Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria

by Ki Longfellow

  When she is with us, she eats quietly, reads quietly, is in bed by the setting of the sun and up long before it rises.

  But she is here and that is all that matters.

  ~

  That which I would not say to others, I tell my yellow cat.

  “I am no longer young, Miw.”

  Nildjat Miw opens an eye.

  “Thirty years. Imagine. Thirty summers, thirty winters. And still not a woman.”

  Miw, a well seasoned female—who could miss the call of her suitors?—opens another eye.

  “It is time I learned the art of love-making. To know only the palms of Siwa is to know nothing.”

  Miw shows an eyetooth. She agrees.

  “But where shall I learn this skill? I am not as you, taking any old thing that climbs over my wall.”

  Nildjat Miw stares at me. I know what she thinks for I think it myself.

  “No, I cannot. Though for years he sleeps under my roof and disturbs my rest, he is forbidden me.”

  Miw sneers.

  “You are wrong. I have long since shed the notion he is unworthy of me. If any, I am unworthy of him. But he is my brother and loves me not, Great Cat, and that is that. I shall begin with an older man, one who does not need me and would not brag of his conquest. After that, we shall see—but none who is married and none a student. And never with a priest.”

  Nildjat Miw produces a noise I think a laugh. One would never guess from their bearing, but cats have a fine sense of humor.

  ~

  Before taking a lover, I visit the Cyrenian family of the devoted Synesius to buy what is source to their wealth: wild silphion. A lover will take enough of my time, two lovers twice as much. A child would require all of my time. Silphion will prevent conception.

  The man I choose first is Hero of Carthage. As he is only a visiting geometer and in all ways suits my needs, I accept his invitation to dine. And so forth. Next I choose the young son of a wealthy merchant. This one is as lovely as an athlete, his skin golden and hairless. And so forth.

  Augustine gave up physical love for his god. I, who only now taste this love, find giving pleasure does not lessen, but advances the heart. I am a Greek and a lover of life and of wisdom. My mouth, my sex, opens as mind opens when understanding comes. As for receiving pleasure, ah…if I were Nildjat Miw, I might purr—but only for so long. Physical love is pleasurable, yes, but like Augustine and his god, does not compare to the pleasures of the mind. And then there are complications. The heart is not simple; some bring their heart to my bed. Even so, if I continue as I’ve begun, I shall become a Nildjat Miw of love-making.

  “Miw? Is it wise to take so many men? Is it cruel to choose one over the other?”

  I hear her answer as she brushes against me. Men are like cats. In this way, Hypatia is a cat.

  ~

  I return from the bed of yet another man to instantly seek Nildjat Miw. As Lais’ room is now mine, this is where I find her, stretched out on the wide white ledge my sister once dreamed on.

  “I have horrid news, cat.” Seeking solace from both Miw and the Etesian wind in from the northern sea, I climb up beside her. “Theophilus builds a church on the site of the sacred Serapeum.”

  Nildjat Miw circles in my lap. Miw is nothing like Paniwi. Paniwi lurked. Paniwi leapt. Paniwi caught and she killed and she offered all to Lais. Nildjat Miw is content to listen to my talk of men, to mrrrrrr and growl and yeeeooow in response. The gleam-footed Xanthos carried Achilles on his back and spoke with a human voice. Hesiod’s Hawk admonished his dinner, the Nightingale. Miw would be better a poet’s hawk or a hero’s horse for no cat makes the noises she makes.

  “The past is so easily lost, Miw, so quickly forgotten—what of the spirits of water and fire and air and earth that danced in these places? What of the search for meaning?” Miw kneads my belly and I feel her claws though she keeps them sheathed. “I ask Christians: where are your questions? Where are your great doubters, those who lead us all to discovery? I am greeted by pity. They say: how is there doubt when Christ has brought certainty to the world? What have you been eating, Miw? Gah. But Lais would pat my hand, she would smile. She would say, ‘Lament not. Nothing is forgotten. This too will pass.’ And I would reply, ‘Just as the good that follows will also pass.’ ‘And that,’ she would counter, ‘is the way of the world. Light follows dark as dark follows light.’ ‘But why?’ I would cry out. ‘Why not, beloved? Take joy in the splendid game.’”

