles that happy infancy to which 
 everything affords novelty, playfulness, and pleasure. 
 
 " I feel a gentle transport whilst I speak to you of 
 that happy period. Sometimes I lost Ardasira in the 
 woods, and found her again by the sweet accents of 
 her voice. She decked herself with flowers which I 
 gathered, and I adorned myself with those which had 
 been culled by her hand. The song of the birds, the 
 murmuring of the fountains, the music and the dancing 
 of our young slaves, the softness impressed on every- 
 thing around us, were continual testimonies of the 
 happiness we enjoyed. 
 
 " Sometimes Ardasira dressed herself like a shep- 
 herdess, without ornaments or jewels, and appeared in 
 the charms of native simplicity. At other times she 
 presented herself richly adorned, and such as she had 
 appeared when I was first captivated with her beauty 
 in my Median harem. 
 
 " Ardasira employed her women in delightful occu- 
 pations. They spun the wool of Hircania, and stained 
 it with the purple of Tyre. And unmingled joy glowed 
 in every bosom. We descended with pleasure to the
 
 83 
 
 equality of nature : we ourselves were happy, and 
 wished to make all around us happy. False pleasures 
 make men haughty and severe, and such pleasures are 
 always selfish. But true happiness inspires gentleness 
 and benevolence, and diffuses its influence on every 
 hand. 
 
 " I remember that Ardasira married one of her 
 favourite maids to a slave of mine whom I had freed. 
 Love and youth had formed this union. The favourite 
 said to Ardasira, ' This is also the first day of your 
 marriage.' 
 
 " ' Every day of my life,' replied she, * will be that 
 first day.' 
 
 " You will no doubt be surprised that, exiled from 
 Media and proscribed, having had but a moment to 
 prepare for my departure, carrying with me only the 
 money and jewels that were at hand, I should possess 
 sufficient wealth in Margiana to build a palace there, 
 to keep a great number of domestics, and enjoy all the 
 conveniences of life. I was surprised at it myself, and 
 am so still. By a fatality which I cannot explain I 
 thought myself without resources, and yet found them 
 everywhere. Gold, and jewels, and precious stones, 
 seemed to offer themselves to me spontaneously. It 
 was chance or accident, you will say. But circum- 
 stances so reiterated and so similar could hardly be the 
 result of mere chance. Ardasira at first thought that 
 I wished to surprise her, and that I had brought wealth 
 with me of which she was ignorant. I believed, in my 
 turn, that she likewise had riches concealed from me. 
 But we were both soon convinced of our mistake. In
 
 84 .A^&ACSS <AXl<D 
 
 my chamber I often found packets containing hundreds 
 of darics; and Ardasira found boxes full of jewels in 
 hers. One day, as I was walking in my garden, a little 
 coffer full of gold pieces appeared in my way, and I 
 observed another in the hollow trunk of an oak under 
 which I used to repose. I omit the rest. I was sure 
 that no one in Media knew the place of my retreat, and 
 I was as certain that I had no assistance to expect from 
 that quarter. I tortured my imagination to discover 
 whence this succour came ; but all my conjectures 
 were in vain." 
 
 " People tell wonderful stories," said Aspar, inter- 
 rupting Arsaces, 1 *" of certain powerful genii who attach 
 themselves to men, and who delight in doing them 
 good. Nothing I ever heard of this kind before made 
 the least impression on my mind, but what you tell me 
 astonishes me. You speak from experience, not from 
 hearsay." 
 
 "Whether this succour," continued Arsaces, "came 
 by human or supernatural means, it is certain that it 
 never failed me ; and just as there are many people who 
 meet with misery wherever they turn, so I found riches 
 wherever I went. But what is still more surprising, 
 they always came at the most seasonable moment. I 
 never saw my treasures near a close but they were 
 immediately replaced, so attentive was the fate that 
 watched over us. Nor is this all ; it was not merely our 
 wants that were provided for, but often our very wishes 
 were granted. However, I am not fond of dilating on 
 the marvellous," added he, " and will not detain you 
 further with particulars which, although I know them
 
 ,AD<JD ISeMBXJtA. 85 
 
 to be true, you will not perhaps find yourself disposed 
 to believe. 
 
 " On the eve of our favourite's marriage, a youth as 
 beautiful as love brought me a basket of choice fruit. 
 I gave him a few pieces of silver, which he took, and, 
 leaving his basket, disappeared. I carried the basket 
 to Ardasira, and was surprised to find it so heavy ; but 
 when we had eaten the fruit, we found the bottom full 
 of darics. ' It is the genie,' cried everyone, 'who has 
 brought a treasure to defray the expenses of the 
 marriage.' 
 
 " ' I am convinced,' said Ardasira, ' that it is a genie 
 who performs these wonders in our favour. Nothing 
 can be more pleasing to superior intelligences than to 
 see those whom they favour love one another ; love 
 alone is endowed with perfections which can elevate 
 the human mind to a resemblance with that of the deity. 
 Arsaces, it is a genie who knows my heart, and realises 
 the ardour of my love. Would that I could see him, and 
 that he would tell me the extent of your affection ! ' 
 
 " But I proceed : Ardasira's passion and mine bore 
 the marks of our different education and of our different 
 characters. Ardasira lived only for love ; her passion 
 was her existence ; her whole soul was love. It was 
 not possible for her to love me less, nor could she love 
 me more. As for me, my love seemed to be more 
 violent, because it was sometimes interrupted. Ardasira 
 alone was capable of satisfying my passion ; but there 
 were circumstances that drew me from it ; I often 
 followed the stags in the forest, and went forth to 
 combat the wild beasts.
 
 86 
 
 " I began at last to imagine that the life I led was 
 too obscure. ' I am living,' said I, ' in the dominions 
 of the King of Margiana, why do I not appear at Court ? ' 
 The glory of my father rushed upon my mind. It is 
 difficult to bear the weight of a great name, for then the 
 virtues of ordinary men are not the goal which we 
 should attain, but the point whence we must start. 
 We are always more eager to fulfil the expectations of 
 others than our own resolves. When I was in Media, 
 I was obliged to humble myself, and to conceal my 
 virtues with more anxiety than my vices. If I was not 
 the slave of the Court, I was the slave of its jealousy. 
 ' But now that I am master of myself,' thought I, ' in- 
 dependent, since I am bound to no country, and as free 
 in the midst of these forests as the lions that inhabit 
 them, my mind will degenerate to the common level, if 
 I continue to tread in the common road.' 
 
 " I grew accustomed to these ideas by degrees. Dis- 
 content seems so congenial to our nature, that, were 
 we ever so happy, we should still wish to be more so. 
 There is a sort of impatience which attends felicity 
 itself : for as our mind is but a series of ideas, so our 
 heart is but a series of desires. When we find that our 
 happiness cannot be increased, we endeavour to give it 
 a new form. My ambition was sometimes stimulated 
 even by my love. I hoped to become more worthy of 
 Ardasira, and in spite of all her prayers, in spite of all 
 her tears, I left her. 
 
 "I will not describe to you the dreadful violence I 
 offered myself; I was a hundred times upon the point 
 of returning, and of throwing myself at Ardasira's feet ;
 
 87 
 
 but the shame of appearing irresolute, the certainty 
 that I should not be able to force myself from her again, 
 the habit I had acquired of imposing obedience upon 
 my heart, even in the most difficult affairs, all determined 
 me to continue my journey. 
 
 " I was received by the king with every mark of 
 distinction. I had hardly an opportunity of considering 
 myself a stranger. I made one in all his parties of 
 pleasure ; he preferred me to all others of my age, and 
 there was neither rank nor dignity in Margiana to 
 which I might not have aspired. 
 
 " I soon had an opportunity of justifying this favour- 
 able opinion of me. The Court of Margiana had long 
 enjoyed a profound peace, but information was received 
 that a vast multitude of barbarians had appeared on the 
 frontiers, that they had decimated the army which had 
 been sent to oppose them, and were advancing by forced 
 marches on the capital. Had the city already been 
 taken by assault, the Court could not have been thrown 
 into greater consternation. The people had never 
 known anything but prosperity. They could not dis- 
 tinguish the degrees of misfortune, nor what can be 
 retrieved from what is irretrievable. They hastily 
 summoned a council, and as I was then with the king, 
 I attended it. The monarch was distracted, and his 
 counsellors also seemed to have lost their reason. It 
 was evidently impossible to save them, except by 
 rousing their courage. The prime minister first gave 
 his opinion ; he proposed to send the king to a place of 
 safety, and then to deliver up the keys of the city to the 
 general of the enemy. He proceeded to state his 
 
 M
 
 88 
 
 reasons, and all the council were about to agree with 
 him, when I rose up and interrupted him. 
 
