The Memoirs of Cleopatra

by Margaret George

  “Dear husband,” I said, “let us get busy in our own.”

  65

  It was spring, and I was parted from Antony once more, as he pursued his campaign in Armenia. He had mobilized sixteen legions—sixteen, enough to crush Nebuchadnezzar!—and set out to punish his foe. This time there was no suspense, and I had no worries; my face was turned toward what we would do after Artavasdes was duly chastised.

  I was restless. The fresh breezes blowing across the city made me feel like dancing, enveloping myself in the new light silks that had reached us from far to the east, beyond even India. They were so thin they floated about the body like a mist. Just such garments the Aurae, breeze nymphs, must have worn—I had seen sculptures of them, the streaming gowns curling about the outlines of their graceful limbs as they leapt and flew. Their bodies were as visible beneath as if the material had been wet. Now I felt like one of them, ready to fly high over the city, over the Delta, out over the desert.

  Flying being out of the question, I decided to sail to Heliopolis, there to inspect my balsam plantings. It had now been two years since I had brought cuttings back from Jericho, and they had been watered and tended as lovingly as a royal baby. I was eager to see them. If they truly thrived here, the possibility of enormous riches hovered like a mirage.

  Heliopolis, the ancient City of the Sun, stood near the place where all the branches of the Nile united to make that long stalk that reaches all the way to Nubia. It had been sacred since long before the pyramids were built; no one really knew how old it was. When my dynasty, the Ptolemies, came to Egypt, they asked Manetho, also a priest of Heliopolis—who presumably had access to old records—to write a history of Egypt. He did so, and provided the only list we have of all the Pharaohs. Knowledge of the past was fading even then; its roots were still vigorous in the ancient holy cities, but its branches elsewhere were nearly bare. Fewer and fewer people could read the sacred writings; fewer and fewer people cared; ancient Egypt was already receding into a mist of the fabulous, the make-believe. The last native Pharaoh had surrendered his throne to Persians over three hundred years ago.

  But the past was too strong to evaporate; instead, it dyed the new conquerors in its colors. First the Persian rulers, then the Greeks, became Pharaohs once they were on Egyptian soil. I was a Pharaoh, the beloved daughter of Re, as all Pharaohs were. My father had been a Pharaoh, too. That was why we were crowned at Memphis in the old rites.

  Did we feel like Pharaohs? That is hard to say. When I was in Alexandria, no. There was so little that was Egyptian there, or old. It was a brand-new city—a Greek head on an Egyptian body, as someone had once described it. But away from Alexandria—ah, that was different. I had found myself drawn to the “real” Egypt in a way my predecessors had not. I was the only one to learn to speak its language, and the only one to travel up and down the Nile so often, visiting so many towns. Perhaps that was why I had been willing to do so much to keep Egypt from being swallowed up.

  On days like the one on which my barge approached the landing-stage of the canal to Heliopolis, gliding on the bosom of the Nile, past the tall papyrus stalks vibrantly green against the blazing blue sky, I felt I would be willing to do even more—that no price was too high to keep Egypt for Egyptians.

  Awaiting me was Nakht, the high priest of Heliopolis, who presided over the Temple of the Sun. He was a portly man wrapped in a white linen robe, his shaven head gleaming. He had a bevy of priests under him, young assistants, acolytes, scribes, and musicians. Here, in this bastion of Re, he reigned supreme, guarding it as I guarded larger Egypt.

  “We salute and welcome you, Queen Cleopatra, Netjeret-Merites, Goddess, Beloved of Her Father.” He bowed low, and a file of others behind him did likewise.

  I wished Caesarion had accompanied me, so he could see this—after seeing Rome. Here he was Ptolemy Iwapanetjer Entynehem Setepenptah Irmaatenre Sekhemankhamun: Heir of the God that Saves, Chosen of Ptah, Carrying out the Rule of Re, Living Image of Amun. Here he was the heir that would—that must!—preserve Egypt and carry the burden of her past. Even in a larger empire, Egypt would still be uniquely herself. That was the vision Antony and I could offer, rather than the Roman idea of transforming the rest of the world into another Rome.