  Miw jumps from my lap as I stand. I need to wash away Ambrose, my first, but I think not my last, Jew. My skin needs scraping and oiling. With the loss of the Caesarium, I lecture somewhere new. There is less room for my chariot and horses, but it will do. Assigned one of many halls attached to the Agora, from it I can see the Court of Law, a confusing cluster of varied shops, and the street where once a huge hole gaped into which Isidore of Pergamon and I also gaped. My students overflow into the courtyard. One more and I will need to speak in a public park or on a wide white beach. No matter. I will teach until I am made to stop teaching…and when that day comes, I shall not retreat to my bed. In his bed, Father grows old. He grows foolish. Is this what Beato the astrologer saw? I have not met Beato again. I do not know.

  Nildjat Miw ever at my feet, I look out over the fine fat faces of the rich, youths from Antioch to Milan to Narbo to Segovia, all honking like geese to attend me. The smell grows worse. Full half are Christian therefore told that bodily cleanliness is sign of a pagan, and to bathe is a monstrous sensuality not suited to faith. By Hygieia, Goddess of health and cleanliness, we shall all sicken here.

  Any who can find a copper coin and a seat might attend this lecture. Some have found seats but offer no coin. Yet I am paid. So many are here who know little, if not less. That any learn at all is a gain to the world, and therefore to me. In public I am humorless, knowing it is thought a sign of wisdom. Humor and light-heartedness is reserved for my secret Companions who laugh with wisdom.

  Not at the front, but at the back stand a row of monks, each robed in black, each face shadowed by a black hood. Each seems already dead. These are new faces, strange faces, closed faces. Not one is a student of mine. Pausing as if I must think some great thought, I count them: eight. Eight is the octopus. It is the spinner, the spider, the weaver of fate. Eight is transformation—but into what? One of the eight wears no cowl. His face is as white as lime. In it twists his mouth and in it his eyes are curses. Who could forget this man? He is that one called Peter who stood before me in the burning Serapeum and called me the devil’s daughter. But he too must be spawned by a demon, for how else did he escape the temple when no other of his kind did?

  Before I speak, clad in my philosopher’s tribon, seated on my philosopher’s chair, I lean down so I might speak first to Nildjat Miw. “Shall we die this day? I am not yet ready to die.” My yellow cat shivers. Is this an answer? Or a flea?

  I have decided to speak of numbers, beginning with 1, the Monad, and ending with 10, the Decad, so that those who listen might understand what Plato meant when he wrote: Numbers are the highest degree of knowledge. It is knowledge itself. Tablets appear on laps. The hall settles.

  I hold up a finger. “People once counted in this way: one.” I hold up two fingers. “Two.” I spread my arms to include them all from first row to highest, from right aisle to left aisle, to those who scowl near the door. “Many.” There are smiles at such simplicity, which in truth is not simple at all, but a leap of great imagination. “Sumerians counted in this way: man, woman, many.” The smiles are now broader and this because the word “woman” is spoken as if such a one deserved counting. “One, which is the cosmic unity All There Is, and Two, which is duality sent out from the singularity of One as joyous expression, are the parents of the illusion of Many. As the foundation of number, is this not simple? A thousand years ago, this was written in the Isha Upanishad of India. ‘Where shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded, who sees everywhere the Oneness’? I tell you, as the
master and mystic Lao Tzu would tell you, there is nothing to be gained by complexity but bewildered confusion. There is nothing to be found in an overabundance of information, but intimidation. I have no wish to confuse or intimidate. I myself am confused enough.”

  There is one who laughs and so loudly I look up, to find looking back—Isidore! The skin of my cheek burns. My mouth dries. Eight monks in black. Eight spiders weaving. Eight years since last I set eyes on the favorite of Bishop Theophilus. On his right sits Synesius long since returned to Cyrene to breed horses and dogs. But if in Alexandria, Synesius is a constant—after all, he is first among Companions. On his left sits the brother of Synesius, the captious Euoptius of Cyrene who is not a Companion. Euoptius strives to blacken my heart by sneering. He fails, for I see only Isidore.

