University of Virginia Library

THE FESTIVAL OF ISIS.

It was the annual festival of Isis, and nothing but the
bustle and noise of preparation for this event was to
be heard throughout the ancient city of Memphis. It
was a religious exhibition well calculated to blind and
to dazzle the senses of the ignorant and superstitious.
Where this was not the prevailing motive for attendance,
curiosity and the love of show brought innumerable
thousands. The neighbouring cities were emptied of all
those, whom circumstances permitted to leave their habitations;
and assembled nations themselves were spectators
on the occasion. Greater preparations and an
increased expense, promised to render this festival superior
to all that had preceded it. The reigning monarch
had emptied his palace of its jewels to enrich the temple
and add lustre to the appearance of the goddess; and
the great Pyramid of Ghiza had been ransacked, and
its stores of gold, of silver and of pearl, the treasures of
preceding princes, appropriated to this enthusiastic purpose.
Unusual anticipations were connected with the
present year; and the crowds brought into the city were
calculated to excite apprehensions, as to the possibility
of providing them with food and lodging. The Arabs,
Meccans, and Mamelukes, who, except on these occasions,
never leave the desert, now seemed to have
brought treble their usual number into the capital.

Nor were the expectations of the people disappointed.
The day of celebration had arrived, and the massive
doors of the temple of the goddess were thrown open.
As the crowds in advance rushed forward to anticipate,
as it were, the approach of the deity, they were driven
back and blinded by the streams of excessive light, that,
prepared by the chemist of their college of the priesthood,
served to impart an additional mystery to the religion
of the goddess whose temple was thus revealed,
“dark with excessive bright.” A large sun, before the
inner door of the temple, sent forth the richest rays;
while innumerable objects of a sacred character among
the Egyptians, were prepared to precede the car in which
Isis was about to exhibit herself to the assembled multitude.
First came a milk-white pigeon, with a golden
fillet about its neck, and perched upon a branch, intended
to represent the palm, and made of gold, borne
by one of the initiated of the year preceding. He was
clothed in a garment of the purest white, and bore
upon his head a globe, indicative of eternity; a butterfly
resting upon it denoted the immortality of the soul. On
his shoulder glittered a costly gem, that bound and secured,
with an air of graceful negligence, which admirably
contrasted with the simple tunic that fell around
and enveloped him. He was followed by an hundred
others similarly attired; all bearing different emblems of
the deity and of the immortality of the soul. As they
advanced from the temple, the silence of that mighty
and mixed multitude was suddenly broken by one universal
burst of admiration; while the seats which had
been prepared for the nobler and the higher orders
of the people rocked with the emotion of those upon
them. Next came the slaves, bearing censers of gold
and scattering incense upon the people. These were
blacks, with a girdle of silver cloth around the loins and
a collar for the neck, and a cap of the same costly material.
Officiates of different castes followed; all variously
dressed, and each successive host, if possible,
more splendid than the last. Then came the sagas with
long white beards, generally old men, who had spent a
life in acquiring the principles of their several sciences,
and highly reverenced among the Egyptians. They
bore some distinctive characteristic of their profession.
To these succeeded the artificers, the painters, the
builders; and, at length, the sacred sun, borne by two
aged men, advanced into the area followed by the high
priest. This office was held by an experienced magian,
than whom Egypt could boast of none more renowned
or expert in the sacred sciences. His name was Bermahdi.
A robe of sable was thrown loosely around
him, and a living serpent twined itself about his arm,
while he grasped its middle with his hand. As he advanced,
the assembled multitude, late still and silent, now
burst forth into a mighty shout. The wide area rung
with acclamations, and wisdom and science found an
acknowledged victory over ignorance and superstition.
Lastly came the car of the god, borne upon the back of
a camel whose hoofs were coated with gold, and whose
body was covered with clothes and jewels of the most
costly character, and rendered sacred by previous purification.
Around it, danced in wild and lascivious contortions,
a troop of priestesses—dressed in a manner
calculated to excite the emotions and appetites of the
most dull and insensible. These closed the procession,
and as they passed from the doors of the temple, these
closed of themselves with a startling and tremendous
sound.

