“But he must at least hear it,” answered Croesus, “and that is much, for even if he refuse to obey, your counsels will, like divine voices, continue to make themselves heard within him, and will keep him back from many a sinful act.  I will remain your ally in this matter; for, as Cambyses’ dying father appointed me the counsellor of his son in word and deed, I venture occasionally a bold word to arrest his excesses.  Ours is the only blame from which he shrinks:  we alone can dare to speak our opinion to him.  Let us courageously do our duty in this our office:  you, moved by love to Persia and your son, and I by thankfulness to that great man to whom I owe life and freedom, and whose son Cambyses is.  I know that you bemoan the manner in which he has been brought up; but such late repentance must be avoided like poison.  For the errors of the wise the remedy is reparation, not regret; regret consumes the heart, but the effort to repair an error causes it to throb with a noble pride.”

“In Egypt,” said Nitetis, “regret is numbered among the forty-two deadly sins.  One of our principal commandments is, ’Thou shalt not consume thine heart.’”

[In the Ritual of the Dead (indeed in almost every Papyrus of the Dead) we meet with a representation of the soul, whose heart is being weighed and judged.  The speech made by the soul is called the negative justification, in which she assures the 42 judges of the dead, that she has not committed the 42 deadly sins which she enumerates.  This justification is doubly interesting because it contains nearly the entire moral law of Moses, which last, apart from all national peculiarities and habits of mind, seems to contain the quintessence of human morality—­and this we find ready paragraphed in our negative justification.  Todtenbuch ed.  Lepsius. 125.  We cannot discuss this question philosophically here, but the law of Pythagoras, who borrowed so much from Egypt, and the contents of which are the same, speaks for our view.  It is similar in form to the Egyptian.]

“There you remind me,” said Croesus “that I have undertaken to arrange for your instruction in the Persian customs, religion and language.  I had intended to withdraw to Barene, the town which I received as a gift from Cyrus, and there, in that most lovely mountain valley, to take my rest; but for your sake and for the king’s, I will remain here and continue to give you instruction in the Persian tongue.  Kassandane herself will initiate you in the customs peculiar to women at the Persian court, and Oropastes, the high-priest, has been ordered by the king to make you acquainted with the religion of Iran.  He will be your spiritual, and I your secular guardian.”

At these words Nitetis, who had been smiling happily, cast down her eyes and asked in a low voice:  “Am I to become unfaithful to the gods of my fathers, who have never failed to hear my prayers?  Can I, ought I to forget them?”