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PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

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NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Hypatia

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Hypatia




With wonderful quickness the metal open-work was put in its place,
and fitted together, forming a frame of coral branches intermingled
with dolphins, Nereids, and Tritons. Four gigantic Cyclops then
approached, staggering under the weight of a circular slab of green
marble, polished to a perfect mirror, which they placed on the
framework. The Graces wreathed its circumference with garlands of
sea-weed, shells, and corallines, and the mimic sea was complete.

Peitho and the Graces retired a few steps, and grouped themselves
with the Cyclops, whose grimed and brawny limbs, and hideous one-
eyed masks, threw out in striking contrast the delicate hue and
grace of the beautiful maiden figures; while Hephaestus turned
toward the curtain, and seemed to await impatiently the forthcoming
of the goddess.

Every lip was breathless with expectation as the flutes swelled
louder and nearer; horns and cymbals took up the harmony; and, to a
triumphant burst of music, the curtain rose, and a simultaneous
shout of delight burst from ten thousand voices.

The scene behind represented a magnificent temple, half hidden in an
artificial wood of tropic trees and shrubs, which filled the stage.
Fauns and Dryads peeped laughing from among their stems, and
gorgeous birds, tethered by unseen threads, fluttered and sang among
their branches. In the centre an overarching avenue of palms led
from the temple doors to the front of the stage, from which the
mimic battlements had disappeared, and had been replaced, in those
few moments, by a broad slope of smooth greensward, leading down
into the orchestra, and fringed with myrtles, roses, apple-trees,
poppies, and crimson hyacinths, stained with the life-blood of
Adonis.

The folding doors of the temple opened slowly, the crash of
instruments resounded from within; and, preceded by the musicians,
came forth the triumph of Aphrodite, and passed down the slope, and
down the outer ring of the orchestra.

A splendid car, drawn by white oxen, bore the rarest and gaudiest of
foreign flowers and fruits, which young girls, dressed as Hours and
Seasons, strewed in front of the procession and among the
spectators.

A long line of beautiful youths and maidens, crowned with garlands,
and robed in scarfs of purple gauze, followed by two and two. Each
pair carried or led a pair of wild animals, captives of the
conquering might of Beauty.

Foremost were borne, on the wrists of the actors, the birds
especially sacred to the goddess--doves and sparrows, wrynecks and
swallows; and a pair of gigantic Indian tortoises, each ridden by a
lovely nymph, showed that Orestes had not forgotten one wish, at
least, of his intended bride.

Then followed strange birds from India, parakeets, peacocks,
pheasants silver and golden; bustards and ostriches: the latter,
bestridden each by a tiny cupid, were led on in golden leashes,
followed by antelopes and oryxes, elks from beyond the Danube, four-
horned rams from the Isles of the Hyperborean Ocean, and the strange
hybrid of the Libyan hills, believed by all spectators to be half-
bull half-horse. And then a murmur of delighted awe ran through the
theatre, as bears and leopards, lions and tigers, fettered in heavy
chains of gold, and made gentle for the occasion by narcotics, paced
sedately down the slope, obedient to their beautiful guides; while
behind them, the unwieldy bulk of two double-horned rhinoceroses,
from the far south, was overtopped by the long slender necks and
large soft eyes of a pair of giraffes, such as had not been seen in
Alexandria for more than fifty years.

A cry arose of 'Orestes! Orestes! Health to the illustrious
Prefect! Thanks for his bounty!' And a hired voice or two among
the crowd cried, 'Hail to Orestes! Hail, Emperor of Africa!' ....
But there was no response.

'The rose is still in the bud,' simpered Orestes to Hypatia. He
rose, beckoned and bowed the crowd into silence; and then, after a
short pantomimic exhibition of rapturous gratitude and humility,
pointed triumphantly to the palm avenue, among the shadows of which
appeared the wonder of the day--the huge tusks and trunk of the
white elephant himself.

There it was at last! Not a doubt of it! A real elephant, and yet
as white as snow. Sight never seen before in Alexandria--never to
be seen again! 'Oh, thrice blest men of Macedonia!' shouted some
worthy on high, 'the gods are bountiful to you this day!' And all
mouths and eyes confirmed the opinion, as they opened wider and yet
wider to drink in the inexhaustible joy and glory.