Among the crowds assembled to witness this imposing
spectacle, the youthful Cleon was neither the least
observant, nor the least happy. He was a youth of
fine, natural parts, much improved by an acquaintance
with the learning of the schools as well as a close observation
upon, and a wide intermixture with men,
in various travel. A native of the Greek islands,
he had come to Egypt to acquire those abstract
and usually forbidden sciences taught by the magi of
that country, in the voluptuous and secluded walls of
their hidden and mysterious pursuits. But the warmth
of his heart and the buoyancy of his imagination forbade
that close attention to studies, which, however grand
and imposing, his good sense enabled him to see had
their foundation in a vicious policy of dominion, and
were built upon the fears and grovelling superstitions of
the common and uninformed. Besides, at his age, there
is one pursuit which of all others is most calculated to
swallow up any set on foot by mere ambition or desire of
supremacy in intellect. This was love. Very soon after
his arrival at Memphis, and before he had as yet made
himself familiar with the elements of those sciences, for
the acquirement of which his journey had been principally
undertaken, he had met with and become enamoured
of the beautiful Alme, the only heir and hope
of one of the highest houses in Egypt. She was soon
made acquainted with, and encouraged, his passion with
emotions as warm; and as nothing could be urged either
against the name, character, or wealth of Cleon, the consent

of their parents was not difficult to obtain. On a
set day they were splendidly attired, and, attended by a
numerous crowd of young friends and relations, they
appeared in the temple consecrated to marriage, and
were solemnly betrothed by the priestess who officiated
and administered the rites. This was, however, only introductory
to their full and final espousal, which was
fixed to be completed during the continuance of the
next moon, provided her appearance be favourable.
This, among a people so superstitious as the Egyptians,
was a necessary duty; and, however irksome, Cleon was
compelled to endure all the anxiety arising from the
suspense. Pending this interval, the public rites of the
goddess Isis began as before represented; and Cleon,
with the fair Alme, were among the most prominent of
the admiring spectators on this occasion; he for manly
grace and proportion; she for feminine delicacy and
attraction.

On these annual festivals, one privilege claimed by
the high priest of the Temple of Isis was that of selecting
any young women from the spectators whom
the goddess had previously designated as her favourites.
It was an honour that most of the Egyptian families
were proud of; and many were the hearts that beat tumultuously
with hope and expectation at this period.
No limit was placed upon the demands of the goddess,
made through the high priest, and six and eight have
been selected at a time, generally from the loveliest of
the fair spectators. After performing many rites and
oblations, calculated to seduce the reason into the arms
of enthusiasm and devotion, the high priest proceeded
to the selection of the youthful and trembling divinities.

Every eye followed his slow pace and searching glance
around the deeply silent assembly. Many were the
mortified looks that succeeded his passage by those
whose consciousness of beauty had, in their opinion, secured
them a choice; and a low, but not ungracious
murmur of compliment, broke from the crowd, as the
priest, with a wand of ivory and gold, selected his first
priestess, in the person of the fair Alme, by touching
her on the brow with its jewelled extremity, and commanding
her to follow him. She rose, as if to obey the
summons. The scarcely-breathing Cleon, with trembling
and convulsive hand, was about to clasp her to himself,
when the maiden, with a look of conscious security and
happiness, rather unaccountable to those who had considered
a selection on this occasion as the highest joy of
life, bade him defiance; and throwing back with her
snowy finger, through which the blood went and came,
the white robe which gracefully encircled her, disclosed
the sacred belt of betrothal, given her by the priestess
of union and domestic love, which secured her from his
demand.

Great was the mortification of the High Priest: he
frowned darkly upon her and her lover; and with ill-suppressed
looks of anger and rage, he turned to another
part of the open amphithetre, and made his
selections from several, more willing than the fair
Alme. After the ceremonies of the day had been concluded,
according to established usage, the doors of
the temple were again thrown open, and the procession
returned in the same order as it had issued out of
them.

How happy was Cleon that day! Nothing could

have been more calculated to assure him of the love of
his betrothed, than the gladness with which she exhibited
the badge which secured her to himself. They
separated at a late hour; he to dream of and anticipate
future joys, and she to watch for the coming of that
moon, whose favourable or unfavourable aspect was to
confirm her hopes of immediate happiness, or frustrate
them by a longer delay.

