《玫瑰花园》Longley

7、Astarte黛

　　THE STORY OF APHERIDON AND ASTARTE
　　' I was born among the Zoroastrians , a religion which may well be the most ancient in the world . I had the misfortune to fall in love before I had attained the age of reason . When I was scarcely six years old , I found I could bear to live only with my sister ; my eyes would never leave her ; if she absented herself for a moment , on her return she would find me in tears : every passing day increased my love faster than it increased my age . My father , amazed at such a powerful bond of feeling , would happily have married us , according to the ancient custom of the Zoroastrians , introduced by King Cambyses ;* but fear of the Muslims , beneath whose yoke we live , prevents our people from contemplating these holy alliances which our religion does not merely permit , but prescribes , and which are such naive reflections of the union already established by nature.' My father , therefore , realizing that it would have been dangerous to gratify the wish I and he both cherished , resolved to stifle a passion which he believed to be at its birth ; but it had already reached full maturity ; he thought up a reason to travel , and took me with him , leaving my sister in the care of one of his relatives , for my mother had died two years earlier . I shall say nothing of the despair this separa - tion occasioned ; my sister was bathed in tears as I kissed her , but I did not weep , for pain had made me numb . We reached Tiflis , where my father , having entrusted my upbringing to one of our relatives , left me and returned home
　　' Some time later I heard that , through the influence of a friend , he had arranged for my sister to enter the harem of the king , where she was in the service of a sultana . If I had been told of her death it could not have been a greater shock ; her entrance into the harem had made her a Muslim , and , according to the prejudices of that religion , she could not now look upon me with anything other than horror . Meanwhile , unable to stay any longer in Tiflis , weary of myself and of life , I returned to Ispahan . My first words to my father were bitter : I reproached him for having placed his daughter in a position which required a person to change their religion ." You have brought down upon your family ", I told him ," the anger of God , and of the sun which gives you light ; you have done worse than if you had sullied the elements , for you have sullied the soul of your daughter , which is no less pure ; I shall die of love and anguish because of this , but may my death be the only pain that God inflicts upon you !" With these words I left and , for the next two years , I spent my time gazing at the walls of the harem and contemplating the building where my sister dwelt ; repeatedly running the risk , every day , of having my throat cut by the eunuchs who guarded that fearsome place .
　　Eventually my father died , and the sultana whom my sister attended , seeing her beauty increase with every passing day , grew jealous of her , and married her to a eunuch who loved her passion - ately . By this means my sister left the seraglio and , with her eunuch , took a house in Ispahan .
　　' It was more than three months before I managed to speak to her , for the eunuch - of all men the most jealous - kept finding different excuses to put me off . Finally I was admitted to his harem , and he arranged that I speak to her through a screen ; even the eyes of a lynx would not have been capable of seeing her , so enveloped was she in garments and veils ; I could recognize her only by the sound of her voice . How deeply was I moved , at finding myself so near and yet so distant from her ! I controlled myself , for I was being closely watched . As for her , I thought she shed some tears . Her husband tried to offer some lame excuse , but I treated him as the most despicable of slaves . He was very nonplussed when he saw that I was addressing my sister in a language he did not know , ancient Persian , which is our sacred language ." Can it be , sister ," I asked her ," that you have abandoned the religion of your ancestors ? I know that when you entered the harem you were obliged to profess yourself a Muslim ; but tell me , did you consent with your heart as well as with your lips , to relin - quish a religion which permits me to love you ? And for whom are you relinquishing this religion which should be so dear to us ? For a wretched man who still carries the ignominy of the chains he wore , and who , were he really a man , would be the lowest of them all ?"" Brother ," she replied ," this man of whom you speak is my husband ; I must honour him , however unworthy he may seem to be to you , and I too would be the basest of women if ..."" Ah ! My sister , you ' re a Zoroastrian ; he is not your husband nor could he be ; if you are as faithful as were your forebears , you ought not to consider him as anything but a monster ."" Alas ," she said ," how indistinct is my memory of that religion ! I had barely learnt its precepts when I had to forget them . You can see that I ' m no longer familiar with this lan - guage I ' m speaking to you , and that I ' m finding it extremely hard to express myself ; but you may be sure that the remembrance of our childhood still delights me ; that since that time I ' ve known no true joy ; that not a day has passed without my thinking of you , and that you played a greater part in my marriage than you may think ; the only reason I was persuaded to agree to it was the hope that I might see you again ; but this day , which has cost me so much , will cost me still more dearly ! I can see that you ' re distraught ; my husband is trembling with fury and jealousy ; I shall not see you again , and I ' m probably speaking to you for the very last time in my life ; if that is so , brother , then my life will soon be over ." Overcome by emotion as she said this , she walked away , unable to pursue the conversation , and left me the most despairing man in the world .