  I find I am speaking no longer of number, but of Pythagoras of Samos to whom number was god. I find myself saying, “Pythagoras studied in Egypt for twenty two years, learning all it could teach him. They say he could appear in two places at one time, that urging fishermen to cast their failed net again, it came back silver with fish. A white eagle spoke his name. He healed the sick, made young the old; like the Buddha, he could remember lives he had already lived. And when he taught, he would teach only those who could listen, and by listening, hear. But before he taught them, they must endure years of silence.”

  There is a rustling in the hall, a sighing and a wheezing. I know what is thought without having to hear it. These are the deeds of Jesus. Further, how many here, Christian or not, would consent to such rigors to learn anything, feel anything, know anything? One, would be my answer if asked, and his name is Synesius: but only if he were allowed his dogs and his horses. That Isidore would not consent, hurts some secret place in me.

  Lais rises in my mind. My sister needed no “deeds,” no master, no proof of “ear.” Lais was Spirit—just as she is this moment. If Death holds answers; I am often eager to die. If not, it annihilates…also alluring.

  I continue speaking. “A certain Cyron, who loved Pythagoras, could not listen closely enough or become silent enough, so was refused the teaching. Made ill with disappointment, he set fire to the hall in which Pythagoras spoke. All inside were killed, including the teacher he had hoped to please, Pythagoras of Samos.” Half entranced with the horror and meaning of my story, I say this final thing, “But how many here have heard of Cyron and how many Pythagoras? Though his body was consumed, his mind lived on. To destroy what one cannot have, or cannot understand, destroys nothing. A man may murder another, temples may fall, flames may take books, and fear force silence, but ideas are eternal.”

  I fall suddenly awake. By Pallas! Full third of those before me are Christian. Eight are Christian fanatics living in the Mountains of Nitria calling down woe on all who do not believe as they believe. These have murdered men, toppled temples, burned books, and silenced dissent.

  I am as much stone as the stone of the chair I sit in. I look out from my eyes but see only in at my racing thoughts. My promise to Theophilus is at long last broken. I shall lose my place. If I lose my place, I lose all. And yet there is no stir, no hum as the disturbing of a hive.

  I find I am looking at Isidore, and there see nothing but my friend of the time before Siwa. Synesius, whose brother would have him a bishop, plays with his beard. Euoptius picks at his sleeve.

  From one face to another, I gaze out at them. The black monks in back do nothing.

  Did they not hear me? Did I not speak? And then I understand. They do not see who they are.

  ~

  Desher and I gallop out before the sun to wait under the shade of the tamarisk tree near the Temple of Bastet where Nildjat Miw was born. We whirl in place to face the rising of Ra who cradles the golden city in arms of gold.

  On this third day, as agreed, Isidore arrives, riding a black mare. His face is as it was, radiant with interest, shadowed with mistrust.

  I wonder what it is he sees in mine?

  It is old, this tree, and as thick of trunk as it is wide of branch and fine of leaf, yet it does not conceal us. Desher shudders under me. She thrusts her head forward forcing the mare to move back.

  Isidore speaks first. “I have thought of you.” I will not be made to say I have thought of him. “You have lost your sister. I cannot know your grief, but I can know how you grieved.”

  “I grieve. It does not lessen.” We are silent again. Our horses nicker, Ra warms our backs, flies visit the Shrine of Bastet. I finally speak. “As I was long ago told I could not know you, were you not told you could not know me?”

  “Emphatically.”

  “How then do you come to hear me, and so openly?”

  “I grow weary of what I am told.”

  “By any, or by only one?”

  “By only one.”

  “Are you not afraid of this one?”

  I have made Isidore laugh. It is good to see him laugh. It is good to hear laughter. “Of course I am afraid of Theophilus. Who would wish to be punished?”

  “And how should you be punished?”

  “There are so many ways.”

  I do not ask the ways. They seem obvious enough. “You write that you would join my Companions.”

  “I would.”