On he paced solemnly, while the whole theatre resounded to his heavy
tread, and the Fauns and Dryads fled in terror. A choir of nymphs
swung round him hand in hand, and sang, as they danced along, the
conquering might of Beauty, the tamer of beasts and men and deities.
Skirmishing parties of little winged cupids spread themselves over
the orchestra, from left to right, and pelted the spectators with
perfumed comfits, shot among them from their tiny bows arrows of
fragrant sandal-wood, or swung smoking censers, which loaded the air
with intoxicating odours.

The procession came on down the slope, and the elephant approached
the spectators; his tusks were wreathed with roses and myrtles; his
ears were pierced with splendid earrings, a jewelled frontlet hung
between his eyes; Eros himself, a lovely winged boy, sat on his
neck, and guided him with the point of a golden arrow. But what
precious thing was it which that shell-formed car upon his back
contained? The goddess! Pelagia Aphrodite herself?

Yes; whiter than the snow-white elephant--more rosy than the pink-
tipped shell in which she lay, among crimson cushions and silver
gauze, there shone the goddess, thrilling all hearts with those
delicious smiles, and glances of the bashful playful eyes, and
grateful wavings of her tiny hand, as the whole theatre rose with
one accord, and ten thousand eyes were concentrated on the
unequalled loveliness beneath them.

Twice the procession passed round the whole circumference of the
orchestra, and then returning from the foot of the slope towards the
central group around Hephaestus, deployed right and left in front of
the stage. The lions and tigers were led away into the side
passages; the youths and maidens combined themselves with the
gentler animals into groups lessening gradually from the centre to
the wings, and stood expectant, while the elephant came forward, and
knelt behind the platform destined for the goddess.

The valves of the shell closed. The Graces unloosed the fastenings
of the car. The elephant turned his trunk over his back, and,
guided by the hands of the girls, grasped the shell, and lifting it
high in air, deposited it on the steps at the back of the platform.

Hephaestus limped forward, and, with his most uncouth gestures,
signified the delight which he had in bestowing such a sight upon
his faithful artisans of Alexandria, and the unspeakable enjoyment
which they were to expect from the mystic dance of the goddess; and
then retired, leaving the Graces to advance in front of the
platform, and with their arms twined round each other, begin
Hypatia's song of invocation.

As the first strophe died away, the valves of the shell reopened,
and discovered Aphrodite crouching on one knee within. She raised
her head, and gazed around the vast circle of seats. A mild
surprise was on her countenance, which quickened into delightful
wonder, and bashfulness struggling with the sense of new enjoyment
and new powers. She glanced downward at herself; and smiled,
astonished at her own loveliness; then upward at the sky; and seemed
ready, with an awful joy, to spring up into the boundless void. Her
whole figure dilated; she seemed to drink in strength from every
object which met her in the great universe around; and slowly, from
among the shells and seaweeds, she rose to her full height, the
mystic cestus glittering round her waist, in deep festoons of
emeralds and pearls, and stepped forward upon the marble sea-floor,
wringing the dripping perfume from her locks, as Aphrodite rose of
old.

For the first minute the crowd was too breathless with pleasure to
think of applause. But the goddess seemed to require due homage;
and when she folded her arms across her bosom, and stood motionless
for an instant, as if to demand the worship of the universe, every
tongue was loosed, and a thunder-clap of 'Aphrodite!' rang out
across the roofs of Alexandria, and startled Cyril in his chamber at
the Serapeium, and weary muleteers on distant sand-hills, and dozing
mariners far out at sea.

And then began a miracle of art, such as was only possible among a
people of the free and exquisite physical training, and the delicate
aesthetic perception of those old Greeks, even in their most fallen
days. A dance, in which every motion was a word, and rest as
eloquent as motion; in which every attitude was a fresh motive for a
sculptor of the purest school, and the highest physical activity was
manifested, not as in the coarser comic pantomimes, in fantastic
bounds and unnatural distortions, but in perpetual delicate
modulations of a stately and self-restraining grace. The artist was
for the moment transformed into the goddess. The theatre, and
Alexandria, and the gorgeous pageant beyond, had vanished from her
imagination, and therefore from the imagination of the spectators,
under the constraining inspiration of her art, and they and she
alike saw nothing but the lonely sea around Cytherea, and the
goddess hovering above its emerald mirror, saying forth on sea, and
air, and shore, beauty, and joy, and love....

