The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [104]
21. ‘If you do not do this the king will subject you to the most painful of deaths.’ Mitradates saw the child lying amidst the fearful and weeping inhabitants of Harpagus’ house,
22. Swaddled in gold and wrappings of beautiful colours, itself panting and whimpering because untended and unfed.
23. Trembling under this dreadful instruction, Mitradates took the child and returned to the mountains,
24. Where his wife, Spaco, one of the king’s female slaves, was just then daily expecting a child of her own.
25. Discussing the burden imposed on them by Harpagus, they became yet more troubled and afraid on their own account;
26. And the anxieties made Spaco fall into labour, and because she was fearful and wretched, the baby she delivered was stillborn.
27. ‘Wife,’ said Mitradates, ‘when I left Harpagus’ house with this child in my arms, a servant accompanied me for part of the way, and told me all:
28. ‘That this is the offspring of Mandane, the king’s daughter, and Cambyses the Persian, and the king wishes it to be killed for fear that it or its father will usurp his throne.’
29. So saying he unswaddled the whimpering baby, which he and his wife saw was fine and beautiful;
30. And Spaco burst into tears, and clasped her husband’s knees, beseeching him on no account to expose the child to so cruel a death.
31. ‘Take the body of our own child, stillborn but now, and lay it in the mountains,’ she implored him, ‘and let us bring up this child as our own.
32. ‘When we show the remains of our dead child, it will be thought the other;
33. ‘And so you will not be charged with disobedience to the will of the king. Our own child will have a royal funeral, and this beautiful baby will live.’
34. So Mitradates and Spaco dressed the corpse of their own baby in the gold and royal cloths, and Mitradates took it to the wildest places;
35. And after three days he fetched it again, mauled by the beasts, and carried it to the city to show Harpagus.
36. The latter was satisfied, and had the child buried with royal pomp at his own bidding.
Chapter 10
1. Now the child brought up as the herdsman’s son they named Cyrus.
2. He grew strong and noble, and as early as the age of ten displayed great command and intelligence.
3. He took charge of his playmates, who elected him their king,
4. And he ordered them, and arranged them in troops and led them into pretend battles.
5. One of his playmates was the son of a noble Mede of distinction, and this boy refused to obey Cyrus’ boyish commands,
6. Not only because of his supposed lowly rank as a herdsman’s son, but because he was a Persian.
7. Angered by the Median youth’s refusal to obey, Cyrus took a whip and chastised him.
8. Outraged, the boy complained to his father, who as a high courtier went to King Astyages to complain.
9. The king wished to please his noble courtier, and summoned the herdsman and his supposed son Cyrus to answer for the latter’s behaviour.
10. When they came to the palace Astyages said to Cyrus, ‘Have you, the son of so mean a fellow, dared to behave rudely to the son of a noble of my court?’
11. To which Cyrus replied, ‘My lord, I only treated him as he deserved.
12. ‘I was chosen king in play by the boys of our village, because they thought me the best for it. He himself was one of those who chose me.
13. ‘All the others did my bidding; but he refused, and made light of them,
14. ‘Until at last he got his due reward. If for this I deserve punishment, here I am ready to submit to it.’
15. While the boy was speaking Astyages was struck with a suspicion who he was.
16. He thought he saw something in the character of his face like his own, and there was a nobleness about the answer he made;
17. Besides which his age seemed to tally with the time when his grandchild was exposed.
18. Astonished at all this, Astyages could not speak for a while. At last, recovering himself with