Nitocris

“ We claim kinship with the gods, but we are not the gods, and what mortal hand could avenge a crime like this?"
"A woman's hand is soft and a woman's lips are sweet, yet what so cruel or so merciless in all the world as a woman? As there is nothing liker Heaven than a woman's love, so there is nothing liker Hell than a woman's hate. So saith the Ancient Wisdom, O Nitocris; and therefore, as thou hast loved Nefer the Prince, so shalt thou also hate Menkau-Ra and Anemen-Ha, his murderers and the destroyers of his promised happiness." ”

“ With eyes fixed and ears sharpened by such terror as only the sin-steeped soul can know, they saw the waxen eyelids of the mummy slowly rise, the dim, glazed eyes look out from underneath them, the dry, black lips move, and heard a thin, harsh voice say through the awful silence:
"Greeting, Nitocris, my Queen—greeting from the gloom of Amenthes, where I have waited too long for those who ere now should have stood with me in the Halls of Doom and the presence of the Assessors! Say now, thou who sittest feasting between my murderers, how much longer must I wait for thee and them?" ”

“ There, lying in a nest of soft black velvet, encircled by a triple halo of whitely gleaming diamonds, was the Horus Stone. In an instant she travelled [Pg 285] back through fifty centuries to the scene of the death-bridal of her other self, Nitocris the Queen, in the banqueting-hall of the Palace of Pepi. Then it had lain gleaming on her breast, and now she saw it again with the eyes of flesh, after nearly five thousand years. Now, too, she grasped in all the fullness of its evil meaning the reason why Oscarovitch had brought it to her in such an hour as this. ”

“ Then he got up and, reaching over her shoulders, took up the diamond chain, glistening under the soft light of the starry dome of the saloon, shook it out into a flood of white radiance, lifted it above her head, and let it fall very gently round her neck. [Pg 287] The Horus Stone, as though endowed with sentience, fell and rested where it had rested five thousand years before. As it touched her flesh Nitocris felt a tremor of indescribable emotion, not only of the body but of the soul, pass through her. ”

“ NITOCRIS, the Wife of Evil Merodac, King of Babylon, who from his great wickedness was murdered in 559, B.C. Neroglissar and Labarosoarchad usurped the throne. But in 555, Nabonidas and Belshazzar began to reign. This last was the son of Evil Merodac and Nitocris, and grandson of Nebuchadnezzar: he was an impious and pleasure loving prince, neglecting his subjects and kingdom; but Nitocris, a woman of great understanding and masculine spirit, took the main burden of the government upon herself ”

“ It was at this point that the Law of Natural Selection stepped in. Natural laws of any sort have very little respect for the refinements of what mortals are pleased to call their philosophy. Professor Marmion was a very great man—some men said he was the greatest scientist of his age—but at this moment he was but as a grain of sand among the wheels of the mighty machine which grinds out human and other destinies.
Commander Merrill took a couple of long, swift strides towards the chair in which Nitocris was leaning back with her hands pressed to her eyes. ”

“ I love this Nitocris, Queen or woman, and neither man nor god shall keep her from me, willing or unwilling. As for the Princess Hermia—well, her husband is not dead yet."
"Better he dead and his widow your wife, as was planned, Highness, than that you should [Pg 184] dare the power of one who has attained to the Perfect Knowledge," said the Egyptian, with all the earnestness of absolute conviction. ”

“ Yes, it is true, Nitocris, true that thou art now Queen in the land by the will of the great Rameses; and true also it is that the shade of Nefer is now waiting in the halls of Amenti till his murderers shall be sent by the hand of a just vengeance into the presence of the Divine Assessors. ”

“ To look on the face of the dead were defilement for thee and us."
"Yet this once it shall be done, O Priest of the Father of the Gods," answered Nitocris, turning and looking into his eyes, "for last night I had a vision, and I saw the soul of Nefer come back to [Pg 31] his mummy, here in this hall, at my bridal feast, and his eyes opened, and his lips spoke, and made plain to me many things that I greatly longed to know. But why shouldst thou turn pale and tremble, thou the holiest man in the land? What hast thou to fear, even if my vision came true? ”