Philammon's eyes were bursting from his head with shame and horror:
and yet he could not hate her; not even despise her. He would have
done so, had there been the faintest trace of human feeling in her
countenance to prove that some germ of moral sense lingered within:
but even the faint blush and the downcast eye with which she had
entered the theatre were gone; and the only expression on her face
was that of intense enjoyment of her own activity and skill, and
satisfied vanity, as of a petted child .... Was she accountable? A
reasonable soul, capable of right or wrong at all? He hoped not
.... He would trust not .... And still Pelagia danced on; and for
a whole age of agony, he could see nothing in heaven or earth but
the bewildering maze of those white feet, as they twinkled over
their white image in the marble mirror .... At last it was over.
Every limb suddenly collapsed, and she stood drooping in soft self-
satisfied fatigue, awaiting the burst of applause which rang through
Philammon's ears, proclaiming to heaven and earth, as with a mighty
trumpet-blast, his sister's shame.

The elephant rose, and moved forward to the side of the slabs. His
back was covered with crimson cushions, on which it seemed Aphrodite
was to return without her shell. She folded her arms across her
bosom, and stood smiling, as the elephant gently wreathed his trunk
around her waist, and lifted her slowly from the slab, in act to
place her on his back....

The little feet, clinging half fearfully together, had Just risen
from the marble-The elephant started, dropped his delicate burden
heavily on the slab, looked down, raised his forefoot, and throwing
his trunk into the air, gave a shrill scream of terror and
disgust....

The foot was red with blood--the young boy's blood--which was
soaking and bubbling up through the fresh sand where the elephant
had trodden, in a round, dark, purple spot....

Philammon could bear no more. Another moment and he had hurled down
through the dense mass of spectators, clearing rank after rank of
seats by the sheer strength of madness, leaped the balustrade into
the orchestra below, and rushed across the space to the foot of the
platform.

'Pelagia! Sister! My sister! Have mercy on me! on yourself! I
will hide you! save you! and we will flee together out of this
infernal place! this world of devils! I am your brother! Come!'

She looked at him one moment with wide, wild eyes--The truth flashed
on her--

'Brother!'

And she sprang from the platform into his arms .... A vision of a
lofty window in Athens, looking out over far olive-yards and
gardens, and the bright roofs and basins of the Piraeus, and the
broad blue sea, with the purple peaks of Aegina beyond all .... And
a dark-eyed boy, with his arm around her neck, pointed laughing to
the twinkling masts in the far harbour, and called her sister ....
The dead soul woke within her; and with a wild cry she recoiled from
him in an agony of shame, and covering her face with both her hands,
sank down among the blood-stained sand.

A yell, as of all hell broke loose, rang along that vast circle--

'Down with him!' 'Away with him!' 'Crucify the slave!' 'Give the
barbarian to the beasts!' 'To the beasts with him, noble Prefect!'
A crowd of attendants rushed upon him, and many of the spectators
sprang from their seats, and were on the point of leaping down into
the orchestra.

Philammon turned upon them like a lion at bay; and clear and loud
his voice rose through the roar of the multitude.

'Ay! murder me as the Romans murdered Saint Telemachus! Slaves as
besotted and accursed as your besotted and accursed tyrants! Lower
than the beasts whom you employ as your butchers! Murder and lust
go fitly hand in hand, and the throne of my sister's shame is well
built on the blood of innocents! Let my death end the devil's
sacrifice, and fill up the cup of your iniquity!'

'To the beasts!' 'Make the elephant trample him to powder!'

And the huge brute, goaded on by the attendants, rushed on the
youth, while Eros leaped from his neck, and fled weeping up the
slope.

He caught Philammon in his trunk and raised him high in air. For an
instant the great bellowing ocean of heads spun round and round. He
tried to breathe one prayer, and shut his eyes--Pelagia's voice rang
sweet and clear, even in the shrillness of intense agony--

'Spare him! He is my brother! Forgive him, men of Macedonia! For
Pelagia's sake-- Your Pelagia! One boon--only this one!'

And she stretched her arms imploringly toward the spectators, and
then clasping the huge knees of the elephant, called madly to it in
terms of passionate entreaty and endearment.

The men wavered. The brute did not. Quietly he lowered his trunk,
and set down Philammon on his feet. The monk was saved. Breathless
and dizzy, he found himself hurried away by the attendants, dragged
through dark passages, and hurled out into the street, with curses,
warnings, and congratulations, which fell on an unheeding ear.

