When Menelaus told this to me, I exclaimed, that I would sooner die than have Leucippe bestow her lips upon another. "A kiss," I said, "is the best part of love; the moment of actual enjoyment is soon over, and brings with it satiety,[9] and is indeed worth nothing if we take away the kissing. A kiss need have no limit to its duration; it never cloys, it is always new.[10] Three things, excellent in their nature, proceed from the mouth, the breath, the voice, and last of all, the kiss, of which the lips are the instruments, but the seat of pleasure is in the soul. Believe me, Menelaus, for my troubles compel me to reveal the secret,[11] these are the only favours which I have received from Leucippe; she is a woman only as having been kissed by me; in all other respects she is still a virgin. I will not put up with the loss of them; I will not have my kisses adulterously dallied with."[12]
"If such be the case," said Menelaus, "we must speedily resolve upon some plan; one who is in love (like Charmides) as long as he has a hope of success will wait and feed on expectation, but if driven to despair, his love changes into hate and urges him to take vengeance upon the obstacle to his desires; and supposing he has the power to do this with impunity, the very fact of being free from fear deepens his resentment and urges him on to his revenge." In the midst of our deliberation some one hastily entered, and informed us that Leucippe while walking about had suddenly fallen down, and lay there wildly rolling her eyes. We hurried to her, and finding her still lying on the ground, we asked what ailed her? No sooner did she see me, than starting up and glaring fiercely from her blood-shot eyes, she struck me with violence upon the face, and when Menelaus endeavoured to support her, she proceeded to kick his shins. Perceiving that she was labouring under frenzy, we seized her by main force and endeavoured to overpower her, she on her part resisted, and in her struggles was at no pains to hide what women generally wish to keep concealed. So great was the disturbance that at length the commander himself came in, and witnessed what was going on. At first he was suspicious of some fraud contrived against himself, and looked sternly upon Menelaus; but seeing the truth, he became moved by feelings of compassion.
Meanwhile cords were brought and the unhappy maiden was bound; upon seeing her hands confined in this manner, I besought Menelaus (all but a few having left the tent) to set her arms at liberty; "her tender arms," I said, "cannot endure this harsh treatment; leave me with her alone; my arms shall be her fetters, and she may exhaust her frenzy upon, me: why, indeed, should I wish to live, since Leucippe no longer knows me? How can I behold her lying thus bound, and though having the power, shew no desire to release her? Has Fortune delivered us from the hands of buccaneers only that she may fall a prey to madness? Unhappy that we are, when will our condition change? We escape dangers at home only to be overtaken by the shipwreck; saved from the fury of the sea and freed from pirates, we were reserved for the present visitation—madness! Even shouldst thou recover thy senses, dearest, I fear lest the evil genius may have something worse in store! Who can be pronounced more unhappy than ourselves, who have cause to dread even what bears the appearance of good fortune! Let Fortune, however, again make us her sport, provided only I can see thee restored to health and sense!" Menelaus and those present did all they could to comfort me, saying that such maladies were not lasting, and were very common in the hot season of youth; at such a time the young blood, heated by the vigour of the body, runs boiling through the veins, and overflowing the brain drowns the powers of reason; the proper course, therefore, would be to have medical advice.
Menelaus went to the commander without delay, and requested that the physician belonging to the troops might be called in. Charmides readily complied, for a lover delights in granting favours. After visiting her, he said, "we must make her sleep in order to subdue the paroxysm of her disease; for sleep is the medicine of every sickness,[13] and afterwards we will have recourse to other means." Before leaving her, he gave us a portion of some drug, about the size of a pea, which was to be dissolved in oil and rubbed upon the top of her head, saying that he would shortly bring a pill to act upon her bowels. We followed his directions, and after her head had been rubbed for a short time, she fell asleep, and slept till morning. I sat by her bed side all night in tears, and when I saw the cords which still confined her hands, I could not help exclaiming, "Dearest Leucippe, bondage is still thy portion; not even in sleep is liberty allowed thee! What images, I wonder, are now passing before thy mind? Does sense attend upon thy sleep? or do thy dreams also partake of frenzy?" Upon waking she uttered some incoherent words. Soon after the physician came and administered the other medicine.
Just at this time pressing orders arrived from the Viceroy of Egypt urging the commander to lead his men against the enemy. The troops were immediately mustered with their officers, and appeared on the ground in marching order, when, after giving them the watchword, he dismissed them to their quarters for the night, and next morning led them out to battle.
