and was not minded to give up his unlimited control of the priests for
the sake of a limited dominion over what seemed to him petty external
concerns, in the service of a king who was only too independent and hard
to influence.
He regularly arranged his mode and habits of life in an exceptional way.
Eight days out of ten he remained in the temple entrusted to his charge;
two he devoted to his family, who lived on the other bank of the Nile;
but he let no one, not even those nearest to him, know what portion of
the ten days he gave up to recreation. He required only four hours of
sleep. This he usually took in a dark room which no sound could reach,
and in the middle of the day; never at night, when the coolness and
quiet seemed to add to his powers of work, and when from time to time he
could give himself up to the study of the starry heavens.
All the ceremonials that his position required of him, the cleansing,
purification, shaving, and fasting he fulfilled with painful exactitude,
and the outer bespoke the inner man.
Ameni was entering on his fiftieth year; his figure was tall, and had
escaped altogether the stoutness to which at that age the Oriental is
liable. The shape of his smoothly-shaven head was symmetrical and of a
long oval; his forehead was neither broad nor high, but his profile was
unusually delicate, and his face striking; his lips were thin and dry,
and his large and piercing eyes, though neither fiery nor brilliant, and
usually cast down to the ground under his thick eyebrows, were raised
with a full, clear, dispassionate gaze when it was necessary to see and
to examine.
The poet of the House of Seti, the young Pentaur, who knew these eyes,
had celebrated them in song, and had likened them to a well-disciplined
army which the general allows to rest before and after the battle, so
that they may march in full strength to victory in the fight.
The refined deliberateness of his nature had in it much that was royal
as well as priestly; it was partly intrinsic and born with him, partly
the result of his own mental self-control. He had many enemies, but
calumny seldom dared to attack the high character of Amemi.
The high-priest looked up in astonishment, as the disturbance in the
court of the temple broke in on his studies.
The room in which he was sitting was spacious and cool; the lower part
of the walls was lined with earthenware tiles, the upper half plastered
and painted. But little was visible of the masterpieces of the artists
of the establishment, for almost everywhere they were concealed by
wooden closets and shelves, in which were papyrus-rolls and wax-tablets.
A large table, a couch covered with a panther's skin, a footstool in
front of it, and on it a crescent-shaped support for the head, made of
ivory,
[A support of crescent form on which the Egyptians rested their
heads. Many specimens were found in the catacombs, and similar
objects are still used in Nubia]
several seats, a stand with beakers and jugs, and another with flasks of
all sizes, saucers, and boxes, composed the furniture of the room,
which was lighted by three lamps, shaped like birds and filled with kiki
oil.--[Castor oil, which was used in the lamps.]
Ameni wore a fine pleated robe of snow-white linen, which reached to his
ankles, round his hips was a scarf adorned with fringes, which in front
formed an apron, with broad, stiffened ends which fell to his knees; a
wide belt of white and silver brocade confined the drapery of his robe.
Round his throat and far down on his bare breast hung a necklace more
than a span deep, composed of pearls and agates, and his upper arm was
covered with broad gold bracelets. He rose from the ebony seat with
lion's feet, on which he sat, and beckoned to a servant who squatted by
one of the walls of the sitting-room. He rose and without any word
of command from his master, he silently and carefully placed on the
high-priest's bare head a long and thick curled wig,
[Egyptians belonging to the higher classes wore wigs on their shaven
heads. Several are preserved in museums.]
and threw a leopard-skin, with its head and claws overlaid with
gold-leaf, over his shoulders. A second servant held a metal mirror
before Ameni, in which he cast a look as he settled the panther-skin and
head-gear.
A third servant was handing him the crosier, the insignia of his dignity
as a prelate, when a priest entered and announced the scribe Pentaur.
Ameni nodded, and the young priest who had talked with the princess
Bent-Anat at the temple-gate came into the room.
Pentaur knelt and kissed the hand of the prelate, who gave him his
blessing, and in a clear sweet voice, and rather formal and unfamiliar
language--as if he were reading rather than speaking, said:
"Rise, my son; your visit will save me a walk at this untimely hour,
since you can inform me of what disturbs the disciples in our temple.
Speak."