But Pelagia kept her face still hidden in her hands, and rising,
walked slowly back, crushed by the weight of some tremendous awe,
across the orchestra, and up the slope; and vanished among the palms
and oleanders, regardless of the applause and entreaties, and jeers,
and threats, and curses, of that great multitude of sinful slaves.

For a moment all Orestes's spells seemed broken by this unexpected
catastrophe. A cloud, whether of disgust or of disappointment, hung
upon every brow. More than one Christian rose hastily to depart,
touched with real remorse and shame at the horrors of which they had
been the willing witnesses. The common people behind, having
glutted their curiosity with all that there was to see, began openly
to murmur at the cruelty and heathenry of it. Hypatia, utterly
unnerved, hid her face in both her hands. Orestes alone rose with
the crisis. Now, or never, was the time for action; and stepping
forward, with his most graceful obeisance, waved his hand for
silence, and began his well-studied oration.

'Let me not, O men of Macedonia, suppose that you can be disturbed
from that equanimity which befits politicians, by so light an
accident as the caprice of a dancer. The spectacle which I have had
the honour and delight of exhibiting to you--(Roars and applause
from the liberated prisoners and the young gentlemen)--and on which
it seemed to me you have deigned to look with not altogether
unkindly eyes--(Fresh applause, in which the Christian mob,
relenting, began to join)--is but a pleasant prelude to that more
serious business for which I have drawn you here together. Other
testimonials of my good intentions have not been wanting in the
release of suffering innocence, and in the largess of food, the
growth and natural property of Egypt, destined by your late tyrants
to pamper the luxury of a distant court .... Why should I boast? -
yet even now this head is weary, these limbs fail me, worn out in
ceaseless efforts for your welfare, and in the perpetual
administration of the strictest justice. For a time has come in
which the Macedonian race, whose boast is the gorgeous city of
Alexander, must rise again to the political pre-eminence which they
held of old, and becoming once more the masters of one-third of the
universe, be treated by their rulers as freemen, citizens, heroes,
who have a right to choose and to employ their rulers--Rulers, did I
say? Let us forget the word, and substitute in its place the more
philosophic term of ministers. To be your minister--the servant of
you all--To sacrifice myself, my leisure, health, life, if need be,
to the one great object of securing the independence of Alexandria--
This is my work, my hope, my glory--longed for through weary years:
now for the first time possible by the fall of the late puppet
Emperor of Rome. Men of Macedonia, remember that Honorius reigns no
more! An African sits on the throne of the Caesars! Heraclian, by
one decisive victory, has gained, by the favour of--of Heaven, the
imperial purple; and a new era opens for the world. Let the
conqueror of Rome balance his account with that Byzantine court, so
long the incubus of our Trans-Mediterranean wealth and civilisation;
and let a free, independent, and united Africa rally round the
palaces and docks of Alexandria, and find there its natural centre
of polity and of prosperity.'

A roar of hired applause interrupted him and not a few, half for the
sake of his compliments and fine words, half from a natural wish to
be on the right side--namely, the one which happened to be in the
ascendant for the time being--joined .... The city authorities were
on the point of crying, 'Imperator Orestes,' but thought better of
it; and waited for some one else to cry first--being respectable.
Whereon the Prefect of the Guards, being a man of some presence of
mind, and also not in anywise respectable, pricked up the Prefect of
the docks with the point of his dagger, and bade him, with a fearful
threat, take care how he played traitor. The worthy burgher roared
incontinently--whether with pain or patriotism; and the whole array
of respectabilities--having found a Curtius who would leap into the
gulf, joined in unanimous chorus, and saluted Orestes as Emperor;
while Hypatia, amid the shouts of her aristocratic scholars, rose
and knelt before him, writhing inwardly with shame and despair, and
entreated him to accept that tutelage of Greek commerce, supremacy,
and philosophy which was forced on him by the unanimous voice of an
adoring people....

'It is false!' shouted a voice from the highest tiers, appropriated
to the women of the lower classes, which made all turn their heads
in bewilderment.

'False! false! you are tricked! He is tricked! Heraclian was
utterly routed at Ostia, and is fled to Carthage, with the emperor's
fleet in chase.'

'She lies! Drag the beast down!' cried Orestes, utterly thrown off
his balance by the sudden check.

'She? He! I, a monk, brought the news! Cyril has known it--every
Jew in the Delta has known it, for a week past! So perish all the
enemies of the Lord, caught in their own snare!'

And bursting desperately through the women who surrounded him, the
monk vanished.