I will now describe the nature of the district against which they marched. The Nile flows in an unbroken stream from Egyptian Thebes as far as Memphis, when it throws out a small branch. Where the wide part of the river terminates, stands the village Cercasorum[14]; there the country becomes intersected by three streams; two flowing respectively to the right and left; the other continuing its onward course traverses the district called the Delta; none of these streams flow uninterruptedly to the sea, but upon reaching different cities separate into various branches, all of them larger than any Grecian rivers; its waters nevertheless are not enfeebled and rendered useless by the many divisions in their course; they bear vessels upon their surface; they are used for drinking, and contribute to fertilize the land. The mighty Nile is all in all to the Egyptians, both land and river, and sea and lake, and a singular spectacle it is to see in juxtaposition the ship and the mattock, the oar and the plough, the rudder and the hook,[15] sailors' cabins and labourers' huts, a resort for fishes and a resting-place for oxen; where but lately a ship sailed, is seen a cultivated plain, and anon the cultivated plain becomes a watery space; for the Nile periodically comes and goes, and the Egyptians count the days and anxiously await the inundation, while the river on his part keeps to his appointed time, regulates the rising of his waters, and never exposes himself to the imputation of unpunctuality. Then comes the rivalry between the land and water; each exerts its power against the other; the water strives to flood the land, and the land does its endeavour to absorb the fertilizing water; in the end, conquest can be assigned to neither, but both may claim the victory, for each is co-extensive with the other. In the pasturage which is the resort of the buccaneers, a quantity of water is at all times found, for even when the Nile retires, the lakes formed by its inundation continue filled with watery mud; over these the inhabitants can either wade on foot or pass in boats, each of which will contain one person; any other kind would be imbedded in the mud, but those which they employ are so light[16] as to require very little water, and should none be found they take them on their backs, and proceed on foot until they arrive at more. These lakes, which I have mentioned, are dotted over with islets, some of them uninhabited, but abounding in papyrus reeds, between the intervals of which there is only room for a man to stand, while the space above is overarched by the summits of the leaves; it is in these places that the buccaneers assemble, and secretly concert their plans, masked by these reeds as by a fort. Some of the islets have huts upon them, presenting the appearance of a rudely constructed town, which serve as the dwellings of the pirates. One of them, more remarkable than the other for its extent and for the number of its huts, was called Nicochis, and here it was that the main body of the freebooters was collected; confiding in their numbers, and in the strength of their position, the place being entirely insulated by lagoons, except for a narrow causeway the eighth of a mile long and seventy feet wide. As soon as they were aware of the commander's approach, they had recourse to the following stratagem:—mustering all the old men, they equipped them as suppliants, with palm branches, commanding the most able-bodied among the youth to follow, armed with swords and shields. The old men were to hold aloft their suppliant branches, the foliage of which would serve to conceal those in the rear,[17] who, by way of farther precaution, were directed to stoop and trail their spears along the ground.
In case the commander yielded to the old men's supplications, the others were to make no hostile movements; if, on the contrary, he should reject their entreaties, they were to invite him to their city, with the offer of there surrendering themselves up to death; if he agreed to follow them, upon arriving at the middle of the narrow causeway, the old men, at a preconcerted signal, were to throw away their branches and make their escape, while the others were to make an assault with might and main. They proceeded to execute these directions, and upon approaching the commander, entreated him to reverence their old age and suppliant branches, and to take pity upon their town; they offered him a present of a hundred talents of silver for himself, together with an hundred hostages, to be forwarded by him to the seat of goverment.[18]
They were quite sincere in making these proposals, and would have fulfilled them faithfully had he consented; upon his refusal, "We must then," said they, "submit to our destiny; at least grant us this one favour: do not put us to death at a distance from our town, conduct us to our 'fatherland,' to our hearths and homes, and there let us find our grave. We ourselves are ready to lead the way!" Upon hearing these words, Charmides laid aside his dispositions for battle, and ordered his forces to follow leisurely. The buccaneers had meanwhile posted some scouts at a distance, who were to watch the movements of the enemy, and who, when they had reached the causeway, were to let out the waters upon them. The canals which issue from the branches of the Nile have high banks, to hinder the river from flooding the land before the time, and when the fields require watering, a portion of the bank is cut through. Now there was a long and wide canal behind the town which we are speaking of; those who were stationed for the purpose cut through the banks as soon as they saw the enemy approaching, and in a moment the old men fled, the others charged with their spears, on rolled the waters rising higher and higher, the causeway was flooded, and all around became a sea.
The buccaneers at the first onset speared the foremost of the enemy, together with their commander, who were taken by surprise, and therefore quite unprepared, and it is difficult to describe the various ways in which the others perished. Some fell before they could even handle their weapons; some before they could offer any resistance; for to see their assailants and to receive their own death-wound was simultaneous; others were slain before they could see the hand which slew them; some overcome by terror, remained motionless awaiting death; others upon attempting to move were taken off their legs by the force of the stream, while others again, who had betaken themselves to flight, were carried along and drowned in the deep part of the lagoons, where the water was above their heads; those even who were upon land had water up to their middles, which, by turning aside their shields, exposed their bodies to the enemy. The difficulty of knowing what was land and what was not, retarded many, and was the cause of their being taken prisoners; while others supposing themselves still on land came into deep water and were drowned; here were to be seen mishaps and wrecks of an unwonted kind,—a land engagement on the water, and a wreck upon the land.[19]
The buccaneers were greatly elated by their success, and attributed their victory not to fraud but to their own valour; for among the Egyptians their fear degenerates into abject cowardice, and their courage mounts to rashness; in this respect they are always in extremes, and are wholly subject either to the excess or the defect. Ten days had now passed and Leucippe was no better; upon one occasion while asleep she cried out in a frenzied manner, "Gorgias, it is thou who hast driven me mad!"[20] I told Menelaus of this in the morning, and began to consider whether there was any one in the village of that name. We were just going out, when a young man met and accosted me, saying, "I am come to save you and your wife." Perfectly astounded, and thinking that his coming was providential, "Are you Gorgias?" I inquired.—"No," replied he, "my name is Chæreas; Gorgias is the cause of all the mischief." I felt a thrill run through me, as I asked, "What mischief do you mean? Who is Gorgias? Some deity betrayed his name to me last night; be you an interpreter of the announcement."