Lives of Alcyone

necessary for the interests of his reform and the success of its
propaganda.
This was of course a terrible blow to both the lovers; they at
first had wild thoughts of rebellion, yet for both of them submission
imaged as a religious duty and they felt that this sacrifice was
required of them by Ahura Mazda. Under such circumstances there
could be but one end to the struggle, and Puruchista dutifully
became the wife of Mira, though with little expectation of happiness.
Her young husband, however, who had at first been attracted merely
by her unusual beauty, soon learnt to love her for herself, and
proved a brave, honourable and devoted man; so that her lot, after
all, was by no means as sad as she had expected, and after a time
she became able to return at least to some extent her husband’ s
deep affection.
Alcyone, however, had no such comfort, and for a long time
he suffered keenly. Comfort was brought to him by Mercury, the
stranger from the West, who had been handed over to his care by
Zarathushtra. This stranger had been a great surprise to them in
many ways; instead of appearing as a reverend preacher, he came
to them in the guise of a young man in the dress of a Greek
fisherman; instead of partaking freely of the princely hospitality
which Alcyone was more than ready to offer him, he insisted upon
earning his own living, and worked daily at the trade of a goldsmith.
A wondrous tale, too, he told them: how, until a year ago, he
had been chief priest of a temple—the temple of Pallas at Agade, in
Asia Minor; and now, when his city was ravaged by barbarians, that
body of his had been killed, and in its place he had entered into this