"Little of consequence has occurred, holy father," replied Pentaur. "Nor
would I have disturbed thee at this hour, but that a quite unnecessary
tumult has been raised by the youths; and that the princess Bent-Anat
appeared in person to request the aid of a physician. The unusual hour
and the retinue that followed her--"
"Is the daughter of Pharaoh sick?" asked the prelate.
"No, father. She is well--even to wantonness, since--wishing to
prove the swiftness of her horses--she ran over the daughter of the
paraschites Pinem. Noble-hearted as she is, she herself carried the
sorely-wounded girl to her house."
"She entered the dwelling of the unclean."
"Thou hast said."
"And she now asks to be purified?"
"I thought I might venture to absolve her, father, for the purest
humanity led her to the act, which was no doubt a breach of discipline,
but--"
"But," asked the high-priest in a grave voice and he raised his eyes
which he had hitherto on the ground.
"But," said the young priest, and now his eyes fell, "which can surely
be no crime. When Ra--[The Egyptian Sun-god.]--in his golden bark sails
across the heavens, his light falls as freely and as bountifully on the
hut of the despised poor as on the Palace of the Pharaohs; and shall the
tender human heart withhold its pure light--which is benevolence--from
the wretched, only because they are base?"
"It is the poet Pentaur that speaks," said the prelate, "and not the
priest to whom the privilege was given to be initiated into the highest
grade of the sages, and whom I call my brother and my equal. I have no
advantage over you, young man, but perishable learning, which the past
has won for you as much as for me--nothing but certain perceptions and
experiences that offer nothing new, to the world, but teach us, indeed,
that it is our part to maintain all that is ancient in living efficacy
and practice. That which you promised a few weeks since, I many years
ago vowed to the Gods; to guard knowledge as the exclusive possession
of the initiated. Like fire, it serves those who know its uses to the
noblest ends, but in the hands of children--and the people, the mob,
can never ripen into manhood--it is a destroying brand, raging and
unextinguishable, devouring all around it, and destroying all that has
been built and beautified by the past. And how can we remain the Sages
and continue to develop and absorb all learning within the shelter
of our temples, not only without endangering the weak, but for their
benefit? You know and have sworn to act after that knowledge. To bind
the crowd to the faith and the institutions of the fathers is your
duty--is the duty of every priest. Times have changed, my son; under the
old kings the fire, of which I spoke figuratively to you--the poet--was
enclosed in brazen walls which the people passed stupidly by. Now I see
breaches in the old fortifications; the eyes of the uninitiated have
been sharpened, and one tells the other what he fancies he has spied,
though half-blinded, through the glowing rifts."
A slight emotion had given energy to the tones of the speaker, and while
he held the poet spell-bound with his piercing glance he continued:
"We curse and expel any one of the initiated who enlarges these
breaches; we punish even the friend who idly neglects to repair and
close them with beaten brass!"
"My father!" cried Pentaur, raising his head in astonishment while the
blood mounted to his cheeks. The high-priest went up to him and laid
both hands on his shoulders.
They were of equal height and of equally symmetrical build; even the
outline of their features was similar. Nevertheless no one would have
taken them to be even distantly related; their countenances were so
infinitely unlike in expression.
On the face of one were stamped a strong will and the power of firmly
guiding his life and commanding himself; on the other, an amiable desire
to overlook the faults and defects of the world, and to contemplate life
as it painted itself in the transfiguring magic-mirror of his poet's
soul. Frankness and enjoyment spoke in his sparkling eye, but the subtle
smile on his lips when he was engaged in a discussion, or when his soul
was stirred, betrayed that Pentaur, far from childlike carelessness, had
fought many a severe mental battle, and had tasted the dark waters of
doubt.
At this moment mingled feelings were struggling in his soul. He felt as
if he must withstand the speaker; and yet the powerful presence of the
other exercised so strong an influence over his mind, long trained to
submission, that he was silent, and a pious thrill passed through him
when Ameni's hands were laid on his shoulders.
