Cleopatra | Page 8

and drowned the ancient Gods of Egypt.
Here, in his pages, you shall learn the glory of Isis the Many-shaped,
the Executrix of Decrees. Here you shall make acquaintance with the
shade of Cleopatra, that "Thing of Flame," whose passion-breathing
beauty shaped the destiny of Empires. Here you shall read how the soul
of Charmion was slain of the sword her vengeance smithied.
Here Harmachis, the doomed Egyptian, being about to die, salutes you
who follow on the path he trod. In the story of his broken years he
shows to you what may in its degree be the story of your own. Crying
aloud from that dim Amenti[*] where to-day he wears out his long
atoning time, he tells, in the history of his fall, the fate of him who,
however sorely tried, forgets his God, his Honour, and his Country.
[*] The Egyptian Hades or Purgatory.--Editor.

BOOK I
THE PREPARATION OF HARMACHIS
CHAPTER I
OF THE BIRTH OF HARMACHIS; THE PROPHECY OF THE
HATHORS; AND THE SLAYING OF THE INNOCENT CHILD
By Osiris who sleeps at Abouthis, I write the truth.
I, Harmachis, Hereditary Priest of the Temple, reared by the divine
Sethi, aforetime a Pharaoh of Egypt, and now justified in Osiris and
ruling in Amenti. I, Harmachis, by right Divine and by true descent of
blood King of the Double Crown, and Pharaoh of the Upper and Lower
Land. I, Harmachis, who cast aside the opening flower of our hope,
who turned from the glorious path, who forgot the voice of God in
hearkening to the voice of woman. I, Harmachis, the fallen, in whom

are gathered up all woes as waters are gathered in a desert well, who
have tasted of every shame, who through betrayal have betrayed, who
in losing the glory that is here have lost the glory which is to be, who
am utterly undone--I write, and, by Him who sleeps at Abouthis, I write
the truth.
O Egypt!--dear land of Khem, whose black soil nourished up my
mortal part--land that I have betrayed--O Osiris!--Isis!--Horus!--ye
Gods of Egypt whom I have betrayed!--O ye temples whose pylons
strike the sky, whose faith I have betrayed!--O Royal blood of the
Pharaohs of eld, that yet runs within these withered veins--whose virtue
I have betrayed!--O Invisible Essence of all Good! and O Fate, whose
balance rested on my hand--hear me; and, to the day of utter doom,
bear me witness that I write the truth.

Even while I write, beyond the fertile fields, the Nile is running red, as
though with blood. Before me the sunlight beats upon the far Arabian
hills, and falls upon the piles of Abouthis. Still the priests make orison
within the temples at Abouthis that know me no more; still the sacrifice
is offered, and the stony roofs echo back the people's prayers. Still from
this lone cell within my prison-tower, I, the Word of Shame, watch thy
fluttering banners, Abouthis, flaunting from thy pylon walls, and hear
the chants as the long procession winds from sanctuary to sanctuary.
Abouthis, lost Abouthis! my heart goes out toward thee! For the day
comes when the desert sands shall fill thy secret places! Thy Gods are
doomed, O Abouthis! New Faiths shall make a mock of all thy Holies,
and Centurion shall call upon Centurion across thy fortress-walls. I
weep--I weep tears of blood: for mine is the sin that brought about
these evils and mine for ever is their shame.
Behold, it is written hereafter.

Here in Abouthis I was born, I, Harmachis, and my father, the justified
in Osiris, was High Priest of the Temple of Sethi. And on that same day

of my birth Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, was born also. I passed my
youth in yonder fields watching the baser people at their labours and
going in and out at will among the great courts of the temples. Of my
mother I knew naught, for she died when I yet hung at the breast. But
before she died in the reign of Ptolemy Aulêtes, who is named the Piper,
so did the old wife, Atoua, told me, my mother took a golden uræus,
the snake symbol of our Royalty of Egypt, from a coffer of ivory and
laid it on my brow. And those who saw her do this believed that she
was distraught of the Divinity, and in her madness foreshadowed that
the day of the Macedonian Lagidæ was ended, and that Egypt's sceptre
should pass again to the hand of Egypt's true and Royal race. But when
my father, the old High Priest Amenemhat, whose only child I was, she
who was his wife before my mother having been, for what crime I
know not, cursed with barrenness by Sekhet: I say when my