Cyropaedia

Such were their words and deeds. Then Cyrus ordered the men whom he knew to be Cyaxares’s most intimate friends to divide among themselves the keeping of the king’s portion of the booty. And[*](Cyrus’s disposal of his prizes) what you offer me, he added, I accept with pleasure; but it shall always be at the service of any one of you who at any time is most in need of it. If you please, then, Cyrus, said one of the Medes who was fond of music, when I listened last evening to the music-girls whom you now have, I was entranced; and if you will give me one of them, I should, I think, be more happy to go to war with you than to stay at home. Well said Cyrus, I will not only give her to you, but I believe that I am under greater obligation to you for your asking than you to me for receiving her; so thirsty am I to do you favours. So he that asked received her.

Then Cyrus called to him Araspas, a Mede, who had been his friend from boyhood—the same one to[*](I. iv. 26) whom he had given his Median robe when he laid it off as he was returning from Astyages’s court to Persia—and bade him keep for him both the lady and the tent.

Now this woman was the wife of Abradatas of Susa; and when the Assyrian camp was taken, her husband happened not to be there, having gone on an embassy to the king of Bactria; for the Assyrian king had sent him thither to negotiate an alliance, because he chanced to be a guest-friend of the Bactrian king. This, then, was the lady that Cyrus placed in the charge of Araspas, until such a time as he himself should take her.

And when he received this commission Araspas asked: And[*](Araspas describes Panthea) have you seen the lady, Cyrus, whom you give into my keeping? said he. No, by Zeus, said Cyrus; not I. But I have, said the other. I saw her when we selected her for you. And when we went into her tent, upon my word, we did not at first distinguish her from the rest; for she sat upon the ground and all her handmaids sat around her. And she was dressed withal just like her servants; but when we looked round upon them all in our desire to make out which one was the mistress, at once her superiority to all the rest was evident, even though she sat veiled, with her head bowed to the earth.

But when we bade her rise, all her attendants stood up with her, and then was she conspicuous among them both for her stature and for her nobility and her grace, even though she stood there in lowly garb. And she could not hide her tears as they fell, some down her dress, some even to her feet.

Then, when the oldest man in our company said: Have no fear, lady; for though we understand that your husband also is a noble man, yet we are choosing you out for a man who, be assured, is not his inferior either in comeliness or intelligence or power, but, as we at least think, if there is any man in the world who deserves admiration, that man is Cyrus; and his you shall henceforth be. Now when the lady heard that, she rent her outer garment from top to bottom and wept aloud; and her servants also cried aloud with her.

And then we had vision of most of her face and vision of her neck and arms. And let me tell you, Cyrus, said he, it seemed to me, as it did to all the rest who saw her, that there never was so beautiful a woman of mortal birth in Asia. But, he added, you must by all means see her for yourself.

No, by Zeus, said Cyrus; and all the less,[*](Cyrus declines to visit her) if she is as beautiful as you say. Why so? asked the young man. Because said he, if now I have heard from you that she is beautiful and am inclined just by your account of her to go and gaze on her, when I have no time to spare, I am afraid that she will herself much more readily persuade me to come again to gaze on her. And in consequence of that I might sit there, in neglect of my duties, idly gazing upon her.

Why Cyrus, said the young man breaking[*](Araspas maintains that love is a matter of will) into a laugh, you do not think, do you, that human beauty is able to compel a man against his will to act contrary to his own best interests? Why, said he, if that were a law of nature, it would compel us all alike.

Do you observe, said he, how fire burns all alike? That is its nature. But of beautiful things we love some and some we do not; and one loves one, another another; for it is a matter of free will, and each one loves what he pleases. For example, a brother does not fall in love with his sister, but somebody else falls in love with her; neither does a father fall in love with his daughter, but somebody else does; for fear of God and the law of the land are sufficient to prevent such love.

But, he went on, if a law should be passed forbidding those who did not eat to be hungry, those who did not drink to be thirsty, forbidding people to be cold in winter or hot in summer, no such law could ever bring men to obey its provisions, for they are so constituted by nature as to be subject to the control of such circumstances. But love is a matter of free will; at any rate, every one loves what suits his taste, as he does his clothes or shoes.

How then, pray, said Cyrus, if falling in[*](Cyrus maintains that it is a kind of slavery) love is a matter of free will, is it not possible for any one to stop whenever he pleases? But I have seen people in tears of sorrow because of love and in slavery to the objects of their love, even though they believed before they fell in love that slavery is a great evil; I have seen them give those objects of their love many things that they could ill afford to part with; and I have seen people praying to be delivered from love just as from any other disease, and, for all that, unable to be delivered from it, but fettered by a stronger necessity than if they had been fettered with shackles of iron. At any rate, they surrender themselves to those they love to perform for them many services blindly. And yet, in spite of all their misery, they do not attempt to run away, but even watch their darlings to keep them from running away.