"I blame you," said the high-priest, while he firmly held the young man,
"nay, to my sorrow I must chastise you; and yet," he said, stepping back
and taking his right hand, "I rejoice in the necessity, for I love you
and honor you, as one whom the Unnameable has blessed with high gifts
and destined to great things. Man leaves a weed to grow unheeded or
roots it up but you are a noble tree, and I am like the gardener who
has forgotten to provide it with a prop, and who is now thankful to
have detected a bend that reminds him of his neglect. You look at me
enquiringly, and I can see in your eyes that I seem to you a severe
judge. Of what are you accused? You have suffered an institution of
the past to be set aside. It does not matter--so the short-sighted and
heedless think; but I say to you, you have doubly transgressed, because
the wrong-doer was the king's daughter, whom all look up to, great and
small, and whose actions may serve as an example to the people. On whom
then must a breach of the ancient institutions lie with the darkest
stain if not on the highest in rank? In a few days it will be said the
paraschites are men even as we are, and the old law to avoid them as
unclean is folly. And will the reflections of the people, think you, end
there, when it is so easy for them to say that he who errs in one point
may as well fail in all? In questions of faith, my son, nothing is
insignificant. If we open one tower to the enemy he is master of the
whole fortress. In these unsettled times our sacred lore is like a
chariot on the declivity of a precipice, and under the wheels thereof a
stone. A child takes away the stone, and the chariot rolls down into the
abyss and is dashed to pieces. Imagine the princess to be that child,
and the stone a loaf that she would fain give to feed a beggar. Would
you then give it to her if your father and your mother and all that is
dear and precious to you were in the chariot? Answer not! the princess
will visit the paraschites again to-morrow. You must await her in the
man's hut, and there inform her that she has transgressed and must crave
to be purified by us. For this time you are excused from any further
punishment.
"Heaven has bestowed on you a gifted soul. Strive for that which is
wanting to you--the strength to subdue, to crush for One--and you know
that One--all things else--even the misguiding voice of your heart, the
treacherous voice of your judgment.--But stay! send leeches to the house
of the paraschites, and desire them to treat the injured girl as though
she were the queen herself. Who knows where the man dwells?"
"The princess," replied Pentaur, "has left Paaker, the king's pioneer,
behind in the temple to conduct the leeches to the house of Pinem."
The grave high-priest smiled and said. "Paaker! to attend the daughter
of a paraschites."
Pentaur half beseechingly and half in fun raised his eyes which he had
kept cast down. "And Pentaur," he murmured, "the gardener's son! who is
to refuse absolution to the king's daughter!"
"Pentaur, the minister of the Gods--Pentaur, the priest--has not to do
with the daughter of the king, but with the transgressor of the sacred
institutions," replied Ameni gravely. "Let Paaker know I wish to speak
with him."
The poet bowed low and quitted the room, the high priest muttered to
himself: "He is not yet what he should be, and speech is of no effect
with him."
For a while he was silent, walking to and fro in meditation; then he
said half aloud, "And the boy is destined to great things. What gifts of
the Gods doth he lack? He has the faculty of learning--of thinking--of
feeling--of winning all hearts, even mine. He keeps himself undefiled
and separate--" suddenly the prelate paused and struck his hand on the
back of a chair that stood by him. "I have it; he has not yet felt the
fire of ambition. We will light it for his profit and our own."
CHAPTER III.
Pentauer hastened to execute the commands of the high-priest. He sent
a servant to escort Paaker, who was waiting in the forecourt, into the
presence of Ameni while he himself repaired to the physicians to impress
on them the most watchful care of the unfortunate girl.
Many proficients in the healing arts were brought up in the house of
Seti, but few used to remain after passing the examination for the
degree of Scribe.
[What is here stated with regard to the medical schools is
principally derived from the medical writings of the Egyptians
themselves, among which the "Ebers Papyrus" holds the first place,
"Medical Papyrus I." of Berlin the second, and a hieratic MS. in
London which, like the first mentioned, has come down to us from the
18th dynasty, takes the third. Also see Herodotus II. 84. Diodorus
I. 82.]
The most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in the great
"Hall of the Ancients," the most celebrated medical faculty of the whole
country, whence they returned to Thebes, endowed with the highest
honors in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch of
their profession, and became physicians to the king or made a living by
imparting their learning and by being called in to consult on serious
cases.
Naturally most of the doctors lived on the east bank of the Nile, in
Thebes proper, and even in private houses with their families; but each
was attached to a priestly college.