　　' Three or four days later I asked to see my sister ; the brutish eunuch would have been delighted to prevent me from doing so , but , besides the fact that husbands like him do not have the authority over their wives that other husbands enjoy , he loved my sister so desper - ately that he could not refuse her anything . I saw her again in the same place , and with the same garments and veils , attended by two slaves ; because of this , I used our special language ." Sister ," I said ," why is it that I can ' t see you except in these dreadful surroundings ? These walls that imprison you , these bolts and bars , these wretched guards who watch you , fill me with rage ; how have you managed to lose the sweet liberty that your ancestors enjoyed ? Your mother , who was so chaste , gave her husband no guarantee of her virtue other than her virtue itself ; they both lived happily in mutual trust , and the simplicity of their way of life was for them a treasure infinitely more precious than the counterfeit glitter which you seem to enjoy in this luxurious house . In losing your religion , you have lost your liberty , your happiness , and that precious equality which is the honour of your sex . But what is even worse is that you are not even a wife , because you cannot be one , but the slave of a slave who has lost his humanity ."" Oh please , brother , respect my husband ," she replied ;" respect the religion which I have embraced , and according to which I cannot listen to you , or speak to you , without crime ."" What , sister !" I exclaimed , quite beside myself ," so you believe that religion is true !"" Ah !" she sighed ," how fortunate for me were it not so ! I am sacrificing too much for it , not to believe in it , and if my doubts ..." With these words she fell silent ." Yes , sister , your doubts , whatever they may be , are well founded . What do you expect of a religion which makes you unhappy in this world , and leaves you with no hope for the other ? Remember that our religion is the oldest in the world ; that it has always prospered in Persia ; that it has no other origin than this empire , whose beginnings are lost in time ; that it is only chance which introduced Muhammadanism to Persia , and that the sect was established here , not through persuasion , but by conquest ; if our rightful princes had not been weak you would still see the religion of those ancient Magi flourishing here . Take yourself far , far back to much earlier centuries ; everything will bear witness to the presence of Magism , and nothing to that of the Muslim religion which , thousands of years later , had not even reached its childhood ."" But ," she replied ," even if my religion is more modern than yours , it is at least more pure , for it worships God alone , whereas you also worship the sun , the stars , fire , and even the elements ."" I can see , sister , that by living among Muslims you ' ve learnt to slander our holy religion . We do not worship the stars or the elements , and our forefathers never worshipped them ; never did they build temples in their honour , nor did they offer up sacrifices to them ; rather , they venerated them as holy , but lesser , works and testimony of the Divine . Please , sister , in the name of God who illuminates our path , take this sacred book that I have brought you ; it is the book of our legislator Zoroaster ;* read it with an open mind and accept into your heart the light which will instruct you as you read it ; remember your forefathers , who for so long honoured the sun in the holy city of Balq ,* and , finally , remember me , whose only hope of peace , fortune , and life depends on your conversion ." In this exalted state , I left her by herself , to decide the most important question of my whole life. ' Two days later I returned there ; I did not speak to her , but awaited in silence the verdict that would determine whether I lived or died ." You are loved , brother ," she told me ," and by a Zoroastrian ; I have long struggled but , thank the Gods ! How many difficulties love over - comes ! How relieved I feel ! I am no longer afraid that I love you too well , I need no longer restrain my love ; to love you to excess is now right and proper . Oh , how well this accords with the feelings in my heart ! But you , who have been capable of breaking the chains that bound my spirit , when will you break those which bind my hands ? From this moment I give myself to you ; show me , by your speed in accepting me , how much you treasure this gift . Brother , the first time that I am able to kiss you , I believe I shall die in your arms ." I shall never be able adequately to express the joy I felt at these sweet words ; I thought myself , and indeed actually found myself , in an instant , the happiest of men ; I saw as near fulfilment every desire that I had formed in twenty - five years of life , and all the troubles vanish that had made that life such a burden ; but when I had become a little accustomed to these delightful thoughts , I realized that my happi - ness was not so close at hand as I had first imagined , although I had overcome the greatest of all the obstacles . I had to outwit the vigi -
　　lance of her guards ; I dared not share with anyone the secret of my
　　life ; we - she and I - would have to do everything ; if I missed my
　　opportunity and was caught , I risked being impaled , but I could
　　imagine no torture more cruel than missing my opportunity .
　　We agreed that she would send me a note asking for a clock that
　　her father had left her , and that I would put inside it a file to cut through the bars of her window which gave onto the street , as well as a knotted cord for climbing down to it . We agreed also that I would not visit her again , but would wait every night under her window for her to be able to put her plan into execution .
