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By Root 3327 0

in the background of the bedchamber – was the explanation. Her eyes were cast on the ground, while she seemed to contemplate looking back over her shoulder to scrutinize further whatever dismayed her. Had she glanced behind, she might, or might not, have been in time to mark down in the darkness the undoubted source of her uneasiness. A cloaked and helmeted personage was slipping swiftly, unostentatiously, away from the room towards a curtained doorway behind the pillars, presumably an emergency exit into the firmament beyond. At that end of the sky, an ominous storm was plainly blowing up, dark clouds already shot with coruscations of lightning and tongues of flame (as if an air-raid were in progress), their glare revealing, in the shadows of the bedchamber, an alcove, where this tall onlooker had undoubtedly lurked a moment beforehand. Whether or not the lady was categorically aware of an intruding presence threatening the privacy of sexual embrace, whether her suspicions had been only partially aroused, was undetermined. There was no doubt whatever some sort of apprehension had passed through her mind. That was all of which to be certain. The features of the cloaked man, now in retreat, were for the most part hidden by the jutting vizor of the plumed helmet he wore, so that his own emotions were invisible. The calmly classical treatment of the scene, breathtaking in opulence of shapes and colours, imposed at the same time a sense of awful tension, imminent tragedy not long to be delayed.

‘I wonder whether the model was the painter’s wife,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘She occurs so often in his pictures. I must look into that. If so, she was Guardi’s sister. Gyges looks rather like the soldier in The Agony in the Garden, who so much resembles General Rommel.’

‘I don’t remember the story. Didn’t Gyges possess a magic ring?’

‘That was my strong conviction too,’ said Glober.

Dr Brightman offered no apology for settling down to the comportment of a professional lecturer, one she fulfilled with distinction.

‘Candaules was king of Lydia – capital, Sardis, of the New Testament – Gyges his chief officer and personal friend. Candaules was always boasting to Gyges of the beauty of his wife. Finding him, as the King thought, insufficiently impressed, Candaules suggested that Gyges should conceal himself in their bedroom in such a manner that he had opportunity to see the Queen naked. Gyges made some demur at that, public nakedness being a state the Lydians considered particularly scandalous.’

‘The Lydians sound just full of small-town prejudices,’ said Glober.

‘On the contrary,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘The Greeks did not know what being rich meant until they came in contact with the Lydians, now thought to be ancestors of the Etruscans.’

I remembered the text, from the Book of Revelation, inscribed in gothic lettering on the walls of the chapel that had been the Company’s barrack-room, when I first joined. Now it seemed particularly apt.

‘Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.’

‘Exactly,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘Gyges tried to be one of the worthy at first, but Candaules insisted, so he gave in, and was hidden in the royal bedchamber. Unfortunately for her husband, the Queen noticed the reluctant voyeur stealing away – we see her doing so above – and was understandably incensed. She sent for Gyges the following day, and presented him with two alternatives: either he could kill Candaules, and marry her en secondes noces, or – no doubt a simple undertaking in their respective circumstances at the Lydian court – she would arrange for Gyges himself to be done away with. In the latter event, familiarity with her unclothed beauty would die with him; in the former, become a perfectly proper aspect of a respectably married man’s – or rather married king’s – matrimonial relationship. Gyges chose the former course of action. His friend and sovereign, Candaules, was liquidated by him, he married the Queen, and ruled Lydia with credit for forty years.’