Whoever required a physician sent for him, not to his own house, but to
a temple. There a statement was required of the complaint from which the
sick was suffering, and it was left to the principal medical staff of
the sanctuary to select that of the healing art whose special knowledge
appeared to him to be suited for the treatment of the case.
Like all priests, the physicians lived on the income which came to
them from their landed property, from the gifts of the king, the
contributions of the laity, and the share which was given them of the
state-revenues; they expected no honorarium from their patients, but the
restored sick seldom neglected making a present to the sanctuary whence
a physician had come to them, and it was not unusual for the priestly
leech to make the recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain gifts
to be offered to the temple.
The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was, according to every
indication, very considerable; but it was natural that physicians, who
stood by the bed of sickness as "ordained servants of the Divinity,"
should not be satisfied with a rational treatment of the sufferer,
and should rather think that they could not dispense with the mystical
effects of prayers and vows.
Among the professors of medicine in the House of Seti there were men
of the most different gifts and bent of mind; but Pentaur was not for
a moment in doubt as to which should be entrusted with the treatment
of the girl who had been run over, and for whom he felt the greatest
sympathy.
The one he chose was the grandson of a celebrated leech, long
since dead, whose name of Nebsecht he had inherited, and a beloved
school-friend and old comrade of Pentaur.
This young man had from his earliest years shown high and hereditary
talent for the profession to which he had devoted himself; he had
selected surgery
[Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments: otherwise the
very badly-set fractures found in some of the mummies do little
honor to the Egyptian surgeons.]
for his special province at Heliopolis, and would certainly have
attained the dignity of teacher there if an impediment in his speech had
not debarred him from the viva voce recitation of formulas and prayers.
This circumstance, which was deeply lamented by his parents and tutors,
was in fact, in the best opinions, an advantage to him; for it often
happens that apparent superiority does us damage, and that from apparent
defect springs the saving of our life.
Thus, while the companions of Nebsecht were employed in declaiming or in
singing, he, thanks to his fettered tongue, could give himself up to his
inherited and almost passionate love of observing organic life; and
his teachers indulged up to a certain point his innate spirit of
investigation, and derived benefit from his knowledge of the human and
animal structures, and from the dexterity of his handling.
His deep aversion for the magical part of his profession would have
brought him heavy punishment, nay very likely would have cost him
expulsion from the craft, if he had ever given it expression in any
form. But Nebsecht's was the silent and reserved nature of the learned
man, who free from all desire of external recognition, finds a rich
satisfaction in the delights of investigation; and he regarded every
demand on him to give proof of his capacity, as a vexatious but
unavoidable intrusion on his unassuming but laborious and fruitful
investigations.
Nebsecht was dearer and nearer to Pentaur than any other of his
associates.
He admired his learning and skill; and when the slightly-built surgeon,
who was indefatigable in his wanderings, roved through the thickets
by the Nile, the desert, or the mountain range, the young poet-priest
accompanied him with pleasure and with great benefit to himself, for his
companion observed a thousand things to which without him he would have
remained for ever blind; and the objects around him, which were known to
him only by their shapes, derived connection and significance from the
explanations of the naturalist, whose intractable tongue moved freely
when it was required to expound to his friend the peculiarities of
organic beings whose development he had been the first to detect.
The poet was dear in the sight of Nebsecht, and he loved Pentaur, who
possessed all the gifts he lacked; manly beauty, childlike lightness of
heart, the frankest openness, artistic power, and the gift of expressing
in word and song every emotion that stirred his soul. The poet was as a
novice in the order in which Nebsecht was master, but quite capable of
understanding its most difficult points; so it happened that Nebsecht
attached greater value to his judgment than to that of his own
colleagues, who showed themselves fettered by prejudice, while Pentaur's
decision always was free and unbiassed.
The naturalist's room lay on the ground floor, and had no living-rooms
above it, being under one of the granaries attached to the temple. It
was as large as a public hall, and yet Pentaur, making his way towards
the silent owner of the room, found it everywhere strewed with thick
bundles of every variety of plant, with cages of palm-twigs piled
four or five high, and a number of jars, large and small, covered
with perforated paper. Within these prisons moved all sorts of living
creatures, from the jerboa, the lizard of the Nile, and a light-colored
species of owl, to numerous specimens of frogs, snakes, scorpions and
beetles.
