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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 13 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: November 23, 2010 [EBook #34408] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE, VOL 13 *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="GOTHIC_BIBLE" id="GOTHIC_BIBLE"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>THE GOTHIC BIBLE OF ULFILAS.</i><br /><br /> +Codex Argenteus. + Library of Upsala.</span> +<p>Socrates, a Greek ecclesiastic of the fifth century, and several other +Byzantine writers, inform us, that Ulfilas, belonging to a family of +Cappadocia, having been carried away captive by the Goths, when they +invaded that country in A.D. 366, was subsequently elevated to the +episcopal dignity in his new country, which had been converted to +Christianity; that he was sent as a legate to the Emperor Valens, at +Constantinople, in the year 377, to ask for a province of the empire, +as a refuge for the Goths from the Huns, by whom they had been +conquered; that Ulfilas obtained permission for them to settle in +Moesia, on the right bank of the Danube; and that, in order to confirm +them in the Christian faith, he translated the Old and New Testaments +into the Gothic language, and invented for that purpose an especial +alphabet; which, from this circumstance, has been named the alphabet +of Ulfilas, or the alphabet of the Goths of Moesia. This translation +of the Bible is the oldest existing literary monument in the Germanic +languages. The principal manuscript is the Codex Argenteus, written in +silver characters on a purple ground. The accompanying facsimile is +from the Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter VII., beginning in the +3d verse at the words "Jews eat not," and ending in the 7th verse at +"In vain do they worship me, teaching...."</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIBRARY OF THE</h2> +<h1>WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE</h1> +<h3>ANCIENT AND MODERN<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER</h3> +<h5>EDITOR</h5> + +<h4>HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE<br /> +LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE<br /> +GEORGE HENRY WARNER</h4> +<h5>ASSOCIATE EDITORS</h5> + +<h4>Connoisseur Edition<br /> +<span class="smcap">Vol. XIII.</span></h4> + +<h4>NEW YORK<br /> +<big>THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY</big></h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>Connoisseur Edition</h3> +<h5>LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA<br /> +<br /> +<i>No</i>. ..........</h5> + +<h5>Copyright, 1896, by<br /> +R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL<br /> +<i>All rights reserved</i></h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ADVISORY COUNCIL</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Hebrew, <span class="smcap">Harvard University</span>, Cambridge, Mass.</span><br /> +<br /> +THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of <span class="smcap">Yale University</span>, New Haven, Conn.</span><br /> +<br /> +WILLIAM M. SLOANE, <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>, L. H. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of History and Political Science, <span class="smcap">Princeton University</span>, Princeton, N. J.</span><br /> +<br /> +BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Literature, <span class="smcap">Columbia University</span>, New York City.</span><br /> +<br /> +JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">President of the <span class="smcap">University of Michigan</span>, Ann Arbor, Mich.</span><br /> +<br /> +WILLARD FISKE, A. M., <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, <span class="smcap">Cornell University</span>, Ithaca, N. Y.</span><br /> +<br /> +EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, <span class="smcap">University of California</span>, Berkeley, Cal.</span><br /> +<br /> +ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of the Romance Languages, <span class="smcap">Tulane University</span>, New Orleans, La.</span><br /> +<br /> +WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, <span class="smcap">University of the South</span>, Sewanee, Tenn.</span><br /> +<br /> +PAUL SHOREY, <span class="smcap">Ph. D.</span>,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, <span class="smcap">University of Chicago</span>, Chicago, Ill.</span><br /> +<br /> +WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">United States Commissioner of Education, <span class="smcap">Bureau of Education</span>, Washington, D. C.</span><br /> +<br /> +MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor of Literature in the <span class="smcap">Catholic University of America</span>, Washington, D. C.</span><br /> +</p></div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg v]</span></p> +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> + +<h3>VOL. XIII</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td><small>LIVED</small></td> + <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#TORU_DUTT"><span class="smcap">Toru Dutt</span></a></big></td> + <td>1856-1877</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5075">5075</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#UMA">Jogadhya Uma</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TREE">Our Casuarina-Tree</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#JOHN_S_DWIGHT"><span class="smcap">John S. Dwight</span></a></big></td> + <td>1813-1893</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5084">5084</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MUSIC_AS_A_MEANS_OF_CULTURE">Music as a Means of Culture</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#GEORG_MORITZ_EBERS"><span class="smcap">Georg Moritz Ebers</span></a></big></td> + <td>1837-</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5091">5091</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BABYLON">The Arrival at Babylon ('An Egyptian Princess')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#JOSE_ECHEGARAY"><span class="smcap">José Echegaray</span></a></big></td> + <td>1832-</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5101">5101</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_MADMAN_OR_SAINT">From 'Madman or Saint?'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_THE_GREAT_GALEOTO">From 'The Great Galeoto'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#THE_EDDAS"><span class="smcap">The Eddas</span></a></big></td> + <td> </td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5113">5113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2" align="center">BY WILLIAM H. CARPENTER</td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_THE_SNORRA_EDDA">Thor's Adventures on his Journey to the Land of the Giants ('Snorra Edda')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THRYM">The Lay of Thrym ('Elder Edda')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GURDUN">Of the Lamentation of Gudrun over Sigurd Dead: First Lay of Gudrun</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#VOLSUNG">Waking of Brunhilde on the Hindfell by Sigurd (Morris's 'Story of Sigurd the Völsung')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#ALFRED_EDERSHEIM"><span class="smcap">Alfred Edersheim</span></a></big></td> + <td>1825-1889</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5145">5145</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_WASHING_OF_HANDS">The Washing of Hands ('The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#MARIA_EDGEWORTH"><span class="smcap">Maria Edgeworth</span></a></big></td> + <td>1767-1849</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5151">5151</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SIR_CONDYS_WAKE">Sir Condy's Wake ('Castle Rackrent')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SIR_MURTAGH_RACKRENT_AND_HIS_LADY">Sir Murtagh Rackrent and His Lady (same)</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#ANNE_CHARLOTTE_LEFFLER_EDGREN"><span class="smcap">Anne Charlotte Leffler Edgren</span></a></big></td> + <td>1849-1893</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5162">5162</a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vi]</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#OPEN_SESAME">Open Sesame</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#A_BALL_IN_HIGH_LIFE">A Ball in High Life ('A Rescuing Angel')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#JONATHAN_EDWARDS"><span class="smcap">Jonathan Edwards</span></a></big></td> + <td>1703-1758</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5175">5175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2" align="center">BY EGBERT C. SMYTH</td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#REL_HISTORY">From Narrative of His Religious History</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LEAF">"Written on a Blank Leaf in 1723"</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#NOTHING">The Idea of Nothing ('Of Being')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FREEWILL">The Notion of Action and Agency Entertained by Mr. Chubb and Others ('Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CHRIST">Excellency of Christ</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ESSENCE_OF_TRUE_VIRTUE">Essence of True Virtue ('The Nature of True Virtue')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#GERORGES_EEKHOUD"><span class="smcap">Georges Eekhoud</span></a></big></td> + <td>1854-</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5189">5189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EXVOTO">Ex-Voto</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#KORS_DAVIE">Kors Davie</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#EDWARD_EGGLESTON"><span class="smcap">Edward Eggleston</span></a></big></td> + <td>1837-</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5215">5215</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ROGER_WILLIAMS_THE_PROPHET_OF_RELIGIOUS_FREEDOM">Roger Williams, the Prophet of Religious Freedom ('The Beginners of a Nation')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#EGYPTIAN_LITERATURE"><span class="smcap">Egyptian Literature</span></a></big></td> + <td> </td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5225">5225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2" align="center">BY FRANCIS LLEWELLYN GRIFFITH AND KATE BRADBURY GRIFFITH</td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SAILOR">The Shipwrecked Sailor</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_SANEHAT">Story of Sanehat</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_DOOMED_PRINCE">The Doomed Prince</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_THE_TWO_BROTHERS">Story of the Two Brothers</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_SETNA">Story of Setna</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#INSCRIPTION_OF_UNA">Inscription of Una</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONGS_OF_LABORERS">Songs of Laborers</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOVE_SONGS">Love Songs: Love-Sickness; The Lucky Doorkeeper; Love's Doubts; The Unsuccessful Bird-Catcher</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HYMN_TO_USERTESEN_III">Hymn to Usertesen III.</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HYMN_TO_THE_ATEN1">Hymn to the Aten</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HYMNS_TO_AMEN_RA221">Hymns to Amen Ra</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONGS_TO_THE_HARP">Songs to the Harp</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_AN_EPITAPH">From an Epitaph</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_A_DIALOGUE_BETWEEN_A_MAN_AND_HIS_SOUL">From a Dialogue Between a Man and His Soul</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_NEGATIVE_CONFESSION">'The Negative Confession'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_TEACHING_OF_AMENEMHAT">Teaching of Amenemhat</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_PRISSE_PAPYRUS">The Prisse Papyrus: Instruction of Ptahhetep</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FROM_THE_MAXIMS_OF_ANY">From the 'Maxims of Any'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DAUF">Instruction of Dauf</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CONTRASTED_LOTS_OF_SCRIBE_AND_FELLAH">Contrasted Lots of Scribe and Fellâh</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#REPROACHES_TO_A_DISSIPATED_STUDENT">Reproaches to a Dissipated Student</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#JOSEPH_VON_EICHENDORFF"><span class="smcap">Joseph Von Eichendorff</span></a></big></td> + <td>1788-1857</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5345">5345</a><span class='pagenum'>[Pg vii]</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GOOD_FOR_NOTHING">From 'Out of the Life of a Good-for-Nothing'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SEPARATION">Separation</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LORELEI">Lorelei</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#GEORGE_ELIOT"><span class="smcap">George Eliot</span></a></big></td> + <td>1819-1880</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5359">5359</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2" align="center">BY CHARLES WALDSTEIN</td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#RESCUE">The Final Rescue ('The Mill on the Floss')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#WORTHIES">Village Worthies ('Silas Marner')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HALL_FARM">The Hall Farm ('Adam Bede')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#POYSER">Mrs. Poyser "Has Her Say Out" (same)</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PRISONERS">The Prisoners ('Romola')</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CHOIR">"Oh, May I Join the Choir Invisible"</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr> + <td><big><a href="#RALPH_WALDO_EMERSON"><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span></a></big></td> + <td>1803-1882</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5421">5421</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2" align="center">BY RICHARD GARNETT</td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TIMES">The Times</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FRIENDSHIP">Friendship</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#NATURE">Nature</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#COMPENSATION">Compensation</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOVE">Love</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CIRCLES">Circles</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SELFRELIANCE">Self-Reliance</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HISTORY">History</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EACHALL">Each and All</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#RHODORA">The Rhodora</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#HUMBLEBEE">The Humble-Bee</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PROBLEM">The Problem</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DAYS">Days</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MUSKETAQUID">Musketaquid</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THRENODY">From the 'Threnody'</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CONCORDHYMN">Concord Hymn</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ODE">Ode Sung in the Town Hall, Concord, July 4, 1857</a></span></td><td> </td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg viii]</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg ix]</span></p> +<h2>FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<h3>VOLUME XIII</h3> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS" width="60%"> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#GOTHIC_BIBLE">Gothic Bible of Ulfilas</a></td> + <td align="right">Colored Plate Frontispiece</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#EBERS">Georg Ebers (Portrait)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5091">5091</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#MARRIAGE_MARKET">"Babylonian Marriage Market" (Photogravure)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5098">5098</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing (Outline Fac-Simile)</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5226">5226</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#Illustration_THE_SPHYNX">"The Sphynx" (Photogravure)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5260">5260</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#Illustration_EGYPTIAN_FUNERAL_FEAST">"Egyptian Funeral Feast" (Photogravure)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5290">5290</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#GREEK_UNCIAL_WRITING">"Uncial Greek Writing" (Fac-Simile)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5338">5338</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#ELIOT">George Eliot (Portrait)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5359">5359</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#EMERSON">Ralph Waldo Emerson (Portrait)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5421">5421</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#CONCORD_MONUMENT">"Concord Battle Monument" (Photogravure)</a></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_5466">5466</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<h3>VIGNETTE PORTRAITS</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<a href="#JOSE_ECHEGARAY">José Echegaray</a><br /> +<a href="#MARIA_EDGEWORTH">Maria Edgeworth</a><br /> +<a href="#JONATHAN_EDWARDS">Jonathan Edwards</a><br /> +<a href="#EDWARD_EGGLESTON">Edward Eggleston</a><br /> +</p> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg x]</span></p> +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5075" id="Page_5075">[Pg 5075]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="TORU_DUTT" id="TORU_DUTT"></a>TORU DUTT</h2> + +<h4>(1856-1877)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capi.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="I" title="I" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">n 1874 there appeared in the Bengal Magazine an essay upon +Leconte de Lisle, which showed not only an unusual knowledge +of French literature, but also decided literary qualities. +The essayist was Toru Dutt, a Hindu girl of eighteen, daughter +of Govin Chunder Dutt, for many years a justice of the peace at +Calcutta. The family belonged to the high-caste cultivated Hindus, +and Toru's education was conducted on broad lines. Her work frequently +discloses charming pictures of the home life that filled the +old garden house at Calcutta. Here it is easy to see the studious +child poring over French, German, and English lexicons, reading +every book she could lay hold of, hearing from her mother's lips those +old legends of her race which had been woven into the poetry of +native bards long before the civilization of modern Europe existed. +In her thirteenth year Toru and her younger sister were sent to +study for a few months in France, and thence to attend lectures at +Cambridge and to travel in England. A memory of this visit appears +in Toru's little poem, 'Near Hastings,' which shows the impressionable +nature of the Indian girl, so sensitive to the romance of an alien +race, and so appreciative of her friendly welcome to English soil.</p> + +<p>After four years' travel in Europe the Dutts returned to India to +resume their student life, and Toru began to learn Sanskrit. She +showed great aptitude for the French language and a strong liking +for the French character, and she made a special study of French +romantic poetry. Her essays on Leconte de Lisle and Joséphin Soulary, +and a series of English translations of poetry, were the fruit of +her labor. The translations, including specimens from Béranger, Théophile +Gautier, François Coppée, Sully-Prud'homme, and other popular +writers, were collected in 1876 under the title 'A Sheaf Gleaned +in French Fields.' A few copies found their way into Europe, and +both French and English reviewers recognized the value of the harvest +of this clear-sighted gleaner. One critic called these poems, in +which Toru so faithfully reproduced the spirit of one alien tongue in +the forms of another, transmutations rather than translations.</p> + +<p>But marvelous as is the mastery shown over the subtleties of +thought and the difficulties of translation, the achievement remains +that of acquirement rather than of inspiration. But Toru's English +renditions of the native Indian legends, called 'Ancient Ballads of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5076" id="Page_5076">[Pg 5076]</a></span> +Hindustan,' give a sense of great original power. Selected from +much completed work left unpublished at her too early death, these +poems are revelations of the Eastern religious thought, which loves +to clothe itself in such forms of mystical beauty as haunt the memory +and charm the fancy. But in these translations it is touched by the +spirit of the new faith which Toru had adopted. The poems remain, +however, essentially Indian. The glimpses of lovely landscape, the +shining temples, the greening gloom of the jungle, the pink flush of +the dreamy atmosphere, are all of the East, as is the philosophic +calm that breathes through the verses. The most beautiful of the +ballads is perhaps that of 'Savitri,' the king's daughter who by love +wins back her husband after he has passed the gates of death. +Another, 'Sindher,' re-tells the old story of that king whose great +power is unavailing to avert the penalty which follows the breaking +of the Vedic law, even though it was broken in ignorance. Still +another, 'Prehlad,' reveals that insight into things spiritual which +characterizes the true seer or "called of God." Two charming +legends, 'Jogadhya Uma,' and 'Buttoo,' full of the pastoral simplicity +of the early Aryan life, and a few miscellaneous poems, complete +this volume upon which Toru's fame will rest.</p> + +<p>A posthumous novel written in French makes up the sum of her +contribution to letters. 'Le Journal de Mlle. D'Arvers' was found +completed among her posthumous papers. It is a romance of modern +French life, whose motive is the love of two brothers for the same +girl. The tragic element dominates the story, and the author has +managed the details with extraordinary ease without sacrificing either +dignity or dramatic effect. The story was edited by Mademoiselle +Bader, a correspondent of Toru, and her sole acquaintance among +European authors. In 1878, the year after the poet's death, appeared +a second edition of 'A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields' containing +forty-three additional poems, with a brief biographical sketch written +by her father. The many translators of the 'Sakoontala' and of +other Indian dramas show how difficult it is for the Western mind to +express the indefinable spirituality of temper that fills ancient Hindu +poetry. This remarkable quality Toru wove unconsciously into her +English verse, making it seem not exotic but complementary, an +echo of that far-off age when the genius of the two races was one.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5077" id="Page_5077">[Pg 5077]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="UMA" id="UMA"></a>JOGADHYA UMA</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Shell bracelets, ho! Shell bracelets, ho!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fair maids and matrons, come and buy!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along the road, in morning's glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The peddler raised his wonted cry.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The road ran straight, a red, red line,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To Khigoram, for cream renowned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through pasture meadows where the kine,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In knee-deep grass, stood magic bound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And half awake, involved in mist<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That floated in dun coils profound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till by the sudden sunbeams kist,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rich rainbow hues broke all around.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Shell bracelets, ho! Shell bracelets, ho!"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The roadside trees still dripped with dew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hung their blossoms like a show.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who heard the cry? 'Twas but a few;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A ragged herd-boy, here and there,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With his long stick and naked feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A plowman wending to his care,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The field from which he hopes the wheat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An early traveler, hurrying fast<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To the next town; an urchin slow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound for the school; these heard and passed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Unheeding all,—"Shell bracelets, ho!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pellucid spread a lake-like tank<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beside the road now lonelier still;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High on three sides arose the bank<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which fruit-trees shadowed at their will;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the fourth side was the ghat,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With its broad stairs of marble white,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at the entrance arch there sat,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Full face against the morning light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fair young woman with large eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And dark hair falling to her zone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She heard the peddler's cry arise,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And eager seemed his ware to own.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Shell bracelets, ho! See, maiden; see!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The rich enamel, sunbeam-kist!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5078" id="Page_5078">[Pg 5078]</a></span><span class="i0">Happy, oh happy, shalt thou be,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Let them but clasp that slender wrist;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These bracelets are a mighty charm;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They keep a lover ever true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And widowhood avert, and harm.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Buy them, and thou shalt never rue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just try them on!"—She stretched her hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">"Oh, what a nice and lovely fit!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No fairer hand in all the land,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And lo! the bracelet matches it."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dazzled, the peddler on her gazed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till came the shadow of a fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While she the bracelet-arm upraised<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Against the sun to view more clear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, she was lovely! but her look<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Had something of a high command<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That filled with awe. Aside she shook<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Intruding curls, by breezes fanned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blown across her brows and face,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And asked the price; which when she heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She nodded, and with quiet grace<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For payment to her home referred.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And where, O maiden, is thy house?<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But no,—that wrist-ring has a tongue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No maiden art thou, but a spouse,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Happy, and rich, and fair, and young."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Far otherwise; my lord is poor,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And him at home thou shalt not find;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ask for my father; at the door<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Knock loudly; he is deaf, but kind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seest thou that lofty gilded spire,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Above these tufts of foliage green?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is our place; its point of fire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Will guide thee o'er the tract between."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That is the temple spire."—"Yes, there<br /></span> +<span class="i1">We live; my father is the priest;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The manse is near, a building fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But lowly to the temple's east.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou hast knocked, and seen him, say,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">His daughter, at Dhamaser Ghat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shell bracelets bought from thee to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And he must pay so much for that.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5079" id="Page_5079">[Pg 5079]</a></span><span class="i0">Be sure, he will not let thee pass<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Without the value, and a meal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he demur, or cry alas!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">No money hath he,—then reveal;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Within the small box, marked with streaks<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of bright vermilion, by the shrine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The key whereof has lain for weeks<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Untouched, he'll find some coin,—'tis mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That will enable him to pay<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The bracelet's price. Now fare thee well!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She spoke; the peddler went away,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Charmed with her voice as by some spell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While she, left lonely there, prepared<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To plunge into the water pure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a rose, her beauty bared,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From all observance quite secure.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not weak she seemed, nor delicate;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Strong was each limb of flexile grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And full the bust; the mien elate,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Like hers, the goddess of the chase<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Latmos hill,—and oh the face<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Framed in its cloud of floating hair!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No painter's hand might hope to trace<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The beauty and the glory there!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well might the peddler look with awe,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For though her eyes were soft, a ray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lit them at times, which kings who saw<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Would never dare to disobey.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Onward through groves the peddler sped,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till full in front, the sunlit spire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arose before him. Paths which led<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To gardens trim, in gay attire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay all around. And lo! the manse,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Humble but neat, with open door!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He paused, and blessed the lucky chance<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That brought his bark to such a shore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Huge straw-ricks, log huts full of grain,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sleek cattle, flowers, a tinkling bell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spoke in a language sweet and plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">"Here smiling Peace and Plenty dwell."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Unconsciously he raised his cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">"Shell-bracelets, ho!" And at his voice<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5080" id="Page_5080">[Pg 5080]</a></span><span class="i0">Looked out the priest, with eager eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And made his heart at once rejoice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Ho, <i>Sankha</i> peddler! Pass not by,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But step thou in, and share the food<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just offered on our altar high,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">If thou art in a hungry mood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Welcome are all to this repast!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The rich and poor, the high and low!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come, wash thy feet, and break thy fast;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Then on thy journey strengthened go."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, thanks, good priest! Observance due<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And greetings! May thy name be blest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I came on business, but I knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Here might be had both food and rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without a charge; for all the poor<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ten miles around thy sacred shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Know that thou keepest open door,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And praise that generous hand of thine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But let my errand first be told:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For bracelets sold to thine this day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much thou owest me in gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hast thou the ready cash to pay?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The bracelets were enameled,—so<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The price is high."—"How! Sold to mine?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who bought them, I should like to know?"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">"Thy daughter, with the large black eyne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now bathing at the marble ghat."<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Loud laughed the priest at this reply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I shall not put up, friend, with that;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">No daughter in the world have I;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An only son is all my stay;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Some minx has played a trick, no doubt:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But cheer up, let thy heart be gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Be sure that I shall find her out."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nay, nay, good father! such a face<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Could not deceive, I must aver;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At all events, she knows thy place,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">'And if my father should demur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pay thee,'—thus she said,—'or cry<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He has no money, tell him straight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The box vermilion-streaked to try,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That's near the shrined'"—"Well, wait, friend, wait!"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5081" id="Page_5081">[Pg 5081]</a></span><span class="i0">The priest said, thoughtful; and he ran<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And with the open box came back:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Here is the price exact, my man,—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">No surplus over, and no lack.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How strange! how strange! Oh, blest art thou<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To have beheld her, touched her hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before whom Vishnu's self must bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And Brahma and his heavenly band!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here have I worshiped her for years,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And never seen the vision bright;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vigils and fasts and secret tears<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Have almost quenched my outward sight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet that dazzling form and face<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I have not seen, and thou, dear friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thee, unsought-for, comes the grace:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">What may its purport be, and end?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How strange! How strange! Oh, happy thou!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And couldst thou ask no other boon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than thy poor bracelet's price? That brow<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Resplendent as the autumn moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must have bewildered thee, I trow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And made thee lose thy senses all."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dim light on the peddler now<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Began to dawn; and he let fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His bracelet-basket in his haste,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And backward ran, the way he came:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What meant the vision fair and chaste;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose eyes were they,—those eyes of flame?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Swift ran the peddler as a hind;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The old priest followed on his trace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They reached the ghat, but could not find<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The lady of the noble face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds were silent in the wood;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The lotus flowers exhaled a smell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faint, over all the solitude;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A heron as a sentinel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood by the bank. They called,—in vain;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">No answer came from hill or fell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The landscape lay in slumber's chain;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">E'en Echo slept within her shell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Broad sunshine, yet a hush profound!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They turned with saddened hearts to go;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5082" id="Page_5082">[Pg 5082]</a></span><span class="i0">Then from afar there came a sound<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of silver bells;—the priest said low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"O Mother, Mother, deign to hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The worship-hour has rung; we wait<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In meek humility and fear.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Must we return home desolate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh come, as late thou cam'st unsought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or was it but some idle dream?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give us some sign, if it was not;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A word, a breath, or passing gleam."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sudden from out the water sprung<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A rounded arm, on which they saw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As high the lotus buds among<br /></span> +<span class="i1">It rose, the bracelet white, with awe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then a wide ripple tost and swung<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The blossoms on that liquid plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo! the arm so fair and young<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sank in the waters down again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They bowed before the mystic Power,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And as they home returned in thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each took from thence a lotus flower<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In memory of the day and spot.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Years, centuries, have passed away,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And still before the temple shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Descendants of the peddler pay<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Shell-bracelets of the old design<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As annual tribute. Much they own<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In lands and gold,—but they confess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From that eventful day alone<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dawned on their industry, success.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Absurd may be the tale I tell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ill-suited to the marching times;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I loved the lips from which it fell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">So let it stand among my rhymes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="TREE" id="TREE"></a>OUR CASUARINA-TREE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like a huge python, winding round and round<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Up to its very summit near the stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound<br /></span> +<span class="i1">No other tree could live. But gallantly<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5083" id="Page_5083">[Pg 5083]</a></span><span class="i0">The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In crimson clusters all the boughs among,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And oft at night the garden overflows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With one sweet song that seems to have no close,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Unknown, yet well known to the eye of faith!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When slumbered in his cave the water wraith,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the waves gently kissed the classic shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And every time the music rose, before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy form, O tree! as in my happy prime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw thee in my own loved native clime.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But not because of its magnificence<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beneath it we have played: though years may roll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O sweet companions, loved with love intense,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For your sakes shall the tree be ever dear!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blent with your images, it shall arise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the sea breaking on a shingle beach?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is the tree's lament, an eerie speech,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That haply to the Unknown Land may reach.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When first my casement is wide open thrown<br /></span> +<span class="i1">At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sometimes,—and most in winter,—on its crest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gray baboon sits statue-like alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His puny offspring leap about and play;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far and near kokilas hail the day;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5084" id="Page_5084">[Pg 5084]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="JOHN_S_DWIGHT" id="JOHN_S_DWIGHT"></a>JOHN S. DWIGHT</h2> + +<h4>(1813-1893)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capj.png" width="80" height="80" alt="J" title="J" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">ohn Sullivan Dwight was born in Boston, Massachusetts, +May 13th, 1813. After graduation at Harvard in 1832, he +studied at the Divinity School, and for two years was pastor +of a Unitarian church in Northampton, Massachusetts. He then became +interested in founding the famous Brook Farm community, +which furnished Hawthorne with the background for 'The Blithedale +Romance'; and he is mentioned in the preface to this book with +Ripley, Dana, Channing, Parker, etc. This was a "community" +scheme, undertaken by joint ownership in a farm in West Roxbury +near Boston; associated with the names of Hawthorne, Emerson, +George William Curtis, and C.A. Dana,—a scheme which Emerson +called "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an age of +reason in a patty-pan." This community existed seven years, and to +quote again from Emerson,—"In Brook Farm was this peculiarity, +that there was no head. In every family is the father; in every factory +a foreman; in a shop a master; in a boat the skipper; but in +this Farm no authority; each was master or mistress of their actions; +happy, hapless anarchists."</p> + +<p>Here Mr. Dwight edited The Harbinger, a periodical published by +that community; taught languages and music, besides doing his share +of the manual labor. In 1848 he returned to Boston and engaged in +literature and musical criticism; and in 1852 he established Dwight's +Journal of Music, which he edited for thirty years. Many of his best +essays appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and he contributed to +various periodicals.</p> + +<p>He was one of the pioneers of scholarly, intelligent, original, and +literary musical criticism in America, and he possessed fine general +attainments and a distinct style. It is because of his clear +perception of the indispensableness of the arts—and especially of the +art of music—to life, and because of his clear statement of their +vital relationship, that his work belongs to literature.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5085" id="Page_5085">[Pg 5085]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="MUSIC_AS_A_MEANS_OF_CULTURE" id="MUSIC_AS_A_MEANS_OF_CULTURE"></a>MUSIC AS A MEANS OF CULTURE</h3> + +<h4>From the Atlantic Monthly, 1870, by permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company</h4> + +<p>We as a democratic people, a great mixed people of all races, +overrunning a vast continent, need music even more than others. We +need some ever-present, ever-welcome influence that shall insensibly +tone down our self-asserting and aggressive manners, round off the +sharp, offensive angularity of character, subdue and harmonize the +free and ceaseless conflict of opinions, warm out the genial +individual humanity of each and every unit of society, lest he become +a mere member of a party, or a sharer of business or fashion. This +rampant liberty will rush to its own ruin, unless there shall be found +some gentler, harmonizing, humanizing culture, such as may pervade +whole masses with a fine enthusiasm, a sweet sense of reverence for +something far above us, beautiful and pure; awakening some ideality in +every soul, and often lifting us out of the hard hopeless prose of +daily life. We need this beautiful corrective of our crudities. Our +radicalism will pull itself up by the roots, if it do not cultivate +the instinct of reverence. The first impulse of freedom is +centrifugal,—to fly off the handle,—unless it be restrained by a no +less free impassioned love of order. We need to be so enamored of the +divine idea of unity, that that alone—the enriching of that—shall be +the real motive for assertion of our individuality. What shall so +temper and tone down our "fierce democracy"? It must be something +better, lovelier, more congenial to human nature than mere stern +prohibition, cold Puritanic "Thou shalt <i>not</i>!" What can so quickly +magnetize a people into this harmonic mood as music? Have we not seen +it, felt it?</p> + +<p>The hard-working, jaded millions need expansion, need the +rejuvenating, the ennobling experience of joy. Their toil, their +church, their creed perhaps, their party livery, and very vote, are +narrowing; they need to taste, to breathe a larger, freer life. Has it +not come to thousands, while they have listened to or joined their +voices in some thrilling chorus that made the heavens seem to open and +come down? The governments of the Old World do much to make the people +cheerful and contented; here it is all <i>laissez-faire</i>, each for +himself, in an ever keener strife of competition. We must look very +much to music to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5086" id="Page_5086">[Pg 5086]</a></span> this good work for us; we are open to that +appeal; we can forget ourselves in that; we blend in joyous fellowship +when we can sing together; perhaps quite as much so when we can listen +together to a noble orchestra of instruments interpreting the highest +inspirations of a master. The higher and purer the character and kind +of music, the more of real genius there is in it, the deeper will this +influence be.</p> + +<p>Judge of what can be done, by what already, within our own experience, +has been done and daily is done. Think what the children in our +schools are getting, through the little that they learn of vocal +music,—elasticity of spirit, joy in harmonious co-operation, in the +blending of each happy life in others; a rhythmical instinct of order +and of measure in all movement; a quickening of ear and sense, whereby +they will grow up susceptible to music, as well as with some use of +their own voices, so that they may take part in it; for from these +spacious nurseries (loveliest flower gardens, apple orchards in full +bloom, say, on their annual <i>fête</i> days) shall our future choirs and +oratorio choruses be replenished with good sound material....</p> + +<p>We esteem ourselves the freest people on this planet; yet perhaps we +have as little real freedom as any other, for we are the slaves of our +own feverish enterprise, and of a barren theory of discipline, which +would fain make us virtuous to a fault through abstinence from very +life. We are afraid to give ourselves up to the free and happy +instincts of our nature. All that is not pursuit of advancement in +some good, conventional, approved way of business, or politics, or +fashion, or intellectual reputation, or professed religion, we count +waste. We lack <i>geniality</i>; nor do we as a people understand the +meaning of the word. We ought to learn it practically of our Germans. +It comes of the same root with the word <i>genius</i>. Genius is the +spontaneous principle; it is free and happy in its work; it is artist +and not drudge; its whole activity is reconciliation of the heartiest +pleasure with the purest loyalty to conscience, with the most holy, +universal, and disinterested ends. Genius, as Beethoven gloriously +illustrates in his Choral Symphony (indeed, in all his symphonies), +finds the keynote and solution of the problem of the highest state in +"Joy," taking his text from Schiller's Hymn. Now, all may not be +geniuses in the sense that we call Shakespeare, Mozart, Raphael, men +of genius. But all should be partakers of this spontaneous, free, and +happy method of genius; all should live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5087" id="Page_5087">[Pg 5087]</a></span> childlike, genial lives, and +not wear all the time the consequential livery of their unrelaxing +business, nor the badge of party and profession, in every line and +feature of their faces. This genial, childlike faculty of social +enjoyment, this happy art of life, is just what our countrymen may +learn from the social "Liedertafel" and the summer singing-festivals +of which the Germans are so fond. There is no element of national +character which we so much need; and there is no class of citizens +whom we should be more glad to adopt and own than those who set us +such examples. So far as it is a matter of culture, it is through art +chiefly that the desiderated genial era must be ushered in. The +Germans have the sentiment of art, the feeling of the beautiful in +art, and consequently in nature, more developed than we have. Above +all, music offers itself as the most available, most popular, most +influential of the fine arts,—music, which is the art and language of +the feelings, the sentiments, the spiritual instincts of the soul; and +so becomes a universal language, tending to unite and blend and +harmonize all who may come within its sphere.</p> + +<p>Such civilizing, educating power has music for society at large. Now, +in the finer sense of culture, such as we look for in more private and +select "society," as it is called, music in the salon, in the small +chamber concert, where congenial spirits are assembled in its +name—good music of course—does it not create a finer sphere of +social sympathy and courtesy? Does it not better mold the tone and +manners from within than any imitative "fashion" from without? What +society, upon the whole, is quite so sweet, so satisfactory, so +refined, as the best musical society, if only Mozart, Mendelssohn, +Franz, Chopin, set the tone! The finer the kind of music heard or made +together, the better the society. This bond of union only reaches the +few; coarser, meaner, more prosaic natures are not drawn to it. Wealth +and fashion may not dictate who shall be of it. Here congenial spirits +meet in a way at once free, happy, and instructive, meet with an +object which insures "society"; whereas so-called society, as such, is +often aimless, vague, modifying and fatiguing, for the want of any +subject-matter. Here one gets ideas of beauty which are not mere +arbitrary fashions, ugly often to the eye of taste. Here you may +escape vulgarity by a way not vulgar in itself, like that of fashion, +which makes wealth and family and means of dress its passports. Here +you can be as exclusive as you please, by the soul's light, not +wronging any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5088" id="Page_5088">[Pg 5088]</a></span> one; here learn gentle manners, and the quiet ease and +courtesy with which cultivated people move, without in the same +process learning insincerity.</p> + +<p>Of course the same remarks apply to similar sincere reunions in the +name of any other art, or of poetry. But music is the most social of +them all, even if each listener find nothing set down to his part (or +even hers!) but <i>tacet</i>.</p> + +<p>We have fancied ourselves entertaining a musical house together, but +we must leave it with no time to make report or picture out the scene. +Now, could we only enter the chamber, the inner sanctum, the private +inner life of a thoroughly musical person, one who is wont to <i>live</i> +in music! Could we know him in his solitude! (You can only know him in +yourself, unless he be a poet and creator in his art, and bequeath +himself in that form in his works for any who know how to read.) If +the best of all society is musical society, we go further and say: The +sweetest of all solitude is when one is alone with music. One gets the +best of music, the sincerest part, when he is alone. Our +poet-philosopher has told us to secure solitude at any cost; there's +nothing which we can so ill afford to do without. It is a great vice +of our society, that it provides for and disposes to so little +solitude, ignoring the fact that there is more loneliness in company +than out of it. Now, to a musical person, in the mood of it, in the +sweet hours by himself, comes music as the nearest friend, nearer and +dearer than ever before; and he soon finds that he never was in such +good company. I doubt if symphony of Beethoven, opera of Mozart, +Passion Music of Bach, was ever so enjoyed or felt in grandest public +rendering, as one may feel it while he recalls its outline by himself +at his piano (even if he be a slow and bungling reader and may get it +out by piecemeal). I doubt if such an one can carry home from the +performance, in presence of the applauding crowd, nearly so much as he +may take to it from such inward, private preparation.</p> + +<p>Are you alone? What spirits can you summon up to fill the vacancy, and +people it with life and love and beauty! Take down the volume of +sonatas, the arrangement of the great Symphony, the recorded reveries +of Chopin, the songs of Schubert, Schumann, Franz, or even the +chorals, with the harmony of Bach, in which the four parts blend their +several individual melodies together in such loving service of the +whole, that the plain people's tune becomes a germ unfolding into +endless wealth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5089" id="Page_5089">[Pg 5089]</a></span> and beauty of meaning; and you have the very essence +of all prayer, and praise, and gratitude, as if you were a worshiper +in the ideal church. Nothing like music, then, to banish the benumbing +ghost of ennui. It lends secret sympathy, relief, expression, to all +one's moods, loves, longings, sorrows; comes nearer to the soul or to +the secret wound than any friend or healing sunshine from without. It +nourishes and feeds the hidden springs of hope and love and faith; +renews the old conviction of life's springtime,—that the world is +ruled by love, that God is good, that beauty is a divine end of life, +and not a snare and an illusion. It floods out of sight the unsightly, +muddy grounds of life's petty, anxious, doubting moments, and makes +immortality a present fact, lived in and realized. It locks the door +against the outer world of discords, contradictions, importunities, +beneath the notice of a soul so richly occupied: lets "Fate knock at +the door" (as Beethoven said in explanation of his symphony),—Fate +and the pursuing Furies,—and even welcomes them, and turns them into +gracious goddesses,—Eumenides! Music, in this way, is a marvelous +elixir to keep off old age. Youth returns in solitary hours with +Beethoven and Mozart. Touching the chords of the 'Moonlight Sonata,' +the old man is once more a lover; with the <i>andante</i> of the 'Pastoral +Symphony' he loiters by the shady brookside, hand in hand with his +fresh heart's first angel. You are past the sentimental age, yet you +can weep alone in music,—not weep exactly, but find outlet more +expressive and more worthy of your manly faith.</p> + +<p>A great grief comes, an inconsolable bereavement, a humiliating, +paralyzing reverse, a blow of Fate, giving the lie to your best plans +and bringing your best powers into discredit with yourself; then you +are best prepared and best entitled to receive the secret visitations +of these tuneful goddesses and muses.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Who never ate his bread in tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He knows you not, ye heavenly powers!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So sings the German poet. It is the want of inward, deep experience, +it is innocence of sorrow and of trial, more than the lack of any +special cultivation of musical taste and knowledge, that debars many +people—naturally most young people, and all who are what we call +shallow natures—from the feeling and enjoyment of many of the truest, +deepest, and most heavenly of all the works of music. Take the Passion +Music of Bach, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5090" id="Page_5090">[Pg 5090]</a></span> instance; if you can sit down alone at your piano +and decipher strains and pieces of it when you <i>need</i> such music, you +shall find that in its quiet quaintness, its sincerity and tenderness, +its abstinence from all striving for effect, it speaks to you and +entwines itself about your heart, like the sweetest, deepest verses in +the Bible; when "the soul muses till the fire burns."</p> + +<p>Such a panacea is this art for loneliness. But sometimes too it may +intensify the sense of loneliness, only for more heavenly relief at +last. Think of the deep composer, of lonely, sad Beethoven, wreaking +his pain upon expression in those impatient chords and modulations, +putting his sorrows into sonatas, and wringing triumph always out of +all! Look at him as he was then,—morose, they say, and lonely and +tormented; look where he is now, as the whole world knows him, feels +him, seeks him for its joy and inspiration—and who can doubt of +immortality?</p> + +<p>Now, in such private solace, in such solitary joys, is there not +culture? Can one rise from such communings with the good spirits of +the tone-world and go out, without new peace, new faith, new hope, and +good-will in his soul? He goes forth in the spirit of reconciliation +and of patience, however much he may hate the wrong he sees about him, +or however little he accept authorities and creeds that make war on +his freedom. The man who has tasted such life, and courted it till he +has become acclimated in it, whether he be of this party or that, or +none at all; whether he be believer or "heretic," conservative or +radical, follower of Christ by name or "Free Religionist,"—belongs to +the harmonic and anointed body-guard of peace, fraternity, good-will; +his instincts have all caught the rhythm of that holy march; the good +genius leads, he has but to follow cheerfully and humbly. For somehow +the minutest fibres, the infinitesimal atoms of his being, have got +magnetized as it were into a loyal, positive direction towards the +pole-star of unity; he has grown attuned to a believing, loving mood, +just as the body of a violin, the walls of a music hall, by much +music-making become gradually seasoned into smooth vibration.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5091" id="Page_5091">[Pg 5091]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<a name="EBERS" id="EBERS"></a> +<span class="caption">GEORG EBERS.</span> +<img src="images/ebers.png" width="440" height="640" alt="GEORG EBERS." title="GEORG EBERS." /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="GEORG_MORITZ_EBERS" id="GEORG_MORITZ_EBERS"></a>GEORG MORITZ EBERS</h2> + +<h4>(1837-)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capg.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="G" title="G" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">eorg Ebers, distinguished as an Egyptian archaeologist and as +a historical novelist, was born in Berlin in 1837. At ten +years of age he was sent to school in Keilhau, where under +the direction of Froebel he was taught the delights of nature and the +pleasure of study. His university career at Göttingen was interrupted +by a long and serious illness. During his convalescence he pursued +with avidity his study of Egyptian archæology, and with neither dictionary +nor grammar to help him in the mastery of hieroglyphics, he +acquired to some degree this ancient language. Later, under the +learned Lepsius, he became a thorough and brilliant scholar in the +science which is his specialty. It was at this epoch that he wrote +'An Egyptian Princess,' for the purpose of realizing to himself a +period which he was studying. Thirteen years later his second work, +'Uarda' was published. When restored to health, he launched himself +with enthusiasm on the life of a university professor. He taught +for a time at Jena, and in 1870 removed to Leipsic. He has made +several journeys into Egypt, sharing his experiences with the public.</p> + +<p>'The Egyptian Princess' is Ebers's most representative romance. +It is perhaps the subtle quality of popularity, rather than exceptional +merit, which has insured its success. The scene of the story is laid +at the time when Egypt drew its last free breath, unconscious that +at the very height of its intellectual vigor its national life was to be +cut off; the time when Amasis held the throne of the Pharaohs, and +Cambyses was king of Persia. 'Uarda' gives a picture of Egypt +under one of the Rameses. 'Homo Sum,' a tale of the desert anchorites +in the fourth century, is filled with the spirit of the early Christians. +In the story of 'Die Schwestern' (The Sisters) Ebers takes the +reader to Memphis, the temple of Serapis, and the palace of the +Ptolemies. The ethical element enters largely into the novel 'Der +Kaiser' (The Emperor), of Christianity in the time of Hadrian.</p> + +<p>In the 'Frau Bürgermeisterin' (The Burgomaster's Wife), Ebers +leaves behind him the world of antiquity, and deals with the heroic +struggle against the Spanish rule made in 1547 by the city of Leyden. +'Gred,' a long and quiet novel, most carefully executed, is a +minute picture of middle-class Nürnberg, some centuries ago. 'Ein +Wort' (A Word: Only a Word) also stands apart from the historical +romances. It is a psychological and ethical story, working out the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5092" id="Page_5092">[Pg 5092]</a></span>development of inconspicuous character. Both in 'Serapis' and +'The Bride of the Nile,' the victory of Christianity over heathenism +is celebrated. Not less interesting than his fiction is his book of +travels called 'Durch Gosen zum Sinai' (Through Goshen to Sinai). +In 1889, on account of his health, Ebers resigned his professorship. +He now passes his winters in Munich, where his life is that of a +scholar and a writer.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BABYLON" id="BABYLON"></a>THE ARRIVAL AT BABYLON</h3> + +<h4>From 'An Egyptian Princess'</h4> + +<p>Seven weeks later, a long line of chariots and riders of every +description wound along the great highway that led from +the west to Babylon, the gigantic city which could be seen +from a long distance.</p> + +<p>Nitetis, the Egyptian princess, sat in a gilt four-wheeled +chariot, called a "Harmamaxa." The cushions were covered with +gold brocade; the roof was supported by wooden columns; its +sides could be closed by means of curtains.</p> + +<p>Her companions, the Persian nobles, the dethroned King of +Lydia and his son, rode by the side of her chariot. Fifty carriages +and six hundred sumpter-horses followed, and a regiment +of Persian soldiers on splendid horses preceded the procession.</p> + +<p>The road lay along the Euphrates, through luxuriant fields of +wheat, barley, and sesame, which yielded two or even three hundredfold. +Slender date-palms, with heavy clusters of fruit, stood +in the fields, which were intersected in all directions by canals +and conduits. Although it was winter, the sun shone warm and +clear in the cloudless sky. The mighty river was crowded with +barges and boats, which brought the produce of the Armenian +highlands to the Mesopotamian plain, and forwarded to Babylon +the greater part of the wares which were brought to Thapsacus +from Greece.</p> + +<p>Engines, pumps, and water-wheels poured refreshing moisture +on the fields and plantations along the banks, which were dotted +with numerous villages. Everything indicated that the capital of +a civilized and well-governed country was close at hand.</p> + +<p>The carriage and suite of Nitetis stopped before a long +building of brick covered with bitumen, by the side of which +grew numerous plane-trees. Croesus was helped from his horse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5093" id="Page_5093">[Pg 5093]</a></span> +approached the carriage of the Egyptian princess, and cried to +her:—"We have reached the last station-house. The high tower +that stands out against the horizon is the famous tower of Bel, +like your Pyramids one of the greatest achievements of mortal +hands. Before the sun sets we shall reach the brazen gates of +Babylon. Permit me to help you from the carriage, and to send +your women to you into the house. To-day you must dress +yourself according to the custom of Persian queens, so that you +may be pleasant in the eyes of Cambyses. In a few hours you +will stand before your husband. How pale you are! See that +your women skillfully paint joyous excitement on your cheeks. +The first impression is often decisive, and this is the case with +your future husband, more than with any one else. If, as I do +not doubt, you please him at first sight, you have won his heart +forever. If you displease him, he will, in accordance with his +rough habits, scarcely deign to look on you again with kindness. +Courage, my daughter. Above all things, remember what I have +taught you."</p> + +<p>Nitetis wiped away a tear, and returned:—"How shall I thank you for +all your kindness, Croesus, my second father, my protector and +adviser! Oh, do not ever desert me! When the path of my poor life +passes through sorrow and grief, remain my guide and protector, as you +have been during this long journey over dangerous mountain passes. +Thank you, my father, thank you a thousand times."</p> + +<p>With these words, the girl put her beautiful arms round the old man's +neck and kissed him like an affectionate daughter.</p> + +<p>When she entered the court of the gloomy house, a man came towards +her, followed by a train of Asiatic serving-women. The leader, the +chief eunuch, one of the most important Persian court officials, was +tall and stout. There was a sweet smile on his beardless face; +valuable rings hung from his ears; his arms and legs, his neck, his +long womanish garments, were covered with gold ornaments, and his +stiff artificial curls were surrounded by a purple fillet, and sent +forth a pungent odor. Boges, for this was the eunuch's name, bowed +respectfully to the Egyptian and said, holding his fleshy hand covered +with rings before his mouth:—"Cambyses, the ruler of the world, sends +me to meet you, O queen, that I may refresh your heart with the dew of +his greetings. He further sends to you through me, his poorest slave, +the garments of Persian women, that you may approach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5094" id="Page_5094">[Pg 5094]</a></span> the gate of the +Achæmenidæ in Median dress, as beseems the wife of the greatest of +rulers. These women your servants await your commands. They will +transform you from an Egyptian emerald into a Persian diamond." Boges +drew back, and with a condescending movement of his hand allowed the +host of the inn to present the princess with a most tastefully +arranged basket of fruit.</p> + +<p>Nitetis thanked both men with friendly words, entered the house, and +tearfully put off the robes of her home; the thick plait, the mark of +an Egyptian princess, was unfastened, and strange hands clad her in +Median fashion.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile her companions commanded a meal to be prepared. +Nimble servants fetched chairs, tables, and golden utensils from +the wagon; the cooks bustled about, and were so ready and eager +to help each other that soon, as if by magic, a splendidly laid +table where nothing was wanting, down to the very flowers, +awaited the hungry travelers.</p> + +<p>The same luxury had been displayed during the whole journey, for the +sumpter-horses that followed the royal travelers carried every +imaginable convenience, from gold-woven water-proof tents down to +silver footstools, and the carts that accompanied them bore bakers, +cooks, cup-bearers, carvers, men to prepare ointment, wreath-winders, +and hair-dressers.</p> + +<p>Well-appointed inns were established at regular intervals along the +high-road. Here the horses that had fallen on the way were replaced by +fresh ones, shady trees offered a pleasant shelter from the heat of +the sun, and on the mountains the fires of the inns protected the +traveler from cold and snow.</p> + +<p>The Persian inns, which resembled our post-houses, were first +established by Cyrus the Great, who sought to shorten the enormous +distances between the different parts of his realm by means of +well-kept roads. He had also organized a regular postal service. At +every station the riders with their knapsacks found substitutes on +fresh horses ready for instant departure, who, after receiving the +letters which were to be forwarded, galloped off post-haste, and when +they reached the next inn threw their knapsacks to other riders who +stood in readiness. These couriers were called Angares, and were +considered the swiftest horsemen in the world.</p> + +<p>When the company, who had been joined by Boges the +eunuch, rose from table, the door of the inn opened. A long-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5095" id="Page_5095">[Pg 5095]</a></span>drawn +sigh of admiration was heard, for Nitetis stood before the +Persians in the splendid Median court dress, proudly exultant in +the consciousness of her beauty, and yet suffused with blushes at +her friends' astonishment.</p> + +<p>The servants involuntarily prostrated themselves in the Asiatic +manner, but the noble Achæmenidæ bowed low and reverently. +It was as if the princess had laid aside all shyness with the simple +dress of her home, and assumed the pride and dignity of a +queen with the silken garments, heavy with gold and jewels, of +a Persian princess.</p> + +<p>The deep respect which had just been shown her seemed to +please her. With a condescending movement of her hand she +thanked her admiring friends; then she turned to the chief +eunuch and said to him kindly but proudly:—"You have done +your duty. I am not dissatisfied with the robes and the slaves +you have provided for me. I shall duly praise your care to my +husband. Meanwhile, receive this golden chain as a sign of my +gratitude."</p> + +<p>The powerful overseer of the king's wives kissed her hand +and silently accepted the gift. None of his charges had yet +treated him with such pride. All the wives whom Cambyses had +owned till now were Asiatics, and as they were acquainted with +the full power of the chief eunuch, they were accustomed to do +all they could to win his favor by means of flattery and submission.</p> + +<p>Boges again bowed low to Nitetis; but without paying any +further attention to him, she turned to Croesus and said in a low +tone:—"I cannot thank you, my gracious friend, with word or +gift for what you have done for me; it will be owing to you +alone if my life at this court becomes, if not happy, at least +peaceful." Then she continued in a louder voice, audible to her +traveling companions:—"Take this ring, which has not left my +hand since our departure from Egypt. Its value is small, its +significance great. Pythagoras, the noblest of all the Greeks, +gave it to my mother when he came to Egypt to listen to the +wise teachings of our priests. She gave it to me when I left +home. There is a seven engraved on this simple turquoise. +This number, which is indivisible, represents the health of +body and soul, for nothing is less divisible than health. If but +a small portion of the body suffers, the whole body is ill; if +one evil thought nestles in our heart, the harmony of the soul is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5096" id="Page_5096">[Pg 5096]</a></span> +disturbed. Whenever you look at this seven, let it remind you +that I wish you perfect enjoyment of bodily health, and the continuance +of that benignity which makes you the most virtuous and therefore the +most healthy of men. No thanks, my father, for I should remain in your +debt though I should restore to Croesus the wealth of Croesus. Gyges, +take this Lydian lyre of ivory, and when its strings give forth music, +remember the giver. To you, Zopyrus, I give this chain, for I have +noticed that you are the most faithful friend of your friends, and we +Egyptians put bonds and ropes into the fair hands of our goddess of +love and friendship, beautiful Hathor, as a symbol of her binding +qualities. To you, Darius, the friend of Egyptian lore and the starry +firmament, I give for a keepsake this golden ring, on which you will +find the Zodiac engraved by a skillful hand. Bartja, my dear +brother-in-law, you shall receive the most precious treasure I +possess. Take this amulet of blue stone. My sister Tachot put it round +my neck when for the last time I pressed a kiss upon her lips before +we fell asleep. She told me this talisman would bring sweet happiness +in love to him who wore it. She wept as she spoke, Bartja. I do not +know what she was thinking of, but I hope I am carrying out her wish +when I lay this treasure in your hand. Think that Tachot is giving it +to you through me her sister, and think sometimes of the garden of +Sais."</p> + +<p>She had spoken in Greek till then. Now she turned to the servants, who +were waiting at a respectful distance, and said in broken +Persian:—"You too must accept my thanks. You shall receive a thousand +gold staters. Boges," she added, turning to the eunuch, "I command you +to see that the sum is distributed not later than the day after +to-morrow! Lead me to my carriage, Croesus!"</p> + +<p>The old man hastened to comply with her request. While he conducted +Nitetis to the carriage, she pressed his arm against her breast and +whispered, "Are you satisfied with me, my father?"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, maiden," returned the old man, "you will be the +first at this court after the king's mother, for true regal pride +is on your brow, and you possess the art of doing great things +with small means. Believe me, a trifling gift, chosen as you can +choose, will cause greater pleasure to a nobleman than a heap +of gold flung down before him. The Persians are accustomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5097" id="Page_5097">[Pg 5097]</a></span> +to bestow and to receive costly gifts. They know how to enrich +one another. You will teach them to make each other happy. +How beautiful you are! Is that right, or do you desire higher +cushions? But what is that! Do you not see clouds of dust +rolling hither from the town? That must be Cambyses, who is +coming to meet you. Keep yourself upright, girl. Above all, +try to bear your husband's glance and return it. Few can bear +the fire of his eye. If you succeed in meeting it without fear +or embarrassment, you have conquered. Courage, courage, my +daughter! May Aphrodite adorn you with her loveliest charms! +To horse, my friends! I think the King is coming to meet us."</p> + +<p>Nitetis sat very erect in the golden carriage, and pressed her hands +on her heart. The cloud of dust came nearer and nearer. Now bright +sunbeams were reflected in the weapons of the approaching host, and +darted from the cloud of dust like lightning from a stormy sky. Now +the cloud divided, and figures could be distinguished; now the +approaching procession vanished behind the thick bushes at a turn of +the road; and now, not a hundred feet away, the galloping riders were +seen distinctly as they approached nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>The whole procession seemed to consist of a gay crowd of +horses, men, purple, gold, silver, and jewels. More than two +hundred riders, all on snow-white Nisæan steeds, whose bridles +and caparisons glittered with gold bells and buckles, feathers, +tassels, and embroidery, were followed by a man who was often +carried away by the powerful coal-black horse on which he rode, +but who generally proved to the unmanageable, foaming animal +that he was strong enough to tame its wildness. The rider, +whose knees pressed the horse so that the animal trembled and +panted, wore a garment with a scarlet and white pattern, which +was embroidered with silver eagles and falcons. His trousers +were of purple, his boots of yellow leather. He wore a golden +belt round his waist, in which was a short dagger-like sword, +whose hilt and sheath were incrusted with jewels. The rest of +his dress resembled Bartja's. His tiara also was surrounded by +the blue-and-white fillet of the Achæmenidæ. Thick jet-black +hair streamed from it. A thick beard of the same color covered +the whole lower portion of his hale, rigid face. His eyes were +even darker than his hair and beard, and glittered with a fire +that burned instead of warming. A deep red scar, caused by the +sword of a Massagetian warrior, marked the lofty brow, large +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5098" id="Page_5098">[Pg 5098]</a></span> +aquiline nose, and thin lips of the rider. His whole bearing +bore the stamp of great power and immoderate pride.</p> + +<p>Nitetis could not turn her eyes from his form. She had never seen any +one like him. She thought she saw the essence of all manliness in the +intensely proud face. It seemed to her as if the whole world, but +especially she herself, had been created to serve this man. She feared +him, and yet her humble woman's heart longed to cling to this strong +man as the vine clings to the elm. She did not know whether the father +of all evil, terrible Seth, or the giver of all light, great Ra, was +to be imagined in this form.</p> + +<p>As light and shade alternate when the heavens are clouded at noon, so +did deep red and ashy pallor appear on her face. She forgot the +precepts of her fatherly friend; and yet when Cambyses forced his wild +snorting steed to stand still by the side of her carriage, she gazed +breathlessly into the flashing eyes of the man, for she knew that he +was the King, though no one had told her.</p> + +<p>The stern face of the ruler of half the world softened more and more, +the longer she, urged by a strange impulse, endured his piercing +glance. At last he waved his hand in welcome and rode towards her +companions, who had dismounted, and who either prostrated themselves +in the dust before the King, or stood bowing low, in accordance with +Persian custom, hiding their hands in the sleeves of their garments.</p> + +<p>Now he himself sprang from his horse. At the same time all his +followers swung themselves out of the saddle. The carpet-bearers in +his train spread, quick as thought, a heavy purple carpet on the road, +so that the King's foot should not touch the dust. A few seconds +later, Cambyses greeted his friends and relations with a kiss.</p> + +<p>Then he shook Croesus's hand, and ordered him to mount +again and accompany him to Nitetis as interpreter.</p> + +<p>The highest dignitaries hastened up and helped the King to +mount. He gave the signal, and the whole procession moved on. +Croesus rode beside Cambyses by the golden carriage.</p> + +<p>"She is beautiful, and pleasing to my heart," cried the Persian +to his Lydian friend. "Now translate to me faithfully what +she says in answer to my questions, for I understand only Persian, +Babylonian, and Median."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="MARRIAGE_MARKET" id="MARRIAGE_MARKET"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET.</i></span> +<p class="center">Photogravure from a Painting by Edwin Long, R.A.</p> +<p>"Once a year in each village the maidens of age to marry were +collected all together into one place, while the men stood round them +in a circle. Then a herald called up the damsels one by one and +offered them for sale. He began with the most beautiful; when she was +sold for no small sum, he offered for sale the one who came next to +her in beauty. All of them were sold to be wives. The richest of the +Babylonians who wished to wed, bid against each other for the +loveliest maidens, while the humbler wife-seekers who were indifferent +about beauty took the more homely damsels with a marriage portion.... +The marriage portions were furnished by the money paid for the +beautiful damsels, and thus the fairer maidens portioned out the +uglier.</p> + +<p>No one was allowed to give his daughter in marriage to the man of his +choice, nor might any one carry away the damsel whom he had purchased +without finding bail really and truly to make her his wife. If, +however, it turned out that they did not agree, the money might be +paid back."—<i>Herodotus</i>, Book I. Sec. 196.</p> +<img src="images/market.png" width="640" height="418" alt="BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET." title="BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET." /> +</div> + +<p>Nitetis had understood his words. Inexpressible joy filled +her heart, and before Croesus could answer the King she said in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5099" id="Page_5099">[Pg 5099]</a></span> +a low tone, in broken Persian, "How shall I thank the gods, +who let me find favor in your eyes? I am not ignorant of the +language of my lord, for this noble old man has instructed me +in the Persian language during our long journey. Pardon me if +I can answer in broken words only. My time for instruction +was short, and my understanding is only that of a poor ignorant +maiden."</p> + +<p>The usually stern King smiled. His vanity was flattered by +Nitetis's eagerness to gain his approbation, and this diligence in +a woman seemed as strange as it was praiseworthy to the Persian, +who was used to see women grow up in ignorance and idleness, +thinking of nothing but dress and intrigue.</p> + +<p>He therefore answered with evident satisfaction, "I am glad +that I can speak to you without an interpreter. Continue to try +to learn the beautiful language of my fathers. My companion +Croesus shall remain your teacher in the future."</p> + +<p>"Your command fills me with joy," said the old man, "for I +could not desire a more grateful or more eager pupil than the +daughter of Amasis."</p> + +<p>"She confirms the ancient fame of Egyptian wisdom," returned +the King; "and I think that she will soon understand and +accept with all her soul the teachings of the magi, who will +instruct her in our religion."</p> + +<p>Nitetis looked down. The dreaded moment was approaching. +She was henceforth to serve strange gods in place of the Egyptian +deities.</p> + +<p>Cambyses did not observe her emotion, and continued:—"My +mother Cassandane shall initiate you in your duties as my wife. +I will conduct you to her myself to-morrow. I repeat what you +accidentally overheard: you please me. Look to it that you +keep my favor. We will try to make you like our country; and +because I am your friend I advise you to treat Boges, whom I +sent to meet you, graciously, for you will have to obey him in +many things, as he is the superintendent of the harem."</p> + +<p>"He may be the head of the women's house," returned Nitetis. "But it +seems to me that no mortal but you has a right to command your wife. +Give but a sign and I will obey, but consider that I am a princess, +and come from a land where weak woman shares the rights of strong men; +that the same pride fills my breast which shines in your eyes, my beloved! +I will gladly obey you the great man, my husband and ruler; but it is as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5100" id="Page_5100">[Pg 5100]</a></span> +impossible for me to sue for the favor of the unmanliest +of men, a bought servant, as it is for me to obey his commands."</p> + +<p>Cambyses's astonishment and satisfaction increased. He had +never heard any woman save his mother speak like this, and the +subtle way in which Nitetis unconsciously recognized and exalted +his power over her whole existence satisfied his self-complacency. +The proud man liked her pride. He nodded approvingly and +said, "You are right. I will have a special house prepared for +you. I alone will command you. The pleasant house in the hanging +gardens shall be prepared for you to-day."</p> + +<p>"I thank you a thousand times!" cried Nitetis. "If you but +knew how you delight me by your gift! Your brother Bartja +told me much of the hanging gardens, and none of the splendors +of your great realm pleased us as much as the love of the king +who built the green mountain."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow you will be able to enter your new dwelling. +Tell me how you and the Egyptians liked my envoys?"</p> + +<p>"How can you ask! Who could become acquainted with noble Croesus +without loving him? Who could help admiring the excellent qualities of +the young heroes, your friends? They have become dear to our house, +especially your beautiful brother Bartja, who won all hearts. The +Egyptians are averse to strangers, but whenever Bartja appeared among +them a murmur of admiration arose from the gaping throng."</p> + +<p>At these words the King's face grew dark. He gave his horse a heavy +blow, so that it reared, turned its head, galloped in front of his +retinue, and in a few minutes reached the walls of Babylon....</p> + +<p>The walls seemed perfectly impregnable, for they were two +hundred cubits high, and their breadth was so great that two +carriages could easily pass each other. Two hundred and fifty +high towers surmounted and fortified this huge rampart. A +greater number of these citadels would have been necessary if +Babylon had not been protected on one side by impenetrable +marshes. The enormous city lay on both sides of the Euphrates. +It was more than nine miles in circumference, and the walls +protected buildings which surpassed even the pyramids and the +temples of Thebes and Memphis in size....