 " ' If you utter another word,' said I, ' that word 
 shall be your last. A magnanimous prince, and all 
 these brave men, must not waste such precious time in 
 listening to your dastardly counsels.' Then turning to 
 the king: 'A powerful state, sire, does not fall at one 
 blow; you possess a multitude of resources; and although 
 you even had not one left, would you deliberate with this 
 man as to whether you ought to die or follow disgraceful 
 advice ? My friends, I swear with you that we will 
 defend the king to our last breath. Let him lead us on, 
 let us arm the people, and let us inspire them with 
 the courage by which we are animated.' 
 
 " The city was placed in a state of defence ; and I 
 seized upon an outpost with a band of chosen men, 
 composed partly of natives and partly of my own brave 
 followers. We defeated several parties of the enemy. 
 A body of cavalry intercepted their supplies. They had 
 no engines for besieging the city. Our army increased 
 daily. The enemy retired, and Margiana was delivered. 
 
 " Amid the noise and tumult of this Court I tasted 
 but false joys. Wherever I turned my eyes Ardasira 
 was wanting, and my heart was constantly yearning 
 for her. I had experienced happiness, and had fled 
 from it ; I had quitted real pleasure in pursuit of delusive 
 enjoyments. 
 
 " Since my departure Ardasira had been tortured by 
 conflicting passions. They had all seized her in turn, 
 but none of them could satisfy her. She wished to be 
 silent, and she wished to complain ; she took up the
 
 89 
 
 pen to write to me ; indignation made her throw it 
 away. She could not bring herself to express any signs 
 of sensibility, still less could she affect those of indif- 
 ference. But at last her grief of heart determined her, 
 and she wrote to me the following letter : 
 
 " * Had your heart retained the smallest sentiment of 
 pity, you could never have abandoned me ; you would 
 have returned so tender a love; you would have 
 respected our misfortunes ; you would have sacrificed 
 to me the vain ideas that seduced you. Cruel man ! 
 you would have thought it something to lose a heart 
 that burns only for you. How could you know, whether, 
 seeing you no longer, I should have enough fortitude 
 to endure life ? and if I die, barbarous man ! can you 
 doubt but that you will be the cause of my death ? O 
 gods ! you ! Arsaces ! My love, so ingenious in tor- 
 menting me, never before made me dread a punishment 
 like this. I thought I should never weep but for your 
 misfortunes, and that I should remain all my life 
 regardless of my own.' 
 
 " I could not read this letter without shedding tears. 
 Grief took possession of my heart ; and besides the 
 sentiment of pity, I felt a cruel pang of remorse at 
 having caused the unhappiness of her whom I loved 
 more than life itself. 
 
 " At first I conceived the idea of requesting Ardasira 
 to come to Court ; but I dwelt on this idea barely a 
 moment. The Court of Margiana is almost the only 
 one in Asia in which the women are not secluded from 
 intercourse with the men. The king was young, and 
 powerful ; I reflected that he might do anything, I 
 
 M 2
 
 go tA^SiACBS ,A3(fD 
 
 reflected that he might love, that he might be pleased 
 with Ardasira ; and this idea was more dreadful to me 
 than a thousand deaths. 
 
 " I had no other course left me but to return to her ; 
 and you will be surprised when you know what prevented 
 my doing so. I every moment expected the most 
 splendid marks of gratitude from the king, and I 
 flattered myself that, appearing before Ardasira with 
 new honours, I might the more easily justify myself to 
 her. I thought that she would love me the more, and 
 I anticipated the pleasure of laying my new fortune at 
 her feet. 
 
 " I informed her of the reason that made me postpone 
 my departure, and it was this very reason that over- 
 whelmed her with despair. My favour with the king 
 had been so sudden, that it was attributed to a passion 
 which the princess his sister had conceived for me. 
 This is one of those things which are instantly believed 
 when they have once been told. A slave whom Ardasira 
 had sent to attend me wrote to her what he had heard 
 reported. The idea of a rival was death to her ; but it 
 was still worse when she heard of the exploits I had 
 performed. She did not doubt but that so much glory 
 would prove an additional incentive to love. ' I am not 
 a princess,' said she in her indignation ; ' but I feel that 
 there is not a princess on earth to whom I ought to 
 yield a heart which is mine by right ; and if I made him 
 sensible of this in Media I will also make him sensible 
 of it in Margiana.' 
 
 " After forming a thousand schemes she at last fixed 
 upon the following one : She dismissed the greater part
 
 91 
 
 of her slaves and hired others ; she caused a palace to 
 be furnished in the country of the Sogdians, disguised 
 herself, took along with her some eunuchs who were 
 unknown to me, and came secretly to Court. She 
 conversed with the slave who was in her interest, and 
 took measures with him for carrying me off the next 
 day. As I was going to bathe in the river, the slave 
 led me to a place on the shore where Ardasira was 
 waiting. I had no sooner undressed than I was seized, 
 a woman's robe was thrown over me, and I was forced 
 into a closed litter. We travelled day and night, soon 
 passed the boundaries of Margiana, and arrived in the 
 country of the Sogdians. I was shut up in a vast 
 palace, and informed that the princess, who they said 
 had conceived a passion for me, had caused me to be 
 carried off, and conducted secretly to an estate which 
 formed part of her dower. 
 
 "Ardasira did not ch'oose to discover herself, nor did 
 she wish that I should be known. She was desirous of 
 deriving enjoyment from my error. All who were not 
 in the secret took her for the princess ; and as the fact 
 of a man being shut up in her palace might have cast 
 a slur upon her character, I was allowed to retain my 
 female garments, and was supposed to be a newly- 
 purchased girl destined for her service. 
 
 "I was then in the seventeenth year* of my age. 
 
 * Persons unacquainted with Eastern history may consider it an error 
 on Montesquieu's part to have made his hero so young. In the East, 
 however, Nature, fostered by the warmth of the climate, shoots up with 
 amazing celerity ; and the records of Hindostan inform us that the sons 
 of Shah Jehan, one of the Mogul sovereigns, commanded armies at 
 twelve years of age.
 
 92 
 
 The people around me said that I had all the freshness 
 of youth, and my beauty was extolled as if I had been 
 the daughter of a king. 
 
 " Ardasira, who knew that a passion for glory had 
 induced me to quit her, resolved to employ every method 
 to enervate my courage, I was committed to the charge 
 of two eunuchs, who spent whole days in adorning me. 
 They were careful of my complexion, they often led me 
 to the bath, and perfumed me with the most delicate 
 essences. I never went abroad ; I was told to work 
 in adorning my own dress ; but above all, they endeav- 
 oured to inspire me with that obedient spirit to which 
 women are accustomed in the harems of the East. 
 
 " I was enraged at seeing myself thus treated. I 
 would have done anything to break my chains ; but 
 rinding myself without arms, surrounded by people who 
 were continually on the watch, I was afraid not of 
 making, but of failing in my attempt. I hoped that in 
 time I should be less carefully guarded, that I might 
 corrupt some slave, and thus escape from this prison or 
 perish. 
 
 " I will confess it; curiosity as to the outcome of all 
 this seemed to quiet my thoughts. In the midst of my 
 shame, grief, and confusion, too, I was surprised to find 
 myself so little inclined to exertion. My thoughts were 
 employed in scheming vast projects, which ended in a 
 slight uneasiness ; a secret charm, a power, for which I 
 could not account, detained me in this palace. 
 
 " The pretended princess was constantly veiled, and 
 I never heard her voice. She passed almost the whole 
 day in observing me through a grating that was made
 
 *A3(fD IScMSXJtA. 93 
 
 in my chamber. Sometimes she caused me to be 
 brought to her apartments. There her women sang 
 the most affecting airs, and I thought that they were 
 all expressive of her love. I could never be too near 
 her, she occupied herself only with me; there was 
 always something in my dress that she thought could 
 be improved ; she would unfasten my hair and dress it 
 again, and she was never content with what she had 
 done. 
 
