“I will tell thee the like thereof,” he said, “which happened in this island. I dwelt herein with my brothers, and my children were among them. Seventy-two serpents we were, all told, with my offspring and my brothers; nor have I yet mentioned to thee a little girl brought to me by fortune. A star came down, and all these went up in flames. And it happened so that I was not together with them when they were consumed; I was not in their midst. I could have died (of grief) for them when I found them as a single pile of corpses.”
It is clear from the story that this great serpent was intended to be pictured as a sad and lonely, but most lovable, character. All alone upon this ghostly isle, the last of his race, one is to imagine him dreaming of the little girl who was taken from him, together with all his family. Although fabulous himself, and half divine, he was yet the victim of the gods, and was made to suffer real sorrows in his unreal existence. Day by day he wandered over his limited domain, twisting his golden body amidst the pumpkins, and rearing himself above the fig-trees, thundering down to the beach to salute the passing dolphins, or sunning himself, a golden blaze, upon the rocks. There remained naught for him to do but to await the cessation of the phantasy of his life; and yet, though his lot was hard, he was ready at once to subordinate his sorrows to those of the shipwrecked sailor before him. No more is said of his distress, but with his next words he seems to have dismissed his own misfortunes, and to have attempted to comfort the Egyptian.
“If thou art brave,” he said, “and restrainest thy longing, thou shalt press thy children to thy bosom and kiss thy wife, and behold thy house—that is the best of all things. Thou shalt reach home, and shalt dwell there amongst thy brothers.”
“Thereat,” said the mariner, “I cast me upon my stomach and touched the ground before him, and I said to him: ‘I will tell of thy might to the Sovereign, I will cause him to be acquainted with thy greatness. I will let bring to thee the perfume and spices, myrrh and sweet-scented woods, and incense of the sanctuaries where-withal every god is propitiated. I will recount all that has befallen me, and that which I have seen by his might; and they shall praise thee in that city before the magistrates of the entire land. I will slaughter to thee oxen as a burnt-offering, geese will I pluck for thee, and I will let bring to thee vessels laden with all the goodly things of Egypt, as may be (fitly) done to a god who loves men in a distant land, a land unknown to me.’”
At these words the serpent opened his golden mouth and fell to laughing. The thought that this little mortal, grovelling before him, could believe himself able to repay the kindnesses received tickled him immensely.
“Hast thou not much incense (here, then)?” he laughed. “Art not become a lord of frankincense? And I, behold I am prince of Pount,” the land of perfumes, “and the incense, that is my very own. As for the spices which thou sayest shall be brought, they are the wealth of this island. But it shall happen when thou hast left this place, never shalt thou see this island more, for it shall be changed to waves.”
The teller of the story does not relate in what manner he received this well-merited reproof. The gentle monster, no doubt, was tolerant of his presumptuousness, and soon put him at his ease again. During the whole period of the Egyptian’s residence on the island, in fact, the golden serpent seems to have been invariably kind to him. The days passed by like a happy dream, and the spell of the island’s enchantment possessed him so that, in after times, the details of the events of every day were lost in the single illusion of the whole adventure.
At last the ship arrived, as it had been foretold, and the sailor watched her passing over the hazy sea towards the mysterious shore. “I went and got me up into a tall tree,” he said, “and I recognised those that were in it. And I went to report the matter (to the serpent), and I found that he knew it.”
Very tenderly the great monster addressed him. “Fare thee well, little one,” he said. “Fare thee well to thy house. Mayest thou see thy children and raise up a good name in thy city. Behold, such are my wishes for thee.”
“Then,” continued the sailor, “I laid me on my stomach, my arms were bended before him. And he gave me a freight of frankincense, perfume and myrrh, sweet-scented woods and antimony, giraffe’s tails, great heaps of incense, elephant tusks, dogs, apes and baboons, and all manner of valuable things. And I loaded them in that ship, and I laid myself on my stomach to make thanksgiving to him. Then he said to me: ‘Behold, thou shall come home in two months, and shalt press thy children to thy bosom, and shalt flourish in their midst; and there thou shalt be buried.’”