</p> + +<p>Nitetis looked with astonishment at this huge gate; with joyful +emotion she gazed at the long wide street, which was festively +decked in her honor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5101" id="Page_5101">[Pg 5101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="JOSE_ECHEGARAY" id="JOSE_ECHEGARAY"></a>JOSÉ ECHEGARAY</h2> + +<h4>(1832-)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">he period of political disorder and disturbance which followed the +revolution of 1868 in Spain was also a period of disorder and decline +for the Spanish stage. The drama—throwing off the fetters of French +classicism that paralyzed inspiration at the beginning of the +century—had revived for a time. But after its rejuvenescence of the +glories of the Golden Age of Spanish literature, uniting a new beauty +of form with truth to nature in the Classic-Romantic School, it sank +into a debasement hitherto unknown. Meretricious sentiment, dullness, +or buffoonery, chiefly of foreign production, occupied the scene +before adorned by the imagination, the wisdom, and the wit, of a +Zorilla, a Tamayo, a Ventura de la Vega.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 235px;"> +<img src="images/echegary.png" width="235" height="305" alt="Echegaray" title="Echegaray" /> +<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">José Echegaray</span></span> +</div> + +<p>It was at this period of dramatic decadence +that Echegaray appeared to revive +once more the romantic traditions of the +Spanish stage, peopling it again with noble +and heroic figures,—in whom, however, the +chivalric spirit of the Middle Ages is at +times strangely joined to the casuistic modern +conscience. The explanation of this is +perhaps to be found in part in the mental +constitution of the dramatist, in whom the +analytic and the imaginative faculties are united in marked degree, +and who had acquired a distinguished reputation as a civil engineer +long before he entered the lists as an aspirant for dramatic honors. +Born in Madrid in 1832, his earlier years were passed in Murcia, where +he took his degree of bachelor of arts, applying himself afterward +with notable success to the study of the exact sciences. Returning +to Madrid, after enlarging his knowledge of his profession of civil +engineer by practical study in various provinces of Spain, he was +appointed a professor in the School of Engineers, where he taught +theoretical and applied mathematics, finding time however for the +production of important scientific works, and for the study of political +economy and general literature. On the breaking out of the +revolution of 1868 he joined actively in the movement, taking office +under the new government as Director of Public Works, and holding +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5102" id="Page_5102">[Pg 5102]</a></span>a ministerial portfolio. He took office a second time in 1872, and +later filled the post of Minister of Finance, which he resigned on the +proclamation of the Republic. Retiring from public life, he went to +Paris; and while there wrote, being then a little past forty, his first +dramatic work, 'The Check-Book,' a domestic drama in one act, +which was represented anonymously in Madrid two years later, when +the author for the third time held a ministerial portfolio.</p> + +<p>'The Check-Book' was followed in rapid succession by a series of +productions whose titles, 'La Esposa del Vengador' (The Avenger's +Bride), 'La Ultima Noche' (The Last Night), 'En el Puño de la +Espada' (In the Hilt of the Sword), 'Como Empieza y Como Acaba' +(How it Begins and How it Ends), sufficiently indicate their character. +They are of unequal merit, but all show dramatic power of +a high order. But on the representation in 1877 of 'Locura o +Santidad?' (Madman or Saint?), the fame of the statesman and the +scientist was completely and finally eclipsed by that of the dramatist, +in whom the press and public of Madrid unanimously recognized +a new and vital force in the Spanish drama. In this tragedy the +keynote of Echegaray's philosophy is clearly struck. Moral perfection, +unfaltering obedience to the right, is the end and aim of man; +and the catastrophe is brought about by the inability of the hero to +make those nearest to him accept this ideal of life. "Then virtue is +but a lie," he cries, when the conviction of his moral isolation is +forced upon him; "and you, all of you whom I have most loved in +this world, perceiving what I regarded as divinity in you, are only +miserable egoists, incapable of sacrifice, a prey to greed and the +mere playthings of passion! Then you are all of you but clay; you +resolve yourselves to dust and let the wind of the tempest carry you +off! ... Beings shaped without conscience or free-will are simply +atoms that meet to-day and separate to-morrow. Such is matter—then +let it go!"</p> + +<p>But the punishment of sin, in Echegaray's moral code, is visited +upon the innocent equally with the guilty; and the guilty are never +allowed to escape the retributive consequences of their wrong-doing. +The pessimistic coloring of the picture would be at times unendurably +oppressive, were it not relieved and lightened by the moral +dignity of the hero. Echegaray's pessimism is, so to say, altruistic, +never egoistic; and the compensating sense of righteousness vindicated +rarely fails to explain, if not to justify, his darkest scenes.</p> + +<p>Judged by the canons of art, Echegaray's dramatic productions +will be found to have many imperfections. But their defects are the +defects of genius, not of mediocrity, and spring generally from an +excess of imagination, not from poverty of invention or faulty insight. +The plot is often overweighted with an accumulation of incidents, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5103" id="Page_5103">[Pg 5103]</a></span>and the means employed to bring about the desired end are often +lacking in verisimilitude. Synthetic rather than analytic in his +methods, and a master in producing contrasts, Echegaray captivates +the imagination by arts which the cooler judgment not seldom condemns. +His characters too are not always inhabitants of the real +world, and not infrequently act contrary to the laws which govern it. +The secondary characters are too often carelessly drawn, sometimes +being mere shadowy outlines, while an altogether disproportionate +part of the development of the plot is intrusted to them.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, in the world of the passions Echegaray treads +with secure step. Its labyrinthine windings, its depths and its heights, +are all familiar to him. Here every accent uttered is the accent of +truth; every act is prompted by unerring instinct. Nothing is false; +nothing is trivial; nothing is strained. The elemental forces of nature +seem to be at work, and the catastrophe results as inevitably from +their action as if decreed by fate.</p> + +<p>The genius of Echegaray, which in its irregular grandeur and its +ethical tendency has been not inaptly likened by a Spanish critic to +that of Victor Hugo, rarely descends from the tragic heights on +which it achieved its first and its greatest triumphs; but that its +range has been limited by choice, not nature, is abundantly proved in +the best of his lighter productions, 'Un Critico Incipiente' (An Embryo +Critic). Of his achievement in tragedy the culminating point was +reached—after a second series of noteworthy productions, among +them 'Lo Que no Puede Decirse' (What Cannot be Told), 'Mar Sin +Orillas' (A Shoreless Sea), and 'En el Seno de la Muerte' (In the +Bosom of Death)—in 'El Gran Galeoto' (The Great Galeoto), represented +in 1881 before an audience which hailed its author as a +"prodigy of genius," a second Shakespeare. Other notable works +followed,—'Conflicto entre Dos Deberes' (Conflict between Two +Duties), 'Vida Alegre y Muerte Triste' (A Merry Life and a Sad +Death), 'Lo Sublime en lo Vulgar' (The Sublime in the Commonplace); +but 'El Gran Galeoto' has remained thus far its author's +supreme dramatic achievement. In its title is personified the evil +speaking which not always with evil intent, sometimes even with +the best motives, slays, with a venom surer than that of the adder's +tongue, the reputation which it attacks; turning innocence itself by +its contaminating power into guilt.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5104" id="Page_5104">[Pg 5104]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="FROM_MADMAN_OR_SAINT" id="FROM_MADMAN_OR_SAINT"></a><span class="smcap">FROM 'MADMAN OR SAINT?'</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Don Lorenzo, a man of wealth and position living in Madrid, has +discovered that he is the son, not as he and all the world had +supposed, of the lady whose wealth and name he has inherited, but of +his nurse Juana, who dies after she has revealed to him the secret of +his birth. In consequence he resolves publicly to renounce his name +and his possessions, although by doing so he will prevent the marriage +of his daughter Inez to Edward, the son of the Duchess of Almonte. The +mother will consent to Don Lorenzo's renunciation of his possessions +but not of his name, as this would throw a stigma on Inez's origin. He +refuses to listen either to the reasoning or to the entreaties of his +wife, the duchess, Edward, and Dr. Tomás. Finally they are persuaded +that he is mad, and Dr. Tomás calls in a specialist to examine him. +The specialist, with two keepers, arrives at the house at the same +time with the notary, whom Don Lorenzo has sent for to make before him +a formal act of renunciation of his name and possessions.]</p></div> + +<p class="center">Don Lorenzo <i>enters and stands listening to</i> Inez</p> + +<p><i>Don Lorenzo</i> [<i>aside</i>]—"Die," she said!</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i>—You to die! No, Inez, not that; do not say +that.</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—And why not? If I do not die of grief—if happiness +could ever visit me again—I should die of remorse.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>aside</i>]—"Of remorse!" She! "If happiness could +ever visit her again!" What new fatality floats in the air and +hangs threateningly above my head? Remorse! I have surprised +another word in passing! I traverse rooms and halls, and I go +from one place to another, urged by intolerable anguish, and I +hear words that I do not understand, and I meet glances that I +do not understand, and tears greet me here and smiles there, and +no one opposes me, and every one avoids me or watches me. +[<i>Aloud.</i>] What is this? What is this?</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i> [<i>hurrying to him and throwing herself into his arms</i>]—Father!</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Inez! How pale you are! Why are your lips drawn +as if with pain? Why do you feign smiles that end in sighs!—How +lovely in her sorrow! And I am to blame for all!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—No, father.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—How cruel I am! Ah! you think it, although you +do not say it.</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i>—Inez is an angel. Rebellious thoughts can find no +place in her heart; but who that sees her can fail to think it and +to say it?</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5105" id="Page_5105">[Pg 5105]</a></span></p> +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—No one; you are right.</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i> [<i>with energy</i>]—If I am right, then you are wrong.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—I am right also. There is something more pallid +than the pallid brow of a lovesick maiden; there is something +sadder than the sad tears that fall from her beautiful eyes; something +more bitter than the smile that contracts her lips; something +more tragic than the death of her beloved.</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i> [<i>with scornful vehemence</i>]—And what is that pallor, +what are those tears, and what the tragedies you speak of?</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Insensate! [<i>Seizing him by the arm.</i>] The pallor +of crime, the tears of remorse, the consciousness of our own vileness.</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i>—And it would be vile, and criminal, and a source of +remorse, to make Inez happy?</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>despairingly</i>]—It ought not to be so—but it would! +[<i>Pause.</i>] And this it is that tortures me. This is the thought +that is driving me mad!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—No, father, do not say that! Follow the path you have +marked out for yourself, without thought of me. What does it +matter whether I live or die?</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Inez!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—But do not vacillate—and above all, let no one see +that you vacillate; let your speech be clear and convincing as it +is now; let not anger blind you. Be calm, be calm, father; I +implore it of you in the name of God.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—What do you mean by those words? I do not understand +you.</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—Do I rightly know myself what I mean? There—I +am going. I do not wish to pain you.</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i> [<i>to Lorenzo</i>]—Ah, if you would but listen to your +heart; if you would but silence the cavilings of your conscience.</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i> [<i>to Edward</i>]—Leave him in peace—come with me; do +not anger him, or you will make him hate you.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Poor girl! She too struggles, but she too will conquer! +[<i>With an outburst of pride.</i>] She will show that she is indeed +my daughter!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Inez and Edward go up the stage; passing the study door, Inez sees the +keepers and gives a start of horror.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—What sinister vision affrights my gaze!—No, father, do +not enter there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5106" id="Page_5106">[Pg 5106]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Edward</i>—Come, come, my Inez!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i> [<i>to her father</i>]—No, no, I entreat you!</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>approaching her</i>]—Inez!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—Those men there—look!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Inez stretches out her hand toward the study; Don Lorenzo stands and +follows her gaze. At this moment the keepers, hearing her cry, show +themselves between the curtains.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Edward</i> [<i>leading Inez away</i>]—At last!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Now I am more tranquil! The wound is mortal! +I feel it here in my heart! I thank thee, merciful God!</p> + +<p class="center">Dr. Tomás <i>and</i> Dr. Bermúdez <i>enter and stop to observe</i> Don Lorenzo.</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Tomás</i>—There he is—sitting in the arm-chair.</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i>—Unfortunate man!</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>rising, aside</i>]—Ah, miserable being! Still cherishing +impossible hopes. Impossible? And what if they honestly believe +that I— [<i>Despairingly</i>] Ah! If they loved me they would +not believe it. [<i>Pause.</i>] Did I not hear Inez—the child of my +heart—speak of remorse? Why should she speak of remorse? +[<i>Aloud, with increasing agitation.</i>] They are all wretches! They +would almost be glad that I should die. But no: I will not die +until I have fulfilled my duty as an honorable man; until I have +put the climax to my madness.</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Tomás</i> [<i>laying his hand on Don Lorenzo's shoulder</i>]—Lorenzo—</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>turning, recognizes him and draws back angrily</i>]—He!</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Tomás</i>—Let me present to you Dr. Bermúdez, one of +my best friends. [<i>Pause. Don Lorenzo regards both strangely.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>to Dr. Tomás, in a low voice</i>]—See the effort he +makes to control himself; he is vaguely conscious of his +condition—there is not a doubt left on my mind.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—One of your best friends—one of your best friends—</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside to Dr. Tomás</i>]—The idea is escaping +him, and he is striving to retain it.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>ironically</i>]—If he is one of your best friends, then +your loyalty is a guarantee for his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5107" id="Page_5107">[Pg 5107]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside, to Dr. Tomás</i>]—At last he has found +the word. But notice how unnatural is the tone of his voice. +[<i>Aloud.</i>] I have come to be a witness, according to what Dr. +Tomás tells me, of a very noble action.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—And of an act of base treachery also.</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Tomás</i>—Lorenzo!</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside, to Dr. Tomás</i>]—Let him go on talking.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—And of an exemplary punishment.</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside to Dr. Tomás</i>]—A serious case, my +friend, a serious case.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>to Dr. Tomás</i>]—Call everybody: those of the household and +strangers alike. Let them assemble here, and here await my orders, +while I go to fulfill my duty yonder. What are you waiting for?</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside, to Dr. Tomás</i>]—Let him have his way; +call them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Dr. Tomás rings a bell; a servant enters, to whom he speaks in a low +voice and who then goes out.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—It is the final trial; I could almost feel pity for the +traitors. Ah! I am sustained by the certainty of my triumph. +Be still, my heart. There they are—there they are. I do not +wish to see them. To treat me thus who loved them so dearly!—I +do not wish, and yet my eyes turn toward them—seeking them—seeking +them!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i>—Inez! It cannot be! She! no, no. It cannot be! +My child!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Hurries towards her with outstretched arms. Inez runs to him.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Inez</i>—Father!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Dr. Bermúdez hastens to interpose, and separates them forcibly.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i>—Come, come, Don Lorenzo; you might hurt +your daughter seriously.</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>seizing him by the arm and shaking him violently</i>]—Wretch! +Who are you to part me from my child?</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Tomás</i>—Lorenzo!</p> + +<p><i>Edward</i>—Don Lorenzo!</p> + +<p><i>Angela</i>—My God!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5108" id="Page_5108">[Pg 5108]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>The women group themselves instinctively together, Inez in her mother's +arms, the duchess beside them. Dr. Tomás and Edward hasten to +free Bermúdez from Don Lorenzo's grasp</i>.]</p></div> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>aside, controlling himself</i>]—So! The imbeciles think +it is another access of madness! Ha, ha, ha! [<i>Laughing with +suppressed laughter. All watch him.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Dr. Bermúdez</i> [<i>aside to Dr. Tomás</i>]—It is quite clear.</p> + +<p><i>Angela</i> [<i>aside</i>]—Oh, my poor Lorenzo!</p> + +<p><i>Inez</i> [<i>aside</i>]—My poor father!</p> + +<p><i>Lorenzo</i> [<i>aside</i>]—Now you shall see how my madness will end. Before +I leave this house, with what pleasure will I turn that doctor out of +it. Courage! The coming struggle inspires me with new strength. What! +Is a man to be declared mad because he is resolved to do his duty? Ah, +it cannot be! Humanity is neither so blind nor so base as that. +Enough! I must be calm. Treachery has begun its work; then let the +punishment begin too. [<i>Aloud.</i>] The hour has come for me to perform a +sacred duty, though a most painful one. It would be useless to ask you +to witness formalities which the law requires, but which you would +only find irksome. The representative of the law awaits me in yonder +room; and in obedience to another and a higher law, I am going now to +renounce a fortune which is not mine, and a name which neither I nor +my family can conscientiously bear longer. After this is done I will +return here, and with my wife, and—and my daughter—and let no one +seek to dissuade me from my purpose, for it would be in vain—I will +leave this house which has been for me in the past the abode of love +and happiness, but which is to-day the abode of treachery and +baseness. Gentlemen [<i>to Dr. Tomás and Dr. Bermúdez</i>], lead the way; I +beg you to do so.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>All slowly enter the study. On the threshold Lorenzo casts a last look at +Inez.</i>]</p></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation made for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Mary J. +Serrano</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5109" id="Page_5109">[Pg 5109]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="FROM_THE_GREAT_GALEOTO" id="FROM_THE_GREAT_GALEOTO"></a>FROM 'THE GREAT GALEOTO'</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[In the scenes which are here cited the poison of slander begins to +work. Don Severo, uttering the anonymous gossip of the world, has +implanted in the mind of his middle-aged brother Don Julian the first +suspicion of the honor of his young wife Teodora and the loyalty of +his adopted son Ernest. Teodora, who has been warned by Mercedes, Don +Severo's wife, overhears the accusing words of her brother-in-law, who +is talking with her husband in an inner apartment; and horror-struck, +is about to fly from the room.]</p></div> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>inside</i>]—Let me go!</p> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i> [<i>inside</i>]—No, for Heaven's sake!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—It is they. I will go!</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i> [<i>to Ernest</i>]—Go! go!</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i> [<i>to Ernest</i>]—You shall give me satisfaction for this!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—I will not refuse it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Enter</i> Julian, <i>pale and disordered; wounded and seemingly in a dying +condition, supported by</i> Mercedes. Don Severo <i>stations himself at the +right</i>, Teodora <i>and</i> Ernest <i>remain in the background</i>.</p></div> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Together! Where are they going?—Stop them! +They shun my presence! Traitors!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>He makes a movement as if to rush toward them, but his strength fails +him and he totters</i>.]</p></div> + +<p><i>Severo</i> [<i>hurrying to his assistance</i>]—No, no.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—They deceived me—they lied to me! Wretches! [<i>While he is +speaking, Mercedes and Severo lead him to the arm-chair on the +right.</i>] There—look at them—she and Ernest! Why are they together?</p> + +<p><i>Teodora and Ernest</i> [<i>separating</i>]—No!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Why do they not come to me? Teodora!</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i> [<i>stretching out her arms, but without advancing</i>]—My +Julian!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Here, on my heart! [<i>Teodora runs to Julian and throws +herself into his arms. He presses her convulsively to his breast. +Pause.</i>] You see!—You see! [<i>To his brother.</i>] I know that she +deceives me! I press her in my arms—I might kill her if I would—and +she would deserve it—but I look at her—<i>I look at her</i>—and I +cannot!</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—Julian!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—And he? [<i>Pointing to Ernest.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—Sir!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5110" id="Page_5110">[Pg 5110]</a></span>—</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—And I loved him! Be silent and come hither. [<i>Ernest +advances.</i>] You see she is still mine. [<i>Presses her closer.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—Yours—yours!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Do not act a part! Do not lie to me!</p> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i>—For God's sake! [<i>Trying to calm him.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Julian!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>to both</i>]—Peace. Be silent. [<i>To Teodora.</i>] I divined your +secret. I know that you love him. [<i>Teodora and Ernest try to protest, +but he will not let them.</i>] Madrid knows it too—all Madrid!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—No, father.</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—No.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—They would still deny it! When it is patent to all! When I +feel it in every fibre of my being, for the fever that consumes me has +illuminated my mind with its flame!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—All these fancied wrongs are the offspring of a fevered +imagination, of delirium! Hear me, sir—</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—You will lie to me again!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—She is innocent! [<i>Pointing to Teodora.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—I do not believe you.</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—By my father's memory I swear it!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—You profane his name and his memory by the oath.</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—By my mother's last kiss—</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—It is no longer on your brow.</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—By all you hold most sacred, father, I swear it, I swear it!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Let there be no oaths, no deceitful words, no protests.</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—Well, then, what do you wish?</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—What do you wish?</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Deeds!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—What does he desire, Teodora? What would he have us do?</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—I do not know. What can we do, what can we do, Ernest?</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>watching them with instinctive distrust</i>]—Ah, would you +deceive me to my very face? You are laying your plans together, +wretches! Do I not see it?</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—These are the imaginings of fever.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Fever, yes! The fire of fever has consumed the bandage with +which you both blindfolded me, and at last I see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5111" id="Page_5111">[Pg 5111]</a></span> clearly! And now why +do you gaze on each other? why, traitors? Why do your eyes shine, +Ernest? Speak. Their brightness is not the brightness of tears. Come +nearer—nearer still.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Draws Ernest to him, bends his head, and so forces him to his knees. +Don Julian thus remains between Teodora, who stands at his side, +and Ernest, who kneels at his feet. Don Julian passes his hand +over Ernest's eyes.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—I was right—It is not with tears! They are dry!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—Pardon!—Pardon!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—You ask my pardon? Then you confess your guilt.</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—No!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Yes!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—It is not that!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Then look into each other's eyes before me.</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Julian!</p> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i>—Sir!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>to Teodora and Ernest</i>]—You are afraid, then? You +do not love each other like brother and sister, then? If you do, +prove it! Let your souls rise to your eyes and in my presence +mingle their reflection there, that so I may see, watching them +closely, if that brightness is the brightness of light or of fire. +You too, Teodora—I will have it so. Come—both; nearer still!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Forces Teodora to kneel before him, draws their faces together, and +compels them to look at each other.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Teodora</i> [<i>freeing herself by a violent effort</i>]—Oh no!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i> [<i>also tries to release himself, but Julian holds him in +his grasp</i>]—I cannot!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—You love each other! You love each other! I see it +clearly! [<i>To Ernest.</i>] Your life!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—Yes.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Your blood!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—All!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>keeping him on his knees</i>]—Remain there.</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—Julian! [<i>Restraining him.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Ah, you defend him, you defend him.</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—Not for his sake.</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—In Heaven's name—</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>to Severo</i>]—Silence! Bad friend! bad son! [<i>Holding +him at his feet.</i>]<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5112" id="Page_5112">[Pg 5112]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—Father!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Disloyal! Treacherous!</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i>—No, father.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Thus do I brand you as a traitor on the cheek—now +with my hand, soon with my sword! [<i>With a supreme effort +he raises himself and strikes Ernest on the face.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Ernest</i> [<i>rises to his feet with a terrible cry and retreats, covering +his face with his hands</i>]—Ah!</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Justice! [<i>Stretching out his hand toward Ernest.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Teodora</i>—My God! [<i>Hides her face with her hands and falls +into a chair.</i>]</p> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i> [<i>to Ernest, exculpating Julian</i>]—It was delirium!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>These four exclamations in rapid succession. A moment of stupor; Julian +still standing and regarding Ernest, Mercedes and Severo trying to +calm him.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—It was not delirium, it was chastisement, by Heaven! +What! Did you think your treachery would go unpunished, ingrate!</p> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i>—Let us go, let us go!</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Come, Julian.</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Yes, I am going.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[<i>Walks with difficulty toward his room, supported by Severo and Mercedes, +stopping from time to time to look back at Ernest and Teodora.</i>]</p></div> + +<p><i>Mercedes</i>—Quick, Severo!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Look at them, the traitors! It was justice! Was it +not justice? So I believe.</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—For God's sake, Julian! For my sake!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—You, you alone, of all the world, have loved me truly. +[<i>Embraces him</i>.]</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Yes, I alone!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i> [<i>stops near the door and looks at them again</i>]—She +weeps for him—and does not follow me. She does not even +look at me; she does not see that I am dying—yes, dying!</p> + +<p><i>Severo</i>—Julian!</p> + +<p><i>Julian</i>—Wait, wait! [<i>Pauses on the threshold.</i>] Dishonor +for dishonor!—Farewell, Ernest! [<i>Exeunt Julian, Severo, and +Mercedes.</i>]</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation made for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' +by Mary J. Serrano</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5113" id="Page_5113">[Pg 5113]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_EDDAS" id="THE_EDDAS"></a>THE EDDAS</h2> + +<h4>(ICELANDIC; NINTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES)</h4> + +<h4>BY WILLIAM H. CARPENTER</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">he fanciful but still commonly believed meaning of the word "Edda," +which even many of the dictionaries explain as "great-grandmother," +does not, after all, inaptly describe by suggestion the general +character of the work to which it is given. The picture of an ancient +dame at the fireside, telling tales and legendary lore of times whose +memory has all but disappeared, is a by no means inappropriate +personification, even if it has no other foundation. In point of fact, +'Edda' as the title of a literary work has nothing whatsoever to do +with a great-grandmother, but means "the art of poetry," "poetics"; +and only by an extension of its original use does it belong to all +that is now included under it.</p> + +<p>There are in reality two 'Eddas,' which are in a certain sense +connected in subject-material, but yet in more ways than one are +wholly distinct. As originally applied, the name now used collectively +unquestionably belonged to the one, variously called, to distinguish +it from the other, the 'Younger Edda,' on account of the relative age +of its origin; the 'Prose Edda,' since in its greater part it is +written in prose; and the 'Snorra Edda,' the Edda of Snorri, from the +author of the work in its original form. In contradistinction to this, +the other is called the 'Elder Edda,' the 'Poetical Edda,' and from +the name of its once assumed author, the 'Sæmundar Edda,' the Edda of +Sæmund.</p> + +<p>Legitimately and by priority of usage, the name 'Edda' belongs to the +first-named work alone. In the form in which it has ultimately come +down to us, this is the compilation of many hands at widely different +times; but in its most important and fundamental parts it was +undoubtedly either written by the Icelander Snorri himself, or under +his immediate supervision.</p> + +<p>Snorri Sturluson, its author, both from the part he played in national +politics in his day and from his literary legacy to the present, is +altogether the most remarkable man in the history of Iceland. He was +born in 1179, his father, Sturla Thordarson, being one of the most +powerful chieftains of the island. As was the custom of the time, he +was sent from home to be fostered, remaining away until his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5114" id="Page_5114">[Pg 5114]</a></span> +foster-father's death, or until he was nineteen years old; his own +father in the meantime having died as well. He entered upon active +life with but little more than his own ambition to further him; but +through his brother's influence he made the following year a brilliant +marriage, and thus laid the foundation of his power, which thereafter +steadily grew. In 1215 Snorri was elected "Speaker of the Law" for the +Commonwealth. At the expiration of his term of service in the summer +of 1218 he went to Norway, where he was received with extraordinary +hospitality both by King Hakon, who made him his liegeman, and by the +King's father-in-law, Earl Skuli. On the authority of some of the +sagas, he is said to have promised the latter at this time to use his +influence to bring Iceland under the dominion of Norway. Two years +later he returned to Iceland, taking back with him as a present from +the King a ship and many other valuable gifts. In 1222 he was again +made "Speaker of the Law," which post he now held continuously for +nine years.</p> + +<p>Iceland, as the Commonwealth neared its end, was torn apart by the +jealous feuds of the chieftains. A long series of complications had +aroused a bitter hostility to Snorri among his own relatives. In 1229, +he found it necessary to ride to the Althing at the head of eight +hundred men. The matter did not then come to an open rupture, but in +1239 it finally resulted in a regular battle, in which Snorri's +faction was worsted. To avoid consequences he immediately after fled +to Norway. Unwisely, he here gave his adherence to Earl Skuli, now at +odds with the King, and thereby incurred the active displeasure of the +latter; who, evidently fearing the use of Snorri's power against him, +forbade him by letter to return to Iceland. The command was +disregarded, however, and he presently was back again in his native +land. In 1240 Skuli was slain, and shortly afterward King Hakon seems +to have resolved upon Snorri's death. Using Arni, a son-in-law of the +Icelander, as a willing messenger, he sent a letter to Gissur, another +son-in-law, between whom and his father-in-law an active feud was on +foot, demanding that he send the latter a prisoner to Norway, or if +that were impossible, to kill him. Gissur accordingly, with seventy +men at his back, came to Snorri's farmstead Reykjaholt on the night of +the 22d of September, 1241, when the old chieftain was mercilessly +slain in the cellar, where he had taken refuge, by an unknown member +of the band.</p> + +<p>In spite of his political life, Snorri found opportunity for abundant +literary work. The 'Icelandic Annals' say that he "compiled the 'Edda' +and many other books of historical learning, and Icelandic sagas." Of +these, however, only two have come down to us: his 'Edda' and the +sagas of the Norse kings, known since the seventeenth century as the +'Heimskringla,' the best piece of independent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5115" id="Page_5115">[Pg 5115]</a></span>prose literature, and +in its bearing the most important series of sagas, of all the number +that are left to attest the phenomenal literary activity of the +Icelanders.</p> + +<p>Snorri's 'Edda'—both as he, the foremost poet of his day, originally +conceived it, and with its subsequent additions—is a handbook for +poets, an <i>Ars poetica</i>, as its name itself signifies. That it served +its purpose as a recognized authority is discoverable from the +references to it in later Icelandic poets, where "rules of Edda," +"laws of Edda," "Eddic art," and "Edda" are of frequent occurrence, as +indicating an ideal of poetical expression striven for by some and +deprecated by others. As Snorri wrote it, the 'Edda' was an admirably +arranged work in three parts: the 'Gylfaginning,' a compendium of the +old mythology, the knowledge of which in Snorri's day was fast dying +out; the 'Skáldskaparmál,' a dictionary of poetical expressions, many +of which, contained in ancient poems, were no longer intelligible; and +the 'Háttatal,' a poem or rather series of poems, exemplifying in its +own construction the use and kinds of metre. As it has come down to +us, it has been greatly added to and altered. A long preface filled +with the learning of the Middle Ages now introduces the whole; the +introductions and conclusions of the parts of the work have been +extended; several old poems have been included; a Skáldatal, or list +of skalds, has been added, as have also several grammatical and +rhetorical tracts,—some of which are of real historical value.</p> + +<p>With regard to matter and manner, the parts of Snorri's 'Edda' are as +follows:—The 'Gylfaginning' (the Delusion of Gylfi) is a series of +tales told in answer to the questions of Gylfi, a legendary Swedish +king, who comes in disguise to the gods in Asgard to learn the secret +of their power. By way of illustration it quotes, among other poetical +citations, verses from several of the lays of the 'Elder Edda.' The +'Skáldskaparmál' (Poetical Diction) is also in great part in the form +of questions and answers. It contains under separate heads the +periphrases, appellatives, and synonyms used in ancient verse, which +are often explained by long tales; and like the preceding part, it +also is illustrated by numerous poetical quotations here, particularly +from the skalds. The 'Háttatal' (Metres), finally, consists of three +poems: the first an encomium on the Norwegian king Hakon, and the +others on Earl Skuli. It exemplifies in not fewer than one hundred and +two strophes the use of as many kinds of metre, many of them being +accompanied by a prose commentary of greater or less length.</p> + +<p>That Snorri really wrote the work as here described seems to be +undoubted, although there is no trace of it as a whole until after his +death. At what period of his career it arose, can however merely be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5116" id="Page_5116">[Pg 5116]</a></span> +conjectured. We only know with certainty the date of the 'Háttatal'; +that may not unlikely have been the nucleus of the whole, which falls +undoubtedly between 1221 and 1223, shortly after the return from the +first visit to Norway. The oldest manuscript of the 'Snorra +Edda,'—now in the University Library at Upsala, Sweden,—which was +written before 1300, assigns the work to him by name; and the +'Icelandic Annals,' as has already been stated, under the year of his +death corroborate the statement of his authorship of "the Edda"—that +is, of course, of this particular 'Edda,' for there can be no thought +of the other.</p> + +<p>Snorri's poetical work outside of the 'Edda' is represented only by +fugitive verses. An encomium that he wrote on the wife of Earl Hakon +has been lost. As a poet, Snorri undoubtedly stands upon a lower plane +than that which he occupies as a historian. He wrote at a time when +poetry was in its decline in Iceland; and neither in the 'Háttatal' +nor in his other verse, except in form and phraseology, of which he +had a wonderful control, does he rise to the level of a host of +earlier skalds. It is his critical knowledge of the old poetry of +Norway and Iceland that makes his 'Edda' of such unique value, and +particularly as no small part of the material accessible to him has +since been irrevocably lost. Snorri's 'Edda,' in its very conception, +is a wonderful book to have arisen at the time in which it was +written, and in no other part of the Germanic North in the thirteenth +century had such a thing been possible. It is not only, however, as a +commentary on old Norse poetry that it is remarkable. Its importance +as a compendium of the ancient Northern mythology is as great,—one +whose loss nothing could supplant. As a whole, it is of incalculable +value to the entire Germanic race for the light that it sheds upon its +early intellectual life, its ethics, and its religion.</p> + +<p>The history of the 'Elder Edda' does not go back of the middle of the +seventeenth century. In 1643 the Icelandic bishop Brynjolf Sveinsson +sent as a present to Frederick III. of Denmark several old Icelandic +vellums, among which was the manuscript, dating, according to the most +general assignment, from not earlier than 1350; since called the +'Codex Regius' of the 'Edda.' Not a word is known about its previous +history. As to when it came into the hands of the bishop, or where it +was discovered, he has given us no clew whatsoever. He had +nevertheless not only a name ready for it, but a distinct theory of +its authorship, for he wrote on the back of a copy that he had made, +"Edda Sæmundi Multiscii" (the Edda of Sæmund the Wise).</p> + +<p>Both Bishop Brynjolf's title for the work and his assumption as to the +name of its author—for both are apparently his—are open to +criticism. The name 'Edda' belongs, as we have seen, to Snorri's +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5117" id="Page_5117">[Pg 5117]</a></span> +book; to which it was given, if not by himself, certainly by one of +his immediate followers. It is not difficult, however, to explain its +new application. Snorri's 'Edda' cites, as has been mentioned, a +number of single strophes of ancient poems, many of which were now +found to be contained in Brynjolf's collection in a more or less +complete form. This latter was, accordingly, not unnaturally looked +upon as the source of the material of Snorri's work; and since its +subject-matter too was the old poetry, it was consequently an earlier +'Edda.' Subsequently the title was extended to include a number of +poems in the same manner found elsewhere; and 'Edda' has since been +irretrievably the title both of the old Norse lays and of the old +Norse <i>Ars poetica</i>, to which it more appropriately belongs.</p> + +<p>The attribution of the work to Sæmund was even less justifiable. +Sæmund Sigfusson was an Icelandic priest, who lived from 1056 to 1133. +As a young man he studied in Germany, France, and Italy, but came back +to Iceland about 1076. Afterward he settled down as priest and +chieftain, as was his father before him, on the paternal estate Oddi +in the south of Iceland, where he lived until his death. Among his +contemporaries and subsequently he was celebrated for his great +learning, the memory of which has even come down to the present day in +popular legend, where like learned men elsewhere he is made an adept +in the black art, and many widely spread tales of supernatural power +have clustered locally about his name. Sæmund is the first writer +among the Icelanders of whom we have any information; and besides +poems, he is reputed to have written some of the best of the sagas and +other historical works. It is not unlikely that he did write parts of +the history of Iceland and Norway in Latin, but nothing has come down +to us that is with certainty to be attributed to him. There is however +no ancient reference whatsoever to Sæmund as a poet, and it is but a +legend that connects him in any way with the Eddie lays. Internal +criticism readily yields the fact that they are not only of widely +different date of origin, but are so unlike in manner and in matter +that it is idle to suppose a single authorship at all. Nor is it +possible that Sæmund, as Bishop Brynjolf may have supposed was the +case, even collected the lays contained in this 'Edda.' It is on the +contrary to be assumed that the collection, of which Brynjolf's +manuscript is but a copy, arose during the latter half of the twelfth +century, in the golden age of Icelandic literature; a time when +attention was most actively directed to the past, when many of the +sagas current hitherto only as oral tradition were given a permanent +form, and historical works of all sorts were written and compiled.</p> + +<p>The fact of the matter is, that here is a collection of old Norse +poems, the memory of whose real time and place of origin has +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5118" id="Page_5118">[Pg 5118]</a></span> +disappeared, and whose authorship is unknown. Earlier commentators +supposed them to be of extreme age, and carried them back to the very +childhood of the race. Modern criticism has dispelled the illusions of +any such antiquity. It has been proved, furthermore, that the oldest +of the poems does not go back of the year 850, and that the youngest +may have been written as late as 1200. As to their place of origin, +although all have come to us from Iceland, by far the greater number +of them apparently originated in Norway; several arose in the Norse +colonies in Greenland; and although the whole collection was made in +Iceland, where alone many of them had been remembered, but two are +undoubtedly of distinct Icelandic parentage. With regard to their +authorship, results are less direct. Folk-songs they are not in the +proper sense of the word, in that in their present shape they are the +work of individual poets, who made over in versified form material +already existing in oral tradition. Only a small part of the ancient +poetry that arose in this way has been preserved. From prose +interpolations which supply breaks in the continuity of the lays in +the 'Elder Edda' itself, as well as from isolated strophes of old +poems, else unknown, quoted in Snorri's 'Edda,' and from the citation +and use of such poetical material in sagas and histories,—we know for +a certainty that many other lays in the ancient manner once existed +that have now been for all time lost.</p> + +<p>Brynjolf's manuscript contains, whole or in part, as they are now +considered to exist, thirty-two poems. From other sources six poems +have since been added, presumably as ancient as the lays of the 'Codex +Regius,' so that the 'Elder Edda' is made up of thirty-eight poems, +not all of which, however, are even reasonably complete. In form they +are in alliterative verse, but three different metres being +represented, all the simplest and least artificial of the many kinds +used by the Norsemen. In content the lays fall under three heads: they +are mythic, in that they contain the myths of the old heathen religion +of the Norsemen; ethic, in that they embody their views of life and +rules of living; or they are heroic, in that they recount the deeds of +legendary heroes of the race.</p> + +<p>The mythic poems of the 'Edda,' taken together, give us a tolerably +complete picture of the Northern mythology in the Viking Age; although +some of them were not written until after the introduction of +Christianity, and are therefore open to the imputation of having been +to a greater or less extent affected by its teachings. The oldest +poems of the collection are mythical in character. In some of them a +particular god is the principal figure. Several of them, like the +'Vafthrúdnismál,' the 'Grimnismál,' 'Baldrs Draumar,' and the +'Hárbardsljód,' in this way are particularly devoted to Odin, whose +supremacy they show over all other beings, and whose part they +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5119" id="Page_5119">[Pg 5119]</a></span> +describe in the government of the universe; in others, like the +'Hymiskvida,' the 'Thrymskvida,' and the 'Alvismál,' Thor occupies the +prominent part in his strife with the giants; single ones have other +gods as their principal actors, like Skirnir, the messenger of Frey, +in the 'Skirnismál,' Loki, the god of destruction, in the 'Lokasenna,' +or Heimdall, the guardian of the rainbow bridge which stretched from +heaven to earth, in the 'Rígsthúla.' A few of them are both mythic and +heroic at the same time, like the 'Lay of Völund,' which tells of the +fearful revenge of the mythical smith upon the Swedish king; or the +'Song of Grotti,' the magical mill, which ground what was wished, +first peace and gold for its owner, King Frodi of Denmark, but later +so much salt on the ship of Mysing, who had conquered the king and +taken it away, that all together sunk into the sea, which henceforth +was salt. By far the greater of the mythic lays is the long but +fragmentary poem 'Völuspá,' the 'Prophecy of the Sibyl,' which is +entitled to stand not only at the head of the Eddic songs but of all +old Germanic poetry, for the beauty and dignity of its style, its +admirable choice of language, and the whole inherent worth of its +material. Its purpose is to give a complete picture, although only in +its most essential features, of the whole heathen religion. It +contains in this way the entire history of the universe: the creation +of the world out of chaos; the origin of the giants, the dwarfs, of +gods, and of men; and ends with their destruction and ultimate +renewal. The Sibyl is represented at the beginning in an assemblage of +the whole human race, whom she bids be silent in order that she may be +heard. Many of the strophes, even in translation, retain much of their +inherent dignity and poetic picturesqueness:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There was in times of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">where Ymir dwelt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor land nor sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor gelid waves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">earth existed not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor heaven above;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">there was a chaotic chasm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and verdure nowhere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Before Bur's sons<br /></span> +<span class="i0">raised up heaven's vault,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">they who the noble<br /></span> +<span class="i0">mid-earth shaped,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the sun shone from the south<br /></span> +<span class="i0">on the structure's rocks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">then was the earth begrown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">with green herbage.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5120" id="Page_5120">[Pg 5120]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The sun from the south,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the moon's companion,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">her right hand cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">round the heavenly horses:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the sun knew not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">where she had a dwelling:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the moon knew not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">what power he possessed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the stars knew not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">where they had station."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The gods thereupon gave the heavenly bodies names, and ordained +the times and seasons. This was the golden age of the young world, +before guilt and sin had come into it; a time of joy and beneficent +activity. A deed of violence proclaimed its approaching end, and +out of the slain giants' blood and bones the dwarfs were created. +The gods then made the first man and woman, for whom the Norns +established laws and allotted life and destiny. The use of gold was +introduced, and with it its attendant evils; the Valkyries come, and +the first warfare occurs in the world; the gods' stronghold is broken, +and Odin hurls his spear among the people. In rapid succession +follow the pictures of the awful ills that happen to gods and men, +which finally end in Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, and the +conflagration of the universe. This however is not the end. The +Sibyl describes the reappearance of the green earth from the ocean. +The gods again come back, and a new golden age begins of peace +and happiness which shall endure forever.</p> + +<p>Scarcely inferior to the 'Völuspá' for the importance of its +material is the ethical poem or rather collection of poems called +the 'Hávamál,' the 'Speech of the High One,'—that is, of Odin +the supreme god. The poem consists of sententious precepts and +epigrammatic sayings, which ultimately have been set together to +form a connected, though scarcely systematic, philosophy of life. +The whole is naturally attributed to Odin, the source of all wisdom, +the father and giver of all things. A part of the poem is the oldest +of all the Eddic lays, and the whole of it was at hand early in the +tenth century. Although many of its maxims show a primitive state +of society, as a whole they are the experience of a people more +advanced in culture than we are apt to fancy the Norsemen of the +Viking Age, who could nevertheless philosophize at home as sturdily +as they fought abroad. The morality of the 'Hávamál' is not +always our morality, but many of its maxims are eternally true. Its +keynote, again and again repeated, is the perishability of all earthly +possessions, and the endurance alone of fairly won fame:—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5121" id="Page_5121">[Pg 5121]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Cattle die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">kindred die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">we ourselves also die;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">but the fair fame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">never dies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">of him who has earned it."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The heroic poems of the 'Elder Edda' recount as if belonging to a +single legendary cycle what originally belonged to two; the one of +Northern origin, the other the common property of the whole Germanic +race. They are the Helgi poems on the one hand, and the +Völsung poems on the other. Together they tell the "Story of the +North," and come nearest to forming its greatest epic; it is the same +story which Wagner has set to music as immortal in his 'Ring +of the Nibelung,'—although the principal source of his material is +the prose 'Völsunga Saga' and not the 'Edda,'—and which in a form +much later than the Icelandic versions is also told in the German +'Nibelungenlied.'</p> + +<p>The Helgi poems are only loosely connected with the story of +Sigurd the Völsung, and originally, but without doubt long before they +were committed to writing, had no connection with it at all. As +they now stand at the head of the heroic lays they are made to tell +the deeds of early members of the Völsung race; namely, of Helgi +Hjörvard's son, and Helgi Hundingsbane, who is said to have been +named after him. The latter the 'Edda' makes the son of Sigmund +the Völsung, and consequently an elder brother of Sigurd, the hero +of the subsequent cycle of poems. To these last they are joined by +a prose piece ending with a description of Sigurd's parentage and +birth, and his own personality, which the poems themselves do not +give at length.</p> + +<p>The remaining poems, fifteen in all, tell the old Germanic story of +Sigurd, the Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, in the most ancient form +in which it has come down to us. As contained in the 'Edda' it is a +picture of great deeds, painted in powerful strokes which gain in +force by the absence of carefully elaborated detail. In various ways +it is unfortunate that the lays composing the cycle are not more +closely consecutive; a difficulty that was felt by the earliest editors +of the manuscript, who endeavored to bring the poems and fragments +of poems then extant into some sort of connection, by the interpolation +of prose passages of various lengths wherever it was considered +necessary to the intelligibility of the story. As it is however there +is even yet, and cannot help but be, on account of the differences in +age, authorship, and place of origin of the lays, an inherent lack of +correlation. Many of the poems overlap, and parts of the action are +told several times and in varying form.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5122" id="Page_5122">[Pg 5122]</a></span></p> +<p>The Sigurd poems belong to a time prior to the introduction of +Christianity, as is incontestably proved by the genuine heathen spirit +that throughout pervades them. Their action is in the early days, +when the gods walked upon earth and mixed themselves in human +affairs. The real theme of the epic which the lays form is the +mythical golden hoard, and with it the fated ring of the Nibelung, +owned originally by the dwarf Andvari, from whom it is wrung by +the gods in their extremity. Andvari curses it to its possessors, and +it is cursed again by the gods who are forced to deliver it up to +Hreidmar as blood-money for his son, whom Loki had slain. Fafnir +and Regin, the brothers of the slain Ottur, demand of their father +their share of the blood-fine, and when this is refused, Hreidmar is +killed while asleep, and Regin is driven away by Fafnir, who then +in the guise of a dragon lies upon the golden hoard to guard it. +Egged on by Regin, Sigurd slays Fafnir, and Regin also when he +learns that he intends treachery.</p> + +<p>Sigurd gives the ring of Andvari, taken from the hoard, to the +Valkyrie Brynhild, as a pledge of betrothal; and when in the likeness +of Gunnar the Nibelung,—having by wiles forgotten his former +vows,—he rides to her through the fire, the ring is given back to +him by Brynhild, who does not recognize him. The fatal ring is now +given by Sigurd to his wife, Gudrun the Nibelung, who in a moment +of anger shows it to Brynhild and taunts her with a recital of his +history. Brynhild cannot bear to see the happiness of Gudrun, and +does not rest until Sigurd is slain; and in slaying him, Guthorm, the +youngest of the Nibelungs, is killed, struck down by the sword of +the dying Sigurd. Brynhild, who will not outlive Sigurd, perishes on +her own sword. Gudrun is subsequently, against her will, wedded to +Atli the Hun. Gunnar and Högni, her brothers, the two remaining +Nibelungs, are invited to visit Atli, when they are straightway fallen +upon, their followers are killed, and they are bound. They are asked +to give up the golden hoard, whose hiding-place was known to them +alone; but Gunnar first demands the death of his brother Högni, and +then triumphantly tells Atli that the treasure is forever hidden in the +Rhine,—where, he only knows. He is cast into a serpent pit, and +dies. Atli's sons and Gudrun's are slain by their mother, changed by +the madness of grief at the slaughter of her brothers into an avenging +Fury, and Atli himself and his men are burned in the hall. +Carried then by the sea, into which she has hurled herself, Gudrun +comes to the land of King Jonakr, who makes her his wife. Swanhild, +the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun, had been married to King +Jörmunrek, but coming under unjust suspicion, is trodden to death +by horses; and Gudrun dies of a broken heart, with a prayer to +Sigurd upon her lips. Last of all, the sons of Gudrun and Jonakr, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5123" id="Page_5123">[Pg 5123]</a></span>who, incited by their mother, had been sent out to avenge their +sister, are stoned to death; and the curse only ceases to work when +there is nothing more left for it to wreak itself upon.</p> + +<p>It is a story of great deeds, whose motives are the bitter passions of +that early time before the culture of Christianity had softened the +hearts of men. The psychological truthfulness of its characters, +however, in spite of their distance from to-day, is none the less +unmistakable; and we watch the action with bated breath, as they are +hurried on by a fate as relentless and inevitable as any that ever +pursued an Oedipus. They are not the indistinct and shadowy forms +which in many early literatures seem to grope out toward us from the +mists of the past, whose clinging heaviness the present is unable +wholly to dispel, but are human men and women who live and act; and +the principal characters, particularly, in this way become the +realities of history, instead of what they actually are, the creations +of legend and myth.</p> + +<p>Many of the poems of the 'Edda' have been several times translated +into English. Notable renderings are those by Dean Herbert, +and by William Morris in the translation of the 'Völsunga Saga,' by +Magnusson and Morris. The only metrical version of all the lays is +that of Benjamin Thorpe (London, 1866). A literal translation of the +entire extant old poetry of the North is contained in Vigfusson's +monumental work, the 'Corpus Poeticum Boreale.' The 'Snorra +Edda' has been translated by G.W. Dasent (Stockholm, 1842); by +I.A. Blackwell in 'Northern Antiquities' (London, 1847); and by R. +B. Anderson (Chicago, 1880).</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/sign065.png" width="500" height="100" alt="William H. Carpenter" title="William H. Carpenter" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FROM_THE_SNORRA_EDDA" id="FROM_THE_SNORRA_EDDA"></a>FROM THE 'SNORRA EDDA'</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Thor's Adventures on his Journey to the Land of the Giants</span></h3> + +<h4>From 'Northern Antiquities': Bohn's Library (London), 1878</h4> + + +<p>One day the god Thor set out, in his car drawn by two he-goats, and +accompanied by Loki, on a journey. Night coming on, they put up at a +peasant's cottage, when Thor killed his goats, and after flaying them +put them in the kettle. When the flesh was sodden, he sat down with, +his fellow-traveler to supper, and invited the peasant and his family +to partake of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5124" id="Page_5124">[Pg 5124]</a></span> the repast. The peasant's son was named Thjalfi, and +his daughter Röska. Thor bade them throw all the bones into the goats' +skins, which were spread out near the fireplace; but young Thjalfi +broke one of the shank-bones with his knife, to come at the marrow. +Thor having passed the night in the cottage, rose at the dawn of day; +and when he was dressed took his mallet Mjölnir, and lifting it up, +consecrated the goats' skins, which he had no sooner done than the two +goats reassumed their wonted form, only that one of them now limped in +one of its hind legs. Thor, perceiving this, said that the peasant or +one of his family had handled the shank-bone of this goat too roughly, +for he saw clearly that it was broken. It may readily be imagined how +frightened the peasant was, when he saw Thor knit his brows, and grasp +the handle of his mallet with such force that the joints of his +fingers became white from the exertion. Fearing to be struck down by +the very looks of the god, the peasant and his family made joint suit +for pardon, offering whatever they possessed as an atonement for the +offense committed. Thor, seeing their fear, desisted from his wrath +and became more placable, and finally contented himself by requiring +the peasant's children, Thjalfi and Röska, who became his +bond-servants, and have followed him ever since.</p> + +<p>Leaving his goats with the peasant, Thor proceeded eastward on the +road to Jötunheim, until he came to the shores of a vast and deep sea, +which having passed over, he penetrated into a strange country along +with his companions, Loki, Thjalfi, and Röska. They had not gone far +before they saw before them an immense forest, through which they +wandered all day. Thjalfi was of all men the swiftest of foot. He bore +Thor's wallet, but the forest was a bad place for finding anything +eatable to stow in it. When it became dark, they searched on all sides +for a place where they might pass the night, and at last came to a +very large hall, with an entrance that took up the whole breadth of +one of the ends of the building. Here they chose them a place to sleep +in; but towards midnight were alarmed by an earthquake, which shook +the whole edifice. Thor, rising up, called on his companions to seek +with him a place of safety. On the right they found an adjoining +chamber, into which they entered; but while the others, trembling with +fear, crept into the furthest corner of this retreat, Thor remained at +the doorway with his mallet in his hand, prepared to defend himself +whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5125" id="Page_5125">[Pg 5125]</a></span> might happen. A terrible groaning was heard during the +night, and at dawn of day Thor went out and observed lying near him a +man of enormous bulk, who slept and snored pretty loudly. Thor could +now account for the noise they had heard over night, and girding on +his Belt of Prowess, increased that divine strength which he now stood +in need of. The giant, awakening, rose up, and it is said that for +once in his life Thor was afraid to make use of his mallet, and +contented himself by simply asking the giant his name.</p> + +<p>"My name is Skrymir," said the other; "but I need not ask thy name, +for I know thou art the god Thor. But what hast thou done with my +glove?" And stretching out his hand Skrymir picked up his glove, which +Thor then perceived was what they had taken over night for a hall, the +chamber where they had sought refuge being the thumb. Skrymir then +asked whether they would have his fellowship, and Thor consenting, the +giant opened his wallet and began to eat his breakfast. Thor and his +companions having also taken their morning repast, though in another +place, Skrymir proposed that they should lay their provisions +together, which Thor also assented to. The giant then put all the meat +into one wallet, which he slung on his back and went before them, +taking tremendous strides, the whole day, and at dusk sought out for +them a place where they might pass the night, under a large oak-tree. +Skrymir then told them that he would lie down to sleep. "But take ye +the wallet," he added, "and prepare your supper."</p> + +<p>Skrymir soon fell asleep, and began to snore strongly, but +incredible though it may appear, it must nevertheless be told +that when Thor came to open the wallet he could not untie a +single knot, nor render a single string looser than it was before. +Seeing that his labor was in vain, Thor became wroth, and +grasping his mallet with both hands while he advanced a step +forward, launched it at the giant's head. Skrymir, awakening, +merely asked whether a leaf had not fallen on his head, and +whether they had supped and were ready to go to sleep. Thor +answered that they were just going to sleep, and so saying, went +and laid himself down under another oak-tree. But sleep came +not that night to Thor, and when he remarked that Skrymir +snored again so loud that the forest re-echoed with the noise, he +arose, and grasping his mallet launched it with such force that +it sunk into the giant's skull up to the handle. Skrymir, awakening, +cried out:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5126" id="Page_5126">[Pg 5126]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? did an acorn fall on my head? How +fares it with thee, Thor?"</p> + +<p>But Thor went away hastily, saying that he had just then +awoke, and that as it was only midnight, there was still time for +sleep. He however resolved that if he had an opportunity of +striking a third blow, it should settle all matters between them. +A little before daybreak he perceived that Skrymir was again +fast asleep, and again grasping his mallet, dashed it with such +violence that it forced its way into the giant's cheek up to the +handle. But Skrymir sat up, and stroking his cheek, said:—</p> + +<p>"Are there any birds perched on this tree? Methought when +I awoke some moss from the branches fell on my head. What! +art thou awake, Thor? Methinks it is time for us to get up and +dress ourselves; but you have not now a long way before you to +the city called Utgard. I have heard you whispering to one +another that I am not a man of small dimensions; but if you +come into Utgard you will see there many men much taller than +myself. Wherefore I advise you, when you come there, not to +make too much of yourselves, for the followers of Utgard-Loki +will not brook the boasting of such mannikins as ye are. The +best thing you could do would probably be to turn back again; +but if you persist in going on, take the road that leads eastward, +for mine now lies northward to those rocks which you may +see in the distance."</p> + +<p>Hereupon he threw his wallet over his shoulders and turned +away from them into the forest, and I could never hear that +Thor wished to meet with him a second time.</p> + +<p>Thor and his companions proceeded on their way, and towards noon +descried a city standing in the middle of a plain. It was so lofty +that they were obliged to bend their necks quite back on their +shoulders, ere they could see to the top of it. On arriving at the +walls they found the gateway closed, with a gate of bars strongly +locked and bolted. Thor, after trying in vain to open it, crept with +his companions through the bars, and thus succeeded in gaining +admission into the city. Seeing a large palace before them, with the +door wide open, they went in and found a number of men of prodigious +stature sitting on benches in the hall. Going further, they came +before the King, Utgard-Loki, whom they saluted with great respect. +Their salutations were however returned by a contemptuous look from +the King, who after regarding them for some time said with a scornful +smile:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5127" id="Page_5127">[Pg 5127]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"It is tedious to ask for tidings of a long journey, yet if I do not +mistake me, that stripling there must be Aku-Thor. Perhaps," he added, +addressing himself to Thor, "thou mayest be taller than thou appearest +to be. But what are the feats that thou and thy fellows deem +yourselves skilled in? for no one is permitted to remain here who does +not in some feat or other excel all men."</p> + +<p>"The feat I know," replied Loki, "is to eat quicker than any one else; +and in this I am ready to give a proof against any one here who may +choose to compete with me."</p> + +<p>"That will indeed be a feat," said Utgard-Loki, "if thou +performest what thou promisest; and it shall be tried forthwith."</p> + +<p>He then ordered one of his men, who was sitting at the +further end of the bench, and whose name was Logi, to come +forward and try his skill with Loki. A trough filled with flesh-meat +having been set on the hall floor, Loki placed himself at +one end and Logi at the other, and each of them began to eat +as fast as he could, until they met in the middle of the trough. +But it was soon found that Loki had only eaten the flesh, +whereas his adversary had devoured both flesh and bone, and the +trough to boot. All the company therefore adjudged that Loki +was vanquished.</p> + +<p>Utgard-Loki then asked what feat the young man who accompanied Thor +could perform. Thjalfi answered that he would run a race with any one +who might be matched against him. The King observed that skill in +running was something to boast of, but that if the youth would win the +match he must display great agility. He then arose and went with all +who were present to a plain where there was good ground for running +on, and calling a young man named Hugi, bade him run a match with +Thjalfi. In the first course, Hugi so much outstripped his competitor +that he turned back and met him, not far from the starting-place.</p> + +<p>"Thou must ply thy legs better, Thjalfi," said Utgard-Loki, +"if thou wilt win the match; though I must needs say that there +never came a man here swifter of foot than thou art."</p> + +<p>In the second course, Thjalfi was a full bow-shot from the +goal when Hugi arrived at it.</p> + +<p>"Most bravely dost thou run, Thjalfi," said Utgard-Loki, +"though thou wilt not, methinks, win the match. But the third +course must decide."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5128" id="Page_5128">[Pg 5128]</a></span></p> + +<p>They accordingly ran a third time, but Hugi had already +reached the goal before Thjalfi had got half-way. All who were +present then cried out that there had been a sufficient trial of +skill in this kind of exercise.</p> + +<p>Utgard-Loki then asked Thor in what feats he would choose +to give proofs of that dexterity for which he was so famous. +Thor replied that he would begin a drinking match with any one. +Utgard-Loki consented, and entering the palace, bade his cup-bearer +bring the large horn which his followers were obliged to +drink out of, when they had trespassed in any way against established +usage. The cup-bearer having presented it to Thor, Utgard-Loki said:—</p> + +<p>"Whoever is a good drinker will empty that horn at a single +draught, though some men make two of it; but the most puny +drinker of all can do it at three."</p> + +<p>Thor looked at the horn, which seemed of no extraordinary +size, though somewhat long; however, as he was very thirsty, he +set it to his lips, and without drawing breath, pulled as long and +as deeply as he could, that he might not be obliged to make a +second draught of it; but when he set the horn down and looked +in, he could scarcely perceive that the liquor was diminished.</p> + +<p>"'Tis well drunken," exclaimed Utgard-Loki, "though nothing +much to boast of; and I would not have believed, had it been +told me, that Asa-Thor could not take a greater draught; but +thou no doubt meanest to make amends at the second pull."</p> + +<p>Thor without answering went at it again with all his might; +but when he took the horn from his mouth it seemed to him as +if he had drunk rather less than before, although the horn could +now be carried without spilling.</p> + +<p>"How now! Thor," said Utgard-Loki: "Thou must not spare +thyself more, in performing a feat, than befits thy skill; but if +thou meanest to drain the horn at the third draught thou must +pull deeply; and I must needs say that thou wilt not be called so +mighty a man here as thou art among the Æsir, if thou showest +no greater powers in other feats than methinks will be shown in +this."</p> + +<p>Thor, full of wrath, again set the horn to his lips and exerted +himself to the utmost to empty it entirely; but on looking in, +found that the liquor was only a little lower; upon which he +resolved to make no further attempt, but gave back the horn to +the cup-bearer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5129" id="Page_5129">[Pg 5129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I now see plainly," said Utgard-Loki, "that thou art not quite +so stout as we thought thee; but wilt thou try any other feat?—though +methinks thou art not likely to bear any prize away with +thee hence."</p> + +<p>"I will try another feat," replied Thor; "and I am sure such +draughts as I have been drinking would not have been reckoned +small among the Æsir; but what new trial hast thou to propose?"</p> + +<p>"We have a very trifling game here," answered Utgard-Loki, +"in which we exercise none but children. It consists in merely +lifting my cat from the ground; nor should I have dared to +mention such a feat to Asa-Thor, if I had not already observed +that thou art by no means what we took thee for."</p> + +<p>As he finished speaking, a large gray cat sprang on the hall +floor. Thor, advancing, put his hand under the cat's belly, and +did his utmost to raise him from the floor; but the cat, bending +his back, had—notwithstanding all Thor's efforts—only one of +his feet lifted up; seeing which, Thor made no further attempt.</p> + +<p>"This trial has turned out," said Utgard-Loki, "just as I imagined +it would; the cat is large, but Thor is little in comparison +with our men."</p> + +<p>"Little as ye call me," answered Thor, "let me see who +amongst you will come hither, now I am in wrath, and wrestle +with me."</p> + +<p>"I see no one here," said Utgard-Loki, looking at the men +sitting on the benches, "who would not think it beneath him to +wrestle with thee: let somebody, however, call hither that old +crone, my nurse Elli, and let Thor wrestle with her if he will. +She has thrown to the ground many a man not less strong and +mighty than this Thor is."</p> + +<p>A toothless old woman then entered the hall, and was told by +Utgard-Loki to take hold of Thor. The tale is shortly told. +The more Thor tightened his hold on the crone the firmer she +stood. At length, after a very violent struggle, Thor began to +lose his footing, and was finally brought down upon one knee. +Utgard-Loki then told them to desist, adding that Thor had now +no occasion to ask any one else in the hall to wrestle with him, +and it was also getting late. He therefore showed Thor and his +companions to their seats, and they passed the night there in good +cheer.</p> + +<p>The next morning, at break of day, Thor and his companions +dressed themselves and prepared for their departure. Utgard-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5130" id="Page_5130">[Pg 5130]</a></span>Loki +then came and ordered a table to be set for them, on which +there was no lack of either victuals or drink. After the repast +Utgard-Loki led them to the gate of the city, and on parting +asked Thor how he thought his journey had turned out, and +whether he had met with any men stronger than himself. Thor +told him that he could not deny but that he had brought great +shame on himself. "And what grieves me most," he added, "is +that ye call me a man of little worth."</p> + +<p>"Nay," said Utgard-Loki, "it behoves me to tell thee the +truth, now thou art out of the city; which so long as I live and +have my way thou shalt never re-enter. And by my troth, had +I known beforehand that thou hadst so much strength in thee, +and wouldst have brought me so near to a great mishap, I would +not have suffered thee to enter this time. Know, then, that I +have all along deceived thee by my illusions: first in the forest, +where I arrived before thee, and there thou wert not able to +untie the wallet, because I had bound it with iron wire, in such +a manner that thou couldst not discover how the knot ought to +be loosened. After this, thou gavest me three blows with thy +mallet; the first, though the least, would have ended my days +had it fallen on me, but I brought a rocky mountain before me +which thou didst not perceive, and in this mountain thou wilt +find three glens, one of them remarkably deep. These are the +dints made by thy mallet. I have made use of similar illusions +in the contests ye have had with my followers. In the first, +Loki, like hunger itself, devoured all that was set before him; +but Logi was in reality nothing else than ardent fire, and therefore +consumed not only the meat but the trough which held it. +Hugi, with whom Thjalfi contended in running, was Thought; +and it was impossible for Thjalfi to keep pace with that. When +thou in thy turn didst try to empty the horn, thou didst perform, +by my troth, a deed so marvelous that had I not seen it +myself I should never have believed it. For one end of that +horn reached the sea, which thou wast not aware of, but when +thou comest to the shore thou wilt perceive how much the sea +has sunk by thy draughts, which have caused what is now called +the ebb. Thou didst perform a feat no less wonderful by lifting +up the cat; and to tell thee the truth, when we saw that one of +his paws was off the floor, we were all of us terror-stricken; for +what thou tookest for a cat was in reality the great Midgard +serpent that encompasseth the whole earth, and he was then +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5131" id="Page_5131">[Pg 5131]</a></span> +barely long enough to inclose it between his head and tail, so +high had thy hand raised him up towards heaven. Thy wrestling +with Elli was also a most astonishing feat, for there was +never yet a man, nor ever shall be, whom Old Age—for such +in fact was Elli—will not sooner or later lay low if he abide +her coming. But now, as we are going to part, let me tell thee +that it will be better for both of us if thou never come near me +again; for shouldst thou do so, I shall again defend myself by +other illusions, so that thou wilt never prevail against me."</p> + +<p>On hearing these words, Thor in a rage laid hold of his +mallet and would have launched it at him; but Utgard-Loki had +disappeared, and when Thor would have returned to the city to +destroy it, he found nothing around him but a verdant plain. +Proceeding therefore on his way, he returned without stopping +to Thrúdváng.</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of I. A. Blackwell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THRYM" id="THRYM"></a>THE LAY OF THRYM</h3> + +<h4>From the 'Elder Edda'</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wroth was Vingthor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">when he awoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and his hammer missed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">his beard he shook,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">his forehead struck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the son of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">felt all around him;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And first of all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">these words he uttered:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Hear now, Loki!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">what I now say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">which no one knows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">anywhere on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor in heaven above:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the As's hammer is stolen!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They went to the fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja's dwelling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and he these words<br /></span> +<span class="i0">first of all said:—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5132" id="Page_5132">[Pg 5132]</a></span><span class="i0">"Wilt thou me, Freyja,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">thy feather-garment lend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">that perchance my hammer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I may find?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><b>FREYJA</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That I would give thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">although of gold it were,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and trust it to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">though it were of silver."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flew then Loki—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the plumage rattled—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">until he came beyond<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Æsir's dwellings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and came within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Jötun's land.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On a mound sat Thrym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's lord;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for his greyhounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">plaiting gold bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and his horses'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">manes smoothing.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><b>THRYM</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How goes it with the Æsir?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How goes it with the Alfar?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why art thou come alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">to Jötunheim?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><b>LOKI</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ill it goes with the Æsir,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ill it goes with the Alfar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast thou Hlorridi's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">hammer hidden?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><b>THRYM</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I have Hlorridi's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">hammer hidden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">eight rasts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">beneath the earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">it shall no man<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5133" id="Page_5133">[Pg 5133]</a></span><span class="i0">get again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">unless he bring me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja to wife."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flew then Loki—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the plumage rattled—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">until he came beyond<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Jötun's dwellings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and came within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Æsir's courts;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">there he met Thor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">in the middle court,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">who these words<br /></span> +<span class="i0">first of all uttered:—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hast thou had success,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">as well as labor?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell me from the air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the long tidings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oft of him who sits<br /></span> +<span class="i0">are the tales defective,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and he who lies down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">utters falsehood."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><b>LOKI</b><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I have had labor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and success:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrym has thy hammer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's lord.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It shall no man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">get again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">unless he bring him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja to wife."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They went the fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja to find;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and he those words<br /></span> +<span class="i0">first of all said:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Bind thee, Freyja,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">in bridal raiment:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">we two must drive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">to Jötunheim."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wroth then was Freyja,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and with anger chafed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">all in Æsir's hall<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5134" id="Page_5134">[Pg 5134]</a></span><span class="i0">beneath her trembled;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">in shivers flew the famed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brisinga necklace:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Know me to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">of women lewdest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">if with thee I drive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">to Jötunheim."