An awful silence fell on all who heard. For a minute every man
looked in his neighbour's face as if he longed to cut his throat,
and get rid of one witness, at least, of his treason. And then
arose a tumult, which Orestes in vain attempted to subdue. Whether
the populace believed the monk's words or not, they were panic-
stricken at the mere possibility of their truth. Hoarse with
denying, protesting, appealing, the would-be emperor had at last to
summon his guards around him and Hypatia, and make his way out of
the theatre as best he could; while the multitude melted away like
snow before the rain, and poured out into the streets in eddying and
roaring streams, to find every church placarded by Cyril with the
particulars of Heraclian's ruin.



CHAPTER XXIII: NEMESIS


That evening was a hideous one in the palace of Orestes. His
agonies of disappointment, rage, and terror were at once so shameful
and so fearful, that none of his slaves dare approach him; and it
was not till late that his confidential secretary, the Chaldean
eunuch, driven by terror of the exasperated Catholics, ventured into
the tiger's den, and represented to him the immediate necessity for
action.

What could he do? He was committed--Cyril only knew how deeply.
What might not the wily archbishop have discovered? What might not
he pretend to have discovered? What accusations might he not send
off on the spot to the Byzantine Court?

'Let the gates be guarded, and no one allowed to leave the city,'
suggested the Chaldee.

'Keep in monks? as well keep in rats! No; we must send off a
counter-report, instantly.'

'What shall I say, your Excellency?' quoth the ready scribe, pulling
out pen and inkhorn from his sash.

'What do I care? Any lie which comes to hand. What in the devil's
name are you here for at all, but to invent a lie when I want one?'

'True, most noble,' and the worthy sat meekly down to his paper ....
but did not proceed rapidly.

'I don't see anything that would suit the emergency, unless I
stated, with your august leave, that Cyril, and not you, celebrated
the gladiatorial exhibition; which might hardly appear credible?'

Orestes burst out laughing, in spite of himself. The sleek Chaldee
smiled and purred in return. The victory was won; and Orestes,
somewhat more master of himself, began to turn his vulpine cunning
to the one absorbing question of the saving of his worthless neck.

'No, that would be too good. Write, that we had discovered a plot
on Cyril's part to incorporate the whole of the African churches
(mind and specify Carthage and Hippo) under his own jurisdiction,
and to throw off allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in
case of Heraclian's success.'

The secretary purred delighted approval, and scribbled away now with
right good heart.

'Heraclian's success, your Excellency.'

'We of course desired, by every means in our power, to gratify the
people of Alexandria, and, as was our duty, to excite by every
lawful method their loyalty toward the throne of the Caesars (never
mind who sat on it) at so critical a moment.'

'So critical a moment....'

'But as faithful Catholics, and abhorring even in the extremest
need, the sin of Uzzah, we dreaded to touch with the unsanctified
hands of laymen the consecrated ark of the Church, even though for
its preservation....'

'Its preservation, your Excellency....'

'We, therefore, as civil magistrates, felt bound to confine
ourselves to those means which were already allowed by law and
custom to our jurisdiction; and accordingly made use of those
largesses, spectacles, and public execution of rebels, which have
unhappily appeared to his holiness the patriarch (too ready,
perhaps, to find a cause of complaint against faithful adherents of
the Byzantine See) to partake of the nature of those gladiatorial
exhibitions, which are equally abhorrent to the spirit of the
Catholic Church, and to the charity of the sainted emperors by whose
pious edicts they have been long since abolished.'

'Your Excellency is indeed great .... but--pardon your slave's
remark--my simplicity is of opinion that it may be asked why you did
not inform the Augusta Pulcheria of Cyril's conspiracy?'

'Say that we sent a messenger off three months ago, but that ....
Make something happen to him, stupid, and save me the trouble.'

'Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of Palmyra, your
Excellency?'

'Let me see .... No. They may make inquiries there. Drown him at
sea. Nobody can ask questions of the sharks.'

'Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad calamity only one
man escaped on a raft, and being picked tip, after three weeks'
exposure to the fury of the elements, by a returning wheat-ship--By
the bye, most noble, what am I to say about those wheat-ships not
having even sailed?'

'Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say that--say that the
plague was making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared
carrying the infection to the seat of the empire; and let them sail
to-morrow.'

The secretary's face lengthened.

'My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of your just
indignation, that half of them have been unloaded again for your
munificent largesses of the last two days.'