The Egyptian (30 page)

Their art also is strange and wayward. Every painter paints as the fancy takes him, heedless of rules, and he paints only such things as in his own eyes are beautiful. Vases and bowls blaze with rich color; round their sides swim all the strange creatures of the sea. Flowers grow upon them, butterflies hover over them, so that a man accustomed to an art regulated by convention is disturbed when he sees the work and thinks himself in a dream.

Buildings are not imposing like the temples and palaces of other countries, convenience and luxury being the aim rather than outward symmetry. Cretans love air and cleanliness; their lattice windows admit the breeze, and their houses contain many bathrooms where both hot and cold water runs from silver pipes into silver baths at the mere turn of a tap. In the privies, running water sluices out the pans with a rushing sound, and nowhere else have I seen such a refinement of luxury. Nor is it only the rich and eminent who live in this fashion, but all save those about the harbor, where foreigners and dock laborers have their dwellings.

The women spend endless time in washing themselves, in plucking hairs from their bodies, and in tending, beautifying, and painting their faces, so they can never be ready at any stated time but arrive at receptions when it suits their convenience. Strangest of all are their clothes. They wear dresses woven of gold or silver, which cover all their bodies save for the arms and bosom—for they are proud of their lovely breasts. But the wide, pleated skirts are adorned with a thousand embroideries or with the paintings of artists. Also they have dresses put together of numberless pieces of beaten gold in the form of cuttlefish, butterflies, and palm leaves, and their skin gleams through between them. They dress their hair high and with complexity, devoting whole days to the task, and they wear small, light hats that they fasten to the hair with gold pins, so as to seem poised like butterflies. Their bodies are lithe and slim and their loins as narrow as a boy’s so that they have difficulty in bearing children and avoid this as far as they can, thinking it no shame to be childless or to have but one or two.

The men wear ornamented boots to the knee, but their loincloths are simple, and they gird themselves tightly, being vain of their slender waists and broad shoulders. They have small, handsome heads and delicate limbs, and like the women they allow no hair upon their bodies. Only a few of them speak foreign tongues, for they prefer their own country to others, which do not offer the same ease and gaiety. Although they derive their wealth from seafaring and commerce, I met those who refused to visit the harbor because of its evil smells and who could not perform the simplest calculation but in all things relied upon their stewards. Able foreigners may, therefore, speedily acquire wealth if they are content to live in the harbor quarter.

They have instruments that play without a musician, and they claim to be able to put music into writing so that one may learn to play without ever having heard the piece performed. The musicians of Babylon also declared that they could do this, and I will not contradict them or the Cretans since I know nothing of music and the instruments of many different lands have perplexed my ear. Nevertheless, I can well understand the saying current in other parts of the world: “He lies like a Cretan.”

No temples are to be seen there, and they pay little heed to the gods but content themselves with serving their bulls. This they do, however, with great enthusiasm so that a day seldom passes without a visit to the field. I do not think this is to be attributed so much to their piety as to the excitement and pleasure afforded, by the dancing.

Nor can I say that they display much veneration for their king, for he is their equal save that he lives in a palace many times larger than those of his subjects. They are as much in his company as in anyone’s; they jest with him and tell stories, come to his receptions at whatever hour they please and leave when they are bored or in response to some fresh whim. They drink wine in moderation, for cheerfulness’ sake, and they are very free in their ways. They are never drunk, however, for they consider this barbarous, nor have I seen anyone vomit from excess of drinking at their banquets as often happens in Egypt and elsewhere. Nevertheless, desire for one another is readily kindled, and they enjoy each other’s wives or husbands how or when the fancy takes them. The youths who dance before the bulls stand highest in the women’s favor. Many distinguished men learn this art though not initiates; they do it for pleasure and at times attain a proficiency equal to that of the dedicated youths to whom women are forbidden, as men are forbidden to the girls. This last I cannot understand, for from their way of life one would not expect them to attach much importance to the matter.