On the solitary table in the middle of the room, near to a
writing-stand, lay bones of animals, with various sharp flints and
bronze knives.
In a corner of this room lay a mat, on which stood a wooden head-prop,
indicating that the naturalist was in the habit of sleeping on it.
When Pentaur's step was heard on the threshold of this strange abode,
its owner pushed a rather large object under the table, threw a cover
over it, and hid a sharp flint scalpel
[The Egyptians seem to have preferred to use flint instruments for
surgical purposes, at any rate for the opening of bodies and for
circumcision. Many flint instruments have been found and preserved
in museums.]
fixed into a wooden handle, which he had just been using, in the folds
of his robe-as a school-boy might hide some forbidden game from his
master. Then he crossed his arms, to give himself the aspect of a man
who is dreaming in harmless idleness.
The solitary lamp, which was fixed on a high stand near his chair, shed
a scanty light, which, however, sufficed to show him his trusted friend
Pentaur, who had disturbed Nebsecht in his prohibited occupations.
Nebsecht nodded to him as he entered, and, when he had seen who it was,
said:
"You need not have frightened me so!" Then he drew out from under the
table the object he had hidden--a living rabbit fastened down to a
board-and continued his interrupted observations on the body, which he
had opened and fastened back with wooden pins while the heart continued
to beat.
He took no further notice of Pentaur, who for some time silently watched
the investigator; then he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:
"Lock your door more carefully, when you are busy with forbidden
things."
"They took--they took away the bar of the door lately," stammered the
naturalist, "when they caught me dissecting the hand of the forger
Ptahmes."--[The law sentenced forgers to lose a hand.]
"The mummy of the poor man will find its right hand wanting," answered
the poet.
"He will not want it out there."
"Did you bury the least bit of an image in his grave?"
[Small statuettes, placed in graves to help the dead in the work
performed in the under-world. They have axes and ploughs in their
hands, and seed-bags on their backs. The sixth chapter of the Book
of the Dead is inscribed on nearly all.]
"Nonsense."
"You go very far, Nebsecht, and are not foreseeing, 'He who needlessly
hurts an innocent animal shall be served in the same way by the spirits
of the netherworld,' says the law; but I see what you will say. You hold
it lawful to put a beast to pain, when you can thereby increase that
knowledge by which you alleviate the sufferings of man, and enrich--"
"And do not you?"
A gentle smile passed over Pentaur's face; leaned over the animal and
said:
"How curious! the little beast still lives and breathes; a man would
have long been dead under such treatment. His organism is perhaps of a
more precious, subtle, and so more fragile nature?"
Nebsecht shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps!" he said.
"I thought you must know."
"I--how should I?" asked the leech. "I have told you--they would not
even let me try to find out how the hand of a forger moves."
"Consider, the scripture tells us the passage of the soul depends on the
preservation of the body."
Nebsecht looked up with his cunning little eyes and shrugging his
shoulders, said:
"Then no doubt it is so: however these things do not concern me. Do
what you like with the souls of men; I seek to know something of their
bodies, and patch them when they are damaged as well as may be."
"Nay-Toth be praised, at least you need not deny that you are master in
that art."
[Toth is the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was
sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra
created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy."
Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure.
He is the weigher, the philosopher among the gods, the lord of
writing, of art and of learning. The Greeks called him Hermes
Trismegistus, i.e. threefold or "very great" which was, in fact, in
imitation of the Egyptians, whose name Toth or Techud signified
twofold, in the same way "very great"]
"Who is master," asked Nebsecht, "excepting God? I can do nothing,
nothing at all, and guide my instruments with hardly more certainty than
a sculptor condemned to work in the dark."
"Something like the blind Resu then," said Pentaur smiling, "who
understood painting better than all the painters who could see."
"In my operations there is a 'better' and a 'worse;'" said Nebsecht,
"but there is nothing 'good.'"
"Then we must be satisfied with the 'better,' and I have come to claim
it," said Pentaur.
"Are you ill?"
"Isis be praised, I feel so well that I could uproot a palm-tree, but I
would ask you to visit a sick girl. The princess Bent-Anat--"
"The royal family has its own physicians."
"Let me speak! the princess Bent-Anat has run over a young girl, and the
poor child is seriously hurt."