“ Menes and his son Ramesses Reigned next after the Gods, and therefore Nitocris and Mœris Reigned after Ramesses: Mœris is set down immediately before Cheops, three times in the Dynastys of the Kings of Egypt composed by Eratosthenes, and once in the Dynasties of Manetho; and in the same Dynasties Nitocris is set after the builders of the three great Pyramids, and according to Herodotus her brother Reigned before her, and was slain, and she revenged his death ”

“ It's only the difference between a thunder-shower and the Nile flood. The Genius of Dreams could easily account for the rest. Certainly this apparatus that we call our brain plays some very curious tricks with us sometimes. I suppose this is one of them. And yet if ever there was a dream that seemed like reality that one did. The Mummy and the long-dead Nitocris back to life! By the way, I wonder whether that flagon was really there, and whether there was any wine in it? ”

“ It is harder to understand how Herodotus could have given to the wife of Nebuchadrezar, who was called Amytis and was a Mede, the name Nitocris, and have ascribed to her such great buildings. Is Nitocris a corruption of Nabû-kudurri-uṣur (Nebuchadrezar) ? In that case the two names Labynetos and Nitocris have a common origin. Nikel regards the situation as follows: Nebuchadrezar's wife exercised a great influence during the reign of her husband. The marriage with the daughter of the Median king was a political event of great importance. ”

“ The Author supplies a note in the official programme, in which she informs the World that Amun-Mykera Nitocris was "handsome among women, and brave among men, and governed for her husband with great splendour and much justice, though she is rebuked by several of the ancient historians for her cruelty and sensuality," and no doubt these facts have suggested the five long Acts of the more or less poetical play. ”

“ More than Nitocris was to Egypt, more than Semiramis to Nineveh, more than Zenobia to the city of palm trees—this seven-years-old shepherd maiden became to Paris and her France. You have not heard of her in that kind?—No: how should you?—for she did not lead armies, but stayed them, and all her power was in peace.
7. There are, however, some seven or eight and twenty lives of her, I believe; into the literature of which I cannot enter, nor need, all having been ineffective in producing any clear picture of her to the modern French or English mind ”

“ The debris of the forgotten city that once covered Komombos has been removed, and the great hall, with its holy of holies now exposed to the light of day, is swept by the wind as clean as a Dutch kitchen; and yet the carvings are as fresh as the day they were made. From the Nitocris to the temple is only a few steps through some sugar-cane. It was a novel experience to find no donkey-boys with their patient and sleepy donkeys.
But the natives were different from any we had heretofore seen, and proved that we were getting into real Africa. ”

“ I don't understand it a bit; but they have been."
"But, my dear Niti, what on earth can you have to say to Lord Leighton about a—a female mummy? What possible interest can a five-thousand-year-old corpse have for him?"
"Don't, Brenda, don't—at least not just now! Wait till I've told you, and then you'll see," said Nitocris, pressing her arm closer to her side. "Lord Leighton is, as I think you know, an enthusiastic student of Egyptian antiquities. He was also, or thought he was, in love with my unworthy self. He found this mummy in a royal tomb at Memphis. ”

“ We have no knowledge of the life-history of the species.
(4) Argynnis nitocris, Edwards, Plate XIII, Fig. 4, ♂, under side (Nitocris) .
Butterfly.—The male is bright reddish-fulvous, marked like A. nokomis. The under side of the fore wings is cinnamon-red, ochre-yellow at the tip. The hind wings are deep rusty-red, with a broad yellowish-red submarginal belt. The silver spots are as in A. nokomis. The female on the upper side is blackish-brown, darker than A. nokomis. The extradiscal spots in the transverse rows are pale yellow, and the submarginal spots whitish. ”

“ This lake, the bridge, and the quays of the river are ascribed to Nitocris, by Herodotus; but most of the other wonders of Babylon are ascribed by Josephus to Nebuchadnezzar, her father-in-law. "Perhaps," says one of the historians, "Nitocris might only finish what her father had left imperfect at his death, on which account the historian might give her the honour of the whole undertaking."
We are now called upon to describe other wonders. These are the palaces and hanging gardens. At each end of the bridge stood a palace ”