 " One day I was told that she permitted me to wait 
 upon her. I found her reclining on a purple sofa, and 
 still covered with her veil ; her head was gently inclined, 
 her attitude, softly pensive and languishing. As I 
 approached, one of her women thus addressed me : 
 ' You are the favourite of Love ; it is he who under this 
 disguise has brought you hither. The princess loves 
 you. She is made to subdue every heart, but 'tis yours 
 alone that she desires.' 
 
 " ' How,' said I, sighing, ' how can I give a heart 
 that is not mine ? My beloved Ardasira possesses it 
 wholly, and it shall be hers for ever.' 
 
 " I could not observe what emotion these words 
 produced in Ardasira, but she has since told me, that 
 she never experienced so much joy. 
 
 " ' Rash man,' said her attendant, ' the princess, like 
 the gods when we are so unfortunate as not to adore 
 them, cannot but be offended at such language.' 
 
 " ' I will pay her,' I replied, * every kind of homage ; 
 my respect, my gratitude, shall never cease. But 
 destiny, rigorous destiny, does not permit me to love 
 her. Great princess,' added I, throwing myself at her
 
 94 
 
 feet, ' I conjure you by your glory to forget a man whose 
 heart, being eternally devoted to another, can never be 
 worthy of yours.' 
 
 " I heard her heave a deep sigh, and I thought I 
 saw her face covered with tears. I upbraided myself 
 for my insensibility ; I wished something impossible 
 to continue faithful to my own passion without driving 
 her to despair. 
 
 " I was at last led back to my apartment, and a few 
 days afterwards I received the following missive in a 
 handwriting which was unknown to me : 
 
 " ' The princess's love is violent, but not tyrannical ; 
 she will not even complain of your refusal, if you con- 
 vince her that it is justifiable. Come then, and inform 
 her of the reasons you have to be so faithful to that 
 Ardasira.' 
 
 " I was again conducted into her presence. I related 
 to her the whole history of my life, and, whilst I spoke 
 to her of my love, I heard her sigh. She held my hand 
 in hers, and, during those affecting moments, she often 
 pressed it with involuntary force. 
 
 " ' Begin again,' suddenly said one of her women, ' at 
 the part where you were so afflicted, when the King of 
 Media gave you his daughter in marriage. Tell us 
 again about your fears for Ardasira during your flight. 
 Describe again to the princess what pleasures you 
 enjoyed in your Margian solitude.' 
 
 " I had not told her every circumstance. So I began 
 again, and she listened as if she heard me for the first 
 time. At last I concluded, and she looked as if she 
 wished that I had been about to begin the narrative.
 
 95 
 
 " On the ensuing day, the following letter was sent 
 to me : ' I am convinced of your love, and do not desire 
 that you should sacrifice it to me. But are you sure 
 that this Ardasira still loves you ? Perhaps it is for an 
 ungrateful woman that you refuse the heart of a princess 
 who adores you.' 
 
 "I returned this answer: 'Ardasira loves me with 
 so much passion, that it would be vain to pray the gods 
 to increase her love. Alas ! perhaps she has loved me 
 too much. I remember a letter that she wrote to me 
 some time after I had left her. Had you read the 
 terrible, the tender expressions of her love, you would 
 have been affected by them. I am afraid that, whilst 
 I am confined here, her grief at having lost me, and 
 her disgust with life, may have caused her to take a 
 resolution of a nature to bring me to the grave.' 
 
 " I received this reply : ' Be happy, Arsaces ; and 
 may your heart remain with the woman you love ; as 
 for myself, I only ask your friendship.' 
 
 " The next day I was again admitted to the princess's 
 apartment, where everything seemed calculated to 
 awaken voluptuous desires ; the atmosphere was laden 
 with the most delightful perfumes ; the princess was 
 reclining languishingly upon a bed hung round with 
 garlands of flowers. She held out her hand, and made 
 me sit down beside her. Grace appeared in every- 
 thing around and about her, even in the veil that 
 concealed her features ! I could discern the elegance 
 of her form through the close thin vestment she 
 wore, which alternately hid and displayed the most 
 ravishing beauties. She saw that my eyes were 
 
 N
 
 9 6 
 
 engaged, and when she observed them grow some- 
 what inflamed, she allowed her robe to fall slightly, 
 and I beheld her shoulders which were of transcendant 
 beauty. At that instant she pressed my hand ; whilst 
 my eyes wandered over her lovely figure. ' None,' I 
 exclaimed, ' but my dear Ardasira, can be so beautiful ; 
 and I call the gods to witness that my fidelity ' 
 
 " At that moment she threw herself upon my neck, 
 and locked me in her arms. The chamber was imme- 
 diately darkened, her veil fell off, and she kissed me. 
 I was enraptured. A sudden flame ran through all 
 my veins, and fired all my senses. The idea of 
 Ardasira was gone. A faint recollection it appeared 
 but as a dream occurred to my mind as I was about 
 about to prefer her to herself. Eagerly did I press 
 her to my throbbing heart. Her divine, her matchless 
 beauty had fairly intoxicated me. Love, at that 
 moment, made himself known but by his fury. *He 
 was hurrying on to victory; but Ardasira suddenly 
 released herself from my embrace, several of her 
 attendants entered the apartment, she hastily fled 
 from me, and disappeared. 
 
 " I returned to my apartments, astonished at my 
 inconstancy. The next day the habit of my sex was 
 restored to me, and in the evening I was conducted to 
 her the idea of whom still continued to enchant me. 
 I approached her, threw myself on my knees, and, 
 transported with desire, talked to her of my passion, 
 reproached myself for my refusals, prayed, promised, 
 demanded, ventured to say and seemed about to attempt 
 everything. But I found a curious change in her ; she
 
 appeared quite cold ; and when she had sufficiently 
 discouraged me, and had entertained herself with my 
 embarrassment, she spoke to me, and thus it was that 
 for the first time I heard her voice : ' Do you not desire,' 
 said she, ' to see the face of her you love ? ' 
 
 " The sound of her voice struck me, and I stood 
 motionless. I hoped that it was Ardasira's, and I 
 dreaded to find my hope realised. 
 
 " ' Remove this veil,' said she. 
 
 " I did so, and indeed beheld the countenance of 
 Ardasira. I would have spoken, but could not. Love, 
 surprise, joy, shame, every passion seized me in turn. 
 
 " You are Ardasira ! ' said I. 
 
 " ' Yes, perfidious man,' she answered, ' I am.' 
 
 "'Ardasira,' said I, in broken accents, 'why thus 
 trifle with an unhappy passion ? ' As I spoke I would 
 have embraced her. 
 
 " ' My lord,' said she, ' I am yours. But alas ! I 
 hoped to find you more faithful. Be satisfied with 
 reigning here. Punish me, if you think proper, for 
 what I have done Ah ! Arsaces,' she added, with a 
 tear, ' you did not deserve it.' 
 
 " ' My beloved Ardasira,' I replied, ' why drive 
 me to despair ? Would you have me insensible to 
 charms that I have always adored ? You must allow 
 that you are not very consistent with yourself. Was it 
 not yourself that I was charmed with ? Are not these 
 the beauties that have always enchanted me ? ' 
 
 "'Ah!' said she, 'you would have loved them in 
 another.' 
 
 " ' I could not have loved any other but you. What- 
 
 N 2
 
 g8 
 
 ever was not you, would have disgusted me. How 
 disappointed I should have been if I had not seen that 
 beautiful face, heard that sweet voice, or beheld those 
 eyes ? But for heaven's sake, do not drive me to 
 despair. Consider, that of all the infidelities that I 
 have been guilty of, this is undoubtedly the most 
 pardonable.' 
 
 " I perceived by the soft languor of her eyes that she 
 was no longer angry ; I knew it also by the faintness 
 of her voice. I held her in my arms. Oh ! the happi- 
 ness of embracing the dear object of our love, after a 
 long and tedious absence ! How shall I express the 
 transports which only true lovers can feel, when our 
 passion increases from itself; when we mutually 
 promise, and demand, and obey, when we feel that we 
 possess all, and yet think that we have not enough ; 
 when the soul is lost in itself, and seems as though 
 it would grasp at joys beyond the very powers of 
 nature ! 
 
