"O Tanith! thou dost love me? I have looked so much on thee! But no!
thou sailest through thine azure, and I--I remain on the motionless earth.
"Taanach, take your nebal and play softly on the silver string, for my heart is sad!"The slave lifted a sort of harp of ebony wood, taller than herself, and triangular in shape like a delta; she fixed the point in a crystal globe, and with both hands began to play.
The sounds followed one another hurried and deep, like the buzzing of bees, and with increasing sonorousness floated away into the night with the complaining of the waves, and the rustling of the great trees on the summit of the Acropolis.
"Hush!" cried Salammbo.
"What ails you, mistress? The blowing of the breeze, the passing of a cloud, everything disquiets you just now!""I do not know," she said.
"You are wearied with too long prayers!"
"Oh! Tanaach, I would fain be dissolved in them like a flower in wine!""Perhaps it is the smoke of your perfumes?""No!" said Salammbo; "the spirit of the gods dwells in fragrant odours."Then the slave spoke to her of her father.It was thought that he had gone towards the amber country, behind the pillars of Melkarth."But if he does not return," she said, "you must nevertheless, since it was his will, choose a husband among the sons of the Ancients, and then your grief will pass away in a man's arms.""Why?" asked the young girl.All those that she had seen had horrified her with their fallow-deer laughter and their coarse limbs.
"Sometimes, Tanaach, from the depths of my being there exhale as it were hot fumes heavier than the vapours from a volcano.Voices call me, a globe of fire rolls and mounts within my bosom, it stifles me, Iam at the point of death; and then, something sweet, flowing from my brow to my feet, passes through my flesh--it is a caress enfolding me, and I feel myself crushed as if some god were stretched upon me.Oh!
would that I could lose myself in the mists of the night, the waters of the fountains, the sap of the trees, that I could issue from my body, and be but a breath, or a ray, and glide, mount up to thee, OMother!"
She raised her arms to their full length, arching her form, which in its long garment was as pale and light as the moon.Then she fell back, panting, on the ivory couch; but Taanach passed an amber necklace with dolphin's teeth about her neck to banish terrors, and Salammbo said in an almost stifled voice: "Go and bring me Schahabarim."Her father had not wished her to enter the college of priestesses, nor even to be made at all acquainted with the popular Tanith.He was reserving her for some alliance that might serve his political ends;so that Salammbo lived alone in the midst of the palace.Her mother was long since dead.
She had grown up with abstinences, fastings and purifications, always surrounded by grave and exquisite things, her body saturated with perfumes, and her soul filled with prayers.She had never tasted wine, nor eaten meat, nor touched an unclean animal, nor set her heels in the house of death.
She knew nothing of obscene images, for as each god was manifested in different forms, the same principle often received the witness of contradictory cults, and Salammbo worshipped the goddess in her sidereal presentation.An influence had descended upon the maiden from the moon; when the planet passed diminishing away, Salammbo grew weak.
She languished the whole day long, and revived at evening.During an eclipse she nearly died.
But Rabetna, in jealousy, revenged herself for the virginity withdrawn from her sacrifices, and she tormented Salammbo with possessions, all the stronger for being vague, which were spread through this belief and excited by it.
Unceasingly was Hamilcar's daughter disquieted about Tanith.She had learned her adventures, her travels, and all her names, which she would repeat without their having any distinct signification for her.
In order to penetrate into the depths of her dogma, she wished to become acquainted, in the most secret part of the temple, with the old idol in the magnificent mantle, whereon depended the destinies of Carthage, for the idea of a god did not stand out clearly from his representation, and to hold, or even see the image of one, was to take away part of his virtue, and in a measure to rule him.
But Salammbo turned around.She had recognised the sound of the golden bells which Schahabarim wore at the hem of his garment.
He ascended the staircases; then at the threshold of the terrace he stopped and folded his arms.
