Much about the "Good Rival" (as we may call him) Mazare follows, and there is an illuminative sentence about our favourite Doralise's humeur enjouée et critique, which, as the rest of her part does, gives us a "light" as to the origin of those sadly vulgarised lively heroines of Richardson's whom Lady Mary very justly wanted to "slipper." Doralise and Martésie are ladies, which the others, unfortunately, are not. And then we pay for our ecphrasis by an immense Histoire of the Tyrian Élise, its original.
At the beginning of VII. ii. Cyrus is in the doldrums. Many of his heroes have got their heroines—the personages of bygone histoires—and are honeymooning and (to borrow again from Mr. Kipling) "dancing on the deck." He is not. Moreover, the army, like all seventeenth-century armies after victory and in comfortable quarters, is getting rather out of hand; and he learns that the King of Pontus has carried Mandane off to Cumae—not the famous Italian Cumae, home of the Sibyl whom Sir Edward Burne-Jones has fixed for us, and of many classical memories, but a place somewhere near Miletus, defended by unpleasant marshes on land, and open to the sea itself, the element on which Cyrus is weakest, and by which the endlessly carried off Mandane may readily be carried off again. He sends about for help to Phoenicia and elsewhere; but when, after a smart action by land against the town, a squadron does appear off the port, he is for a time quite uncertain whether it is friend or foe. Fortunately Cléobuline, Queen of Corinth, a young widow of surpassing beauty and the noblest sentiments, who has sworn never to marry again, has conceived a Platonic-romantic admiration for him, and has sent her fleet to his aid. She deserves, of course, and still more of course has, a Histoire de Cléobuline. Also the inestimable Martésie writes to say that Mandane has been dispossessed of her suspicions, and that the King of Pontus is, in the race for her favour, nowhere. The city falls, and the lovers meet. But if anybody thinks for a moment that they are to be happy ever afterwards, Arithmetic, Logic, and Literary History will combine to prove to him that he is very much mistaken. In order to make these two lovers happy at all, not only time and space, but six extremely solid volumes would have to be annihilated.
The close of VII. ii. and the whole of VIII. i. are occupied with imbroglios of the most characteristic kind. There is a certain Anaxaris, who has been instrumental in preventing Mandane from being, according to her almost invariable custom, carried off from Cumae also. To whom, though he is one of the numerous "unknowns" of the book, Cyrus rashly confides not only the captainship of the Princess's guards, but various and too many other things, especially when "Philip Devil" turns up once more, and, seeing the lovers in apparent harmony, claims the fulfilment of Cyrus's rash promise to fight him before marrying. This gets wind in a way, and watch is kept on Cyrus by his friends; but he, thinking of the parlous state of his mistress if both her principal lovers were killed—for Prince Mazare is, so to speak, out of the running, while the King of Pontus is still lying perdu somewhere—entrusts the secret to Anaxaris, and begs him to take care of her. Now Anaxaris—as is so usual—is not Anaxaris at all, but Aryante, Prince of the Massagetae and actually brother of the redoubtable Queen Thomyris; and he also has fallen a victim to Mandane's fascinations, which appear to be irresistible, though they are, mercifully perhaps, rather taken for granted than made evident to the reader. One would certainly rather have one Doralise or Martésie than twenty Mandanes. However, again in the now expected manner, the fight does not immediately come off. For "Philip Devil," in his usual headlong violence, has provoked another duel with the Assyrian Prince Intaphernes,[183] and has been badly worsted and wounded by his foe, who is unhurt. This puts everything off, and for a long time the main story drops again (except as far as the struggles of Anaxaris between honour and love are depicted), first to a great deal of miscellaneous talk about the quarrel of King and Prince, and then to a regular Histoire of the King, Intaphernes, Atergatis, Princess Istrine, and the Princess of Bithynia, Spithridates's sister and daughter of a very robustious and rather usurping King Arsamones, who is a deadly enemy of Cyrus. The dead Queen Nitocris, and the passion for her of a certain Gadates, Intaphernes's father, and also sometimes, if not always, called a "Prince," come in here. The story again introduces the luckless Spithridates himself, who is first, owing to his likeness to Cyrus, persecuted by Thomyris, and then imprisoned by his father Arsamones because he will not give up Araminta and marry Istrine, whom Nitocris had wanted to marry her own son Philidaspes—a good instance of the extraordinary complications and contrarieties in which the book indulges, and of which, if Dickens had been a more "literary" person, he might have thought when he made the unfortunate Augustus Moddle observe that "everybody appears to be somebody else's." Finally, the volume ends with an account of the leisurely progress of Mandane and Cyrus to Ecbatana and Cyaxares, while the King of Assyria recovers as best he can. But at certain "tombs" on the route evidence is found that the King of Pontus has been recently in the land of the living, and is by no means disposed to give up Mandane.
