Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face. Charles Kingsley

Arcadia is imperfect. What were Dionusos without his Ariadne, Ares without Aphrodite, Zeus without Hera? Even Artemis has her Endymion; Athens alone remains unwedded; but only because Hephaestus was too rough a wooer. Such is not he who now offers to the representative of Athene the opportunity of sharing that which may be with the help of her wisdom, which without her is impossible. [Greek expression omitted] Shall Eros, invincible for ages, be balked at last of the noblest game against which he ever drew his bow?’. …

      If Hypatia’s colour had faded a moment before under the withering glance of the old Jewess, it rose again swiftly enough, as she read line after line of this strange epistle; till at last, crushing it together in her hand, she rose and hurried into the adjoining library, where Theon sat over his books.

      ‘Father, do you know anything of this? Look what Orestes has dared to send me by the hands of some base Jewish witch!’—And she spread the letter before him, and stood impatient, her whole figure dilated with pride and anger, as the old man read it slowly and carefully, and then looked up, apparently not ill pleased with the contents.

      ‘What, father?’ asked she, half reproachfully. ‘Do not you, too, feel the insult which has been put upon your daughter?’

      ‘My dear child,’ with a puzzled look, ‘do you not see that he offers you—’

      ‘I know what he offers me, father. The Empire of Africa. … I am to descend from the mountain heights of science, from the contemplation of the unchangeable and ineffable glories, into the foul fields and farmyards of earthly practical life, and become a drudge among political chicanery, and the petty ambitions, and sins, and falsehoods of the earthly herd. … And the price which he offers me—me, the stainless—me, the virgin—me, the un-tamed—is-his hand! Pallas Athene! dost thou not blush with thy child?’

      ‘But, my child—my child—an empire—’

      ‘Would the empire of the world restore my lost self-respect-my just pride? Would it save my cheek from blushes every time I recollected that I bore the hateful and degrading name of wife?—The property, the puppet of a man—submitting to his pleasure—bearing his children—wearing myself out with all the nauseous cares of wifehood—no longer able to glory in myself, pure and self-sustained, but forced by day and night to recollect that my very beauty is no longer the sacrament of Athene’s love for me, but the plaything of a man;—and such a man as that! Luxurious, frivolous, heartless—courting my society, as he has done for years, only to pick up and turn to his own base earthly uses the scraps which fall from the festal table of the gods! I have encouraged him too much—vain fool that I have been! No, I wrong myself! It was only—I thought—I thought that by his being seen at our doors, the cause of the immortal gods would gain honour and strength in the eyes of the multitude. … I have tried to feed the altars of heaven with earthly fuel. … And this is my just reward! I will write to him this moment—return by the fitting messenger which he has sent, insult for insult!’

      ‘In the name of Heaven, my daughter!—for your father’s sake!—for my sake! Hypatia!—my pride, my joy, my only hope!—have pity on my gray hairs!’

      And the poor old man flung himself at her feet, and clasped her knees imploringly.

      Tenderly she lifted him up, and wound her long arms round him, and laid his head on her white shoulder, and her tears fell fast upon his gray hair; but her lip was firm and determined.

      ‘Think of my pride—my glory in your glory; think of me. … Not for myself! You know I never cared for myself!’ sobbed out the old man. ‘But to die seeing you empress!’

      ‘Unless I died first in childbed, father, as many a woman dies who is weak enough to become a slave, and submit to tortures only fit for slaves.’

      ‘But—but—said the old man, racking his bewildered brains for some argument far enough removed from nature and common sense to have an effect on the beautiful fanatic—‘but the cause of the gods! What you might do for it! … Remember Julian!’

      Hypatia’s arms dropped suddenly. Yes; it was true! The thought flashed across her mind with mingled delight and terror. … Visions of her childhood rose swift and thick—temples—sacrifices—priesthoods—colleges—museums! What might she not do? What might she not make Africa? Give her ten years of power, and the hated name of Christian might be forgotten, and Athene Polias, colossal in ivory and gold, watching in calm triumph over the harbours of a heathen Alexandria. … But the price!

      And she hid her face in her hands, and bursting into bitter tears, walked slowly away into her own chamber, her whole body convulsed with the internal struggle.

      The old man looked after her, anxiously and perplexed, and then followed, hesitating. She was sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands. He did not dare to disturb her. In addition to all the affection, the wisdom, the glorious beauty, on which his whole heart fed day by day, he believed her to be the possessor of those supernatural powers and favours to which she so boldly laid claim. And he stood watching her in the doorway, praying in his heart to all gods and demons, principalities and powers, from Athene down to his daughter’s guardian spirit, to move a determination which he was too weak to gainsay, and yet too rational to approve.

      At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, clear, calm, and glorious again.

      ‘It shall be. For the sake of the immortal gods—for the sake of art, and science, and learning, and philosophy. … It shall be. If the gods demand a victim, here am I. If a second time in the history of the ages the Grecian fleet cannot sail forth, conquering and civilising, without the sacrifice of a virgin, I give my throat to the knife. Father, call me no more Hypatia: call me Iphigenia!’

      ‘And me Agamemnon?’ asked the old man, attempting a faint jest through his tears of joy. ‘I daresay you think me a very cruel father; but—’

      ‘Spare me, father—I have spared you.’

      And she began to write her answer.

      ‘I have accepted his offer—conditionally, that is. And on whether he have courage or not to fulfil that condition depends—Do not ask me what it is. While Cyril is leader of the Christian mob, it may be safer for you, my father, that you should be able to deny all knowledge of my answer. Be content. I have said this—that if he will do as I would have him do, I will do as you would have me do.’

      ‘Have you not been too rash? Have you not demanded of him something which, for the sake of public opinion, he dare not grant openly, and yet which he may allow you to do for yourself when once—’

      ‘I have. If I am to be a victim, the sacrificing priest shall at least be a man, and not a coward and a time-server. If he believes this Christian faith, let him defend it against me; for either it or I shall perish. If he does not—as he does not—let him give up living in a lie, and taking on his lips blasphemies against the immortals, from which his heart and reason revolt!’

      And she clapped her hands again for the maid-servant, gave her the letter silently, shut the doors of her chamber, and tried to resume her Commentary on Plotinus. Alas! what were all the wire-drawn dreams of metaphysics to her in that real and human struggle of the heart? What availed it to define the process by which individual souls emanated from the universal one, while her own soul had, singly and on its own responsibility, to decide so terrible an act of will? or to write fine words with pen and ink about the immutability of the supreme Reason, while her own reason was left there to struggle for its life amid a roaring shoreless waste of doubts and darkness? Oh, how grand, and clear, and logical it had all looked half an hour ago! And how irrefragably she had been deducing from it all, syllogism after syllogism, the non-existence of evil!—how it was but a lower form of good, one of the countless products of the one great all-pervading mind which could not err or change, only so strange and recondite in its form as to excite antipathy in all minds but that of the philosopher, who learnt to see the stem which connected the apparently bitter fruit with the perfect root from whence it sprang. Could she see the stem there?—the connection between the pure and supreme Reason, and the hideous caresses of the debauched and cowardly Orestes?