  “As a priest, you are forbidden to practice mathematics. As for astrology, is it not called evil itself? I would teach you astronomy, Isidore, mathematics, the philosophical mysteries of those you call pagan. The Companions seek the ‘true life,’ a merging with the One. If a priest were to credit this, or even to listen, such a priest would be cast out from his church. Why would you join the Companions?”

  “I would find any way to see and to hear you.”

  From too much speech, I lapse into too little.

  Isidore fills the silence. “I ask also to learn. Though many surely are, a Christian need not be a fool. I would be a Christian. I would follow Christ. Jesus was not ignorant. Why should I be?” Swishing her black tail, his mare turns under him, so that he must rein her back. “There is another reason, Hypatia.” Not sure I would hear this reason, I allow Desher to turn as well, and do not rein her back. “What was done by me against your will and your wishes cannot be forgiven. But I ask for understanding.”

  I have understood him. I have understood myself. “You are a male. I am a female. We were alone. Though I was an innocent, I was not entirely reluctant. The fault is half mine.”

  Isidore is made speechless. To render him such brings with it a flush of pleasure. If such pleasure is unworthy, then I am unworthy. I would ride away now. Neither he nor I can remain long before we are seen. As for Companion, that is a matter for all to discuss.

  “I am no Cyron, Hypatia. I do not burn books and I do not kill what I cannot have. Your understanding is a gift. I have a gift in return, something you will wonder at.”

  Blood pushes at my veins. Could he say other that would intrigue me more?

  “Tonight, at the sixth hour, come to the church Theophilus builds.”

  I am shocked. This is the site of the destroyed Serapeum. For Isidore, devils have stepped aside for angels, but for me divinity dies. “You ask that I come alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Through a tomb of night?”

  “Yes.”

  I have seen a dark no night can equal. I say, “I will come.”

  Desher, her hide as red as the blade of a sorcerer’s knife, is eager to run. I slide my hand up her neck. I whisper in her ear. And we are gone.

  ~

  “Tell me, yellow cat, if I go and go alone, do I do the wise thing?”

  Miw, seated on Damara’s table of emerald green near a chart of stars, has not spoken, not even to purr, but her eyes do not leave mine.

  “Or does Isidore mean me harm? He once said there were those I knew but did not know. Did he mean himself?”

  Still no word from Nildjat Miw. As Miw stares at me, I stare at her.

  “You will not answer? Not even to save my life as I saved yours? If not for me
, who would feed you? Whose lap would you find to weigh down with your great furred body?”

  My yellow cat rises, she yawns, then jumps straight into the air to land with immaculate grace on the ibis head of Thoth. Her action is graceful, it takes her precisely where she would go; she makes no error. Thoth is the logos, the mind of god, the heart and the tongue of Ra. As well as writing, he is speech.

  Nildjat Miw has answered.

  By the steady drip of my water clock, I must go now if I would go. My cat and I are decided; I shall meet Isidore. But will I accept him, favored priest of Theophilus, into the secret teachings? This, as yet, I do not know.

  ~

  Minkah the Egyptian

  I resign myself to Hypatia’s comings and goings as I have resigned myself to so much that cuts at my heart. But that she should leave her house at the darkest hour, sneak away when all but the worst of Alexandria sleeps, means more than her usual adventures—and what that can only mean to Minkah, the Egyptian, is that I must follow.

  She takes Desher. To enter the stables without disturbance to any, to walk her horse away without saddle or bridle, this is a skill I have not mastered. Ia’eh snorts at the loss of Desher, tosses her head at me, but she cannot come along for together she and I cannot be silent. Slipping away, I ask Chons, protector of night travelers, to ensure that my rash darling does not go farther than I can run.

  Moving quickly, Hypatia leads Desher by no more than a hand entwined in her mane. They take streets Hypatia does not normally take: a side street near a small theater, another small street leading to a fish market, a third that enters into the wide Street of Alexander, this one paved in rosy granite. Here she vaults onto Desher’s bare back. Watching from a doorway, I am heartened to see it. Alone and on foot, even as she is armed, she is prey. On Desher, she is free to flee. Hypatia’s mare is fast and she is agile. So too is Hypatia. Each will take the other home. I am also disheartened. Will she now move faster than I can follow? The answer is no. Hypatia keeps Desher to a walk.