But the next morning arose only to destroy the vain
hopes of the unfortunate Cleon. His bride was no
where to be found. Her chamber was empty, and no
traces of the manner in which she had been spirited
away, could be obtained. Her family were in sackcloth
and ashes, and lying with their heads covered,
upon the threshold of the house. The men were
searching for her wherever they thought it possible she
had been taken, and Cleon was nearly mad. The day
passed over and no tidings of her were to be had. All
night he searched for her in vain. Morning broke to
discover him more miserable and unhappy than before.
At length, a sudden thought revived him: it rushed
through his brain like an arrow of fire. “It is he!”
he exclaimed, in a voice where hope and phrenzy were
oddly blended; “it is the accursed priest, the villain
Bermahdi—I see it now—I see it now!”

His plan was arranged. It could not be put in execution,
however, before the night. It was to enter
the temple, which, as an initiate, he could easily do;
and knowing many of the private passages, revealed
only to its agents, he thought it probable that if his
suspicion were well founded, he must necessarily find
the object of his search. The day passed over slowly;

too slowly for love, and perhaps too fast for the duration
of his lately revived hope. But at length night
came; and divesting himself of his accustomed dress,
and assuming a disguise, with no other weapon than
a short Egyptian dagger, he went forward to the western
and least frequented portion of the stupendous and
frowning structure, which he believed to confine the
object of his devotion and search.

It was midnight. All seemed perfectly silent as he
entered the secret wicket, known only to the hierophant
and noviciate, who pursued the mysteries of
Egyptian science at that period. Through a long and
dark gloomy passage-way, cut in the solid wall, he pursued
his course. At length, he came to an inner entrance
which led him into the very bowels of the earth;
for it lay for some distance under the rock on which
was reared the frowning and stupendous turrets of the
temple. A large body of water shortly appeared in
sight, in which a number of young crocodiles were
yearly put, fed and preserved, for the use of the goddess.
Here the youth, repelled by the excessive darkness,
paused for a moment ere he proceeded. The
only light upon this dreary scene was admitted through
an aperture in the roof of the temple; and the small
lantern, curiously formed out of a sea-shell, with which
he had provided himself, was insufficient to render
light any part of the vast amphitheatre in which he
wandered, except for a few feet in advance of his own
person. He proceeded, however, warmed and impelled
forwards, by the tumult of his thoughts, which
would not permit the delay of a moment; and felt the
difficulties created by the darkness before him, as obstacles