  “You have missed the morning stars washing the face of Re, and bringing him breakfast,” said Nakht. “And you have missed the blessed Re descending in the form of a bird to touch the sacred Benben obelisk at dawn.”

  Was he scolding me? But no, he just sounded disappointed. “For that I am sorry,” I said.

  “Stay with us through the night, so you can witness these events,” he said. “You, Goddess, the daughter of Re, should behold them.”

  I had not planned to stay. I thought of all the state business waiting in Alexandria. Then I looked up the row of obelisks lining the gentle slope to the great pylon of the temple, and I felt a strong urge to linger here.

  “Depending on the hour, perhaps it will be possible,” I said.

  The entire company of priests bowed and made a pathway for me to follow through them, while Nakht led me toward the enormous temple, its stone fiercely golden in the intense noonday sun—Re burning down directly overhead. The stone would have looked like solid sand somehow rearing itself high, had it not been for the bright flowers, winged discs of Re, and colored designs decorating it.

  Tall, slender palms kept watch behind the obelisks, repeating their lines except in their crowns of bristly fronds.

  In the old religion, this hill was believed to be the first piece of land to emerge from the formless waters of Creation, and it was thereby sacred. From here the origins of the world and the gods were studied; a vast school of astronomy had grown up on the grounds. Here the stories of the gods, of Nun, of Geb and Nut, of Osiris, of Isis, had been discovered, and written down in holy texts. But more than anything else, the nature of Re, the sun god, had been understood here. Re in all his forms—the young Khepri of the morning, the strong Re of midday, and the tottering, weak Atum of sunset. They had even divined what Re did after he vanished beneath the western horizon, and how he traveled in his Mesektet-boat, his night barque, accompanied by “those who never grow weary”—men who had been transformed into stars. There at night Re passed through great dangers in order to emerge once more at dawn, where he descended to touch the gold-clad obelisk at Heliopolis in the center of the temple.

  Beside me, Nakht kept slow, measured footsteps. We passed the first pylon, coming into the forecourt. Beyond this point, which no ordinary person could pass, the secular world fell away. We were now in the realm of the gods—or rather, the abode prepared for them on earth by mortals. A vast forecourt, open in the center but ringed with pillars and dark, shaded colonnades, spread out on each side. Before us beckoned the deep recesses of the temple.

  “Come.” He made his way toward the second division between the secular and the sacred, the first roofed hall. We passed through the doorway and were surrounded by a forest of massive pillars, their tops carved to look like lotus buds, supporting a roof that cut off all sunlight, except for the small windows running near the seam where the walls met the roof. There Re sent probes of bright, glaring light.

  The party of priests stood respectfully back as we, and we alone, proceeded beyond this point. Behind the next set of doors was the inner hall, much smaller. Here the light was even dimmer.

  Gradually my eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and I could see the pillars standing like sentries in the cool dimness. But the roof was lost in darkness.

  Nakht had stopped. I stood still, too. Utter silence and stillness surrounded us. It was hard to believe that outside Re was still beating down above us, so completely was the normal world excluded.

  I do not know how long I stood there, but after a passage of time Nakht began to move on, and I followed him. Deeper and deeper into the temple we penetrated, and since there were no torches or candles, I had to pause to accustom myself to what little light there was before
proceeding farther.

  Eventually we reached the sanctuary, that place of utter darkness, surrounded by polished black stone. Here the Majet-boat, “barque of millions of years,” rested on its pedestal—the barque that Re rode, symbolically, during the day.

  How odd it was, I thought, for the sun to be worshiped in a place of black nothingness. But the sacred seemed to demand the exclusion of everything of sensation—as if all sensations were too tainted with earthly feelings.

  Around the sanctuary lay the sacred chambers—little rooms opening off the corridor. In them the various ceremonies were performed, essential to the life of the temple. Here, Re had his face washed by the stars—the priests acting on their behalf—and here his statue was clothed afresh each day with cloth woven on temple looms.

