Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria by Ki Longfellow Read Free Book Online

do much more for the bishop himself, and none of it merciful.   The people are not fooled.   As Parabalanoi , I inspire fear in all.   As for those who once drove me from their door, or shielded their daughters from the sight and the smell of me, they do so no longer.   They cringe and they tremble.   Now, if I demanded it, they would thrust their women at me, even those yet babes.   Take her , they would plead, take her—and leave us alone.   Buttholes, the lot of them.
    In Egypt, an Egyptian is less than a camel for a camel spits at those who would ride him and hit him and load him down with great burdens.   As Parabalanoi , I am become at least a camel.
    By my own effort I have taught myself to read.   By my reading I have learned to speak as my betters speak—a handy skill.   I am strong in body and quick in thought.   What is shown me once, I learn.   I suffer no illness, though I do now bear wounds, one from fire and one from the sword.   As close as my shadow, scorn followed me into this world.
    And then there is this, as satisfying as status: Egyptians, brought low, are no longer alone in their shame and their anger.   Hellenists, Jews, Gnostics, Greeks, philosophers, scientists, poets, mathematicians, historians, astronomers, each suffers a new force in Egypt, a force that seems darker by far than any come before.   Ironic, is it not, that that same force affords me my new place in the world?   If I were free enough for choice, I might care who offers me coin.   I am not free enough.
    Our Bishop is a cunning man.   He has destroyed the statue of Serapis, the one made to float by lodestones.   With no image to worship, there will soon be no god.   Men are forgetful.   A god dies when he is forgotten, even Serapis who sets souls free.   And then he destroyed the Serapeum.   It was ground into dust which blew away on the wind and was no more.
    In Memphis, once a city of Pharaoh, the Iseum is also sacked and those that are spared, merely await their turn.   Emperor Theodosius, by notice nailed to doors, affects to soothe the defenders of the old traditions.   He swears none need fear him or his Christians, assures us with messenger after messenger that all might return to what had been—but even the simple are not simple enough to believe such dung.
    And yet, like the Nile in the season of Ahket, these difficult times have brought me riches on the crest of the flood.   I have work and respect, and though I have paid with fiery pain, I sleep under the roof of the famous Theon of Alexandria in the Royal District, a roof that covers also the heads of his three sleeping daughters.   One touches my heart with her goodness and beauty.   The other touches my heart and my body.   I must be careful here.   She is not for me, or I for her.   The third, a sad thing by comparison to her sisters, but not without spine.   I am given such looks as would turn me to stone if the last were named Medusa.
    To remain, I become indispensable to Theon of Alexandria.   Called first among mathematicians and astronomers, I call him last among men.   Look   at him now, curled up and buried in bed!   If choice were mine, I’d drag him out by the hair of his beard only to kick his ass all the way to a lecture hall.
    Lucky for Theon, I seem alone in my disgust.
    Men make their way to his house.   Some come alone, more often they come by twos and by threes.   But however they arrive, they come by cover of night, and when they come, they gather in his draped and darkened room.   Tonight, there are nine in the house of Theon, mathematician, astronomer, and coward.   Not one could run more than ten steps without bending over to cough.   All are, to me, old.   Half sweat like slaves in the sun.
    As usual, only his head shows above the bedclothes.   As usual, he does not speak but listens.   No matter that he does this, all who arrive, friends and scholars alike, believe he will regain himself.   I, who have