In that hour filled with magic stillness, wherein slumbering souls are united with their infinite dreams, Nathan, the son of the High Priest Hiram, arrived bearing a torch and entered into the temple of Astarte.² Hands trembling, he lit the lamps and ignited the thuribles within, sending the aroma of myrrh and frankincense spiralling upward. He arrayed the idol of the adored one with a translucent veil, resembling the shroud of hope that encompasses the human heart, then genuflected before the altar embellished with leaves of ivory and gold. He raised his hands and looked toward the heavens, and from his eyes flowed rivulets of tears that begat streams. He cried out, in a voice rendered faint by painful travails and broken by cruel lovesickness:

“Thy compassion, O supreme Astarte! Compassion, O goddess of love and beauty. Have mercy upon me and stay thou the hand of death from my beloved, whom my soul has chosen in accordance with thy will. The philters and potions of the physicians have fallen short and the incantations of the priests and mystics have proven false and impotent, and no helper or succorer is left to me save thy sanctified name. Hear then my entreaty, and see how my heart is crushed and my affections tormented. Keep the cynosure of my soul alive at my side, that we might rejoice in the mysteries of thy love and be gladdened by the beauty of youth that announces the secrets of thy splendor. I cry out to thee from these depths, O holy Astarte. From behind the gloom of this night I seek refuge in thy loving-kindness.

“Hearken to me, then, for I am thy servant, Nathan, the son of the priest Hiram, who has his entire life stood in service at thine altar. I fell in love with a girl and took her as my companion, but the brides of the spirits envied us and blew into her frail body the breath of a weird illness.³ They dispatched the messenger of fate to convey her to their eldritch grottoes, and he lurks there even now beside her couch, raging like a ravenous leopard, his black wings billowing above her, stretching forth his rough talons that he might snatch her from my side.

“For this reason have I come to thee, abasing myself. Be merciful and spare her, for she is a flower that has not yet delighted in the beauty of life’s summer, a bird in the midst of her song celebrating the arrival of youth’s dawn. Deliver her from the claws of death, and we shall revel in hymns of thy praise, devoting burnt offerings to the glory of thy name, performing blood sacrifices upon thy altar, filling up the vessels of thy storehouses with vintage wines and scented oils, carpeting the halls of thy temple with roses and jasmines, and lighting sweet-smelling incense and aloe before thy likeness. Save us, Mistress of Miracles, and permit love to vanquish death, for thou art goddess of death and love.”