Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

"Yes, yes. She was beautiful, you say? How beautiful? How did she look?" interrupted Charmides, in stumbling haste.

Kabir, noting the flush upon the shepherd's cheek, smiled a little to himself. "She is the most fair of any goddess, yet none has ever beheld so much as her face quite clearly, it is said. Always she is surrounded by a dazzling white radiance, an aureole, which the strongest eyes have not been able to pierce. Yet men declare that her face has the clear whiteness of alabaster, her eyes are like the moon, and her hair like a floating, silken veil. More I cannot truthfully say.

"Her vestments have been offered her by the King himself and by the priests of the great gods. They are such as Nitokris never wore and queens might sigh over with envy. Yet they seem too coarse and poor to proffer to such a being.

"The first sign of Istar's divinity is the music that continually follows her presence. They say that those who hear the sounds as she passes are overcome, and fall upon the dust, or reel away like drunken men affected by fumes of wine. What this music is—bells or chords of the lyre or notes from the flute—no man has ever told, for when the sounds cease, every memory of them, save that of the ecstasy of listening, leaves him who has heard. And at sunset every night, when the goddess has retired to her sanctuary to commune with the great gods in solitude, there issue from the ziggurat sounds so marvellous that the priestesses and hierodules flee the neighborhood of the tower in the fear that, hearing, they may lose their reason.

"Istar is possessed of all knowledge. She speaks to each man in his native tongue—Chaldaic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phœnician, or Egyptian—and on feast days she converses with the gods, her brothers, in that unknown language spoken by their statues. Bel and Nebo come forth from their shrines to receive her; Marduk and Shamash embrace her, their sister. Sin, her father, sends to her temple blood-offerings and heave-offerings of oxen and of doves."

"And men," asked the shepherd, still staring into the flames—"what do the men who have eyes to look upon her?"

"Of those that have dared, some become as children that know no more what they do. A few, it is said, have died, but these she raises from the kingdom of death and returns again to the world to fulfil their rightful time. Others still have given their manhood in order to join the order of temple-servants attached to her sanctuary.

"For all these reasons the temple of Istar has become more famous than any other in the East, and the name of Istar, the living goddess, is in every mouth. Many Egyptians from Memphis and Thebes have taken the long journey to Babylon for the purpose of beholding her; and in the land of the Nile each man prays that Isis may show her people favor and appear before them incarnate. She has shaken the faith of the Jews in their one God. Phrygia and Lydia send yearly offerings to her in the great city. And in Tyre itself we were to build a new temple to Astarte, where a six months' sacrifice and festival would be held, in the hope that our great goddess of fertility might appear before us in her double form. And that, O Charmides, is all that I can relate to you concerning the Lady of Babylon."

"It seems that Charmides sleeps over the tale, or else that he is drunken with the mere thought of the divine personage. Wake, rhapsode! Tune your lyre and sing for us the inspired ode that hangs upon your lips!" cried Phalaris, rather ill-naturedly, and with a supercilious smile at his brother.

Charmides did not stir. A thoughtful frown puckered his forehead, and he appeared oblivious of Phalaris' mockery. Theron, seeing that the Phœnician was a little crestfallen with the ill-success of his story, made haste to express his interest in it, and to ask a further question or two upon the matter, without, however, infusing much enthusiasm into his tone. Heraia followed her husband's lead with less effort. She had in her the original strain of poetry that had been extended to her younger son, but was entirely lacking in Theron and Phalaris. Therefore, being imaginative and a woman, Heraia had no difficulty in crediting Kabir's words, and she also understood Charmides' present mood as none of the others could.