Over the terraces, in a constant round, up and down, marched the chief priests, the hieropsalts, the hieroscopes, the hierogrammats, the pastophors, the sphagists and the stolists. The hieropsalts sang the hymns to the sacred harps; the hieroscopes prophesied from the entrails of victims; the hierogrammats guarded the secrets of the Hermetic wisdom; the pastophors carried the images of Anubis, with the dog’s head, in silver boats; the sphagists were the sacrificial priests; the stolists served the sacred images, adorned them, tended them with ever clean and perfumed hands. But among the hierogrammats strode the prophets. They had beheld the godhead face to face; they knew the past and the future, they knew the meaning of the sacred dreams. They were very holy; and the oldest of them were most holy. Whenever they approached, the people sank to the ground and kissed the pavement, with hands uplifted.
The sacred hour approached, the hour when Serapis would send the sacred dreams from heaven, out of the sun itself, when all the procession would have streamed in, when the gates of the dromos would have slammed with their ponderous monolithic doors, when the last gong-stroke would clatter away in the sacred night.
From the terraces the town, the canal, and the lake lay visible as in one golden shimmer of lights. But on the terraces themselves suddenly an incredible stillness reigned. Not a voice, not a rustle sounded from out of that multitude of thousands. And on the granite pavement the pilgrims were stretched one beside the other.
In between the rows the temple-keepers moved, the neocori. And they bent incessantly over the pilgrims and covered them with the dreaming-nets and -veils, while zacori slung the censers. A heavy, intoxicating perfume of almost stifling aromatic vapour was wafted through the air.
Suddenly, through the silence, the harps of the hieropsalts struck the sacred chord.
There was a short hymn, one single phrase, which melted away.
On the vast terraces the multitude of the thousands of pilgrims lay motionless under nets and veils, their eyes closed. Not a sound came from the illuminated city. The sacred silence reigned wide and mystic, fraught with terror, over the sea, along the starry sky, over the city and the temple. For Serapis, invisible, was rising from the underworld, to bring the dreams.
He rose in a cloud of dreams, out of the sacred, subterranean Hell, where he reigns even as Osiris reigns in high Heaven. He is Osiris himself; between him and Osiris there is no difference. He is two. While Osiris is the benevolent Almighty above, he is the benevolent Almighty below. He opposes Typhon, even as Osiris combated Typhon. Victory falls to him in the end, even as it did to Osiris.
Now he rises, in the cloud of dreams. For it is his feast, the feast of his kindly waters, which he pours in summer rains from the sacred vessels wherewith the dog’s-head of Anubis, his watchman, servant and comrade, is crowned, the waters which he pours into the sacred stream, so that it may flood sacred Egypt. Now he rises in the cloud of dreams.
The earth splits and Serapis rises from the subterranean Hell. He is everything, even as Osiris is. He is feminine, Neith, the beginning, and masculine, Ammon, eternity. He is what the last will be. And he cannot be other than the benefactor. He makes the dreams hover like butterflies around the foreheads of those who believe in him. His healing power makes whole the sick. He pours the secret of that healing into the minds of the servants of sufferers who shall dream in their masters’ stead. His dreams advise what must be done or left undone to achieve prosperity, fortune, consideration, happiness and love.
And he will make Lusius dream where to find a beloved woman who has disappeared. …
In the silence the young Roman lies, covered with a gold network, like a precious mummy, straight out, his arms beside his body, his eyes shut. Near him lie all his followers.
The cloud of the perfumes is wafted over their eyes reverently closed under the veils.
The sacred silence continues, hour after hour, unbroken. …
X
Had Lucius slept? Had he dreamed? Had the fragrant cloud drugged his senses? Had a strange mystic power spread over him? Had Serapis descended upon him? Had the dreams surrounded him?
It seemed to him that a golden thunder roused him from his heavy, motionless lethargy. The gong-strokes rolled through the temple and far away into the starry night. Harp-chords sounded, a hymn was intoned. He felt his veil wet with thick-rising dew. …
Round and round the terraces, singing, moved the long procession of the priests. It was still night. Everywhere around Lucius the dreamers arose, drunk with sleep and dreaming. In the reflections of the lamps and torches their faces were ghostly, spiritualized as after a long prayer, after protracted adoration and ecstasy, wherein their thoughts, desires and souls had been refined.
On the topmost terrace, round which the whole city shimmered visibly with light—on the one side the nocturnal blue of the sea, on the other the silvery forking of the Nile’s mouths through the Delta—the learned hierogrammats, the keepers of the sacred writings, sat each on his throne. In their hands they held unrolled the sacred scrolls, whose hieroglyphics gave answer to all things. Temple-slaves behind them lifted high the coloured lanterns. In front of them the multitudinous dreamers thronged.
Great was the thronging. The dreamers wanted to know the interpretation of their dreams. But those who had dreamed were so many that the priests did not answer save with a few words full of dark meaning.
Many, disappointed, went down the terraces. Orgy awaited them in the taverns and brothels along the canal. …
Lucius had risen, in the midst of all his followers. He stood stiff, motionless, veiled in the gold net, like a god entranced.
“Lucius,” Thrasyllus asked, “my dear child and master, tell me: have you dreamed?”
“Yes,” replied Lucius, in a trance.
“I too,” said Uncle Catullus. “It