Upon our arrival in the harbor we put up at the foreigners’ inn, which was the most luxurious of any I have seen though not large. Ishtar’s House of Joy in Babylon, with all its dusty magnificence and its loutish servants, seemed in comparison a very barbarous place. At this inn we washed and dressed, and Minea put up her hair and bought new clothes that she might show herself to her friends.

I was astonished to behold her—she wore on her head at tiny hat like a lamp and on her feet high-heeled shoes that were awkward to walk in. I would not vex her by any remark but gave her earrings and a necklace of different-colored stones, which the merchant told me was fashionable that day, though for the morrow he could not answer. I surveyed also with astonishment her bared breasts with nipples painted red, which swelled forth from the silver sheath about her body; she avoided my eyes, saying defiantly that her breasts were nothing to be ashamed of but would stand comparison with those of any woman in Crete. After closer inspection I did not deny this, for she may well have been right.

Next we were conveyed to the town itself. With its gardens and airy houses it was like another world after the crowds, noise, fish smells, and chaffering of the port. Minea took me to an elderly man of some distinction who was her special patron and friend; it had been his custom to stake money on her in the field of bulls, and Minea looked on his house as her own. He was studying the list of bulls when we came and noting the bets he would make on the following day.

When he saw Minea, he forgot his papers in his joy, embraced her without reserve, and cried, “Where have you been hiding? I have not seen you for so long a time that I fancied you must already have entered the house of the god. Yet I have chosen no one to take your place, and your room stands empty—that is if my servants have remembered to keep it so and my wife has not had it pulled down to make room for a pool; she has just now a fancy for breeding different kinds of fish and can think of nothing else.”

“Helea—breeding fish?” exclaimed Minea in astonishment.

Somewhat embarrassed the old man replied, “It is Helea no longer. I have a new wife, and she has with her just now an uninitiated youth to whom she is showing her fish; I do not think she would want to be disturbed. But present your friend to me that he may be my friend also and this house his.”

“My friend is Sinuhe the Egyptian, He Who Is Alone, and by profession he is a doctor,” said Minea.

“I wonder how long he will remain alone here,” the old man jested. “But surely you are not ill, Minea, that you come in company with a physician? That would distress me, for I am hoping you will dance before the bulls tomorrow and turn my luck. My steward down at the port has been complaining that my income no longer covers my expenses-or perhaps it is the contrary? I do not well remember, for I can make nothing of his complicated accounts, which he constantly thrusts before me in the most tedious manner.”

“I am not ill, but this friend has rescued me from many perils, and we have journeyed far to return to my homeland. I was shipwrecked on my way to dance before bulls in Syria.”

“Indeed?” said the old man uneasily. “I hope that despite your friendship you have kept your virginity, or you will be excluded from the competitions—and there are also other vexations as you are well aware. I am indeed distressed, for I note that your breasts have developed in a suspicious manner and your eyes have a moist shine in them. Minea, Minea! You have not cast yourself away?”

“No!” said Minea in wrath. “And when I deny it you may trust to my word and need not examine me as they did in the Babylonian slave market. You seem scarcely to understand that it is thanks to my friend here that I have returned safely after many perils. I thought my friends would rejoice to see me, but you think only of your bulls and your wagers!” She began to weep with rage, and her tears left streaks of eye black on her cheeks.

The old man was greatly disturbed and cast down, and he said, “I doubt not that you are overwrought from your travels, for in foreign countries you may not even have been able to take your daily bath. Nor do I think that the bulls of Babylon can be compared with ours—and that reminds me that I should long ago have been at Minos’, though the matter escaped my mind. I had better go at once. If my wife should come, tell her I am with Minos and that I did not wish to disturb her and the young aspirant. Or I might go to bed since no one at Minos’ will observe whether I am there or not. On the other hand if I went I could look in at the stables on the way and learn how that new bull is shaping—the one with the patch on its flank. Perhaps after all I had better go. A truly exceptional beast!”

Absently he took his leave of us, but Minea said to him, “We shall also go to Minos’ that I may present Sinuhe to my friends.”