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Straightway went the Æsir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">all to council,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and the Asynjur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">all to hold converse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and deliberated<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the mighty gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">how they Hlorridi's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">hammer might get back.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Heimdall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">of Æsir brightest—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">he well foresaw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">like other Vanir—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Let us clothe Thor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">with bridal raiment,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">let him have the famed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brisinga necklace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Let by his side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">keys jingle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and woman's weeds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">fall round his knees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">but on his breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">place precious stones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and a neat coif<br /></span> +<span class="i0">set on his head."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Thor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the mighty As:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Me the Æsir will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">call womanish,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">if I let myself be clad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">in bridal raiment."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Loki,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laufey's son:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Do thou, Thor! refrain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">from such-like words;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5135" id="Page_5135">[Pg 5135]</a></span><span class="i0">forthwith the Jötuns will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Asgard inhabit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">unless thy hammer thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">gettest back."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then they clad Thor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">in bridal raiment,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and with the noble<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brisinga necklace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">let by his side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">keys jingle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and woman's weeds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">fall round his knees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and on his breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">placed precious stones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and a neat coif<br /></span> +<span class="i0">set on his head.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Loki,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laufey's son:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I will with thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">as a servant go;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">we two will drive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">to Jötunheim."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Straightway were the goats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">homeward driven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">hurried to the traces;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">they had fast to run.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rocks were shivered,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the earth was in a blaze;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Odin's son drove<br /></span> +<span class="i0">to Jötunheim.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Thrym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's lord:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Rise up, Jötuns!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and the benches deck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">now they bring me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja to wife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Njörd's daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">from Noatun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hither to our court let bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">gold-horned cows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">all-black oxen,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5136" id="Page_5136">[Pg 5136]</a></span><span class="i0">for the Jötuns' joy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treasures I have many,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">necklaces many;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">seemed to me wanting."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the evening<br /></span> +<span class="i0">they early came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and for the Jötuns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">beer was brought forth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thor alone an ox devoured,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">salmons eight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and all the sweetmeats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">women should have.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sif's consort drank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">three salds of mead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Thrym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's prince:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Where hast thou seen brides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">eat more voraciously?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never saw brides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">feed more amply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor a maiden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">drink more mead."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sat the all-crafty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">serving-maid close by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">who words fitting found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">against the Jötun's speech:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Freyja has nothing eaten<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for eight nights,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">so eager was she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for Jötunheim."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Under her veil he stooped,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">desirous to salute her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">but sprang back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">along the hall:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why are so piercing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freyja's looks?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Methinks that fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">burns from her eyes."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sat the all-crafty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">serving-maid close by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">who words fitting found<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5137" id="Page_5137">[Pg 5137]</a></span><span class="i0">against the Jötun's speech:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Freyja for eight nights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">has not slept,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">so eager was she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for Jötunheim."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In came the Jötun's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">luckless sister;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for a bride-gift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">she dared to ask:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Give me from thy hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the ruddy rings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">if thou wouldst gain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">my love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">my love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and favor all."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said Thrym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's lord:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Bring the hammer in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the bride to consecrate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">lay Mjöllnir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">on the maiden's knee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">unite us each with other<br /></span> +<span class="i0">by the hand of Vör."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Laughed Hlorridi's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">soul in his breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">when the fierce-hearted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">his hammer recognized.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He first slew Thrym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">the Thursar's lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and the Jötun's race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">all crushed;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He slew the Jötun's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">aged sister,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">her who a bride-gift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">had demanded;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">she a blow got<br /></span> +<span class="i0">instead of skillings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">a hammer's stroke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for many rings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So got Odin's son<br /></span> +<span class="i0">his hammer back.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of Benjamin Thorpe in 'The Edda of Sæmund the Learned'</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5138" id="Page_5138">[Pg 5138]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="GURDUN" id="GURDUN"></a>OF THE LAMENTATION OF GUDRUN OVER SIGURD DEAD</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">First Lay of Gudrun</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gudrun of old days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drew near to dying,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As she sat in sorrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over Sigurd;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet she sighed not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor smote hand on hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor wailed she aught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As other women.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then went earls to her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of all wisdom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fain help to deal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To her dreadful heart:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hushed was Gudrun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wail, or greeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But with heavy woe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was her heart a-breaking.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bright and fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sat the great earls' brides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gold-arrayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before Gudrun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each told the tale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of her great trouble,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bitterest bale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She erst abode.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Giaflaug,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's sister:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Lo, upon earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I live most loveless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who of five mates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must see the ending,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of daughters twain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And three sisters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of brethren eight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And abide behind lonely."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Naught gat Gudrun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wail or greeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So heavy was she<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5139" id="Page_5139">[Pg 5139]</a></span><span class="i0">For her dead husband;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So dreadful-hearted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the King laid dead there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Herborg,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Queen of Hunland:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Crueler tale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have I to tell of,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of my seven sons<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down in the Southlands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the eighth man, my mate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felled in the death-mead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Father and mother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And four brothers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the wide sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The winds and death played with;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The billows beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the bulwark boards.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Alone must I sing o'er them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone must I array them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone must my hands deal with<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their departing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all this was<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one season's wearing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And none was left<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For love or solace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then was I bound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A prey of the battle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When that same season<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wore to its ending;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a tiring-may<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must I bind the shoon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the duke's high dame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every day at dawning.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"From her jealous hate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gat I heavy mocking;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cruel lashes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She laid upon me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never met I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better master<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or mistress worser<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the wide world."<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5140" id="Page_5140">[Pg 5140]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Naught gat Gudrun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wail or greeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So heavy was she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For her dead husband;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So dreadful-hearted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the King laid dead there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Gullrond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"O foster-mother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wise as thou mayst be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Naught canst thou better<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The young wife's bale."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And she bade uncover<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dead King's corpse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She swept the sheet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Away from Sigurd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And turned his cheek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toward his wife's knees:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Look on thy loved one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay lips to his lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E'en as thou wert clinging<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thy King alive yet!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once looked Gudrun—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One look only,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And saw her lord's locks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lying all bloody,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The great man's eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glazed and deadly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his heart's bulwark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broken by sword-edge.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Back then sank Gudrun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back on the bolster;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loosed was her head-array,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Red did her cheeks grow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the rain-drops ran<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down over her knees.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then wept Gudrun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So that the tears flowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the pillow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the geese withal<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5141" id="Page_5141">[Pg 5141]</a></span><span class="i0">That were in the home-field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fair fowls the may owned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell a-screaming.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Gullrond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Surely knew I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No love like your love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among all men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the mold abiding;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Naught wouldst thou joy in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without or within doors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O my sister,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save beside Sigurd."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Gudrun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Such was my Sigurd<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the sons of Giuki,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As is the king leek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the low grass waxing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a bright stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strung on band,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a pearl of price<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a prince's brow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Once was I counted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the king's warriors<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Higher than any<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Herjan's mays;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now am I as little<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the leaf may be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid wind-swept wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now when dead, he lieth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I miss from my seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I miss from my bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My darling of sweet speech.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought the sons of Giuki,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought the sons of Giuki,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This sore sorrow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, for their sister<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Most sore sorrow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So may your lands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lie waste on all sides,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5142" id="Page_5142">[Pg 5142]</a></span><span class="i0">As ye have broken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your bounden oaths!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne'er shalt thou, Gunnar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gold have joy of;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dear-bought rings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall drag thee to death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereon thou swarest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oath unto Sigurd.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, in the days bygone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great mirth in the home-field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When my Sigurd<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set saddle on Grani,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they went their ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the wooing of Brynhild!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An ill day, an ill woman,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And most ill hap!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Brynhild,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Budli's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"May the woman lack<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both love and children,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who gained greeting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thee, O Gudrun!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who gave thee this morning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many words!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Gullrond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giuki's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Hold peace of such words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou hated of all folk!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bane of brave men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast thou been ever;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All waves of ill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wash over thy mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To seven great kings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast thou been a sore sorrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the death of good-will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wives and women."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake Brynhild,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Budli's daughter:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"None but Atli<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought bale upon us;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My very brother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Born of Budli.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5143" id="Page_5143">[Pg 5143]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When we saw in the hall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the Hunnish people<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gold a-gleaming<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the kingly Giukings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have paid for that faring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oft and fully,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for the sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That then I saw."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By a pillar she stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strained its wood to her;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the eyes of Brynhild,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Budli's daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flashed out fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And she snorted forth venom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the sore wounds she gazed on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the dead-slain Sigurd.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="transc">William Morris in 'The Story of the Völsungs and Niblungs': translated by +Magnusson and Morris, London, 1870</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VOLSUNG" id="VOLSUNG"></a>THE WAKING OF BRUNHILDE ON THE HINDFELL BY SIGURD</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Story of Sigurd the Völsung,' by William Morris</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He looketh, and loveth her sore, and he longeth her spirit to move,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And awaken her heart to the world, that she may behold him and love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he toucheth her breast and her hands, and he loveth her passing sore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he saith, "Awake! I am Sigurd;" but she moveth never the more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then he looked on his bare bright blade, and he said, "Thou—what wilt thou do?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For indeed as I came by the war-garth thy voice of desire I knew."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright burnt the pale blue edges, for the sunrise drew anear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the rims of the Shield-burg glittered, and the east was exceeding clear:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So the eager edges he setteth to the Dwarf-wrought battle-coat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the hammered ring-knit collar constraineth the woman's throat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the sharp Wrath biteth and rendeth, and before it fail the rings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, lo, the gleam of the linen, and the light of golden things;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5144" id="Page_5144">[Pg 5144]</a></span><span class="i0">Then he driveth the blue steel onward, and through the skirt, and out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till naught but the rippling linen is wrapping her about;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then he deems her breath comes quicker and her breast begins to heave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So he turns about the War-Flame and rends down either sleeve,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till her arms lie white in her raiment, and a river of sun-bright hair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flows free o'er bosom and shoulder and floods the desert bare.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then a flush cometh over her visage and a sigh upheaveth her breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And her eyelids quiver and open, and she wakeneth into rest;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wide-eyed on the dawning she gazeth, too glad to change or smile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And but little moveth her body, nor speaketh she yet for a while;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet kneels Sigurd moveless, her wakening speech to heed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While soft the waves of the daylight o'er the starless heavens speed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the gleaming rims of the Shield-burg yet bright and brighter grow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the thin moon hangeth her horns dead-white in the golden glow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then she turned and gazed on Sigurd, and her eyes met the Völsung's eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mighty and measureless now did the tide of his love arise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For their longing had met and mingled, and he knew of her heart that she loved,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As she spake unto nothing but him, and her lips with the speech-flood moved:—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, what is the thing so mighty that my weary sleep hath torn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rent the fallow bondage, and the wan woe over-worn?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He said, "The hand of Sigurd and the Sword of Sigmund's son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the heart that the Völsungs fashioned, this deed for thee have done."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But she said, "Where then is Odin that laid me here alow?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long lasteth the grief of the world, and man-folk's tangled woe!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He dwelleth above," said Sigurd, "but I on the earth abide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I came from the Glittering Heath the waves of thy fire to ride."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth;...<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o'er again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They craved, and kissed rejoicing, and their hearts were full and fain.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5145" id="Page_5145">[Pg 5145]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="ALFRED_EDERSHEIM" id="ALFRED_EDERSHEIM"></a>ALFRED EDERSHEIM</h2> + +<h4>(1825-1889)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capa.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="A" title="A" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">mong writers on Biblical topics Dr. Alfred Edersheim occupies +a unique place. Bred in the Jewish faith, he brought to his +writings the traditions of his ancestry. The history of the +Children of Israel was a reality to him, who had known the Talmud +and the Old Testament through the lessons of his boyhood, and had +been taught to reverence the Hebrew sacred rites handed down +through the ages. All the intangible, unconscious religious influences +of his youth entered into the work of his manhood. And although +this converted Rabbi wrote as a Christian, yet the Bible stories were +colored and vivified for him by his Jewish sympathies. Thus his +work had the especial value of a double point of view.</p> + +<p>Born in Vienna in 1825 of German parents, he studied at the university +of his native city and in Berlin, finishing his theological education +in Edinburgh. He became a minister of the Free Church of +Scotland in 1849, passing over to the Church of England in 1875. +In 1881 he received from Oxford an honorary A.M., and was for a +time lecturer on the Septuagint at the university. He died in Mentone, +France, on March 16th, 1889.</p> + +<p>The earlier writings of Dr. Edersheim consist almost entirely of +translations from the German, and of Jewish stories written for educational +purposes. Of his later works the most important are—'The +Bible History,' his largest work, in seven volumes; 'The Temple, its +Ministers and Services as they were at the Time of Christ'; 'Sketches +of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ'; and a 'History of the +Jewish Nation after the Destruction of Jerusalem under Titus.' From +the evangelical point of view, his 'Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah' +is of final authority, brilliantly exemplifying his peculiar fitness +to be the interpreter of Jewish life and thought at the period of the +rise of Christianity. He presents not only the story of the Christ of +the Gospels, but draws a picture of the whole political and social life +of the Jews, and of their intellectual and religious condition—a picture +which his Rabbinical learning and his race sympathies make +authentic. He wrote English with unaffected directness, embodying +in the simplest forms the results of his wide scholarship. His books +have a very wide and constant sale.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5146" id="Page_5146">[Pg 5146]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THE_WASHING_OF_HANDS" id="THE_WASHING_OF_HANDS"></a>THE WASHING OF HANDS</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah'</h4> + +<p>The externalism of all these practices [ceremonial practices of +the Hebrews] will best appear from the following account +which the Talmud gives of "a feast." As the guests enter, +they sit down on chairs, and water is brought to them, with +which they wash one hand. Into this the cup is taken, when +each speaks the blessing over the wine partaken of before dinner. +Presently they all lie down at table. Water is again brought +them, with which they now wash both hands, preparatory to +the meal, when the blessing is spoken over the bread, and then +over the cup, by the chief person at the feast, or else by one +selected by way of distinction. The company respond by <i>Amen</i>, +always supposing the benediction to have been spoken by an +Israelite, not a heathen, slave, nor law-breaker. Nor was it lawful +to say it with an unlettered man, although it might be said +with a Cuthæan (heretic, or Samaritan,) who was learned. After +dinner the crumbs, if any, are carefully gathered—hands are +again washed, and he who first had done so leads in the prayer +of thanksgiving. The formula in which he is to call on the rest +to join him by repeating the prayers after him is prescribed, and +differs according to the number of those present. The blessing +and the thanksgiving are allowed to be said not only in Hebrew, +but in any other language.</p> + +<p>In regard to the position of the guests, we know that the +uppermost seats were occupied by the Rabbis. The Talmud +formulates it in this manner: That the worthiest lies down first, +on his left side, with his feet hanging down. If there are two +"cushions" (divans), the next worthiest lies at his feet; if there +are three cushions, the third worthiest lies above the first (at his +left), so that the chief person is in the middle. The water +before eating is first handed to the worthiest, and so in regard +to the washing after meat. But if a very large number are +present, you begin after dinner with the least worthy till you +come to the last five, when the worthiest in the company washes +his hands, and the other four after him. The guests being thus +arranged, the head of the house, or the chief person at table, +speaks the blessing and then cuts the bread. By some it was +not deemed etiquette to begin till after he who had said the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5147" id="Page_5147">[Pg 5147]</a></span> +prayer had done so, but this does not seem to have been the +rule among the Palestinian Jews. Then, generally, the bread +was dipped into salt or something salted, etiquette demanding +that where there were two they should wait one for the other, +but not where there were three or more.</p> + +<p>This is not the place to furnish what may be termed a list of +<i>menus</i> at Jewish tables. In earlier times the meal was no doubt +very simple. It became otherwise when intercourse with Rome, +Greece, and the East made the people familiar with foreign luxury, +while commerce supplied its requirements. Indeed, it would +scarcely be possible to enumerate the various articles which seem +to have been imported from different, and even distant, countries.</p> + +<p>To begin with: The wine was mixed with water, and indeed, +some thought that the benediction should not be pronounced till +the water had been added to the wine. According to one statement +two parts, according to another three parts, of water were +to be added to the wine. Various vintages are mentioned: among +them a red wine of Saron, and a black wine. Spiced wine was +made with honey and pepper. Another mixture, chiefly used for +invalids, consisted of old wine, water, and balsam; yet another +was "wine of myrrh"; we also read of a wine in which capers +had been soaked. To these we should add wine spiced either +with pepper or with absinthe, and what is described as vinegar, a +cooling drink made either of grapes that had not ripened, or of +the lees. Besides these, palm wine was also in use. Of foreign +drinks, we read of wine from Ammon and from the province +Asia, the latter a kind of "must" boiled down. Wine in ice +came from Lebanon; a certain kind of vinegar from Idumæa; +beer from Media and Babylon; barley wine (<i>zythos</i>) from Egypt. +Finally, we ought to mention Palestinian apple cider, and the +juice of other fruits. If we adopt the rendering of some, even +liqueurs were known and used.</p> + +<p>Long as this catalogue is, that of the various articles of food, +whether native or imported, would occupy a much larger space. Suffice +it that as regarded the various kinds of grain, meat, fish, and +fruits, either in their natural state or preserved, it embraced almost +everything known to the ancient world. At feasts there was an +introductory course, consisting of appetizing salted meat, or of some +light dish. This was followed by the dinner itself, which finished +with dessert (<i>aphikomon</i> or <i>terugima</i>), consisting of pickled +olives, radishes and lettuce, and fruits, among which even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5148" id="Page_5148">[Pg 5148]</a></span> preserved +ginger from India is mentioned. The most diverse and even strange +statements are made as to the healthiness, or the reverse, of certain +articles of diet, especially vegetables. Fish was a favorite dish, and +never wanting at a Sabbath meal. It was a saying that both salt and +water should be taken at every meal, if health was to be preserved. +Condiments, such as mustard or pepper, were to be sparingly used. Very +different were the meals of the poor. Locusts—fried in flour or +honey, or preserved—required, according to the Talmud, no blessing; +since the animal was really among the curses of the land. Eggs were a +common article of food, and sold in the shops. Then there was a milk +dish, into which people dipped their bread. Others who were better off +had a soup made of vegetables, especially onions, and meat; while the +very poor would satisfy the cravings of hunger with bread and cheese, +or bread and fruit, or some vegetables, such as cucumbers, lentils, +beans, peas, or onions.</p> + +<p>At meals the rules of etiquette were strictly observed, especially as +regarded the sages. Indeed, there are added to the Talmud two +tractates, one describing the general etiquette, the other that of +"sages," of which the title may be translated as 'The Way of the +World' (<i>Derech Erez</i>), being a sort of code of good manners. +According to some, it was not good breeding to speak while eating. The +learned and most honored occupied not only the chief places, but were +sometimes distinguished by a double portion. According to Jewish +etiquette, a guest should conform in everything to his host, even +though it were unpleasant. Although hospitality was the greatest and +most prized social virtue, which, to use a rabbinic expression, might +make every home a sanctuary and every table an altar, an unbidden +guest, or a guest who brought another guest, was proverbially an +unwelcome apparition. Sometimes, by way of self-righteousness, the +poor were brought in, and the best part of the meal ostentatiously +given to them. At ordinary entertainments, people were to help +themselves. It was not considered good manners to drink as soon as you +were asked, but you ought to hold the cup for a little in your hand. +But it would be the height of rudeness either to wipe the plates, to +scrape together the bread, as though you had not had enough to eat, or +to drop it, to the inconvenience of your neighbor. If a piece were +taken out of a dish, it must of course not be put back; still less +must you offer from your cup or plate to your neighbor. From the +almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5149" id="Page_5149">[Pg 5149]</a></span> religious value attaching to bread, we scarcely wonder that +these rules were laid down: not to steady a cup or plate upon bread, +nor to throw away bread, and that after dinner the bread was to be +carefully swept together. Otherwise, it was thought, demons would sit +upon it. 'The Way of the World' for sages lays down these as the marks +of a rabbi: that he does not eat standing; that he does not lick his +fingers; that he sits down only beside his equals—in fact, many +regarded it as wrong to eat with the unlearned; that he begins cutting +the bread where it is best baked, nor ever breaks off a bit with his +hand; and that when drinking, he turns away his face from the company. +Another saying was, that the sage was known by four things: at his +cups, in money matters, when angry, and in his jokes. After dinner, +the formalities concerning hand-washing and prayer, already described, +were gone through, and then frequently aromatic spices burnt, over +which a special benediction was pronounced. We have only to add that +on Sabbaths it was deemed a religious duty to have three meals, and to +procure the best that money could obtain, even though one were to save +and fast for it all the week. Lastly, it was regarded as a special +obligation and honor to entertain sages.</p> + +<p>We have no difficulty now in understanding what passed at the table of +the Pharisee. When the water for purification was presented to him, +Jesus would either refuse it, or if, as seems more likely at a morning +meal, each guest repaired by himself for the prescribed purification, +he would omit to do so, and sit down to meat without this formality. +No one who knows the stress which Pharisaism laid on this rite would +argue that Jesus might have conformed to the practice. Indeed, the +controversy was long and bitter between the Schools of Shammai and +Hillel, on such a point as whether the hands were to be washed +<i>before</i> the cup was filled with wine, or <i>after</i> that, and where the +towel was to be deposited. With such things the most serious ritual +inferences were connected on both sides. A religion which spent its +energy on such trivialities must have lowered the moral tone. All the +more that Jesus insisted so earnestly, as the substance of his +teaching, on that corruption of our nature which Judaism ignored and +on that spiritual purification which was needful for the reception of +his doctrine,—would he publicly and openly set aside ordinances of +man which diverted thoughts of purity into questions of the most +childish character. On the other hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5150" id="Page_5150">[Pg 5150]</a></span> we can also understand what +bitter thoughts must have filled the mind of the Pharisee whose guest +Jesus was, when he observed his neglect of the cherished rite. It was +an insult to himself, a defiance of Jewish law, a revolt against the +most cherished traditions of the synagogue. Remembering that a +Pharisee ought not to sit down to a meal with such, he might feel that +he should not have asked Jesus to his table.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5151" id="Page_5151">[Pg 5151]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="MARIA_EDGEWORTH" id="MARIA_EDGEWORTH"></a>MARIA EDGEWORTH</h2> + +<h4>(1767-1849)</h4> + + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">he famous author of Irish novels and didactic tales was the daughter +of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and his first wife Anna Ehrs, and was born +at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, January 1st, 1767. When she was twelve +years old the family settled on the estate at Edgeworth's-town, County +Longford, Ireland, which was her home during the remainder of her long +life. It was a singularly happy family circle, of which Maria was the +centre. Her father married four times, and had twenty-two children, on +whom he exercised his peculiar educational ideas. He devoted himself +most particularly to Maria's training, and made her his most +confidential companion. Several of her works were written in +conjunction with her father, and over almost all he exercised a +supervision which doubtless hindered the free expression of her +genius. Her first publication, 'Letters to Literary Ladies,' on the +education of women, appeared in 1795. This was followed by educational +and juvenile works illustrating the theories of Mr. Edgeworth: 'The +Parent's Assistant,' 'Practical Education' (a joint production), +supplemented later by 'Early Lessons'; 'Rosamond,' 'Harry and Lucy,' +and a sequel to the 'Parent's Assistant.' In 1800 appeared 'Castle +Rackrent,' the first of her novels of Irish life, and her best known +work; soon followed by 'Belinda,' and the well-known 'Essay on Irish +Bulls,' by her father and herself. Miss Edgeworth's reputation was now +established, and on a visit to Paris at this time she received much +attention. Here occurred the one recorded romance of her life, the +proposal of marriage from Count Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman. On +her return she wrote 'Leonora.' In 1804 she published 'Popular Tales'; +in 1809 the first series of 'Fashionable Tales.' These tales include +'Almeria' and 'The Absentee,' considered by many critics her +masterpiece. 'Patronage' was begun years before as 'The Freeman +Family.' In 1817 she published 'Harrington' and 'Ormond,' which rank +among her best works. In the same year her father died, leaving to her +the completion of his 'Memoirs,' which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5152" id="Page_5152">[Pg 5152]</a></span>appeared in 1820. Her last +novel, 'Helen,' published in 1834, shows no diminution of her charm +and grace. With occasional visits to Paris and London, and a memorable +trip to Scotland in 1823, when she was entertained at Abbotsford, she +lived serene and happy at Edgeworth's-town until her sudden death, May +21st 1849.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 310px;"> +<img src="images/edgeworth.png" width="310" height="310" alt="Maria Edgeworth" title="Maria Edgeworth" /> +<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Maria Edgeworth</span></span> +</div> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth was extremely small, not beautiful; but a brilliant +talker and a great favorite in the exclusive society to which she +everywhere had access. Her greatest success was in the new field +opened in her Irish stories, full of racy, rollicking Irish humor, and +valuable pictures of bygone conditions, for the genial peasant of her +pages is now rarely found. Not the least we owe her is the influence +which her national tales had on Sir Walter Scott, who declared that +her success led him to do the same for his own country in the Waverley +Novels. Miss Edgeworth's style is easy and animated. Her tales show +her extraordinary power of observation, her good sense, and remarkable +skill in dialogue, though they are biased by the didactic purpose +which permeates all her writings. As Madame de Staël remarked, she was +"lost in dreary utility." And doubtless this is why she just missed +greatness, and has been consigned to the ranks of "standard" authors +who are respectfully alluded to but seldom read. The lack of +tenderness and imagination was perhaps the result of her unusual +self-control, shown in her custom of writing in the family +sitting-room, and so concentrating her mind on her work that she was +deaf to all that went on about her. Surely some of the creative power +of her mind must have been lost in that strenuous effort. Her noble +character, as well as her talents, won for her the friendship of many +distinguished people of her day. With Scott she was intimate, Byron +found her charming, and Macaulay was an enthusiastic admirer. In her +recently edited letters are found many interesting and valuable +accounts of the people she met in the course of her long life.</p> + +<p>Miss Edgeworth's life has been written by Helen Zimmern and Grace A. +Oliver; her 'Life and Letters,' edited by Augustus J. C. Hare, +appeared in 1895. 'Pen Portraits of Literary Women,' by Helen Gray +Cone and Jeannette L. Gilder, contains a sketch of her.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5153" id="Page_5153">[Pg 5153]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="SIR_CONDYS_WAKE" id="SIR_CONDYS_WAKE"></a>SIR CONDY'S WAKE</h3> + +<h4>From 'Castle Rackrent'</h4> + +<p>When they were made sensible that Sir Condy was going to leave Castle +Rackrent for good and all, they set up a whillaluh that could be heard +to the farthest end of the street; and one fine boy he was, that my +master had given an apple to that morning, cried the loudest; but they +all were the same sorry, for Sir Condy was greatly beloved among the +childher, for letting them go a-nutting in the demesne without saying +a word to them, though my lady objected to them. The people in the +town, who were the most of them standing at their doors, hearing the +childher cry, would know the reason of it; and when the report was +made known the people one and all gathered in great anger against my +son Jason, and terror at the notion of his coming to be landlord over +them, and they cried, "No Jason! no Jason! Sir Condy! Sir Condy! Sir +Condy Rackrent forever!" and the mob grew so great and so loud I was +frightened, and made my way back to the house to warn my son to make +his escape or hide himself, for fear of the consequences. Jason would +not believe me till they came all round the house and to the windows +with great shouts; then he grew quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what +had he best do? "I'll tell you what you'd best do," said Sir Condy, +who was laughing to see his fright: "finish your glass first; then +let's go to the window and show ourselves, and I'll tell 'em, or you +shall if you please, that I'm going to the lodge for change of air for +my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days." "Do so," +said Jason who never meant it should have been so, but could not +refuse him the lodge at this unseasonable time. Accordingly Sir Condy +threw up the sash and explained matters, and thanked all his friends, +and bid 'em look in at the punch-bowl, and observe that Jason and he +had been sitting over it very good friends; so the mob was content, +and he sent 'em out some whisky to drink his health, and that was the +last time his Honor's health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent.</p> + +<p>The very next day, being too proud, as he said to me, to stay an hour +longer in a house that did not belong to him, he sets off to the +lodge, and I along with him not many hours after. And there was great +bemoaning through all O'Shaughlin's Town,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5154" id="Page_5154">[Pg 5154]</a></span> which I stayed to witness, +and gave my poor master a full account of when I got to the lodge. He +was very low and in his bed when I got there, and complained of a +great pain about his heart; but I guessed it was only trouble, and all +the business, let alone vexation, he had gone through of late; and +knowing the nature of him from a boy, I took my pipe, and while +smoking it by the chimney, began telling him how he was beloved and +regretted in the county, and it did him a deal of good to hear it. +"Your Honor has a great many friends yet, that you don't know of, rich +and poor in the country," says I; "for as I was coming along the road, +I met two gentlemen in their own carriages, who asked after you, +knowing me, and wanted to know where you was, and all about you, and +even how old I was: think of that!" Then he wakened out of his doze, +and began questioning me who the gentlemen were. And the next morning +it came into my head to go, unknown to anybody, with my master's +compliments, round to many of the gentlemen's houses where he and my +lady used to visit, and people that I knew were his great friends, and +would go to Cork to serve him any day in the year, and I made bold to +try to borrow a trifle of cash from them. They all treated me very +civil for the most part, and asked a great many questions very kind +about my lady and Sir Condy and all the family, and were greatly +surprised to learn from me Castle Rackrent was sold, and my master at +the lodge for health; and they all pitied him greatly, and he had +their good wishes, if that would do, but money was a thing they +unfortunately had not any of them at this time to spare. I had my +journey for my pains, and I, not used to walking, nor supple as +formerly, was greatly tired, but had the satisfaction of telling my +master, when I got to the lodge, all the civil things said by high and +low.</p> + +<p>"Thady," says he, "all you've been telling me brings a strange thought +into my head: I've a notion I shall not be long for this world anyhow, +and I've a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die." I was +greatly shocked at the first speaking, to hear him speak so light +about his funeral, and he to all appearances in good health, but +recollecting myself answered:—"To be sure it would be as fine a sight +as one could see, I dared to say, and one I should be proud to +witness; and I did not doubt his Honor's would be as great a funeral +as ever Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin's was, and such a one as that had +never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5155" id="Page_5155">[Pg 5155]</a></span> been known in the county before or since." But I never thought +he was in earnest about seeing his own funeral himself, till the next +day he returns to it again. "Thady," says he, "as far as the wake +goes, sure I might without any great trouble have the satisfaction of +seeing a bit of my own funeral." "Well, since your Honor's Honor's so +bent upon it," says I, not willing to cross him, and he in trouble, +"we must see what we can do." So he fell into a sort of a sham +disorder, which was easy done, as he kept his bed and no one to see +him; and I got my shister, who was an old woman very handy about the +sick, and very skillful, to come up to the lodge to nurse him; and we +gave out, she knowing no better, that he was just at his latter end, +and it answered beyond anything; and there was a great throng of +people, men, women, and children, and there being only two rooms at +the lodge, except what was locked up full of Jason's furniture and +things, the house was soon as full and fuller than it could hold, and +the heat and smoke and noise wonderful great; and standing among them +that were near the bed, but not thinking at all of the dead, I was +startled by the sound of my master's voice from under the greatcoats +that had been thrown all at top, and I went close up, no one noticing. +"Thady," says he, "I've had enough of this; I'm smothering, and can't +hear a word of all they're saying of the deceased." "God bless you, +and lie still and quiet," says I, "a bit longer; for my shister's +afraid of ghosts and would die on the spot with fright, was she to see +you come to life all on a sudden this way without the least +preparation." So he lays him still, though well-nigh stifled, and I +made all haste to tell the secret of the joke, whispering to one and +t'other, and there was a great surprise, but not so great as we had +laid out it would. "And aren't we to have the pipes and tobacco, after +coming so far to-night?" said some; but they were all well enough +pleased when his Honor got up to drink with them, and sent for more +spirits from a shebean-house, where they very civilly let him have it +upon credit. So the night passed off very merrily, but to my mind Sir +Condy was rather upon the sad order in the midst of it all, not +finding there had been such a great talk about himself after his death +as he had always expected to hear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5156" id="Page_5156">[Pg 5156]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="SIR_MURTAGH_RACKRENT_AND_HIS_LADY" id="SIR_MURTAGH_RACKRENT_AND_HIS_LADY"></a>SIR MURTAGH RACKRENT AND HIS LADY</h3> + +<h4>From 'Castle Rackrent'</h4> + +<p>Now it was that the world was to see what was <i>in</i> Sir Patrick. +On coming into the estate he gave the finest entertainment +ever was heard of in the country; not a man could stand +after supper but Sir Patrick himself, who could sit out the best +man in Ireland, let alone the three kingdoms itself. He had his +house, from one year's end to another, as full of company as +ever it could hold, and fuller; for rather than be left out of the +parties at Castle Rackrent, many gentlemen, and those men of the +first consequence and landed estates in the country,—such as the +O'Neils of Ballynagrotty, and the Moneygawls of Mount Juliet's +Town, and O'Shannons of New Town Tullyhog,—made it their +choice often and often, when there was no moon to be had for +love nor money, in long winter nights, to sleep in the chicken-house, +which Sir Patrick had fitted up for the purpose of accommodating +his friends and the public in general, who honored him with their +company unexpectedly at Castle Rackrent; and this went on I can't tell +you how long: the whole country rang with his praises—long life to +him! I'm sure I love to look upon his picture, now opposite to me; +though I never saw him, he must have been a portly gentleman—his neck +something short, and remarkable for the largest pimple on his nose, +which by his particular desire is still extant in his picture, said to +be a striking likeness though taken when young. He is said also to be +the inventor of raspberry whisky; which is very likely, as nobody has +ever appeared to dispute it with him, and as there still exists a +broken punch-bowl at Castle Rackrent in the garret, with an +inscription to that effect—a great curiosity. A few days before his +death he was very merry; it being his Honor's birthday, he called my +grandfather in, God bless him! to drink the company's health, and +filled a bumper himself, but could not carry it to his head on account +of the great shake in his hand; on this he cast his joke, +saying:—"What would my poor father say to me if he was to pop out of +the grave and see me now? I remember when I was a little boy, the +first bumper of claret he gave me after dinner, how he praised me for +carrying it so steady to my mouth. Here's my thanks to him—a bumper +toast." Then he fell to singing the favorite song he learned from his +father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5157" id="Page_5157">[Pg 5157]</a></span> for the last time, poor gentleman; he sung it that night as +loud and as hearty as ever, with a chorus:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He that goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Falls as the leaves do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he that goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lives as he ought to do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Sir Patrick died that night: just as the company rose to drink his +health with three cheers, he fell down in a sort of fit, and was +carried off; they sat it out, and were surprised, on inquiry in the +morning, to find that it was all over with poor Sir Patrick. Never did +any gentleman live and die more beloved in the country by rich and +poor. His funeral was such a one as was never known before or since in +the county! All the gentlemen in the three counties were at it; far +and near, how they flocked! My great-grandfather said that to see all +the women even in their red cloaks, you would have taken them for the +army drawn out. Then such a fine whillaluh! you might have heard it to +the farthest end of the county, and happy the man who could get but a +sight of the hearse! But who'd have thought it? just as all was going +on right, through his own town they were passing, when the body was +seized for debt: a rescue was apprehended from the mob, but the heir, +who attended the funeral, was against that for fear of consequences, +seeing that those villains who came to serve acted under the disguise +of the law; so, to be sure, the law must take its course, and little +gain had the creditors for their pains. First and foremost, they had +the curses of the country; and Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the new heir, in +the next place, on account of this affront to the body, refused to pay +a shilling of the debts, in which he was countenanced by all the best +gentlemen of property, and others of his acquaintance. Sir Murtagh +alleging in all companies, that he all along meant to pay his father's +debts of honor, but the moment the law was taken of him there was an +end of honor to be sure. It was whispered (but none but the enemies of +the family believed it) that this was all a sham seizure to get quit +of the debts, which he had bound himself to pay in honor.</p> + +<p>It's a long time ago, there's no saying how it was, but this for +certain: the new man did not take at all after the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5158" id="Page_5158">[Pg 5158]</a></span> gentleman; the +cellars were never filled after his death, and no open house or +anything as it used to be; the tenants even were sent away without +their whisky. I was ashamed myself, and knew not what to say for the +honor of the family; but I made the best of a bad case, and laid it +all at my lady's door, for I did not like her anyhow, nor anybody +else; she was of the family of the Skinflints, and a widow; it was a +strange match for Sir Murtagh; the people in the country thought he +demeaned himself greatly, but I said nothing: I knew how it was; Sir +Murtagh was a great lawyer, and looked to the great Skinflint estate; +there however he overshot himself; for though one of the co-heiresses, +he was never the better for her, for she outlived him many's the long +day—he could not see that, to be sure, when he married her. I must +say for her, she made him the best of wives, being a very notable +stirring woman, and looking close to everything. But I always +suspected she had Scotch blood in her veins; anything else I could +have looked over in her from a regard to the family. She was a strict +observer for self and servants of Lent, and all fast days, but not +holy days. One of the maids having fainted three time the last day of +Lent, to keep soul and body together we put a morsel of roast beef in +her mouth, which came from Sir Murtagh's dinner,—who never fasted, +not he; but somehow or other it unfortunately reached my lady's ears, +and the priest of the parish had a complaint made of it the next day, +and the poor girl was forced as soon as she could walk to do penance +for it, before she could get any peace or absolution, in the house or +out of it. However, my lady was very charitable in her own way. She +had a charity school for poor children, where they were taught to read +and write gratis, and where they were kept well to spinning gratis for +my lady in return; for she had always heaps of duty yarn from the +tenants, and got all her household linen out of the estate from first +to last; for after the spinning, the weavers on the estate took it in +hand for nothing, because of the looms my lady's interest could get +from the linen board to distribute gratis. Then there was a +bleach-yard near us, and the tenant dare refuse my lady nothing, for +fear of a law suit Sir Murtagh kept hanging over him about the +water-course.</p> + +<p>With these ways of managing, 'tis surprising how cheap my lady got +things done, and how proud she was of it. Her table, the same way, +kept for next to nothing,—duty fowls, and duty turkeys, and duty +geese came as fast as we could eat 'em, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5159" id="Page_5159">[Pg 5159]</a></span> my lady kept a sharp +lookout, and knew to a tub of butter everything the tenants had, all +round. They knew her way, and what with fear of driving for rent and +Sir Murtagh's lawsuits, they were kept in such good order, they never +thought of coming near Castle Rackrent without a present of something +or other—nothing too much or too little for my lady: eggs, honey, +butter, meal, fish, game, grouse, and herrings, fresh or salt, all +went for something. As for their young pigs, we had them, and the best +bacon and hams they could make up, with all young chickens in spring; +but they were a set of poor wretches, and we had nothing but +misfortunes with them, always breaking and running away. This, Sir +Murtagh and my lady said, was all their former landlord Sir Patrick's +fault, who let 'em all get the half-year's rent into arrear; there was +something in that, to be sure. But Sir Murtagh was as much the +contrary way; for let alone making English tenants of them, every +soul, he was always driving and driving and pounding and pounding, and +canting and canting and replevying and replevying, and he made a good +living of trespassing cattle; there was always some tenant's pig, or +horse, or cow, or calf, or goose trespassing, which was so great a +gain to Sir Murtagh that he did not like to hear me talk of repairing +fences. Then his heriots and duty work brought him in something; his +turf was cut, his potatoes set and dug, his hay brought home, and in +short, all the work about his house done for nothing; for in all our +leases there were strict clauses heavy with penalties, which Sir +Murtagh knew well how to enforce: so many days' duty work of man and +horse from every tenant he was to have, and had, every year; and when +a man vexed him, why, the finest day he could pitch on, when the +cratur was getting in his own harvest, or thatching his cabin, Sir +Murtagh made it a principle to call upon him and his horse; so he +taught 'em all, as he said, to know the law of landlord and tenant.</p> + +<p>As for law, I believe no man, dead or alive, ever loved it so well as +Sir Murtagh. He had once sixteen suits pending at a time, and I never +saw him so much himself; roads, lanes, bogs, wells, ponds, eel weirs, +orchards, trees, tithes, vagrants, gravel pits, sand pits, dung-hills, +and nuisances,—everything upon the face of the earth furnished him +good matter for a suit. He used to boast that he had a law suit for +every letter in the alphabet. How I used to wonder to see Sir Murtagh +in the midst of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5160" id="Page_5160">[Pg 5160]</a></span> papers in his office! Why, he could hardly turn +about for them. I made bold to shrug my shoulders once in his +presence, and thank my stars I was not born a gentleman to so much +toil and trouble; but Sir Murtagh took me up short with his old +proverb, "Learning is better than house or land." Out of forty-nine +suits which he had, he never lost one but seventeen; the rest he +gained with costs, double costs, treble costs sometimes; but even that +did not pay. He was a very learned man in the law, and had the +character of it; but how it was I can't tell, these suits that he +carried cost him a power of money: in the end he sold some hundreds a +year of the family estate: but he was a very learned man in the law, +and I know nothing of the matter, except having a great regard for the +family; and I could not help grieving when he sent me to post up +notices of the sale of the fee-simple of the lands and appurtenances +of Timoleague. "I know, honest Thady," says he to comfort me, "what +I'm about better than you do; I'm only selling to get the ready money +wanting to carry on my suit with spirit with the Nugents of +Carrickashaughlin."</p> + +<p>He was very sanguine about that suit with the Nugents of +Carrickashaughlin. He could have gained it, they say, for certain, had +it pleased Heaven to have spared him to us, and it would have been at +the least a plump two thousand a year in his way; but things were +ordered otherwise,—for the best, to be sure. He dug up a fairy mount +against my advice, and had no luck afterward. Though a learned man in +the law, he was a little too incredulous in other matters. I warned +him that I heard the very Banshee that my grandfather heard under Sir +Patrick's window a few days before his death. But Sir Murtagh thought +nothing of the Banshee, nor of his cough with a spitting of +blood,—brought on, I understand, by catching cold in attending the +courts, and overstraining his chest with making himself heard in one +of his favorite causes. He was a great speaker, with a powerful voice; +but his last speech was not in the courts at all. He and my lady, +though both of the same way of thinking in some things, and though she +was as good a wife and great economist as you could see, and he the +best of husbands as to looking into his affairs, and making money for +his family,—yet I don't know how it was, they had a great deal of +sparring and jarring between them. My lady had her privy purse, and +she had her weed ashes, and her sealing money upon the signing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5161" id="Page_5161">[Pg 5161]</a></span> of all +the leases, with something to buy gloves besides; and besides, again, +often took money from the tenants, if offered properly, to speak for +them to Sir Murtagh about abatements and renewals. Now the weed ashes +and the glove money he allowed her clear perquisites; though once when +he saw her in a new gown saved out of the weed ashes, he told her to +my face (for he could say a sharp thing) that she should not put on +her weeds before her husband's death. But in a dispute about an +abatement, my lady would have the last word, and Sir Murtagh grew mad; +I was within hearing of the door, and now I wish I had made bold to +step in. He spoke so loud the whole kitchen was out on the stairs. All +on a sudden he stopped, and my lady too. Something has surely +happened, thought I—and so it was, for Sir Murtagh in his passion +broke a blood-vessel, and all the law in the land could do nothing in +that case. My lady sent for five physicians, but Sir Murtagh died, and +was buried. She had a fine jointure settled upon her, and took herself +away, to the great joy of the tenantry. I never said anything one way +or the other, while she was part of the family, but got up to see her +go at three o'clock in the morning. "It's a fine morning, honest +Thady," says she; "good-by to ye," and into the carriage she stepped, +without a word more, good or bad, or even half a crown; but I made my +bow, and stood to see her safe out of sight, for the sake of the +family.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5162" id="Page_5162">[Pg 5162]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="ANNE_CHARLOTTE_LEFFLER_EDGREN" id="ANNE_CHARLOTTE_LEFFLER_EDGREN"></a>ANNE CHARLOTTE LEFFLER EDGREN</h2> + +<h4>(1849-1892)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capa.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="A" title="A" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">nne Charlotte Leffler Edgren, afterwards Duchess of Cajanello, was +born in Stockholm, October 1st, 1849. She was the most prominent among +contemporary women writers of Sweden, and won for herself an eminent +position in the world of letters, not only for the truthfulness of her +delineation of life, but for the brilliancy of her style and her skill +in using her material. The circumstances of her early life were +comfortable and commonplace. She was the only daughter of a Swedish +rector, and from her mother, also the daughter of a clergyman, she +inherited her literary tendencies. From her parents and her three +devoted brothers she received every encouragement, but with wise +foresight they restrained her desire to publish her early writings; +and it was not until her talent was fully developed that her first +book, a collection of stories entitled 'Händelsvis' (By Chance), +appeared in 1869, under the pseudonym of "Carlot." In 1872 she was +married to Gustav Edgren, secretary of the prefecture in Stockholm; +and though fitting and harmonious, this marriage was undoubtedly one +of convenience, brought about by the altered circumstances of her +life.</p> + +<p>In 1873 she published the drama 'Skådespelerskan' (The Actress), +which held the stage in Stockholm for an entire winter, and this was +followed by 'Pastorsadjunkten' (The Curate), 1876, and 'Elfvan' (The +Elf), 1880, the latter being even more than usually successful. Her +equipment as a dramatist was surprisingly slender, as until the time +of her engagement to Mr. Edgren she had never visited the theatre, +and necessarily was absolutely ignorant of the technique of the stage. +Nevertheless, her natural dramatic instincts supplied the defects of a +lack of training, and her plays met with almost universal success. +The theme of all her dramas, under various guises, is the same,—the +struggle of a woman's individuality with the conventional environment +of her life. Mrs. Edgren herself laments that she was born a woman, +when nature had so evidently intended her for a man.</p> + +<p>Her first work to be published under her own name was in 1882,—a +collection of tales entitled 'Ur Lifvet' (From Life), which were +received with especial applause. Her works were translated into +Danish, Russian, and German, and she now became widely known +as one of the most talented of Swedish writers. In 1883 appeared a +second volume of 'From Life'; and still later, in 1889, yet another +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5163" id="Page_5163">[Pg 5163]</a></span>under the same title. These later stories betrayed a boldness of +thought and expression not before evinced, and placed the author +in the ranks of the radicals. The drama 'Sanna Kvinnor' (Ideal +Women) appeared in 1883; 'Huru Man Gör Godt' (How We do Good) +in 1885; and in 1888, in collaboration with Sónya Kovalévsky, 'Kampen +för Lyckan' (The Struggle for Happiness).</p> + +<p>In company with her brother, Professor Mittag-Leffler, she attended +a Mathematical Congress in Algiers, in the early part of the year +1888; and upon the return journey through Italy she made the acquaintance +of Signor Pasquale del Pezzo, subsequently Duke of Cajanello, +a mathematician and friend of her brother, and professor in +the University of Naples. Mrs. Edgren was married to the Duke of +Cajanello in 1890, after the dissolution of her marriage with Mr. +Edgren. After this event she published a romance which attracted +a great deal of attention, called 'Kvinlighet och Erotik' (Womanliness +and Erotics), 1890, and among others the drama 'Familjelycka' +(Domestic Happiness), and 'En Räddende Engel' (A Rescuing Angel), +with which last she achieved her greatest dramatic success. Her last +work was a biography of her intimate friend Sónya Kovalévsky. +While in the midst of her literary labors, and in the fullness of her +powers, she died suddenly at Naples, October 21st, 1893.</p> + +<p>The subjects of her writings are the deepest questions of life. +Her special theme is the relation between men and women, and in +her studies of the question she has given to the world a series of +types of wonderful vividness and accuracy. The life that she knows +best is the social life of the upper classes; and in all her work, but +particularly in her dramas, she treats its problems with a masculine +vigor and strength. Realism sometimes overshadows poetry, but the +faithfulness of her work is beyond question.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5164" id="Page_5164">[Pg 5164]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="OPEN_SESAME" id="OPEN_SESAME"></a>OPEN SESAME</h3> + +<p>"It was once upon a time"—so the fairy stories begin.</p> + +<p>At that particular time there was a government clerk, not +precisely young, and a little moth-eaten in appearance, who +was on his way home from the office the day after his wedding.</p> + +<p>On the wedding day itself he had also sat in the office and +written until three o'clock. After this he had gone out, and as +usual eaten his frugal midday meal at an unpretending restaurant +in a narrow street, and then had gone home to his upper chamber +in an old house in the Österlånggata, in order to get his +somewhat worn dress coat, which had done good and faithful service +for twelve years. He had speculated a good deal about buying +a new coat for his wedding day, but had at last arrived at +the conclusion that, all in all, it would be a superfluous luxury.</p> + +<p>The bride was a telegraph operator, somewhat weakly, and +nervous from labor and want, and of rather an unattractive exterior. +The wedding took place in all quietness at the house of +the bride's old unmarried aunt, who lived in Söder. The bride +had on a black-silk dress, and the newly married pair drove +home in a droschke.</p> + +<p>So the wedding day had passed, but now it was the day after. +From ten o'clock on he had sat in his office, just as on all other +days. Now he was on the way home—his own home!</p> + +<p>That was a strange feeling; indeed, it was such an overpowering +feeling that he stood still many times on the way and fell +into a brown study.</p> + +<p>A memory of childhood came into his mind.</p> + +<p>He saw himself as a little boy, sitting at his father's desk in +the little parsonage, reading fairy tales. How many times had he +read, again and again, his favorite story out of the Arabian +Nights of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves!' How his heart +had beaten in longing suspense, when he stood with the hero of +the story outside the closed door of the mountain and called, +first gently and a little anxiously, afterwards loudly and boldly: +"Sesame, Sesame! Open Sesame!"</p> + +<p>And when the mountain opened its door, what splendor! The poor room of +the parsonage was transformed into the rich treasure chamber of the +mountain, and round about on the walls gleamed the most splendid +jewels. There were, besides horses and carriages, beautifully rigged +ships, weapons, armor—all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5165" id="Page_5165">[Pg 5165]</a></span> best that a child's fantasy could +dream. His old father looked in astonishment at his youngest child, it +was so long since he himself had been a child, and all the others were +already grown up. He did not understand him, but asked him half +reprovingly what he was thinking about, that his eyes glistened so.</p> + +<p>Thus he also came to think about his youth, about his student years at +Upsala. He was a poet, a singer; he had the name of being greatly +gifted, and stood high in his comrades' estimation. What if any one +had told him at that time that he should end as a petty government +clerk, be married to a telegraph operator, and live in the +Repslagaregata in Söder! Bah! Life had a thousand possibilities. The +future's perspective was illimitable. Nothing was impossible. No honor +was so great that he could not attain it; no woman so beautiful that +he could not win her. What did it signify that he was poor, that he +was only named Andersson, and that he was the eighth child of a poor +parson, who himself was peasant-born? Had not most of the nation's +gifted men sprung from the ranks of the people? Yes, his endowments, +they were the magic charm, the "Open Sesame!" which were to admit him +to all the splendors of life.</p> + +<p>As to how things, later on, had gone with him, he did not +allow himself to think. Either his endowments had not been as +great as he had believed, or the difficulties of living had stifled +them, or fortune had not been with him: enough, it had happened +to him as to Ali Baba's wicked brother Casim, who stood +inside the mountain only to find out to his horror that he had +forgotten the magic charm, and in the anguish of death beat +about in his memory to recall it. That was a cruel time—but +it was not worth while now to think about it longer.</p> + +<p>Rapidly one thought followed upon another in his mind. Now +he came to think upon the crown princess, who had made a royal +entrance into the capital just at this time. He had received permission +to accompany his superiors and stand in the festal pavilion +when she landed. That was a glorious moment. The poet's +gifts of his youth were not far from awakening again in the +exaltation of the moment; and had he still been the young +applauding poet of earlier days, instead of the neglected government +clerk, he would probably have written a festal poem and +sent it to the Post.</p> + +<p>For it was fine to be the Princess Victoria at that moment. +It was one of the occasions that life has not many of. To be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5166" id="Page_5166">[Pg 5166]</a></span> +nineteen years old, newly married to a young husband, loved and +loving, and to make a ceremonious entry into one's future capital, +which is in festal array and lies fabulously beautiful in the +autumn sun, to be greeted with shouts of joy by countless +masses of men, and to be so inexperienced in life that one has +no presentiment of the shadows which hide themselves back of +this bright picture—yes, that might indeed be an unforgettable +moment; one of those that only fall to the lot of few mortals, so +that they seem to belong more to the world of fable than to +reality! Had the magic charm, "Open Sesame!" conjured up +anything more beautiful?</p> + +<p>And yet! yet!—The government clerk had neared his home and stood in +front of his own door. No, the crown prince was surely not happier +when he led his bride into his rejoicing capital, than was he at this +moment. He had found again the long-lost magic charm. The little knob +there on the door—that was his "Open Sesame!" He needed only to press +upon it, when the mountain would again open its treasures to him—not +weapons and gleaming armor as in his childhood—not honors and homage +and social position as in his youth—no, something better than all +these. Something that forms the kernel itself of all human happiness, +upon the heights of life as well as in its most concealed +hiding-places—a heart that only beat for him, his own home, where +there was one who longed for him—a wife! Yes, a wife whom he loved, +not with the first passion of youth, but with the tenderness and +faithfulness of manhood.</p> + +<p>He stood outside his own door; he was tired and hungry, and his wife +waited for him at the midday meal; that was, to be sure, commonplace +and unimportant—and yet it was so wonderfully new and attractive.</p> + +<p>Gently, cautiously as a child who had been given a new plaything, he +pressed upon the little knob on the door—and then he stood still with +restrained breath and listened for the light quick step that +approached.</p> + +<p>It was just as though in his childhood he stood outside the mountain +and called, first gently and half in fear, and then loudly and with a +voice trembling with glad expectation, "Sesame, Sesame! Open Sesame!"</p> + +<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by William H. +Carpenter</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5167" id="Page_5167">[Pg 5167]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="A_BALL_IN_HIGH_LIFE" id="A_BALL_IN_HIGH_LIFE"></a>A BALL IN HIGH LIFE</h3> + +<h4>From 'A Rescuing Angel'</h4> + +<p>The counselor's wife sat down on the sofa with her hands +folded in her lap. Arla remained standing a little farther +away, so that the green lamp-shade left her face in shadow.</p> + +<p>"My little girl," began her mother in a mild voice, "do not +feel hurt, but I must make a few remarks on your behavior +to-night. First of all, you will have to hold yourself a little +straighter when you dance. This tendency to droop the head +looks very badly. I noticed it especially when you danced with +Captain Lagerskiöld—and do you know, it looked almost as if +you were leaning your head against his shoulder."</p> + +<p>Arla blushed; she did not know why, but this reproach hurt +her deeply.</p> + +<p>"The dancing-teacher always said that to dance well one must +lean toward one's partner," she objected in a raised voice.</p> + +<p>"If that is so, it is better not to dance so well," answered her +mother seriously. "And another thing. I heard you ask Mr. +Örn to excuse you. And you danced the cotillon after all."</p> + +<p>"I suppose one has a right to dance with whom one pleases."</p> + +<p>"One never has a right to hurt others; and besides, you said +to Mr. Örn that you were tired out and not able to dance again. +How could you then immediately after—"</p> + +<p>"Captain Lagerskiöld leads so well," she said, lifting her head, +and her mother saw that her eyes were shining. "To dance +with him is no exertion."</p> + +<p>Her mother seemed inclined to say something, but hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Come a little nearer," she said. "Let me look at you."</p> + +<p>Arla came up, knelt down on a footstool, hid her face in her +mother's dress, and began to cry softly.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to tell you, then," said her mother, smoothing her hair. +"Poor child, don't give yourself up to these dreams. Captain +Lagerskiöld is the kind of a man that I should have preferred never to +have asked to our house. He is a man entirely without character and +principles—to be frank, a bad man."</p> + +<p>Arla raised her tear-stained face quickly.</p> + +<p>"I know that," she said almost triumphantly. "He told me so himself."</p> + +<p>Her mother was silent with astonishment, and Aria continued, +rising, "He has never had any parents nor any home, but has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5168" id="Page_5168">[Pg 5168]</a></span> +always been surrounded with temptations. And," she went on +in a lower voice, "he has never found any one that he could +really love, and it is only through love that he can be rescued +from the dark powers that have ruled his life."</p> + +<p>She repeated almost word for word what he had said. He had expressed +himself in so commonplace a way, and she was so far from suspecting +what his confession really meant, that she would not have been able to +clothe them in her own words. She had only a vague impression that he +was unhappy and sinful—and that she should save him. Sinful was to +her a mere abstract idea: everybody was full of sin, and his sin was +very likely that he lived without God. He had perhaps never learned to +pray, and maybe he never went to church or took the communion. She +knew that there were men who never did. And then perhaps he had been +engaged to Cecilia, and had broken the engagement when he saw that he +did not really love her.</p> + +<p>"And all this he has told you already!" exclaimed her mother, when she +got over her first surprise. "Well then, I can also guess what he said +further. Do you want me to tell you? You are the first girl he has +really loved—you are to be his rescuing angel—"</p> + +<p>Arla made a faint exclamation.</p> + +<p>"You do not suppose I have been listening?" asked her mother. "I know +it without that; men like this always speak so when they want to win +an innocent girl. When I was young I had an admirer of this kind—that +is not an uncommon experience."</p> + +<p>Not uncommon! These words were not said to her only; other men had +said the same before this to other young girls! Oh! but not in the +same way, at any rate! thought Arla. As he had said them—with such a +look—such a voice—no, nobody else could ever have done that.</p> + +<p>"And you didn't understand that a man who can make a young girl a +declaration of love the first time he sees her must be superficial and +not to be trusted?" continued her mother.</p> + +<p>"Mamma does not know what love is," thought Aria. "She does not know +that it is born in a moment and lasts for life. She has of course +never loved papa; then they would not be so matter-of-fact now."</p> + +<p>"And what did you answer?" asked her mother.</p> + +<p>Arla turned away. "I answered nothing," she said in a low voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5169" id="Page_5169">[Pg 5169]</a></span></p> + +<p>The mother's troubled face grew a little brighter.</p> + +<p>"That was right," she said, patting her on the cheek. "Then you left +him at once."</p> + +<p>Arla was on the point of saying, "Not at once," but she could not make +this confession. Other questions would then follow, and she would be +obliged to describe what had happened. Describe a scene like this to +her mother, who did not know what love was! That was impossible! So +she said yes, but in so weak and troubled a voice that her mother at +once saw it was not true. This was not Arla's first untruth; on the +contrary, she had often been guilty of this fault when a child. She +was so shy and loving that she could not stand the smallest reproach, +and a severe look was enough to make her cry; consequently she was +always ready to deny as soon as she had made the slightest mistake. +But when her mother took her face between her hands and looked +straight into her eyes, she saw at once how matters stood, for the +eyes could hide nothing. And since Arla grew older she had fought so +much against this weakness that she had almost exaggerated her +truthfulness. She was now as quick to confess what might bring +displeasure on herself, as if she were afraid of giving temptation the +slightest room.</p> + +<p>The mother, who with deep joy had noticed her many little victories +over herself, was painfully impressed by this relapse. She could not +now treat Arla as she had done when she was a little girl. Instead of +this, she opened the Bible by one of the many book-marks, with a +somewhat trembling hand.</p> + +<p>"Although it is late, shall we not read a chapter together, as we +always do before we go to bed?" she asked, and looked up at her +daughter.</p> + +<p>Arla stepped back, and cast an almost frightened glance at the little +footstool where she had been sitting at her mother's knee every +evening since she was a little girl. All this seemed now so +strange—it was no longer herself, it was a little younger sister, who +used to sit there and confess to her mother all her dreams and all her +little sorrows.