 " Ardasira, recovering her self-possession, at last said 
 to me : ' My dear Arsaces, my love for you has made 
 me follow a very extraordinary course; but extreme 
 love regards neither law nor moderation. They know 
 it little who do not number its caprices among its 
 greatest pleasures. In the name of the gods I conjure 
 you never to leave me again. What can you want ? 
 If you love me, you are happy. And you may be sure 
 that no mortal was ever so much beloved as yourself. 
 Say, promise, swear to me, that you will never more 
 forsake me.' 
 
 " I swore it a thousand and a thousand times ; my
 
 gg 
 
 oaths were only interrupted by my caresses, and she 
 believed them. 
 
 "How rapturous is love even after the violence of its 
 transports ; when, after having appealed to the senses, it 
 addresses itself to the mind; when, after having feasted 
 upon beauty, it delights in contemplating the graces ! 
 
 " We lived in Sogdiana in unspeakable felicity. I 
 had remained but a few months at the Court of Mar- 
 giana, and that short sojourn had cured me of ambition. 
 I had enjoyed the favour of the king, but I had soon per- 
 ceived that he could not forgive me for my courage and 
 his terror. My presence there embarassed him, and it 
 was indeed impossible that he could love me. His cour- 
 tiers perceived it, and were on their guard not to over- 
 rate my merit. In order that the honour of saving the 
 state from danger might not be attributed to me, it 
 was universally allowed at Court that the state had 
 never been in danger. 
 
 " Thus, equally disgusted with slavery and slaves, 
 I cherished no other passion but my love for Ardasira ; 
 and I thought myself a hundred times happier in remain- 
 ing in the dependence of the woman I fondly loved, 
 than in submitting to that of another whom I could 
 but hate. 
 
 " The good genie seemed to have followed us. We 
 found ourselves in the enjoyment of the same abundance, 
 and daily witnessed new prodigies. 
 
 " A fisherman came to sell us a fish ; and a rich ring 
 was brought to me which had been found in its mouth. 
 One day, as I was in want of money, I sent a few 
 jewels to be sold at the nearest town : the price of them
 
 loo 
 
 was brought to me, and a few days afterwards I found 
 the jewels themselves on my table. 
 
 " ' Great gods ! ' cried I, 'is it then impossible for me 
 to grow poor ? ' 
 
 " We wished to try the genie, and we asked a very 
 large sum of him. He soon made us acknowledge that 
 our wishes had been unreasonable. A few days after- 
 wards we found upon our table the smallest sum we 
 had ever received. We could hardly refrain from 
 laughing at the sight of it. 
 
 " ' The genie sports with us,' said Ardasira. 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' cried I, ' the gods are excellent dispensers ; 
 the mediocrity they grant us is far preferable to the 
 treasures which they deny us.' 
 
 "We were not haunted by any of the malignant 
 passions. Blind ambition, the thirst of wealth, the 
 desire of dominion all were strangers to us, and 
 seemed the passions of another world. Such enjoy- 
 ments are only made to fill the void that exists in souls 
 which nature has left empty. They have been invented 
 by imaginations incapable of conceiving better feelings. 
 
 " I have told you that we were adored by the little 
 family that formed our household. Ardasira and I 
 loved each other, and happiness is the natural effect of 
 love. But that general affection which some people win 
 from those around them is capable of inspiring even 
 greater happiness than love itself can bring. A good heart 
 cannot fail to experience exquisite delight upon being 
 the object of general affection. How admirable is this 
 law of nature ! Man is never less selfish than when he 
 appears to be most so. The heart is never the heart
 
 but when it diffuses itself, for its pleasures come from 
 without. Hence it is that those ideas of grandeur, 
 which always contract the heart, deceive such as are 
 intoxicated with them ; hence their astonishment at 
 finding themselves unhappy in the enjoyment of posses- 
 sions with which they had promised themselves felicity. 
 Not finding it, they think that they have not attained 
 to a sufficient degree of wealth or greatness ; and there- 
 fore they pursue their ambitious course still further. 
 If they do not succeed, their misery is increased, and even 
 if they do, they still fail to attain complete happiness. 
 
 " It is pride which, by taking possession of us, 
 prevents us from remaining in possession of our own 
 minds : and which, by making all our desires centre in 
 ourselves, never fails to bring melancholy in its train. 
 This melancholy proceeds from the loneliness of the 
 heart, which is made for enjoyment, but under these 
 circumstances never feels it, and for benevolence, but 
 when thus situated is ever selfish. 
 
 " Thus we might have tasted those pleasures which 
 nature never fails to bestow on those who do not shun 
 her ; we might have spent our days in joy, in innocence, 
 and peace ; we might have counted our years by the 
 renewal of the flowers and of the fruits; we might have 
 forgotten the number of them in the rapidity of a 
 happy life; I might have seen Ardasira every day, 
 and every day have told her how I loved her; the same 
 earth might at last have received us both. But alas ! 
 my happiness vanished in an instant, and I experienced 
 the most dreadful reverse. 
 
 " The prince of the country was a tyrant capable of
 
 102 
 
 every crime : but nothing rendered him so odious as 
 the continual outrages he offered to a sex whom we are 
 hardly permitted to assault even with our eyes. He 
 had learnt from a female slave, who had quitted the 
 seraglio of Ardasira, that she was the most beautiful 
 woman of the East. This sufficed to determine him to 
 tear her from my arms. One night a large body of 
 armed men surrounded my house, and in the morning I 
 received an order from the tyrant to send Ardasira to him. 
 I saw the impossibility of saving her. My first idea 
 was to kill her as she lay asleep. I seized my sword, I 
 ran, entered her chamber and drew aside the curtains ; 
 but then I suddenly started back with horror, and my 
 blood ran cold. A new frenzy seized me ; I thought 
 of throwing myself upon the guards, and of slaying 
 all who opposed me. But at last a less rash design 
 presented itself to my mind. I resolved to resume the 
 dress I had worn a few months before ; and under the 
 name of Ardasira, to enter the litter destined for her, 
 and allow myself to be carried to the tyrant. I could 
 devise no other resource, and besides, I felt a secret 
 pleasure in performing a courageous action in the garb 
 which blind love had formerly utilized to debase, as 
 it were, my sex. 
 
 " I executed this plan with composure. I gave orders 
 that the danger I ran should be concealed from Ardasira, 
 and that as soon as I departed my slaves should convey 
 her to another country. I took a slave along with me 
 whose courage I had previously tried, and delivered 
 myself up to the women and eunuchs whom the tyrant 
 had sent. We were not two days upon the road, and
 
 103 
 
 it was night when I arrived. The tyrant was celebrating 
 a feast with his women and his courtiers in a garden 
 pavilion. He was in that state of stupid gaiety which 
 is the result of debauchery carried to excess. He com- 
 manded that I should be brought into his presence ; I 
 entered the festal hall ; he made me sit down beside 
 him, and I had fortitude enough to conceal my rage 
 and the disorder of my soul. I was, however, irresolute. 
 I wished to attract the notice of the tyrant, and when 
 he turned his eyes upon me I felt my fury redoubled. 
 
 " ' Because he thinks that I am Ardasira,' said I 
 to myself, ' he dares to love me.' 
 
 " Then I imagined that my injuries were multiplied, 
 and that he had found a thousand ways of outraging my 
 love. I was, however, about to enjoy the most dreadful 
 vengeance. He began to grow inflamed, and I beheld 
 him insensibly approaching to his destruction. He left 
 the hall, and led me to a distant apartment in the 
 garden, accompanied only by an eunuch and my slave. 
 He was about to become acquainted with my sex. 
 
 " ' This steel,' cried I, ' will show you that I am a 
 man. Die ! and may it be told in hell that the husband 
 of Ardasira has punished your crimes ! ' 
 
 " He fell at my feet, and the door of the apartment was 
 immediately opened, for as soon as my slave had heard 
 my voice 1 , he had killed the eunuch who guarded the 
 portal, and entered. We fled, but wandered for some 
 time in the gardens, till we met a man whom I seized. 
 