which only served to madden and infuriate him.
For a long time he pursued his way, until his eye fell
upon a large iron ring in the wall, which he knew as
belonging to the passage which led to the main body
of the temple, and to the distant apartments of Bermahdi,
the High Priest. With a violent effort he succeeded
in wrenching it open; and as he entered, it
shut of itself with a tremendous sound and horrible
jar behind him. He did not pause, but proceeded on
until he came to the first trial of the noviciate. This
having already passed, he stopped not to think about,
but rapidly passed onwards. The wheel of trial to the
advanced noviciate at length arrested his attention.
He hesitated not, however, but sprung quickly upon
it. It whirled suddenly beneath him, and after turning
rapidly for several minutes, stopped with a quick
shock, and he was thrown stupid and heavy into another
apartment. The shock, however, roused him: he
rose, and found that his lamp, which, before entering
upon this trial, he had cautiously concealed beneath his
cloak, had been put out by the rotatory motion of the
wheel. He saw, however, the burning plates before
him, and prepared for another and more severe trial.
A pair of glass shoes lay before them, for the noviciate
to put on before passing the flaming bars. He threw
off his sandals, hastily put them on, and leapt upon the
glowing bars. To this trial, as a noviciate, he had
never before advanced, but rather regarded it with apprehension:
to his astonishment, he felt no heat. This
was another secret of the Egyptian Magi. By a chemical
preparation, the glass shoes were prepared as
protectors against the seven-times heated bars, over
which he trod uninjured. Several other trials, calculated
in appearance to deter most men, and which, on
any other occasion, he would have shrunk from, he
went through with equal facility. At length he reached
the chamber of the High Priest himself. From an
aperture, he beheld for the first time, this first among
the Magi of Egypt in the privacy of his supernaturally
guarded retirement. He now beheld him seated at a
large table with a number of mathematical instruments,
together with the astrolabe and mirror necessary for
the pursuits, computations, and admeasurements of
astrology; in which science Bermahdi had made some
wonderful improvements, and was, in fact, looked upon
as dealing with beings of a different order from
those over whom he swayed. His knowledge was immense,
and his hard study was incomputable. Books
in languages unknown, from among the Scythians and
the wise people of Indus, and even remote Africa and
Spain, from Persia, and the lands beyond the dominion
of the great king, gathered with much care, expense,
and labour. Astronomical instruments and signs were
before him, and he seemed engaged in some calculations
of the heavenly bodies, as Cleon looked from the
covered door down upon him. His silver beard and
venerable appearance, the character of his studies and
yet more, the firm and commanding appearance which
he maintained, had the effect of impressing a feeling
of awe upon his observer. But this sentiment was
only momentary. The emotion which had led him
thus far, was not to be bound down now by the mere
appearance of sanctity and grace. Accordingly, with
some violence, he burst into the apartment. Bermahdi,
whose attention seemed intensely fixed upon
the figures before him, never even turned at the interruption,
but several living serpents that lay around
him in wicker baskets, began to hiss and issue forth
from their several cases of earth and mud, in which
they lived; and with forked tongues and open mouths
began to assail the youthful adventurer. They were,
however, arrested and driven back by the voice of Bermahdi,
who, after commanding them to be still, demanded
of Cleon, what induced his intrusion, at the
late hour in which it was made. The youth rather
petulantly observed that he who was able to measure
and compute the stars, and to calculate and predict the
changes of the weather, and the elements, should certainly
be able to compass the thoughts of mere mortality.
“My son,” replied the old man, “some headstrong
passion moves you to this violence, let me know
its occasion, and I may be able from my knowledge to
afford you some relief: “My wife, Alme, where is she?
I demand of you, Bermahdi, tell me, for you must know,
either from your heavenly knowledge, or from your
own connection with the great mother of earth. I demand
of you to let me know, or I shall this instant take
from you the remains of your treacherous and unworthy
life,” said the infuriated Cleon, as he brandished
his dagger above the magician. “I know not where
she is, rash young man,” said the old priest, but scarce
had he said the words, when a deep groan issued from
the corner of the apartment which was hidden from
sight by the silver veil of Isis. In a moment Cleon
had placed his hands upon it. The high priest rushed
to prevent him, exclaiming, “Hold, young man! your
certain death will follow a violation of the mysteries
of yonder sanctuary.” But in vain he spoke. The
silver veil was torn down from its place; and Cleon
had just time to behold his bride stretched out upon a
couch of the most costly material apparently in a lethargic
slumber, as the high priest rushed upon him
with the sharp golden compasses which he held in his
hands. A violent struggle ensued, which was terminated
by Cleon's burying his dagger in the heart of his opponent,
who gave but one groan, and fell dead at the
feet of the young man. The serpents rushed upon
him; but they were fangless and hurt him not. It was
necessary that he should make his escape immediately.
How to do this he knew not, burthened with the
lifeless body of Alme. With a convulsive grasp he
threw her upon his bosom and shoulder, and seizing
the golden lamp that burned upon the table he pursued
his way. All the trials he passed with little difficulty,
except that of the wheel, by which, in endeavouring
to support his bride from injury, as she could
not support herself, he was stunned for several minutes.
Recovering himself, he pursued his way with redoubled
vigour. Fear lent him wings; and a certain intutiveness
which served the place of lamp or guide,
(the lamp taken from the priest's table having been
extinguished,) aided his flight, and at length he found
himself in the pure free air, and under the broad blue
and starlit expanse of heaven. A barque was ready
for him on the river; with much care he placed his
bride within it, and bore down for Memphis. Here
he was joined by the family and parents of his Alme,
and before his agency in the death of Bermahdi could
be known, they were all safely steering among the
free and balmy isles of the Grecian Archipelago.