  “And here, Goddess—” Nakht stepped aside to show me the altar dedicated to my father, me, and Caesarion, as gods who worked in concert with the other gods to preserve Egypt. Our statues stood unseeing on carved pedestals, and we wore the garb of ancient Egypt. Offerings were placed here each day.

  I examined them critically. The likeness of Father was good enough. Mine did not look like me at all. And Caesarion—no, nothing like him.

  “Exalted one,” said Nakht, “you see here yourself as Isis. Since you are daughter of Re and Isis is also the daughter of Re, and she is your protective goddess, we thought this representation fitting.”

  Isis had a snake coiled around one of her arms. She seemed unalarmed by this.

  “The sacred cobras are kept here as well,” said Nakht. “As you know, they are the embodiment of the burning eye of Atum—the sun in his destructive element. Yet the sacred cobra, the goddess Wadjyt, protects Egypt. She encircles the crown of Lower Egypt, ready to strike. She kills ordinary men, but if she bites a son or daughter of the gods, it is a gift to them. It confers immortality.”

  “The bite of an asp can take us directly to the gods?”

  “Yes, Goddess. For us it is so. For others—no. That is reserved for those already divine, or in the service of the divine.”

  “You have sacred cobras here?”

  “Indeed. I will show them to you later in the day.”

  We next entered the most sacred place in the temple. All temples had dark sanctuaries with a barque of the god, but only Heliopolis had the obelisk, covered in shimmering beaten gold; this was the Benben stone, touched by Re at the beginning of time, and again each morning. It stood in a roofless room.

  Overhead the sky was the color of brilliant blue faience. My eyes hurt at the intensity of it after the dark temple. The obelisk was dazzling, the gold glittering, reflecting Re in his heavens.

  “Here is the center of the world,” Nakht breathed, and it was easy to believe him.

  As the heat of the day grew more intense, Nakht ushered me into a private chamber in his own quarters.

  “We will wait for the shadows to grow,” he said. “Then you may see your incense shrubs, and the rest of our holy site.”

  I took my rest on a beautiful carved bed, its head and feet that of a lion, with a long tail trailing from the back. I lowered my head onto the curved headrest and watched the bars of light from the slitted windows move across the walls.

  It was good to lie here. Not that I would sleep, of course. Not that I would sleep….

  But the heavy, drugged air and the slow afternoon overwhelmed me. I was looking at the walls, thinking how far removed this was from my world at Alexandria, wondering if these rituals and these halls were really unchanged from centuries ago, until it all gradually merged into a dream.

  The ancient gods—were they angry at the new gods now set up in Egypt? How did they feel about Serapis, the Ptolemaic god? Did they resent Dionysus crowding in on Osiris? And what about Aphrodite, and Mars, and Zeus? Here the novel, foreign gods seemed so loud, so unsubtle, so intrusive. Our goddess Hathor incorporated love, and joy, and music, whereas their Aphrodite was so one-sided.

  I sighed. Their gods, our gods…who was I, really? Which gods were mine? I was not born of Egyptian blood, yet I was Queen of Egypt.

  I stirred. I felt sticky from the heat and from sleeping at this unnatural time of day. I saw that the sunlight had slipped far down on the walls, and the edges were no longer sharp. It must be near sunset.

  I stood up, arranged my clothes and hair. In the adjoining chamber, Nakht was waiting, as I knew he would be.

  “The Goddess has rested?” he asked.

  “Indeed,” I assured him.

  “Now, as Re has turned into Atum—poor weakling!—it is safe to venture outside. He will bathe the landscape in the softest tones, as he lovingly bids farewell.”

  He was right. Outside the colors had completely changed. Where at noon the sand had been bright gold-white, now it had a tawny tinge. The walls of the temple were rich with color, and the stones now gave back the heat they had received earlier. There was even a slight afternoon breeze, which was at its strongest here on the hilltop.

  “The incense grove is here, beside our fields of flax, where we grow the linen for our robes,” he said. We left the walled temple precinct, and walked to neat rows of tended bushes stretching toward the orchard.

  I was delighted. The bushes were almost knee high, and their leaves looked green and healthy. “Why, they are thriving!” I said.