 " ' I will plunge this dagger into your heart,' said I, 
 ' if you do not instantly show me the way out of this 
 
 place.' 
 
 o
 
 104 
 
 " He was a gardener, and, trembling with fear, he led 
 me to a gate which he opened ; I made him shut it 
 behind us, and ordered him to follow me. I changed 
 my clothes, and assumed the habit of a slave. We 
 wandered in the woods, and by an unhoped-for chance, 
 when we were overcome with fatigue, we found a 
 merchant whose camels were feeding, and we compelled 
 him to conduct us out of this fatal country. 
 
 " In proportion as the dangers to which I was exposed 
 diminished, my mind became less at ease. I had to 
 find Ardasira, and I was all alarm for her safety. Her 
 women and eunuchs had concealed from her the horror 
 of our situation ; but not finding me with her, she had 
 concluded me guilty; and was convinced that I had 
 broken the innumerable oaths of fidelity I had sworn 
 to her. She could not conceive a reason for my 
 apparent barbarity in ordering her to be carried away 
 without informing her of my intentions. Love is easily 
 convinced of what it dreads and thus life became in- 
 supportable to her : she swallowed poison. However, 
 it did not operate quickly, and when I arrived I found 
 her alive though very weak. 
 
 " ' Ardasira,' cried I, ' must I lose you ? you are 
 dying. Cruel Ardasira ! alas, what have I done ? ' 
 
 " She shed a few tears. ' Arsaces,' said she, ' but a 
 moment ago death appeared delightful to me ; now, 
 however, that I see you, how dreadful is its approach ! 
 I feel that I wish to live again for you, and that my 
 soul departs unwillingly. Cherish my memory, and if 
 I learn that it is dear to you, rest assured that I shall 
 not be tormented in the shades below. I have this
 
 IS<&te3(I<A. 105 
 
 consolation at least, my dear Arsaces, that I die in 
 your arms.' 
 
 " She expired. It is impossible to conceive how it 
 was that I did not die with her. I was torn from her 
 body, and I thought they were tearing me from myself. 
 I fixed my eyes upon her, and remained motionless and 
 insensible. On beholding the melancholy spectacle 
 presented to my sight, I felt my mind regain all its 
 sensibility. But I was dragged away. As I turned 
 my eyes towards the fatal object of my grief, I would 
 have given a thousand lives for another look. I became 
 frantic, I seized my sword, and was about to plunge it 
 into my bosom, but was, prevented. I left that fatal 
 palace and never returned there. My reason forsook 
 me ; I roamed through the woods, and filled the air 
 with my lamentations. When I became more composed 
 my soul turned irresistibly to my grief. There now 
 seemed nothing in the world for me but sorrow, and the 
 name of Ardasira. That name I uttered in a frantic 
 voice, and then became silent. I resolved to take away 
 my own life, and suddenly grew furious. 
 
 " 'You would die,' said I to myself, 'whilst Ardasira 
 is unrevenged ! You would die, and the son of the 
 tyrant is in Hyrcania, wallowing in pleasure ! He 
 lives and you would die ! ' 
 
 "I set out in quest of him. I understood that he 
 had declared war against you, and I flew to join you. 
 I 'arrived three days before the battle, and performed 
 the action you know of. I might have killed the tyrant's 
 son ; but I chose rather to make him my prisoner. I 
 
 wish that he may drag out in shame and in chains, a 
 
 2
 
 io6 
 
 life as miserable as mine. I hope he will one day learn 
 that I have cut off the last of his race. I must own, 
 however, that, since I have taken this revenge, I do not 
 find myself any the happier, and I begin to perceive 
 that the hope of vengeance is more grateful than 
 vengeance itself. My fury that I have satisfied, the 
 action which you witnessed, the acclamations of the 
 people, even your friendship, my lord, do not restore to 
 me that which I have lost." 
 
 The surprise of Aspar had begun almost with the 
 narrative to which he had been listening. The moment 
 he had heard the name of Arsaces he had recognised the 
 husband of the queen. Reasons of state had obliged 
 him to send Ismenia, the younger daughter of the late 
 king, into Media, where he had had her educated in 
 secret, under the name of Ardasira. He had married 
 her to Arsaces, he had always retained confidential 
 servants in their harem ; and he was the genie who, by 
 the intervention of these servants, had conveyed so 
 much wealth into Arsaces' abode, and who, by very 
 simple means, had given rise to their belief in so many 
 miracles. 
 
 Aspar had had very powerful reasons for concealing 
 Ardasira's parentage from her husband. Arsaces, who 
 was so brave, might have asserted the rights of his 
 wife to the throne of Bactra, and have involved the 
 kingdom in war. But these reasons no longer existed, 
 and as he listened to the story of -Arsaces, he was over 
 and over again upon the point of interrupting him. 
 However, he considered that it was not yet time to 
 inform him of his destiny. A minister, accustomed to
 
 107 
 
 weigh his thoughts, never steps beyond the line of 
 prudence ; and the thoughts of Aspar were employed 
 in preparing, not in precipitating, a great event. 
 
 Two days afterwards a report was circulated that the 
 eunuch had placed a false Ismenia on the throne. From 
 murmuring, the people proceeded to sedition. They 
 surrounded the palace, and loudly demanded the head 
 of Aspar. The eunuch commanded one of the gates to 
 be opened ; and mounted on an elephant, he advanced 
 into the crowd. 
 
 " Bactrians," said he, " favour me with your 
 attention." And as they still continued to murmur : 
 " Hear me, I say," cried he ; "if you can kill me now, 
 you can equally well take my life a few moments hence. 
 Here is a paper written and sealed by the hand of the 
 late king ; prostrate yourselves, and worship, I will 
 read it." 
 
 These were its contents : " Heaven has bestowed 
 upon me two daughters, who resemble each other so 
 strongly that all eyes might be deceived. I am afraid 
 that this may give occasion to great troubles and 
 to still more fatal wars. Do you, then, Aspar, the 
 light of the empire, take the younger of the two, send 
 her secretly into Media, and there let her be taken care 
 of. Let her remain there under a feigned name so long 
 as the good of the state shall require it." 
 
 Aspar laid this writing on his head, bowed, and 
 resumed his speech : " Ismenia is dead ; you cannot 
 doubt it ; but her sister, the young Ismenia, sits upon 
 the throne. Is it just on your part to complain because, 
 seeing the death of the queen approaching, I caused her
 
 io8 
 
 sister to be brought here from the heart of Asia ? Can 
 you reproach me for having had the happiness of 
 restoring her to you, and of placing her on a throne 
 which, since the death of her sister, has been hers by 
 right ? If I concealed the death of the queen, did not 
 the state of affairs require it ? Do you blame me for 
 having performed an act of fidelity, with circumspection 
 and discretion ? Lay down your arms, I command 
 you. So far you are not criminals; but from this 
 moment, should you persist, you would become so." 
 
 Aspar then explained to them how he had entrusted 
 the young Ismenia to two aged eunuchs, who had 
 transported her to Media under a feigned name ; how 
 he had effected her marriage with one of the greatest 
 lords of that kingdom, and had caused her to be watched 
 over in all the countries to which her fate had led her ; 
 how the illness of the queen had determined him to 
 cause the younger Ismenia to be brought to Bactra 
 and kept secretly in the seraglio ; and how, after the 
 death of the queen, he had placed her sister on the 
 throne. 
 
 As the waves of the agitated ocean are stilled by the 
 zephyrs, so the people grew calm at the words of 
 A^par. Nothing was heard but acclamations of delight, 
 and all the temples resounded with the name of the 
 young Ismenia. 
 
 Aspar incited Ismenia that she might have the 
 curiosity to see the stranger who had rendered such 
 signal service to Bactra ; he persuaded her to give him 
 a brilliant audience. It was resolved that the nobles 
 and the people should be assembled, that he should be
 
 109 
 
 declared general of the armies of the state, and that the 
 queen should gird him with the sword. The grandees 
 of the kingdom were ranged around a great hall, and a 
 crowd of the people occupied the centre and the entrance. 
 The queen was seated on her throne in magnificent 
 apparel. Her head was crowned with jewels, and 
 according to the custom at those solemnities, her face 
 was unveiled, and the people beheld the countenance of 
 beauty itself. Arsaces appeared, and acclamations 
 resounded. After a moment's silence, with his eyes 
 cast on the ground out of respect, he began to address 
 the queen : 
 
 " Madam," said he, in a low and broken voice, " if 
 anything could restore tranquillity to my soul, and give 
 me comfort under afflictions " 
 
 But the queen did not suffer him to proceed any 
 further; she had thought at first that she recollected 
 his face and she instantly knew his voice. It was that 
 of Arsaces. Transported with joy, and hardly knowing 
 what she did, she sprang from her throne, and threw 
 herself at his feet. 
 
