king. He went about, a moody,
silent man, speaking to no one; and to drown his melancholy would
begin drinking, even at an early hour in the morning, quantities of the
strongest Syrian wine. By the evening he was generally so intoxicated
that he had to be carried out of the hall, and would wake up the next
morning with headache and spasms. In the day-time he would wander about
as if looking for something, and in the night they often heard him
calling Nitetis. The physicians became very anxious about his health,
but when they sent him medicine he threw it away. It was quite right of
Croesus to say, as he did once 'Ye Magi and Chaldaeans! before trying to
cure a sick man we must discover the seat of his disease. Do you know
it in this case? No? Then I will tell you what ails the king. He has
an internal complaint and a wound. The former is called ennui, and the
latter is in his heart. The Athenian is a good remedy for the first,
but for the second I know of none; such wounds either scar over of
themselves, or the patient bleeds to death inwardly.'"

"I know of a remedy for the king though," exclaimed Otanes when he heard
these words. "We must persuade him to send for the women, or at least
for my daughter Phaedime, back from Susa. Love is good for dispersing
melancholy, and makes the blood flow faster." We acknowledged that he
was right, and advised him to remind the king of his banished wives. He
ventured to make the proposal while we were at supper, but got such a
harsh rebuff for his pains, that we all pitied him. Soon after this,
Cambyses sent one morning for all the Mobeds and Chaldaeans, and
commanded them to interpret a strange dream which he had bad. In his
dream he had been standing in the midst of a dry and barren plain:
barren as a threshing-floor, it did not produce a single blade of grass.
Displeased at the desert aspect of the place, he was just going to seek
other and more fruitful regions, when Atossa appeared, and, without
seeing him, ran towards a spring which welled up through the arid soil
as if by enchantment. While he was gazing in wonder at this scene, he
noticed that wherever the foot of his sister touched the parched soil,
graceful terebinths sprang up, changing, as they grew, into cypresses
whose tops reached unto heaven. As he was going to speak to Atossa, he
awoke.

The Mobeds and Chaldaeans consulted together and interpreted the dream
thus? 'Atossa would be successful in all she undertook.'