Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria Read Free Page A

that teach all one might know, and here are found all the plays, the poems, the works of philosophy and astrology, the geography, the cosmology, the mechanics, the mathematics, alchemy which is the art of separating and joining together: the precious ideas, the secrets, the mysteries!
    But now?   Alexandria becomes food for the flames of brutal ignorance.
    I have left Ife, once maid to my mother but now housekeeper, to tend to the scorched Egyptian with spears of aloe.   I have left Plotinus scattered over my workroom floor much as Father left Pythagoras and Diophantus.   I have not washed but covered my ashy nakedness with an old tunic of linen, and then I have gone looking for Lais so that I might finally weep…for Lais loves our city as much as I.
    My sister is where I thought she would be, sitting in her room on the wide ledge of her second story window looking out over the Royal Quarter.   The poets and playwrights she has rescued are stacked neatly in a book bucket, save one, and that one she holds.   It is the poet Telesilla who once, when all the males of Argos were killed by the King of Sparta, chopped off her hair, dressed as a warrior and led the women of Argos against him.   Because of Telesilla, Herodotus predicted the female would conquer the male.
    The body of Lais is warm and it breathes, but the whole of my sister is not here.
    I sit myself beside her, awaiting her return.
    Socrates could remain unmoving for hours, unspeaking, eyes open yet unseeing, or if seeing, not seeing what all else saw, as his ears were unhearing, his skin unfeeling, his tongue untasting.   Plato called what came over Socrates “the Rapt.”   I would not know what to call what comes over Lais.   At such times I have carefully watched and wondered.   I think she leaves us, that she does this at will, that some inner part enters what the Egyptians call the Dazzling Darkness .   I do not know if her body continues to see or to hear or to feel what I see and hear.   I do not know if when I speak she understands what I say.   This only I know: I cannot remember a time when my older sister did not go where I could not go, and return as if washed in the shine of the moon.
    It frustrates and shames me.   At times it humbles and angers me.   I have told her so.   She tells me her gift could be mine, indeed it already is if I would only allow it.   I have tried to allow it with all my might.   For this, I have achieved nothing but headaches.
    Below us, rioting continues in the streets.   All around I hear the shouts and the screams of those who cannot take comfort in a sister’s bliss.   South of the wide Canopic Way, another fire of many fires burns a third of the way up Strabo’s pinecone of a mountain, on the top of which sits the Paneium.   Is the path that spirals round the manmade mountain filled with the feet of Christians hurrying up to burn the Temple of Pan?   Or is it a signal from defender to defender?   I become frenzied.   If I were Telesilla, I would cut my hair and go there directly.   If I were Telesilla, I would carry a sword and a shield so I too might defend with my life those who defend the books.   But up from our streets come not merely hideous sounds, but hideous smells.   I am afraid.   I am only Hypatia and I am afraid.   What, besides our precious books, burns?
    Is Father also afraid?   I push away this biting thought, cleave closer to Lais, holding tight about her waist.   Even as she is enraptured, some part of her remembers me, holding me as I hold her.   Lais is all to me: sister, brother, teacher, mother, but Lais walks in unearthly gardens I cannot imagine, and I wait outside beside an earthly gate I cannot open nor can I climb.
    In her room, lit by only one lamp, Lais quivers in my arms, and I know she returns.   I have waited for this and am quick with my questions.   “How can you see this, sister, how can you hear this, how can you know what burns, and not feel your own