“ Egypt—the Queen—Palace of Pepi—bridal feast of Nitocris and Menkau-Ra—yes, yes, of course I remember it all now. She made me impersonate Nefer in the mummy-case, and then, when she had frightened her guests half out of their wits, she avenged her lover by opening the sluice-gates and drowning the lot, herself included. A rare [Pg 34] device, that of old Pepi's, for getting rid of hospitably entertained enemies. Not quite in accordance with our modern ideas of sport, I'm afraid, but in those days we thought a good deal more of effectiveness than sport. ”

“ Gautier, Théophile. Spirite. Translated by Arthur D. Hall. 1890
Griffith, George. The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension. [1906]
[Hadley, George] . Argal; Or, The Silver Devil, Being the
Adventures of an Evil Spirit, Related by Himself. Two vols. in one. [1793]
Haggard, H [enry] Rider. Allan and the Ice-Gods: A Tale of Beginnings. 1927
Harvey, William Fryer. ”

“ Quetm Nitocris, whose beauty and wisdom are praised by Manetho and Herodotus, endeavours in vain to stem the torrent of revolt which now spreads to the capital itseli. S1h> perislies in the attempt, and after her death Eg>'pt remains for upwards of three centuries divided into two kingdoms, one comprising the wliole of the Delta, the other the Nile Valley thence to Ethiopia. ”

“ Then secondly he established in the city the temple of Hephaistos a great work and most worthy of mention.
100. After this man the priests enumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who reigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris. ”

“ But it so fell out with Nicias, that he had not at this time a skillful diviner with him; his former habitual adviser who used to moderate much of his superstition, Stilbides, had died a little before. For in fact, this prodigy, as Philochorus observes, was not unlucky for men wishing to fly, but on the contrary very favorable; for things done in fear require to be hidden, and the light is their foe. Nor was it usual to observe signs in the sun or moon more than three days, as Autoclides states in his Commentaries. ”

“ Accordingly, Cambyses, being much pleased with Nitetis, and being very violently in love with her, learns the whole circumstances of the case from her; and she entreated him to avenge the murder of Apries, and persuaded him to make war upon the Egyptians. But Dinon, in his History of Persia, and Lynceas of Naucratis, in the third book of his History of Egypt, say that it was Cyrus to whom Nitetis was sent by Amasis; and that she was the mother of Cambyses, who made this expedition against Egypt to avenge the wrongs of his mother and her family. ”

“ Assemble the priests. She is not to die! She must live! I am the king, and I command it!"
Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavouring to obey her lord. She looked upon her lover, who was pressing his burning lips to her right hand. She murmured, with a smile, "Oh, this great happiness!" Then she closed her eyes and was seized with fever.
All efforts to save Nitetis' life were fruitless. Cambyses fell into the deepest gloom, and wanted action, war, to dispel his sad thoughts. Phanes gave him the pretext. As commander of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, he had enjoyed Amasis' confidence. ”

“ And I have heard that to this day in a temple at Syracuse is shown a shield, said to have been Nicias's, curiously wrought and embroidered with gold and purple intermixed. Most of the Athenians perished in the quarries by diseases and ill diet, being allowed only one pint of barley every day, and one half pint of water. ”

“ When the Syracusans returned from Catana, and stood in battle array before the city gates, he rapidly led up the Athenians and fell on them and defeated them, but did not kill many, their horse hindering the pursuit. And his cutting and breaking down the bridges that lay over the river gave Hermocrates, when cheering up the Syracusans, occasion to say, that Nicias was ridiculous, whose great aim seemed to be to avoid fighting, as if fighting were not the thing he came for. ”

“ He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their enemies for the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri. An attempt on the part of Nicostratus to reassure them and to persuade them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons armed upon this pretext, alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail with them as a proof of the hollowness of their intentions, and took their arms out of their houses, and would have dispatched some whom they fell in with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it. ”