　　I passed fifteen entire nights without seeing a soul , because no favourable opportunity presented itself . Finally , on the sixteenth night , I heard the sound of a saw at work ; from time to time the sound would stop , and I spent those intervals in an indescribable state of terror . Finally , after waiting while she worked for an hour , I saw her tying on the rope ; she let herself go and slid down into my arms ; I thought no more of the danger , and for a long time remained rooted to the spot ; then I led her out of the city where I had a horse stand - ing ready ; I seated her on it behind me , and rode as fast as I could away from a place which could be so fatal to us . We arrived before dawn at the home of a Zoroastrian who had chosen as his retreat an unfrequented spot , where he lived frugally on what he himself could grow ; but we did not think it wise to remain with him ; we followed his advice and took refuge in a dense forest , where we hid in the hollow trunk of an old oak until the excitement over our escape had died down . The two of us lived completely alone in this seclusion , constantly telling one another that our love would be eternal , and awaiting the opportunity when some Zoroastrian priest could con - duct the marriage ceremony prescribed by our holy books ." Sister ," I would tell her ," our union is holy ; nature had already united us , and our holy Law shall unite us yet more closely ." Finally , we found a priest to calm our amorous impatience , and , at the home of the peas - ant , he performed all the marriage rites ; he blessed us , and wished us a thousand times the strength of Gushtasp and the holiness of Hohoraspe . Shortly thereafter we left Persia , where we were not safe , and travelled to Georgia . For a year we lived there , each day more delighted with one another , but as my money was running out and I feared poverty , not on my own account , but for my sister , I left her in order to go and seek help from our family . No parting could have been more loving , but my journey was not only of no use to me , it was fatal ; for , in addition to my discovering that all our property had been confiscated , I found that my relatives were unable to offer me any substantive help . I had brought only sufficient money for my return home , where , to my indescribable despair , I no longer found my sister . A few days before my return , a band of Tartars * had raided the town where she was living ; and , as they thought her beautiful , they took her , and sold her to some Jews who were going into Turkey , leaving behind a little girl she had given birth to a few months earlier . I followed the Jews , and caught up with them about three leagues from there ; my tears and prayers were in vain : they demanded thirty tomans for her and adamantly refused to lower the price by even one toman . After begging everyone to help me , and imploring the protection of the Turkish and the Christian priests , I turned to an Armenian merchant , to whom I sold my daughter and myself for thirty - five tomans ; I then went to the Jews , gave them thirty tomans , and took the remaining five to my sister , whom I had not yet seen .
　　" You are free , sister ," I told her ," here are five tomans ; I ' m sorry they didn ' t pay a better price for me ."" What , you have sold your - self ?"" Yes ," I replied ." Oh , what have you done , you wretched man ! Wasn ' t I already sufficiently unfortunate without your adding to my troubles ? Your freedom consoled me ; your servitude will bring me to my grave . Ah , brother , how cruel is your love ! And I don ' t see my daughter , where is she ?"" I have sold her as well ," I told her . We both burst into tears , and were quite unable to say anything more to one another . Eventually I went to find my master , and my sister followed close behind me . She threw herself down on her knees ." I implore you ," she said ," to make me a slave , as others implore you for their liberty ; take me , you can sell me for a better price than my husband ." The duel that ensued drew tears from the eyes of my master ." Unhappy man ," she said ," did you suppose that I could accept my freedom at the price of yours ? My Lord , you see before you two wretches who will die if we are separated ; I give myself to you ; pay me , and perhaps one day that money and my work will buy of you what I dare not ask : it is in your own interest not to separate us ; please believe that I hold his life in my hands ." The Armenian was a kind man , whose heart was touched by our misfor - tunes ." If you both serve me with loyalty and zeal , I promise that in a year I will give you your liberty ; I can see that neither of you deserves the adversities of your present state ; when you are free , if you are as happy as you deserve , and fortune smiles upon you , I am certain that you will compensate me for the loss I shall suffer ." We both embraced his knees , and followed him on his travels . We comforted one another while serving as his slaves , and I was delighted whenever I was able to relieve my sister of duties which fell to her lot .
　　' When the year came to an end , our master kept his word and gave us our freedom . We returned to Tiflis , where I found a former friend of my father ' s who was a successful physician in that city ; he lent me money , which I used to do some trading . Then , having gone to Smyrna on business , I settled there ; I ' ve been living there for six years , enjoying the company of the most pleasant , amiable friends imaginable ; we are a most united family , and I wouldn ' t change my condition for that of all the kings in the world . I was lucky enough to find the Armenian merchant to whom I owe everything , and was able to help him in significant ways .'
　　Smyrna , the 27th of the Moon of Gemmadi 21714