So we went to the palace of Minos, on foot because the old man could not make up his mind whether or not it was worth while to take a chair for so short a distance. Not until we reached the palace did I discover that Minos was the king and that their kings were always called Minos to distinguish them from other people. But which Minos of his line he might be was unknown, for no one had the patience to reckon and record them.

There were countless rooms in this palace; on the walls of the reception hall were depicted billowing seaweeds and cuttlefish and jellyfish swimming in transparent waters. The great room was filled with people, each more rarely and extravagantly dressed than the last, and they moved about conversing in lively tones with one another, laughing loudly and drinking chilled drinks—wine and fruit juice—from small cups, while the women compared dresses. Minea presented me to many of her friends, who all displayed the same absent-minded courtesy; King Minos said a few friendly words to me in my own language, thanking me for having saved Minea for their god and brought her home. She should now enter the god’s house at the first opportunity, he said, although her turn according to the lot she had drawn was now past.

Minea went about the palace as if it were her own, leading me from room to room, crying out in pleasure at the sight of some object familiar to her, and greeting the servants, who returned her salutation as if she had never been away. I learned that any eminent Cretan could visit his country estates or set forth on a journey whenever the fancy took him, and though he forgot to mention it to his friends, no one would wonder at his absence. On his return he would join the rest again as if he had never been away. This habit must have softened the fact of death for them, for when anyone disappeared, no one inquired for him and he was forgotten. His absence from an appoint. ment or a meeting or a reception caused no remark since he might have taken it into his head to do something else instead.

At length Minea took me to a room that was perched on a rock above the rest of the building. Its wide windows commanded a view over smiling fields and plowland, olive groves and plantations beyond the city. She told me that this was her room; all her possessions were there as if she had left it but yesterday, though the clothes and jewelry were now out of date and could no longer be worn. Only now did I learn that she was a kinswoman of Minos, though I should have guessed this from her name. Gold and silver and costly presents were meaningless to her since she had been accustomed from childhood to have whatever she desired. From childhood also she had been dedicated to the god and had been brought up in the house of the gods, where she lived when she was not staying at the palace, or with her old patron, or with friends. They are as casual in their dwelling places as in every other particular.

Next Minea took me to the house of the bulls, which was a city in itself, with stalls and arenas, meadows and paddocks, school buildings and priests’ houses. We went from stall to stall, breathing the rank smell of these beasts. Minea wearied not of calling them by pet names and enticing them, though they tried to gore her between the posts of the partitions, bellowing and pawing the sand with their sharp hoofs.

She met there boys and girls whom she knew, although these dancers were in general not friendly, being jealous of their skill and unwilling to impart their tricks to one another. But the priests who trained both bulls and dancers received us warmly, and when they heard that I was a physician, they asked me many questions concerning the digestion of bulls and their diet and the gloss of their coats, although they must have known more of these matters than I. Minea stood high in their favor and was at once allotted a beast and a place in the program for the following day; she was eager to display to me her proficiency with the very best beasts.

Finally Minea took me to a little building where the high priest of the Cretan god lived alone. Just as Minos was always named Minos, so was the chief priest always Minotauros, and for some reason he was the most venerated and dreaded man in Crete. His name was not willingly mentioned and he was referred to as “the man in the little bull house.” Even Minea feared to visit him though she would not confess this to me; I saw it from her eyes, whose every shade I had learned to know.

When we had been announced, he received us in a dim room. At first I fancied that we beheld the god himself and believed all the tales I had been told, for I saw a man with the golden head of a bull. When we had bowed before him, he removed this head and revealed his own face; nevertheless despite his courteous smile I did not like him, for there was in his expressionless face something of sternness and cruelty. I could not define what it was, for he was a handsome man, very dark and born to command. Minea had no need to tell him anything; he already knew of her shipwreck and her travels. He asked no unnecessary questions but thanked me for my good will to Minea and through her to Crete and its god. He told me that rich presents awaited me at my inn with which he fancied I should be well content.