The second volume of this part is one of the most eventless of all, and is mainly occupied by a huge Histoire of Puranius, Prince of Phocaea, his love Cléonisbe, and others, oddly topped by a passage of the main story, describing Cyrus's emancipation of the captive Jews. He is for a time separated from the Princess.
The first pages of IX. i. are lively, though they are partly a récit. Prince Intaphernes tells Cyrus all about Anaxaris (Aryante), and how by representing Cyrus as dead and the King of Assyria in full pursuit of her, he has succeeded in carrying off Mandane; how also he has had the cunning, by availing himself of the passion of another high officer, Andramite, for Doralise, to induce him to join, in order that the maid of honour may accompany her mistress. Accordingly Cyrus, the King of Assyria himself, and others start off in fresh pursuit; but the King has at first the apparent luck. He overtakes the fugitives, and a sharp fight follows. But the guards whom Cyrus has placed over the Princess, and who, in the belief of his death, have followed the ravishers, are too much for Philidaspes, and he is fatally wounded; fulfilling the oracle, as we anticipated long ago, by dying in Mandane's arms, and honoured with a sigh from her as for her intended rescuer.
She herself, therefore, is in no better plight, for Aryante and Andramite continue the flight, with her and her ladies, to a port on the Euxine, destroying, that they may not be followed, all the shipping save one craft they select, and making for the northern shore. Here after a time Aryante surrenders Mandane to his sister Thomyris, as he cannot well help doing, though he knows her violent temper and her tigress-like passion for Cyrus, and though, also, he is on rather less than brotherly terms with her, and has a party among the Massagetae who would gladly see him king. Meanwhile the King of Pontus and Phraortes, Araminta's carrier-off, fight and kill each other, and Araminta is given up—a loss for Mandane, for they have been companions in quasi-captivity, and there is no longer any subject of jealousy between them.
Having thus created a sort of "deadlock" situation such as she loves, and in the interval, while Cyrus is gathering forces to attack Thomyris, the author, as is her fashion likewise, surrenders herself to the joys of digression. We have a great deal of retrospective history of Aryante, and at last the famous Scythian philosopher, Anacharsis, is introduced, bringing with him the rest of the Seven Ancient Sages—with whom we could dispense, but are not allowed to do so. There is a Banquet of them all at the end of the first volume of the Part; and they overflow into the second, telling stories about Pisistratus and others, and discussing "love in the aib-stract," as frigidly as might be expected, on such points as, "Can you love the same person twice?"[184] But the last half of this IX. ii. is fortunately business again. There is much hard fighting with Thomyris, who on one occasion wishes to come to actual sword-play with Cyrus, and of whom we have the liveliest ecphrasis, or set description, in the whole romance.
Thomyris on the warpath.
As for Thomyris, she was so beautiful that day that there was no one in the world save Mandane, who could have disputed a heart with her[185] without the risk of losing. This Princess was mounted on a fine black horse, trapped with gold; her dress was of cloth of gold, with green panels shot with a little carnation, and was of the shape of that of Pallas when she is represented as armed. The skirt was caught up on the hip with diamond clasps, and showed buskins of lions' muzzles made to correspond with the rest. Her head-dress was adorned with jewels, and a great number of feathers—carnation, white and green—hung over her beautiful fair tresses, while these, fluttering at the wind's will, mixed themselves with the plumes as she turned her head, and with their careless curls gave a marvellous lustre to her beauty. Besides, as her sleeves were turned up, and caught on the shoulder, while she held the bridle of her horse with one hand and her sword with the other, she showed the loveliest arms in the world. Anger had flushed her complexion, so that she was more beautiful than usual; and the joy of once more seeing Cyrus, and seeing him also in an action respectful towards her,[186] effaced the marks of her immediately preceding fury so completely that he could see nothing but what was amiable and charming.
Thomyris, however, is as treacherous and cruel as she is beautiful; and part of her reason for seeming milder is that more of her troops may turn up and seize him.