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to—I cannot read to-night."</p> + +<p>Her mother laid the book down again, gave her daughter a mild, sad +look and said, "Then remember, my child, that this was the consequence +of your first ball."</p> + +<p>Arla bent her head and left the room slowly. Her mother let her go; +she found it wisest to leave her to herself until her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5170" id="Page_5170">[Pg 5170]</a></span> emotion had +somewhat worn itself out. Aria would not go into her own room; she +dreaded Gurli's chatter; she had to be alone to get control over her +thoughts. In the drawing-room she found her father.</p> + +<p>"Is mamma in her room?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Is she alone? Are the children asleep?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma is alone."</p> + +<p>"Well! Good-night, my girl." He kissed her lips and went into the +bedroom.</p> + +<p>Arla opened a window in the drawing-room to let out the hot air, and +then began to walk up and down wrapped in a large shawl, enjoying the +clear cold winter moonlight, which played over the snow and hid itself +behind the trees in the park outside the window. There they were to +meet to-morrow! Oh, if only he had said now, at once! If only she +could slip out now in her thin gown, and he could wrap his cape around +her to keep her warm—she did not remember that the men of to-day did +not wear capes like Romeo—and if then they could have gone away +together—far, far away from this prosaic world, where nobody +understood that two hearts could meet and find each other from the +first moment.</p> + +<p>She was not left alone long; a door was opened, light steps came +tripping, and a white apparition in night-gown stood in the full light +of the moonbeam.</p> + +<p>"But Arla, are you never, never coming?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Gurli dear, why aren't you asleep long ago?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? do you think I can sleep before I have heard something about the +ball? Come in now; how cold it is here!"</p> + +<p>She was so cold that she shivered in her thin night-gown, but clung +nevertheless to her sister, who was standing by the window.</p> + +<p>"Go; you are catching cold."</p> + +<p>"I don't care," she said, chattering. "I am not going till you come."</p> + +<p>Arla was, as usual, obliged to give in to the younger sister's strong +will. She closed the window and they went into their room, where Gurli +crept into bed again and drew the cover up to her very chin. Arla +began to unfasten her dress and take the flowers out of her hair.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose you had a divine time," came a voice from the bed +behind chattering teeth. There was nothing to be seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5171" id="Page_5171">[Pg 5171]</a></span> out on the +floor. "Then you are much more of a schoolgirl than I. Is there +perhaps any man who has told you that he loves you? Is there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but Gurli, what nonsense," said Arla laughing outright. "Has +really one of Arvid's friends—"</p> + +<p>"Arvid's friends!" repeated Gurli with an expression of indescribable +contempt. "Do you think such little boys would dare? Ph! I would give +them a box on the ear,—that would be the quickest way of getting rid +of such little whipper-snappers. No indeed; it is a man, a real +<i>man</i>—a man that any girl would envy me."</p> + +<p>She was so pretty as she stood there in her white gown, with her +dancing eyes and thick hair standing like a dark cloud around her rosy +young face, that a light broke on Arla, and a suspicion of the truth +flashed through her mind.</p> + +<p>"It is not possible that you mean—of course you don't mean—him—that +you just spoke of—Captain Lagerskiöld?"</p> + +<p>"And what if it <i>were</i> he!" cried Gurli, who in her triumph forgot to +keep her secret. Arla's usual modest self-possession left her +completely at this news.</p> + +<p>"Captain Lagerskiöld has told you that he loves you!" she cried with a +sharp and cutting voice, unlike her usual mild tone. "Oh, how wicked, +how wicked!"</p> + +<p>She hid her face in her hands and burst out crying.</p> + +<p>Gurli was frightened at her violent outbreak. She must have done +something awful, that Arla, who was always so quiet, should carry on +so. She crept close up to her sister, half ashamed and half +frightened, and whispered:—"He has only said it once. It was the day +before yesterday, and I ran away from him at once—I thought it was so +silly, and—"</p> + +<p>"Day before yesterday!" cried Arla and looked up with frightened, +wondering eyes. "Day before yesterday he told you that he loved you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; if only you will not be so awfully put out, I will tell you all +about it. He used to come up to the coasting-hill a great deal lately, +and then we walked up and down in the park and talked, and when I +wanted to coast he helped me get a start, and drew my sleigh up-hill +again. At first I did not notice him much, but then I saw he was very +nice—he would look at me sometimes for a long, long time—and you +can't imagine how he does look at one! And then day before yesterday +he began by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5172" id="Page_5172">[Pg 5172]</a></span> of Gurli but a pair of impatient dark eyes, under a +wilderness of brown hair.</p> + +<p>Arla was sitting at the toilet-table, her back to her sister.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"I see on your card that you danced two dances with Captain +Lagerskiöld. I suppose he dances awfully well, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know him?" asked Arla, and turned on the chair.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I do. Didn't he ask for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, now I remember. He said he had seen you with the children on the +coasting-hill. You must have been a little rude to him?"</p> + +<p>The whole head came out above the cover now.</p> + +<p>"Rude! how?"</p> + +<p>"He said something about your being so pert."</p> + +<p>"Pert? Oh, <i>what</i> a fib you do tell!" cried Gurli, and sat up in bed +with a jump.</p> + +<p>"I don't usually tell stories," said Arla with wounded dignity, but +blushed at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you do now, I am sure you do. I don't believe you, if you +don't tell me word for word what he said. Who began talking of me? And +what did he say? And what did you say?"</p> + +<p>"You had better tell me why you are so much interested in him," said +Arla in the somewhat superior tone of the elder sister.</p> + +<p>"That is none of your business. I will tell you that I am no longer a +little girl, as you seem to think. And even though I am treated like a +child here at home, there are others who—who—"</p> + +<p>"Are you not a child?" said Arla. "You are not confirmed yet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that it? That 'confirmation' is only a ceremony, which I +submit to for mamma's sake. And don't imagine that it is confirmation +which makes women of us; no indeed, it is something else."</p> + +<p>"What then?" asked Arla, much surprised.</p> + +<p>"It is—it is—love," burst out Gurli, and hid her head under the +covers.</p> + +<p>"Love! But Gurli, how you do talk! What do you know about that? You, a +little schoolgirl!"</p> + +<p>"Don't say 'little schoolgirl'—that makes me furious," cried Gurli, +as she pushed the cover aside with both hands and jumped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5173" id="Page_5173">[Pg 5173]</a></span> saying that +I had such pretty eyes—and then he said that such a happy little +sunbeam as I could light up his whole life, and that if he could not +meet me, he would not know what to do—"</p> + +<p>"Gurli!" cried Arla, and grasped her sister's arm violently. "Do you +love him?"</p> + +<p>Gurli let her eyes wander a little, and looked shy.</p> + +<p>"I think I do—I have read in the novels Arvid borrowed in +school—only don't tell mamma anything about it; but I have read that +when you are in love you always have such an awful palpitation of the +heart when <i>he</i> comes—and when I merely catch sight of him far off on +the hill in Kommandörsgatan, I felt as if I should strangle."</p> + +<p>"Captain Lagerskiöld is a bad, bad man!" sobbed Arla, and rushed out +of the room, hiding her face in her hands.</p> + +<p>The counselor's wife was still up and was reading, while her husband +had gone to bed. A tall screen standing at the foot of the bed kept +the light away from the sleeper. The counselor had just had a talk +with his wife, which most likely would keep her awake for the greater +part of the night; but he had fallen asleep as soon as he had spoken +to the point.</p> + +<p>"You must forgive me that I cannot quite approve your way of +fulfilling your duties as hostess," he had said when he came in to +her.</p> + +<p>His wife crossed her hands on the table and looked up at him with a +mild and patient face.</p> + +<p>"You show your likes and dislikes too much," he continued, "and think +too little of the claims of social usage. For instance, to pay so much +attention to Mrs. Ekström and her daughters—"</p> + +<p>"It was because nobody else paid any attention to them."</p> + +<p>"But even so, my dear, a drawing-room is not a charity institution, I +take it. Etiquette goes before everything else. And then you were +almost rude to Admiral Hornfeldt's wife, who is one of the first women +in society."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me; but I cannot be cordial to a woman for whom I have no +respect."</p> + +<p>The counselor shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of great +impatience.</p> + +<p>"I wish you could learn to see how wrong it is to let yourself be +influenced by these moral views in society."</p> + +<p>His wife was silent; it was her usual way of ending a conversation +which she knew could lead to no result, since each kept his own +opinion after all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5174" id="Page_5174">[Pg 5174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Did you notice Arla?" asked the counselor.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Did you not see that she made herself conspicuous by taking such an +interest in this outlived Lagerskiöld?"</p> + +<p>"I asked you not to invite Captain Lagerskiöld," said his wife mildly.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is not there," interrupted her husband; "but the trouble +is that your daughter is brought up to be a goose who understands +nothing. That is the result of your convent system. Girls so guarded +are always ready to fall into the arms of the first man who knows +somewhat how to impress them."</p> + +<p>This was the counselor's last remark before he fell asleep. It +awakened a feeling of great bitterness and hopelessness in his wife. +Her heart felt heavy at the thought of all the frivolity, all the +impurity into which her girls were to be thrown one after another. +When Arla, in whose earnestness and purity of character she had so +great a confidence, had shown herself so little proof against +temptation, what then would become of Gurli, who had such dangerous +tendencies? And the two little ones who were now sleeping soundly in +the nursery?</p> + +<p>"To what use is then all the striving and all the prayers?" she asked +herself. "What good then does it do to try to protect the children +from evil, if just this makes them more of a prey to temptation?"</p> + +<p>She laid her arms on the table and rested her forehead on her hands. +The awful question "What is the use of it? what is the use of it?" lay +heavy upon her.</p> + +<p>Then there came a soft knock at her door; it was opened a little, and +a timid voice whispered, "Is mamma alone? May I come in?"</p> + +<p>A ray of happiness came into the mother's face.</p> + +<p>"Come in, my child," she whispered, and stretched out her hands toward +her. "Papa sleeps so soundly, you need not be afraid of waking him."</p> + +<p>Arla came in on tiptoe, dressed in white gown and dressing-sack and +with her hair loose. There were red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes +were swollen from crying. She knelt down gently beside her mother, hid +her face in her mother's dress, and whispered in a voice trembling +with suppressed tears, "Will you read to me now, mamma?"</p> + +<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by +Olga Flinch</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5175" id="Page_5175">[Pg 5175]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="JONATHAN_EDWARDS" id="JONATHAN_EDWARDS"></a>JONATHAN EDWARDS</h2> + +<h4>(1703-1758)</h4> + +<h4>BY EGBERT C. SMYTH</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capp.png" width="80" height="80" alt="P" title="P" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">robably for most persons the influence of Edwards will longest +survive through his wonderful personality. "From the days of Plato," +says a writer in the Westminster Review, "there has been no life of +more simple and imposing grandeur." There are four memoirs. The +earliest is from Samuel Hopkins, D.D., a pupil and intimate friend. It +"has the quaint charm of Walton's Lives." The second, by Sereno +Edwards Dwight, D. D., is much more complete. He first brought to +light the remarkable early papers on topics in physics, natural +history, and philosophy. Dr. Samuel Miller's, in Sparks's 'Library of +American Biography,' is mainly a brief compend. The latest Life is by +Professor Alexander V. E. Allen, D. D. It endeavors to show "what he +[Edwards] thought, and how he came to think as he did," and is an +interesting and important contribution to a critical study of his +works. There is still need of an adequate biography, which can only be +written in connection with a thorough study of the manuscripts. A more +full and critical edition of Edwards's writings is also much to be +desired.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/edwards.png" width="300" height="300" alt="Jonathan Edwards" title="Jonathan Edwards" /> +<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Jonathan Edwards</span></span> +</div> + +<p>Edwards's first publication (1731) was a sermon preached in Boston +on 'God Glorified in Man's Dependence.' The conditions under which +it was produced afford striking contrasts to those attendant upon +Schleiermacher's epoch-making 'Reden über Religion'; but the same +note of absolute dependence upon God is struck by each with masterly +power. A yet more characteristic and deeply spiritual utterance +was given in the next published discourse, entitled 'A Divine +and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the +Spirit of God, Shown to be both a Scriptural and Rational Doctrine' +(1734). These two sermons are of primary significance for a right +understanding of their author's teaching. All is of God; faith is +sensibleness of what is real in the work of redemption; this reality +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5176" id="Page_5176">[Pg 5176]</a></span>is divinely and transcendently excellent; this quality of it is revealed +to the soul by the Holy Spirit, and becomes the spring of all holiness. +"The central idea of his system," says Henry B. Smith, "is +that of spiritual life (holy love) as the gift of divine grace." All of +Edwards's other writings may be arranged in relation to this principle,—as +introductory, explicative, or defensive.</p> + +<p>When the sermon on the 'Reality of Spiritual Light' was delivered, +the movement had begun which, as afterwards extended from Northampton +to many communities in New England and beyond, is known +as "The Great Awakening." The preaching of Edwards was a prominent +instrumentality in its origination, and he became its most effective +promoter and champion, and no less its watchful observer and +critic. Among the published (1738) sermons which it occasioned +should be specially mentioned those on 'Justification by Faith Alone,' +'The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,' 'The Excellency +of Jesus Christ,' 'The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit +of God, applied to that uncommon operation that has lately appeared +on the minds of many of the people of New England: with a particular +consideration of the extraordinary circumstances with which this +work is attended' (1741). The same year (1741) appeared the sermon +on 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' Some five years previous, +moved by the notice taken in London by Dr. Watts and Dr. +Guise of the religious revival in Northampton and several other +towns, and by a special request from Rev. Dr. Colman of Boston, +Edwards prepared a careful 'Narrative,' which, with a preface by +the English clergymen just named, was published in London in 1737, +and the year following in Boston. The sermon on the 'Distinguishing +Marks of a Work of the True Spirit of God' was followed by the +treatise entitled 'Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of +Religion, and the way in which it ought to be acknowledged and promoted' +(1742); and four years later, by the elaborate work on 'Religious +Affections.' The latter sums up all that Edwards had learned, +through his participation in the movement whose beginnings and +early stages are described in the 'Narrative,' and by his long-continued +and most earnest endeavor to determine the true hopes of the +spiritual life which had enlisted and well-nigh absorbed all the powers +of his mind and soul. It is a religious classic of the highest +order, yet, like the 'De Imitatione Christi,' suited only to those who +can read it with independent insight. They who can thus use it will +find it inexhaustible in its strenuous discipline and spiritual richness, +light, and sweetness. Its chief defect lies in its failure to discover +and unfold the true relation between the natural and the spiritual, +and to recognize the stages of Christian growth, the genuineness and +value of what is still "imperfect Christianity."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5177" id="Page_5177">[Pg 5177]</a></span></p> +<p>The "revival," with the endeavor to discover and apply the tests of a +true Christian life, brought into prominence as a practical issue the +old question of the proper requirements for church membership. The +common practice failed to emphasize the necessity of spiritual +regeneration and conversion, as upheld by Edwards and his followers. +The controversy became acute at Northampton, and combined with other +issues, resulted in his dismissal from his pastorate. His meek yet +lofty bearing during this season of partisan strife and bitter +animosity has commanded general admiration. Before he closed the +contest he published two works which, in the Congregational churches, +settled the question at issue in accordance with his principles—viz., +'An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God concerning the +Qualifications requisite to a Complete Standing and Full Communion in +the Visible Christian Church,' and 'Misrepresentations Corrected and +Truth Vindicated in a Reply to the Rev. Solomon Williams's Book,' etc.</p> + +<p>The reply to Williams was written and published after Edwards's +removal to Stockbridge. The period of his residence there (1751-1758, +January) was far from tranquil. His conscientious resistance to +schemes of pecuniary profit in the management of the Indian Mission +there, brought upon him bitter opposition. For six months he was +severely ill. In the French and Indian war a frontier town like +Stockbridge was peculiarly exposed to alarm and danger. Yet at this +time Edwards prepared the treatises on the 'Freedom of the Will,' the +'Ultimate End of Creation,' the 'Nature of Virtue,' and 'Original +Sin.' The first was published in 1754, the others after his death +(1758), as were many of his sermons, the 'History of Redemption,' and +extracts from his note-book ('Miscellaneous Observations,' +'Miscellaneous Remarks'). Early in 1758, having accepted the +presidency of the College of New Jersey, he removed to Princeton, +where he died March 22d.</p> + +<p>That with enfeebled health, and under the conditions of his life at +Stockbridge, he should have prepared such works as those just +enumerated, is a striking evidence of his intellectual discipline and +power. It would probably have been impossible even for him, but for +the practice he had observed from youth of committing his thoughts to +writing, and their concentration on the subjects handled in these +treatises. A careful study of his manuscript notes would probably be +of service for new and critical editions, and would seem to be +especially appropriate, since only the work on the 'Freedom of the +Will' was published by its author.</p> + +<p>It is impossible in the space of this sketch to analyze these +elaborate treatises, or to attempt a critical estimate of their value. +Foregoing this endeavor, I will simply add a few suggestions +occasioned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5178" id="Page_5178">[Pg 5178]</a></span>principally by some recent studies, either of the +originals or copies of unpublished manuscripts.</p> + +<p>Edwards's published works consist of compositions prepared with +reference to some immediate practical aim. When called to Princeton he +hesitated to accept, lest he should be interrupted in the preparation +of "a body of divinity in an entire new method, being thrown into the +form of a history." It was on his "mind and heart," "long ago begun," +"a great work." The beginnings of it are preserved in the 'History of +Redemption' posthumously published, but this was written as early as +1739, as a series of sermons, and without thought of publication. The +volume of miscellanies, also published after his death, are extracts +from his note-book, arranged by the editor. Nowhere has Edwards +himself given a systematic exposition of his conception of +Christianity. The incompleteness of even the fullest edition of his +works increases the liability of misconstruction. It would not be +suspected, for instance, to what extent his mind dealt with the +conception of God as triune, or with the Incarnation.</p> + +<p>His published works show on their face his relation to the religious +questions uppermost in men's minds during his lifetime. "He that would +know," writes Mr. Bancroft, "the workings of the New England mind in +the middle of the last century and the throbbings of its heart, must +give his days and nights to the study of Jonathan Edwards." And +Professor Allen justly adds, "He that would understand ... the +significance of later New England thought, must make Edwards the first +object of his study." Besides these high claims to attention, one more +may be made. The greatness of Edwards's character implies a contact of +his mind with permanent and the highest truth—a profound knowledge +and consciousness of God. Human and therefore imperfect, colored by +inherited prepossessions, and run into some perishable molds, his +thought is pervaded by a spiritual insight which has an original and +undying worth. It is not unlikely that the future will assign him a +higher rank than the past.</p> + +<p>In one of the earliest, if not the first of his private philosophical +papers, the essay entitled 'Of Being,' may be found the key to his +fundamental conceptions. An exposition of his system, wrought out from +this point of view, will show that he has a secure and eminent +position among those who have contributed to that spiritual +apprehension of nature and man, of matter and mind, of the universe +and God, which has ever marked the thinking and influence of the +finest spirits and highest teachers of our race.</p> + +<p>Edwards was born October 5th, 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut. He +was the son of Rev. Timothy and Esther Stoddard Edwards; was graduated +at Yale College in 1720; studied theology at New Haven; from August +1722 to March 1723 preached in New York; from 1724 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5179" id="Page_5179">[Pg 5179]</a></span>to 1726 was a +tutor at Yale; on the 15th of February, 1727, was ordained at +Northampton, Massachusetts; in 1750 was dismissed from the church +there, and in 1751 removed to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was +called to Princeton in 1757, and died there March 22d, 1758.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 335px;"> +<img src="images/sign121.png" width="335" height="85" alt="Egbert C. Smyth" title="Egbert C. Smyth" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="REL_HISTORY" id="REL_HISTORY"></a>FROM NARRATIVE OF HIS RELIGIOUS HISTORY</h3> + +<p>From about that time I began to have a new kind of apprehensions and +ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of +salvation by him. An inward sweet sense of these things at times came +into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and +contemplations of them. And my mind was greatly engaged to spend my +time in reading and meditating on Christ, on the beauty and excellency +of his person, and the lovely way of salvation by free grace in +him....</p> + +<p>Not long after I first began to experience these things, I gave an +account to my father of some things that had passed in my mind. I was +pretty much affected by the discourse we had together; and when the +discourse was ended I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my +father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there and +looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a +sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God as I know not how to +express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and +meekness joined together: it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy +majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and +great, and holy gentleness.</p> + +<p>After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became +more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The +appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, +a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost +everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed +to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars, in the clouds +and blue sky, in the grass, flowers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5180" id="Page_5180">[Pg 5180]</a></span> trees, in the water and all +nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and +view the moon for a long time, and in the day spent much time in +viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these +things; in the meantime singing forth, with a low voice, my +contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce anything among +all the works of nature was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; +formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be +uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I +saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. +I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a +thunder-storm; and used to take the opportunity at such times to fix +myself in order to view the clouds and see the lightnings play and +hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes +was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my +great and glorious God. While thus engaged it always seemed natural +for me to sing or chant forth my meditations, or to speak my thoughts +in soliloquies with a singing voice.</p> + +<p>My sense of divine things seemed gradually to increase, till I went to +preach at New York, which was about a year and a half after they +began; and while I was there I felt them very sensibly, in a much +higher degree than I had done before. My longings after God and +holiness were much increased. . . .</p> + +<p>Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, +appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm +nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, +peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it made +the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant +flowers; enjoying a sweet calm and the gently vivifying beams of the +sun. The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, +appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of +the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive +the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm +rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and +lovingly in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner +opening their bosoms, to drink in the light of the sun. There was no +part of creature-holiness, that I had so great a sense of its +loveliness, as humility, brokenness of heart, and poverty of spirit; +and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5181" id="Page_5181">[Pg 5181]</a></span> panted +after this—to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be +nothing, and that God might be All; that I might become as a little +child.</p> + + +<h4>RESOLUTIONS</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or +body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be nor +suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it."</p> + +<p>"Resolved, To live with all my might while I do live."</p> + +<p>"Resolved, When I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, +immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do +not hinder."</p> + +<p>"Resolved, To endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not +most agreeable to a good and universally sweet and benevolent, +quiet, peaceable, contented and easy, compassionate and generous, +humble and meek, submissive and obliging, diligent and industrious, +charitable and even, patient, moderate, forgiving and sincere temper; +and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to; and +to examine strictly, at the end of every week, whether I have so +done."</p> + +<p>"On the supposition that there was never to be but one individual +in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete +Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always +shining in its true lustre, and appearing excellent and lovely, from +whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, To +act just as I would do, if I strive with all my might to be that one, +who should live in my time."</p> + +<p>"I observe that old men seldom have any advantage of new discoveries, +because they are beside the way of thinking to which they +have been so long used: Resolved, If ever I live to years, that I +will be impartial to hear the reasons of all pretended discoveries, and +receive them if rational, how long soever I have been used to another +way of thinking. My time is so short that I have not time to perfect, +myself in all studies: Wherefore resolved, to omit and put off +all but the most important and needful studies."</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5182" id="Page_5182">[Pg 5182]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="LEAF" id="LEAF"></a>WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF IN 1723</h3> + +<p>They say there is a young lady [in New Haven] who is beloved of that +Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain +seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, +comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that +she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him—that she +expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up +out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he +loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. +There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and +delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, +with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for +it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange +sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most +just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade +her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the +world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful +sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially +after this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will +sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to +be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She +loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have +some one invisible always conversing with her.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="NOTHING" id="NOTHING"></a>THE IDEA OF NOTHING</h3> + +<h4>From 'Of Being'</h4> + +<p>A state of absolute nothing is a state of absolute contradiction. +Absolute nothing is the aggregate of all the absurd contradictions in +the world; a state wherein there is neither body nor spirit, nor +space, neither empty space nor full space, neither little nor great, +narrow nor broad, neither infinitely great space nor finite space, nor +a mathematical point, neither up nor down, neither north nor south (I +do not mean as it is with respect to the body of the earth or some +other great body, but no contrary point nor positions or directions), +no such thing as either here or there, this way or that way, or only +one way. When we go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5183" id="Page_5183">[Pg 5183]</a></span> about to form an idea of perfect nothing we must +shut out all these things; we must shut out of our minds both space +that has something in it, and space that has nothing in it. We must +not allow ourselves to think of the least part of space, never so +small. Nor must we suffer our thoughts to take sanctuary in a +mathematical point. When we go to expel body out of our thoughts, we +must cease not to leave empty space in the room of it; and when we go +to expel emptiness from our thoughts, we must not think to squeeze it +out by anything close, hard, and solid, but we must think of the same +that the sleeping rocks dream of; and not till then shall we get a +complete idea of nothing.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FREEWILL" id="FREEWILL"></a>THE NOTION OF ACTION AND AGENCY ENTERTAINED BY MR. CHUBB AND OTHERS</h3> +<h4>From the 'Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will,' Part iv., § 2</h4> + +<p>So that according to their notion of the act, considered with +regard to its consequences, these following things are all +essential to it: viz., That it should be necessary, and not +necessary; that it should be from a cause, and no cause; that it +should be the fruit of choice and design, and not the fruit of +choice and design; that it should be the beginning of motion or +exertion, and yet consequent on previous exertion; that it should +be before it is; that it should spring immediately out of indifference +and equilibrium, and yet be the effect of preponderation; +that it should be self-originated, and also have its original from +something else; that it is what the mind causes itself, of its own +will, and can produce or prevent according to its choice or pleasure, +and yet what the mind has no power to prevent, precluding +all previous choice in the affair.</p> + +<p>So that an act, according to their metaphysical notion of it, is +something of which there is no idea.... If some learned +philosopher who had been abroad, in giving an account of the +curious observations he had made in his travels, should say he +had been in Tierra del Fuego, and there had seen an animal, +which he calls by a certain name, that begat and brought forth +itself, and yet had a sire and dam distinct from itself; that it had +an appetite and was hungry, before it had a being; that his master, +who led him and governed him at his pleasure, was always +governed by him and driven by him where he pleased; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5184" id="Page_5184">[Pg 5184]</a></span> +when he moved he always took a step before the first step; that +he went with his head first, and yet always went tail foremost; +and this though he had neither head nor tail: it would be no +impudence at all to tell such a traveler, though a learned man, +that he himself had no idea of such an animal as he gave an +account of, and never had, nor ever would have.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHRIST" id="CHRIST"></a>EXCELLENCY OF CHRIST</h3> + +<p>When we behold a beautiful body, a lovely proportion and beautiful +harmony of features, delightful airs of countenance and voice, and +sweet motions and gestures, we are charmed with it, not under the +notion of a corporeal but a mental beauty. For if there could be a +statue that should have exactly the same, that could be made to have +the same sounds and the same motions precisely, we should not be so +delighted with it, we should not fall entirely in love with the image, +if we knew certainly that it had no perception or understanding. The +reason is, we are apt to look upon this agreeableness, those airs, to +be emanations of perfections of the mind, and immediate effects of +internal purity and sweetness. Especially it is so when we love the +person for the airs of voice, countenance, and gesture, which have +much greater power upon us than barely colors and proportion of +dimensions. And it is certainly because there is an analogy between +such a countenance and such airs and those excellencies of the +mind,—a sort of I know not what in them that is agreeable, and does +consent with such mental perfections; so that we cannot think of such +habitudes of mind without having an idea of them at the same time. Nor +can it be only from custom; for the same dispositions and actings of +mind naturally beget such kind of airs of countenance and gesture, +otherwise they never would have come into custom. I speak not here of +the ceremonies of conversation and behavior, but of those simple and +natural motions and airs. So it appears, because the same habitudes +and actings of mind do beget [airs and movements] in general the same +amongst all nations, in all ages.</p> + +<p>And there is really likewise an analogy or consent between the beauty +of the skies, trees, fields, flowers, etc., and spiritual +excellencies, though the agreement be more hid, and require a more +discerning, feeling mind to perceive it than the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5185" id="Page_5185">[Pg 5185]</a></span> Those have +their airs, too, as well as the body and countenance of man, which +have a strange kind of agreement with such mental beauties. This makes +it natural in such frames of mind to think of them and fancy ourselves +in the midst of them. Thus there seem to be love and complacency in +flowers and bespangled meadows; this makes lovers so much delight in +them. So there is a rejoicing in the green trees and fields, and +majesty in thunder beyond all other noises whatever.</p> + +<p>Now, we have shown that the Son of God created the world for this very +end, to communicate himself in an image of his own excellency. He +communicates himself, properly, only to spirits; and they only are +capable of being proper images of his excellency, for they only are +properly <i>beings</i>, as we have shown. Yet he communicates a sort of a +shadow, a glimpse, of his excellencies to bodies, which, as we have +shown, are but the shadows of beings, and not real beings. He who by +his immediate influence gives being every moment, and by his spirit +actuates the world, because he inclines to communicate himself and his +excellencies, doth doubtless communicate his excellency to bodies, as +far as there is any consent or analogy. And the beauty of face and +sweet airs in men are not always the effect of the corresponding +excellencies of mind; yet the beauties of nature are really emanations +or shadows of the excellencies of the Son of God.</p> + +<p>So that when we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes +of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet +benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and +lily, we see this love and purity. So the green trees, and fields, and +singing of birds are the emanations of his infinite joy and benignity. +The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of his +beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are +the footsteps of his favor, grace, and beauty. When we behold the +light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, +or the beauteous bow, we behold the adumbrations of his glory and +goodness; and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness. There +are also many things wherein we may behold his awful majesty: in the +sun in his strength, in comets, in thunder, in the hovering +thunder-clouds, in ragged rocks and the brows of mountains. That +beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day is a +lively shadow of his spotless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5186" id="Page_5186">[Pg 5186]</a></span> holiness, and happiness, and delight, +in communicating himself; and doubtless this is a reason that Christ +is so often compared to those things and called by their names,—as, +the Sun of Righteousness, the Morning Star, the Rose of Sharon, the +Lily of the Valley, the apple-tree amongst the trees of the wood, a +bundle of myrrh, a roe, or a young hart. By this we may discover the +beauty of many of those metaphors and similes which to an +unphilosophical person do seem so uncouth.</p> + +<p>In like manner, when we behold the beauty of man's body in its +perfection we still see like emanations of Christ's divine +perfections; although they do not always flow from the mental +excellencies of the person that has them. But we see far the most +proper image of the beauty of Christ when we see beauty in the human +soul.</p> + +<p>Corol. I. From hence it is evident that man is in a fallen state; and +that he has naturally scarcely anything of those sweet graces which +are an image of those which are in Christ. For no doubt, seeing that +other creatures have an image of them according to their capacity, so +all the rational and intelligent part of the world once had according +to theirs.</p> + +<p>Corol. II. There will be a future state wherein man will have them +according to his capacity. How great a happiness will it be in Heaven +for the saints to enjoy the society of each other, since one may see +so much of the loveliness of Christ in those things which are only +shadows of beings. With what joy are philosophers filled in beholding +the aspectable world. How sweet will it be to behold the proper image +and communications of Christ's excellency in intelligent beings, +having so much of the beauty of Christ upon them as Christians shall +have in heaven. What beautiful and fragrant flowers will those be, +reflecting all the sweetnesses of the Son of God! How will Christ +delight to walk in this garden among those beds of spices, to feed in +the gardens, and to gather lilies!</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5187" id="Page_5187">[Pg 5187]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THE_ESSENCE_OF_TRUE_VIRTUE" id="THE_ESSENCE_OF_TRUE_VIRTUE"></a>THE ESSENCE OF TRUE VIRTUE</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Nature of True Virtue,' Chapters i, ii</h4> + +<p>True virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to being +in general. Or perhaps, to speak more accurately, it is that +consent, propensity, and union of heart to being in general, +which is immediately exercised in a general good-will....</p> + +<p>A benevolent propensity of heart to being in general, and a +temper or disposition to love God supremely, are in effect the +same thing.... However, every particular exercise of love +to a creature may not <i>sensibly</i> arise from any exercise of love to +God, or an explicit consideration of any similitude, conformity, +union or relation to God, in the creature beloved.</p> + +<p>The most proper evidence of love to a created being arising +from that temper of mind wherein consists a supreme propensity +of heart to God, seems to be the agreeableness of the kind and +degree of our love to God's end in our creation, and in the creation +of all things, and the coincidence of the exercises of our +love, in their manner, order, and measure, with the manner in +which God himself exercises love to the creature in the creation +and government of the world, and the way in which God, as the +first cause and supreme disposer of all things, has respect to the +creature's happiness in subordination to himself as his own supreme +end. For the true virtue of created beings is doubtless their +highest excellency and their true goodness.... But the true +goodness of a thing must be its agreeableness to its end, or its +fitness to answer the design for which it was made. Therefore +they are good moral agents whose temper of mind or propensity +of heart is agreeable to the end for which God made moral +agents....</p> + +<p>A truly virtuous mind ... above all things seeks the glory +of God.... This consists in the expression of God's perfections +in their proper effects,—the manifestation of God's glory to +created understandings; the communication of the infinite fullness +of God to the creature; the creature's highest esteem of God, +love to and joy in him; and in the proper exercises and expressions +of these. And so far as virtuous mind exercises true virtue +in benevolence to created beings, it chiefly seeks the good of the +creature; consisting in its knowledge or view of God's glory and +beauty, its union with God, uniformity and love to him, and joy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5188" id="Page_5188">[Pg 5188]</a></span> +in him. And that disposition of heart, that consent, union, or +propensity of mind to being in general which appears chiefly in +such exercises, is virtue, truly so called; or in other words, true +grace and real holiness. And no other disposition or affection +but this is of the nature of virtue.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5189" id="Page_5189">[Pg 5189]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="GERORGES_EEKHOUD" id="GERORGES_EEKHOUD"></a>GERORGES EEKHOUD</h2> + +<h4>(1854-)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capl.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="L" title="L" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">a Jeune Belgique" is more than a school; it is a literary movement, +which began about the year 1880. The aim of this group of writers is +to found a national literature, which uses the French language and +technique for the expression of the Flemish or Walloon spirit, and the +peculiar sentiment and individuality of the Belgian race which has +developed between the more powerful nations of France and Germany. In +the words of William Sharp:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"To one who has closely studied the whole movement in its intimate and +extra-national bearings, as well as in its individual manifestations +and aberrations, its particular and collective achievement in the +several literary <i>genres</i>, there is no question as to the radical +distinction between Belgic and French literature. Whether there be a +great future for the first, is almost entirely dependent on the +concurrent political condition of Belgium. If Germany were to +appropriate the country, it is almost certain that only the Flemish +spirit would retain its independent vitality, and even that probably +only for a generation or two. But if Belgium were absorbed by France, +Brussels would almost immediately become as insignificant a literary +centre as is Lyons or Bordeaux, or be, at most, not more independent +of Paris than is Marseilles. Literary Belgium would be a memory, +within a year of the hoisting of the French tricolor from the Scheldt +to the Liege. Meanwhile, the whole energy of 'Young Belgium' is +consciously or unconsciously concentrated in the effort to withstand +Paris."</p></div> + +<p>Among the leading spirits of "La Jeune Belgique" are Maurice +Maeterlinck, Georges Eekhoud, Camille Lemonnier, Georges Rodenbach, +J.K. Huysmans, Auguste Jenart, Eugene Demolder, and a number of +others, who have distinguished themselves in fiction and poetry. Their +works are generally inspired by the uncompromising sense of the +reality of ordinary life, which would sometimes be repulsive if it +were not for their brilliant style and psychological undercurrent.</p> + +<p>This school of literature is somewhat analogous to that of the Flemish +painting. Nature is always an important accessory to the development +of the action; and therefore the landscapes and the <i>genre</i> pictures +are given with a rapid and sure touch and in a vivid and high key,—so +high that at times the colors are almost crude. The reader of these +Belgian writers often feels, in consequence, that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5190" id="Page_5190">[Pg 5190]</a></span>he is looking at a +series of paintings which are being explained by a narrator.</p> + +<p>Of all these writers, Georges Eekhoud, whom Mr. Sharp calls "the +Maupassant of the Low Countries," is the one who has made the greatest +effort to model his work upon the style of the contemporary French +authors. He was born in Antwerp, May 27th 1854. His literary career +was begun as an editor of the Precursor, in Antwerp, but he soon +became associated with L'Étoile Beige as literary editor. In 1877 he +published his first volume, entitled 'Myrtes et Cyprès.' This was +succeeded by a second book of poetry, 'Zigzags Poetiqués et +Pittoresques,' which appeared in 1879. Among the most admired of these +poems are 'La Mare aux Sangues,' 'Nina,' 'Raymonne,' and the strong +'La Guigne.'</p> + +<p>French critics say that his diction lacks polish, but that he has +strength, color, and a talent for description. His novels are—'Kees +Doorik' (1884), 'Les Kermesses' (1884), 'Les Milices de +Saint-Frangois' (1886), 'Les Nouvelles Kermesses' (1887), and 'La +Nouvelle Carthage' (1888). The latter is considered his most brilliant +novel, and won for him the quinquennial prize of 5,000 francs given +for French literature in Belgium. It is a vivid picture of Antwerp, +with vigorous and highly colored descriptions of its middle-class +citizens, enriched by centuries of continued prosperity. In general, +Eekhoud is naturalistic, and intent only on painting life as he sees +and feels it. His other books include—'Cycle Patibulaire' (1892); 'Au +Siecle de Shakespeare,' a valuable book on the English literature of +the Elizabethan period (1893); and 'Mes Communions' (1895).</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="EXVOTO" id="EXVOTO"></a>EX-VOTO</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Massacre of the Innocents, and Other Tales by Belgian Writers': +copyright 1895, by Stone & Kimball</h4> + +<p>The country I know and love best does not exist for the tourist, +and neither guide nor doctor ever dreams of recommending +it. This reassures me, for I love my country selfishly, +exclusively. The land is ancient, flat, the home of fogs. With +the exception of the Polder <i>schorres</i>, the district fertilized by the +overflowing of the river, few districts are cultivated. A single +canal from the Scheldt irrigates its fields and plains, and occasional +railways connect its unfrequented towns.</p> + +<p>The politician execrates it, the merchant despises it, it intimidates +and baffles legions of bad painters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5191" id="Page_5191">[Pg 5191]</a></span></p> + +<p>Poets of the boudoir! virtuosi! This flat country will always +elude your descriptions! For you, landscape painters, there is no +inspiration to be gained here. O chosen land, neither thou nor +thy secret can be seen at a glance! The degenerate folk who +pass through this country feel nothing of its healthy, intoxicating +charm, or are only wearied in the midst of this gray peaceful +nature, unrelieved by hill or torrent; and still less sympathy have +they with the country louts who stare at them with placid bovine +eyes.</p> + +<p>The people remain robust, uncouth, obstinate, and ignorant. +No music stirs me like the Flemish from their lips. They mouth +it, drawl it, linger lovingly over the guttural syllables, while the +harsh consonants fall heavily as their fists. They move slowly, +swingingly, bent-shouldered and heavy-jawed; like bulls, they are +at once fierce and taciturn. Never shall I meet more comely, firm-bosomed +lassies, never see eyes more appealing, than those of this +dear land of mine. Under their blue <i>kiel</i> the brawny lads swagger +well content; though when in drink, if dispute arises, rivalry +may drive them into fatal conflicts. The <i>tierendar</i> ends many a +quarrel without further ado; and as the combatants cut and hack, +their faces preserve that dogged smile of the old Germans who +fought in the Roman arenas. During the kermesses they over-eat +themselves, they get drunk, dance with a kind of <i>gauche</i> solemnity, +embrace their sweethearts without much ceremony, and when +the dance is over, gratify themselves with all manner of excesses.</p> + +<p>One and all, they are slow to give themselves away; but once +gained, their affection is unalterable.</p> + +<p>Those who depict them thick-set, laughter-loving, misshapen +boors, do not know this race. The Campine peasantry recall +rather the brown shepherd folk of Jordaens than the pot-house +scenes by Teniers, a great man who slandered his Perck rustics.</p> + +<p>They preserve the faith of past centuries, undertake pilgrim-ages, +respect their <i>pastoor</i>, believe in the Devil, in the wizard, in +the evil eye, that <i>jettatura</i> of the North. So much the better. +These yokels fascinate me. I prefer their poetic traditions, the +legends drawled out by an old <i>pachteresse</i> in the evening hours, +to the liveliest tale of Voltaire, and their clan-narrowness and +religious fanaticism stir me more than the patriotic declamations +and the insipid civic rhodomontade of the journalist. Splendid +and glorious rebels, these Vendeans of ours; may philosophy and +civilization long forget them. When the day of equality, dreamed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5192" id="Page_5192">[Pg 5192]</a></span> +of by geometric minds, comes, they will disappear also, my +superb brutes; hunted down, crushed by invasion, but to the end +unyielding to Positivist influences. My brothers, utilitarianism +will do away with you, you and your rude remote country!</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, I who have your hot rebel blood coursing in my +veins, I who shall not survive you, am fain to steep my spirit in +yours, to be at one with you in all that is rude and savage in +you, to stupefy myself at great casks of brown ale at the fairs, +with you to raise up my voice when the clouds of incense rise +like smoke above your sacred processions, to seat myself in silence +beside your smoky hearths or to wander alone across the desolate +sand-dunes at the hour when the frogs croak, and when the distraught +shepherd, become an incendiary and a lost man, grazes his flock of +fire across the heaths....</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the June of 1865, I had just reached my +eleventh birthday and made my first communion with the Frères +de la Misericorde at M——. One morning I was called into the +parlor; there I found the father superior and my uncle, who told +me that he would take me to Antwerp to see my father. At the +idea of this unexpected holiday and the prospect of embracing +my kind parent, who had been a widower for five years and to +whom I was now everything, I did not notice my uncle's serious +looks nor the pitying glances of the monk.</p> + +<p>We set off. The train did not go fast enough for my liking. However, +we arrived at last. To ring the door-bell of the simple little +house; to embrace Yana the servant; to submit to the caresses of good +Lion, a splendid brown spaniel, to race up-stairs with him four +steps at a time, to bound into the familiar bedroom, then two +words:—"Father!—George!"—to feel myself lifted up and pressed +against his heart; to be devoured with kisses, my lips seeking his in +the big fair beard: these actions followed one another rapidly; but +transient as they were, they are forever graven on my memory. What a +long time the dear man held me in his arms! He looked at me with +tender admiration, repeating, "What a big boy you have grown, my +Jurgen, my Krapouteki!" and he repeated a whole string of impossible +but adorable pet names he had invented for me, and among which he +interspersed caresses. It was still early in the morning.</p> + +<p>When I entered, followed by Lion, Yana, and finally by my uncle, the +least member of the four, my father was in his dressing-gown, but was +about to dress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5193" id="Page_5193">[Pg 5193]</a></span></p> + +<p>He looked splendid to me. His color was fresh, but too flushed about +the cheek-bones, I was told afterwards; his eyes sparkled—sparkled +too much; his voice was a little hoarse, but sweet, caressing, despite +its grave tone,—a tone never to be forgotten by me.</p> + +<p>He was then forty-six. I see his tall figure rise before me now, with +his well-set limbs; and his kind face still smiles on me in my dreams.</p> + +<p>My uncle clasped his hand.</p> + +<p>"You see that I keep my word, Ferdinand. Here's the little scamp +himself!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Henry. Pardon the trouble I have caused you.... You will +laugh at me; but if you had not brought him, I should have gone to the +convent myself to-day.... I should have scorned the doctor's regime +and prescriptions.... You do not know, Georgie.... I have not been +very well.... Oh, a mere nothing; a small ailment, a neglected +cold.... A slight cold, was it not, Yana? ... I have lost it, as you +see.... Ah! my boy, what good it does me to see you! ... What fun we +shall have! We are going out into the country at once.... I have +prepared a surprise for you."</p> + +<p>I listened enchanted—oh the selfishness of childhood! The promise of +this expedition made me deaf to his cough—a dry, convulsive cough +which he tried to stifle by holding his silk handkerchief to his +mouth. Neither did I notice—or rather I did notice but attached no +importance to—the bottles of medicine and pill-boxes which stood on +the chimney-piece and on the bed-table. A bottle of syrup had just +been opened, and a drop remained in the silver spoon. Yana held a +prescription in her hand, which had been written that morning. A heavy +odor of opiates and other drugs filled the room. These details only +recurred to me afterwards.</p> + +<p>My uncle took leave.</p> + +<p>"Above all, no imprudence!" he said to my father. "You promise me? Be +back in town before the dew falls.... I will take George to school +again to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>"Set your mind at rest; we will be wise!" replied my father, excited +and preoccupied, thinking only of his child.</p> + +<p>I believe that he was not sorry to find himself alone with me, and as +the prospect of returning to M——, evoked by the old officer, had +saddened me, he took me on his knee.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5194" id="Page_5194">[Pg 5194]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Courage! little one," he said. "It is not for long. I feel too lonely +since the death of your poor mother. I have told my family that in the +future I do not intend to be separated from you ... You have made your +first communion, ... you are big, ... you shall go back to school for +a week, just time to pack up and to settle in our new quarters.... +Come, there, I am betraying the secret ... Never mind, after all, I +may as well tell you everything now. I have bought a pretty little +house, almost a farmstead, three miles from here.... We are going to +live in the country, like peasants, to wear sabots and smocks. Hey? +That will make you grow.... What do you say to it?... We shall be +always together."</p> + +<p>I clapped my hands, and jumped round the room.</p> + +<p>"What joy! Always we two, is that it? Then we shall be always +together. Is it really true?"</p> + +<p>"Really true."</p> + +<p>We sealed this understanding in a long embrace.</p> + +<p>An hour later my father, Yana, and I stepped into a landau at the +door.</p> + +<p>It was one of those enervating equinoctial days when the warmth and +the intense quietness affect one almost to tears. The sun, in a +beautiful Flemish sky of pale, soft turquoise, had dispersed the +morning mist.</p> + +<p>"Look at him, sir," said Yana, pointing to me; "he is as happy as a +king!"</p> + +<p>"Now is the time to take in a plentiful supply of air," remarked my +father; "one only needs to open one's mouth!"</p> + +<p>I opened mine quite wide, as if I were yawning.</p> + +<p>What a difference, too, between this air and the air at school; even +that which one breathed out of doors in the cloistered court, shut in +by four forbidding high walls, sweating with damp and decaying with +mildew.</p> + +<p>Seated with my back to the coachman, my hands on my father's knee, I +uttered exclamations of surprise and besieged him with questions. He +sat back in the carriage, shielded from the wind by his big overcoat. +Yana sat beside him; Lion ran on in advance.</p> + +<p>Passing along the chief street of the suburb, we came out into the +open country. The tufts of young leaves gave a sweet freshness to the +hoary trunks of the great beech-trees which lined the road. In place +of the yellow withered grass in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5195" id="Page_5195">[Pg 5195]</a></span> meadows, there was a vivid +emerald carpet; splendid cows, with well-rounded flanks and dewlaps +reaching the ground, nibbled the tender shoots. The full rows of young +corn promised a plentiful harvest. Between a double hedge of +weeping-willows and alders ran silvery waters, swollen by the melting +of the late snows. When we passed a flower-garden the scent of lilac +filled the dreamy air. Gates with gilt knobs opened on avenues of elms +and oaks; sloping lawns led up to a castle, whose terrace was +ornamented with clipped and modeled orange-trees. The majestic passing +of a pair of big swans or the scurry of hare-brained ducks stirred the +stagnant pond, and left wakes amid the flags and water-lilies.</p> + +<p>Moss-grown farmsteads, flanked by barns with green shutters fixed to +the red bricks, draw-wells, chickens picking about on the +manure-heaps,—these were my chief delight. Sometimes a countryman's +cart with its white awning stood on one side for us to pass.</p> + +<p>We drove through Deurne, then through Wyneghem.</p> + +<p>For the third time a slender spire lifted its gray-slated point into +the opaline sky.</p> + +<p>"S'Gravenwezel tower!" exclaimed Yana.</p> + +<p>"S'Gravenwezel! But that is your village!" I cried. "Are we going to +live there?"</p> + +<p>The good creature smiled in the affirmative.</p> + +<p>Some few moments later, the driver, directed by Yana, stopped in front +of a lonely farm, a quarter of an hour away from the rest of the long, +straggling village.</p> + +<p>"This is my parents' home!" she said.</p> + +<p>I can still see the little one-storied farmhouse, with its overhanging +thatched roof, festooned with stone-crop, a white chalk cross on the +brickwork to protect it from lightning. At sound of the carriage, the +whole household ran to the door. There was Yana's father, a short, +thick-set sexagenarian, bent but still healthy-looking, his face +wrinkled like old parchment, with a stiff beard and bright eyes; the +mother, a buxom woman about ten years younger, very active despite her +stoutness; then a host of brothers and sisters, varying from +twenty-five to fifteen; the boys bold, dark, curly-headed, muscular, +square-set fellows; the girls fresh-looking, tanned by the sun, all +like Yana their elder sister, who, to my mind, was the most charming +<i>boerine annversoise</i> that one could imagine, with her dark hair, her +big emerald-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5196" id="Page_5196">[Pg 5196]</a></span>green eyes and sweeping lashes. In honor of S'Gravenwezel +kermesse,—sounds of which could already be heard in the distance, +—they said, but more in honor of our visit, the men wore their Sunday +trousers, and bright blue smocks coquettishly gathered at the neck. +The women had taken out their lace caps with big wings, the +head-dresses with silver pins, woolen dresses, and large silk +handkerchiefs which crossed over the breast and fell in a point +behind. The good people complimented my father on his appearance. +"That is Mynheer's son,—Jonkheer Jorss!" In a few moments I had made +friends with these simple cordial folk, and particularly with a fine +lad of nineteen—"onze Jan" (our Jean), said Yana—on the eve of +drawing lots for the conscription.</p> + +<p>When his sister laid the table,—for we were to stay to dinner +there,—he offered to show me the orchard, the garden, and the +stables. I accepted joyfully. I could no longer keep still. Jean, with +my hand in his, took me first to the cows. As they lay down, chained +up in their sheds, they lowed piteously. The dung-strewn bedding shone +with bronze and old-gold, and the far end of the stable resembled a +picture by Rembrandt—at least, it is thus that I recall to-day that +reddish-brown half-light. That I might be better able to admire the +animals, he roused them with a kick. They got up lazily, sulkily. He +told me their names and their good points. That big black one, with +the spot between her eyes, was Lottekè; this big glutton chewing the +early clover was called La Blanche. Jan persuaded me to pat them. They +rubbed their horns against the posts which divided them. The boy told +me that they were excellent milkers. I counted six in all. A strong +smell of milk filled the air, warm with all this breathing, heaving +animality. Jan promised to take me to work in the fields with him when +I came to live in the village. I should dig the ground and become a +real peasant, a <i>boer</i> like himself. <i>Boer Jorss</i>, he called me, +laughing. But I took this prospect of country life quite seriously; I +admired the fine figure, the proud healthy bearing, of this young +peasant. I in my turn should grow like that, I thought. A career such +as his awaited me! That was better than wearing a frock-coat and a +black hat, than growing pale and fevered over books and copies, and +seeing nothing of beautiful nature except what can be found in a +suburb: weeds growing over waste places and patches of sky amid +spotted roofs!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5197" id="Page_5197">[Pg 5197]</a></span> He took me also to the garden, an oblong inclosure +with well-kept paths, and planted with sunflowers, peonies, and +hollyhocks. The beds were edged with strawberry plants, the fruit just +ripening. The kind lad promised me the first that were gathered.</p> + +<p>We were called back to the house, while I was making the acquaintance +of Spits the watch-dog. The kermesse meal awaited us. At the express +request of my father, who threatened to eat nothing, the family, at +least the men, sat down with us. As to the women, they all pretended +to wait on us. My eyes wandered with delight around this room, so new +to me; the alcoves where the parents and older members of the family +slept, receded into the wall and were hidden by flowered curtains; the +wide chimney-piece was ornamented with a crucifix and plates imprinted +with historical subjects; a branch of consecrated box hung below; then +there were enormous spits and the imposing chimney-hook.</p> + +<p>Yana placed on the table a tureen of cabbage and bacon soup, the smell +of which would have aroused the appetite of the dead.</p> + +<p>We all made the sign of the cross, bowed our heads and clasped our +hands over the soup-basins, the savory smell from which rose towards +the smoky beam like the perfume of incense. For some seconds nothing +was audible save the lowing of the cows from the sheds, the buzzing of +flies on the window-panes, and the striking of S'Gravenwezel clock, +which rang out midday with the silvery, melancholy chimes of village +bells.</p> + +<p>What a delicious meal we had! My father thought of all the most +expressive adjectives in the patois to express the merits of the soup, +I sang the praises of the eggs which served as a golden frame to the +red-and-white slices of ham. A mountain of mealy potatoes disappeared +beneath our lively forks. I had a healthy country appetite!</p> + +<p>Yana, who was touched, declared that her master had not eaten so much +for a month.</p> + +<p>We were obliged to taste all the products of the farm: butter, milk, +cream cheese, early vegetables, and fruit. I laughed at Yana, who had +thought it necessary to bring provisions. She did not know the +parental hospitality! But I no longer made fun of her forethought when +she brought out the contents of the wonderful basket: two bottles of +old wine and a plum tart of her own making, which she placed +triumphantly in the middle of the table. They all drank to my father's +health, to mine, and to our happy stay in S'Gravenwezel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5198" id="Page_5198">[Pg 5198]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is settled, then, that in a week's time you shall come to my +house-warming, you hear, all of you!" said my father definitely.... +"And now, Djodgy, we must be going, for you are longing to see our +nest."...</p> + +<p>Jan came with us. He walked behind with his sister. Lion ran backwards +and forwards, showing his joy by his wild leaps and bounds, and +chasing the small animals which he raised among the rye.</p> + +<p>Poppies and cornflowers already lit up the changing ears of corn with +their bright color, and white or brown butterflies flitted above like +animated flowers. We had followed a path which ran across the +cornfields, behind Ambroes farm, to the left of the high road. Some +minutes later we skirted a little oak wood, and immediately behind it +my father pointed our home out to me.</p> + +<p>Simple cottage! you haunt me still, above all in springtime, when the +air is warm and soft as on that memorable day.... Your white walls +will ever be to me a sad though sweet and loving memory.</p> + +<p>The little house was simple and quiet as possible. There was one story +only, and it contained but four rooms. An out-house with hen-roost, +which would serve as a shed for the gardener, stood on one side. +Yana's brother had for the time being put into it a pretty white kid, +which bleated loudly at our approach; he ran to set it free.</p> + +<p>Fruit-trees covered the wall facing south. The inclosure, encircled by +a hedge of beech, was half orchard, half pleasure garden, and covered +an area of three thousand metres. In front of the house was a square +lawn, divided by a path from the gate to the front door. Leafy copses +of plantain, chestnuts, American oaks, and birches, offered delightful +retreats on either side of the house for reading or dreaming. As we +went round the grounds, my father explained with animation the +improvements which he projected. Here was to be a clump of +rhododendrons, here a bed of Orleans roses, there a grove of lilacs. +He consulted me with a feverish "Hey?" He was excited, unreserved; +rarely had I seen him in such high spirits. Since the death of my +mother his beautiful, sonorous, and contagious laugh had been heard no +more.</p> + +<p>Chattering thus, we came to a mound at the bottom of the garden, from +which we could see a corner of the village; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5199" id="Page_5199">[Pg 5199]</a></span> spire emerging from a +screen of limes, the crossed sails of a silent mill perched on a +grassy knoll, farms scattered among cornfields and meadows, until the +plain was lost in the horizon.</p> + +<p>"Look, George," he said, "this will be our world in future.... It will +be good for us both to live here; for if I need solace, you will gain +equally.... No more confinement, my dear little fellow; we are rich +enough to live in the country as philosophers.... And when I am gone +... for one must provide for everything...." He stopped. I remember +that a broken-winded barrel organ ground out a polka behind the screen +of limes which shut off the village.</p> + +<p>My father had suddenly become serious, and the solemnity of his last +words moved me deeply. Then that distant melancholy air made me +shudder. When he had finished speaking, he coughed for a long time.</p> + +<p>We were seated on the slope, our backs to the house, facing the vast +plain, the silence of which was rendered more overwhelming by the +jarring notes of the barrel organ.</p> + +<p>"Father," I murmured, as if in prayer, "what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>In reply he drew me towards him, took my head in his hands and looked +at me long, his eyes lost in mine; then he embraced me, attempted to +smile, and said:—</p> + +<p>"It is nothing. I am well, am I not? Why do my family worry me with +their advice? Indeed, they will frighten me with their long faces and +perpetual visits.... To-day at least I have escaped from them.... We +two are alone ... free! Soon it will be always so!"</p> + +<p>Despite this reanimation, an inexpressible agony wrung my heart, and I +made no effort to escape from this influence, which I felt to be due +to our deep sympathy.</p> + +<p>Regret was already mingled with my delight; and on this exquisite +afternoon there was that heart-rending sense of things which have been +and will never be again—never.</p> + +<p>I threw my arms round my father's neck, and made no other reply to his +last words. It required a mutual effort to break the silence; neither +of us made the effort. In the distance the organ continued to grind +out the tune as if it too were choked with sobs.</p> + +<p>Thus we remained for long, until the day waned.</p> + +<p>"Is it not time to go back, sir?"</p> + +<p>Yana's interruptions aroused us. Silently my father got up, and with +my hand still in his we passed through the graying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5200" id="Page_5200">[Pg 5200]</a></span> country, where the +twilight already created fantastic shadows. At about a hundred yards +from the house he turned round, and made me look once more at the +little corner of earth, the hermitage which was to shelter us.</p> + +<p>"We will call it Mon Repos!" he said, and he moved on.</p> + +<p>Mon Repos! How he lingered over those three syllables. Even thus are +certain nocturnes of Chopin prolonged.</p> + +<p>When we reached Ambroes farm, we took affectionate farewell of Yana's +family. My father thanked them for their welcome, and reminded them of +his invitation. He gave Jan a few further instructions about the +garden; the lad stood cap in hand, his dark eyes expressive of vivid +sympathy.</p> + +<p>Yet another "au revoir"; then the carriage drove away, and we turned +our backs on the dear village.</p> + +<p>Was it still the kermesse organ which obsessed me, lingering above all +other sounds, growing fainter and fainter but never quite dying away? +And why did I ceaselessly repeat to myself, whatever the music, these +three unimportant syllables "Mon Repos"?</p> + +<p>The sun was setting when we reached the gates of the town. Country +masons, white and dusty, with tools over their shoulder and tins +hanging by their side, walked rapidly to the villages which we had +left behind. Happy workmen! They were wise to go back to the village, +and to leave the hideous slums of West Antwerp to their town comrades.</p> + +<p>A fresh breeze had risen which stirred the tops of the aspens. The +purple light on the horizon beyond the ramparts grew faint. During the +whole drive my father remained sunk in prostration; his hands, which I +stroked, were moist; now burning, now icy. He roused himself from this +painful torpor only to slip his hand through my hair, and to smile at +me as never friend has smiled since.</p> + +<p>Yana too looked sad now, and pretended that it was the dust which +caused her to wipe her eyes continually with her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>I was tired, overcome with so much open air, but I could not fall +asleep that night. I dreamed with open eyes of the events of the day, +of the farm, of good-natured Jan, of the happy meal, of the kid, of +the coming day when I should be "<i>boer Jorss</i>," as the kind fellow +said.... I was happy, but from time to time a fit of terrible coughing +from the next room stifled me, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5201" id="Page_5201">[Pg 5201]</a></span> then I recalled the scene in the +garden, our silence against the jarring sound of the organ, and later +these two words "Mon Repos." I did not close my eyes until the +morning.</p> + +<p>When I awoke, my uncle was already waiting for me. He was an old +officer and adhered to military time only.</p> + +<p>"We must be off!" he said in his gruff, harsh voice. "You must go back +to work, my lad."</p> + +<p>Must I go away again? Why this week's separation? What did my uncle's +authoritative tone mean in my father's house, in <i>our</i> house? Why did +Yana look at him respectfully but sullenly? I did not guess the +horrible but absolute necessity for this intrusion; it exasperated me.</p> + +<p>What a bitter leave-taking! And that, too, for a week's separation +only. It was in vain that my uncle made fun of our tears. I clung to +my beloved father, and he had not the strength to repel me. The +impatient officer tore me at last from his embrace.</p> + +<p>"The train does not wait!" he grumbled. "Were there ever such +chicken-hearted people!"</p> + +<p>I was indignant.</p> + +<p>"No, not at parting from you," I said to my unsympathetic relation,... +"but from him!"</p> + +<p>"Djodgy! Djodgy!" my father tried to say in a tone of reproach. +"Forgive him, Henry.... Au revoir! In a week's time!... Be good ever."</p> + +<p>This time Yana no longer tried to hide her tears. Lion moved sadly +from one to another, and his human eyes appeared to say, "Stay with +him."</p> + +<p>But nothing would move my obdurate uncle. We drove away in the same +carriage which had taken us the day before to S'Gravenwezel.</p> + +<p>We waved to one another as long as the carriage was in the street.</p> + +<p>In a week I should see him again!</p> + +<p>In a week he was dead!</p> + +<p>But I have forgotten nothing.</p> + +<p>Thus it is, ever since then, that I love, I adore this Flemish country +as my heritage from him who loved it above all others; from him, the +sole human being who never wrought me any ill. These vast pale-blue +horizons, often veiled with mist or fog, gleam before me again as that +tearful smile which I caught for the last time upon his dear face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5202" id="Page_5202">[Pg 5202]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="KORS_DAVIE" id="KORS_DAVIE"></a>KORS DAVIE</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Massacre of the Innocents, and Other Tales by Belgian Writers': +copyrighted 1895, by Stone & Kimball</h4> + +<p>It was fair-time, yet Rika Let, the young dairymaid of <i>baes</i> +Verhulst, was sad. She had worked so hard all August that +this morning, before mass, the <i>baezine</i> had given her a bright +florin and spoken kindly to her:—</p> + +<p>"Rika, it is fair-time for every one. Enjoy yourself, my girl. +Here is something to buy yourself a neckerchief at the fair, a +bright-colored one with fringe to cross over your breast."...</p> + +<p>Rika accepted her mistress's present. Alone in her garret +above the stable, she turned the shining coin over and over, but +hesitated to exchange it for some coveted trifle at Suske Derk's +stall, down there by the church. Great tears sprang to her eyes, +eyes which were faintly tinged with green. What sorrow filled +the heart of this fair young girl of eighteen summers?</p> + +<p>"Ah," she sighed, "if only one of the village lads would take +me to the fair and give me a gay kerchief! But who cares for +poor Rika? Our lads woo other girls, better born and richer than +I am! <i>Baezine</i> Verhulst knew that, or she would not have given +me money to buy a thing which the poorest laborer, or even the +humblest thresher, gives gladly to his sweetheart to-day.... +Who will dance this evening with Rika Let at the Golden Swan?... +No one.... No, <i>baezine</i> Verhulst, it is not a fête day for +every one!"</p> + +<p>Tears rested on her fair lashes as the morning dew clings to +the bearded ears of corn. Mechanically she looked at herself in +a piece of glass which hung beneath a little Notre-Dame of +Montaigu. She was not plainer than many of her companions +who were admired by the ardent and happy lovers. Ugly—Rika! +No indeed. Fair as the August cornfields of the Verhulsts were +her tresses. Her lips were red and full as ripe cherries. If you +feel aught of the charm of the young peasant girls of our country, +you would admire Rika.</p> + +<p>She dressed herself in her simple Sunday clothes; a little collar +and flat cap, both of dazzling whiteness; a skirt and bodice, +unsoiled by any speck of dust.</p> + +<p>The bell sounded for mass.</p> + +<p>Go and pray, Rika! Who can say? the good God mayhap will +unseal the eyes of the blind gallants of Viersel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5203" id="Page_5203">[Pg 5203]</a></span></p> + +<p>She told her beads so earnestly, that a friend had to remind +her when the service was at an end.</p> + +<p>Outside the church a crowd of gay youths, with crossed arms and +flowers between their lips, watched the blushing procession of girls +who were to be their partners in the evening. Sympathetic glances were +exchanged, and with a smile or a simple movement of the head a meeting +was arranged, a promise confirmed, a consent given. Eager hearts +throbbed under the blue smocks, the many-colored kerchiefs; but no +glance sought to attract the bright eyes of the orphan girl, not one +of those young hearts beat in unison with hers.</p> + +<p>To reach the farm, Rika had to pass through the fair. Suske Derk had +displayed her wares. Rika did not even deign to look at them. The +mercer called to her:—</p> + +<p>"Ha! my pretty devotee! Won't you even wear a scapulary?"</p> + +<p>At midday there was a great feast at the Verhulst farm in honor of the +fair. Masters, friends, and servants, all with big appetites, seated +themselves round a table laden with enormous dishes, brought in by the +farmer's wife and Rika. A savory smell filled the large room; the +steam dimmed the copper ornaments on the chimney-piece, the crucifix, +the candlesticks, the big plates, which were the pride of the cleanly +Rika. At first the guests, speechless, gravely and solemnly satisfied +their hunger. Then came the bumpers to wash down the viands, for mealy +Polder potatoes make one thirsty. As the tankards were re-filled, +tongues were loosed, and jokes piquant as the waters of the Scheldt +flew apace.</p> + +<p>Rika in her turn sat down to the table, but the sorrow at her heart +robbed her of appetite, and she ate little. The lively guests, +distressed by her silence, attributed it to arrogance, and turned +their attention elsewhere. Later they would rejoin their buxom +wenches, and think no more of the poor little soul tormented with the +desire for love.</p> + +<p>The more the day advanced, the less Rika thought of purchasing a fichu +at Suske Derk's stall; she would rather return the florin to her +mistress! Bugles and screeching fiddles could be heard from the Golden +Swan.</p> + +<p><i>Houpsa!</i> rich and poor hasten to the dance, some in shoes, others in +sabots. <i>Lourelourela!</i> The quadrilles form. The couples hail their +vis-à-vis across the room. All is ready. They set off....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5204" id="Page_5204">[Pg 5204]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rika alone is absent from the ball. Seated on the threshold of the +barn, the sound of the brass and wind instruments, the patter of feet, +the laughter and oaths, reach her ear.</p> + +<p>The low-roofed houses of the village fade slowly in the twilight. The +church steeple rises heavenward as the watchful finger of God; at its +base lies the Golden Swan; against the four red-curtained windows the +figures of the dancing couples are outlined black as imps.</p> + +<p>Rika could not tear herself away from this scene. Her heart, till now +pure as the veil of a first communicant, was filled with bitter +thoughts.</p> + +<p>Marvelous tales were told of Zanne Hokespokes. The little old woman +possessed some wonderful secrets; she could give rot to sheep, make +cows run dry, and poison nurses' milk. She could see the fate of those +who consulted her in cards and in coffee-grounds. She could recall the +fickle lover to the side of the deserted maiden. Perhaps she could +find a sweetheart for lonely Rika?</p> + +<p>Unholy thoughts rose with the oppressive mists of the evening. They +grew in the solitude, in the remoteness from others' joy. The ungainly +couples danced up and down, black as imps, against the four red +windows. The music grated and jarred; but for the last hour the +village steeple, which rose heavenward as the watchful finger of God, +had been lost in the darkness.</p> + +<p>Would it be well to take advantage of the absence of her master and +mistress and consult the fortune-teller? No one would meet her. All +the village was at the Golden Swan.</p> + +<p>Holy Virgin! how they are enjoying themselves! Among the whirling +couples Rika saw two figures intertwined, their faces so close that +their lips must meet!</p> + +<p>Yes, she would have recourse to the spells of the old woman +Hokespokes, whatever might happen. She had still the bright coin in +her pocket. This and the few coppers which she had saved would +suffice.</p> + +<p>The sorceress lived in a clay hut deep in the dark woods of Zoersel. +The peasants avoided these woods and passed through them in broad +daylight only, making the sign of the cross. At nightfall weird +melancholy sounds, which seemed to come from another world, murmured +in the tree-tops. It took an hour to reach the cottage from Viersel. +Rika calculated that she could be home before midnight. Her master and +mistress would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5205" id="Page_5205">[Pg 5205]</a></span> return earlier than that. She overcame her last +fears, and set out bravely towards the lonely heath.</p> + +<p>"In this bag, little one, are the ashes of the tooth of a corpse; the +tooth was picked up in the cemetery of Safftingen, the village that +was submerged by the Scheldt; therein is also a mushroom, called +'toadstool,' gathered at the foot of the tree on which Nol Bardaf the +cobbler was hanged. Next full moon, on a cloudless night, sprinkle the +magic powder at the foot of your bed, and prick the mushroom deeply +with a hairpin, uttering these words three times:—'I command thee, +charmed plant, to bring me the man who shall wound me as I wound +thee!' Then go to bed with the mushroom under your pillow, and wait in +perfect quiet without speaking. The beloved one will appear. Open your +eyes, but above all things neither speak nor move. You must even hold +your breath. If he leaves you, do not try to detain him. You will see +him again, and will then become his wife."</p> + +<p>Thus spoke Zanne Hokespokes.</p> + +<p>Rika followed the instructions of the sorceress. She waited several +days for the fine cloudless night, and when the full moon rose she did +as the witch had bidden her.</p> + +<p>"I command thee, charmed thing, to bring me the man who shall wound me +as I wound thee!"</p> + +<p>Once—twice—thrice.</p> + +<p>Rika, with wide-open eyes and strained ear, lay in bed eagerly +awaiting the promised vision. Shadow became substance in the garret, +which was bathed in the silvery-blue beams of the moon. The silence +was so overwhelming that Rika thought she heard the sound of the white +light as it fell on the bare floor.</p> + +<p>Now she regretted her traffic with a servant of the Devil, now she +rejoiced at the prospect of seeing <i>him</i>, the man who would love her; +but again she feared that he might not come.</p> + +<p>The yard door swung on its hinges. A hasty, heavy step crossed the +court without disturbing the watch-dog. <i>He</i> opened the kitchen door. +<i>Clope! Clope!</i> rapidly he climbed the ladder which led to the attic. +Terror seized Rika; she stifled a cry, as the trap-door opened.</p> + +<p>There he was in her room; a soldier, a young artilleryman. He passed +by her unnoticed in the white light of the moon.</p> + +<p>Ah! Rika loves him at first sight; it is he for whom she has waited. +He has a round face, curly auburn hair, a well-cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5206" id="Page_5206">[Pg 5206]</a></span> mouth, a slightly +aquiline nose, with dilating nostrils, a square chin, and broad +shoulders. A fine mustache covers his upper lip. He wears a +brigadier's braids on his sleeve, and spurs on his heels. What mad +race has he been running? His broad chest rises and falls, he gasps +for breath, and throws himself down on the only stool. Rika longs to +rush to him, to wipe the sweat from his brow. As if overpowered, he +loosens his tunic, unclasps his belt, and exposes his fine chest. +Somewhat rested, oblivious of Rika, he scrutinizes his uniform from +head to foot, and notices that one of the buttonholes of his +boot-strap is torn. He takes off the strap, and with a knife which he +draws from his pocket makes a fresh hole in the leather. Then he +readjusts the strap to the trouser.</p> + +<p>Rika observed all these movements. More and more she admired his +military bearing and the ease with which he moved. Animated by his +run, the soldier's face struck her as more expressive than the faces +of the other fellows of her acquaintance, even than the faces of the +scornful Odo and Freek, the Verhulsts' two sons, whom she had once +admired.</p> + +<p>The stranger re-buttoned his coat, fastened his belt, put his cap on +his head, and left the room with the same quick firm step. She dared +not call to him and hold out her arms. The door closed.</p> + +<p>The sound of his footsteps, the clank of his sword, were lost in the +distance. To Rika a memory only remained.</p> + +<p>Has it not all been a dream, poor impressionable little thing?</p> + +<p>No; a moment ago he sat quite near Rika's bed.</p> + +<p>By the wan light of the moon she saw a sparkling object, the knife +which he had just used; here was her proof. She could no longer doubt. +She picked up the knife, pressed the still-open blade to her lips, and +as her breath dulled the steel, she wiped it, kissed it again; twenty +times she repeated the same childish trick.</p> + +<p>Truly the good Zanne Hokespokes keeps her word. The pretty knife with +its tortoise-shell handle will henceforth be a pledge for Rika. Her +fingers lovingly caressed the blade, as if they stroked the mustache +of the brigadier; she would fain see her reflection in the dark eyes +of the beloved one, as she saw it in the shining metal.</p> + +<p>Her eyes grew weary with gazing on the bright surface; she was +compelled to lie down. She slept and dreamt of her soldier visitor, +with the precious knife clasped to her breast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5207" id="Page_5207">[Pg 5207]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tarata!</span> Tarata! Tarata!</p> + +<p>"Wake up, Kors Davie! ... Perhaps you're sorry to leave the barracks! +Confound it! the fellow snores as if he did not care for his holiday!"</p> + +<p>Brigadier Warner Cats, Davie's fellow-countryman and comrade, tired of +speaking, shook Kors roughly, as the bugle sounded the réveille. Kors +sat up, stretched himself, appeared astonished, and rubbed his eyes +with his fists.