Cyrus the Great by Harold Lamb

Author:Harold Lamb [Lamb, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 1959-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

c y r u s f o l l o w s t h e t r a c k o f z a r a t h u s t r a

Vishtaspa always took thought before he spoke of Zarathustra, who did not seem to be a noble Aryan, or a Magian, or a priest. “Not a harvest passes,” he observed once, “without a savior of some kind coming by to be fed and proclaim some new god arising into power.” Again, he paused. “Nine years ago Zarathustra fled hither from the soldiers of Rhagae. I hid him and fed him and listened to him. He was son of Purrushaspa—of the Gray Horses—from west of the sea. His clan, I think, was Spitama, the White. Once he also had been a soldier. At least he knew how to draw a Parthian longbow—the kind you wedge an end against your foot to draw. A Parthian shaft can pierce an iron shield.”

Cyrus wondered how the prophetic Zarathustra had got his name. Golden Camels seemed to have no sense, because a camel had nothing to do with gold, unless indeed the beast were carrying a load of it, and that in turn hardly applied to a man. Oddly, other people never managed to describe this vagabond prophet, although they were quick enough to quote him.

“One night,” said Vishtaspa, “I went forth to watch for the first light of Sirius the Bright. Zarathustra was there also, waiting. He sighted the star first and flung out his arms. ‘Who fixed the way of the sun against the stars?’ So said he. ‘Who makes the moon wax and wane? Who upholds the earth from below and the stars above from falling? Who gave swiftness to the wind that drives the clouds like sheep before it? What artificer divided light from darkness—and gave to man, who understands it not, an awareness of the whole of his creation?’”

Vishtaspa rubbed at his beard. He spread his legs to the hearth fire where the sheep dogs drowsed, and his seven-year-old son Darayous—the one the Greeks called Darius in a later time— climbed on his legs. Holding Darius firmly, huge Vishtaspa spoke on. “I asked, ‘Have you a vision perhaps?’ Then Zarathustra cried at me, ‘I have no vision, only a torment.’ He went on asking the stars his Who and ‘What and, most of all, Why? He departed at lambing time toward the east, over the Choara, with the torment still in him. I think he had been condemned to death for mocking some kavi. But that did not seem to be the cause of his torment.”

“I believe”—Cyrus thought of the peculiar tranquillity among the Hyrcanian homesteads—”he converted you.”

“At the time, no.” Vishtaspa laughed with a rocking of his body, and the boy Darius held fast to him. “He converted my wife. My first wife, Hutaosa.” Again the pause. “Yet, Cyrus, my cousin of Anshan, when he was gone I felt him. I heard his voice crying in the garden as if a fravashi wailed at me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.