"Indeed," said the student reflectively. "Is she over there in the city,
or here in the Necropolis?"
"Here. She is in fact the daughter of a paraschites."
"Of a paraschites?" exclaimed Nebsecht, once more slipping the rabbit
under the table, "then I will go."
"You curious fellow. I believe you expect to find something strange
among the unclean folk."
"That is my affair; but I will go. What is the man's name?"
"Pinem."
"There will be nothing to be done with him," muttered the student,
"however--who knows?"
With these words he rose, and opening a tightly closed flask he dropped
some strychnine on the nose and in the mouth of the rabbit, which
immediately ceased to breathe. Then he laid it in a box and said, "I am
ready."
"But you cannot go out of doors in this stained dress."
The physician nodded assent, and took from a chest a clean robe, which
he was about to throw on over the other! but Pentaur hindered him.
"First take off your working dress," he said laughing. "I will help you.
But, by Besa, you have as many coats as an onion."
[Besa, the god of the toilet of the Egyptians. He was represented
as a deformed pigmy. He led the women to conquest in love, and the
men in war. He was probably of Arab origin.]
Pentaur was known as a mighty laugher among his companions, and his loud
voice rung in the quiet room, when he discovered that his friend was
about to put a third clean robe over two dirty ones, and wear no less
than three dresses at once.
Nebsecht laughed too, and said, "Now I know why my clothes were so
heavy, and felt so intolerably hot at noon. While I get rid of my
superfluous clothing, will you go and ask the high-priest if I have
leave to quit the temple."
"He commissioned me to send a leech to the paraschites, and added that
the girl was to be treated like a queen."
"Ameni? and did he know that we have to do with a paraschites?"
"Certainly."
"Then I shall begin to believe that broken limbs may be set with
vows-aye, vows! You know I cannot go alone to the sick, because my
leather tongue is unable to recite the sentences or to wring rich
offerings for the temple from the dying. Go, while I undress, to the
prophet Gagabu and beg him to send the pastophorus Teta, who usually
accompanies me."
"I would seek a young assistant rather than that blind old man."
"Not at all. I should be glad if he would stay at home, and only let his
tongue creep after me like an eel or a slug. Head and heart have nothing
to do with his wordy operations, and they go on like an ox treading out
corn."
[In Egypt, as in Palestine, beasts trod out the corn, as we learn
from many pictures in the catacombs, even in the remotest ages;
often with the addition of a weighted sledge, to the runners of
which rollers are attached. It is now called noreg.]
"It is true," said Pentaur; "just lately I saw the old man singing out
his litanies by a sick-bed, and all the time quietly counting the dates,
of which they had given him a whole sack-full."
"He will be unwilling to go to the paraschites, who is poor, and he
would sooner seize the whole brood of scorpions yonder than take a piece
of bread from the hand of the unclean. Tell him to come and fetch me,
and drink some wine. There stands three days' allowance; in this hot
weather it dims my sight.
"Does the paraschites live to the north or south of the Necropolis?"
"I think to the north. Paaker, the king's pioneer, will show you the
way."
"He!" exclaimed the student, laughing. "What day in the calendar is
this, then?
[Calendars have been preserved, the completest is the papyrus
Sallier IV., which has been admirably treated by F. Chabas. Many
days are noted as lucky, unlucky, etc. In the temples many
Calendars of feasts have been found, the most perfect at Medinet
Abu, deciphered by Dumich.]
The child of a paraschites is to be tended like a princess, and a leech
have a noble to guide him, like the Pharaoh himself! I ought to have
kept on my three robes!"
"The night is warm," said Pentaur.
"But Paaker has strange ways with him. Only the day before yesterday I
was called to a poor boy whose collar bone he had simply smashed with
his stick. If I had been the princess's horse I would rather have
trodden him down than a poor little girl."
"So would I," said Pentaur laughing, and left the room to request The
second prophet Gagabu, who was also the head of the medical staff of the
House of Seti, to send the blind pastophorus
[The Pastophori were an order of priests to which the physicians
belonged.]
Teta, with his friend as singer of the litany.
CHAPTER IV.
Pentaur knew where to seek Gagabu, for he himself had been invited to
the banquet which the prophet had prepared in honor of two sages who had
lately come to the House of Seti from the university of Chennu.