</p> + +<p>"That's strange! Pouh! What a vile dream!" he muttered with a yawn. +"Comrade, just listen: I was out in the country, very much against my +will, I assure you.... A horrible old woman pursued me with repeated +blows. We crossed heath and swamp; my shoulder-belt and my sword +caught in the thickets; my skin was scratched with thorns.... I flew +over ditches three yards wide to escape from my persecutor. But the +wicked old woman galloped after me and belabored me incessantly.... I +was too much of a coward to turn and face her.... Oh! that race by +starlight!... I almost hated our beloved Campine,... for all this +happened in La Bruyère.... But I'll be hanged if I know where!... Oh! +my legs, my poor legs.... You'll not believe, but I'm as exhausted...."</p> + +<p>"Pouh! Pouh!" interrupted the faithful Warner Cats.... "Dreams are +lies! so my grandmother used to say. You'll have forgotten all about +these phantoms by the time you're beyond the ramparts, on the way to +our beautiful Wildonck, these phantoms will all vanish.... Be done +with grumbling.... Hang nightmares, if only the awakening is sweet!"</p> + +<p>Kors got up, packed his kit, folded his blankets, and cheered by the +thought of his holiday, hummed a soldier's tune.</p> + +<p>As he felt in his pocket he stopped suddenly. "Good heavens! I could +have sworn that I put it in my waistcoat pocket."</p> + +<p>"What? What's up now, you grumbling devil?" asked Warner.</p> + +<p>"Dash it! Begga Leuven's penknife, ... my Begga.... The pretty knife +which she bought me for my fête day when I was last in Antwerp."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot find it!... There's a fine state of things.... What will +Begga say? I wanted to show her the little treasure still bright and +new. The dear soul will never forgive my carelessness."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5208" id="Page_5208">[Pg 5208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nonsense! she'll give you another.... Besides, it is not lucky to +give knives; they cut the bonds of love!" Warner added gravely; "they +bring misfortune."</p> + +<p>"In the mean time, the bother is that I've lost the knife. Damn it!"</p> + +<p>He turned his pockets inside out in vain.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I must make the best of it," he said at last.</p> + +<p>When he was ready, he shook hands with his comrade and took up his +bundle.</p> + +<p>"Au revoir!" said Warner. "Remember me to all friends, and drink a +pint to my health next Sunday at Maus Walkiers. Don't forget to go and +see my old parents, and tell them that my purse is as flat as a +pancake. Remember me also to Stans the wheelwright."</p> + +<p>"Good. Are these all my orders?"</p> + +<p>Davie hastened into the street.</p> + +<p>Having left the town by the Vieux-Dieu fort, he followed the treeless +military road on a hot July morning. When he came within sight of the +spire of Wommelghem, he turned off by the short cut which led to Ranst +and Broechem. Here the copses and brushwood protected him from the +intense heat of the sun. He walked sharply, cap in hand, the sweat +standing on his brow. Over his shoulder he carried his bundle, tied in +a red handkerchief and fastened to a stick which he had cut on the +way. He stopped for a drink of beer at the toll-houses and +cross-roads, chatted with the barmaids if they took his fancy, then +went happily on. Towards midday he had passed through or skirted four +villages, and was a mile only from the home where his father and Begga +awaited him. As he recalled the bright healthy face of his young +sweetheart, the remembrance of his bad dream and of the loss of the +knife came back to him. Confounded knife! Kors could not separate the +thought of Begga from the lost treasure, and by a strange +contradiction of human nature he was almost angry with the poor girl, +because she had bought him this pocket-knife which had now come +between them. This ungenerous conclusion more and more took possession +of him. So preoccupied was he that he forgot to look where he was +going. Suddenly he noticed that he had gone astray.</p> + +<p>He was about to cross a bridge over the Campine canal, though this +bridge did not really lie in his route. Beyond it, trees lined the +road on either side for a great distance. Between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5209" id="Page_5209">[Pg 5209]</a></span> the trunks could be +seen vast meadows, which stretched towards an immense purple heath, +bathed in soft mist. Four fine cows stood knee-deep in the +meadow-grass which fringed the banks of the canal; not far from the +cows a young girl with a branch in her hand sat on the slope guarding +them.</p> + +<p>He called to her:—</p> + +<p>"Hi, Mietje, come here!"</p> + +<p>She sprang up, and jumped lightly over the fence, but when she came +within a few yards of the stranger she stopped, looked at him for a +moment, covered her face with her hands, and turned to go away. In a +few rapid strides the soldier overtook her, and caught her gently by +the arm. He was secretly flattered by the embarrassment of the young +peasant girl. Silent, but blushing red as a poppy, she looked down, +and the blue-green of her eyes could be seen beneath the fair lashes. +She tried to turn away and escape the scrutiny of the gallant.</p> + +<p>"Bless me, what a pretty little puss!" he exclaimed. "Tell me, my +beautiful one, where do such dainty maidens come from?"</p> + +<p>"I come from Viersel," she replied, in a very timid voice.</p> + +<p>"Then we are neighbors, and almost fellow-villagers, for I live at +Wildonck, and was on my way thither."</p> + +<p>"You will never reach it, if you follow this road."</p> + +<p>"Egad! I don't deny it, my pretty one! A moment ago I thought myself a +fool for losing my way. Now I bless my stupidity."</p> + +<p>She did not reply to this compliment, but flushed crimson.</p> + +<p>He would not set her free. The vision of Begga, sullen and displeased +at the loss of the knife, grew fainter and fainter. In this frame of +mind he welcomed the stranger gladly, as a pleasant diversion from the +thoughts which had tormented him just before.</p> + +<p>"What is your name, my flower of Viersel?"</p> + +<p>"Hendrika Let—Rika."</p> + +<p>"That has always been one of my favorite names. It was my mother's. Do +your parents live far from here?"</p> + +<p>"My parents! I never knew them. I am a servant at <i>boer</i> Verhulst's, +whose farm you see down there, a short distance away behind the +alder-trees."</p> + +<p>"You do not ask my name, Rika?"</p> + +<p>She was burning to know the name of the beloved one, for he was indeed +the brilliant visitor of the enchanted night. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5210" id="Page_5210">[Pg 5210]</a></span> stilled the +throbbing of her beating heart, and pretended to show only the polite +indifference which an honest girl would feel to an agreeable passer-by +who accosted her on the road.</p> + +<p>"You shrug your shoulders and pout, Rika! Of what interest is a +soldier's name to you? Probably he is a bad fellow, as the curé +preaches,—a spendthrift, a deceiver of women. Well, I will tell you +all the same. I am Cornelis Davie, otherwise Kors, Kors the Black, now +brigadier in the first battery of the fifth regiment of artillery, +stationed at Fort IV., at Vieux-Dieu, near Antwerp. In two months I +shall return to Wildonck for good, and take up the management of the +Stork Farm, for old Davie has worked long enough. Then, Rika, Kors +Davie will marry. Can you not suggest some girl for him, my sweet +Rika? Do you think he will find some fair ones to choose from at +Viersel?"</p> + +<p>"I think you are getting further and further away from Wildonck!" said +the coquette.</p> + +<p>It was true; they had walked along together, and the canal was now far +behind them.</p> + +<p>"You rogue!" said Kors, a little annoyed. "Why need you remind me of +the moment of parting?"</p> + +<p>"If you follow this road, you may perhaps arrive to-morrow. Farewell, +my soldier. My cows may go astray as you have."</p> + +<p>The happy girl pretended to move away. This time he seized her round +the waist, and holding her in his arms, repeated again and again. "You +are beautiful, Rika!"</p> + +<p>"If our Viersel lads saw you so foolish, they would laugh at you. Are +there no girls at Wildonck, or in the town?"</p> + +<p>"The devil take the lads of Viersel, the girls of Wildonck, and the +women of Antwerp! I will win you from all the men in your village, +sweet one! you are more beautiful to me than all the girls of my +native place! Rika, if you will consent, our marriage shall be fixed."</p> + +<p>"This love will not last."</p> + +<p>He pressed her more closely to him.</p> + +<p>"Let me go, let me go, brigadier, or I shall scream. You have surely +been drinking. There are several inns between here and your fort, are +there not? What would people say if they met me with you? Ah! to the +right there is a road which branches off and will take you home. Be +off! Good-night!"</p> + +<p>The susceptible Davie had now forgotten the very existence of the fair +and prudent Begga Leuven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5211" id="Page_5211">[Pg 5211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, if it must be, I will go!" he said, in a firm yet tender voice. +"But one word more, Rika. If I return in three days' time; if I repeat +then that I love you madly; if I ask you to be my wife, will you +refuse me?"</p> + +<p>"Cornelis Davie is making fun of Rika Let; land-owners do not marry +their farm servants."</p> + +<p>"I swear that I am in earnest! I have one desire, one wish only. Rika, +when I return in three days' time, on Monday, will you meet me here?"</p> + +<p>A feeble consent was wrung from her.</p> + +<p>When Kors tried to kiss her lips, she had not the strength to resist; +she returned his kiss passionately.</p> + +<p>Then, not without a pang, he walked rapidly in the direction of the +foot-path, not daring to look back.</p> + +<p>Breathless with excitement and triumph, Rika followed him with her +eyes, until he was lost behind a leafy clump of oaks.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was fair-time again, but now Rika Let was happy; she dined at +Viersel with her former employers the Verhulsts, accompanied by her +husband, the fine Kors Davie of Wildonck, Kors the Black, the owner of +the Stork Farm.</p> + +<p>Poor old Davie had fretted and died! Ah! the sorcery of old Zanne +Hokespokes was indeed potent; she had changed the loyal Kors into an +undutiful son and a faithless lover. Poor Begga was helpless against +the spells of the Devil. Nothing could do away with the power of the +incantation. "Do not be unhappy, sweet Begga! Marry tall Milè, the +lock-keeper; he has neither the money nor the manly bearing of the +ex-brigadier, but he will love you better."</p> + +<p>It was just a year ago, to the day, since Rika Let consulted the +witch. The poor dairymaid had reaped ample revenge for the slights +cast upon her. She wished to pay a visit to the Verhulsts' and +introduce her rich husband to them, for the Verhulsts' wealth was +nothing compared to that of the Davies.</p> + +<p>Rika was gorgeously dressed. Think, <i>baezine</i> Verhulst, of offering +her a woolen kerchief from Suske Derk's stall! Feel the silk of her +dress; it cost ten francs a yard, neither more nor less. The lace on +her large fête-cap is worth the price of at least three fat pigs, and +the diamond heart, a jewel which belonged to the late <i>baezine</i> Davie, +the mother of Kors, hanging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5212" id="Page_5212">[Pg 5212]</a></span> round her throat on a massive gold chain, +is more valuable than all your trinkets!</p> + +<p>At midday there was feasting at the Verhulsts' farm in honor of the +fair, and more especially to welcome the Davies. Masters, friends, +plowmen and haymakers, all with good appetite, seated themselves round +a table laden with enormous dishes brought in by the farmer's wife and +Rika's successor.</p> + +<p>The obsequious Madame Verhulst overpowered her former servant with +attention.</p> + +<p>"<i>Baezine</i> Davie, take one of these <i>carbonades</i>? They are soft as +butter.... A slice of ham? It's fit for a king. Or perhaps you will +have some more of this chine, which has been specially kept for your +visit? Or a spoonful of saffron rice? It melts in the mouth."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, Madame Verhulst, but we breakfasted late just +before starting.... Kors, have our horses been fed?"</p> + +<p>"Do not be afraid, <i>baezine</i> Davie; Verhulst will see to that +himself."</p> + +<p>Kors, who was more and more in love with his wife, presided at the +men's end of the table; near him sat Odo and Freek Verhulst, who had +formerly treated Rika so disdainfully. Kors, well shaven, rubicund, +merry, and wearing a dark-blue smock-frock, looked lovingly and +longingly in the direction of his wife.</p> + +<p>A savory smell filled the large room, the steam dimmed the copper +ornaments on the chimney-piece, the crucifix, the candlesticks, the +plates, which were formerly the pride of the cleanly Rika.</p> + +<p>At first the guests gravely and solemnly satisfied their hunger, +without saying a word. Then came the bumpers to wash down the viands, +for mealy Polder potatoes make one thirsty! As the tankards were +re-filled, tongues were loosed, and jokes piquant as the waters of the +Scheldt flew apace.</p> + +<p>Later, coffee, together with white bread and butter, sprinkled with +currants, was served for the ladies. The men bestirred themselves +unwillingly. Silently and solemnly they filled their pipes and smoked, +while the old gossips and white-capped young girls chattered like +magpies. The low-roofed houses of the village, which stand at the foot +of the steeple pointing upward as the watchful finger of God, fade in +the gathering twilight.</p> + +<p>Before the bugles and violins struck up in the Golden Swan, whither +<i>baezine</i> Davie was longing to go with her husband, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5213" id="Page_5213">[Pg 5213]</a></span> proud Rika +took him by the arm and showed him round the Verhulsts's farm. After +visiting the cowsheds, the stables, the pig-sties, and the dairy, they +climbed to the garret where Rika used to sleep. The same little camp +bed stood there, the same broken mirror, the solitary rickety stool. A +feeling of emotion, mingled perhaps with remorse, overcame the pretty +farmer's wife at sight of the familiar objects, and she threw herself +into her husband's arms. The young farmer kissed her passionately over +and over again. Rika sat on his knee with his arms around her, and +they were oblivious to all save their love....</p> + +<p>Below in the court-yard shrill voices called to them; it was time for +the dances.</p> + +<p>"There is no need to hasten, is there, my Rika?"</p> + +<p>"Kors, my well-beloved," Rika said at last with a sigh, after a long +and delicious silence, "do you not remember this room?"</p> + +<p>"What a strange question, little woman! you know this is the first +time I have crossed the threshold!"</p> + +<p>"Are you certain?"</p> + +<p>She laughed, amused at his puzzled, half-angry, half good-natured +look.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever lost anything, Kors?" she persisted.</p> + +<p>"Be done with riddles! Rather let us go and dance," replied Kors, +relieved for the moment by the strident tones of the music, and the +sound of dancing.</p> + +<p><i>Houps! Lourelourela!</i> Rich and poor joined in the dance, their +figures outlined like black imps against the red windows of the Golden +Swan.</p> + +<p>"One word more," said Rika, catching hold of Kors's blouse; "have you +no recollection of a little thing which you lost one night on a +journey?"</p> + +<p>"No more enigmas for me, sweet one; let us be off. My feet itch for +the dance."</p> + +<p>"Must I remind you?—look!"</p> + +<p>She drew Begga Leuven's knife from her pocket.</p> + +<p>He turned and held out his hand. At touch of the knife, the +remembrance of that strange night came back to him. Again he saw the +hideous old woman who pursued him with blows; he crossed heath and +swamp, his sword caught in the brushwood; he ran until he was +breathless.... But now he understood more than he did on that morning +when he told his nightmare to his loyal friend Warner Cats, the +intimate friend whom he had lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5214" id="Page_5214">[Pg 5214]</a></span> in consequence of his willful +marriage.... He recognized this accursed garret, where he had lost the +pretty knife, a present from his first lover. Reason returned, and +with it all his pure and holy passion for Begga. She who was called +<i>baezine</i> Davie had won him by sorcery. To kiss her lips he forsook +Begga, his gentle comrade; later, he was deaf to the curses of his +grandfather, he was indifferent when Begga married tall Milè, and he +shed no tears at the grave of the father whose death was brought about +by his disgraceful marriage.</p> + +<p>And she, the abominable accomplice of the sorceress, still clung to +him,—the vampire!</p> + +<p>The pale moon had risen, and now bathed the attic in silver rays +tinged with blue.</p> + +<p>Rika sank to the ground beneath the unrecognizing glance of Kors; she +stretched out her hands to ward off what she felt must come.</p> + +<p>In Black Kors's contracted, bloodless hand, the open knife shone as on +the night of the charm.</p> + +<p>Between two harsh and vibrating strains of music which came from the +Golden Swan, a discordant burst of laughter echoed across the silent +tragic plain surrounding Verhulst Farm.</p> + +<p>At that moment, Kors in a fit of delirium plunged the knife into +Rika's breast.... She fell without uttering a cry.</p> + +<p>Did not the incantation run:—"I command thee, charmed plant, to bring +me the man who will wound me as I wound thee"?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5215" id="Page_5215">[Pg 5215]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="EDWARD_EGGLESTON" id="EDWARD_EGGLESTON"></a>EDWARD EGGLESTON</h2> + +<h4>(1837-)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/cape.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="E" title="E" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">dward Eggleston was born at Vevay, Indiana, December 10th, 1837. His +father was a native of Amelia County, Virginia, and was of a family +which migrated from England to Virginia in the seventeenth century, +and which became one of much distinction in the State. A brief +biography of Mr. Eggleston lately published affords some information +as to his early years. He was a sufferer from ill health as a child. +He had repeatedly to be removed from school for this cause, and he +spent a considerable part of his boyhood on farms in Indiana, where he +made acquaintance with that rude backwoods life which he has described +in 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' and other stories. An important incident +of his youth was a visit of thirteen months which he paid to his +relations in Virginia in 1854. This opportunity of making acquaintance +under such favorable circumstances with slave society, must have been +of great value to one who was to make American history the chief +pursuit of his life. In 1856 he went to Minnesota, and there lived a +frontier life to the great improvement of his health. The accounts we +have of him show him to have had the ardent and energetic character +which belongs to the youth of the West. When not yet nineteen years +old he became a Methodist preacher in that State. Later, ill health +forced him again to Minnesota, where with the enthusiasm of a young +man he traveled on foot, shod in Indian moccasins, in winter and +summer preaching to the mixed Indian and white populations on the +Minnesota River.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 270px;"> +<img src="images/eggleston.png" width="270" height="320" alt="Edward Eggleston" title="Edward Eggleston" /> +<span class="caption"><span class="smcap">Edward Eggleston</span></span> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Eggleston's literary career began, while he was still preaching, +with contributions to Western periodicals. Having written for the New +York Independent, he was offered in 1870 the place of literary editor +of that paper, and the following year became its editor-in-chief. He +was afterwards editor of Hearth and Home, to the columns of which +journal he contributed 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster,' a story that has +been very popular. He wrote a number of other novels, 'The End of the +World,' 'The Mystery of Metropolisville,' 'The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5216" id="Page_5216">[Pg 5216]</a></span>Circuit Rider,' +'Roxy,' etc. In January 1880, while on a visit to Europe, he began to +make plans for a 'History of Life in the United States.' He had always +had a strong taste for this subject, a keen natural interest in +history being evident here and there in his stories. His historical +researches were carried on in many of the chief libraries of Europe +and the United States. A result of these studies was the thirteen +articles on 'Life in the Colonial Period' published in the Century +Magazine. These, however, were but preliminary studies to the work +which he intended should be the most important of his life. The first +volume of this work, 'The Beginners of a Nation,' was published in +1896.</p> + +<p>This work does not pretend to be a particular account of colonial +history. It is an attempt rather to describe the colonial individual +and colonial society, to state the succession of cause and effect in +the establishment of English life in North America, and to describe +principles rather than details,—giving however as much detail as is +necessary to illustrate principles. The volume of 1896 contains +chapters on 'The James River Experiments' and 'The Procession of +Motives' which led to colonization. Book ii. of this volume is upon +the Puritan migration, and has chapters on the rise of Puritanism in +England, on the Pilgrim migration, and the great Puritan exodus. Book +iii. receives the name of 'Centrifugal Forces in Colony Planting,' and +contains accounts of Lord Baltimore's Maryland colony, of Roger +Williams, and the 'New England Dispersions,' by which is meant the +establishment of communities in Connecticut and elsewhere. In the +sketch of Lord Baltimore, the courtier and friend of kings, we have a +striking contrast with the type of men who led the Puritan migrations. +There were odd characters in those days; and a court favorite and +worldling who, after having feathered his nest, is willing to make two +such voyages to Newfoundland as his must have been, and to spend a +winter there, all out of zeal for the establishment of his religion in +the Western wilds, is certainly a person worthy of study.</p> + +<p>The play of the forces that produced emigration, and their relations +to the migrations, are described very clearly by the author. People +did not emigrate when they were happy at home. Thus, Catholic +emigration was small under Laud, when English Catholics were beginning +to think that the future was theirs; just as Puritan emigration, +vigorous under Laud, dwindled with the days of the Puritan triumph in +England. We have in 'The James River Experiments' a good example of +the writer's method. The salient and significant facts are given +briefly, but with sufficient fullness to enable the reader to have a +satisfactory grasp of the matter; and where some principle or general +truth is to be pointed out, the author sets <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5217" id="Page_5217">[Pg 5217]</a></span>this forth strongly. For +instance, in describing the motives of colonization in Virginia, he +shows how these motives were in almost all cases delusions; how a +succession of such delusions ran through the times of Elizabeth and +James; and how colonization succeeded in the end only by doing what +its projectors had never intended to do. The Jamestown emigrants +expected to find a passage to India, to discover gold and silver, to +raise wine and silk. But none of these things were done. Wines and +silk indeed were raised. It is said that Charles I.'s coronation robe +was made of Virginian silk, and Mr. Eggleston tells us that Charles +II. certainly wore silk from worms hatched and fed in his Virginian +dominions. But these industries, although encouraged to the utmost by +government, could not be made to take root. On the other hand, a +determined effort was made to discourage the production of tobacco. +James I. wrote a book against the culture of that pernicious "weed," +as he was the first to describe it. But the hardy plant held its own +and flourished in spite of the royal disfavor. Nor were the colonists +more successful in their political intentions. Especially interesting, +in view of recent discussions, is the account given of the communistic +experiments which belonged to the early history of the American +colonies. In Virginia all the products of the colony were to go into a +common stock. But after twelve years' trial of this plan, there was a +division of the land among the older settlers. The pernicious +character of the system had been demonstrated. "Every man sharked for +his own bootie," says a writer on Virginia in 1609, "and was +altogether careless of the succeeding penurie." The two years of +communism in the Plymouth colony was scarcely more successful. +Bradford, finding that the matter was one of life and death with the +colony, abolished the system, although the abolition was a +revolutionary stroke, in violation of the contract with the +shareholders.</p> + +<p>This idea, that the outcome was to be very different from the +intentions, appears not only in the striking chapter on 'The +Procession of Motives,' but crops up again and again in other parts of +the book. Thus, the ill success which attended the government of the +colonies from London resulted in the almost unconscious establishment +of several independent democratic communities in America. This +happened in Virginia and Plymouth. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, +however, was self-governing from the start.</p> + +<p>But although causes and principles are matters of chief interest with +Mr. Eggleston, his book is full of a picturesqueness which is all the +more effective for being unobtrusive. The author has not that tiresome +sort of picturesqueness which insists on saying the whole thing +itself. The reader is credited with a little imagination, and that +faculty has frequent opportunity for exercise. It is charmed by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5218" id="Page_5218">[Pg 5218]</a></span>the +striking passage in which is described the delight of the emigrants of +the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when, after having set sail from +England, they found themselves upon the open sea for the first time +without the supervision, or even the neighborhood, of bosses. We know +the sense of freedom which the broad and blue ocean affords to us all; +what must have been that feeling to men who had scarcely ever had an +hour of life untroubled by the domination of an antagonistic religious +authority! Every day, for ten weeks together, they had preaching and +exposition. "On one ship," says Mr. Eggleston, "the watches were set +to the accompaniment of psalm-singing."</p> + +<p>The candor and fair-mindedness of this work is one of its special +merits. We have an indication of this quality in the author's refusal +to accept the weak supposition, common among writers upon American +history, that the faults of our ancestors were in some way more +excusable than those of other people. He says in his Preface:—"I have +disregarded that convention which makes it obligatory for a writer of +American history to explain that intolerance in the first settlers was +not just like other intolerance, and that their cruelty and injustice +were justifiable under the circumstances." Other very important +characteristics are sympathy, warmth of heart, and moral enthusiasm. +Nor is the work wanting in an adequate literary merit. The style, +especially in the later chapters, is free, simple, nervous, and +rhythmical.</p> + +<p>Little has been said of Mr. Eggleston's novels in the course of these +remarks. But the qualities of his historical writing appear in his +novels. The qualities of the realistic novelist are of great use to +the historian, when the novelist has the thoroughness and the industry +of Mr. Eggleston. By the liveliness of his imagination, he succeeds in +making history as real as fiction should be. Mr. Eggleston's novels +deserve the popularity they have attained. They are themselves, +particularly those which describe Western life, valuable contributions +to history. The West, we may add, is Mr. Eggleston's field. His most +recent novel, 'The Faith Doctor,' the scene of which is laid in New +York, is very inferior to his Western stories. Of these novels +probably the best is 'The Graysons,' a book full of its author's +reality and warmth of human sympathy; of this book the reader will +follow every word with the same lively interest with which he reads +'The Beginners of a Nation.'</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5219" id="Page_5219">[Pg 5219]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="ROGER_WILLIAMS_THE_PROPHET_OF_RELIGIOUS_FREEDOM" id="ROGER_WILLIAMS_THE_PROPHET_OF_RELIGIOUS_FREEDOM"></a>ROGER WILLIAMS: THE PROPHET OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM</h3> +<h4>From 'The Beginners of a Nation': copyright 1896, by Edward Eggleston</h4> + +<p>Local jealousy and sectarian prejudice have done what they could to +obscure the facts of the trial and banishment of Williams. It has been +argued by more than one writer that it was not a case of religious +persecution at all, but the exclusion of a man dangerous to the State. +Cotton, with characteristic verbal legerdemain, says that Williams was +"enlarged" rather than banished. The case has even been pettifogged in +our own time by the assertion that the banishment was only the action +of a commercial company excluding an uncongenial person from its +territory. But with what swift indignation would the Massachusetts +rulers of the days of Dudley and Haynes have repudiated a plea which +denied their magistracy! They put so strong a pressure on Stoughton, +who said that the assistants were not magistrates, that he made haste +to renounce his pride of authorship and to deliver his booklet to be +officially burned; nor did even this prevent his punishment. The +rulers of "the Bay" were generally frank advocates of religious +intolerance; they regarded toleration as a door set open for the Devil +to enter. Not only did they punish for unorthodox expressions, they +even assumed to inquire into private beliefs. Williams was only one of +scores bidden to depart on account of opinion.</p> + +<p>The real and sufficient extenuation for the conduct of the +Massachusetts leaders is found in the character and standards of the +age. A few obscure and contemned sectaries—Brownists, Anabaptists, +and despised Familists—in Holland and England had spoken more or less +clearly in favor of religious liberty before the rise of Roger +Williams, but nobody of weight or respectable standing in the whole +world had befriended it. All the great authorities in Church and +State, Catholic and Protestant, prelatical and Puritan, agreed in +their detestation of it. Even Robinson, the moderate pastor of the +Leyden Pilgrims, ventured to hold only to the "toleration of tolerable +opinions." This was the toleration found at Amsterdam and in some +other parts of the Low Countries. Even this religious sufferance, +which did not amount to liberty, was sufficiently despicable in the +eyes of that intolerant age to bring upon the Dutch the contempt of +Christendom. It was a very qualified and limited toleration, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5220" id="Page_5220">[Pg 5220]</a></span> one +from which Catholics and Arminians were excluded. It seems to have +been that practical amelioration of law which is produced more +effectually by commerce than by learning or religion. Outside of some +parts of the Low Countries, and oddly enough of the Turkish Empire, +all the world worth counting decried toleration as a great crime. It +would have been wonderful indeed if Massachusetts had been superior to +the age. "I dare aver," says Nathaniel Ward, the New England +lawyer-minister, "that God doth nowhere in his Word tolerate Christian +States to give tolerations to such adversaries of his Truth, if they +have power in their hands to suppress them." To set up toleration was +"to build a sconce against the walls of heaven to batter God out of +his chair," in Ward's opinion.</p> + +<p>This doctrine of intolerance was sanctioned by many refinements of +logic, such as Cotton's delicious sophistry that if a man refused to +be convinced of the truth, he was sinning against conscience, and +therefore it was not against the liberty of conscience to coerce him. +Cotton's moral intuitions were fairly suffocated by logic. He declared +that men should be compelled to attend religious service, because it +was "better to be hypocrites than profane persons. Hypocrites give God +part of his due, the outward man, but the profane person giveth God +neither outward nor inward man." To reason thus is to put subtlety +into the <i>cathedra</i> of common-sense, to bewilder vision by +legerdemain. Notwithstanding his natural gift for devoutness and his +almost immodest godliness, Cotton was incapable of high sincerity. He +would not specifically advise Williams's banishment, but having +labored with him round a corner according to his most approved +ecclesiastical formula, he said, "We have no more to say in his +behalf, but must sit down;" by which expression of passivity he gave +the signal to the "secular arm" to do its worst, while he washed his +hands in innocent self-complacency. When one scrupulous magistrate +consulted him as to his obligation in Williams's case, Cotton answered +his hesitation by saying, "You know they are so much incensed against +his course that it is not your voice, nor the voice of two or three +more, that can suspend the sentence." By such shifty phrases he +shirked responsibility for the results of his own teaching. Of the +temper that stands alone for the right, nature had given him not a +jot. Williams may be a little too severe, but he has some truth when +he describes Cotton on this occasion as "swimming with the stream of +outward credit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5221" id="Page_5221">[Pg 5221]</a></span> and profit," though nothing was further from Cotton's +conscious purpose than such worldliness. Cotton's intolerance was not +like that of Dudley and Endicott, the offspring of an austere temper; +it was rather the outgrowth of his logic and his reverence for +authority. He sheltered himself behind the examples of Elizabeth and +James I., and took refuge in the shadow of Calvin, whose burning of +Servetus he cites as an example, without any recoil of heart or +conscience. But the consideration of the character of the age forbids +us to condemn the conscientious men who put Williams out of the +Massachusetts theocracy as they would have driven the Devil out of the +garden of Eden. When, however, it comes to judging the age itself, and +especially to judging the Puritanism of the age, these false and harsh +ideals are its sufficient condemnation. Its government and its very +religion were barbarous; its Bible, except for mystical and +ecclesiastical uses, might as well have closed with the story of the +Hebrew judges and the imprecatory Psalms. The Apocalypse of John, +grotesquely interpreted, was the one book of the New Testament that +received hearty consideration, aside from those other New Testament +passages supposed to relate to a divinely appointed ecclesiasticism. +The humane pity of Jesus was unknown not only to the laws, but to the +sermons of the time. About the time of Williams's banishment the +lenity of John Winthrop was solemnly rebuked by some of the clergy and +rulers as a lax imperiling of the safety of the gospel; and Winthrop, +overborne by authority, confessed, explained, apologized, and promised +amendment. The Puritans substituted an unformulated belief in the +infallibility of "godly" elders acting with the magistrates, for the +ancient doctrine of an infallible Church.</p> + +<p>In this less scrupulous but more serious age it is easy to hold +Williams up to ridicule. Never was a noble and sweet-spirited man +bedeviled by a scrupulosity more trivial. Cotton aptly dubbed him "a +haberdasher of small questions." His extant letters are many of them +vibrant with latent heroism; there is manifest in them an exquisite +charity and a pathetic magnanimity: but in the midst of it all the +writer is unable to rid himself of a swarm of scruples as pertinacious +as the buzzing of mosquitoes in the primitive forest about him. In +dating his letters, where he ventures to date at all, he never writes +the ordinary name of the day of the week or the name of the month, +lest he should be guilty of etymological heathenism. He often avoids<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5222" id="Page_5222">[Pg 5222]</a></span> +writing the year, and when he does insert it he commits himself to the +last two figures only and adds a saving clause. Thus 1652 appears as +"52 (so called)," and other years are tagged with the same doubting +words, or with the Latin "<i>ut vulgo</i>." What quarrel the tender +conscience had with the Christian era it is hard to guess. So too he +writes to Winthrop, who had taken part in his banishment, letters full +of reverential tenderness and hearty friendship. But his conscience +does not allow him even to seem to hold ecclesiastical fellowship with +a man he honors as a ruler and loves as a friend. Once at least he +guards the point directly by subscribing himself "Your worship's +faithful and affectionate in all <i>civil</i> bonds." It would be sad to +think of a great spirit so enthralled by the scrupulosity of his time +and his party, if these minute restrictions had been a source of +annoyance to him. But the cheerful observance of little scruples seems +rather to have taken the place of a recreation in his life; they were +to him perhaps what bric-à-brac is to a collector, what a +well-arranged altar and candlesticks are to a ritualist.</p> + +<p>Two fundamental notions supplied the motive power of every +ecclesiastical agitation of that age. The notion of a succession of +churchly order and ordinance from the time of the apostles was the +mainspring of the High Church movement. Apostolic primitivism was the +aim of the Puritan, and still more the goal of the Separatist. One +party rejoiced in a belief that a mysterious apostolic virtue had +trickled down through generations of bishops and priests to its own +age; the other rejoiced in the destruction of institutions that had +grown up in the ages, and in getting back to the primitive nakedness +of the early Christian conventicle. True to the law of his nature, +Roger Williams pushed this latter principle to its ultimate +possibilities. If we may believe the accounts, he and his followers at +Providence became Baptists that they might receive the rite of baptism +in its most ancient Oriental form. But in an age when the fountains of +the great deep were utterly broken up, he could find no rest for the +soles of his feet. It was not enough that he should be troubled by the +Puritan spirit of apostolic primitivism: he had now swung round to +where this spirit joined hands with its twin, the aspiration for +apostolic succession. He renounced his baptism because it was without +apostolic sanction, and announced himself of that sect which was the +last reduction of Separatism. He became a Seeker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5223" id="Page_5223">[Pg 5223]</a></span></p> + +<p>Here again is a probable influence from Holland. The Seekers had +appeared there long before. Many Baptists had found that their search +for primitivism, if persisted in, carried them to this negative +result; for it seemed not enough to have apostolic rites in apostolic +form unless they were sanctioned by the "gifts" of the apostolic time. +The Seekers appeared in England as early as 1617, and during the +religious turmoils of the Commonwealth period the sect afforded a +resting-place for many a weather-beaten soul. As the miraculous gifts +were lost, the Seekers dared not preach, baptize, or teach; they +merely waited, and in their mysticism they believed their waiting to +be an "upper room" to which Christ would come. It is interesting to +know that Williams, the most romantic figure of the whole Puritan +movement, at last found a sort of relief from the austere externalism +and ceaseless dogmatism of his age by traveling the road of +literalism, until he had passed out on the other side into the region +of devout and contented uncertainty.</p> + +<p>In all this, Williams was the child of his age, and sometimes more +childish than his age. But there were regions of thought and sentiment +in which he was wholly disentangled from the meshes of his time, and +that not because of intellectual superiority,—for he had no large +philosophical views,—but by reason of elevation of spirit. Even the +authority of Moses could not prevent him from condemning the harsh +severity of the New England capital laws. He had no sentimental +delusions about the character of the savages,—he styles them "wolves +endued with men's brains"; but he constantly pleads for a humane +treatment of them. All the bloody precedents of Joshua could not make +him look without repulsion on the slaughter of women and children in +the Pequot war, nor could he tolerate dismemberment of the dead or the +selling of Indian captives into perpetual slavery. From bigotry and +resentment he was singularly free. On many occasions he joyfully used +his ascendency over the natives to protect those who kept in force +against him a sentence of perpetual banishment. And this +ultra-Separatist, almost alone of the men of his time, could use such +words of catholic charity as those in which he speaks of "the people +of God wheresoever scattered about Babel's banks, either in Rome or +England."</p> + +<p>Of his incapacity for organization or administration we shall have to +speak hereafter. But his spiritual intuitions, his moral insight, his +genius for justice, lent a curious modernness to many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5224" id="Page_5224">[Pg 5224]</a></span> of his +convictions. In a generation of creed-builders which detested schism, +he became an individualist. Individualist in thought, altruist in +spirit, secularist in governmental theory, he was the herald of a time +yet more modern than this laggard age of ours. If ever a soul saw a +clear-shining inward light, not to be dimmed by prejudices or obscured +by the deft logic of a disputatious age, it was the soul of Williams. +In all the region of petty scrupulosity the time-spirit had enthralled +him; but in the higher region of moral decision he was utterly +emancipated from it. His conclusions belong to ages yet to come.</p> + +<p>This union of moral aspiration with a certain disengagedness +constitutes what we may call the prophetic temperament. Bradford and +Winthrop were men of high aspiration, but of another class. The reach +of their spirits was restrained by practical wisdom, which compelled +them to take into account the limits of the attainable. Not that they +consciously refused to follow their logic to its end, but that, like +other prudent men of affairs, they were, without their own knowledge +or consent, turned aside by the logic of the impossible. Precisely +here the prophet departs from the reformer. The prophet recks nothing +of impossibility; he is ravished with truth disembodied. From Elijah +the Tishbite to Socrates, from Socrates to the latest and perhaps yet +unrecognized voice of our own time, the prophetic temperament has ever +shown an inability to enter into treaty with its environment. In the +seventeenth century there was no place but the wilderness for such a +John Baptist of the distant future as Roger Williams. He did not +belong among the diplomatic builders of churches, like Cotton, or the +politic founders of States, like Winthrop. He was but a babbler to his +own time; but the prophetic voice rings clear and far, and ever +clearer as the ages go on.</p> + +<p class="transc">Reprinted by consent of the author, and of D. Appleton & Company, +publishers, New York.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5225" id="Page_5225">[Pg 5225]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="EGYPTIAN_LITERATURE" id="EGYPTIAN_LITERATURE"></a>EGYPTIAN LITERATURE</h2> + +<h4>BY FRANCIS LLEWELLYN GRIFFITH AND KATE BRADBURY GRIFFITH</h4> + + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">he advance that has been made in recent years in the decipherment of +the ancient writings of the world enables us to deal in a very +matter-of-fact way with the Egyptian inscriptions. Their chief +mysteries are solved, their philosophy is almost fathomed, their +general nature is understood. The story they have to tell is seldom +startling to the modern mind. The world was younger when they were +written. The heart of man was given to devious ways then, as now and +in the days of Solomon,—that we can affirm full well; but his mind +was simpler: apart from knowledge of men and the conduct of affairs, +the educated Egyptian had no more subtlety than a modern boy of +fifteen, or an intelligent English rustic of a century ago.</p> + +<p>To the Egyptologist by profession the inscriptions have a wonderful +charm. The writing itself in its leading form is the most attractive +that has ever been seen. Long rows of clever little pictures of +everything in heaven and earth compose the sentences: every sign is a +plaything, every group a pretty puzzle, and at present, almost every +phrase well understood brings a tiny addition to the sum of the +world's knowledge. But these inscriptions, so rich in facts that +concern the history of mankind and the progress of civilization, +seldom possess any literary charm. If pretentious, as many of them +are, they combine bald exaggeration with worn-out simile, in which +ideas that may be poetical are heaped together in defiance of art. +Such are the priestly laudations of the kings by whose favor the +temples prospered. Take, for instance, the dating of a stela erected +under Rameses II. on the route to the Nubian gold mines. It runs:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the fourth day of the first month of the season of winter, in the +third year of the Majesty of Horus, the Strong Bull, beloved of the +Goddess of Truth, lord of the vulture and of the urseus diadems, +protecting Egypt and restraining the barbarians, the Golden Horus, +rich in years, great in victories, King of Upper Egypt and King of +Lower Egypt, <i>Mighty in Truth of Ra</i>, <i>Chosen of Ra</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> the son of +Ra, <i>Rameses Beloved of Amen</i>, granting life for ever and ever, +beloved of Amen Ra lord of the 'Throne of the Two Lands'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> in Apt +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5226" id="Page_5226">[Pg 5226]</a></span> +Esut, appearing glorious on the throne of Horus among the living from +day to day even as his father Ra; the good god, lord of the South +Land, Him of Edfû<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Horus bright of plumage, the beauteous +sparrow-hawk of electrum that hath protected Egypt with his wing, +making a shade for men, fortress of strength and of victory; he who +came forth terrible from the womb to take to himself his strength, to +extend his borders, to whose body color was given of the strength of +Mentu<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>; the god Horus and the god Set. There was exultation in +heaven on the day of his birth; the gods said, 'We have begotten him;' +the goddesses said, 'He came forth from us to rule the kingdom of Ra;' +Amen spake, 'I am he who hath made him, whereby I have set Truth in +her place; the earth is established, heaven is well pleased, the gods +are satisfied by reason of him.' The Strong Bull against the vile +Ethiopians, which uttereth his roaring against the land of the negroes +while his hoofs trample the Troglodytes, his horn thrusteth at them; +his spirit is mighty in Nubia and the terror of him reacheth to the +land of the Kary<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>; his name circulateth in all lands because of the +victory which his arms have won; at his name gold cometh forth from +the mountain as at the name of his father, the god Horus of the land +of Baka; beloved is he in the Lands of the South even as Horus at +Meama, the god of the Land of Buhen,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +King of Upper and Lower Egypt, <i>Mighty in Truth of Ra</i>, son of Ra, of +his body, Lord of Diadems <i>Rameses Beloved of Amen</i>, giving life for +ever and ever like his father Ra, day by day." [Revised from the +German translation of Professor Erman.]</p></div> + +<p>As Professor Erman has pointed out, the courtly scribe was most +successful when taking his similes straight from nature, as in the +following description, also of Rameses II.:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A victorious lion putting forth its claws while roaring loudly and +uttering its voice in the Valley of the Gazelles.... A jackal swift of +foot seeking what it may find, going round the circuit of the land in +one instant.... his mighty will seizeth on his enemies like a flame +catching the ki-ki plant<a name="FNanchor_5_7" id="FNanchor_5_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +with the storm behind it, like the strong +flame which hath tasted the fire, destroying, until everything that is +in it becometh ashes; a storm howling terribly on the sea, its waves +like mountains, none can enter it, every one that is in it is +engulphed in Duat.<a name="FNanchor_6_8" id="FNanchor_6_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>"</p></div> + +<p>Here and there amongst the hieroglyphic inscriptions are found +memorials of the dead, in which the praises of the deceased are neatly +strung together and balanced like beads in a necklace, and passages +occur of picturesque narrative worthy to rank as literature +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5227" id="Page_5227">[Pg 5227]</a></span> +of the olden time. We may quote in this connection from the biographical +epitaph of the nomarch Ameny, who was governor of a province in Middle +Egypt for twenty-five years during the long reign of Usertesen I. +(about 2700 B.C.). This inscription not only recounts the achievements +of Ameny and the royal favor which was shown him, but also tells us in +detail of the capacity, goodness, charm, discretion, and insight by +which he attached to himself the love and respect of the whole court, +and of the people over whom he ruled and for whose well-being he +cared. Ameny says:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I was a possessor of favor, abounding in love, a ruler who loved his +city. Moreover I passed years as ruler in the Oryx nome. All the works +of the house of the King came into my hand. Behold, the superintendent +of the gangs<a name="FNanchor_1_9" id="FNanchor_1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +of the domains of the herdsmen of the Oryx nome gave me 3,000 bulls of +their draught stock. I was praised for it in the house of the King +each year of stock-taking. I rendered all their works to the King's +house: there were no arrears to me in any of his offices.</p> + +<p>"The entire Oryx nome served me in numerous +attendances.<a name="FNanchor_2_10" id="FNanchor_2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +There was not the daughter of a poor man that I wronged, nor a widow that I +oppressed. There was not a farmer that I chastised, not a herdsman +whom I drove away, not a foreman of five whose men I took away for the +works.<a name="FNanchor_3_11" id="FNanchor_3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> +There was not a pauper around me, there was not a hungry man +of my time. When there came years of famine, I arose and ploughed all +the fields of the Oryx nome to its boundary south and north, giving +life to its inhabitants, making its provisions. There was not a hungry +man in it. I gave to the widow as to her that possessed a husband, and +I favored not the elder above the younger in all that I gave. +Thereafter great rises of the Nile took place, producing wheat and +barley, and producing all things abundantly, but I did not exact the +arrears of farming."</p></div> + +<p>Elsewhere in his tomb there are long lists of the virtues of +Amenemhat, and from these the following may be selected both on +account of picturesqueness of expression and the appreciation of fine +character which they display.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Superintendent of all things which heaven gives and earth produces, +overseer of horns, hoofs, feathers, and shells ... Master of the art +of causing writing to speak ... Caressing of heart to all people, +making to prosper the timid man, hospitable to all, escorting +[travelers] up and down the river ... Knowing how to aid, arriving at +time of need; free of planning evil, without greediness in his body, +speaking words of truth.... +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5228" id="Page_5228">[Pg 5228]</a></span> +Unique as a mighty hunter, the abode of the heart of the King.... +Speaking the right when he judges between suitors, clear of speaking +fraud, knowing how to proceed in the council of the elders, finding +the knot in the skein.... Great of favors in the house of the King, +contenting the heart on the day of making division, careful of his +goings to his equals, gaining reverence on the day of weighing words, +beloved of the officials of the palace."</p></div> + +<p>The cursive forms of writing—hieratic from the earliest times, +demotic in the latest—were those in which records were committed to +papyrus. This material has preserved to us documents of every kind, +from letters and ledgers to works of religion and philosophy. To +these, again, "literature" is a term rarely to be applied; yet the +tales and poetry occasionally met with on papyri are perhaps the most +pleasing of all the productions of the Egyptian scribe.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that the knowledge of writing in Egypt led to a +kind of primitive pedantry, and a taste for unnatural and to us +childish formality: the free play and naïveté of the story-teller is +too often choked, and the art of literary finish was little +understood. Simplicity and truth to nature alone gave lasting charm, +for though adornment was often attempted, their rude arts of literary +embellishment were seldom otherwise than clumsily employed.</p> + +<p>A word should be said about the strange condition in which most of the +literary texts have come down to us. It is rarely that monumental +inscriptions contain serious blunders of orthography; the +peculiarities of late archaistic inscriptions which sometimes produce +a kind of "dog Egyptian" can hardly be considered as blunders, for the +scribe knew what meaning he intended to convey. But it is otherwise +with copies of literary works on papyrus. Sometimes these were the +productions of schoolboys copying from dictation as an exercise in the +writing-school, and the blank edges of these papyri are often +decorated with essays at executing the more difficult signs. The +master of the school would seem not to have cared what nonsense was +produced by the misunderstanding of his dictation, so long as the +signs were well formed. The composition of new works on the model of +the old, and the accurate understanding of the ancient works, were +taught in a very different school, and few indeed attained to skill in +them. The boys turned out of the writing-school would read and write a +little; the clever ones would keep accounts, write letters, make out +reports as clerks in the government service, and might ultimately +acquire considerable proficiency in this kind of work. Apparently men +of the official class sometimes amused themselves with puzzling over +an ill-written copy of some ancient tale, and with trying to copy +portions of it. The work however was beyond them: they were attracted +by it, they revered the compilations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5229" id="Page_5229">[Pg 5229]</a></span>of an elder age and those which +were "written by the finger of Thoth himself"; but the science of +language was unborn, and there was little or no systematic instruction +given in the principles of the ancient grammar and vocabulary. Those +who desired to attain eminence in scholarship after they had passed +through the writing-school had to go to Heliopolis, Hermopolis, or +wherever the principal university of the time might be, and there sit +at the feet of priestly professors; who we fancy were reverenced as +demigods, and who in mysterious fashion and with niggardly hand +imparted scraps of knowledge to their eager pupils. Those endowed with +special talents might after almost lifelong study become proficient in +the ancient language. Would that we might one day discover the hoard +of rolls of such a copyist and writer!</p> + +<p>There must have been a large class of hack-copyists practiced in +forming characters both uncial and cursive. Sometimes their copies of +religious works are models of deft writing, the embellishments of +artist and colorist being added to those of the calligrapher: the +magnificent rolls of the 'Book of the Dead' in the British Museum and +elsewhere are the admiration of all beholders. Such manuscripts +satisfy the eye, and apparently neither the multitude in Egypt nor +even the priestly royal undertakers questioned their efficacy in the +tomb. Yet are they very apples of Sodom to the hieroglyphic scholar; +fair without, but ashes within. On comparing different copies of the +same text, he sees in almost every line omissions, perversions, +corruptions, until he turns away baffled and disgusted. Only here and +there is the text practically certain, and even then there are +probably grammatical blunders in every copy. Nor is it only in the +later papyri that these blunders are met with. The hieroglyphic system +of writing, especially in its cursive forms, lends itself very readily +to perversion by ignorant and inattentive copyists; and even +monumental inscriptions, so long as they are mere copies, are usually +corrupted. The most ridiculous perversions of all, date from the +Ramesside epoch when the dim past had lost its charm, for the glories +of the XVIIIth Dynasty were still fresh, while new impulses and +foreign influence had broken down adherence to tradition and +isolation.</p> + +<p>In the eighth century B.C. the new and the old were definitely parted, +to the advantage of each. On the one hand the transactions of ordinary +life were more easily registered in the cursive demotic script, while +on the other the sacred writings were more thoroughly investigated and +brought into order by the priests. Hence, in spite of absurdities that +had irremediably crept in, the archaistic texts copied in the XXVIth +Dynasty are more intelligible than the same class of work in the XIXth +and XXth Dynasties.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5230" id="Page_5230">[Pg 5230]</a></span></p> + +<p>In reading translations from Egyptian, it must be remembered that +uncertainty still remains concerning the meanings of multitudes of +words and phrases. Every year witnesses a great advance in accuracy of +rendering; but the translation even of an easy text still requires +here and there some close and careful guesswork to supply the +connecting links of passages or words that are thoroughly +understood, or the resort to some conventional rendering that has +become current for certain ill-understood but frequently recurring +phrases. The renderings given in the following pages are with one +exception specially revised for this publication, and exclude most of +what is doubtful. The Egyptologist is now to a great extent himself +aware whether the ground on which he is treading is firm or +treacherous; and it seems desirable to make a rule of either giving +the public only what can be warranted as sound translation, or else of +warning them where accuracy is doubtful. A few years ago such a course +would have curtailed the area for selection to a few of the simplest +stories and historical inscriptions; but now we can range over almost +the whole field of Egyptian writing, and gather from any part of it +warranted samples to set before the reading public. The labor, +however, involved in producing satisfactory translations for +publication, not mere hasty readings which may give something of the +sense, is very great; and at present few texts have been well +rendered. It is hoped that the following translations will be taken +for what they are intended,—attempts to show a little of the Ancient +Egyptian mind in the writings which it has left to us.</p> + +<p>We may now sketch briefly the history of Egyptian literature, dealing +with the subject in periods:<a name="FNanchor_1_12" id="FNanchor_1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—</p> + +<h4>I. <span class="smcap">The Ancient Kingdom, about B.C.</span> 4500-3000</h4> + +<p>The earliest historic period—from the Ist Dynasty to the IIId, about +B.C. 4500—has left no inscriptions of any extent. Some portions of +the 'Book of the Dead' profess to date from these or earlier times, +and probably much of the religious literature is of extremely ancient +origin. The first book of *'Proverbs' in the Prisse Papyrus is +attributed by its writer to the end of the IIId Dynasty (about 4000 +B.C.). From the IVth Dynasty to the end of the VIth, the number of the +inscriptions increases; tablets set up to the kings of the IVth +Dynasty in memory of warlike raids are found in the peninsula of +Sinai, and funerary inscriptions abound. The pyramids raised at the +end of the Vth and during the VIth Dynasty are found to contain +interminable religious inscriptions, forming almost +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5231" id="Page_5231">[Pg 5231]</a></span> +complete rituals for the deceased kings. Professor Maspero, who has published these +texts, states that they "contain much verbiage, many pious platitudes, +many obscure allusions to the affairs of the other world, and amongst +all this rubbish some passages full of movement and wild energy, in +which poetical inspiration and religious emotion are still discernible +through the veil of mythological expressions." Of the funerary and +biographical inscriptions the most remarkable is that of *Una. +Another, slightly later but hardly less important, is on the façade of +the tomb of Herkhuf, at Aswân, and recounts the expeditions into +Ethiopia and the southern oases which this resourceful man carried +through successfully. In Herkhuf's later life he delighted a boy King +of Egypt by bringing back for him from one of his raids a grotesque +dwarf dancer of exceptional skill: the young Pharaoh sent him a long +letter on the subject, which was copied in full on the tomb as an +addition to the other records there. It is to the Vth Dynasty also +that the second collection of *'Proverbs' in the Prisse Papyrus is +dated. The VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties have left us practically no +records of any kind.</p> + +<h4>II. <span class="smcap">The Middle Kingdom</span>, B.C. 3000 TO 1600</h4> + +<p>The Middle Kingdom, from the IXth to the XVIIth Dynasty, shows a great +literary development. Historical records of some length are not +uncommon. The funerary inscriptions descriptive of character and +achievement are often remarkable.</p> + +<p>Many papyri of this period have survived: the *Prisse Papyrus of +'Proverbs,' a papyrus discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie with the +*'Hymn to Usertesen III.,' papyri at Berlin containing a *dialogue +between a man and his soul, the *'Story of Sanehat,' the 'Story of the +Sekhti,' and a very remarkable fragment of another story; besides the +'Westcar Papyrus of Tales' and at St. Petersburg the *'Shipwrecked +Sailor.' The productions of this period were copied in later times; +the royal *'Teaching of Amenemhat,' and the worldly *'Teaching of +Dauf' as to the desirability of a scribe's career above any other +trade or profession, exist only in late copies. Doubtless much of the +later literature was copied from the texts of the Middle Kingdom. +There are also *treatises extant on medicine and arithmetic. Portions +of the Book of the Dead are found inscribed on tombs and sarcophagi.</p> + + +<h4>III. <span class="smcap">The New Kingdom, etc.</span></h4> + +<p>From the New Kingdom, B.C. 1600-700, we have the *'Maxims of Any,' +spoken to his son Khonsuhetep, numerous hymns to the gods, including +*that of King Akhenaten to the Aten (or disk of the sun), and the +later *hymns to Amen Ra. Inscriptions of every kind, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5232" id="Page_5232">[Pg 5232]</a></span>historical, +mythological, and funereal, abound. The historical *inscription of +Piankhy is of very late date. On papyri there are the stories of the +*'Two Brothers,' of the 'Taking of Joppa,' of the *'Doomed Prince.'</p> + +<p>From the Saite period (XXVIth Dynasty, B.C. 700) and later, there is +little worthy of record in hieroglyphics: the inscriptions follow +ancient models, and present nothing striking or original. In demotic +we have the *'Story of Setna,' a papyrus of moralities, a chronicle +somewhat falsified, a harper's song, a philosophical dialogue between +a cat and a jackal, and others.</p> + +<p>Here we might end. Greek authors in Egypt were many: some were native, +some of foreign birth or extraction, but they all belong to a +different world from the Ancient Egyptian. With the adaptation of the +Greek alphabet to the spelling of the native dialects, Egyptian came +again to the front in Coptic, the language of Christian Egypt. Coptic +literature, if such it may be called, was almost entirely produced in +Egyptian monasteries and intended for edification. Let us hope that it +served its end in its day. To us the dull, extravagant, and fantastic +Acts of the Saints, of which its original works chiefly consist, are +tedious and ridiculous except for the linguist or the church +historian. They certainly display the adjustment of the Ancient +Egyptian mind to new conditions of life and belief; but the +introduction of Christianity forms a fitting boundary to our sketch, +and we will now proceed to the texts themselves.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 380px;"> +<img src="images/sign174.png" width="380" height="150" alt="Francis Llewellyn Griffith and Kate Bradbury Griffith" title="Francis Llewellyn Griffith and Kate Bradbury Griffith" /> +</div> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">List of Selections</span></h4> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><span class="smcap">Stories:</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Shipwrecked Sailor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Story of Sanehat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Doomed Prince</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Story of the Two Brothers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Story of Setna</span></p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">History:</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Stela of Piankhy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Inscription of Una</span></p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Poetry:</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Songs of Laborers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Love Songs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hymn to Usertesen III.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hymn to Aten</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hymns to Amen Ra</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Songs to the Harp</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From an Epitaph</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From a Dialogue Between a Man and His Soul</span></p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Moral and Didactic:</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Negative Confession</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Teaching of Amenemhat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Prisse Papyrus</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the Maxims of Any</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Instruction of Dauf</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Contrasted Lots of Scribe and Fellâh</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reproaches to a Dissipated Student</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5233" id="Page_5233">[Pg 5233]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="SAILOR" id="SAILOR"></a>THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[One of the most complete documents existing on papyrus is the 'Story +of the Shipwrecked Sailor.' The tale itself seems to date from a very +early period, when imagination could still have full play in Upper +Nubia. In it a sailor is apparently presenting a petition to some +great man, in hopes of royal favor as the hero of the marvels which he +proceeds to recount.</p> + +<p>The Papyrus, which apparently is of the age of the XIth Dynasty, is +preserved at St. Petersburg, but is still unpublished. It has been +translated by Professors Golenisheff and Maspero. The present version +is taken from 'Egyptian Tales,' by W. M. Flinders Petrie.]</p></div> + +<p>The wise servant said, "Let thy heart be satisfied, O my lord, +for that we have come back to the country; after we have +long been on board, and rowed much, the prow has at last +touched land. All the people rejoice and embrace us one after +another. Moreover, we have come back in good health, and not +a man is lacking; although we have been to the ends of Wawat<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +and gone through the land of Senmut,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> we have returned in +peace, and our land—behold, we have come back to it. Hear +me, my lord; I have no other refuge. Wash thee and turn the +water over thy fingers, then go and tell the tale to the Majesty."</p> + +<p>His lord replied, "Thy heart continues still its wandering +words! But although the mouth of a man may save him, his +words may also cover his face with confusion. Wilt thou do, +then, as thy heart moves thee. This that thou wilt say, tell +quietly."</p> + +<p>The sailor then answered:—</p> + +<p>"Now I shall tell that which has happened to me, to my very +self. I was going to the mines of Pharaoh, and I went down +on the Sea<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +on a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide, +with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and +earth, and whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said +that the wind would not be contrary, or that there would be +none. But as we approached the land the wind arose, and threw +up waves eight cubits high. As for me, I sized a piece of wood; +but those who were in the vessel perished, without one remaining. +A wave threw me on an island, after that I had been three +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5234" id="Page_5234">[Pg 5234]</a></span> +days alone, without a companion beside my own heart. I laid me +in a thicket and the shadow covered me. Then stretched I my +limbs to try to find something for my mouth. I found there figs +and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons +of all kinds, fishes and birds. Nothing was lacking. And I satisfied +myself, and left on the ground that which was over, of what +my arms had been filled withal. I dug a pit, I lighted a fire, and +I made a burnt-offering unto the gods.</p> + +<p>"Suddenly I heard a noise as of thunder, which I thought to +be that of a wave of the sea. The trees shook and the earth +was moved. I uncovered my face, and I saw that a serpent drew +near. He was thirty cubits long, and his beard greater than two +cubits; his body was overlaid with gold, and his color as that +of true lazuli. He coiled himself before me.</p> + +<p>"Then he opened his mouth, while that I lay on my face +before him, and he said to me, 'What has brought thee, what +has brought thee, little one, what has brought thee? If thou +sayest not speedily what has brought thee to this isle, I will +make thee know thyself; as a flame thou shalt vanish, if thou +tellest me not something I have not heard, or which I knew not +before thee.'</p> + +<p>"Then he took me in his mouth and carried me to his resting-place, and +laid me down without any hurt. I was whole and sound, and nothing was +gone from me. Then he opened his mouth against me, while that I lay on +my face before him, and he said, 'What has brought thee, what has +brought thee, little one, what has brought thee to this isle which is +in the sea, and of which the shores are in the midst of the waves?'</p> + +<p>"Then I replied to him, and holding my arms low before +him,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +I said to him:—'I was embarked for the mines by the order of the Majesty, +in a ship; 150 cubits was its length, and the width of it 40 cubits. It +had 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and earth, +and the hearts of whom were stronger than lions. They said that the +wind would not be contrary, or that there would be none. Each of them +exceeded his companion in the prudence of his heart and the strength +of his arm, and I was not beneath any of them. A storm came upon us +while we were on the sea. Hardly could we reach to the shore when the +wind waxed yet greater, and the waves rose even +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5235" id="Page_5235">[Pg 5235]</a></span> +eight cubits. As for me, I seized a piece of wood, while those who +were in the boat perished without one being left with me for three +days. Behold me now before thee, for I was brought to this isle by a +wave of the sea!"</p> + +<p>"Then said he to me, 'Fear not, fear not, little one, and +make not thy face sad. If thou hast come to me, it is +God<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> +who has let thee live. For it is he who has brought thee to this isle +of the blest, where nothing is lacking, and which is filled with +all good things. See now thou shalt pass one month after +another, until thou shalt be four months in this isle. Then a +ship shall come from thy land with sailors, and thou shalt leave +with them and go to thy country, and thou shalt die in thy town. +Converse is pleasing, and he who tastes of it passes over his +misery. I will therefore tell thee of that which is in this isle. +I am here with my brethren and my children around me; we are +seventy-five serpents, children, and kindred; without naming a +young girl who was brought unto me by chance, and on whom +the fire of heaven fell and burnt her to ashes. As for thee, if +thou art strong, and if thy heart waits patiently, thou shalt press +thy infants to thy bosom and embrace thy wife. Thou shalt +return to thy house which is full of all good things, thou shalt +see thy land, where thou shalt dwell in the midst of thy kindred!'</p> + +<p>"Then I bowed in my obeisance, and I touched the ground +before him. 'Behold now that which I have told thee before. I +shall tell of thy presence unto Pharaoh, I shall make him to +know of thy greatness, and I will bring to thee of the sacred +oils and perfumes, and of incense of the temples with which all +gods are honored. I shall tell moreover of that which I do +now see (thanks to him), and there shall be rendered to thee +praises before the fullness of all the land. I shall slay asses for +thee in sacrifice, I shall pluck for thee the birds, and I shall +bring for thee ships full of all kinds of the treasures of Egypt, +as is comely to do unto a god, a friend of men in a far country, +of which men know not.'</p> + +<p>"Then he smiled at my speech, because of that which was in +his heart, for he said to me, 'Thou art not rich in perfumes, +for all that thou hast is but common incense. As for me, I am +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5236" id="Page_5236">[Pg 5236]</a></span> +prince of the land of Punt,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> +and I have perfumes. Only the oil which thou saidst thou wouldst bring +is not common in this isle. But when thou shalt depart from this +place, thou shalt never more see this isle; it shall be changed into +waves.'</p> + +<p>"And behold, when the ship drew near, attending to all that +he had told me before, I got me up into an high tree, to strive +to see those who were within it. Then I came and told to him +this matter; but it was already known unto him before. Then +he said to me, 'Farewell, farewell; go to thy house, little one, +see again thy children, and let thy name be good in thy town; +these are my wishes for thee!'</p> + +<p>"Then I bowed myself before him, and held my arms low +before him, and he, he gave me gifts of precious perfumes, of +cassia, of sweet woods, of kohl, of cypress, an abundance of +incense, of ivory tusks, of baboons, of apes, and all kinds of +precious things. I embarked all in the ship which was come, +and bowing myself, I prayed God for him.</p> + +<p>"Then he said to me, 'Behold, thou shalt come to thy country +in two months, thou shalt press to thy bosom thy children, and +thou shalt rest in thy tomb!' After this I went down to the +shore unto the ship, and I called to the sailors who were there. +Then on the shore I rendered adoration to the master of this +isle and to those who dwelt therein.</p> + +<p>"When we shall come, in our return, to the house of Pharaoh, in the +second month, according to all that the serpent has said, we shall +approach unto the palace. And I shall go in before Pharaoh, I shall +bring the gifts which I have brought from this isle into the country. +Then he shall thank me before the fullness of all the land. Grant then +unto me a follower, and lead me to the courtiers of the king. Cast +thine eye upon me after that I am come to land again, after that I +have both seen and proved this. Hear my prayer, for it is good to +listen to people. It was said unto me, 'Become a wise man, and thou +shalt come to honor,' and behold I have become such."</p> + +<p><i>This is finished from its beginning unto its end, even as it was +found in a writing. It is written by the scribe of cunning fingers, +Ameniamenaa; may he live in life, wealth, and health.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5237" id="Page_5237">[Pg 5237]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THE_STORY_OF_SANEHAT" id="THE_STORY_OF_SANEHAT"></a>THE STORY OF SANEHAT</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The story of Sanehat is practically complete. A papyrus at Berlin +contains all the text except about twenty lines at the beginning, the +whole being written in about three hundred and thirty short lines. +Scraps of the missing portion were found in the collection of Lord +Amherst of Hackney; and these, added to a complete but very corrupt +text of about the first fifty lines, enable one to restore the whole +with tolerable certainty. The story was written about the time of the +XIIth or XIIIth Dynasty, but was known at a much later period: one +extract from the beginning of the tale and one from the end have been +found written in ink on limestone flakes or "ostraca" of about the +XXth Dynasty (about 1150 B.C.). It seems to be a straightforward +relation of actual occurrences, a real piece of biography. At any +rate, it is most instructive as showing the kind of intercourse that +was possible between Egypt and Palestine about 2500 B.C.]</p></div> + + +<p>The hereditary prince, royal seal-bearer, trusty companion, +judge, keeper of the gate of the foreigners, true and +beloved royal acquaintance, the attendant Sanehat says:—</p> + +<p>I attended my lord as a servant of the king, of the household +of the hereditary princess, the greatly favored, the royal +wife, Ankhet-Usertesen [?], holding a place at Kanefer, the pyramid +of King Amenemhat.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>In the thirtieth year, the month Paophi, the seventh day, the +god<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> entered his horizon, the King Sehetepabra flew up to heaven; +he joined the sun's disk, he attended the god, he joined his +Maker. The Residence<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> was silenced, the hearts were weakened, +the Great Portals were closed, the courtiers crouching on the +ground, the people in hushed mourning.</p> + +<p>Now his Majesty had sent a great army with the nobles to +the land of the Temehu,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> his son and heir as their commander, +the good King Usertesen.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> And now he was returning, and had +brought away captives and all kinds of cattle without end. The +Companions of the Court sent to the West Side<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> to let the king +know the state of affairs that had come about in the Audience +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5238" id="Page_5238">[Pg 5238]</a></span> +Chamber.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The messenger found him on the road; he reached +him at the time of evening. "It was a time for him to hasten +greatly [was the message]: Let the Hawk<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> fly [hither] with his +attendants, without allowing the army to know of it." And when +the royal sons who commanded in that army sent messages, not +one of them was summoned to audience. Behold, I was standing +[near]; I heard his voice while he was speaking.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> I fled far away, +my heart beating, my arms outspread; trembling had fallen on +all my limbs. I ran hither and thither<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> to seek a place to hide +me, I threw myself amongst the bushes: and when I found a +road that went forward, I set out southward, not indeed thinking +to come to this Residence.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> I expected that there would be disturbance. +I spake not of life after it.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> I wandered across my +estate<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> [?] in the neighborhood of Nehat; I reached the island [or +lake] of Seneferu, and spent the day [resting?] on the open field. +I started again while it was yet day,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> and came to a man standing +at the side of the road. He asked of me mercy, for he +feared me. By supper-time I drew near to the town of Negau. +I crossed the river on a raft without a rudder, by the aid of a +west wind, and landed at the quay [?] of the quarrymen of the +Mistress at the Red Mountain.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Then I fled on foot northward, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5239" id="Page_5239">[Pg 5239]</a></span> +and reached the Walls of the Ruler, built to repel the Sati.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> I +crouched in a bush for fear, seeing the day-patrol at its duty on +the top of the fortress. At nightfall I set forth, and at dawn +reached Peten, and skirted the lake of Kemur.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Then thirst +hasted me on; I was parched, my throat was stopped, and I said, +"This is the taste of death." When I lifted up my heart and +gathered strength, I heard a voice and the lowing of cattle. I +saw men of the Sati; and an alien amongst them—he who is +[now?] in Egypt<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>—recognized me. Behold, he gave me water, +and boiled me milk, and I went with him to his camp,—may a +blessing be their portion! One tribe passed me on to another: I +departed to Sun [?], and came to Kedem.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>There I spent a year and a month [?]. But Ammui-nen-sha, +Ruler of the Upper Tenu,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> took me and said to me:—"Comfort +thyself with me, that thou mayest hear the speech of Egypt." +He said thus, for that he knew my character, and had heard of +my worth; for men of Egypt who were there with him bore +witness of me. Then he said to me:—"For what hast thou come +hither? what is it? Hath a matter come to pass in the Residence? +The King of the Two Lands, Sehetepabra, hath gone to +heaven, and one knoweth not what may have happened thereon." +But I answered with concealment and said:—"I returned with +an expedition from the land of the Temehu; my desire was +redoubled, my heart leaped, there was no satisfaction within me. +This drove me to the ways of a fugitive. I have not failed in +my duty, my mouth hath not uttered any bitter words, I have +not hearkened to any evil plot, my name hath not been heard in +the mouth of the informer. I know not what hath brought me +into this country." [And the Ruler Ammui-nen-sha said:]<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> "This +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5240" id="Page_5240">[Pg 5240]</a></span> +is like the disposition of God. And now what is that land like if +it know not that excellent god,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> of whom the dread was over the +nations like Sekhemt<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> in a year of pestilence?" I spake [thus] +to him, and replied to him:—"Nay, but his son hath entered the +palace, and taken the heritage of his father, and he is a god +without an equal, nor was there any other before him [like unto +him]. He is a master of wisdom, prudent in his designs, excellent +in his decrees; coming out and going in is at his command. +It was he that curbed the nations while his father remained within +the palace, and he reported the execution of that which was laid +upon him [to perform]. He is a mighty man also, working with +his strong arm; a valiant one, who hath not his equal. See him +when he springeth upon the barbarians, and throweth himself on +the spoilers; he breaketh the horns and weakeneth the hands; his +enemies cannot wield their weapons. He is fearless and dasheth +heads to pieces; none can stand before him. He is swift of going, +to destroy him who fleeth; and none turning his back to him +reacheth his home. He is sturdy of heart in the moment [of +stress]; he is a lion that striketh with the claw; never hath he +turned his back. He is stout of heart when he seeth multitudes, +he letteth none repose beyond what his desire would spare. He +is bold of face when he seeth hesitation: his joy is to fall on the +barbarians. He seizeth the buckler, and leapeth forward; he repeateth +not his stroke, he slayeth, and none can turn his lance; +without his bow being drawn the barbarians flee from his arms +like dogs; for the great goddess hath granted him to war against +those who know not his name; he is thorough, he spareth not +and leaveth naught behind. He is full of grace and sweetness, a +love-winner; his city loveth him more than itself, it rejoiceth in +him more than in its own god; men and women go their ways, +calling their children by his name. For he is a king that took +the kingdom while he was in the egg, and ruled from his birth. +He is a multiplier of offspring. And he is One Alone, the essence +of God; this land rejoiceth in his government. He is one that +enlargeth his borders; he will take the lands of the South, but he +will not design to hold the countries of the North: yet he prepareth +to smite the Sati, to crush the Wanderers of the Sand. +When he cometh here, let him know thy name; dispute not, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5241" id="Page_5241">[Pg 5241]</a></span> +go over to his command<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>: for he will not fail to treat well the +country that floateth with his stream."</p> + +<p>Said he, agreeing to me:—"Verily, Egypt is excellent in its +stream<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> beyond anything, and it flourisheth; behold, as long as +thou art with me I will do good unto thee." He placed me at +the head of his children, he married me with his eldest daughter. +He allowed me to choose for myself from his land, and from the +choicest of what he possessed on the border of the next land. It +was a goodly land; Iaa<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> is its name. Therein were figs and +grapes; its wine was more plentiful than water; abundant was +its honey, many were its oil-trees, and all fruits were upon its +trees; there too was barley and spelt, and cattle of all kinds without +end. Great honors also were granted to me, flowing from +his love to me; he set me as sheikh of a tribe in a choice portion +of his country. There were made for me rations of bread, wine +from day to day, cooked meat and roasted fowl, besides wild game +snared for me or brought to me, as well as what my hunting +dogs caught. They made me many dainties, and milk food +cooked in all manner of ways. Thus I passed many years; my +children became valiant men, each one the conqueror of a tribe. +When a messenger came north or went south to the Residence,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> +he tarried with me; for I gave all men gifts; I gave water to +the thirsty, I set the strayed wanderer on his road, and I +rescued those who were carried off captive. The Sati who went +to war or to repel the kings of the nations, I commanded their +expeditions; for this Ruler of the Tenu made me to spend +many years as captain of his army. Every land to which I +turned I overcame. I destroyed its green fields and its wells, I +captured its cattle, I took captive its inhabitants, I deprived +them of their provisions, and I slew much people of them by +my sword, my bow, my marchings, and my good devices. Thus +my excellence was in his heart; he loved me and he knew my +valor; until he set me at the head of his sons, when he saw the +success of my handiwork.</p> + +<p>There came a champion of the Tenu to defy me in my tent; +a bold man without equal, for he had vanquished all his rivals. +He said, "Let Sanehat fight with me." He thought to overcome +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5242" id="Page_5242">[Pg 5242]</a></span> +me; he designed to take my cattle, being thus counseled by his +tribe. This ruler [Ammui-nen-sha] conferred with me. I said:—"I +know him not. I assuredly am no associate of his; I hold me +far from his place. Have I ever opened his door, or leaped over +his fence? It is perverseness of heart from seeing me doing his +work. Forsooth, I am as it were a stranger bull among the cows, +which the bull of the herd charges, and the strong bull catches! +But shall a wretched beggar desire to attain to my fortune? A +common soldier cannot take part as a counselor. Then what +pray shall establish the assembly?