 " My afflictions have been greater than yours," cried 
 she, " my dear Arsaces. Alas ! I thought that I should 
 never see you more, after the fatal moment that 
 separated us. My grief has been extreme." 
 
 Then as though she had passed all at once from one 
 expression of love to another, or as if she was uncertain 
 with regard to the propriety of the impetuous emotion 
 she had just shown, she suddenly arose, and a modest 
 blush overspread her face. 
 
 " Bactrians," said she, " it is at the feet of my
 
 no 
 
 husband that you have seen me fall. I am happy that 
 I have had it in my power to display the sincerity 
 of my love before you. I descended from my throne 
 because I sat on it without him ; and without him, I 
 call the gods to witness it, I will not return thither. I 
 have the pleasure of knowing that the most brilliant 
 action of my reign has been performed by him, and that 
 it was for me that he performed it. Nobles, people, 
 citizens, do you think that he who reigns over me is 
 worthy of reigning over you ? Do you approve of my 
 choice ? Do you elect Arsaces king ? Say, speak." 
 
 The last words of the queen were hardly pronounced, 
 when the whole palace resounded with acclamations ; 
 and nothing was heard but the names of Arsaces and 
 Ismenia. 
 
 During all this time, Arsaces seemed lost in amaze- 
 ment. He would have spoken but could not find the 
 power of utterance ; he would have advanced, but 
 remained without motion. His senses were fascinated ; 
 he did not see the queen ; he did not see the crowd ; 
 he scarcely heard their reiterated acclamations. Joy 
 had so deranged his faculties that he seemed insensible 
 even of his felicity. 
 
 But when Aspar had dismissed the people, Arsaces 
 bowed his head over the queen's hand. 
 
 " Ardasira, you live ; you' live, my beloved Ardasira ! 
 I have been dying of grief ever since I lost you. How 
 have the gods restored you to life ? " 
 
 He was then hastily informed that one of her women 
 had substituted an intoxicating liquor for the poison; 
 that Ardasira had remained for three days without giving
 
 any sign of motion ; that when she was restored to life 
 the first word she uttered was the name of Arsaces ; 
 that her eyes had opened only to behold him ; that she 
 had caused him to be sought for everywhere, and had 
 sought for him anxiously herself; that Aspar had caused 
 her to be brought to Bactra, and, after the death of her 
 sister, had placed her upon the throne. 
 
 Aspar had prepared the interview between Arsaces 
 and Ismenia. But he recollected the last sedition. 
 He imagined that, after having taken upon himself to 
 place Ismenia on the throne, it would not be proper for 
 him to seem instrumental in the elevation of Arsaces. 
 It was a maxim with him never to do in person what 
 he could instigate others to do for him, and to love good 
 from whatever quarter it came. Besides, knowing the 
 perfections of character possessed by both Arsaces and 
 Ismenia, he wished to make these perfections appear 
 conspicuously. He wished to obtain for the queen and 
 her husband that respect which great souls always 
 challenge, whenever they have an opportunity of 
 making themselves known. 
 
 He wished to procure for them that love which is 
 always bestowed on those who have experienced great 
 misfortunes. He wished to call forth that admiration 
 which ever attends those who are capable of feeling the 
 amiable passions. In short, he thought that nothing 
 but the course he followed was more likely to divest 
 Arsaces of the quality of stranger, and to win him that 
 of Bactrian, in the hearts of all the people of Bactra. 
 
 The happiness which Arsaces enjoyed appeared 
 
 inconceivable to him. Ardasira, whom he had thought 
 
 P
 
 <A3<JD 
 
 dead, was restored to him ; Ardasira was Ismenia ; 
 Ardasira was Queen of Bactra, and had made him king. 
 The transition was natural from the sentiment of great- 
 ness to that of love. He was charmed with the crown 
 which, far from being a mark of independence, inces- 
 santly reminded him that it was hers; he loved the 
 throne, because he possessed the hand that had led him 
 to it. 
 
 Ismenia enjoyed for the first time the pleasure of 
 perceiving that she was a great queen. Her prosperity 
 had been great before the arrival of Arsaces, but her 
 heart had been incapable of enjoying it ; in the midst 
 of her court she had found herself alone; millions of men 
 were at her feet, and yet she thought herself abandoned. 
 
 Arsaces immediately ordered the Prince of Hyrcania 
 to be brought before him. 
 
 " Now," said he, " I have ordered you to appear in 
 my presence that the chains may drop from your hands. 
 It is not seemly that there should be a single unhappy 
 being in the empire of the happiest of men. Although 
 I have conquered you, I am persuaded that you do not 
 yield to me in courage, but I beg that you will consent 
 to yield to me in generosity." 
 
 The queen's disposition was all sweetness and gentle- 
 ness ; such pride as was natural to her, disappearing on 
 all proper occasions : " Pardon me," said she to the 
 Prince of Hyrcania, "if I did not make the wished-for 
 return to a passion which I knew could not be lawfully 
 gratified. Arsaces' wife could not be yours ; if you are 
 disposed to complain, you must complain only of fate. 
 If Hyrcania and Bactra do not form one empire, they
 
 113 
 
 are, however, states destined by nature to be allies. 
 Ismenia can make offer of friendship, though she could 
 not promise love." 
 
 " I am," replied the prince, " overwhelmed with so 
 many misfortunes, and overcome with so many favours, 
 that I know not whether I am an instance of good or 
 evil fortune. I took up arms against you to revenge an 
 affront which you had not offered me. You had com- 
 mitted no fault, and I had performed no meritorious 
 service to induce heaven to favour my enterprise. I 
 will return to Hyrcania, and there I shall soon forget 
 my misfortunes; if I do not number among them the 
 misfortune of having seen you, and that of seeing you 
 no more. Your beauty will be celebrated in all the 
 East. It will render this age in which you live more 
 illustrious than any other ; and in future times, the 
 names of Arsaces and Ismenia will be the most 
 favourite titles of lovers and their mistresses." 
 
 Sometime afterwards an unforeseen circumstance re- 
 quired the presence of Arsaces in a certain province of 
 the empire : he quitted Ismenia. How tender was her 
 farewell ! how delicious were their tears ! It was not 
 so much a subject of affliction as an occasion of soft 
 sensations. The grief of parting was cheered by the 
 thoughts of the pleasure which they would experience 
 in meeting again. 
 
 During the absence of the king everything was so 
 disposed by his orders, that the time, the place, the 
 persons, indeed every circumstance presented to Ismenia 
 some token of his remembrance. He was at a distance, 
 
 but his actions spoke him present ; all things conspired 
 
 P 2
 
 H4 
 
 to recall his image! Ismenia saw him not, but on every 
 hand she beheld some proof of his love. 
 
 Arsaces wrote continually to Ismenia. In one letter 
 she read : " I have seen the magnificent cities that 
 lead to your frontiers ; I have seen innumerable people 
 fall prostrate at my feet. Everything told me that I 
 reigned in Bactra ; but I saw not her who had made 
 me king, and I felt king no longer." 
 
 In another letter he said : " If heaven granted me 
 the draught of immortality so eagerly sought for in the 
 East, you should drink in the same cup as myself, or it 
 should not touch my lips : you should be immortal with 
 me, or I should die with you." 
 
 In another : " I have given your name to the city I 
 have built ; I am convinced that it will be inhabited by 
 the happiest of your subjects." 
 
 In another letter, after saying everything tender and 
 affectionate which love could dictate respecting the 
 charms of the queen's person, he added : " I say these 
 things to you without seeking to flatter you. I wish 
 to relieve the tediousness of my absence ; and I feel that 
 my soul is gratified by talking of you even to yourself." 
 
