Salammbô | Page 5

which sparkled with rings,
they carried enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a hymn to
the divinity of Carthage. They were the eunuch priests of the temple of
Tanith, who were often summoned by Salammbo to her house.
At last she descended the galley staircase. The priests followed her. She
advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the
tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her
pass.
Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the
form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to

her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to
the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open
pomegranate. On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their
variegation imitating the scales of the murena. Her arms were adorned
with diamonds, and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was
starred with red flowers on a perfectly black ground. Between her
ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large
dark purple mantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her,
making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her.
The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to time,
and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little
golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus sandals.
No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led
a retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her in
the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the
eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that had made
her so pale, and there was something from the gods that enveloped her
like a subtle vapour. Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial
space. She bent her head as she walked, and in her right hand she
carried a little ebony lyre.
They heard her murmur:
"Dead! All dead! No more will you come obedient to my voice as when,
seated on the edge of the lake, I used to through seeds of the
watermelon into your mouths! The mystery of Tanith ranged in the
depths of your eyes that were more limpid than the globules of rivers."
And she called them by their names, which were those of the
months--"Siv! Sivan! Tammouz, Eloul, Tischri, Schebar! Ah! have pity
on me, goddess!"
The soldiers thronged about her without understanding what she said.
They wondered at her attire, but she turned a long frightened look upon
them all, then sinking her head beneath her shoulders, and waving her
arms, she repeated several times:

"What have you done? what have you done?
"Yet you had bread, and meats and oil, and all the malobathrum of the
granaries for your enjoyment! I had brought oxen from Hecatompylos;
I had sent hunters into the desert!" Her voice swelled; her cheeks
purpled. She added, "Where, pray, are you now? In a conquered town,
or in the palace of a master? And what master? Hamilcar the Suffet, my
father, the servant of the Baals! It was he who withheld from Lutatius
those arms of yours, red now with the blood of his slaves! Know you of
any in your own lands more skilled in the conduct of battles? Look! our
palace steps are encumbered with our victories! Ah! desist not! burn it!
I will carry away with me the genius of my house, my black serpent
slumbering up yonder on lotus leaves! I will whistle and he will follow
me, and if I embark in a galley he will speed in the wake of my ship
over the foam of the waves."
Her delicate nostrils were quivering. She crushed her nails against the
gems on her bosom. Her eyes drooped, and she resumed:
"Ah! poor Carthage! lamentable city! No longer hast thou for thy
protection the strong men of former days who went beyond the oceans
to build temples on their shores. All the lands laboured about thee, and
the sea-plains, ploughed by thine oars, rocked with thy harvests." Then
she began to sing the adventures of Melkarth, the god of the Sidonians,
and the father of her family.
She told of the ascent of the mountains of Ersiphonia, the journey to
Tartessus, and the war against Masisabal to avenge the queen of the
serpents:
"He pursued the female monster, whose tail undulated over the dead
leaves like a silver brook, into the forest, and came to a plain where
women with dragon-croups were round a great fire, standing erect on
the points of their tails. The blood-coloured moon was shining within a
pale circle, and their scarlet