<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> But is there a bull that +loveth battle, a courageous bull that loveth to repeat the charge +in terrifying him whose strength he hath measured? If he hath +stomach to fight, let him speak what he pleaseth. Will God forget +what is ordained for him? How shall fate be known?" The +night long I strung my bow, I made ready my arrows; I made +keen my dagger, I furbished my arms. At daybreak the Tenu +came together; it had gathered its tribes and collected the neighboring +peoples. Its thoughts were on this combat; every bosom +burned for me, men and women crying out; every heart was +troubled for me; they said, "Is there yet another champion +to fight with him?" Then [he took] his buckler, his battle-axe, +and an armful of javelins. But thereon I avoided his weapons, +and turned aside his arrows to the ground, useless. One drew +near to the other and he rushed upon me. I shot at him and my +arrow stuck in his neck; he cried out, and fell upon his nose: I +brought down upon him his own battle-axe, and raised my shout +of victory on his back. All the Asiatics roared, and I and his +vassals whom he had oppressed gave thanks unto Mentu; this +Ruler, Ammui-nen-sha, took me to his embrace. Then I took +his goods, I seized his cattle. What he had thought to do to +me, I did it unto him; I seized that which was in his tent, I +spoiled his dwelling. I grew great thereby, I increased in my +possessions. I abounded in cattle.</p> + +<p>"May<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> the god be disposed to pardon him in whom he had +trusted, and who deserted to a foreign country. Now is his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5243" id="Page_5243">[Pg 5243]</a></span> +anger quenched. I who at one time fled away a fugitive, my +guarantee is now in the Residence. Having wandered a starved +wanderer, now I give bread to those around. Having left my +land in rags, now I shine in fine linen. Having been a fugitive +without followers, now I possess many serfs. My house is +fair, my dwelling large, I am spoken of in the palace. All the +gods destined me this flight. Mayest thou be gracious; may I be +restored to the Residence; favor me that I may see the place in +which my heart dwelleth. Behold how great a thing is it that +my body should be embalmed in the land where I was born! +Come; if afterwards there be good fortune, I will give an offering +to God that he may work to make good the end of his suppliant, +whose heart is heavy at long absence in a strange land. +May he be gracious; may he hear the prayer of him who is afar +off, that he may revisit the place of his birth, and the place +from which he removed.</p> + +<p>"May the King of Egypt be gracious to me, by whose favor +men live. I salute the mistress of the land, who is in his palace; +may I hear the news of her children, and may my body renew +its vigor thereby. But old age cometh, weakness hasteneth me +on, the eyes are heavy, my arms are failing, my feet have +ceased to follow the heart. Weariness of going on approacheth +me; may they convey me to the cities of eternity. May I serve +the mistress of all.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> Oh that she may tell me the beauties of her +children; may she bring eternity to me."</p> + +<p>Now the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, +Kheper-ka-ra, justified, spake concerning this condition in which +I was. His Majesty sent unto me with presents from before the +king, that he might make glad the heart of your servant,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> as he +would unto the Ruler of any country; and the royal sons who +were in his palace caused me to hear their news.</p> + +<h4><i>Copy of the command which was brought to the humble servant +to bring him back to Egypt.</i></h4> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">The Horus, Life of Births, Lord of the Crowns, Life of +Births, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kheper-ka-ra, Son +of the Sun, Usertesen<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Ever Living unto Eternity.</span> Royal +Command for the attendant, Sanehat.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5244" id="Page_5244">[Pg 5244]</a></span>"Behold, +this command of the king is sent to thee to give thee +information: Whereas thou didst go round strange lands from +Kedem<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> to Tenu, one country passed thee on to another as thy +heart devised for thee. Behold, what thou hast done hath been +done unto thee: Thou hast not blasphemed, so also the accusation +against thee hath been repelled. So also thy sayings have +been respected; thou hast not spoken against the Council of the +Nobles. But this matter carried away thy heart; it was not +[devised] in thy heart.</p> + +<p>"This thy Heaven<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> who is in the palace is stablished and +flourishing even now: she herself shareth in the rule of the +land, and her children are in the Audience Chamber.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>"Leave the riches that thou hast, and in the abundance of +which thou livest. When thou comest to Egypt thou shalt +visit the Residence in which thou wast, thou shalt kiss the +ground before the Great Portals, thou shalt assume authority +amongst the Companions. But day by day, behold, thou growest +old; thy vigor is lost; thou thinkest on thy day of burial. Thou +shalt be conducted to the blessed state; there shall be assigned +to thee a night of sacred oils and wrappings from the hands of +the goddess Tayt. There shall be held for thee a procession [behind +thy statues] and a visit [to the temple] on the day of burial, +the mummy case gilded, the head blue, the canopy above thee; +the putting in the skin-frame, oxen to draw thee, singers going +before thee, the answering chant, and mourners crouching at the +door of thy tomb-chapel. Prayers for offerings shall be recited +for thee, victims shall be slaughtered at the door portrayed upon +thy tablet<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a>; and thy mastaba shall be built of white stone, in the +company of the royal children. Thou shalt not die in a strange +land, nor be buried by the Amu; thou shalt not be put in a +sheepskin, thou shalt be well regarded. It is vain [?] to beat +the ground and think on troubles.</p> + +<p>"Thou hast reached the end.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5245" id="Page_5245">[Pg 5245]</a></span>When +this order came to me, I stood in the midst of my +tribe, and when it was read unto me, I threw me on my belly; I +bowed to the ground and let the dust spread upon my breast. I +strode around my tent rejoicing and saying:—"How is this done +to the servant, whose heart had transgressed to a strange country +of babbling tongue? But verily good is compassion, that I should +be saved from death. Thy <i>Ka</i><a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> it is that will cause me to pass +the end of my days in the Residence."</p> + +<h4><i>Copy of the acknowledgment of this command.</i></h4> + +<p>"The servant of the royal house [?], Sanehat, says:—</p> + +<p>"In most excellent peace! Known is it to thy <i>Ka</i> that this +flight of thy servant was made in innocence. Thou the Good +God, Lord of both Lands, Beloved of Ra, Favored of Mentu, +lord of Uast, and of Amen, lord of the Thrones of the Two +Lands, of Sebek, Ra, Horus, Hathor, Atmu and his Ennead, of +Sepdu, Neferbiu, Semsetu, Horus of the east, and of the Mistress +of the Cave<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> who resteth on thy head, of the chief circle of the +gods of the waters, Min, Horus of the desert, Urert mistress of +Punt, Nut, Harur-Ra, all the gods of the land of Egypt and of +the isles of the sea.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> May they put life and strength to thy +nostril, may they present thee with their gifts, may they give to +thee eternity without end, everlastingness without bound. May +the fear of thee be doubled in the lands and in the foreign countries, +mayest thou subdue the circuit of the sun. This is the +prayer of the servant for his master, who hath delivered him +from Amenti.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p>"The possessor of understanding understandeth the higher +order of men, and the servant recognizeth the majesty of +Pharaoh. But thy servant feareth to speak it: it is a weighty +matter to tell of. The great God, like unto Ra, knoweth well +the work which he himself hath wrought. Who is thy servant +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5246" id="Page_5246">[Pg 5246]</a></span> +that he should be considered, that words should be spent upon +him? Thy majesty is as Horus, and the strength of thy arms +extendeth to all lands.</p> + +<p>"Then let his Majesty command that there be brought to +him Meki of Kedem, Khentiu-aaush of Khent-keshu, and Menus +of the Two Lands of the Fenkhu; these are chiefs as hostages +that the Tenu act according to the desire of thy <i>Ka</i>, and that +Tenu will not covet what belongeth to thee in it, like thy +dogs.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> Behold this flight that thy servant made: I did not desire +it, it was not in my heart; I do not boast of it; I know not what +took me away from my place; it was like the leading of a +dream, as a man of Adhu sees himself in Abu,<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> as a man of the +Corn-land sees himself in the Land of Gardens.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> There was no +fear, none was hastening in pursuit of me; I did not listen to an +evil plot, my name was not heard in the mouth of the informer; +but my limbs went, my feet wandered, my heart drew me; a +god ordained this flight, and led me on. But I am not stiff-necked; +a man feareth if he knoweth [?], for Ra hath spread thy +fear over the land, thy terrors in every foreign country. Behold +me in thy palace or behold me in this place,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> still thou art he +who doth clothe this horizon. The sun riseth at thy pleasure, +the water in the rivers is drunk at thy will, the wind in heaven +is breathed at thy saying.</p> + +<p>"Thy servant will leave to a successor the viziership which thy +servant hath held in this land. And when thy servant shall arrive<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> +let thy Majesty do as pleaseth him, for one liveth by the +breath that thou givest. O thou who art beloved of Ra, of +Horus, and of Hathor! It is thy august nostril that Mentu, lord +of Uast, desireth should live for ever."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was granted that I should spend a day in Iaa,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> to pass over +my goods to my children, my eldest son leading my tribe, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5247" id="Page_5247">[Pg 5247]</a></span> +all my goods in his hand, my people and all my cattle, my fruit, +and all my pleasant trees. When thy humble servant<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> journeyed +to the south, and arrived at the Roads of Horus, the officer who +was over the frontier-patrol sent a report to the Residence to +give notice. His Majesty sent the good overseer of the peasants +of the king's domains, and ships with him laden with presents +from the king for the Sati who had come with me to convey me +to the Roads of Horus. I spoke to each one by his name, each +officer according to his rank. I received and I returned the salutation, +and I continued thus<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> until I reached Athtu.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + +<p>When the land was lightened, and the second day came,<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> +there came some to summon me, four men in coming, four +men in going,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> to carry [?] me to the palace. I alighted on the +ground between the gates of reception [?]; the royal children +stood at the platform to greet [?] me; the Companions and those +who ushered to the hall brought me on the way to the royal +chamber.</p> + +<p>I found his Majesty on the great throne on a platform of pale +gold. Then I threw myself on my belly; this god, in whose +presence I was, knew me not while he questioned me graciously; +but I was as one caught in the night; my spirit fainted, my +limbs shook, my heart was no longer in my bosom, and I knew +the difference between life and death. His Majesty said to one +of the Companions, "Lift him up; let him speak to me." And +his Majesty said:—"Behold, thou hast come; thou hast trodden the +deserts; thou hast played the wanderer. Decay falleth on thee, +old age hath reached thee; it is no small thing that thy body +should be embalmed, that thou shalt not be buried by foreign +soldiers.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Do not, do not, be silent and speechless; tell thy +name; is it fear that preventeth thee?" I answered with the +answer of one terrified, "What is it that my lord hath said? O +that I might answer it! It was not my act: it was the hand of +God; it was a terror that was in my body, as it were causing a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5248" id="Page_5248">[Pg 5248]</a></span> +flight that had been foreordained. Behold I am before thee, thou +art life; let thy Majesty do what pleaseth him."</p> + +<p>The royal children were brought in, and his Majesty said to +the queen, "Behold thou, Sanehat hath come as an Amu, whom +the Sati have produced."</p> + +<p>She shrieked aloud, and the royal children joined in one cry, +and said before his Majesty, "Verily it is not he, O king, my +lord." Said his Majesty, "It is verily he." Then they brought +their tinkling bead-strings, their wands, and their sistra in their +hands, and waved them<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> before his Majesty [and they sang]:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"May thy hands prosper, O King;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May the graces of the Lady of Heaven continue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May the goddess Nub<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> give life to thy nostril;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May the mistress of the stars favor thee, that which is north of her going south and that which is south of her going north.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All wisdom is in the mouth of thy Majesty;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The staff [?] is put upon thy forehead, driving away from thee the beggarly [?]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art pacified, O Ra, lord of the lands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They call on thee as on the Mistress of all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strong is thy horn; let fall thine arrow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grant the breath of life to him who is without it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grant thy favor to this alien Samehit,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> the foreign soldier born in the land of Egypt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who fled away from fear of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left the land from thy terrors.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The face shall not grow pale, of him who beholdeth thy countenance;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eye shall not fear which looketh upon thee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Said his Majesty:—"He shall not fear; let him be freed from +terror. He shall be a Companion amongst the nobles; he shall +be put within the circle of the courtiers. Go ye to the chamber +of praise to seek wealth for him."</p> + +<p>When I went out from the Audience Chamber, the royal +children offered their hands to me; and we walked afterwards to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5249" id="Page_5249">[Pg 5249]</a></span> +the Great Portals. I was placed in a house of a king's son, in +which were fine things; there was a cool bower therein, fruits of +the granary, treasures of the White House,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> clothes of the king's +guard-robe, frankincense, the finest perfumes of the king and the +nobles whom he loves, in every chamber; and every kind of +servitor in his proper office. Years were removed from my +limbs: I was shaved, and my locks of hair were combed; the +foulness was cast to the desert, with the garments of the Nemausha.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> +I clothed me in fine linen, and anointed myself with the +best oil; I laid me on a bed. I gave up the sand to those who +lie on it; the oil of wood to him who would anoint himself +therewith.</p> + +<p>There was given to me the house of Neb-mer [?], which had +belonged to a Companion. There were many craftsmen building +it; all its woodwork was strengthened anew. Portions were +brought to me from the palace thrice and four times a day, +besides the gifts of the royal children; there was not a moment's +ceasing from them. There was built for me a pyramid of stone +amongst the pyramids. The overseer of the architects measured +its ground; the chief treasurer drew it; the sacred masons did +the sculpture; the chief of the laborers in the necropolis brought +the bricks; and all the instruments applied to a tomb were there +employed. There were given to me fields; there was made for +me a necropolis garden, the land in it better than a farm estate; +even as is done for the chief Companion. My statue was overlaid +with gold, its girdle with pale gold; his Majesty caused it to +be made. Such is not done to a man of low degree.</p> + +<p>Thus am I in the favor of the king until the day of death +shall come.</p> + +<p><i>This is finished from beginning to end, as was found in the +writing.</i></p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5250" id="Page_5250">[Pg 5250]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THE_DOOMED_PRINCE" id="THE_DOOMED_PRINCE"></a>THE DOOMED PRINCE</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>['The Story of the Doomed Prince' was written at some time during the +XVIIIth Dynasty (about 1450 B.C.). The papyrus on which it has been preserved +to us, and which is in the British Museum, is much mutilated, and the +end is entirely lost.]</p></div> + +<p>There was once a king to whom no male child was born; he +prayed for himself unto the gods whom he worshiped for +a son. They decreed to cause that there should be born +to him one. And his wife, after her time was fulfilled, gave +birth to a male child. Came the Hathors<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> +to decree for him a destiny; they said, "He dies by the crocodile, or by +the serpent, or by the dog." Then the people who stood by the child heard +this; they went to tell it to his Majesty. Then his Majesty's +heart was exceeding sad. His Majesty caused a house to be +built upon the desert, furnished with people and with all good +things of the royal house, out of which the child should not go. +Now when the child was grown he went up upon its roof and +saw a greyhound; it was following a man walking on the road. +He said to his page who was with him, "What is this that goeth +behind the man coming along the road?" He said to him, "It +is a greyhound." The child said to him, "Let there be brought +to me one like it." The page went and reported it to his +Majesty. His Majesty said, "Let there be brought to him a little +trotter, lest his heart be sad." Then they brought to him the +greyhound.</p> + +<p>Now when the days were multiplied after these things, the +child grew up in all his limbs, he sent a message to his father +saying, "Wherefore should I remain here? Behold, I am destined +to three dooms, and if I do according to my desire God will still +do what is in his heart." They hearkened to all he said, and +gave him all kinds of weapons, and also his greyhound to follow +him, and they conveyed him over to the east side and said +to him, "Go thou whither thou wilt." His greyhound was +with him; he traveled northward following his heart in the desert; +he lived on the best of all the game of the desert. He came to +the chief of Naharaina.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5251" id="Page_5251">[Pg 5251]</a></span> +Behold, there was no child born to the prince of Naharaina except one +daughter. Behold, he built for her a house; its window was seventy +cubits from the ground, and he caused to be brought all the sons of +all the chiefs of the land of Kharu,<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> +and said to them, "He who shall reach the window of my daughter, she +shall be to him for a wife."</p> + +<p>Now when the days had multiplied after these things, as they were in +their daily task, the youth came by them. They took the youth to their +house, they bathed him, they gave provender to his horse, they did +every kind of thing for the youth; they anointed him, they bound up +his feet, they gave him portions of their own food; they spake to him +in the manner of conversation, "Whence comest thou, good youth?" He +said to them:—"I am the son of an officer of the land of Egypt; my +mother is dead, my father has taken another wife. When she bore +children, she began to hate me, and I have come as a fugitive from +before her." They embraced him and kissed him.</p> + +<p>Now when the days were multiplied after these things, he said to the +youths, "What is it that ye do here?" And they said to him, "We spend +our time in this: we climb up, and he who shall reach the window of +the daughter of the prince of Naharaina, to him she will be given to +wife." He said to them, "Lo! I desire to try, I shall go to climb with +you." They went to climb, as was their daily wont: the youth stood +afar off to behold; and the face of the daughter of the prince of +Naharaina was turned to him. Now when the days were multiplied after +these things, the youth came to climb with the sons of the chiefs. He +climbed, he reached the window of the daughter of the prince of +Naharaina. She kissed him, she embraced him.</p> + +<p>One went to rejoice the heart of her father, and said to him, "A man +has reached the window of thy daughter." The prince spake of it, +saying, "The son of which of the princes is it?" He said to him, "It +is the son of an officer, who has come as a fugitive from the land of +Egypt, fleeing from before his step-mother when she had children." +Then the prince of Naharaina was exceeding angry; he said, "Shall I +indeed give my daughter to the Egyptian fugitive? Let him go back." +One came to tell the youth, "Go back to the place from which thou hast +come." But the maiden took hold of him; she swore an oath by God, +saying, "By the life of Ra Harakhti, if one taketh him from me, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5252" id="Page_5252">[Pg 5252]</a></span> +I will not eat, I will not drink, I shall die in that same hour." The +messenger went to tell unto her father all that she said. Then the +prince sent men to slay him, while he was in his house. But the maiden +said, "By the life of Ra, if one slay him I shall be dead ere the sun +goeth down. I will not pass an hour of life if I am parted from him." +One went to tell her father. Then ... the prince came; he embraced +him, he kissed him all over, and said, "Tell me who thou art; behold, +thou art to me as a son." He said to him:—"I am a son of an officer +of the land of Egypt; my mother died, my father took to him a second +wife; she came to hate me, and I fled from before her." He gave to him +his daughter to wife; he gave also to him people and fields, also +cattle and all manner of good things.</p> + +<p>Now when time had passed over these things, the youth said to his +wife, "I am destined to three dooms—a crocodile, a serpent, and a +dog." She said to him, "Let one kill the dog that runs before thee." +He said to her, "I will not let my dog be killed, which I have brought +up from when it was small." And she feared greatly for her husband, +and would not let him go alone abroad.</p> + +<p>One did ... the land of Egypt, to travel. Behold, the crocodile, ... +he came opposite the city in which the youth was.... Behold, there was +a mighty man therein; the mighty man would not suffer the crocodile to +go out, ... the crocodile. The mighty man went out to walk when the +sun ... every day, during two months of days.</p> + +<p>Now when the days passed after this, the youth sat making a good day +in his house. When the evening came he lay down on his bed; sleep +seized upon his limbs; his wife filled a bowl of milk and placed it by +his side. There came out a serpent from his hole, to bite the youth; +behold, his wife was sitting by him; she lay not down. Thereupon the +servants gave milk to the serpent; it drank and became drunk, and lay +down, upside down; his wife cut it in pieces with her hatchet. They +woke her husband ... she said to him, "Behold, thy god hath given one +of thy dooms into thy hand; he shall give...." And he sacrificed to +God, adoring him, and praising his mighty spirit from day to day.</p> + +<p>Now when the days were multiplied after these things, the youth went +to walk in the pathway in his enclosure, for he went not outside +alone; behold, his dog was behind him. His dog put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5253" id="Page_5253">[Pg 5253]</a></span> his nose to the +ground [to pursue some game], and he ran after him. He came to the +sea, and entered the sea behind his dog. The crocodile came out, he +took him to the place where the mighty man was.... The crocodile, he +said to the youth, "I am thy doom, following after thee...."</p> + +<p>[Here the papyrus breaks off.]</p> + + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_STORY_OF_THE_TWO_BROTHERS" id="THE_STORY_OF_THE_TWO_BROTHERS"></a>THE STORY OF THE TWO BROTHERS</h3> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>['The Story of the Two Brothers' is in places incoherent, but charms +throughout by beautiful and natural touches. The copy in which it has +been preserved to us is practically complete, but is full of errors of +writing and of composition, whole sentences having crept in that are +useless, or contradictory to the context. The style is however +absolutely simple and narrative, and the language entirely free from +archaisms.</p> + +<p>The papyrus, which bears the name of Seti II. as crown prince, dates +from the XIXth Dynasty. The beginnings of many of the sentences and +paragraphs are written in red: this is specially the case when a +sentence commences with an indication of time, usually expressed in a +fixed formula. In such cases the translation of the passage written in +red is here printed in italics.]</p></div> + +<p>Once there were two brothers, of one mother and one father; Anpu was +the name of the elder, and Bata was the name of the younger. Now, as +for Anpu, he had a house and he had a wife. His younger brother was to +him as it were a son; he it was who made for him his clothes, while he +walked behind his oxen to the fields; he it was who did the plowing; +he it was who harvested the corn; he it was who did for him all the +work of the fields. Behold, his younger brother grew to be an +excellent worker; there was not his equal in the whole land; behold, +the strain of a god was in him.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days multiplied after these things</i>, his younger brother +followed his oxen as his manner was, daily; every evening he turned +again to the house, laden with all the herbs of the field, with milk +and with wood, and with all things of the field. He put them down +before his elder brother, who was sitting with his wife; he drank and +ate; he lay down in his stable with the cattle.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, he took bread +which he had baked, and laid it before his elder brother; and he took +with him his bread to the field, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5254" id="Page_5254">[Pg 5254]</a></span> drave his cattle to pasture +them in the fields. And he used to walk behind his cattle, they saying +to him, "Good is the herbage which is in such a place;" and he +hearkened to all that they said, and he took them to the good pasture +which they desired. And the cattle which were before him became +exceeding excellent, and they became prolific greatly.</p> + +<p>Now at the time of plowing, his elder brother said unto him, "Let us +make ready for ourselves a yoke of oxen for plowing; for the land hath +come out from the water; it is good for plowing in this state; and do +thou come to the field with corn, for we will begin the plowing in the +morrow morning." Thus said he to him; <i>and his</i> younger brother did +everything that his elder brother had bidden him, to the end.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, they went to the +fields with their yoke of oxen; and their hearts were pleased +exceedingly with that which they accomplished in the beginning of +their work.</p> + +<p>N<i>ow when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, they were in +the field; they stopped for seed corn, and he sent his younger +brother, saying, "Haste thou, bring to us corn from the farm." And the +younger brother found the wife of his elder brother; [some] one was +sitting arranging her hair. He said to her [the wife], "Get up, and +give to me seed corn, that I may run to the field, for my elder +brother hastened me; be not slow." She said to him, "Go, open the +store, and thou shalt take for thyself what is in thy heart; do not +interrupt the course of my hair-dressing."</p> + +<p>The youth went into his stable; he took a large measure, for he +desired to take much corn; he loaded it with barley and spelt; and he +went out carrying them. She said to him, "How much of the corn that is +wanted, is that which is on thy shoulder?" He said to her, "Three +bushels of spelt, and two of barley, in all five; these are what are +upon my shoulder;" thus said he to her. And she spake with him, +saying, "There is great strength in thee, for I see thy might every +day." And her desire was to know him with the knowledge of youth. She +arose and took hold of him, and said to him, "Come, lie with me; +behold, this shall be to thine advantage, for I will make for thee +beautiful garments." Then the youth became like a leopard of the south +in fury at the evil speech which she had made to him; and she feared +greatly. He spake with her, saying, "Behold, thou art to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5255" id="Page_5255">[Pg 5255]</a></span> me as a +mother; thy husband is to me as a father; for he who is elder than I +hath brought me up. What is this great wickedness that thou hast said? +Say it not to me again. For I will not tell it to any man, that it +should go forth by the mouth of all men." He lifted up his burden, and +he went to the field and came to his elder brother; and they took up +their work, to labor at their task.</p> + +<p>Now afterwards, at the time of evening, his elder brother was +returning to his house; the younger brother was following after his +oxen; he loaded himself with all the things of the field; he brought +his oxen before him, to make them lie down in their stable which was +in the farm. Behold, the wife of the elder brother was afraid for the +words which she had said. She took a pot of fat; she made herself as +one who had been beaten by miscreants, in order that she might say to +her husband, "It is thy younger brother who hath done this wrong." Her +husband returned in the even, as his manner was every day; he came +unto his house; he found his wife lying down, ill of violence; she did +not put water upon his hands as his manner was; she did not make a +light before him; his house was in darkness, and she was lying +vomiting. Her husband said to her, "Who hath spoken with thee?" +Behold, she said, "No one hath spoken with me except thy younger +brother. When he came to take for thee seed corn he found me sitting +alone; he said to me, 'Come, let us lie together; put on thy wig<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>;' +thus spake he to me. I would not hearken to him: 'Behold, am I not thy +mother, is not thy elder brother to thee as a father?' Thus spake I to +him, and he feared, and he beat me to stop me from making report to +thee, and if thou lettest him live I shall kill myself. Now behold, +when he cometh to-morrow, seize upon him; I will accuse him of this +wicked thing which he would have done the day before."</p> + +<p>The elder brother became as a leopard of the south; he sharpened his +knife; he took it in his hand; he stood behind the door of his stable +to slay his younger brother as he came in the evening to let his +cattle into the stable.</p> + +<p>Now the sun went down, and he loaded himself with all the herbs of the field +in his manner of every day. He came; his leading cow entered the stable; she said +to her keeper, "Behold, thy elder brother is standing before thee with his knife to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5256" id="Page_5256">[Pg 5256]</a></span> +slay thee; flee from before him." He heard what his leading cow had +said; the next entered and said likewise. He looked beneath the door +of the stable; he saw the feet of his elder brother standing behind +the door with his knife in his hand. He put down his load on the +ground, he set out to flee swiftly; his elder brother pursued after +him with his knife. Then the younger brother cried out unto Ra +Harakhti, saying, "My good Lord! Thou art he who distinguishest wrong +from right." Ra hearkened to all his complaint; Ra caused to be made a +great water between him and his elder brother, full of crocodiles; the +one brother was on one bank, the other on the other bank; and the +elder brother smote twice on his hands at not slaying him. Thus did +he. The younger brother called to the elder on the bank, saying, +"Stand still until the dawn of day; when Ra ariseth I shall argue with +thee before him, and he giveth the wrong to the right. For I shall not +be with thee unto eternity. I shall not be in the place in which thou +art; I shall go to the Valley of the Acacia."</p> + +<p><i>Now when the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, Ra +Harakhti<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> +shone out, and each of them saw the other. The youth spake with his +elder brother, saying:—"Wherefore earnest thou after me to slay me +wrongfully, when thou hadst not heard my mouth speak? For I am thy +younger brother in truth; thou art to me as a father; thy wife is to +me even as a mother: is it not so? Verily, when I was sent to bring +for us seed corn, thy wife said to me, 'Come lie with me.' Behold, +this has been turned over to thee upside down." He caused him to +understand all that happened with him and his wife. He swore an oath +by Ra Harakhti, saying, "Thy coming to slay me wrongfully, having thy +spear, was the instigation of a wicked and filthy one." He took a reed +knife and mutilated himself; he cast the flesh into the water, and the +silurus swallowed it. He sank; he became faint; his elder brother +chided his heart greatly; he stood weeping for him loudly, that he +could not cross to where his younger brother was, because of the +crocodiles. The younger brother called unto him, saying, "Whereas thou +hast devised an evil thing, wilt thou not also devise a good thing, or +such a thing as I would do unto thee? When thou goest to thy house +thou must look to thy cattle; for I stay not in the place where thou +art, I am going to the Valley of the Acacia. Now as to what thou +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5257" id="Page_5257">[Pg 5257]</a></span> +shalt do for me: verily, understand this, that things shall happen +unto me; namely, that I shall draw out my soul, that I shall put it +upon the top of the flowers of the acacia; the acacia-tree will be cut +down, it shall fall to the ground, and thou shalt come to seek for it, +and if thou passest seven years searching for it, let not thy heart +sicken. Thou shalt find it; thou must put it in a cup of cold water +that I may live again, that I may make answer to what hath been done +wrong. Thou shalt understand this; namely, that things are happening +to me, when one shall give to thee a pot of beer in thy hand and it +shall foam up: stay not then, for verily it shall come to pass with +thee."</p> + +<p>He went to the Valley of the Acacia; his elder brother went to his +house; his hand was laid on his head; he cast dust on his head; he +came to his house, he slew his wife, he cast her to the dogs, and he +sat in mourning for his younger brother.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, his younger +brother was in the Valley of the Acacia; there was none with him; he +spent the day hunting the game of the desert, he came back in the even +to lie down under the acacia, the top-most flower of which was his +soul.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, he built +himself a tower with his hand, in the Valley of the Acacia; it was +full of all good things, that he might provide for himself a home.</p> + +<p>He went out from his tower, he met the Ennead of the +gods,<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> +who were going forth to arrange the affairs of their whole land. The Nine Gods +talked one with another, they said unto him: "Ho! Bata, Bull of the +Ennead of the gods, art thou remaining alone, having fled thy village +from before the wife of Anpu thy elder brother? Behold, his wife is +slain. Thou hast given him an answer to all that was transgressed +against thee." Their hearts were sad for him exceedingly. Ra Harakhti +said to Khnumu,<a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> +"Behold, frame thou a wife for Bata, that he may not sit alone." Khnumu made +for him a mate to dwell with him. She was more beautiful in her limbs than +any woman who is in the whole land. Every god was in her. The seven Hathors +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5258" id="Page_5258">[Pg 5258]</a></span> +came to see her: they said with one mouth, "She will die a sharp death."</p> + +<p>He loved her very exceedingly, and she dwelt in his house; he passed +his time in hunting the game of the desert, and brought what he took +before her. He said, "Go not outside, lest the sea seize thee; for I +cannot rescue thee from it, for I am a woman like thee: my soul is +placed on the top of the flower of the acacia; and if another find it, +I shall be vanquished by him." He explained to her all about his soul.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, Bata went to +hunt as his daily manner was. The girl went to walk under the acacia +which was by the side of her house; the sea saw her, and cast its +waves up after her. She set out to run away from it; she entered her +house. The sea called unto the acacia, saying, "Oh, catch hold of her +for me!" The acacia brought a lock from her hair, the sea carried it +to Egypt, and dropped it in the place of the washers of Pharaoh's +linen. The smell of the lock of hair entered into the clothes of +Pharaoh. They were wroth with Pharaoh's washers, saying, "The smell of +ointment is in the clothes of Pharaoh." The men were rebuked every +day; they knew not what they should do. The chief of the washers of +Pharaoh went down to the seaside; his soul was black within him +because of the chiding with him daily. He stopped and stood upon the +sandy shore opposite to the lock of hair, which was in the water; he +made one go in, and it was brought to him; there was found in it a +smell, exceeding sweet. He took it to Pharaoh; the scribes and the +wise men were brought to Pharaoh; they said unto Pharaoh:—"This lock +of hair belongs to a daughter of Ra Harakhti; the strain of every god +is in her; it is a tribute to thee from a strange land. Let messengers +go to every foreign land to seek her: as for the messenger who shall +go to the Valley of the Acacia, let many men go with him to bring +her." Then said his Majesty, "Excellent exceedingly is what we have +said;" and the men were sent.</p> + +<p><i>When the days were multiplied after these things</i>, the people who +went abroad came to give report unto the king: but there came not +those who went to the Valley of the Acacia, for Bata had slain them; +he spared one of them to give a report to the king. His Majesty sent +many men and soldiers as well as horsemen, to bring her back. There +was a woman among them, into whose hand was put every kind of +beautiful ornaments for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5259" id="Page_5259">[Pg 5259]</a></span> woman. The girl came back with her; there +were rejoicings for her in the whole land.</p> + +<p>His Majesty loved her exceedingly, and raised her to be a princess of +high rank; he spake with her that she should tell concerning her +husband. She said to his Majesty, "Let the acacia be cut down, and let +one chop it up." They sent men and soldiers with their weapons to cut +down the acacia; they came to the acacia, they cut the flower upon +which was the soul of Bata, and he fell dead upon the instant.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, the acacia was +cut down. And Anpu, the elder brother of Bata, entered his house; he +sat down and washed his hands: one gave him a pot of beer, it foamed +up; another was given him of wine, it became foul. He took his staff, +his sandals, likewise his clothes, with his weapons of war; he set out +to walk to the Valley of the Acacia. He entered the tower of his +younger brother; he found his younger brother lying on his bed; he was +dead. He wept when he saw his younger brother verily lying dead. He +went out to seek the soul of his younger brother under the acacia +tree, under which his younger brother used to lie in the evening. He +spent three years in seeking for it, but found it not. When he began +the fourth year, he desired in his heart to return into Egypt; he +said, "I will go to-morrow;" thus spake he in his heart.</p> + +<p><i>When the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, he went out under +the acacia, and set to work to seek it again. He found a seed-pod. He +returned with it. Behold, this was the soul of his younger brother. He +brought a cup of cold water, he dropped it into it: he sat down, as +his manner of every day was. Now when the night came his [Bata's] soul +absorbed the water; Bata shuddered in all his limbs, he looked on his +elder brother; his soul was in the cup. Then Anpu took the cup of cold +water in which the soul of his younger brother was; he [Bata] drank +it, his soul stood again in its place, he became as he had been. They +embraced each other, and they spake with one another.</p> + +<p>Bata said to his elder brother, "Behold, I am to become as a great +bull, with all the right markings; no one knoweth its history, and +thou must sit upon his back. When the sun arises we will go to that +place where my wife is, that I may return answer to her; and thou must +take me to the place where the king is. For all good things shall be +done for thee, and one shall lade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5260" id="Page_5260">[Pg 5260]</a></span> thee with silver and gold, because +thou bringest me to Pharaoh; for I become a great marvel, they shall +rejoice for me in all the land. And thou shalt go to thy village."</p> + +<p><i>When the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, Bata became in the +form which he had told to his elder brother. And Anpu his elder +brother sat upon his back until the dawn. He came to the place where +the king was; they made his Majesty to know of him; he saw him, and he +rejoiced exceedingly. He made for him great offerings, saying, "This +is a great wonder which has come to pass." There were rejoicings over +him in the whole land. They loaded him with silver and gold for his +elder brother, who went and settled in his village. They gave to the +bull many men and many things, and Pharaoh loved him exceedingly above +all men that are in this land.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, the bull +entered the place of purifying; he stood in the place where the +princess was; he began to speak with her, saying, "Behold, I am alive +indeed." She said to him, "Who then art thou?" He said to her: "I am +Bata. Thou knewest well when thou causedst that they should cut down +the acacia for Pharaoh, that it was to my hurt, that I might not be +suffered to live. Behold, I am alive indeed, being as an ox." Then the +princess feared exceedingly for the words that her husband had spoken +to her. And he went out from the place of purifying.</p> + +<p>His Majesty was sitting, making a good day with her: she was at the +table of his Majesty, and the king was exceeding pleased with her. She +said to his Majesty, "Swear to me by God, saying, 'What thou shalt +say, I will obey it for thy sake.'" He hearkened unto all that she +said. And she said, "Let me eat of the liver of this bull, because he +will do nothing;" thus spake she to him. He was exceedingly vexed at +that which she said, the heart of Pharaoh was grieved exceedingly.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the earth lighted and the second day came</i>, there was +proclaimed a great feast with offerings to the ox. The king sent one +of the chief butchers of his Majesty, to have the ox sacrificed. +Afterwards it was caused to be sacrificed, and when it was in the +hands of the men, it shook its neck, and threw two drops of blood over +against the double door of his Majesty. One fell upon the one side of +the great door of Pharaoh, and the other upon the other side. They +grew as two great Persea trees; each of them was excellent.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="Illustration_THE_SPHYNX" id="Illustration_THE_SPHYNX"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>THE SPHYNX.</i></span> +<p class="center">From an Original Drawing illustrating "Mizraim."<br /> +Published by Henry G. Allen, New York.<br /> +Reproduced by Permission.</p> +<img src="images/sphinx.png" width="640" height="441" alt="THE SPHYNX." title="THE SPHYNX." /> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5261" id="Page_5261">[Pg 5261]</a></span> +One went to tell unto his Majesty, "Two great Persea trees have grown, +as a great marvel for his Majesty, in the night, by the side of the +great gate of his Majesty." There was rejoicing for them in all the +land, and there were offerings made to them.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, his Majesty +was adorned with a blue crown, with garlands of flowers on his neck; +he was upon the chariot of electrum; he went out from the palace to +behold the Persea trees: the princess also went out with horses behind +Pharaoh. His Majesty sat beneath one of the Persea trees, and it spake +thus with his wife:—"Oh thou deceitful one, I am Bata; I am alive, +though I have suffered violence. Thou knewest well that the causing of +the acacia to be cut down for Pharaoh was to my hurt. I then became an +ox, and thou hadst me slain."</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, the princess +stood at the table of Pharaoh, and the king was pleased with her. She +said to his Majesty, "Swear to me by God, saying, 'That which the +princess shall say to me I will obey it for her.' Thus do thou." And +he hearkened unto all that she said. She said, "Let these two Persea +trees be cut down, and let them be made into goodly timber." He +hearkened unto all that she said.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, his +Majesty sent skillful craftsmen, and they cut down the Persea trees of +Pharaoh, while the princess, the royal wife, stood by and saw it. A +chip flew up and entered into the mouth of the princess; and she +perceived that she had conceived, and while her days were being +fulfilled Pharaoh did all that was in her heart +therein.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, she bore a +male child. One went to tell his Majesty, "There is born to thee a +son." They brought him [<i>i. e.</i>, the child, to the king], and gave to +him a nurse and servants; there were rejoicings in the whole land. The +king sat making a good day; they performed the naming of him, his +Majesty loved him exceedingly on the instant, the king raised him to +be the royal son of Kush.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, his Majesty +made him heir of all the land.</p> + +<p><i>Now when the days were multiplied after these things</i>, +when he had fulfilled many years as heir of the whole land, his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5262" id="Page_5262">[Pg 5262]</a></span> +Majesty flew up to heaven. There was command given, "Let my great +nobles of his Majesty be brought before me, that I may make them to +know all that has happened to me." And they brought to him his wife, +and he argued with her before them, and their case was decided. They +brought to him his elder brother; he made him hereditary prince in all +his land. He was thirty years King of Egypt, and he died, and his +elder brother stood in his place on the day of burial.</p> + +<p><i>Excellently finished in peace, for the</i> Ka <i>of the scribe of the +treasury, Kagabu, of the treasury of Pharaoh, and for the scribe Hora, +and the scribe Meremapt. Written by the scribe Anena, the owner of +this roll. He who speaks against this roll, may Tahuti be his +opponent.</i></p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_STORY_OF_SETNA" id="THE_STORY_OF_SETNA"></a>THE STORY OF SETNA</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The beginning of this tale is lost, but it is clear from what remains +of it that Setna Kha-em-uast, son of a Pharaoh who may be identified +with Rameses II., of the XIXth Dynasty (about 1300 B.C.), was a +diligent student of the ancient writings, chiefly for the sake of the +occult knowledge which they were supposed to contain. He discovered, +or was told of, the existence of a book which Thoth, the god of +letters, science and magic, had "written with his own hand," and +learned that this book was to be found in the cemetery of Memphis, in +the tomb of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, the only son of some earlier Pharaoh. +Setna evidently succeeded in finding and entering this tomb, and there +he saw the <i>kas</i> or ghosts of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, his wife (and sister) +Ahura, and their little boy Merab; and with them was the book. To +dissuade Setna from abstracting the book, Ahura tells him how they had +become possessed of it, and had paid for it with their earthly lives; +and <i>it is with her tale that the papyrus begins</i>. Setna, however, +insists upon taking the book; but Na-nefer-ka-ptah challenges him, as +a good scribe and a learned man, to a trial of skill in a game, and in +the imposition of magical penalties on the loser. Setna agrees; but +being worsted, he calls in outside help and succeeds in carrying off +the book. Na-nefer-ka-ptah comforts Ahura for its loss by assuring her +that Setna shall ignominiously restore it. Setna studies the book with +delight; but presently, by the magic power of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, he +becomes the victim of an extraordinary hallucination, and the strength +of his spirit is broken because (in imagination at least) he is +steeped in impurity and crime. When he awakes from this trance, +Pharaoh persuades him to return the book to its dead owners. On his +return to the tomb, Na-nefer-ka-ptah exacts from him the promise to go +to the cemetery of Koptos and bring thence to Memphis the bodies of +Ahura and of Merab, which had been buried there, apart from him. Setna +duly performs his promise, and so the story ends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5263" id="Page_5263">[Pg 5263]</a></span></p> + +<p>The only known copy of this tale appears to have been written in 251 +B.C., the thirty-fifth year of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and it must have +been composed at least as late as the Sebennyte Dynasty, early in the +fourth century, although it refers to historical characters of a +thousand years before.</p> + +<p>The story is more elaborate, and its plot is more coherent than is the +case with the earlier tales such as that of Anpu and Bata, in which +events succeed each other often without natural connection. The +language however is in simple narrative style, without any attempt at +fine writing.</p> + +<p>At the point at which the mutilated papyrus begins, we find that Ahura +is telling Setna the story of her life. Apparently he has just been +told how she sent a messenger to the king, asking that she may be +married to her brother Na-nefer-ka-ptah. The king has refused her +request, and the messenger has reproached him for his unkindness; the +king replies:—]</p></div> + +<p>"It is thou who art dealing wrongly towards me. If it happen +that I have not a child after two children, is it the law +to marry the one with the other of them? I will marry +Naneferkaptah with the daughter of a commander of troops, and +I will marry Ahura with the son of another commander of troops: +it has so happened in our family much.'</p> + +<p>"It came to pass that the amusement was set before Pharaoh, +and they came for me and took me to the amusement named, +and it happened that my soul was troubled exceedingly and I +behaved not in my manner of the previous day. Said Pharaoh to +me, 'Ahura, is it thou that didst cause them to come to me in +these anxieties, saying, "Let me marry with Naneferkaptah, my +elder brother"?'</p> + +<p>"Said I to him, 'Let me marry with the son of a commander +of troops, and let him marry with the daughter of another commander +of troops: it has happened in our family much.'</p> + +<p>"I laughed, Pharaoh laughed, and his soul was exceeding +gladdened. Said Pharaoh to the steward of the king's house, +'Let Ahura be taken to the house of Naneferkaptah to-night, and +let all things that are good be taken with her.'</p> + +<p>"I was taken as a wife to the house of Naneferkaptah in the +night named, and a present of silver and gold was brought to +me; the household of Pharaoh caused them all to be brought to +me. And Naneferkaptah made a good day<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> with me; he received +all the heads of the household of Pharaoh. And he found me +pleasing, he quarreled not with me, ever, ever: each of us loved +his fellow. And when I was about to bear a child, report of it +was made before Pharaoh, and his soul was exceeding gladdened, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5264" id="Page_5264">[Pg 5264]</a></span> +and Pharaoh caused many things to be taken for me on the +instant; he caused to be brought to me a present of silver and +gold and royal linen, beautiful exceedingly. Then came my time +of bearing; I bore this boy that is before thee, whose name is +called Merab, and he was caused to write in the book of the +'House of Life.'<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<p>"It came to pass that Naneferkaptah, my brother, had no +habit on the earth<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> but to walk in the cemetery of Memphis, +reading the writings that were in the catacombs of the Pharaohs, +with the tablets of the scribes of the 'House of Life,' and the +inscriptions that were on the monuments; and he was eager for +writing exceedingly.</p> + +<p>"After these things it befell that there was a procession in +honor of Ptah; Naneferkaptah went into the temple to worship, +and he chanced to be walking behind the procession reading the +inscriptions that were in the shrines of the gods. An aged priest +saw him and laughed. Naneferkaptah said to him, 'For what art +thou laughing at me?'</p> + +<p>"And he said:—'I am not laughing at thee; if I laughed, it +was that thou art reading writings that no one on earth has any +good of. If it be that thou seekest to read writings, come to me, +and I will bring thee to the place where that roll is which it was +Thoth that wrote with his own hand, and which goes down to +fetch the gods. There are two formulas of writing that are upon +it, and when thou readest the first formula thou will enchant +the heaven, the earth, the underworld, the mountains, and the +seas; thou shalt discover all that the birds of the heaven and the +creeping things shall say; thou shalt see the fishes of the deep, +for there is a power from God brings them into water above +them. And when thou readest the second formula, if it be that +thou art in Ament<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> thou takest thy form of earth again. Thou +wilt see the sun rising in the sky with his circle of gods, and +the moon in its form of shining.'</p> + +<p>"And Naneferkaptah said, 'As the king liveth! Let a good +thing that thou dost desire be told me, and I will have it done +for thee, if thou wilt direct me to the place where this roll is.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5265" id="Page_5265">[Pg 5265]</a></span>"Said +the priest to Naneferkaptah: 'If it be that thou desirest +to be directed to the place where this roll is, thou shalt give me +three hundred ounces of silver for my funeral, and provide that +they shall make me two coffin cases as a great priest, rich in +silver.'</p> + +<p>"Naneferkaptah called a lad, and caused to be given the three +hundred ounces of silver for the priest, and he caused to be done +what he desired for two coffin cases; he caused them to be made +as for a great and rich priest.</p> + +<p>"Said the priest to Naneferkaptah:—'The roll named, it is in +the midst of the Sea of Koptos,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> in a box of iron. In the iron +box is a box of bronze, in the bronze box is a box of <i>Kedt</i> wood, +in the box of <i>Kedt</i> wood is a box of ivory and ebony, in the box +of ivory and ebony is a box of silver, in the box of silver is a +box of gold in which is the roll. There is a mile of snakes, +scorpions, and every kind of reptile surrounding the box in which +the roll is; there is a snake of eternity surrounding the box +named.'</p> + +<p>"At the time of the relation that the priest made before Naneferkaptah, +Naneferkaptah knew not what place on earth he +was in.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> And he came out of the temple and related before me +all that the priest had said to him. He said to me, 'I shall go +to Koptos, I shall fetch this roll thence; I shall not be slow in +coming back to the north again.'</p> + +<p>"It came to pass that I opposed the priest, saying: 'Beware of +this thing that thou hast spoken before him! Thou hast brought +to me the strife of the nome of Thebes;<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> I have found it cruel.' +I caused my hand to stay<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> with Naneferkaptah, in order not to let +him go to Koptos. He did not hearken to me; he went before +Pharaoh and related before Pharaoh everything that the priest +had said to him—all. Pharaoh said to him, 'What is it that +thou desirest?'</p> + +<p>"He said to him, 'Cause to be given to me the royal pleasure +boat with its equipment: I will take Ahura and Merab her boy +to the south with me; I will fetch this roll without delaying.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5266" id="Page_5266">[Pg 5266]</a></span>"They +gave him the royal pleasure-boat with its equipment, +and we went up on board it; we set sail and reached Koptos. +And they made report of it before the priests of Isis of Koptos +and the high priest of Isis; they came down to meet us, they +delayed not to meet Naneferkaptah; their women came down to +meet me also. We went up on shore; we went into the temple +of Isis and Harpokrates, and Naneferkaptah caused to be brought +ox, goose, and wine; he made a burnt-offering and a drink-offering +before Isis of Koptos and Harpokrates. We were taken +to a house exceeding beautiful, filled with all good things, and +Naneferkaptah spent four days making a good day with the priests +of Isis of Koptos, the women of the priests of Isis making a good +day with myself.</p> + +<p>"Came the morning of our fifth day: Naneferkaptah caused to +be brought to him pure wax.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> He made a boat, furnished with +its crew and its tackle. He read a spell to them, he caused them +to live, he gave them breath, he cast them into the sea. He +loaded the royal pleasure-boat of Pharaoh with sand; he caused +the boat to be brought, he went on board. I sat by the sea +of Koptos, saying, 'I will discover what will become of him.'</p> + +<p>"He said, 'Boatmen, row on with me as far as the place in +which this roll is.' And they rowed by night as by midday.</p> + +<p>"And when he reached it, in three days, he threw sand before +him, then there became a space of dry land. And when he found +a mile of serpents and scorpions, and every kind of creeping thing +encompassing the box in which the roll was, and when he found +a snake of eternity encompassing the box, he read a spell to the +mile of serpents, scorpions, and every kind of creeping thing that +was around the box, and suffered them not to leap up. He went +to the place in which was the snake of eternity; he made battle +with it, he slew it. It lived; it made its form again. He made +battle with it again for a second time; he slew it: it lived. He +made battle with it again for a third time; he made it in two +pieces; he put sand between one piece and its fellow. It died; +it did not make its form ever again.</p> + +<p>"Naneferkaptah went to the place where the box was. He +found that it was a box of iron; he opened it, he found a box of +bronze; he opened it, he found a box of <i>Kedt</i> wood; he opened +it, he found a box of ivory and ebony; he opened it, he found a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5267" id="Page_5267">[Pg 5267]</a></span> +box of silver; he opened it, he found a box of gold; he opened +it, he found the book in it. He took up the roll from in the box +of gold, he read a formula of writing from it. He enchanted +the heaven, the earth, the underworld, the mountains, and the +seas; he discovered all that the birds of the heaven with the fishes +of the deep, the beasts of the mountains said—all. He read +another formula of writing, he saw the Sun rising in the sky +with all his circle of gods, and the moon rising, and the stars in +their shapes; he saw the fishes of the deep, for there was a +power from God brought them into the water over them. He +read a spell to the sea, and restored it as it was. He embarked. +He said to the crew, 'Row on for me as far as the place to which +I go.' And they rowed at night like as at midday. When he +reached the place where I was, he found me sitting by the sea of +Koptos, without drinking or eating anything, without doing anything +on the earth, being in the likeness of one who has reached +the Good Houses.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> + +<p>"I said to Naneferkaptah, 'O Naneferkaptah, let me see this +book, for which we have taken these pains!'</p> + +<p>"He put the roll into my hand. I read a formula of writing +in it; I enchanted the heaven, the earth, the underworld, the +mountains, the seas; I discovered what the birds of the sky, the +fishes of the deep, and the beasts of the hills said—-all. I read +another formula of the writing, and I saw the sun rising in the +sky with his circle of gods; I saw the moon shining with all the +stars of the heaven in their nature; I saw the fishes of the deep, +for it was that a power from God brought them into the water +above where they were. As I could not write, it was that I +spoke to Naneferkaptah my elder brother, who was a good scribe +and a learned man exceedingly; and he caused to be brought +before him a piece of new papyrus; he wrote every word that +was on the roll before him—all. He dipped it in beer, he melted +it in water, he saw that it had been melted, he drank it, he +knew that which was in it.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +<p>"We returned to Koptos on the day named: we made a good +day before Isis of Koptos and Harpokrates. We embarked, we +went down to the river, we reached north of Koptos by one mile. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5268" id="Page_5268">[Pg 5268]</a></span> +Behold, Thoth had discovered everything that happened to Naneferkaptah +on account of the roll; Thoth delayed not, he complained +before the Sun, saying, 'Know my right, my judgment +with Naneferkaptah the son of Pharaoh Mernebptah! He went +to my place, he robbed it, he took my box containing my book, +he killed my guard who was watching it.'</p> + +<p>"It was said to him, 'He is before thee, with every man that +belongeth to him—all.'<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> + +<p>"There was sent a power from God down from heaven, saying, +'Let not Naneferkaptah go to Memphis safe, with every man that +belongeth to him—all.'</p> + +<p>"An hour passed: Merab, the boy, came out from under the +awning of the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, he fell into the river, he +did the will of Ra. Everybody that was on board uttered a cry—all. +Naneferkaptah came out from under his cabin, he read a +writing over him, he caused him to come up, for it was that a +power from God in the water was laid on his upper side.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> He +read a writing over him, he made him relate before him of everything +that had happened to him—all, and the accusation that +Thoth made before Ra.</p> + +<p>"We returned to Koptos with him. We caused him to be +taken to the Good House and laid in state; we caused him to be +embalmed like a prince and great man; we caused him to rest in +his coffin in the cemetery of Koptos.</p> + +<p>"Said Naneferkaptah my brother, 'Let us go down the river, +let us not delay before Pharaoh hear the things that have happened +to us, and his soul be sad therefore.'</p> + +<p>"We embarked, we went down-stream, we delayed not; and +traveled to the north of Koptos by one mile. At the place of +the falling of Merab the boy into the river, I came out from +under the awning of the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, I fell into the +river, I did the will of Ra. Everybody that was on board uttered +a cry—all. They told it to Naneferkaptah, he came out from +under the awning of the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, he read a +writing over me, he caused me to leap up, for it was that a +power from God in the water rested on my upper side. He +caused me to be taken up, he read a writing over me, he caused +me to relate before him everything that had happened unto me—all; +and the accusation that Thoth had made before Ra. He +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5269" id="Page_5269">[Pg 5269]</a></span> +returned to Koptos with me, he caused me to be brought to the +Good House, he caused me to be laid in state, he caused me to +be embalmed with the embalmment of a prince and very great +person, he caused me to rest in the tomb where Merab the boy +lay.</p> + +<p>"He embarked, he went down-stream, he hastened north of +Koptos by one mile to the place of our falling into the river. +He spake with his soul, saying:—'Can I go to Koptos and dwell +there? Otherwise, if it be that I go to Memphis, the moment +that Pharaoh asks me after his children, what shall I say to him? +Can I tell it to him, saying, I took thy children to the nome of +Thebes, I killed them, I being alive; I came to Memphis, I being +alive still?'</p> + +<p>"He caused them to bring a strip of royal linen before him; +he made it into a girdle. He bound the roll, he put it upon his +stomach, he made it firm. Naneferkaptah came out from under +the awning of the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, he fell into the river, +he did the will of Ra. Everybody that was on board uttered a +cry—all, saying: 'Great woe! Oppressive woe! Has he gone +back,<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> the good scribe, the learned man, to whom there is no +equal?'</p> + +<p>"The pleasure-boat of Pharaoh went down-stream, without any +one on earth knowing where Naneferkaptah was. They reached +Memphis, they made report of it before Pharaoh. Pharaoh came +down to meet the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh in mourning, the army +of Memphis took mourning—all, together with the priests of Ptah, +the chief prophet of Ptah, with the officials and household of +Pharaoh—all. They saw Naneferkaptah clinging to the rudders +of the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, by virtue of his art of a good +scribe. They drew him up, they saw the roll on his stomach. +Said Pharaoh, 'Let this roll that is on his stomach be hidden +away.'</p> + +<p>"Said the officers of Pharaoh, with the priests of Ptah, and +the chief prophet of Ptah, before Pharaoh: 'O our great lord the +King, may he accomplish the duration of Ra!<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> Naneferkaptah +was a good scribe, a learned man exceedingly.'</p> + +<p>"Pharaoh caused to be given to him entrance to the Good +House for sixteen days, wrapping for thirty-five and coffining for +seventy; he was caused to rest in his tomb, in his places of +rest."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5270" id="Page_5270">[Pg 5270]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Having finished her story, Ahura proceeds to point out the moral to +Setna.]</p></div> + +<p>"I am suffering the ills which have come upon us because of +this roll of which thou sayest, 'Let it be given to me!' Thou +hast no claim to it: our life on earth has been taken for it."</p> + +<p>Said Setna, "Ahura, let this roll be given me which I see +between thee and Naneferkaptah, else will I take it by force."</p> + +<p>Rose Naneferkaptah on the couch; he said: "Art thou Setna, +before whom this woman has told these misfortunes which thou +hast not suffered—all? The book named, canst thou take it only +by strength of a good scribe? It were sufficient to play draughts +with me. Let us play for it at the game of fifty-two points."</p> + +<p>And Setna said, "I am ready."</p> + +<p>The board and its pieces were put before them. They played +at the fifty-two, and Naneferkaptah won a game from Setna. He +[Naneferkaptah] read a spell over him; he [Setna] defended himself +with the game-board that was before him. He [Naneferkaptah] +made him [Setna] go into the ground as far as his feet. +He did its like in the second game; he won it from Setna, he +made him go into the ground as far as his middle. He did its +like in the third game; he made him go into the ground as far +as his ears. After these things Setna made a great blow on the +hand of Naneferkaptah. Setna called to Anheru, his brother by +Anherart,<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> saying: "Make haste and go up upon the earth, do +thou relate of everything that has happened to me before Pharaoh, +and do thou bring the amulets of Ptah my father,<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> and +my rolls of magic."</p> + +<p>He hastened up upon earth, he related before Pharaoh of +everything that had happened to Setna. Said Pharaoh, "Take to +him the amulets of Ptah his father, and his rolls of magic."</p> + +<p>Anheru hastened down into the tomb; he laid the talismans on +the body of Setna, he [Setna] sprang to heaven at the moment +named.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> Setna caused his hand to go after the roll, he took it. +It came to pass that Setna went up from the tomb, Light walking +before him and Darkness walking behind him, and Ahura +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5271" id="Page_5271">[Pg 5271]</a></span> +weeping after him, saying, "Hail to thee, King Darkness! Farewell +to thee, King Light! All consolation is gone that was in the +tomb."</p> + +<p>Said Naneferkaptah to Ahura, "Be not troubled of soul; I +will make him bring this book hither, there being a fork for a +staff in his hand, there being a pan of fire on his head."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> + +<p>And Setna came up from the tomb, he made it fast behind +him in its manner.</p> + +<p>Setna went before Pharaoh, he related before him of the +thing that had happened to him with the roll. Said Pharaoh to +Setna, "Take this roll to the tomb of Naneferkaptah in the manner +of a prudent man, else he will make thee bring it, there +being a fork for a staff in thine hand, there being a pan of fire +on thine head."</p> + +<p>Not did Setna hearken to him. It came to pass that Setna +had no habit on earth but unrolling the roll and reading it +before everybody.</p> + +<p>After these things there was a day when Setna passed time +in the court of Ptah, and saw a woman beautiful exceedingly, +there being no woman of her beauty. There were ornaments of +much gold upon her, there were children and women walking +behind her, there were fifty-two persons of chiefs of households +assigned to her. The hour that Setna saw her he knew not the +place on earth where he was. Setna called to his attendant +youth, saying, "Go quickly to the place where this woman is; +learn what comes under her command."</p> + +<p>The attendant youth went quickly to the place where the +woman was, he addressed the handmaid who walked behind her, +he asked her, saying, "What person is this woman?" She said +to him, "She is Tabubua, the daughter of the prophet of Bast, +lady of Ankhtaui, she having come hither to pray before Ptah +the great god."</p> + +<p>The youth went back to Setna, he related before him of +everything that she had told him—all.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[In his infatuation for this woman, Setna forgets all decorum and all duty, +and follows her home to Bubastis, and "ashamed was every one that was +about Setna." To win the favor of Tabubua, he hands over to her all his +possessions and the inheritance of his children; and at length she demands +that his children should be put to death to prevent disputes.]</p></div> + +<p>Setna said, "Let there be done unto them the abomination +that has entered thy heart."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5272" id="Page_5272">[Pg 5272]</a></span></p> + +<p>She caused his children to be slain before his face; she caused +them to be cast down from the window before the dogs and the +cats. They devoured their flesh, he hearing them, he drinking +with Tabubua.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Setna awakens from the trance in which he has in imagination sunk to +such depths of wickedness, to find himself lying naked in a strange place.]</p></div> + +<p>An hour it was that passed when Setna saw a great man +riding on a chariot, there being many men running at his feet, +he being like Pharaoh. Setna came to rise; he could not rise for +shame, for there was no clothing upon him. Pharaoh said, +"Setna, what has befallen thee in this state in which thou art?"</p> + +<p>Said he, "Naneferkaptah is he who hath done this to me—all."</p> + +<p>Pharaoh said, "Go to Memphis: thy children they are seeking +for thee; they are standing on their feet before Pharaoh."</p> + +<p>Setna said before Pharaoh, "My great lord the King, may he +accomplish the duration of Ra! What is the manner of going to +Memphis that I can do, there being no clothes on earth upon +me?"</p> + +<p>Pharaoh called to a youth standing by, he made him give +clothing to Setna. Said Pharaoh to Setna, "Go to Memphis: +thy children, they are alive, they are standing on their feet +before Pharaoh."</p> + +<p>Setna came to Memphis, he embraced his children with hand, +he found them alive. Pharaoh said, "Is it drinking that hath +brought thee thus?"</p> + +<p>Setna related everything that had happened to him with Tabubua, +with Naneferkaptah—all. Pharaoh said: "Setna, I put my +hand upon thee before,<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> saying, 'Thou wilt be slain if thou dost +not take this roll to the place from which it was brought.' Thou +didst not listen to me till this hour. Give this roll to Naneferkaptah, +there being a forked stick for a staff in thine hand, there +being a pan of fire on thine head."</p> + +<p>Setna came out from before Pharaoh, there being a forked +stick for a staff in his hand, there being a pan of fire on his +head. He went down to the tomb in which was Naneferkaptah. +Ahura said to him, "Setna, it is Ptah the great god who hath +brought thee back safe."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5273" id="Page_5273">[Pg 5273]</a></span></p> + +<p>Naneferkaptah laughed, saying, "This is a thing that I told +thee before."</p> + +<p>Setna saluted Naneferkaptah; he found him as it is said, +"He is the sun that is in the whole tomb." Ahura and Naneferkaptah +saluted Setna greatly. Setna said, "Naneferkaptah, +is there aught that is disgraceful?"</p> + +<p>Naneferkaptah said, "Setna, thou knowest this, that Ahura +and Merab her child, they are in Koptos: bring them here into +this tomb by the skill of a good scribe. Let it be commanded +before thee, and do thou take pains, and do thou go to Koptos, +and do thou bring them hither."</p> + +<p>Setna came up from the tomb and went before Pharaoh; he +related before Pharaoh of everything that Naneferkaptah had +said to him—all.</p> + +<p>Pharaoh said, "Setna, go to Koptos, bring Ahura and Merab +her child."</p> + +<p>He said before Pharaoh, "Let the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh be +given to me with its equipment."</p> + +<p>The pleasure-boat of Pharaoh was given to him with its equipment; +he embarked, he sailed up, he did not delay, he arrived +at Koptos.</p> + +<p>Information of it was given before the priests of Isis of Koptos, +and the chief prophet of Isis. They came down to meet +him, they took his hand to the shore. He went up, he went +into the temple of Isis of Koptos and Harpokrates. He caused +ox, goose, wine to be brought; he made a burnt-offering, a +drink-offering, before Isis of Koptos and Harpokrates. He went +to the cemetery of Koptos, with the priests of Isis and the chief +prophet of Isis; they spent three days and three nights searching +in the tombs which were in the cemetery of Koptos—all, turning +over the stelæ of the scribes of the House of Life, reading the +inscriptions that were on them. They found not the places of +rest in which were Ahura and Merab her son.</p> + +<p>Naneferkaptah perceived that they found not the places of +rest of Ahura and Merab her son. He rose from the dead as +an old man, great of age exceedingly. He came to meet Setna, +and Setna saw him. Setna said to the old man, "Thou art of +the appearance of a man great of age: knowest thou the places +of rest in which are Ahura and Merab her child?"</p> + +<p>The old man said to Setna, "The father of the father of my +father told to the father of my father, and the father of my +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5274" id="Page_5274">[Pg 5274]</a></span> +father told to my father, that the resting-places of Ahura and +Merab her child are by the south corner of the house of Pehemato, +as his name is."</p> + +<p>Said Setna to the old man, "Is it not an injury that Pehemato +hath done thee, by reason of which thou comest to cause his +house to be brought down to the ground?"</p> + +<p>The old man said to Setna, "Let watch be set over me and +let the house of Pehemato be taken down. If it be that they +find not Ahura and Merab her child under the south corner of +his house, may abomination be done to me."</p> + +<p>A watch was set over the old man; the resting-place of Ahura +and Merab her child was found under the south corner of the +house of Pehemato. Setna caused them to enter as great people +on the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh; he caused the house of Pehemato +to be built in its former manner. Naneferkaptah made +Setna to discover what had happened: that it was he who had +come to Koptos to let them find the resting-place in which Ahura +and Merab her child were.</p> + +<p>Setna embarked on the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh, he went +down the river, he did not delay, he reached Memphis with all +the army that was with him—all. Report was made of it before +Pharaoh, he came down to meet the pleasure-boat of Pharaoh. +He caused them to be introduced as great persons to the tomb +where Naneferkaptah was, he caused dirges to be made above +them.</p> + +<p><i>This is a complete writing, relating of Setna Khaemuast, and +Naneferkaptah, and Ahura his wife, and Merab her child. This +... was written in the XXXVth year, the month Tybi.</i></p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>THE STELA OF PIANKHY</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The following inscription, one of the longest in existence, covers +both faces and the sides of a large stela of black basalt in the +Museum at Gîzeh. It was found in the temple of Gebel Barkal, beyond +Dongola in Nubia. Here was one of the capitals of a native Ethiopian +dynasty, and in the temple dedicated to Amen a number of historical +stelæ were set up by different kings, of whom Piankhy (about 800 B.C.) +was the earliest. Not improbably he was descended from the priest +kings of the XXIst Egyptian dynasty (at Thebes, about 1000 B.C.); at +any rate, the name which he bore occurs in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5275" id="Page_5275">[Pg 5275]</a></span>that dynasty, and his +devotion to Amen agrees with the theory. We learn from the stela that +by some means he had obtained the suzerainty over Upper Egypt, which +was governed by local kings and nomarchs; while Lower Egypt was +similarly divided but independent. Among the princes of the North land +the most powerful was Tafnekht, probably a Libyan nomarch of Sais who +had absorbed the whole of the western side of Lower Egypt. The stela +relates the conflict that ensued when Tafnekht endeavored to unite +Lower Egypt in a confederacy and invade the Upper Country. This gave +Piankhy, who knew his own strength, an opportunity of which he was not +slow to avail himself. The Delta was protected from invasion by its +network of canals, and by its extensive marshes. But when the armies +and navies of the local kings had been drawn into Upper Egypt and +there repeatedly defeated, weakened and cowed, the princes of the +North Land were at the mercy of the victorious Ethiopian, who was +rewarded for his activity and skill in strategy with an abundance of +spoil and tribute, probably also with the permanent subjection of the +country.</p> + +<p>The inscription is in a very perfect state; with the exception of one +lacuna of sixteen short lines the losses are very small. The narrative +is far more artistic and sustained than was usual in records of any +considerable length. The piety of the Ethiopian and his trust in his +god Amen are remarkably indicated; and some passages cannot fail to +remind us of the Biblical records of certain Jewish kings and of the +prophecies concerning Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. There is nothing that +suggests the bloodthirstiness and wanton cruelty of the contemporary +kings of Assyria. Altogether, when the time and circumstances are +taken into account, the impression left is one very favorable to +Piankhy. If he seems to insist overmuch on his Divine mission, this +exaggeration is perhaps due to the priests of Amen who drafted the +document, desirous of thereby promoting the honor both of their god +and of their king.</p> + +<p>There are numerous indications in the signs composing the inscription +that the text was written originally in a cursive character, and +afterwards transcribed into hieroglyphics for record on stone.]</p></div> + +<p class="center">[Date.]</p> + +<p>Year xxi, month Thoth,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> +under the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meriamen Piankhy, living forever:—</p> + +<p class="center">[Attention demanded.]</p> + +<p>Command: My Majesty saith, Hear how I have done more than the +ancestors! I am a king, the figure of a god, the living image of Tum, +who came forth from the body fashioned as a a ruler, whose elders +feared him, ... whose mother recognized that he would reign [while he +was yet] in the egg; the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5276" id="Page_5276">[Pg 5276]</a></span> +good God, beloved of the gods, Son of the Sun, working with his +hand,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> +Meriamen Piankhy.</p> + +<p class="center">[The narrative. Report of Tafnekht's invasion received: the king's joy +thereat.]</p> + +<p>There came one to tell his Majesty, whereas the ruler of the +West, the nomarch and chief in Neter, Tafnekht, was in the +[Harpoon] Nome, in the Nome of the Bull of the Desert, in Hap, +in ..., in An, in Per-nub, and in Mennefer,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> he took unto himself +the entire West from the sea-coast to Athet-taui, and went +south with a great army; the two lands were united in following +him, the nomarchs and the rulers of fenced cities were as hounds +at his feet. No fortress was closed [against him]; the nomes of +the South, Mertum, and Per-Sekhem-Kheper-ra, the Temple of +Sebek, Per-Mezed, Tekanesh,<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> and every city of the West, opened +their gates in fear of him. He turned back to the Eastern +nomes; they opened to him even as the former. Het-benu, +Tayuzayt, Het-seten, Per-nebt-tep-ah.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> Behold [he hath crossed +over to] besiege Henen-seten,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> he hath ringed it about,<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> not +allowing outgoers to go out, not allowing incomers to enter, by +reason of the daily fighting. He hath measured it out on every +side, each nomarch gauging his own [length of] wall, that he may +post each one of the nomarchs and the rulers of fenced cities at +his section."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5277" id="Page_5277">[Pg 5277]</a></span> +Now [his Majesty heard these things] with good courage, laughing, and +with joy of heart.</p> + +<p class="center">[Anxiety of the King's governors in Upper Egypt at Tafnekht's progress. +Loss of Hermopolis.]</p> + +<p>Behold these chiefs, nomarchs, and captains of the host who +were in their various cities sent to his Majesty daily, saying: +"Hast thou ceased [from action] until thou forgettest the South +Country, the nomes of the royal domain<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>? Tafnekht is pushing +forward his conquest, he findeth not any to repel his arm. +Nemart [the ruler in Hermopolis] and nomarch of Het-Ur<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> hath +breached the fortress of Neferus, he hath ruined his own city for +fear lest he [Tafnekht] should take it, and then lay siege to +another city. Behold, he hath gone to be at his [Tafnekht's] +feet;<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> he hath refused allegiance to his Majesty, and standeth +with him [Tafnekht] like one of [his retainers. He hath harried] +the nome of Oxyrhynkhos,<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> and he giveth to him<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> [Tafnekht] +gifts, as his heart inclineth, of all things that he findeth [therein]."</p> + +<p class="center">[Piankhy orders the governors to besiege Hermopolis.]</p> + +<p>Then his Majesty sent a message to the nomarchs and the +captains of the host who were in Egypt, the captain Puarma, +with the captain Armersekny, with every captain of his Majesty +who was in Egypt, saying: "Make haste in striking, join battle, +encircle [Hermopolis], capture its people, its cattle, its ships +upon the river. Let not the fellâhîn come out to the field; let +not the plowman plow; lay siege to the Hare-city,<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> fight against +it daily." Thereupon they did so.</p> + +<p class="center">[Piankhy dispatches an army from Ethiopia, bidding them fear not to fight, +for Amen is their strength; and to do homage unto the god at Thebes.]</p> + +<p>Then his Majesty sent an army to Egypt, urging them very +greatly:—"[Spend day and] night as though ye were playing +drafts, so that ye fight according as ye see that he hath arrayed +battle at a distance. If he say the infantry and cavalry have +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5278" id="Page_5278">[Pg 5278]</a></span> +hastened to another city, why then remain ye until his army +come, and fight even as he shall say. And if his allies are in +another city, hasten ye to them; and the nomarchs, and those +whom he bringeth to strengthen him, the Tehenu<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> and his +chosen troops, let battle be arrayed against them. One of old +saith:—'We know not how to cry unto him. It is the enlistment +of troops and the yoking of war-horses, the pick of thy stables, +that giveth victory in battle. Thou knowest that Amen is the +god that leadeth us.'<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> + +<p>"When ye reach Thebes, the approach to Apt-esut,<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> enter +ye into the water, wash ye in the river, dress on the bank of +the stream, unstring the bow, loosen the arrow. Let no chief +boast as possessing might, there being no strength to the mighty +if he regard him [Amen] not. He maketh the feeble-handed +into strong-handed; a multitude may turn their backs before +the few; one man may conquer a thousand. Sprinkle yourselves +with the water of his altars; kiss ye the ground before his +face; say ye to him, 'Give unto us a way that we may fight +in the shadow of thy strong arm. The band that thou leadest, it +cometh to pass that it overthroweth that which hath overthrown +many.'"</p> + +<p>Then they cast themselves on their bellies before his Majesty +[saying], "It is thy name that giveth us strength of arm, thy +wisdom is the mooring-post<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> of thy soldiers; thy bread is in our +bellies on every road, thy beer quencheth our thirst; it is thy +valor that giveth us strength of arm; one is fortified at the +remembrance of thy name! while the host is lacking whose +captain is a vile coward. Who is like unto thee in these things? +Thou art a mighty King that worketh with his hands, master of +the art of war!"</p> + +<p class="center">[The Ethiopian army, after leaving Thebes, defeat the van of Tafnekht's +fleet.]</p> + +<p>They went down-stream; they reached Thebes; they did according to all +the things said by his Majesty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5279" id="Page_5279">[Pg 5279]</a></span>They went down-stream upon the river; they found many +ships coming up-stream, with soldiers, sailors, levies of troops, +every mighty man of the North land, furnished with weapons of +war to fight against the host of his Majesty. There was made +a great slaughter of them, the number thereof is not known; +their troops were captured with their ships, they were brought +as live prisoners to the place where his Majesty was.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + +<p class="center">[Proceeding to attack Heracleopolis, they are met on the river by the +confederates under Tafnekht, and defeat them.]</p> + +<p>They went to Henen-seten, arraying battle. The nomarchs +with the kings of the North land were informed [thereof]. Now +the King Nemart with the King Auapeth; the chief of the Me,<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> +Sheshenk of Busiris, with the chief of the Me, Zed-Amen-auf-ankh +of Mendes, and his son and heir, who was captain of the +host of Hermopolis Parva; the host of the <i>Erpa</i> Bakennefi, with +his son and heir, chief of the Me, Nesnakedy in the home of +Hesebka; and every chief wearing the feather<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> who was in the +North land, with the King Usorkon who was in Bubastis and in +the land of Ra-nefer: every nomarch, and the governors of +fenced cities in the West and in the East and in the islands in +the midst, assembled with one purpose, as following the feet of +the great chief of the West, ruler of the fenced cities of the +North land, priest of Neith, mistress of Sais, and Sem-priest of +Ptah, Tafnekht.