 At last she received the following letter : " I used 
 to count the days ; I now only count the minutes, and 
 these minutes are longer than the days. Fair queen ! 
 my soul becomes less and less tranquil the nearer I 
 approach you." 
 
 After the return of Arsaces, embassies arrived from 
 every quarter, and some of them were of a singular 
 nature. Arsaces sat on a throne erected in the court 
 of the palace. The ambassador of Parthia entered first :
 
 <AXi?> IS^eXiltA. 115 
 
 he was mounted on a fiery steed, and did not dismount, 
 but spoke thus : " A tiger of Hyrcania desolated the 
 plains ; an elephant trampled him under foot. A young 
 tiger remained, and he was already as cruel as his 
 father ; the elephant, a second time, delivered the 
 country. All the animals that dread the beasts of prey 
 came to feed around him. He was delighted to think 
 that he was their protector, and he said to himself: 
 ' The tiger is called the king of the beasts, but no, he is 
 only their tyrant, 'tis I who am their king.' " 
 
 The ambassador of the Persians spoke thus : " At 
 the beginning of time, the moon was married to the 
 sun ; every star in the firmament paid their addresses 
 to her. ' Look at the sun,' said she to them, ' and then 
 look at yourselves ; all of you together shed not so 
 much light as he.' " 
 
 Next came the ambassador of Egypt, who said : 
 " When Isis espoused the great Osiris, their marriage 
 was the foundation of the prosperity of Egypt, and the 
 mainspring of its fecundity. Such will be the destiny 
 of Bactra ; it will become happy by the marriage of its 
 gods." 
 
 Arsaces caused his name and that of Ismenia to be 
 inscribed on the walls of all the palaces. The letters 
 were intermingled and cyphered in every corner. 
 Painters were prohibited from representing Arsaces 
 without Ismenia. 
 
 Of all the actions in which severity was requisite he 
 chose to appear as the author ; but every act of grace 
 or favour proceeded in the names of Arsaces and 
 Ismenia conjointly.
 
 n6 
 
 " I love you," said he to her, " on account of that 
 celestial beauty and those graces that are ever new ; I 
 love you still more, because I know that when I have 
 performed any action worthy of a great king, I am then 
 most approved by you. It was your pleasure to make 
 me your king, when my heart was only engrossed with 
 the happiness of being your husband ; and whenever it 
 has been necessary for my glory you have taught me to 
 forego those pleasures in which we have so rapturously 
 indulged together. You have accustomed my soul to 
 clemency ; and even when you have demanded things 
 which could not be granted, you have always made me 
 respect the heart that demanded them. The women 
 of your palace have not entered into the intrigues of 
 the Court; they have adorned themselves with modesty, 
 and have avoided everything which they should not 
 love. I believe that heaven has designed me for a 
 great prince, since even in those difficulties in which 
 kings are generally conquered, it has enabled me to find 
 assistance to virtue." 
 
 Never did Bactra experience happier times. Arsaces 
 and Ismenia were wont to say that they reigned over 
 the best people in the universe ; and the Bactrians 
 declared that they lived under the best of sovereigns. 
 
 Arsaces said that, being born a subject, his greatest 
 wish had been to live under the government of a good 
 prince ; and that undoubtedly his subjects formed the 
 same desire. He added that, possessing the heart of 
 Ismenia, it was his duty to win for her the hearts of 
 mankind. He could not bestow a new throne upon 
 her, but he could bring her virtues to adorn her own.
 
 117 
 
 He thought that the memory of his love would 
 descend to posterity, and that it could not descend 
 better than in company with his fame. He wished to 
 have these words inscribed upon his tomb: "The 
 husband of Ismenia was a king who enjoyed the affec- 
 tion of all good men." 
 
 He said that he loved Aspar, his prime-minister, 
 because he spoke always of the people, seldom of the 
 king, and never of himself. "Aspar possesses," said 
 Arsaces, " three great qualities ; he has a correct 
 judgment, a tender heart, and a benevolent dis- 
 position." 
 
 Arsaces often spoke of the mildness of his own 
 administration. He said that he was anxious to keep 
 his hands clean ; because the first crime he should 
 commit would determine the whole of his future life, 
 and would be the first link in a chain formed of a 
 multitude of other crimes. 
 
 " I might punish a man upon suspicion," said he, 
 "and hope that the matter would rest there: but would 
 that be the case ? By no means. New suspicions 
 would arise in crowds against the friends and relations 
 of the man I had put to death. These would prove the 
 source of a second crime. These violent actions would 
 make me believe that I must be hated by my subjects : 
 and then I should begin to fear them. Hence occasions 
 for more executions would arise occasions which would 
 give birth to renewed terrors. If my life were once 
 marked with these stains, the despair of obtaining a 
 virtuous reputation would seize upon me. And as it 
 would be impossible for me to wipe away the guilt of
 
 n8 
 
 my past crimes, I should grow indifferent about my 
 future conduct." 
 
 Arsaces was so anxious to maintain the ancient laws 
 and customs of the Bactrians that he always trembled 
 at the mention of a reform of abuses ; for he had 
 often remarked, that people gave the name of law to 
 whatever was agreeable to their own views, whilst 
 whatever ran counter to their interests they called 
 abuses. " In the correction of abuses," he said, "men 
 often destroy what they pretend to reform." 
 
 He was convinced that goodness cannot exist in a 
 state except it be conveyed through the channel of the 
 laws; that the only way of establishing permanent 
 prosperity was by doing good as the laws directed ; and 
 that the surest way of introducing permanent evil was 
 to commit evil in spite of them. 
 
 He was persuaded that the duty of a prince did not 
 so much consist in guarding the laws against the 
 passions of others as against his own ; that the 
 general desire of rendering mankind happy was natural 
 to princes ; but that this desire became nugatory if 
 princes did not continually endeavour to acquire the 
 knowledge necessary to carry it into effect ; that, most 
 fortunately, the great art of governing required judg- 
 ment rather than genius ; a desire to acquire know- 
 ledge rather than extensive information ; practical skill 
 rather than theoretical proficiency ; a certain acuteness 
 in discerning the characters of men, rather than 
 capacity for forming them ; that knowledge of mankind 
 is acquired, like everything else, by intercourse with 
 men ; that faults and vices can be hidden only with the
 
 ng 
 
 greatest difficulty ; that most men wear a disguise, but 
 that it is generally so loose and ill-fitting that it often 
 leaves some flaw uncovered. 
 
 Arsaces never spoke of the affairs which he happened 
 to have with foreign states ; but he liked to discourse 
 of those that related to the internal situation of his 
 kingdom, because this was the best means of becoming 
 well acquainted with his possessions : and on these 
 occasions he used to say, that a good prince ought to 
 be discreet, but that he might sometimes carry his 
 reserve to extremes. 
 
 He said, he could feel within himself that he was a 
 good king ; that he was gentle, affable, and humane ; 
 that he was fond of glory, and that he loved his subjects : 
 yet, if with these good qualities he had not stored 
 his mind with the great principles of government, the 
 most grievous misfortune in the world must have befallen 
 his subjects ; they would have had a good king, and 
 they might have been sensible of their happiness ; and 
 yet that blessing which providence had bestowed on them 
 might have proved, in some measure, useless to them. 
 
 " He who expects to find happiness on a throne," 
 said Arsaces, " deceives himself. He can there enjoy 
 only the happiness that he brings with him ; and he 
 often risks even the happiness which he thus brings. If 
 the gods then," added he, "have not instituted power 
 for the happiness of those who govern, they must have 
 instituted it for the happiness of those who obey." 
 
 Arsaces knew when to give, because he knew how to 
 refuse. " It often happens," said he, " that four villages 
 are not an adequate present for a great lord, who stands 
 
 9
 
 on the brink of ruin ; nor to the man of low birth about 
 to become a great lord. It is easy to enrich poverty of 
 condition ; but it is impossible to enrich the poverty 
 born of luxury." 
 
 Arsaces was more inclined to enter the cottages of 
 the peasants than the palaces of the great. " It is 
 there," said he, "that I find my real counsellors. 
 There, also, I am made to remember what my palace 
 has made me forget. The humble tenants lay before 
 me their necessities. Great distress in a state is com- 
 pounded of the petty misfortunes of individuals. I 
 inform myself of all these misfortunes, which collectively 
 might create my own. It is in these cottages that I 
 become acquainted with those mournful sights which 
 are always objects of delight to those who have it in 
 their power to relieve them, and which tell me that I 
 may yet become a greater prince than I am. There I 
 behold joy succeeding tears, whilst in my own palace I 
 seldom see anything but tears succeeding joy." 
 