[Chennu was situated on a bend of the Nile, not far from the Nubian
frontier; it is now called Gebel Silsilch; it was in very ancient
times the seat of a celebrated seminary.]
In an open court, surrounded by gaily-painted wooden pillars, and
lighted by many lamps, sat the feasting priests in two long rows on
comfortable armchairs. Before each stood a little table, and servants
were occupied in supplying them with the dishes and drinks, which were
laid out on a splendid table in the middle of the court. Joints of
gazelle,
[Gazelles were tamed for domestic animals: we find them in the
representations of the herds of the wealthy Egyptians and as
slaughtered for food. The banquet is described from the pictures of
feasts which have been found in the tombs.]
roast geese and ducks, meat pasties, artichokes, asparagus and other
vegetables, and various cakes and sweetmeats were carried to the guests,
and their beakers well-filled with the choice wines of which there was
never any lack in the lofts of the House of Seti.
[Cellars maintain the mean temperature of the climate, and in Egypt
are hot Wine was best preserved in shady and airy lofts.]
In the spaces between the guests stood servants with metal bowls, in
which they might wash their hands, and towels of fine linen.
When their hunger was appeased, the wine flowed more freely, and each
guest was decked with sweetly-smelling flowers, whose odor was supposed
to add to the vivacity of the conversation.
Many of the sharers in this feast wore long, snowwhite garments, and
were of the class of the Initiated into the mysteries of the faith, as
well as chiefs of the different orders of priests of the House of Seti.
The second prophet, Gagabu, who was to-day charged with the conduct of
the feast by Ameni--who on such occasions only showed himself for a few
minutes--was a short, stout man with a bald and almost spherical head.
His features were those of a man of advancing years, but well-formed,
and his smoothly-shaven, plump cheeks were well-rounded. His grey eyes
looked out cheerfully and observantly, but had a vivid sparkle when he
was excited and began to twitch his thick, sensual mouth.
Close by him stood the vacant, highly-ornamented chair of the
high-priest, and next to him sat the priests arrived from Chennu, two
tall, dark-colored old men. The remainder of the company was arranged in
the order of precedency, which they held in the priests' colleges, and
which bore no relation to their respective ages.
But strictly as the guests were divided with reference to their rank,
they mixed without distinction in the conversation.
"We know how to value our call to Thebes," said the elder of the
strangers from Chennu, Tuauf, whose essays were frequently used in the
schools,--[Some of them are still in existence]--"for while, on one
hand, it brings us into the neighborhood of the Pharaoh, where life,
happiness, and safety flourish, on the other it procures us the honor
of counting ourselves among your number; for, though the university of
Chennu in former times was so happy as to bring up many great men, whom
she could call her own, she can no longer compare with the House of
Seti. Even Heliopolis and Memphis are behind you; and if I, my humble
self, nevertheless venture boldly among you, it is because I ascribe
your success as much to the active influence of the Divinity in your
temple, which may promote my acquirements and achievements, as to your
great gifts and your industry, in which I will not be behind you. I have
already seen your high-priest Ameni--what a man! And who does not know
thy name, Gagabu, or thine, Meriapu?"
"And which of you," asked the other new-comer, "may we greet as the
author of the most beautiful hymn to Amon, which was ever sung in the
land of the Sycamore? Which of you is Pentaur?"
"The empty chair yonder," answered Gagabu, pointing to a seat at the
lower end of the table, "is his. He is the youngest of us all, but a
great future awaits him."
"And his songs," added the elder of the strangers. "Without doubt,"
replied the chief of the haruspices,--[One of the orders of priests in
the Egyptian hierarchy]--an old man with a large grey curly head, that
seemed too heavy for his thin neck, which stretched forward--perhaps
from the habit of constantly watching for signs--while his prominent
eyes glowed with a fanatical gleam. "Without doubt the Gods have granted
great gifts to our young friend, but it remains to be proved how he will
use them. I perceive a certain freedom of thought in the youth, which
pains me deeply. Although in his poems his flexible style certainly
follows the prescribed forms, his ideas transcend all tradition; and
even in the hymns intended for the ears of the people I find turns of
thought, which might well be called treason to the mysteries which only
a few months ago he swore to keep secret. For instance he says--and we
sing--and the laity hear--
"One only art Thou, Thou Creator of beings;
And Thou only makest all that is created.
