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ONE LION PVTTETH TO FLIGHT MANY DEER
CHAPTER II. OF OLYMPIAS AND ANECTANABUS, OF THE MAGIC HE WROUGHT, AND OF THE BIRTH OF ALEXANDER.
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It fell on a day that as Anectanabus was travelling through the land of Macedon, he came to the chief city of the land, and there his yeomen took lodging for him, and he thought to dwell there some days, for the city was fair and well placed on a fertile plain, and it was in the month of May. And when he talked to the men of the town he heard say that Philip, the king of the land, had gone out to war, but that he had left there his queen Olympias to govern the folk, and that the next day was, as it happened, the feast of her birthday. Now this queen had custom on feast days to ride out into the country near, and there sports and tournaments were held, and all folk rejoiced before her. So Anectanabus thought in his mind that he would go out and look upon her, for he had heard that Olympias was the fairest woman in Greece,—nay, in all the world.
Early next day after meat, the queen mounted a white mule and rode through the city to the plain, with her wise men and her maids about her, and much she joyed to see the fair show that the city made, for everywhere that she came the town was hung with rich hangings and embroidery, and every man was eager to see the queen, and at all corners were bands of maidens singing and beating drums and timbrels. So the queen rode through the city, and when she came to the plain, each man did his best in the sports, if by any means he could gain a prize from her hands. Among the crowd of men on the plain was Anectanabus, and he looked not at one thing or another but only at the queen, so that at the last she turned and saw him, and because he was unlike all other there in clothing and in bearing she took notice of him and saw at once that he was a stranger: and since he looked ever at her face nor looked away when she turned to him, at the end she sent men to him to know who he was. So he came and did her reverence, and she asked him who he was and what he would, and he told her that he was a clerk, and that he went from place to place, doing the will of the great gods: and Olympias bade him come to her at the palace.