Hypatia | Page 6

left them centuries before; the
sand was slipping down and piling up around them, their heads were
frosted with the arid snow; everywhere was silence, desolation-the
grave of a dead nation, in a dying land. And there he sat musing above
it all, full of life and youth and health and beauty--a young Apollo of
the desert. His only clothing was a ragged sheep-skin, bound with a
leathern girdle. His long black locks, unshorn from childhood, waved
and glistened in the sun; a rich dark down on cheek and chin showed
the spring of healthful manhood; his hard hands and sinewy sunburnt
limbs told of labour and endurance; his flashing eyes and beetling brow,
of daring, fancy, passion, thought, which had no sphere of action in
such a place. What did his glorious young humanity alone among the
tombs?
So perhaps he, too, thought, as he passed his hand across his brow, as if
to sweep away some gathering dream, and sighing, rose and wandered
along the cliffs, peering downward at every point and cranny, in search
of fuel for the monastery from whence he came.
Simple as was the material which he sought, consisting chiefly of the
low arid desert shrubs, with now and then a fragment of wood from
some deserted quarry or ruin, it was becoming scarcer and scarcer
round Abbot Pambo's Laura at Scetis; and long before Philammon had
collected his daily quantity, he had strayed farther from his home than
he had ever been before.
Suddenly, at a turn of the glen, he came upon a sight new to him....a
temple carved in the sandstone cliff; and in front a smooth platform,
strewn with beams and mouldering tools, and here and there a skull

bleaching among the sand, perhaps of some workman slaughtered at his
labour in one of the thousand wars of old. The abbot, his spiritual
father--indeed, the only father whom he knew, for his earliest
recollections were of the Laura and the old man's cell-had strictly
forbidden him to enter, even to approach any of those relics of ancient
idolatry: but a broad terrace-road led down to the platform from the
table-land above; the plentiful supply of fuel was too tempting to be
passed by .... He would go down, gather a few sticks, and then return,
to tell the abbot of the treasure which he had found, and consult him as
to the propriety of revisiting it.
So down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes to the alluring
iniquities of the painted imagery which, gaudy in crimson and blue,
still blazed out upon the desolate solitude, uninjured by that rainless air.
But he was young, and youth is curious; and the devil, at least in the
fifth century, busy with young brains. Now Philammon believed most
utterly in the devil, and night and day devoutly prayed to be delivered
from him; so he crossed himself, and ejaculated, honestly enough,
'Lord, turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity!' .... and looked
nevertheless....
And who could have helped looking at those four colossal kings, who
sat there grim and motionless, their huge hands laid upon their knees in
everlasting self-assured repose, seeming to bear up the mountain on
their stately heads? A sense of awe, weakness, all but fear, came over
him. He dare not stoop to take up the wood at his feet, their great stern
eyes watched him so steadily.
Round their knees and round their thrones were mystic characters
engraved, symbol after symbol, line below line--the ancient wisdom of
the Egyptians, wherein Moses the man of God was learned of old-- why
should not he know it too? What awful secrets might not be hidden
there about the great world, past, present, and future, of which he knew
only so small a speck? Those kings who sat there, they had known it all;
their sharp lips seem parting, ready to speak to him .... Oh that they
would speak for once! .... and yet that grim sneering smile, that seemed
to look down on him from the heights of their power and wisdom, with

calm contempt .... him, the poor youth, picking up the leaving and rags
of their past majesty .... He dared look at them no more.
So he looked past them into the temple halls; into a lustrous abyss of
cool green shade, deepening on and inward, pillar after pillar, vista
after vista, into deepest night. And dimly through the gloom he could
descry, on every wall and column, gorgeous arabesques, long lines of
pictured story; triumphs and labours; rows of captives in foreign and
fantastic dresses, leading strange animals, bearing the tributes of
unknown lands; rows of ladies at feasts, their heads crowned with
garlands, the fragrant lotus-flower in every hand, while slaves brought
wine