And again--
He is one only, Alone, without equal;
Dwelling alone in the holiest of holies."
[Hymn to Amon preserved in a papyrus roll at Bulaq, and deciphered
by Grehaut and L. Stern.]
Such passages as these ought not to be sung in public, at least in times
like ours, when new ideas come in upon us from abroad, like the swarms
of locusts from the East."
"Spoken to my very soul!" cried the treasurer of the temple, "Ameni
initiated this boy too early into the mysteries."
"In my opinion, and I am his teacher," said Gagabu, "our brotherhood may
be proud of a member who adds so brilliantly to the fame of our temple.
The people hear the hymns without looking closely at the meaning of the
words. I never saw the congregation more devout, than when the beautiful
and deeply-felt song of praise was sung at the feast of the stairs."
[A particularly solemn festival in honor of Amon-Chem, held in the
temple of Medinet-Abu.]
"Pentaur was always thy favorite," said the former speaker. "Thou
wouldst not permit in any one else many things that are allowed to
him. His hymns are nevertheless to me and to many others a dangerous
performance; and canst thou dispute the fact that we have grounds for
grave anxiety, and that things happen and circumstances grow up around
us which hinder us, and at last may perhaps crush us, if we do not,
while there is yet time, inflexibly oppose them?"
"Thou bringest sand to the desert, and sugar to sprinkle over honey,"
exclaimed Gagabu, and his lips began to twitch. "Nothing is now as it
ought to be, and there will be a hard battle to fight; not with the
sword, but with this--and this." And the impatient man touched his
forehead and his lips. "And who is there more competent than my
disciple? There is the champion of our cause, a second cap of Hor, that
overthrew the evil one with winged sunbeams, and you come and would
clip his wings and blunt his claws! Alas, alas, my lords! will you
never understand that a lion roars louder than a cat, and the sun shines
brighter than an oil-lamp? Let Pentuar alone, I say; or you will do as
the man did, who, for fear of the toothache, had his sound teeth drawn.
Alas, alas, in the years to come we shall have to bite deep into
the flesh, till the blood flows, if we wish to escape being eaten up
ourselves!"
"The enemy is not unknown to us also," said the elder priest from
Chennu, "although we, on the remote southern frontier of the kingdom,
have escaped many evils that in the north have eaten into our body like
a cancer. Here foreigners are now hardly looked upon at all as
unclean and devilish."--["Typhonisch," belonging to Typhon or
Seth.--Translator.]
"Hardly?" exclaimed the chief of the haruspices; "they are invited,
caressed, and honored. Like dust, when the simoon blows through the
chinks of a wooden house, they crowd into the houses and temples, taint
our manners and language;
[At no period Egyptian writers use more Semitic words than during
the reigns of Rameses II. and his son Mernephtah.]
nay, on the throne of the successors of Ra sits a descendant--"
"Presumptuous man!" cried the voice of the high-priest, who at this
instant entered the hall, "Hold your tongue, and be not so bold as
to wag it against him who is our king, and wields the sceptre in this
kingdom as the Vicar of Ra."
The speaker bowed and was silent, then he and all the company rose to
greet Ameni, who bowed to them all with polite dignity, took his seat,
and turning to Gagabu asked him carelessly:
"I find you all in most unpriestly excitement; what has disturbed your
equanimity?"
"We were discussing the overwhelming influx of foreigners into Egypt,
and the necessity of opposing some resistance to them."
"You will find me one of the foremost in the attempt," replied Ameni.
"We have endured much already, and news has arrived from the north,
which grieves me deeply."
"Have our troops sustained a defeat?"
"They continue to be victorious, but thousands of our countrymen have
fallen victims in the fight or on the march. Rameses demands fresh
reinforcements. The pioneer, Paaker, has brought me a letter from our
brethren who accompany the king, and delivered a document from him
to the Regent, which contains the order to send to him fifty thousand
fighting men: and as the whole of the soldier-caste and all the
auxiliaries are already under arms, the bondmen of the temple, who till
our acres, are to be levied, and sent into Asia."
A murmur of disapproval arose at these words. The chief of the haruspices stamped his foot, and Gagabu asked: |
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