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> + +<p>When they went out against them, a mighty overthrow was +made of them, greater than anything, and their ships were captured +upon the river; the remainder crossed over and moored on +the west side, in the neighborhood of Per-peg.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5280" id="Page_5280">[Pg 5280]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[In a second battle, fought by land on the opposite shore, the enemy +is overthrown; most escaped northward, but Nemart returns to +Hermopolis, having eluded the besiegers (<i>i. e.</i>, the army of the +loyal governors). Hermopolis is more closely besieged.]</p></div> + +<p>When the land lightened very early, the soldiers of his Majesty +crossed over to them. One host met the other. Then they slew +many men of them, and horses without number, in the charge [?]. +Those who remained fled to the North land with lamentations +loud and sore, more than anything.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> Account of the overthrow +made of them: men, persons ...<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> [But] the King Nemart +went up-stream to the South when it was reported to him, +"Khmenu<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> is in the midst of enemies; the soldiers of his +Majesty are capturing its men and its cattle." Then he [Nemart] +entered into Unu, while the soldiers of his Majesty were at the +port of the Hare-city. Then they heard of it; they surrounded +the Hare-city on its four sides; they allowed not goers out to +go out, nor enterers in to enter in.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The King, enraged at the escape of the enemy, vows that after the New +Year he will go to Thebes, and having discharged a pious duty there, +take the war in hand himself.]</p></div> + +<p>They sent to report to his Majesty, the King of Upper and +Lower Egypt, Meriamen Piankhy, Giving Life, of every defeat +they had made, and of all the victories of his Majesty. Then +his Majesty raged at it like a leopard:—"Shall one grant unto them +that there be left a remnant of the soldiers of the North land to +permit a goer out to go out from them, to say, 'He commandeth +not to make them die until they be utterly destroyed'? As I live, +as I love Ra, as my father Amen praiseth me, I will go north +myself to ruin that which [Nemart] hath done; I will cause him +to withdraw from battle forever. Verily, after performing the +ceremonies of the New Year, I will sacrifice to my father Amen +in his beautiful festival, when he maketh his fair manifestation of +the New Year. He will lead me in peace to see Amen in the +good feast of the festival of Apt; I shall bring him forth gloriously +in his divine form unto Southern Apt, in his goodly feast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5281" id="Page_5281">[Pg 5281]</a></span> +of the feast of Apt at night-time,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> in the feast established in +Thebes, the feast which Ra instituted for him originally. And I +will bring him forth gloriously to his own house, to rest upon his +throne, on the day of making the god to enter.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> On the second +day of Athyr<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> I will cause the land of the North to taste the +taste of my fingers."</p> + +<p class="center">[To retrieve their reputation, the army assaults and captures three cities; +but the King is not appeased.]</p> + +<p>Then the soldiers who were remaining in Egypt heard the +rage that his Majesty was in against them. Then they fought +against Per Mezed<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> in the nome of Oxyrhynkhos; they took it +like a flood of water. They sent a message to his Majesty, but +his heart was not appeased thereby.</p> + +<p>Then they fought against Tatehen,<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> the very strong; they found +it filled with soldiers, and every strong man of the North land. +Then there was made a battering-ram for it; its walls were +breached and a great slaughter was made of them, the number +thereof is not known, including the son of the chief of the +Me, Tafnekht.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> Then they sent word to his Majesty of it, but +his heart was not appeased thereby.</p> + +<p>Then they fought against Het Benu; its citadel was opened +and the soldiers of his Majesty entered into it. Then they sent +word to his Majesty, but his heart was not appeased thereby.</p> + +<p class="center">[The King comes to Thebes, and thence proceeds to Hermopolis. He chides +his troops.]</p> + +<p>On the ninth day of Thoth,<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> came his Majesty down the river +to Thebes; he completed the feast of Amen in the festival of +Apt. His Majesty floated down to the city of the Hare.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> His +Majesty came out of the pavilion of the boat; horses were yoked +and chariots mounted. The fear of his Majesty reached unto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5282" id="Page_5282">[Pg 5282]</a></span> +the ends of Asia;<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> his terror was in every heart. Then his +Majesty came forth disposed to hate his soldiers, raging at them +like a leopard: "Doth it yet remain for you to fight? This is +slackness in my business: the year is completed to the end in +putting terror of me in the North land."<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> They made a great +and grievous lamentation, like one beaten.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p> + +<p>He pitched his tent in the Southwest of Khmenu. It [the +city] was besieged every day. There was made an earthwork to +cover the wall; there was erected a wooden tower to raise the +archers shooting arrows, and the slingers slinging stones, slaying +the people thereof every day.</p> + +<p class="center">[Hermopolis, vigorously attacked, is brought to great straits. It treats with +the King, and Nemart's wife prays the Queen to intercede for them.]</p> + +<p>The third day came; Unu was abominable to the nose, evil +in its smell. Then Unu threw itself on its belly, praying before +the face of the King; messengers came out and entered with all +things good to behold; gold, every precious mineral, stuffs in a +chest. The diadem was on his [Piankhy's] head, the uræus was +giving forth its terror; there was no ceasing for many days in +praying to his divine crown. His [Nemart's] wife, the royal +wife Satnestentmeh, was caused to approach, to pray the royal +wives, the royal concubines, the royal daughters, the royal sisters. +She cast herself upon her belly in the chamber of the +women, before the face of the royal wives: "Come ye unto me, +O ye royal wives, daughters, and sisters, that ye may pacify +Horus,<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> lord of the palace. Great is his mighty spirit! How +grand is his right of victory! Let...."<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> + +<p class="center">[Presumably the Queen intercedes; Nemart comes out to Piankhy, surrenders, +and brings tributes.]</p> + +<p>"Who is it that hath led thee?<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> Who is it that hath led +thee? Who is it that hath led thee? Who is it that led thee? +[Thou hast missed] the road of life. But shall the heaven rain +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5283" id="Page_5283">[Pg 5283]</a></span> +with arrows? I am [satisfied when] the South is in obeisance, +and the North lands [cry], 'Put us in thy shadow.' Behold, it +is evil ... with his offerings. The heart is a rudder that +wrecketh its owner in that which concerneth the will of God; it +looketh on flame as ice.... not a prince; see who is his +father. Thy nomes are full of children."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> + +<p>Then he cast himself upon his belly before his Majesty [saying]: +"Come to me, Horus, lord of the palace! It is thy mighty +will that doeth this unto me: I am one of the servants of the +King that pay dues to the treasury.... Count their dues: +I have paid to thee more than they."</p> + +<p>Then he offered to him silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, +bronze, and minerals of all kinds in great quantity. Behold, the +treasury was filled with this tribute. He brought a horse in his +right hand, a sistrum in his left, a sistrum of gold and lapis +lazuli.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Piankhy enters Hermopolis and sacrifices to Thoth. Finding the horses in +the rebel King's stables starved, he is wroth with Nemart and confiscates +his goods.]</p></div> + +<p>Behold, his [Majesty] was brought forth gloriously from his +palace, and proceeded to the house of Thoth, lord of Khmenu. +He sacrificed bulls, oxen, and fowl to his father Thoth, lord of +Khmenu, and the gods in the House of the Eight.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> The soldiers +of the Hermopolite nome rejoiced and sang; they said: "How +beautiful is Horus resting in his country, Son of the Sun, Piankhy! +Celebrate for us a Sed festival,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> even as thou hast protected +the Hare-name."</p> + +<p>His Majesty proceeded to the house of the King Nemart, he +went to every apartment of the palace, his treasury and his +storehouses; he caused to be brought to him the King's wives +and the King's daughters; they praised his Majesty with things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5284" id="Page_5284">[Pg 5284]</a></span> +that women use;<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> but his Majesty would not amuse himself +with them. His Majesty proceeded to the stables of the horses, +the stalls of the foals; he beheld that they were starved. He +said:—"As I live, as I love Ra, as my nostril is refreshed with +life! very grievous are these things to my heart, the starving of +my horses, more than any ill that thou hast done in the fulfilling +of thine own desire. The fear which thy surroundings have of +thee, beareth witness to me of thee. Dost thou ignore that the +shadow of God is over me, and he doth not fail in any undertaking +of mine? Would that he who did this unto me were +another, knowing me not, [then] I would not censure him for it! +But I, when I was born from the womb, when I was formed in +the egg, the deed of God was in me; and as his <i>Ka</i> endureth,<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> +I do nothing without him! He it is who commandeth me to +act."</p> + +<p>Then he counted his [Nemart's] goods to the Treasury, his +granary to the sacred store of Amen in Apt-esut.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> + +<p class="center">[The King of Heracleopolis, the siege of which had been raised by the +King's troops, brings presents and promises tribute.]</p> + +<p>The ruler of Henen-seten, Pefauibast, came with tribute to +Pharaoh: gold, silver, every kind of mineral, and horses of the +chosen ones of the stable. He cast himself on his belly before +his Majesty, and said, "Salutation to thee, Horus, mighty King, +bull overthrowing bulls. Duat<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> drew me down, I was over +whelmed in darkness, for which light hath been given unto me.</p> + +<p>"I found not a friend on the day of trouble, who would stand +in the day of fight, except thee, O mighty King! Thou hast +drawn away the darkness from me, and I will be thy servant +with all that pertain to me. Henen-seten shall pay tribute to +thy storehouse, thou the image of Harakhti, chief of the Akhmu +Seku.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> While he exists, so long shalt thou exist as King; if he +be not destroyed thou shalt not be destroyed, O King Piankhy, +living for ever!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5285" id="Page_5285">[Pg 5285]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">[El Lahûn, prepared to oppose the entry of the King, yields without fighting: +the treasuries are confiscated.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty went north to the opening of the canal near +Rahent<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a>; he found Per-sekhem-kheper-ra with its walls raised +high, its citadel closed and filled with every valiant man of +the North land. Then his Majesty sent to them saying: "Ye +who live in death, ye who live in death, miserable ones, wretched +ones living in death! If a moment passeth without opening [to +me], behold, ye are reckoned as conquered, and that is painful +to the King. Close not the gates of your life so as to come to +the execution block of this day. Do not love death and hate +your life; ... [embrace] life in the face of all the land."</p> + +<p>Then they sent to his Majesty to say: "Behold, the shadow +of God is upon thy head; the son of Nut<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> gives to thee his two +hands. What thy heart desireth is accomplished immediately, as +that which issues from the mouth of a god. Behold thou it! +Thou wast born as a god, and thou seest us in thy two hands. +Behold thy city, its forts [are open; do as thou wilt with it]; +enterers enter in and goers out go out: let his Majesty do as he +pleaseth."</p> + +<p>Then they came out with the son of the chief of the Me, +Tafnekht. The host of his Majesty entered into it; he slew not +one of all the people whom he found. [The chancellors came], +with the royal seal-bearers to seal its goods, assigning its treasuries +to the Treasury, its granaries to the divine offerings of his +father Amen Ra, lord of the thrones of the two lands.</p> + +<p class="center">[Likewise with Mêdûm and Athet-taui.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty floated down-stream, he found that Mêdûm, the +Abode of Seker, lord of making light, had been shut up; it +could not be reached, it had put fighting into its heart. [But +they feared] terror [seized] them; awe closed their mouths. +Then his Majesty sent to them saying: "Behold ye, there are +two ways before you, choose ye as ye will: open, and ye live; +close, and ye die. My Majesty passeth not by a city closed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5286" id="Page_5286">[Pg 5286]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then they opened immediately. His Majesty entered this +city; he offered [an oblation] to the god Menhy in Sehez. He +assigned its treasury and granaries to the divine offerings of +Amen in Apt-esut.</p> + +<p>His Majesty floated down-stream to Athet-taui; he found the +fortress closed, the walls full of valiant soldiers of the North +land. Behold, they opened the forts, they cast themselves on +their bellies [singing praises before] his Majesty. "Thy father +hath destined for thee his heritage as lord of the two lands; thou +art in them,<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> thou art lord of what is upon earth."</p> + +<p>His Majesty proceeded [to the temple] to cause to be offered +a great offering to the gods who are in this city, of bulls, fat +oxen and fowls, and everything good and pure. Then its treasury +was assigned to the Treasury, its granaries to the divine +offerings [of Amen].</p> + +<p class="center">[To Memphis he offers a free pardon, but the city prepares to fight.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty went north towards Anbuhez. Then he sent to +them, saying, "Do not close, do not fight, O Residence originally +of Shu!<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> Let the enterers enter and the comers out come out: +let none going be stopped. I will offer sacrifice to Ptah and the +gods who are in Anbuhez; I will worship Sokaris in the Secret +Place; I will behold Res-Anbef.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> I will go north in peace [for +his Majesty loveth that] Anbuhez be safe and sound, and that +[even] the children weep not. Ye saw the nomes of the South: +not one [soul] was slain therein except the rebels who had blasphemed +God. Execution on the block was done to the rebellious."</p> + +<p>Then they closed their forts; they caused soldiers to go out +against a few of the host of his Majesty, consisting of artisans, +of chief builders, and pilots [who had gone towards] the quay of +Anbuhez.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5287" id="Page_5287">[Pg 5287]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">[Tafnekht himself visits Memphis in the night, encourages the troops, and +departs, promising to return when he has arranged matters with the allies.]</p> + +<p>Now that chief of Sais came to Anbuhez in the night, urging +its soldiers, its sailors and all the best of its troops, in number +eight thousand men, urging them greatly, greatly. "Behold, +Mennefer is full of soldiers of all the best of the North land, +barley and durra, and all kinds of grain, the granaries are overflowing, +and all kinds of weapons of [war. There is a] wall +built, a great battlement made with cunning craft. The river +bounds the eastern side, and no way of attack is there. The +stalls remain full of fat cattle, the treasury is furnished with all +things: silver, gold, copper, bronze, stuffs, incense, honey, ointment. +I will go, I will give things to the chiefs of Lower +Egypt; I will open to them their nomes.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> I shall be [away +traveling] three [?] days until I return." He mounted a horse, +he called not for his chariots, he went north in fear of his +Majesty.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Piankhy finds Memphis strongly fortified and the high Nile risen to its walls. +The army proposes to bridge it, or attack the city it by elaborate approaches.]</p></div> + +<p>When the earth lightened and it was the second day<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> his +Majesty came to Anbuhez. He moored upon its north side, he +found the water risen to the walls and ships moored at [the +quay of] Mennefer. Then his Majesty saw that it was mighty +indeed, the wall raised high with new building, the battlement +manned with strength; no way of attacking it was found. Each +person fell to saying his say among the hosts of his Majesty of +every rule of warfare, and every man said, "Let us lay siege to +[Anbuhez]; behold, her soldiers are many." Others said: "Make +a causeway unto it; let us raise the ground to its wall; let us +construct a wooden work, let us set up ships' masts, let us make +its edges of poles. Let us divide it with these things<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> on every +side of it, with embankments and ... upon its north side, +in order to raise the ground to its wall that we may find a way +for our feet."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5288" id="Page_5288">[Pg 5288]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The King determines to assault it immediately; he seizes all the boats at the +quay, where the houses were comparatively unprotected, and landing his +men in them at that point captures the city.]</p></div> + +<p>Then his Majesty raged against it [the city] like a leopard, +he said:—"As I live, as I love Ra, as my father Amen who +formed me praiseth me, these things have happened unto it by +the command of Amen. These things are what men say: '[The +North Country] with the nomes of the South they open to him +[Tafnekht] from afar; they had not placed Amen in their hearts, +they knew not what he had commanded. [Then] he [Amen] +made him [Piankhy] in order to accomplish his mighty will, to +cause the awe of him to be seen.' I will take it like a water +flood; [this] hath [my father Amen] commanded me."</p> + +<p>Then he caused his ships and his army to set out to attack the +quay of Mennefer. They brought back to him every ferry-boat, +every cabin-boat, every dahabiyeh, and the ships in all their +number that were moored at the quay of Mennefer, the bows +being moored in its houses [on account of the height of the +water.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> Not] the least of the soldiers of his Majesty mourned.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> + +<p>His Majesty came to direct the ships in person in all their +number. His Majesty commanded his soldiers: "Forward to it! +Scale the walls, enter the houses upon the bank of the stream. +If one of you enters upon the wall there will be no stand +against him [for a moment], the levies [?] will not bar you. +Moreover, it is feeble that we should shut up the South Country, +moor at the North land, and sit still at 'the Balance of the two +lands.'<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> + +<p>Then Mennefer was captured as by a flood of water; men +were slain within it in great numbers, and were taken as prisoners +to the place where his Majesty was.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[In Memphis Piankhy sacrifices. The neighboring garrisons flee; three Northern +chiefs and all the nomarchs submit in person; the treasures of Memphis +are confiscated.]</p></div> + +<p>When the [land lightened] and the second day came, his +Majesty caused men to go to it to protect the temples of God +for him, to guard the sanctuary of the gods from the profane,<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5289" id="Page_5289">[Pg 5289]</a></span> +to sacrifice to the royal circle of gods of Hetkaptah,<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> to purify +Mennefer with natron and incense, to put the priests on the +place of their feet.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> His Majesty proceeded to the house of +[Ptah]; his purification was performed in the Chamber of Early +Morning,<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> and all the things prescribed for a king were accomplished. +He entered the temple, great offerings were made to +his father Ptahresanbef, of fat bulls, oxen, and fowl, and every +good thing. His Majesty proceeded to his house.</p> + +<p>Then all the villages that were in the region of Mennefer +heard, namely, Hery the city, Penynaauaa, the tower of Byu, +and the oasis of By; they opened their gates, they fled in flight; +one knoweth not the place to which they went.</p> + +<p>Came Auapeth with the chief of the Me, Akaneshu, with the +<i>erpa</i> Pediast, with all the nomarchs of the North land, bearing +their tribute, to see the beauties of his Majesty.</p> + +<p>Then were assigned the treasuries and the granaries of Mennefer, +and made into the second offerings of Amen, of Ptah, of +the circle of the gods in Hetkaptah.</p> + +<p class="center">[Piankhy crosses over to Babylon, and worships there.]</p> + +<p>When the land lightened and the second day came,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> his +Majesty proceeded to the East, and made a purification to Tum +in Kheraha,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> [and to] the circle of the gods in the house of the +circle of the gods; namely, the cave in which the gods are, consisting +of fat bulls, oxen, and fowls, that they might give Life, +Prosperity, and Health to the King Piankhy, living forever.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[He proceeds along the Sacred Way to Heliopolis, visiting the holy places, +and enters the sanctuary of Tum in Heliopolis, etc. King Usorkon +submits.]</p></div> + +<p>His Majesty proceeded to Anu<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> on that mount of Kheraha, +upon the road of the god Sep, to Kheraha. His Majesty pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5290" id="Page_5290">[Pg 5290]</a></span>ceeded +to the camp which was on the west of the Atiu canal; he +was purified in the midst of the Cool Pool, his face was washed +in the stream of Nu, in which Ra washes his face. He proceeded +to the sand-hill in Anu, he made a great sacrifice on the +sand-hill in Anu, before the face of Ra at his rising, consisting +of white bulls, milk, frankincense, incense, all woods sweet-smelling. +He came, proceeding to the house of Ra; he entered +the temple with rejoicings. The chief lector praised the god +that warded off miscreants<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> from the King. The rites of the +Chamber of Early Morning were performed, the cloak was put +on, he was purified with incense and cold water, flowers for the +Het Benben<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> were brought to him. He took the flowers, he +ascended the staircase to the great window, to see Ra in the Het +Benben. The King himself stood alone, he put the key into the +bolt, he opened the double doors, and saw his father Ra in the +Het Benben. He sanctified the Madet boat of Ra, the Sektet +boat of Tum.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> The doors were shut, clay was applied and +sealed with the King's own seal; and the priests were charged, +"I, I have examined the seal; let none other enter therein of all +the kings who shall exist."</p> + +<p>Then they cast themselves on their bellies before his Majesty, +saying, "Unto eternity, Horus<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> loving Anu shall not be +destroyed." Returning thence, he entered the house of Tum, +and followed the image of his father Tum Khepera, chief of +Anu.</p> + +<p>Came the King Usorkon to see the beauties of his Majesty.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Piankhy goes to the vicinity of Athribis and receives the homage of all +the Northern princes and nobles. Pediast of Athribis invites him to +his city.]</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<a name="Illustration_EGYPTIAN_FUNERAL_FEAST" id="Illustration_EGYPTIAN_FUNERAL_FEAST"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>EGYPTIAN FUNERAL FEAST.</i></span> +<p class="center">Photogravure from a Painting by Edwin Long, R. A.</p> +<p>"It was not uncommon to keep the mummies in the house, ... and +Damascenius relates that they sometimes introduced them at the table, as +though they could enjoy their society.... Many months often elapsed +between the ceremony of embalming and the actual burial.... It was +during this interval that feasts were held in honor of the dead, to which the +friends and relations were invited. On these occasions they dined together and +enjoyed the same festivities as when invited to a repast, the guests being in like +manner anointed and bedecked with flowers and presented with other tokens +of welcome usual at an Egyptian party, and it was principally at this [Greek: nekrodeipnon] +that I suppose the introduction of the mummy to have taken place."</p> + +<p class="center">"Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians."—<i>Wilkinson.</i></p> +<img src="images/feast.png" width="640" height="448" alt="EGYPTIAN FUNERAL FEAST." title="EGYPTIAN FUNERAL FEAST." /> +</div> + +<p>When the land lightened on the second day,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> his Majesty +went to the quay, and the best of his ships crossed over to +the quay of Kakem.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> The camp of his Majesty was pitched on +the south of Kaheni, on the east of Kakem. These kings and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5291" id="Page_5291">[Pg 5291]</a></span> +nomarchs of the North land, all the chiefs who wore the feather, +every vizier, all the chiefs, every royal acquaintance<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> in the West +and in the East, and in the islands in the midst, came to see the +beauties of his Majesty. The <i>erpa</i> Pediast threw himself on his +belly before his Majesty, and said: "Come to Kakem, that thou +mayest see the god Khentkhety; that thou mayest <i>khu</i> [?] the +goddess Khuyt; that thou mayest offer sacrifices to Horus in his +house, consisting of fat bulls, oxen, fowls; that thou mayest +enter my house, open my treasury, and load thyself with the +things of my father. I will give thee gold unto the limits of thy +desire, malachite heaped before thy face, horses many of the best +of the stable, the leaders of the stall."</p> + +<p class="center">[Piankhy goes to Athribis and worships the local god. Pediast sets the example +of giving up his goods without concealment.]</p> + +<p>Proceeded his Majesty to the house of Horus Khentkhety, +and caused to be offered fat bulls, oxen, ducks, fowl to his father +Horus Khentkhety, lord of Kemur. Proceeded his Majesty to +the house of the <i>erpa</i> Pediast; he presented him with silver, +gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, a great collection of every kind of +thing, and stuffs, and royal linen in every count,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> couches covered +with fine linen, frankincense, and unguents in jars, stallions and +mares of the leaders of his stable. He [Pediast] cleared himself +by the life of God<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> before the face of these kings and great chiefs +of the North land:—"Each one of them that hides his horses, +that conceals his goods, let him die the death of his father. +Thus may it be done to me, whether ye acquit thy humble servant +in all things that ye knew of concerning me, or whether ye +say I have hidden from his Majesty anything of my father, gold, +jewelry, with minerals and ornaments of all kinds, bracelets for +the arms, collars for the neck, pendants [?] inlaid with minerals, +amulets for every limb, chaplets for the head, rings for the ears, +all the apparel of a king, every vessel of royal purification in +gold, and every sort of mineral; all these things I have offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5292" id="Page_5292">[Pg 5292]</a></span> +before the king, stuffs and clothes in thousands of all the best of +my looms. I know by what thou wilt be appeased. Go to the +stable, choose thou what thou wilt of all the horses that thou +desirest." Then his Majesty did so.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The princes of Lower Egypt return to their cities to fetch further tribute. +A revolt at Mesed is promptly suppressed and the city given as a reward +to Pediast.]</p></div> + +<p>Said these kings and nomarchs before his Majesty, "Let us +go to our cities, let us open our treasuries, let us select according +to the desire of thy heart, let us bring to thee the best of +our stables, the chief of our horses." Then his Majesty did even +so. <i>List of their names</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The King Usorkon in Per Bast and the territory of Ranefer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The King Auapeth in Tentremu and Taanta [?];<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch Zedamenafankh in Mendes and the Granary of Ra;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His son and heir, the captain of the host in Hermopolis Parva, Ankhhor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch Akanesh in Thebneter, in Perhebyt, and in Smabehed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch and chief of the Me, Pathenf in Per-Sepd and in the Granary of Anbuhez;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch and chief of the Me, Pamai in Busiris;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch and chief of the Me, Nesnakedy in Heseb-ka;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch and chief of the Me, Nekhthornashenut in Pergerer;<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chief of the Me, Pentuart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chief of the Me, Pentabekhent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The priest of Horus, lord of Letopolis, Pedihorsmataui;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch Hurobasa in the house of Sekhemt mistress of Sa, and the house of Sekhemt mistress of Rohesaut;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch Zedkhiau in Khentnefer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nomarch Pabas in Kheraha and the house of Hapi.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With all their good tribute [consisting of] gold, silver, [lapis +lazuli], ma[lachite], [couches] covered with fine linen, frankincense +in jars, [and all things that pertain to a man great] in +wealth, rich in horses....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5293" id="Page_5293">[Pg 5293]</a></span></p> + +<p>[After] these things came one to say to his Majesty: +["Whereas the nomarch and captain of the] host [ ... hath +thrown down] the wall [of ... and] set fire to his treasury, +[and fled away] upon the river, he hath fortified Mesed<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> with +soldiers, and hath...."</p> + +<p>Then his Majesty caused his warriors to go to see what took +place therein, as an ally of the <i>erpa</i> Pediast. One came to report +to his Majesty saying, "We have slain all the people that we found +there." His Majesty gave it as a present to the <i>erpa</i> Pediast.</p> + +<p class="center">[Lastly, Tafnekht begs for mercy: ambassadors receive his presents and submission +to the King, and he is pardoned.]</p> + +<p>Then the chief of the Me, Tafnekht, heard it;<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> he caused a +messenger to go to the place where his Majesty was, begging his +mercy, saying:—"Be gracious! I have not seen thy face in the +days of shame; I cannot stand before thy flame; I am terrified +at thy awe. Behold, thou art Nubti in the Land of the South, +Mentu, the mighty bull.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> In all these matters to which thou hast +given thy attention thou hast not found thy humble servant +until I reached the island of the sea. I am afraid of thy mighty +spirit according to that saying, 'The flame is my enemy.' Doth +not the heart of thy Majesty cool with these things that thou +hast done unto me? Verily I am in misery. I am not smitten +according to the account of the wickedness. Having weighed +with the balance, having reckoned by the ounce,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> thou multipliest +it unto me thrice; having carried away the seed, thou sweepest up +[the remnant] at the same time. Do not cut down the grove +to its root. As thy <i>Ka</i> endureth, thy terror is in my body, thy +fear in my bones; I have not sat in the room of carousal,<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> the +harp hath not been brought to me. Behold, I eat the bread of +hunger, I drink water in thirst, since the day that thou learnedst +my name. Pain is in my bones, my head is unshaven, my +clothes in rags, in order that Neith may be made gracious unto +me. Long is the course that thou hast brought to me; turn thy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5294" id="Page_5294">[Pg 5294]</a></span> +face unto me now. A year hath cleansed my <i>Ka</i> and purified +thy servant from his wickedness. Let my goods be taken to the +Treasury, consisting of gold with every sort of mineral, and the +best of the horses accoutred with everything. Let a messenger +come to me in haste, that he may drive fear from my heart. +Let me go out to the temple in his sight, let me clear myself +with an oath by God."</p> + +<p>His Majesty caused to go the Chief Lector Pediamennestaui, +and the captain of the host Puarma. He [Tafnekht] presented +him [Piankhy] with silver, gold, stuffs, every valuable mineral. +He went out to the temple, he praised God, he cleared himself +with an oath by God, saying: "I will not transgress the +command of the King. I will not reject the words of his +Majesty; I will not sin against a nomarch without thy knowledge; +I will act according to the words of the King; I will not transgress +what he hath commanded." Then his Majesty was satisfied +therewith.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Crocodilopolis and Aphroditopolis having submitted, the whole country is at +the feet of the conqueror, who loads his ships with the tribute and departs +homeward.]</p></div> + +<p>One came to say to his Majesty: "The temple of Sebek, they +have opened its fort, Metnu hath cast itself upon its belly, there +is not a nome that is shut against his Majesty in the nomes +of the South, North, West, or East. The islands in the midst +are upon their bellies with fear of him, and are causing their +goods to be brought to the place where his Majesty is, like the +serfs of the palace."</p> + +<p>When the land lightened, very early<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> came these two rulers +of the South and two rulers of the North, wearing uræi,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> to +smell the ground to the mighty spirit of his Majesty. Behold, +moreover, these kings and nomarchs of the North land came to +see the beauties of his Majesty; their feet were as the feet of +women,<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> they entered not to the King's house, for that they were +impure and eaters of fishes, which is an abomination to the +King's house. Behold, the King Nemart, he entered to the King's +palace, for that he was pure, he ate not fishes. They stood upon +their feet, but the one of them entered the palace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5295" id="Page_5295">[Pg 5295]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then the ships were loaded with silver, gold, bronze, stuffs, +all things of the North land, all products of Kharu, all woods of +the Divine Land.</p> + +<p>His Majesty went up-stream, his heart enlarged, all about him +were rejoicing; West and East, they rose high, rejoicing around +his Majesty, singing and rejoicing; they said:—"O mighty King! +O mighty King! Piankhy! O mighty King! Thou hast come, +thou hast ruled the North land. Thou makest bulls into women. +Happy is the heart of the mother that bore a male child, that +was impregnated with thee amongst the mountains. Praises be +given unto her! the cow that hath borne a bull! Thou shalt be +to eternity, thy victory remaineth, O Ruler, loving Thebes."</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="INSCRIPTION_OF_UNA" id="INSCRIPTION_OF_UNA"></a>INSCRIPTION OF UNA</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[It is interesting to compare the inscription of Piankhy with an example +of the historical texts of the Old Kingdom. Only two are known of any considerable +length, and the following is one of them. The biographical inscription +of Una, administrator of Upper Egypt, takes one back to 3000 B.C., +when almost the only great monuments in Egypt were the pyramids, to the +number of which each successive king added.</p> + +<p>The inscription was found on a slab in the great cemetery of Abydos, and +is now in the Gîzeh Museum. The style is somewhat arid, but attracts by its +primitive and simple character.]</p></div> + +<p class="center">[Una's youth under King Teta, founder of the VIth Dynasty.]</p> + +<p>[Una saith] I was tying the girdle,<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> under the majesty of +Teta. My grade was that of superintendent of stores, and I +acted as overseer of the garden of Pharaoh.</p> + +<p class="center">[Una appointed pyramid priest and then judge by Pepy I. He assists at +trials in the royal harîm.]</p> + +<p>[I was] chief of the <i>debat</i> [?] city . . . under the majesty +of Pepy: his Majesty put me into the position of royal +friend and superintendent of the priests of his pyramid city.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5296" id="Page_5296">[Pg 5296]</a></span>Behold +I was ... and his Majesty appointed me judge, +and his heart was satisfied with me more than with any of his +servants: I heard cases alone with the chief justice and vizier in +every secret proceeding [of the palace?] ... in the name +of the King, of the royal <i>harîm</i> and of the six great houses,<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> +because the King's heart was satisfied with me more than with +any of his officers, of his nobles, or of his servants.</p> + +<p class="center">[Royal present of a sarcophagus, etc., from the limestone quarries of Turra.]</p> + +<p>[Command was given] by the Majesty of my lord to bring +for me a sarcophagus of white stone from Ra-au, and his Majesty +caused the divine treasurer to cross over [the river] with a +band [of soldiers and artificers] under him to bring for me this +sarcophagus from Ra-au.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> He returned with it in the great +transport ship of the Residence, together with its lid, and a false +door with the lintel, jambs, and foundation block: never was this +or the like done to any servant. But I was successful in the +heart of his Majesty, I was rooted in the heart of his Majesty; +and the heart of his Majesty was satisfied with me.</p> + +<p class="center">[Appointment as principal judge in the trial of the queen.]</p> + +<p>Now when I was judge, his Majesty made me a sole friend +and superintendent of the garden of Pharaoh, and I instructed [?] +four[?] of the superintendents of Pharaoh's gardens who were +there. I acted according to his Majesty's desire in performing +the choosing of the guard [?]<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> and making the way of the king +and marshaling the nobles [at the court]; I acted altogether so +that his Majesty praised me for it more than anything.</p> + +<p>When an accusation was brought in the royal <i>harîm</i> against +the chief royal wife Aamtesi as a secret affair, his Majesty +caused me to enter to it and hear the case alone, without there +being any chief justice and vizier, or any officer there but me +only, on account of my success and rooting in the heart of his +Majesty and of his heart being satisfied with me. I drew up +[the report] in writing, alone with one judge. Behold, my office +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5297" id="Page_5297">[Pg 5297]</a></span> +was that of superintendent of Pharaoh's garden: never before +did one of my grade hear a secret process of the royal <i>harîm</i>; +but his Majesty caused me to hear it, because of my success in +the heart of his Majesty above any officer and any noble and any +servant of his.</p> + +<p class="center">[Una commander-in-chief of all the native and foreign forces in an expedition +against the Eastern Bedawin.]</p> + +<p>When his Majesty chastised the Aamu-Herusha<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> and his Majesty +made an army of many tens of thousands out of the whole +of the Upper Country, from Abu<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> in the south to Aphroditopolis +[?] in the north, and out of the Lower Country, from the +whole of the two sides,<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> out of Sezer and Khen-sezeru,<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> negroes +from Arertet,<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> negroes from Meza, negroes from Aam, negroes +from Wawat, negroes from Kaau, and foreigners from the land +of Temeh<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a>; his Majesty sent me at the head of this host. +Behold, even the <i>ha</i>-princes, even the royal chancellors, even +the royal friends of the court, even the nomarchs and governors +of fortresses of the Upper Country and the Lower Country, the +royal friends superintending the frontier, the superintendents of +priests of the Upper and Lower Countries, and the superintendents +of domain lands, in command of the contingents from +the Upper and Lower Countries, and from the fortresses [?] and +cities that they ruled, and of the negroes of these tribes—I it +was who planned their procedure, although my grade was that +of superintendent of the garden of Pharaoh, on account of the +preciseness of my disposition: in such a way that no one of them +encroached on any of his fellows, that no one of them took bread +or sandals from the wayfarer, that no one of them stole dough +from any village, and that no one of them took a goat from any +people. I directed them to the Island of the North, the Gate of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5298" id="Page_5298">[Pg 5298]</a></span> +I-hetep, the <i>Uart</i> [?] of Horus Lord<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> of Truth. And behold, +although I was of this grade ... I reviewed the number of +these troops which had never been reviewed by any servant.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This host returned in peace: it had harried the land of the Herusha;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had trampled on the land of the Herusha;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had overthrown its inclosures,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had cut down its figs and vines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had set fire to all its [camps?];<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had slain the troops in it in many tens of thousands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">this host returned in peace: it had [carried off people] from it, very numerous, as prisoners alive:<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and his Majesty praised me for it more than anything.</p> + +<p>His Majesty sent me to direct [this] host five times, and to +smite the land of the Herusha at each of the revolts with these +troops, and I acted so that his Majesty praised me for it more +than anything. And when it was reported that there were warriors +of this tribe in the "Wild-Goat's Nose," I crossed over in +boats with these troops, and landed on the coast<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> of Thest, on +the north of the land of the Herusha: and behold, when this +host had marched by land, I came and smote them all down, +and slew every warrior of them.</p> + +<p class="center">[Una made governor of the whole of Upper Egypt by the next king, +Merenra Mehti-em-saf.]</p> + +<p>I was carrier of the chair and sandals at the court, and the +king Merenra my lord, who lives [for ever], appointed me <i>ha</i>-prince, +governor of the Upper Country, from Abu in the south +to Aphroditopolis [?] in the north, because of my success in the +heart of his Majesty, and my rooting in the heart of his +Majesty, and because the heart of his Majesty was satisfied [with +me]. And while I was carrier of the chair and sandals, his +Majesty praised me for my watchfulness and body-guardianship +which I displayed in ushering in nobles [?], which exceeded that +of any officer, noble, or servant of his. Never before was this +function discharged by any servant.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5299" id="Page_5299">[Pg 5299]</a></span>I +performed for him the office of governor of the Upper +Country to satisfaction, so that no one there encroached upon +his fellow for any work: I paid [?] everything that is paid to the +Residence from this Upper Country twice over, and every hour's +service that is given to the palace in this Upper Country twice +over; and discharged my office in such a way that it established +a standard of duty<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> in this Upper Country. Never was the like +done in this Upper Country before. I acted altogether so that +his Majesty praised me for it.</p> + +<p class="center">[Una commissioned to obtain monuments for Merenra's pyramid from +Abhat, and granite from the region of Elephantine.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty sent me to Abhat to bring the sarcophagus +called "Box of the Living Ones," with its cover, and an obelisk, +and the costly furniture for my mistress<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> [?] the pyramid Kha-nefer +of Merenra. His Majesty sent me to Abu<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> to bring the +granite stela and its base, and the granite doors and jambs, and +the granite doors and bases of the over-ground temple of my +mistress [?] the pyramid Kha-nefer of Merenra. I came down +the river with them to the pyramid Kha-nefer of Merenra with +six broad boats, three transports, three eight-oars, in one expedition: +never was this done, Abhat and Abu [done] in one expedition, +in the time of any of the kings. Everything that his +Majesty had commanded me came verily to pass just as his +Majesty ordered me.</p> + + +<p class="center">[An altar from the alabaster quarry of Het-nub.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty sent me to Het-nub to bring a great table of +offerings of the alabaster of Het-nub. I brought him down this +table of offerings in seventeen days, quarrying it in Het-nub, +and causing it to float down in this broad boat. For I had cut +for it a broad boat of acacia-wood, sixty cubits long, thirty cubits +broad, and built it—all this [?] in seventeen days, in the third +month of harvest,<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> when behold there was no water on the junctions +[?] of the channel,<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> and I moored at the pyramid Kha-nefer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5300" id="Page_5300">[Pg 5300]</a></span> +of Merenra in peace. All things had come to pass according to +the command which the Majesty of my lord had given me.</p> + +<p class="center">[A commission to ease the navigation in the region of the cataract, and +increase the facilities for procuring granite.]</p> + +<p>His Majesty sent me to cut five channels in the South, and +make three broad boats and four transports of the acacia of +Wawat. Behold, the rulers of Arertet, Wawat, Aam, and Meza +were bringing wood for it. All were made in one year, floated, +and laden with very great blocks of granite for the pyramid +Kha-nefer of Merenra; moreover, I myself gave service to the +palace in the whole work of these five channels,<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> on account of +my abundance and my wealth [?], and of the loftiness of the +mighty spirit of King Merenra, living for ever, beyond that of +any god, and because all things came to pass according to the +command which his <i>Ka</i> ordained.</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SONGS_OF_LABORERS" id="SONGS_OF_LABORERS"></a>SONGS OF LABORERS</h3> + +<p>The reapers, represented cutting corn in the tomb of Paheri (XVIIIth +Dynasty), are supposed to be chanting a little song, the words of +which are engraved above their figures. Such songs are very +common among the fellâhîn of the present day, who thus mark time +for their work in the fields or on the river. This song is introduced +by a phrase which seems to speak of it as being "in answering +chant"; and this perhaps gives us the technical Egyptian term for +antiphonal singing.</p> + +<p><i>In answering chant they say</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This is a good day! to the land come out | The north wind is out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sky works according to our heart | Let us work, binding firm our heart.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The following transcription of the original Egyptian may give +some idea of the assonances of words and ordered repetitions which +marked the poetical style; the main repetitions are here italicized.</p> + +<p><i>Khen en usheb, zet-sen:</i>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hru pen nefer, <i>per</i> em ta | Ta mehyt <i>perta</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ta pet her art en <i>àb-en</i> | Bek-en mert <i>àb-en</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5301" id="Page_5301">[Pg 5301]</a></span>In +the same tomb there is another song, already well known but +less noticeable in form than the above. It is sung to the oxen on +the threshing-floor.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thresh for yourselves. Thresh for yourselves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thresh for yourselves. Thresh for yourselves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straw to eat; corn for your masters;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let not your hearts be weary, your lord is pleased.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="LOVE_SONGS" id="LOVE_SONGS"></a>LOVE SONGS</h3> + +<p>Some of the prettiest Egyptian poetry is contained in a papyrus of +the XVIIIth Dynasty at the British Museum. The verses are +written in hieratic, and are extremely difficult to translate, but +their beauty is apparent to the translator even when he cannot fix +the sense. A new edition of these and other poems of a kindred +nature is being prepared by Professor W. Max Müller of Philadelphia, +who kindly permits us to make some extracts from the advance +sheets of his publication.</p> + +<p>The songs are collected in small groups, generally entitled 'Songs +of Entertainment.' The lover and his mistress call each other +"brother" and "sister." In one song the girl addresses her lover in +successive stanzas under the names of different plants in a garden, +and plays on these names. Others are as follows:—</p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Love-Sickness</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I will lie down within,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold, I am sick with wrongs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then my neighbors come in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To visit me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This sister of mine cometh with them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will make a laughing-stock of the physicians;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She knoweth mine illness.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Lucky Doorkeeper</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The villa of my sister<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath its gates in the midst of the estate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[So often as] its doors are opened,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[So often as] the bolt is withdrawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My beloved is angry.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5302" id="Page_5302">[Pg 5302]</a></span><span class="i0">If I were set as the gatekeeper,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I should cause her to chide me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then should I hear her voice [when she is] angry:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A child before her!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Love's Doubts</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">[My Brother] hath come forth [from mine house];<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[He careth not for] my love;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart standeth still within me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Behold, honeyed cakes in my mouth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are turned into salt;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even must, that sweet thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In my mouth is as the gall of a bird!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The breath of thy nostrils alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is that which maketh my heart live.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I found thee! Amen grant thee unto me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternally and for ever!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Unsuccessful Bird-catcher</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The voice of the wild goose crieth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For she hath taken her bait;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[But] thy love restraineth me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot loose it.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So I must gather my net together.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What then shall I say to my mother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To whom I come daily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laden with wild-fowl?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have not laid my net to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thy love hath seized me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of W. Max Müller.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5303" id="Page_5303">[Pg 5303]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="HYMN_TO_USERTESEN_III" id="HYMN_TO_USERTESEN_III"></a>HYMN TO USERTESEN III.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[This hymn is the most remarkable example of Egyptian poetry known to +us. It was found by Mr. Petrie near the pyramid and temple of Usertesen II., +in the town which was founded there for the accommodation of the workmen +employed upon these buildings, and for the priestly staff who performed the +services for the dead Pharaoh in his chapel. The hymn is addressed to the +son and successor of that king,—to Usertesen III.,—an active and warlike +prince, who, as the poet also testifies, used his power for the benefit of his +country and the pious support of its institutions. It is a marvel that the +delicate papyrus on which the hymn is written should have been preserved for +nearly 5,000 years. It has not, however, resisted the attacks of time without +suffering injury; and the lacunæ, together with the peculiar language employed +by the scribe, are baffling to the decipherer. Four stanzas only can be +read with comparative completeness and certainty.</p> + +<p>The parallelism of the sentences, the rhythm, the balancing of the lines of +verse, and the pause in each, recall the style of the Hebrew Psalms. The +choice of metaphors, too, is in a similar direction. Unfortunately our limited +knowledge of the ancient language does not permit us to analyze closely the +structure of the verses, nor to attempt any scansion of them. The radicals +only of Egyptian words are known to us; of the pronunciation of the language +at the time of the XIIth Dynasty we are entirely ignorant.]</p></div> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Homage to thee, Kha-kau-ra: our "Horus Divine of Beings."<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safeguarding the land and widening its boundaries: restraining the foreign nations by his kingly crown.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inclosing the two lands<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> within the compass of his arms: seizing the nations in his grip.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slaying the Pedti without stroke of the club: shooting an arrow without drawing the bowstring.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dread of him hath smitten the Anu in their plain: his terror hath slain the Nine Races of Men.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">His warrant hath caused the death of thousands of the Pedti who had reached his frontier: shooting the arrow as doth Sekhemt,<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> he overthroweth thousands of those who knew not his mighty spirit.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5304" id="Page_5304">[Pg 5304]</a></span><span class="i0">The tongue of his Majesty bindeth Nubia in fetters: his utterances put to flight the Setiu.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sole One of youthful vigor, guarding his frontier: suffering not his subjects to faint, but causing the Pat<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> to repose unto full daylight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As to his timid youth in their slumbers: his heart<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> is their protection.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His decrees have formed his boundaries: his word hath armored the two regions.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are the gods: thou hast established their offerings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are thy children: thou hast made their boundaries.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are thy forefathers: thou hast increased their portions.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant is Egypt in thy strong arm: thou hast guarded the ancient order.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are the Pat in thine administration: thy mighty spirit hath taken upon itself their provisionment.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are the two regions in thy valor: thou hast widened their possessions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are thy paid young troops: thou hast made them to prosper.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are thy veterans: thou hast made them to renew their youth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant are the two lands in thy might: thou hast guarded their walls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice jubilant be thou, O Horus, who hast widened his boundary: thou art from everlasting to everlasting.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city, above a million arms: as for other rulers of men, they are but common folk.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a dyke, damming the stream in its water flood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a cool lodge, letting every man repose unto full daylight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a bulwark, with walls built of the sharp stones of Kesem.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5305" id="Page_5305">[Pg 5305]</a></span><span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a place of refuge, excluding the marauder.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were an asylum, shielding the terrified from his foe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a shade, the cool vegetation of the flood-time in the season of harvest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a corner warm and dry in time of winter.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were a rock barring the blast in time of tempest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice great is the lord of his city: he is as it were Sekhemt to foes who tread upon his boundary.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He hath come to us, that he may take the land of the South Country: the Double Crown<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> hath been placed upon his head.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath united the two lands: he hath joined the Reed to the Hornet.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath ruled the people of the Black Land: he hath placed the Red Land in his power.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath protected the two lands: he hath tranquillized the two regions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath made the people of Egypt to live: he hath destroyed its afflictions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath made the Pat to live: he hath opened the throat of the Rekhyt.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath trampled on the nations: he hath smitten the Anu who knew not his terror.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, he hath secured his frontier: he hath delivered him who was stolen away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come: ... he granteth reward-in-old-age by what his mighty arm bringeth to us.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hath come, we nurture our children: we bury our aged ones<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> by his good favor.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5306" id="Page_5306">[Pg 5306]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="HYMN_TO_THE_ATEN1" id="HYMN_TO_THE_ATEN1"></a>HYMN TO THE ATEN<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following hymn addressed by King Akhenaten (B.C. 1450) to +his one god, the visible Sun itself, was perhaps originally written +in ten-line stanzas like the 'Hymn to Usertesen III.,' but +the known texts of it are all too mutilated and uncertain for us to +attempt any thorough restoration of the composition at present. A +good edition of the hymn has been published by Professor Breasted +of Chicago, and his text is here followed.</p> + +<p>King Akhenaten was one of the most original minds known to us +in Egyptian history. His bringing up was probably far more favorable +to awakening powers of thought than was usually the case with +the Pharaohs. Through his mother, Queen Tiy, he had been in +close contact with the religions of Mesopotamia, perhaps even with +Israelite monotheism; suddenly he cast off the traditions of his own +country and all its multitudinous deities of heaven, earth, and the +underworld, and devoted himself to the worship of one god, visible +and exalted, before whom all else seemed either petty, gross, or +unreal. His motto, as Professor Petrie has remarked, was "living in +truth"; and according to his lights he lived up to it. Fervently he +adored his god; and we may well believe that the words of this +hymn are those which flowed from his own heart as he contemplated +the mighty and beneficent power of the Sun.</p> + +<p>This heretical doctrine roused the passions of the orthodox, who, +triumphing over Akhenaten's reform, condemned his monuments to +systematic destruction.</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beautiful is thy resplendent appearing on the horizon of heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O living Aten, thou who art the beginning of life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou ascendest in the eastern horizon thou fillest every land with thy beauties;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art fair and great, radiant, high above the earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy beams encompass the lands to the sum of all that thou hast created.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art the Sun; thou catchest them according to their sum;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou subduest them with thy love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though thou art afar, thy beams are on the earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art in the sky, and day followeth thy steps.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5307" id="Page_5307">[Pg 5307]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When thou settest on the western horizon of heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The land is in darkness like unto death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They sleep in their chambers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their heads are covered, their nostrils are closed, the eye seeth not his fellow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All their goods are stolen from under their heads, and they know it not.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every lion cometh forth out of its cave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All creeping things bite.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth is silent, and he that made them resteth on his horizon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At dawn of day thou risest on the horizon and shinest as Aten by day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darkness flees, thou givest forth thy rays, the two lands are in festival day by day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They wake and stand upon their feet, for thou hast raised them up;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their limbs are purified, they clothe themselves with their garments;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their hands are uplifted in adoration at thy rising.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole land goeth about its several labors.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flocks rest in their pastures;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trees and plants grow green;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Birds fly forth from their nests,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their wings are adoring thy <i>Ka</i>.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">All flocks leap upon their feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All flying things and all hovering things, they live when thou risest upon them.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ships pass down-stream, and pass up-stream likewise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every way is open at thy rising.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fishes on the river leap up before thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rays are within the great waters.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It is thou who causest women to be fruitful, men to beget.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou quickenest the child in its mother's womb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou soothest it that it cry not;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou dost nurture it within its mother's womb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou givest breath to give life to all its functions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It cometh forth from the womb upon the day of its birth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou openest its mouth, that it may speak;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou providest for its wants.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5308" id="Page_5308">[Pg 5308]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When there is a chick within an egg, cheeping as it were within a stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou givest it breath therein to cause thy handiwork to live;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is full-formed when it breaketh through the shell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It cometh out of the egg when it cheepeth and is full-formed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It runneth on its feet when it cometh out thence.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How manifold are thy works,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">... O one god who hast no fellow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou createdst the earth according to thy will, when thou wast alone,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[Its] people, its herds, and all flocks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that is upon earth going upon feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that is on high and flieth with wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The countries of Syria, of Ethiopia, of Egypt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou settest each person in his place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou providest for their wants,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each one his circumstances and the duration of his life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tongues distinct in their speech,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their kinds according to their complexions—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O distinguisher who distinguishest the races of mankind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou makest the Nile in the deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou bringest it at thy pleasure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That if may give life to men, even as thou hast made them for thyself—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Lord of them all who art outwearied for them!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Lord of earth who risest for them!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Aten of day that awest all distant countries!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou makest their life;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou placest the Nile in heaven, that it may descend to them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That it may rise in waves upon the rocks like the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watering their fields in their villages.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How excellent are thy ways, O Lord of Eternity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Nile in heaven poureth down for nations,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all manner of animals that walk upon feet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[But] the Nile cometh from the deep to the land of Egypt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rays nourish every field;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou risest and they live for thee.<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou makest the seasons to bring into existence all that thou hast made:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The winter season to refresh them, the heat [to warm them].<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5309" id="Page_5309">[Pg 5309]</a></span><span class="i0">Thou madest the heaven afar off, that thou mightest rise therein,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou mightest see all thou didst make when thou wast alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou risest in thy form as the living Aten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Splendid, radiant, afar, beauteous—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">[Thou createdst all things by thyself]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cities, villages, camps, by whatsoever river they be watered.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every eye beholdeth thee before it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art the Aten of day above the earth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou art in my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is none other that knoweth thee but thy son, Fairest of the Forms of Ra, the Only One of Ra<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a>;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou causest him to be exercised in thy methods and in thy might.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole earth is in thy hand even as thou hast made them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At thy rising all live, at thy setting they die.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="HYMNS_TO_AMEN_RA221" id="HYMNS_TO_AMEN_RA221"></a>HYMNS TO AMEN RA<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></h3> + +<p>The following collection of hymns to Amen Ra is from the orthodox +worship of the New Kingdom; that is to say, it dates +from the period beginning in the XVIIth Dynasty, about 1700 +B.C. The series is contained in a papyrus now preserved in the +museum at Gîzeh and in very perfect condition.</p> + +<p>In the original, the lines are punctuated with red dots, and the +stanzas are marked by rubrics, a very valuable clue being thus provided +both as to meanings and form.</p> + +<p>The first hymn is divided into five stanzas of seven lines each,<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> +but the fourth stanza contains an error of punctuation which has +perhaps prevented this arrangement from being noticed hitherto. +The other hymns do not appear to be so divisible.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5310" id="Page_5310">[Pg 5310]</a></span>The +text presents several instances of embellishment by far-fetched, +and to our minds very feeble, puns and punning assonances. +It is impossible to reproduce these to the English reader, but some +lines in which they occur are here marked with asterisks indicating +the words in question.</p> + +<p>Although these hymns have been much admired, it must be confessed +that they are somewhat arid in comparison with the simple +expression of Akhenaten's devotion in the 'Hymn to the Aten.' To +the Egyptians, however, the mythological references were full of +meaning, while to us they are never fully intelligible. Such an enumeration +as that of the symbols and insignia of divine royalty which +we find in the second hymn, is as empty to us as references to the +Stars and Stripes, the White House, the Spread Eagle, the Union Jack, +the Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle may be to the lords of the +world in 5000 to 6000 A.D.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6"><i>Praise of Amen Ra!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The bull in Heliopolis, the chief of all the gods,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The beautiful and beloved god</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Who giveth life to all warm-blooded things,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To all manner of goodly cattle!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee, Amen Ra! lord of the thrones of the two lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou who dwellest in the sanctuary of Karnak.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bull of his mother, he who dwelleth in his fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wide-ranging in the Land of the South.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the Mezau<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a>, ruler of Punt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prince of heaven, heir of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of all things that exist!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Alone in his exploits even amongst the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The goodly bull of the Ennead<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chiefest of all the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of truth, father of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maker of men, creator of animals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the things which are, maker of fruit-trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maker of pasture, who causeth the cattle to live!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Image made by Ptah<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a>, youth fair of love!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods give praise unto him;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5311" id="Page_5311">[Pg 5311]</a></span><span class="i0">Maker of things below and of things above, he illuminateth the two lands:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He traverseth the sky in peace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra the Justified, chief of the two lands.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great one of valor, lord of awe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chief, making the earth in its entirety!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nobler in thy ways than any god,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods rejoice in his beauties!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him are given acclamations in the Great House,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glorious celebrations in the House of Flame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods love his odor when he cometh from Punt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prince of the dew, he entereth the land of the Mezau!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair of face, coming to the Divine Land<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a>!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The gods gather as dogs at his feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even as they recognize his majesty as their lord.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of fear, great one of terror,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great of soul, lordly in manifestations,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flourishing of offerings, maker of plenty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acclamations to thee, maker of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou who dost upraise the sky, and press down the ground!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>II</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Wake in health, Min-Amen!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the everlasting, maker of eternity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of adorations, dwelling in [Khemmis],<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Established of two horns, fair of face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the uraeus crown with lofty double plume,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beautiful of diadem, with lofty white crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The kingly coif with the two uraei are on his forehead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He is adorned within the palace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the Sekhet crown, the Nemes cap, and the Khepersh helmet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair of face, he taketh the Atef crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loving its south and its north.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the Sekhemt sceptre, receiving the Ames sceptre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the Meks sceptre, holding the Nekhekh,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beautiful Ruler, crowned with the white crown!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of rays, making light!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods give praises unto him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who giveth his two hands [for aid] to him that loveth him,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5312" id="Page_5312">[Pg 5312]</a></span><span class="i0">Who casteth his enemies in the fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His eye it is which overthroweth the wicked;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It casteth its lance at the devourer of Nu;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It causeth the serpent Nak to cast up that which it swallowed.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee, Ra, lord of truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose sanctuary is hidden! lord of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Khepera in the midst of his bark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He gave command, and the gods were created.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tum, maker of the Rekhyt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinguishing their kinds, making their lives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinguishing their complexions one from another.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hearing the complaint of him who is oppressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kindly of heart when called upon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He delivereth the timid from him who is of a froward heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He judgeth the cause of the weak and the oppressed.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lord of Understanding, Taste is on his lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Nile cometh at his desire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of sweetness, great one of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He maketh the Rekhyt to live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He giveth keenness to every eye.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He is made out of Nu,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creating the rays of light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods rejoice in his beauties,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their hearts live when they behold him.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>III</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Ra, exalted in Karnak!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great of splendor in the House of the Obelisk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ani, lord of the New Moon festival,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To whom are celebrated the festival of the sixth day and of the quarter month.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Liege lord, to whom Life, Prosperity, Health! lord of all the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who see him[?] in the midst of the horizon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chief over the Pat and Hades,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His name is more hidden* than his birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his name of Amen,* the hidden One.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee who art in peace!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of enlargement of heart, lordly in manifestations,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the uræus crown, with lofty double plume;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair of diadem, with lofty white crown!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods love the sight of thee,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5313" id="Page_5313">[Pg 5313]</a></span><span class="i0">The Sekhemt* crown is established upon thy forehead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy loveliness is shed* abroad over the two lands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rays shine forth in the eyes of men; fair for the Pat and the Rekhyt is thy rising,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weary are the flocks when thou art radiant.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy loveliness is in the southern sky, thy sweetness in the northern sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy beauties conquer hearts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy loveliness maketh arms to droop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy beautiful form maketh hands to fail;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hearts faint at the sight of thee.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sole figure, who didst make all that is!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One and only one, maker of all that are,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From whose eyes mankind issued,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By whose mouth the gods were created,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who makest the herbage, and makest to live the cattle, goats, swine, and sheep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fruit-trees for the Heneme<i>m</i>t.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He maketh the life of fishes in the river,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fowl of the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Giving breath to that which is in the egg;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making the offspring of the serpent to live;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making to live therewith the flies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The creeping things, and the leaping things, and the like.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making provision for the mice in their holes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making to live the birds in every tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee, maker of all these!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One and only one, with many arms!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At night wakeful while all sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeking good for his flock.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amen,* who *establishest all things!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tum Horus of the horizon!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Praises be to thee in that all say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Acclamations to thee, for that thou outweariest thyself with us!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Obeisance to thee for that thou didst make us!"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee, from all animals!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acclamations to thee from every land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the height of heaven, to the breadth of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the depth of the great waters!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods bow before thy majesty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exalting the mighty spirit that formed them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They rejoice at the coming of him who begat them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They say unto thee:—"Come, come in peace!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5314" id="Page_5314">[Pg 5314]</a></span><span class="i0">Father of the fathers of all the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou who dost upraise the sky and press down the ground."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maker of that which is, former of those which have being,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Liege lord—to whom Life, Prosperity, Health!—chief of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We adore thy mighty spirit even as thou madest us;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who were made for thee when thou fashionedst us.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We give praises unto thee for that thou outweariest thyself with us.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail to thee who didst make all that is!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of truth, father of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maker of men, fashioner of animals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making to live the animals of the desert.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amen, bull fair of face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beloved in Thebes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great one of splendors in the House of the Obelisk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twice crowned in Heliopolis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou who judgest between the twain in the Great Hall!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Chief of the great Ennead of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One and only one, without his peer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dwelling in Thebes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ani in his divine Ennead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He liveth on truth every day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God of the horizon, Horus of the East,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who hath made the hills that have silver, gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Real lapis lazuli, at his pleasure:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gums and incense are mingled for the Mezau,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh incense for thy nostrils.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair of face he cometh to the Mezau,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amen Ra, lord of the throne of the two lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He who dwelleth in Thebes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ani in his sanctuary.