 He was told one day, that on some occasion of public 
 rejoicing his praises had been celebrated by a company 
 of comedians. 
 
 " Do you know," said he, " why I permit such people 
 to praise me ? It is that I may despise flattery, and 
 make it detested by men of worth. My power is so 
 great, that it will always be natural for the selfish to seek 
 to please me. I hope, however, that the gods will never 
 suffer me to feel gratified with flattery. As to you, my 
 friends, always tell me the truth ; it is the only thing in 
 the world that I wish for, because it is the only thing in 
 the world that I am in danger of lacking."
 
 121 
 
 The troubles, that had embittered the close of the 
 reign of Artamenes, proceeded from some small people 
 in the neighbourhood, between Media and Bactra, whom 
 this king had conquered in his youth. They were his 
 allies, but he had wished to make them his subjects. 
 This made them his enemies; and, as they inhabited 
 the mountains, they were never completely subdued. 
 On the contrary, the Medes employed them to excite 
 disturbances in the kingdom. The successes of the 
 conqueror had thus in a great measure weakened the 
 authority of the monarch ; and when Arsaces mounted 
 the throne this nation was not yet reconciled to the 
 Bactrian yoke. The intrigues of the Medes soon 
 induced them to revolt. Arsaces flew to the spot and 
 subdued them. Then he summoned the people together 
 and thus addressed them : 
 
 " I know that you only suffer the dominion of the 
 Bactrians with impatience, and this does not surprise 
 me. You loved your ancient kings who loaded you 
 with kindness. It is my duty to act in such a way that 
 by my moderation and my justice you may consider me 
 as the worthy successor of those whom you so highly 
 revere." He then ordered into his presence the two 
 chiefs who had been most active in the revolt, and said 
 to the people : " I have caused these men to be brought 
 before you, that you may judge them yourselves." 
 
 Each fancied that he might justify himself by con- 
 demning them. 
 
 "Acknowledge," said Arsaces, "the happiness you 
 enjoy in living under a king who divests himself of 
 passion when he punishes, and only yields to it when 
 
 Q 2
 
 122 
 
 he rewards ; who knows that the glory of conquests 
 depends but on chance, and that the glory of forgiveness 
 depends on himself. You shall live happy under my 
 reign, and you shall preserve your customs and your 
 laws. Forget that you are subdued by my arms, I 
 desire that you should only feel subdued by my affec- 
 tion." 
 
 The whole nation came to thank Arsaces for his 
 clemency, and for the blessing of peace. Some old 
 men were the orators ; and the first of them spoke thus : 
 " Methinks I behold those lofty trees which are the 
 ornament of our country. You are the trunk, and we 
 are the leaves ; the leaves shall protect the trunk from 
 the burning influence of the sun." 
 
 The second thus addressed him: "You may have 
 asked the gods to level our mountains, that they might 
 not screen us from your arms ; now, however, implore 
 them to raise those mountains to the clouds that 
 they may the more effectually defend you from your 
 enemies." 
 
 Then the third said : " Survey the river that waters 
 our country. After bearing down everything before it 
 in its impetuous and rapid course, it at length becomes 
 so shallow that women even can cross it on foot. 
 But if you observe it in those places where it glides 
 along gently, and is still, you will find that there its 
 waters gradually deepen ; it is respected by the nations, 
 and it impedes the progress of armies." 
 
 Ever afterwards these people became the most faith- 
 ful subjects of Bactra. 
 
 In the meantime, the King of Media had been
 
 123 
 
 informed that Arsaces reigned in Bactra. The recol- 
 lection of the affront he had received from him was 
 revived in his mind. He resolved to declare war 
 against him, and sought assistance from the King of 
 Hyrcania. 
 
 "Join your forces to mine," said he in the letter 
 which he wrote, "and let us prosecute our mutual 
 revenge. Heaven destined the Queen of Bactra for your 
 consort ; one of my subjects tore her from your arms ; 
 come and regain her by force." 
 
 The King of Hyrcania returned this answer : " I 
 should at this moment have been a slave among the 
 Bactrians, had I not met with generous enemies. I 
 return thanks to heaven which ordained that my reign 
 should commence with misfortunes. Adversity is our 
 mother; prosperity is only our step-mother. You 
 would have me enter into a quarrel which is unworthy 
 of a prince. Let us leave the King and Queen of 
 Bactra to the enjoyment of their mutual happiness and 
 love."
 
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 with great force." St. James's Gazette. 
 
 In demy 8vo, with 10 full-page Etchings by C. Courtry, price 7s. 6d. 
 
 THE BOHEMIANS OF THE LATIN QUAETEB 
 
 (Scenes de la Vie de Boheme). By HENRY MDKGER. 
 
 " The preliminary account of Murger and his associates adds considerably to 
 the value and interest of this exceptionally well-translated version of the 
 1 Scenes de la Vie de Boheme.' " Academy. 
 
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 the grace of a genuine Parisian style." Scotsman. 
 
 CROWN 8vo SERIES ; IN TASTEFUL BINDINGS. 
 With page Illustrations by James Tissot, price 6s. 
 
 EENEE MAUPEEIN. By E. and J. DE GONCOUBT. 
 
 " Is one of the most pathetic romances of our day. Running through almost 
 the whole gamut of human passion, it has the alternatives of sunshine and shade 
 that exist in real life." Morning Post. 
 
 With 17 high-class Etchings after Toudouze, price 10s. 6d. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN. By THEOPHILJS 
 GAUTIER. 
 
 " The golden book of spirit and sense, the Holy Writ of beauty." A. C. 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
 " Gautier is an inimitable model. His manner is so light and true, so really 
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 With Etchings by French Artists, price 6s. 
 
 MADAME BOVAEY : PKOVINCIAL MANNEBS. By GUSTAVE 
 FLAUBERT. "With Notes of the proceedings against the author before 
 the " Tribunal Correctionnel " of Paris. 
 
 " Madame Bovary ' grips your very vitals with an invincible power, like 
 some scene you have really witnessed, some event which is actually happening 
 before your eyes." EMI LE ZOLA,
 
 With highly finished Etchings, price 6s. 
 
 GEEMINIE LACEETEUX. BY E. and J. DE GONCOURT. 
 
 "Who could take up such books as 'Germinie Lacerteux' and 'A Cruel 
 Enigma,' both, by the way, admirably translated, and not be simply and 
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 In tasteful binding, price 3s. 6d. 
 A CEUEL ENIGMA. By PAUL BOUEGET. Translated 
 
 without abridgment from the 18th French Edition. 
 
 "M. Bourget's most remarkable work, 'A Cruel Enigma,' has placed him 
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 as well as the weighty approbation of connoisseurs." Athenceum. 
 
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 A LOVE CEIME. By PAUL BOUKGET. From the 17th 
 
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 FANNY. By ERNEST FETDEAU. From the latest French 
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 With upwards of 100 Engravings, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 THE EMOTIONS OF POLYDOEE MAEASQUIN. By 
 
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 PAPA, MAMMA, AND BABY. By GUSTAVE DEOZ. Trans- 
 lated without abridgment from the 130th French Edition. 
 
 " The lover who is a husband and the wife who is in love with the man she 
 has married have never before been so attractively portrayed. " Pictorial World . 
 
 With Six Etchings by Pierre Vidal and a Portrait of the Author, 
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 SALAMBO. By GUSTAVE FLAUBEET. Translated from 
 the French " Edition Definitive " by J. S. CHAETRES. 
 
 " The Translator has thoroughly understood the original, and has succeeded 
 in putting it into good English. The type, paper, and material execution of the 
 volume, inside and out, leave nothing to be desired." Westminster Review. 
 
 Twelfth Thousand. With 32 highly finished page Engravings, 
 cloth gilt, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 SAPPHO : PARISIAN MANNERS. By ALPHONSE DAUDET, 
 Unabridged translation from the 100th French Edition,
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Form L9
 
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