  “They struggled that first year,” he said. “We lost a few of them. ’Tis said they will grow nowhere but near Jericho. Perhaps they were mourning their removal, their exile. But then they took root and shot up, and now I think we can assume they will attain maturity. Just think—for the first time they will flourish outside their native land.”

  “Yes.” And they would enrich us tremendously. The small area in Jericho where they grew was the richest spot on earth. Each hand-length of ground yielded a fortune. I sighed. Another means of security for Egypt. As if there could ever be enough! “I am pleased.”

  I looked around. The pleasant vista spreading itself out around me—the fields and orchards, the mellow radiating stone of the temple—persuaded me to stay. “I will indeed remain here tonight,” I said, “if I may witness the arrival of Re tomorrow, and see him attended by the priests.”

  He smiled, looking as though I had passed a test. “And you will see more than that,” he assured me.

  After dinner I was taken to a small house nestled near the first pylon, still within the temple grounds. I had barely noticed it at my first entrance; now I wondered why. It was not unobtrusive.

  The moment we crossed the threshold, Nakht’s manner changed. He became deferential, as if he were entering the presence of one greater than himself. He had not acted so with me. Who was this, to invoke such reverence?

  “Goddess,” he said, “here is the wisest man in Egypt, he who presides over the sacred texts of the gods. He knows all their movements, knows how they began in ancient times, and where they are going.”

  At first I saw nothing. The room seemed to be empty. It was neat and clean, with little chests stacked one on top of another, and pots holding scrolls lined up on the floor. Then there was a shuffling. Something moved in the far corner.

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck stirring. The sound was of dried stalks stirring, and a faint odor of dust and storage rose. A man, the color of old wrappings, lurched off a stool.

  “Ipuwer, this is our Queen, Cleopatra, the Goddess Beloved of Her Father, come to us.”

  The man seemed to grow taller and taller. I saw then that it was his skin itself that looked like wrappings. He was so old it hung like draperies, and it was a dull brownish yellow.

  “Ipuwer is directly descended from the first high priest of Heliopolis,” said Nakht. “In my youth he was high priest, but he retired some thirty years ago to devote himself to the study of the origins of the gods. He was the keenest stargazer. Then his eyesight went.”

  “And I turned to the inner lives of the gods. No longer able to see them in the heavens, I find them within us, around us. I hear them whisp
er.” His own voice was a whisper, rustling, out of practice after long disuse.

  “Wise one, do they answer when you ask questions?” I asked. “Or must you wait for them to decide to speak?”

  “Usually I wait,” he conceded. “As you can see, I have spent many years at it.” He spread his thin arms, and I could see that the flesh had withered and hung in folds.

  “He knows the secrets of Re,” said Nakht. “And he understands the burning eye, the sacred cobras. He keeps them.”

  “What, here?” I had not seen cages. Surely he did not mean here, in this room!

  “Yes, they are here,” he answered my spoken question. “But not in cages.” As well as my unspoken. “Do not move, and they will come to you.”

  No wonder Nakht had been so guarded and respectful! Snakes! Loose in the room! I remembered Mardian’s pet snakes, and I had always taken their part, claiming I liked them, but they had been in wicker cages. This was different.

  I looked down at my feet. I saw nothing.

  “Stand still, and wait, my daughter,” Ipuwer said. “And you, Nakht, may depart. The Goddess must be alone with her own.”

  Don’t leave! I wanted to say. But I could not. Nakht bowed and backed out of the room. I heard the fall of the curtain as he left.

  “Yes, we must wait,” Ipuwer repeated. “And while we wait, sit down beside me on this bench. Would you like to see the oldest scroll of all?”

  He bent down and extracted a thick one from a jar of its own. Carefully he laid it on the little table, then delicately opened it a little way. I could hear it cracking.

  “This tells the story of Re,” he said. “When the first priests discovered the truth, they wrote it here.”

  Could it really be that old? I stared at the curling paper, wondering if it could have survived that long, even though it was brittle and faded. He was spreading it out tenderly when a smile of transport suddenly took hold of him.