Читать книгу The Story of Alexander онлайн

12 страница из 39

So fell she to sleep, and when she woke in the morning light there was none there, and the doors of the palace were fast, and great thanks she gave to Anectanabus for his magic, for she wist not that her god was but a show of the wise Egyptian.

But in that same night that the queen had dreamed, the Egyptian had so wrought his enchantments that in the hour of Philip’s star he too had fallen asleep, and he dreamed that a dragon had taken him up through the air, and had borne him off to his own palace, and to the room in which Olympias, his queen, lay sleeping. Then tried he to draw near her, but she felt not his touch nor heard his voice; and suddenly he was ware of a god in the room in the shape of Ammon, and the god came to the queen and laid his hand on her, and waked her, and sealed her with a gold seal. So Philip drew near, and saw that on this seal were three things graved—the head of a mighty lion, the burst of the morning sun rising over the world, and a sharp, keen blade of a sword; and he heard the god say: “Woman, thy son that I give thee shall be thy defender.” Now Philip when he woke, was so sore troubled by his dream that he called on his diviners to say to him what it should mean. Then said the chief of the magicians: “O King, this thy dream means that thy wife shall give thee a son fair and mighty. And because on the seal thou sawest a lion’s head, as the lion is the chief of all beasts, this son shall be a chief and a master among all chieftains. And since on the seal was the burst of the sunrise, so shall this son ride through the world, and everywhere shall he be exalted till he comes to the Land of the East; and the biting brand showeth that by his sword shall nations out of number be conquered and bow to him. But for the dragon that bore thee from hence to thy own land, he shall be to thee for an aid, and that right soon.” And then was the king glad in his heart.

Правообладателям