d Lysias saw the day-star rising behind the range with blinding
radiance, shooting forth rays like myriads of golden arrows, to rout and
destroy his foe, the darkness of night.
Eos, Helios, Phoebus Apollo--these had long been to him no more than
names, with which he associated certain phenomena, certain processes and
ideas; for he when he was not luxuriating in the bath, amusing himself in
the gymnasium, at cock or quail-fights, in the theatre or at Dionysiac
processions--was wont to exercise his wits in the schools of the
philosophers, so as to be able to shine in bandying words at
entertainments; but to-day, and face to face with this sunrise, he
believed as in the days of his childhood--he saw in his mind's eye the
god riding in his golden chariot, and curbing his foaming steeds, his
shining train floating lightly round him, bearing torches or scattering
flowers--he threw up his arms with an impulse of devotion, praying aloud:
"To-day I am happy and light of heart. To thy presence do I owe this, O!
Phoebus Apollo, for thou art light itself. Oh! let thy favors continue--"
But he here broke off in his invocation, and dropped his arms, for he
heard approaching footsteps. Smiling at his childish weakness--for such
he deemed it that he should have prayed--and yet content from his pious
impulse, he turned his back on the sun, now quite risen, and stood face
to face with Irene who called out to him:
"I was beginning to think that you had got out of patience and had gone
away, when I found you no longer by the well. That distressed me--but you
were only watching Helios rise. I see it every day, and yet it always
grieves me to see it as red as it was to-day, for our Egyptian nurse used
to tell me that when the east was very red in the morning it was because
the Sun-god had slain his enemies, and it was their blood that colored
the heavens, and the clouds and the hills."
"But you are a Greek," said Lysias, "and you must know that it is Eos
that causes these tints when she touches the horizon with her rosy
fingers before Helios appears. Now to-day you are, to me, the rosy dawn
presaging a fine day."
"Such a ruddy glow as this," said Irene, "forebodes great heat, storms,
and perhaps heavy rain, so the gatekeeper says; and he is always with the
astrologers who observe the stars and the signs in the heavens from the
towers near the temple-gates. He is poor little Philo's father. I wanted
to bring Klea with me, for she k
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