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">Sole King is he, even in the midst of the gods;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many are his names, none knoweth their number.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He riseth on the horizon of the east, he is laid to rest on the horizon of the west.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He overthroweth his enemies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the daily task of every day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the morning he is born each day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoth raiseth his eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And propitiateth him with his benefits;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5315" id="Page_5315">[Pg 5315]</a></span><span class="i0">The gods rejoice in his beauties,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exalting him who is in the midst of adorers!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of the Sekti and of the Madet bark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which traverse for thee Nu in peace!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thy crew rejoice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they see the overthrow of the wicked one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose members taste the knife;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flame devoureth him;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His soul is more punished than his body;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Nak serpent, he is deprived of movement.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods are in exultation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crew of Ra are in peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heliopolis is in exultation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The enemies of Turn are overthrown.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Karnak is in peace, Heliopolis is in exultation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart of the uræus goddess is glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The enemies of her lord are overthrown;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods of Kheraha are in acclamation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dwellers in the sanctuaries are in obeisance;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They behold him mighty in his power.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mighty prince of the gods!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great one of Justice*, lord of Karnak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In this thy name, "Doer of Justice*,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord of Plenty, Peaceful Bull*;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In this thy name, "Amen, Bull of his Mother,"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Making mankind*, creating* all that is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In this thy name of "Tum* Khepera*,"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Great hawk, adorning the breast!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair of face adorning the bosom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Figure lofty of diadem.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The two uræi fly on wings before him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hearts of men run up to him [like dogs],<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The illuminated ones turn towards him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adorning the two lands by his coming forth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hail to thee, Amen Ra, lord of the throne of the two lands!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His city loveth his rising.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3"><i>This is the end,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>in peace,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i3"><i>as it was found.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5316" id="Page_5316">[Pg 5316]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="SONGS_TO_THE_HARP" id="SONGS_TO_THE_HARP"></a>SONGS TO THE HARP</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Frequently in the tombs is figured a scene in which a harper plays before +the deceased. His song is ever on the same theme: Enjoy life while it lasts, +for all things pass away, and are succeeded by others which also perish in +their turn. Such were the encouragements to conviviality which the Egyptians +put into the mouths of their minstrels.</p> + +<p>One of these songs was apparently engraved in front of the figure of a +harper in the tomb or pyramid of King Antef (of the XIth or perhaps XIIIth +Dynasty, not less than 2000 B.C.), and a copy of it has been handed down +to us on a papyrus of the XVIIIth Dynasty: fragments of the same song +are moreover preserved at Leyden on slabs from a tomb of the same period.</p> + +<p>Part of another song of the same kind may be read on the walls of the +fine tomb of Neferhetep at Thebes (<i>temp.</i> XVIIIth Dynasty). This song +was a long one, but the latter part of it is now mutilated and hopelessly destroyed; +yet enough of the sequel remains to show that it rose to a somewhat +higher level of teaching than the first song, and counseled men to feed the +poor and to win a good name to leave behind them after death.</p> + +<p>The songs seem to fall naturally into stanzas of ten lines each, though +the inscriptions and papyri on which they are preserved to us are not punctuated +to indicate these divisions. In the first song the ten lines fall readily +into pairs, thus producing five-line stanzas.]</p></div> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<h4><i>Songs which are in the tomb of King Antef, justified, which are in +front of the singer on the harp</i></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Happy is this good lord! | A goodly fate is spoiled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One body passeth | and others are set up since the time of the ancestors.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> who were aforetime | rest in their sepulchres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So also the nobles glorified | buried in their sepulchres.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Palaces are built and their places are not | behold what hath been done with them!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have heard the words of Imhetep and Herdedef | who spake thus continually in their sayings:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Behold their places, their walls are ruined | their places are not, as though they had not been.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None cometh thence to tell their lot | to tell their estate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To strengthen our hearts | until ye approach the place to which they have gone."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be thou of good cheer thereat | [as for me] my heart faileth me in singing thy dirge.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5317" id="Page_5317">[Pg 5317]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Follow thy heart so long as thou existest | put frankincense on thy head;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be clothed in fine linen, be anointed with pure ben oil | things fit for a god.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enjoy thyself beyond measure | let not thy heart faint.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Follow thy desire and thy happiness while thou art on earth | fret not thy heart till cometh to thee that day of lamentations.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Still-of-Heart heareth not their lamentations | the heart of a man in the pit taketh no part in mourning.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">With radiant face, make a good day,<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i10">And rest not on it.<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Behold, it is not given to a man to carry his goods with him!<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Behold, there is none who hath gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">And cometh back hither again!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>II</h4> + +<h4>[<i>Saith the player on the harp who is in the tomb of the Osirian, the divine +father of Amen,<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> Neferhetep, Justified, he saith</i>:—]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O how weary! Truly a prince was he!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That good fate hath come to pass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bodies pass away since the time of God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The youthful come in their place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ra presenteth himself every morning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tum<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> setteth in the Mountain of the West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men beget and women conceive;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every nostril tasteth the breath of sunrise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whom they bring forth—all of them—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They come in their stead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Make holiday, O divine father!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set gums and choice unguents of every kind for thy nose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Garlands of lotuses on the shoulders,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the breast of thy sister, who is in thy heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who sitteth at thy side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set singing and music before thy face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put all sorrow behind thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bethink thyself of joys,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5318" id="Page_5318">[Pg 5318]</a></span><span class="i0">Until there cometh that day on which thou moorest at the land that loveth silence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the heart of the son whom thou lovest is still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Make holiday, O Neferhetep, Justified! | the excellent divine father, pure of hands!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There are heard all the things | that have happened to the ancestors who were aforetime;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their walls are ruined | their places are not;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are as though they had never been | since the time of the god.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May thy walls be established | may thy trees flourish on the bank of thy pond!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May thy soul sit beneath them | that it drink their waters!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Follow thy heart greatly | while thou art on earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give bread to him | who is without plot of land.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mayest thou gain a good name | for the eternal future!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mayest thou....<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FROM_AN_EPITAPH" id="FROM_AN_EPITAPH"></a>FROM AN EPITAPH</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[In the British Museum there is a memorial tablet of Ptolemaic date for a +lady of highest sacerdotal descent, on her mother's side as well as on her +father's. She was married to the chief priest of Ptah, and on her death she +addresses her male relations and friends among the priests of chief rank with +words and sentiments very different from the orthodox prayers and formulæ +which cover the funerary stelæ of Pharaonic times; though much the same +line of thought found utterance in the songs of the harpers.]</p></div> + + +<p>O brother, husband, friend, thy desire to drink and to eat +hath not ceased, [therefore] be drunken, enjoy the love of +women, make holiday. Follow thy desire by night and by +day. Put not care within thine heart. Lo! are not these the +years of thy life upon earth? For as for Amenti, it is a land of +slumber and of heavy darkness, a resting-place for those who +have passed within it. Each sleepeth [there] in his own form; +they never more awake to see their fellows, they behold not +their fathers nor their mothers, their heart is careless of their +wives and children.</p> + + +<p>The water of life with which every mouth is moistened is +corruption to me, the water that is by me corrupteth me; I know +not what to do<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> since I came into this valley. Give me running +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5319" id="Page_5319">[Pg 5319]</a></span> +water; say to me: "Water shall not cease to be brought to thee." +Turn my face to the north wind upon the edge of the water. +Verily thus shall my heart be cooled, refreshed from its pain.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a></p> + +<p>Verily I think on him whose name is "Come!" All who are +called of him come to him instantly, their hearts terrified with +fear of him. There is none whom he regardeth among gods or +men; with him the great are as the small. His hand cannot +be held back from aught that he desireth; he snatcheth the child +from its mother, as well as the aged who are continually meeting +him on his way. All men fear and pray before him, but he +heedeth them not. None cometh to gaze on him in wonder; he +hearkeneth not unto them who adore him. He is not seen<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> that +propitiatory offerings of any kind should be made to him.</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FROM_A_DIALOGUE_BETWEEN_A_MAN_AND_HIS_SOUL" id="FROM_A_DIALOGUE_BETWEEN_A_MAN_AND_HIS_SOUL"></a>FROM A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS SOUL</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The following is found on a papyrus of the XIIth Dynasty, preserved +at Berlin. After some obscure arguments the man apparently admits that the +present life is full of dissatisfaction, and proceeds.]</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me [?] like the healing of a sick man, or like a rise in life after a fall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me like the smell of frankincense, or like sitting under an awning on a day of cool breeze.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me like the scent of lotuses, like sitting on the bank of the Land of Intoxication.<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me like a road watered [?], or as when a man cometh from a campaign to his home.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me like the unveiling of the sky, or as when a man attaineth to unexpected fortune.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is ever before me like as a man desireth to see his house when he hath spent many years in pulling [the oars?].<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a><br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5320" id="Page_5320">[Pg 5320]</a></span><span class="i0">Verily he that is therein is as a living god punishing the error of the evil-doer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Verily he that is therein standeth in the boat of Ra and causeth choice viands to be given thence to the temples.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Verily he that is therein is as a wizard; he is not prevented from complaining to Ra even as he would speak.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>My soul said unto me:<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> "Lay aside [?] mourning, O Nessu my +brother, that thou mayest offer upon the altar even as thou fightest +for life, as thou sayest, 'Love me continually.' Thou hast refused +the grave; desire then that thou mayest reach the grave, that thy +body may join the earth, that I may hover [over thee] after thou art +weary. Let us then make a dwelling together."</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_NEGATIVE_CONFESSION" id="THE_NEGATIVE_CONFESSION"></a>'THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION'</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[It may be thought that the fundamental ideas of Egyptian morality +would be most succinctly expressed in the so-called 'Negative Confession' +contained in the 'Book of the Dead.' When the deceased appeared before +Osiris he was supposed to recite this confession, in which he alleged his freedom +from a long catalogue of sins: he repeated it in two forms. After the +XVIIIth Dynasty, B.C. 1500, it was considered as perhaps the most essential +of all the texts deposited in the tomb with the mummy, for the guidance of +the deceased person before his fate was finally settled. It is therefore to be +found in thousands of copies, but unfortunately this much-worn text is as +corrupt as most of the other sections of the Book of the Dead. The hack +scribes and calligraphists were content to copy without understanding it, often +bungling or wresting the sense according to their very imperfect lights. It is +seldom that different copies agree precisely in their readings: often the differences +are very material and leave the true sense altogether uncertain. Again, +even where the reading seems comparatively sure, the meaning remains +obscure, owing to the occurrence of rare words or expressions. All the +phrases begin with the negative "not."]</p></div> + +<h4><span class="smcap">First Confession</span></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have not done injury to men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not oppressed those beneath me.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not acted perversely [prevaricated?], instead of straightforwardly.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5321" id="Page_5321">[Pg 5321]</a></span><span class="i0">I have not known vanity.<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been a doer of mischief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not done what the gods abominate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not turned the servant against his master.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not caused hunger.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not caused weeping.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not murdered.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not commanded murder.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not caused suffering to men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not cut short the rations of the temples.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not diminished the offerings of the gods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not taken the provisions of the blessed dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not committed fornication nor impurity in what was sacred to the god of my city.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not added to nor diminished the measures of grain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not diminished the palm measure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not falsified the cubit of land.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not added to the weights of the balance.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not nullified the plummet of the scales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not taken milk from the mouth of babes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not driven cattle from their herbage.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not trapped birds, the bones of the gods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not caught fish in their pools.[?]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not stopped water in its season.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not dammed running water.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not quenched fire when burning.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not disturbed the cycle of gods when at their choice meats.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not driven off the cattle of the sacred estate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not stopped a god in his comings forth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Second Confession</span></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have not done injustice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not robbed.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5322" id="Page_5322">[Pg 5322]</a></span><span class="i0">I have not coveted.[?]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not stolen.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not slain men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not diminished the corn measure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not acted crookedly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not stolen the property of the gods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not spoken falsehood.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not taken food away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been lazy.[?]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not trespassed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not slain a sacred animal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been niggardly in grain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not stolen....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been a pilferer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My mouth hath not run on.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been a talebearer in business not mine own.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not committed adultery with another man's wife.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been impure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not made disturbance.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not transgressed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My mouth hath not been hot.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not been deaf to the words of truth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not made confusion.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not caused weeping.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am not given to unnatural lust.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not borne a grudge.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not quarreled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am not of aggressive hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am not of inconstant mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not spoiled the color of him who washeth the god. [??]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My voice has not been too voluble in my speech.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not deceived nor done ill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not cursed the king.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My voice is not loud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not cursed God.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not made bubbles.[?]<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not made [unjust] preferences.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not acted the rich man except in my own things.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have not offended the god of my city.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5323" id="Page_5323">[Pg 5323]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THE_TEACHING_OF_AMENEMHAT" id="THE_TEACHING_OF_AMENEMHAT"></a>THE TEACHING OF AMENEMHAT</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The advice given by Amenemhat I., the founder of the XIIth Dynasty, +to his son and successor Usertesen I. (about B.C. 2500), is a short composition +that was much in vogue during the New Kingdom as an exercise for +schoolboys. Six copies of portions or of the whole have survived to our +day; but with one exception all are very corrupt, and the text is extremely +difficult to translate. Our oldest copies appear to date from the middle of +the XIXth Dynasty (about B.C. 1300). But the composition itself must be +older than this; indeed, it may be a true record of the great King's charge +to his son.</p> + +<p>The following seems to be the purpose and argument of the work. Amenemhat, +who has already virtually associated Usertesen with himself in the +kingdom, determines in consequence of a plot against his life to insure his +son's succession by announcing it in a formal manner. He has labored strenuously +and successfully for his own glory and for the good of his people, but +in return he is scarcely saved from ignominious dethronement or assassination +through a conspiracy formed in his own household. The moral to +be drawn from this is pointed out to his son with considerable bitterness and +scorn in the 'Teaching,' in which, however, Usertesen is promised a brilliant +reign if he will attend to his father's instructions.</p> + +<p>It is perhaps worth while noticing that there is no expression of piety or +reference to the worship of divinities either in the precepts themselves or in +the narrative. The personified Nile is spoken of in a manner that would be +likely to offend its worshipers; but in the last section, the interpretation of +which is extremely doubtful, Amenemhat seems to acquiesce in the orthodox +views concerning the god Ra.</p> + +<p>Usertesen's reign dates from Amenemhat's XXth year, and that his association +was then no secret but already formally acknowledged, is amply +proved. The King seems to feel already the approach of old age and death, +and though he lived on to assist his son with his counsel for no less than +ten years, it was apparently in retirement from public life.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> The work has +been considered as a posthumous charge to Usertesen, but although certain +expressions seem to support this view, on the whole I think its correctness +improbable.</p> + +<p>In several copies the text is divided by rubrics into fifteen paragraphs, and +the phrases are punctuated by dots placed above the lines. In the following +rendering the paragraphs are preserved, and summarized where they are too +difficult to translate. The incompleteness of the best text leaves the last two +paragraphs in almost hopeless confusion.]</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5324" id="Page_5324">[Pg 5324]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />1. [Title and introduction.]</p> + +<p>Commencement in the teaching made by the majesty of the +King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Sehetepabra, Son of the +Sun, Amenemhat, justified, which he spake as a dividing +of truth<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> to his Son, the Universal Lord. Said he:—</p> + +<p>"Shine forth as a God! Hearken to that I say to thee, that +thou mayest be king of the land and rule the territories, that +thou mayest excel in all wealth.</p> + +<p><br />2. [Exhortation to caution in associating with subjects.]</p> + +<p>"Let one be armored against his associates as a whole; it +befalleth that mankind turn their heart to him who inspireth +them with fear. Enter not to them singly; fill not thy heart +with a brother; know not an honored friend; make not to thyself +free-and-easy visitors, by which nothing is accomplished.</p> + +<p><br />3. [Trust not to the aid of friends.]</p> + +<p>"When thou liest down, keep to thyself thine own heart; for +friends exist not for a man on the day of troubles. I gave to +the beggar, and I made the orphan to exist<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a>; I caused the man +of no position to obtain his purpose even as the man of position.</p> + +<p><br />4. [Continuation of 3: Reward of his beneficence.]</p> + +<p>"It was the eater of my food that made insurrection; he +to whom I gave a helping hand produced terror therewith; they +who put on my fine linen looked on me as shadows<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a>; they who +were anointed with my frankincense defiled me while using it.</p> + +<p><br />5. [Men forget the heroism of his achievements on their behalf, +though their happy condition speaks loudly of it; by forgetting +they lose much of the advantages he has procured them.]</p> + +<p>"My portraits are among the living, my achievements among +men, making for me dirges that none heed, a great feat of +combat that none see. Behold, one fighteth for a lassoed ox, +that forgetteth yesterday. Good fortune is not complete for one +who cannot know it.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5325" id="Page_5325">[Pg 5325]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />6. [An attempt upon his life: circumstances of the attack.]</p> + +<p>"It was after supper, and night was come on. I took an +hour of heart pleasure; I lay down upon my <i>diwân</i>; I sank-in-rest, +my heart began to follow slumber. Behold! weapons were +brandished [?], and there was conversation concerning me; while +I acted like the serpent of the desert.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> + +<p><br />7. [Taken by surprise, he could not defend himself.]</p> + +<p>"I awoke to fight; I was alone. I found that it was the +stroke of an ally. If I had taken swiftly the arms from his +hand I should have caused the cowards to retreat, by dint of +smiting round. But there is not a man of valor at night; there +is no fighting single-handed; there happens not a successful bout +in ignorance. Behold thou me.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p> + +<p><br />8. [Usertesen's association the only safeguard. Amenemhat +is not stern enough to rule Egypt longer, but he offers to assist +with his counsel.]</p> + +<p>"Behold thou, [then?] abominable things came to pass when I +was without thee, because the courtiers had not heard that I had +handed on to thee [the kingdom], because I had not sat with +thee [on the throne]. Let me [then] make thy arrangements,<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> +for I do not confound them.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> I am not ignorant of them, but +my heart does not remember the slackness of servants.</p> + +<p><br />9. [The conspiracy was hatched in the palace itself; the commons +were hoodwinked; there was no ground for discontent.]</p> + +<p>"Is it the function of women to captain assassins? Is the +interior of a house the nursery of insurgents? Is mining done +by dint of cutting through the snow?<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> The underlings were kept +ignorant of what they were doing. Ill fortunes have not come +behind me<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> since my birth; there has not been success like +mine in working to the measure of my ability.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5326" id="Page_5326">[Pg 5326]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />10. [Amenemhat's activity.]</p> + +<p>"I pushed up to Elephantine and I turned back to Natho;<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> I +stood upon the ends of the earth and saw its edge.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> I carried +forward the boundaries of strength-of-arm<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> by my valor and by +my feats.</p> + +<p><br />11. [His beneficent rule.]</p> + +<p>"I was a maker of barley, beloved of Nepra<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a>; the Nile begged +my mercy in every hollow. None were hungry in my years, +none were thirsty therein; the people sat [content] in what they +did, saying with reference to me, 'Every command is in its right +place.'</p> + +<p><br />12. [His valor in war and in the chase.]</p> + +<p>"I overcame lions, I captured crocodiles. I seized Wawat, I +carried away Mezay; I caused the Setiu to go like hounds.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p> + +<p><br />13. [The house and tomb that he built.]</p> + +<p>"I built a house adorned with gold, its ceiling with blue,<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> its +walls having deep foundations, the gates of copper, the bolts of +bronze, made for everlasting....</p> + +<p><br />14. [Usertesen is the sole guardian of its secrets: he is trusted +and beloved by the King and popular in the country.]</p> + +<p>"There are numerous intricacies of passages. I know that the +successor will seek its beauties, for he knoweth it not without +thee. But thou art [?] my son Usertesen, as my feet walk; +thou art my own heart as my eyes see, born in a good hour, +with mortals who give thee praise.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5327" id="Page_5327">[Pg 5327]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />15. [Amenemhat leaves Usertesen with the prospect of a brilliant +reign.]</p> + +<p>"Behold, what I have done at the beginning thou hast arranged +finally. Thou art the haven of what was in my heart. All collectively +offer the white crown to [thee], the Seed of God, sealed +to its right place. Begin for thee greetings in the bark of Ra.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> +Then a reign cometh of the first order, not of what I did in +working to the extent of my powers. Set up monuments and +make good thy tomb."...</p> + +<p class="center"><i>This is its arrival.</i></p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_PRISSE_PAPYRUS" id="THE_PRISSE_PAPYRUS"></a>THE PRISSE PAPYRUS</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The so-called Prisse Papyrus was obtained at Thebes by the French +artist and Egyptologist who gave it the name by which it is now known. It +is a celebrated document, though as yet but little understood. The language +being difficult and the text in many places corrupt, it is useless to offer a +complete translation. In the following, several passages are omitted altogether, +and the most uncertain portions are italicized, and even of what remains very +little can be guaranteed. The beginning is lost; the first two pages contain +the end of a book of proverbs, the text of which falls naturally into sections, +although it is not divided by rubrics.]</p></div> + +<p><br />1. [The first section lays down axioms in regard to discretion +in speech.</p> + +<p>"The cautious man succeeds; the accurate man is praised; to +the man of silence the sleeping-chamber is opened. Wide +scope hath he who is acquiescent in his speech; knives +are set against him who forceth his way wrongfully. <i>Let no +one approach out of his turn.</i>"</p> + +<p><br />2. [In regard to food: abstinence.]</p> + +<p>"If thou sittest [at meat] with a company, hate the bread +that thou desirest—it is a little moment. Restrain appetite; gluttony +is base.... A cup of water, it quencheth the thirst; a +mouthful of melon, it stayeth the appetite. It is a good thing to +make substitute for a luxury [<i>or</i>, that which is good can replace +a luxury]; a little of a small matter can replace a great thing. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5328" id="Page_5328">[Pg 5328]</a></span> +It is a base fellow who is mastered by his belly, who passeth time +that he wotteth not, free ranging of his belly in their houses."</p> + +<p><br />3. [When with a great eater or drinker, offend not by over-abstinence.]</p> + +<p>"If thou sittest at meat with a gormandizer and eatest [?], +his desire departeth; if thou drinkest with a toper and takest +wine, his heart is satisfied. Be not afraid of meat in company +with the greedy; take what he giveth thee; refuse it not, for it +will humor him."</p> + +<p><br />4. [Against surliness.]</p> + +<p>"If there be a man devoid of sociability [<i>lit.</i>, making himself +known], on whom no word hath power, <i>sulky</i> of countenance +to <i>him who would soften</i> the heart <i>by being</i> gracious to him; +he is rude to his mother and to his people, every one [crieth]: +'Let thy name come forth! thou art silent with the mouth when +spoken to.'"<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a></p> + +<p><br />5. [Against over-confidence in view of the uncertainties of +life.]</p> + +<p>"Let not thy heart be proud for valor in the midst of thy +troops. Beware of overbearingness [?]: one knoweth not what +shall happen; what a god will do when he striketh."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[These proverbs were evidently set in a short story, calculated to point the +moral that obedience to wise teaching leads to preferment. The introductory +part has gone with the beginning of the document; but here at the end of +the book there is a passage showing that they were composed by a wazîr, +<i>i. e.</i>, by the chief administrative official of the kingdom. He read them to +his children; one of whom, it seems, named Kagemni, afterwards succeeded to +the wazîrship. The following is the translation of this concluding text.]</p></div> + +<p>The wazîr caused his children to be summoned when he had +finished the conduct of men;<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> they rejoiced greatly at coming; +therefore when he said to them:—"Verily, all things +that are in writing on this roll, obey them as I say [them];<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> do +not pass beyond what is commanded," they [the children] cast +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5329" id="Page_5329">[Pg 5329]</a></span> +themselves upon their bellies and read them even as they were +written; they were good within them<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> more than anything that +is in the whole land; their uprising and their downsitting was +according thereto.</p> + +<p>Then the majesty of King Huni moored his ship;<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a>then was +set up the majesty of King Sneferu as the good King in this +whole land. Then Kagemni was appointed governor of the royal +city, and wazîr.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>This is its arrival.</i><a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Huni was the last king of the IIId Dynasty, Seneferu the founder of the +IVth Dynasty, and Kagemni is a name found in some of the earliest inscribed +tombs; but the language, at least of this last paragraph, betrays the style of +the Middle Kingdom. The proverbs themselves may be much earlier.</p> + +<p>After a blank the second text begins.]</p></div> + + + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Instruction Of Ptahhetep</span></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[This is another collection of proverbs, in sixteen pages, and with the rubrics +marked. Small fragments from a duplicate copy of this book of proverbs +show considerable variation from the Prisse text, and prove the corruptness +and uncertainty of the latter. It is however quite complete. We are able +to give a list of the contents of the sections, most of which are very brief, +and to append to the headings translations of a considerable proportion of +the whole. Further study will doubtless throw light on much that is still +obscure.</p> + +<p>General Title and Introduction: The wazîr Ptahhetep addresses the King, +and recounts the evils of old age.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> Having received the command to take his +son into his office of wazîr, he desires to teach him the rules of conduct +observed in the time when the gods reigned over Egypt. The King approves, +and bids him commence his instruction.]</p></div> + +<h4><i>Instruction of the governor of the royal city, and wazîr Ptahetep, before +the majesty of King Assa, who liveth forever and ever</i></h4> + +<p>The governor of the royal city, and wazîr Ptahhetep, saith:—</p> + +<p>"O King my lord, years come on, old age befalleth, decrepitude +arriveth, weakness is renewed, he lieth helpless day +by day; the two eyes are contracted, the ears are dull, strength +diminisheth from weariness of heart; the mouth is silent and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5330" id="Page_5330">[Pg 5330]</a></span> +speaketh not, the heart is closed and remembereth not yesterday; +... good becometh evil, all taste departeth; old age is evil +for man in every way: the nose is stopped and breatheth not, +standing and sitting are [alike] weary [?].</p> + +<p>"It hath been commanded the servant<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> to make a successor.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> +Let me tell unto him the sayings of those who obeyed,<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> the +conduct of them of old, of them who obeyed the gods; would +that the like may be done to thee,<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> that ill may be banished +from among the Rekhyt, and the two lands serve thee."</p> + +<p>Said the Majesty of this god:—</p> + +<p>"Teach him according to the words of former days; let him +do what is admirable for the sons of the nobles, so that to enter +and listen unto his words will be the due training of every +heart; and that which he saith shall not be a thing producing +satiety."</p> + +<p><br />[Title and aim of the proverbs.]</p> + +<p>Beginning of the proverbs of good words spoken by the <i>ha</i>-prince,<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> +the father of the god who loves the god,<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> the King's +eldest son of his body, the governor of the city and wazîr, Ptahhetep, +as teaching the ignorant to know according to the rule of +good words, expounding the profit to him who shall hearken unto +it, and the injury to him who shall transgress it. He saith unto +his son:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5331" id="Page_5331">[Pg 5331]</a></span>—</p> + +<p><br />1. [Be not proud of thy learning: there is always more to +learn.]</p> + +<p>"Let not thy heart be great because of thy knowledge; converse +with the ignorant as with the learned: the boundary of +skill is not attainable; there is no expert who is completely provided +with what is profitable to him: good speech is hidden more +than the emeralds<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> that are found by female slaves on the pebbles."</p> + +<p><br />2. [Silence will be the best weapon against a more able debater +than thyself.]</p> + +<p>"If thou findest a debater<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> in his moment,<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> persuading the +heart<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> as more successful than thyself: droop thy arms, bend thy +back, <i>let not thy heart challenge him; then he will not reach unto +thee.<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> Be sparing of evil words, as if declining to refute him in +his moment. He will be called ignorant of things, while thy heart +restraineth its wealth.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a></p> + +<p><br />3. [Refute the bad arguments of an equal in debate.]</p> + +<p>"If thou findest a debater in his moment, thine equal, who is +within thy reach, to whom thou canst cause thyself to become +superior: be not silent when he speaketh evil; a great thing is +the approval of the hearers, that thy name should be good in the +knowledge of the nobles."<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p> + +<p><br />4. [A feeble debater can be left to refute himself.]</p> + +<p>"If thou findest a debater in his moment, a poor man, that +is to say, not thine equal, let not thine heart leap out at him +when he is feeble. Let him alone, let him refute himself, question +him not overmuch.<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> Do not wash the heart<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> of him who +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5332" id="Page_5332">[Pg 5332]</a></span> +agreeth with [?] thee: it is painful, despising the poor, ... +thou strikest him with the punishment of nobles."<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></p> + +<p><br />5. [A leader of men should use his authority for justice.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art a guide, commanding the conduct of a company, +seek for thyself every good aim, so that thy policy may be without +error;[?] a great thing is justice, enduring and surviving<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a>; it +is not upset since the time of Osiris; he who departs from the +laws is punished and ... <i>It is the modest</i>[?] <i>that obtain +wealth; never did the greedy</i>[?] <i>arrive at their aim; he saith, 'I +have captured for mine own self;' he saith not, 'I have captured +by [another's'] command.' The end of justice is that it endureth +long; such as a man will say, 'It is from</i> [?] <i>my father.</i>'"</p> + +<p><br />6. [Be not a disturber of the peace.]</p> + +<p>"Make not terror amongst men;<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> God punisheth the like. +There is the man that saith, 'Let him live thereby who is without +the bread of his lips.' There is the man that saith, +'Strong is he who saith, I have captured for myself what I have +recognized.' There is the man who saith, 'Let him smite +another who attaineth, in order to give to him who is in want:' +never <i>did violence among men succeed: what God commandeth +cometh to pass. Then</i><a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> <i>thou mayest live in a palace; pleasure cometh, +and people give things freely.</i>"</p> + +<p><br />7. [Behavior to a patron.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art a man of those who sit at the place of a greater +man than thyself, take what he giveth <i>with thy hand to thy +nose</i>;<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> thou shalt look at what is before thee; pierce him not +with many glances; it is abomination to the soul for them to be +directed at him. Speak not unto him until he calleth: one knoweth +not the evil at heart [that it causeth]; thou shalt speak when +he questioneth thee, and then what thou sayest will be good to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5333" id="Page_5333">[Pg 5333]</a></span> +the heart. The noble who hath excess of bread, his procedure +is as his soul<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> commandeth; he will give to him whom he praiseth: +it is the manner of night-time.<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> It befalleth that it is the +soul that openeth his hands. The noble giveth; it is not that the +man winneth [the gift]. The eating of bread is under the management +of God: it is the ignorant that rebelleth [?] against it."</p> + +<p><br />8. [Behavior of a man sent on business from one lord to another.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art a man that entereth, sent by a noble to a noble, +be exact in the manner of him who sendeth thee; do the business +for him as he saith. Beware of making ill feeling by words +that would set noble against noble, in destroying justice; do not +exaggerate it; but the washing of the heart shall not be repeated +in the speech of any man, noble or commoner: that is abomination +of the soul."</p> + +<p><br />9. [Gain thy living at thy business; do not sponge on relations, +nor hunt legacies.]</p> + +<p>"If thou plowest, labor steadily in the field, that God may +make it great in thine hand; let not thy mouth be filled at thy +neighbor's table. <i>It is a great thing to make disturbance of the +silent.</i> Verily he who possesseth prudence is as the possessor of +goods: <i>he taketh like a crocodile from the officials</i>. [?] Beg not as +a poor man of him who is without children, and make no boast +of him. The father is important when the mother that beareth +is wanting, and another woman is added unto her:<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> <i>a man may +produce a god such that the tribe shall pray [to be allowed] to +follow him.</i>"</p> + +<p><br />10. [If unsuccessful, take work under a good master; be respectful +to those who have risen in the world.]</p> + +<p>"If thou failest, follow a successful man; let all thy conduct +be good before God. When thou knowest that a little man hath +advanced, let not thine heart be proud towards him by reason +of what thou knowest of him; a man who hath advanced, be +respectful to him in proportion to what hath arrived to him; +for behold, possessions do not come of themselves, it is their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5334" id="Page_5334">[Pg 5334]</a></span> +[the gods'] law for those whom they love: verily he who hath +risen, he hath been prudent for himself, and it is God that maketh +his success; and he would punish him for it if he were indolent."</p> + +<p><br />11. [Take reasonable recreation.]</p> + +<p>"Follow thy heart the time that thou hast; do not more than +is commanded; diminish not the time of following the heart; that +is abomination to the soul, that its moment<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> should be disregarded. +Spend not [on labor] the time of each day beyond what +[is necessary] for furnishing thy house. When possessions are +obtained, follow the heart; for possessions are not made full use +of if [the owner] is <i>weary</i>."</p> + +<p><br />12. [Treatment of a son.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art a successful man and thou makest a son by +God's grace [?], if he is accurate, goeth again in thy way and +attendeth to thy business on the proper occasion, do unto him +every good thing: he is thy son to whom it belongeth, that thy +<i>Ka</i> begat: estrange not thy heart from him; <i>inheritance</i> [?] <i>maketh +quarrels</i>. [?] If he err and transgress thy way, and refuseth [?] +everything said while his mouth babbleth vain words...."</p> + +<p><br />13. [Be patient in the law court.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art in the council hall, standing and sitting until thy +going [forward], that hath been commanded for thee on the +earliest day: go not away if thou art kept back, while the +face is attentive to him who entereth and reporteth, and the place +of him who is summoned is broad.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> The council hall is according +to rule, and all its method according to measure. It is God +that promoteth position; it is not done to those who are ready of +elbows."</p> + +<p><br />14. [Make friends with all men.]</p> + +<p><br />15. [Report progress, whether good or evil, to your chief.]</p> + +<p><br />16. [A leader with wide instructions should pursue a far-sighted +policy.]</p> + +<p><br />17. [A leader should listen to complaints.]<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5335" id="Page_5335">[Pg 5335]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />18. [Beware of women.]</p> + +<p>"If thou wishest to prolong friendship in a house into which +thou enterest as master, as brother, or as friend, [in fact in] any +place that thou enterest, beware of approaching the women: no +place in which that is done prospereth. The face is not watchful +in attaining it. A thousand men are injured in order to be +profited for a little moment, like a dream, by tasting which +death is reached."...</p> + +<p><br />19. [Keep from injustice or covetousness.]</p> + +<p>"If thou desirest thy procedure to be good, take thyself from +all evil: beware of any covetous aim. That is as the painful +disease of colic. He who entereth on it is not successful. It +embroileth fathers and mothers with the mother's brothers, it +separateth wife and husband. It is a thing that taketh to itself +all evils, a bundle of all wickedness. A man liveth long whose +rule is justice, who goeth according to its [the rule's] movements. +He maketh a property thereby, while a covetous man hath no +house."</p> + +<p><br />20. [Be satisfied with a fair share.]</p> + +<p>"Let not thine heart be extortionate about shares, in grasping +at what is not thy portion. Let not thy heart be extortionate +towards thy neighbors: greater is the prayer to a kindly person +than force. Poor is he that carrieth off his neighbors [by violence] +without the persuasion of words. A little for which there +hath been extortion maketh remorse when the blood<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> is cool."</p> + +<p><br />21. [Pay attention to thy wife when thou hast attained a +competence.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art successful and hast furnished thine house, and lovest +the wife of thy bosom, fill her belly, clothe her back. The +medicine for her body is oil. Make glad her heart during the +time that thou hast. She is a field profitable to its owner."...</p> + +<p><br />22. [Entertain visitors with thy means.]</p> + +<p><br />23. [Do not repeat scandal [?].]</p> + +<p><br />24. [Talk not of unfamiliar things in the council.]</p> + +<p><br />25. [Advice to an able speaker.]</p> + +<p>"If thou art strong, inspiring awe by knowledge or by pleasing, +speak in first command; that is to say, not according to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5336" id="Page_5336">[Pg 5336]</a></span> +[another's] lead. The weak man [?] entereth into error. Raise +not thine heart, lest it be cast down. Be not silent. Beware of +interruption and of answering words with heat [?].... The +flames of a fiery heart sweep away the mild man, when a fighter +treadeth on his path. He who doth accounts all day long hath +not a pleasant moment; he who enjoyeth himself all day long +doth not provide his house. The archer will hit his mark even +as he that worketh the rudder, at one time letting it alone, at +another pulling; he that obeyeth his heart [conscience?] shall +<i>command</i>."</p> + +<p><br />26. [Do not add to others' burdens.]</p> + +<p><br />27. [Teach a noble what will profit him.]</p> + +<p><br />28. [Deliver an official message straightforwardly.]</p> + +<p><br />29. [Call not to remembrance favors that you have bestowed, +when the recipient has ceased to thank you.]</p> + +<p><br />30. [Advice to one that has risen in the world.]</p> + +<p>"If thou gainest great after small things and makest wealth +after poverty, so that thou art an example thereof in thy city, +thou art known in thy nome and thou art become prominent: do +not wrap up [?] thy heart in thy riches that have come to thee +by the gift of God,... another like unto thee to whom the +like hath fallen."</p> + +<p><br />31. [Obedience to chief.]</p> + +<p>"Bend thy back to thy chief, thy superior of the king's +house, on whose property thine house dependeth, and thy payments<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> +in their proper place. It is ill to be at variance with the +chief. One liveth [only] while he is gracious."...</p> + +<p><br />32. [Against lewdness.]</p> + +<p><br />33. [Judge a friend's character at first hand.]</p> + +<p>"If thou seekest the character of a friend, mind thou, do not +ask; go to him, occupy thyself with him alone so as not to interfere +with his business. Argue with him after a season, test [?] +his heart with an instance of speech."...</p> + +<p><br />34. [Be cheerful to friends.]</p> + +<p>"Let thy face be shining the time that thou hast: verily that +which cometh out of the store doth not enter again; but bread is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5337" id="Page_5337">[Pg 5337]</a></span> +for apportionment, and he that is niggardly is an accuser, empty +of his belly. It befalleth that a quarrelsome man is a spoiler of +things; do it not unto him who cometh unto thee. The remembrance +of a man is of his kindliness in the years after the staff +[of power?]."<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a></p> + +<p><br />35. [Importance of credit.]</p> + +<p>"Know<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> thy tradesman when thy affairs are unsuccessful; thy +good reputation with thy friend is a channel well filled; it is +more important than a man's wealth. The property of one +belongeth to another. A profitable thing is the good reputation of +a man's son to him. The nature is better than the memory."[?]</p> + +<p><br />36. [Punish for an example, instruct for the principle.]</p> + +<p><br />37. [Treat kindly a seduced woman.]</p> + +<p>"If thou makest a woman ashamed, wanton of heart, whom +her fellow townspeople know to be under two laws,<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> be kind to +her a season; send her not away, let her have food to eat. The +wantonness of her heart <i>appreciateth guidance</i>."</p> + +<p><br />38. [Advantage of obedience to rule.]</p> + +<p>"If thou hearkenest to these things that I tell thee, and all +thy behavior is according to what precedeth,<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> verily they have a +true course. They are precious, their memory goeth in the +mouth of men by reason of the excellence of their phrasing; +and each saying is carried on; it is not destroyed out of this +land ever; it maketh a rule to advantage by which the nobles +may speak. It is a teaching for a man that he may speak to +the future. He that heareth them becometh an expert. A good +hearer speaketh to the future of what he hath heard. If good +fortune befalleth by reason of him who is at the head of affairs, +it is to him good forever, and all his satisfactoriness remaineth +to eternity. It is he who knoweth that blesseth his soul<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5338" id="Page_5338">[Pg 5338]</a></span> +establishing his excellence upon earth: he who knoweth hath +satisfaction of his knowledge. A noble<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> taketh his right course +in what his heart and his tongue provide; his lips are correct +when he speaketh, his eyes in seeing, his ears just in hearing; a +profitable thing for his son is doing right, free from wrong.</p> + +<p>"It is a profitable thing for the son of one who hath hearkened +[to instruction] to hearken [to his father], entering and listening +to a hearkener. A hearkener becometh a person hearkened to, +good in hearkening and good in speech; a hearkener possesseth +what is profitable: profitable to the hearkener is hearkening. +Hearkening is better than anything: it befalleth indeed that love +is good, but twice good is it when a son receiveth what his +father saith: old age cometh to him therewith. He who loveth +God hearkeneth, he who hateth God doth not hearken: it is the +heart that maketh its possessor hearken or not hearken, and the +Life, Prosperity, and Health<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> of a man is his heart. The +hearkener heareth what is said. He that loveth to hear doeth +according to what is said. Twice good is it for a son to hearken +to his father. How happy is he to whom these things are told! +A son, he shineth as possessing the quality of hearkening. The +hearkener to whom they are told, he is excellent in body. He +that is pious-and-well-pleasing<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> to his father, his memory is in +the mouth of the living who are upon earth, whoever they +shall be."</p> + +<p><br />39. [The docile son.]</p> + +<p>"If the son of a man receive what his father saith, no plan of +his shall fail. [He whom] thou teachest as thy son, or the +listener that is successful in the heart of the nobles, he guideth +his mouth according to what he hath been told. <i>He that +beholdeth is as he that obeyeth</i>, i. e., <i>a son</i><a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a>; his ways are distinguished. +He faileth that entereth without hearing. He that +knoweth, on the next day is established; he who is ignorant is +crushed."<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a></p> + +<p><br />40. [The ignorant and unteachable man is a miserable failure.]</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<a name="GREEK_UNCIAL_WRITING" id="GREEK_UNCIAL_WRITING"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>GREEK UNCIAL WRITING.</i></span> +<p class="center">Letter of Dioscorides to Dorian, from a Manuscript on papyrus, found +in a sealed clay vessel in an Egyptian tomb.<br /> +Written in the IIIrd century B.C.</p> +<img src="images/writing.png" width="440" height="640" alt="GREEK UNCIAL WRITING." title="GREEK UNCIAL WRITING." /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5339" id="Page_5339">[Pg 5339]</a></span></p> + +<p><br />41. [The handing down of good precepts.]</p> + +<p>"The son of a hearkener is as an Attendant of Horus<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a>: there +is good for him when he hath hearkened; he groweth old, he +reacheth <i>Amakh</i><a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a>; he telleth the like to his children, renewing +the teaching of his father. Every man teacheth as he hath performed; +he telleth the like to his sons, that they may tell again +to their children.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> Do what is admirable; cause not thyself to be +mocked;[?] establish truth that thy children may live. If virtue +entereth, vice departeth: then men who shall see such-like shall +say, 'Behold, that man spoke to one who hearkened!' and +they shall do the like; or 'Behold, that man was observant.' +All shall say, 'They pacify the multitude; riches are not complete +without them.'<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> Add not a word, nor take one away; put +not one in the place of another. Guard thyself against opening +the lacunæ[?] that are in thee. Guard thyself against being told, +'One who knoweth is listening; mark thou. Thou desirest to +be established in the mouth of those who hear<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> when thou +speakest. But thou hast entered on the business of an expert; +thou speakest of matters that belong to us, and thy way is not +in its proper place.'"</p> + +<p><br />42. [Speak with consideration.]</p> + +<p>"Let thy heart be overflowing, let thy mouth be restrained: +consider how thou shalt behave among the nobles. Be exact in +practice with thy master: act so that he may say, 'The son of +that man shall speak to those that shall hearken. Praiseworthy +also is he who formed him.'</p> + +<p>"Apply thine heart while thou art speaking, that thou mayest +speak things of distinction; then the nobles who shall hear will +say, 'How good is that which proceedeth out of his mouth!'"</p> + +<p><br />43. [Obedience to the master.]</p> + +<p>"Do according to that thy master telleth thee. How excellent +[to a man] is the teaching of his father, out of whom he hath +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5340" id="Page_5340">[Pg 5340]</a></span> +come, out of his very body, and who spake unto him while he +was yet altogether in his loins! Greater is what hath been done +unto him than what hath been said unto him. Behold, a good +son that God giveth doeth beyond what he is told for his master; +he doeth right, doing heartily [?] in his goings even as thou +hast come unto me, that thy body may be sound, that the King +may be well pleased with all that is done, that thou mayest +spend years of life. It is no small thing that I have done on +earth; I have spent 110 years<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> of life while the King gave me +praises as among the ancestors, by my doing uprightly to the +King until the state of Amakh.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a>"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>This is its arrival</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>like that which was found in the writing.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="transc">[The following extracts are reproduced from the German of Professor +Erman's translation.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FROM_THE_MAXIMS_OF_ANY" id="FROM_THE_MAXIMS_OF_ANY"></a>FROM THE 'MAXIMS OF ANY'</h3> + +<p>"Keep thyself from the strange woman who is not known in +her city. Look not upon her when she cometh, and know +her not. She is like unto a whirlpool in deep water, the +whirling vortex of which is not known. The woman whose husband +is afar writeth unto thee daily. When none is there to see +her, she standeth up and spreadeth her snare; sin unto death is +it to hearken thereto." Hence he who is wise will renounce her +company and take to himself a wife in his youth. A man's own +house is "the best thing," and also "she will give unto thee a +son who shall be as the image of thyself."...</p> + +<p>[Thy debt to thy mother.]<br /> +Thou shalt never forget thy mother and what she hath done +for thee, "that she bore thee, and nurtured thee in all ways." +Wert thou to forget her then might she blame thee, "lifting up +her arms unto God, and he would hearken unto her complaint. +For she carried thee long beneath her heart as a heavy burden, +and after thy months were accomplished she bore thee. Three +long years she carried thee upon her shoulder and gave thee her +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5341" id="Page_5341">[Pg 5341]</a></span> +breast to thy mouth." She nurtured thee, nor knew offense +from thine uncleanness. "And when thou didst enter the school +and wast instructed in the writings, daily she stood by the master +with bread and beer from her house."</p> + +<p>[Be not drunken with beer.]<br /> +Drink not beer to excess! That which cometh forth from thy +mouth thou canst no longer speak. Thou fallest down, thou +breakest thy limbs, and none stretcheth out a hand to thee. Thy +companions drink on; they arise and say, "Away with this one +who hath drunken." When one cometh to seek thee, to seek +counsel of thee, he findeth thee lying in the dust like a little +child.</p> + +<p>[Of inward piety.]<br /> +"Clamor is abhorrent to the sanctuary of God; let thy prayers +for thyself come forth out of a loving heart, whose words remain +secret, that he may grant thee thy needs, may hear thy prayer, +and accept thine offering."</p> + +<p>[Of diligence and discretion.]<br /> +Be diligent; "let thine eye be open that thou mayest not go +forth as a beggar, for the man who is idle cometh not to honor." +Be not officious and indiscreet, and "enter not [uninvited] into +the house of another; if thou enter at his bidding thou art honored. +Look not around thee, look not around thee in the house +of another. What thine eye seeth, keep silence concerning it, +and tell it not without to another, that it be not in thee a crime +to be punished by death when it is heard." Speak not overmuch, +"for men are deaf to him who maketh many words; but +if thou art silent thou art pleasing, therefore speak not." Above +all be cautious in speech, for "the ruin of a man is on his +tongue. The body of a man is a storehouse, which is full of all +manner of answers. Wherefore choose thou the good and speak +good, while the evil remaineth shut up within thy body."</p> + +<p>[Of manners.]<br /> +Behave with propriety at table and "be not greedy to fill thy +body." And "eat not bread while another standeth by and thou +placest not thy hand on the bread for him. The one is rich and +the other is poor, and bread remaineth with him who is open-handed. +He who was prosperous last year, even in this may be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5342" id="Page_5342">[Pg 5342]</a></span> +a vagrant.[?]" Never forget to show respect, "and sit not down +while another is standing who is older than thou, or who is +higher than thou in his office."</p> + +<p class="trans">Revised from the German of Adolf Erman.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="DAUF" id="DAUF"></a>INSTRUCTION OF DAUF</h3> + +<p>When Dauf the sage of Sebennytus went up to the Royal +Residence with his son Pepy to take him to the "Court +Writing-School," he admonished him "to set his heart +upon writing, to love it as his mother, for there is naught that +surpasseth it." He thereupon composes a poem in praise of <i>the</i> +profession, to the disparagement of all other callings:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Behold, there is no profession that is not under rule;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the man of learning himself ruleth."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And then,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Never have I seen the engraver an ambassador,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the goldsmith with an embassy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I have seen the smith at his work<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the mouth of his furnace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His fingers were as crocodile [hide],<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He stank more than fish-roe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A craftsman who plieth the chisel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is wearied more than he who tilleth the soil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wood is his field, and bronze his implement;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At night—is he released?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He worketh more than his arms are able;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At night he lighteth a light."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Etc., etc.</p> + +<p>[The praise of learning was a favorite subject with pedagogue +and parent. According to other sages] "the unlearned +whose name no man knoweth, is like unto a heavy-laden ass, +driven by the scribe," while "he who hath set learning in his +heart" is exempt from labor "and becometh a wise noble." +"The rank of a scribe is princely; his writing outfit and his +papyrus roll bring comfort and wealth." "The scribe alone +guideth the labor of all men; but if labor in writing is hateful +to him, then the goddess of good fortune is not with him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5343" id="Page_5343">[Pg 5343]</a></span></p> + +<p>"O scribe, be not lazy, be not lazy, else thou shalt be soundly +chastised; give not thy heart to vain desires, or thou wilt come +to ruin. Book in hand, read with thy mouth, and take the advice +of those who know more than thyself. Prepare for thyself the +office of a noble, that thou mayest attain thereto when thou art +become old. Happy is the scribe clever in all his offices. Be +strong and diligent in daily work. Pass no day idly, or thou +wilt be flogged, for the ears of a boy are on his back, and he +heareth when he is flogged. Let thine heart hear what I say; it +will bring thee to fortune. Be strong in asking advice; do not +overlook it in writing; be not disgusted at it. Therefore let +thine heart hear my words; thou shalt find fortune thereby."</p> + +<p class="trans">Revised from the German of Adolf Erman.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONTRASTED_LOTS_OF_SCRIBE_AND_FELLAH" id="CONTRASTED_LOTS_OF_SCRIBE_AND_FELLAH"></a>CONTRASTED LOTS OF SCRIBE AND FELLÂH</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[The following is a sample of the warnings to young men to stick to the +business of the scribe and not be led away by the charms of out-door life, +always so dear to the Egyptian.—Date XIXth Dynasty, or earlier.]</p></div> + +<p>It is told to me that thou hast cast aside learning, and givest +thyself to dancing; thou turnest thy face to the work in the +fields, and castest the divine words behind thee.</p> + +<p>Behold, thou rememberest not the condition of the fellâh, +when the harvest is taken over. The worms carry off half the +corn, and the hippopotamus devours the rest; mice abound in the +fields, and locusts arrive; the cattle devour, the sparrows steal. +How miserable is the lot of the fellâh! What remains on the +threshing-floor, robbers finish it up. The bronze ... are +worn out, the horses [oxen?] die with threshing and plowing. +Then the scribe moors at the bank who is to take over the +harvest;<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> the attendants<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> bear staves, the negroes carry palmsticks. +They say, "Give corn!" But there is none. They beat +[the fellâh] prostrate; they bind him and cast him into the canal, +throwing him headlong. His wife is bound before him, his children +are swung off; his neighbors let them go, and flee to look +after their corn.</p> + +<p>But the scribe is the leader of labor for all; he reckons to +himself the produce in winter, and there is none that appoints +him his tale of produce. Behold, now thou knowest!</p> + + +<p class="trans">Translation of F. Ll. Griffith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5344" id="Page_5344">[Pg 5344]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="REPROACHES_TO_A_DISSIPATED_STUDENT" id="REPROACHES_TO_A_DISSIPATED_STUDENT"></a>REPROACHES TO A DISSIPATED STUDENT</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">XIXth Dynasty</span></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">They tell me that thou forsakest books,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And givest thyself up to pleasure.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thou goest from street to street;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Every evening the smell of beer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The smell of beer, frightens people away from thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It bringeth thy soul to ruin.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Thou art like a broken helm,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That obeyeth on neither side.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thou art as a shrine without its god,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As a house without bread.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Thou art met climbing the walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And breaking through the paling:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">People flee from thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thou strikest them until they are wounded.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh that thou didst know that wine is an abomination,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that thou wouldst forswear the <i>Shedeh</i> drink!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou wouldst not put cool drinks within thy heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou wouldst forget the <i>Tenreku</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">But now thou art taught to sing to the flute,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To recite [?] to the pipe,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To intone to the lyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To sing to the harp,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>[and generally to lead a life of dissipation.]</p> + +<p class="trans">Revised from the German of Adolf Erman.</p> + + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h4>FOOTNOTES</h4> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +The italicized phrases represent the principal names of the King.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +The temple of Karnak.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +Horus as the winged disk of the sun, so often figured as +a protecting symbol over the doors of temples.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +The coloration or configuration of his limbs indicated to the learned +in such matters his victorious career. Mentu was the god of war.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> +The southern boundary of the Egyptian empire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> +Baka, Meama, Buhen were in Nubia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_7" id="Footnote_5_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> +The castor-oil plant (<i>Ricinus communis</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_8" id="Footnote_6_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> +The underworld.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_9" id="Footnote_1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> +The fellâhîn herdsmen of the time seem to have clubbed +together into gangs, each of which was represented by a ganger, and +the whole body by a superintendent of the gangs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_10" id="Footnote_2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> +Corvée work for the government.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_11" id="Footnote_3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> +<i>I. e.</i>, he did not impress men (wrongfully?) for the +government works, such as irrigation or road-making.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_12" id="Footnote_1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> +An asterisk (*) attached to the title of a text indicates that a +translation of part or all of it is printed in the following pages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Lower Nubia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> District about the first cataract.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> A name often applied to the great river Nile.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The usual Egyptian attitude of respect to a superior was to stand bent +slightly forward, holding the arms downward.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The polytheistic Egyptians frequently used the term "God" without specifying +any particular deity; perhaps, too, in their own minds they did not +define the idea, but applied it simply to some general notion of Divinity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Punt was the "land of spices" to the Egyptian, and thence, too, the +finest incense was brought for the temple services. It included Somaliland in +Africa, and the south of Arabia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> This paragraph is very difficult to restore and very doubtful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the King Sehetepabra Amenemhat I., whose death is recorded in the +next clause.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The king's city, and so throughout the story.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The land of the Temehu was in the Libyan desert on the west of Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Usertesen I., the son and heir of Amenemhat I., reigned ten years +jointly with his father.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the western edge of Lower Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Perhaps this refers to the death of the king, or to the deliberations of +the royal councilors.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Apparently a term for the king.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Sanehat, accidentally hearing the news of the old king's death, which +was kept secret even from the members of the royal family, was overcome +with agitation and fled.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> It was of course night-time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The Royal Residence called Athet-taui lay on the boundary of Upper and +Lower Egypt, between Memphis and the entrance to the Faiyûm, and so in the +direction which Sanehat at first took in his flight from the western edge of the +Delta. One might prefer the word Capital to Residence, but it can hardly be +doubted that Thebes and Memphis were then the real capitals of Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Perhaps the meaning is that Sanehat did not imagine life possible "after +the king's death," or it may be "outside the Residence." The pronoun for +"it" is masculine, and may refer either to the palace or to the king.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Or possibly "I turned my course," turning now northward.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Or possibly "the next day."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Here the MS. is injured, and some of the words are doubtful. The +quarries are those still worked for hard quartzite at Jebel Ahmar (Red Mountain), +northeast of Cairo. The positions of most of the places mentioned in +the narrative are uncertain. Doubtless Sanehat crossed the Nile just above +the fork of the Delta and landed in the neighborhood of the quarries. The +"Mistress" (<i>Heryt</i>), must be a goddess, or the queen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Asiatics and Bedawin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Kemur was one of the Bitter Lakes in the line of the present Suez Canal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Possibly one of the three persons proposed as hostages to Egypt below, +p. 5246. The word translated "alien" is uncertain. It may mean a kind of +consul or mediator between the tribes for the purposes of trade, etc., or simply +a "sheikh." Sanehat himself, returned from Egypt in his old age, is +called by the same title, p. 5248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Or possibly Adim, <i>i. e.</i>, Edom; and so throughout.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Later called Upper Retenu: they were the inhabitants of the high lands +of Palestine. Ammi was a divine name in Ancient Arabia, and the name +Ammi-anshi, found in South-Arabian inscriptions, perhaps of 1000 B.C., is +almost identical with that of the king who befriended Sanehat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> These words appear to have been omitted by the scribe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, What does Egypt do without the king?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The goddess of destruction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Lit, "stick."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> A metaphor for the "policy," "will," of a king or god.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Meaning "reeds" (?).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, of Pharaoh; see above, p. 5238.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> A difficult passage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Without any pause or introduction Sanehat begins to quote from his petition +to the King of Egypt. It is difficult to say whether this arrangement is +due to an oversight of the scribe, or is intended to heighten the picturesqueness +of the narrative by sudden contrast. The formal introduction might well +be omitted as uninteresting. The end of the document with the salutations +is preserved.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> A phrase for the queen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The narrator.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> The scribe has written Amenemhat by mistake for Usertesen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Or Adim; see above, p. 5239, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> The queen, his exalted mistress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Taking part in the councils of the king and in the administration of the +kingdom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> This seems to refer to the so-called false door, representing the entrance +to the underworld. All that precedes refers to burial with great ceremony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, of the king's command. The absence of any concluding salutation +is noticeable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> The Ka or "double" was one of the spiritual constituents of man; but +"thy Ka" is merely a mode of address to the exalted Pharaoh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the uræus or cobra.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> In this long array of gods, Mentu and Amen rank next to Ra. They +were both worshiped at Thebes, which was then probably capital of the whole +country. It certainly was so in the next dynasty, during which this tale was +presumably written down. It is curious that Ptah the god of Memphis does +not appear.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> The place of the dead.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> As dogs do the bidding of their master and spare his property.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> As a man of Natho (the marshes in the north of the Delta) dreams that +he is at Elephantine (the rocky southern frontier).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> The second is the name of the southernmost nome of Egypt, that of +Elephantine, which has practically no corn-land. It was probably made fruitful +by artificial irrigation, with culture of plants, trees, and vines.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> So the MS., and it conveys a fair meaning; but perhaps the original ran, +"Behold, <i>thou</i> art in the palace and I am in this place yet," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Or, "Now thy servant hath finished."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Sanehat's own territory; see p. 5241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> A frequent phrase for the writer or narrator, especially common in letters.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> "Nodding and touching my forehead" is perhaps the real translation of +some difficult words here paraphrased.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Probably the Residence; more commonly called Athet-taui, but here abbreviated +in name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Or perhaps "very early."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> This probably means "four men behind me and the same number in +front," either conducting Sanehat or more probably carrying him in a litter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Instead of Egyptian priests.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> These instruments rattled or clattered as they were waved or beaten +together.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> A form of Hathor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Samehit "son of the north," is a play on the name Sanehat, "son of the +sycamore."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> The treasury containing silver, gold, clothing, wine, and valuables of all +kinds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Meaning "wanderers on the Sand," Bedawin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> The Hathors were seven goddesses who attended the birth of a child in +order to tell its fate. They somewhat correspond to the fairy godmothers of +later fairy tales.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Syria.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> The Egyptians shaved their heads and wore wigs, as a matter of cleanliness +in a hot climate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> The sun.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Ra Harakhti was the chief of this Ennead. Khnumu, one of his companion +gods, was the craftsman, sometimes represented as fashioning mankind +upon the potter's wheel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, in the matter of the trees.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> "To make a good day"—to keep holiday, to hold festival.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> This apparently means that he was enrolled as one to be educated as a +learned scribe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, as we should say, "he did nothing in the world but walk in the +cemetery of Memphis," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> The realm of Osiris as god of the dead.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> It is difficult to locate this lake in accordance with the actual geography +of Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> A frequent phrase for extreme delight or amazement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> There seems to be some reference to past history in this.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> An idiomatic phrase like "he caused his hand to go after the roll" for +"put out his hand to take the roll," p. 5272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Wax was the regular material used for the manufacture of models which +were intended to be used in the practice of magic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> The place of embalmment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> A similar method is still employed by Arab doctors and wizards. To heal +a disease a formula is written out and then washed off the paper in a bowl +of water, which is given to the patient to drink.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Cf. Job i., 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, above him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> An expression for death, like our "gone home."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "May he live as long as the Sun god."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> The presence of names compounded with the name of Anher, god of +Sebennytus, indicates that the story was written during or after the supremacy +of that city, at the end of the native rule.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Setna Kha-em-uast was high priest of Ptah.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Evidently a strong expression, to show the instantaneous and powerful +effect of the amulets in drawing him out of the ground.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> This choice of symbols of submission is not yet explained.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Compare the expression noted on p. 5265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> The first month of the inundation season and of the Egyptian year. This +is the date of the first events recorded, not of the dedication of the stela: +the "command" is parenthetical.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> The same expression occurs further on, and evidently refers to the personal +activity of the king.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Neter was probably Iseum in the centre of the Delta, and so a nomarchship +quite separate from Tafnekht's extensive territory in the west. The list +following the name of Tafnekht seems to name localities representative of the +VIIth(?), VIth, Vth, IVth(?), IIId(?), and Ist nomes in Lower Egypt, in +their proper order; the last, Mennefer, being Memphis. These would form +literally the whole western side of Lower Egypt "from the coast to Athet-taui." +Athet-taui (Lisht?) was a city marking the boundary of Upper and +Lower Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Mêdûm, El Lahûn, Crocodilopolis in the Faiyûm, Oxyrhynkhos, Diknâsh, +all—except perhaps the last—in order from north to south.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> He crossed over to the east bank and went northward, the cities on his +road throwing open their gates to him. With the exception of the last, Per-nebt-tep-ah +[Aphroditopolis], the modern Atfih opposite Mêdûm, they are difficult +to identify positively.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, Heracleopolis Magna, a very powerful city on the edge of the western +desert, left in the rear on Tafnekht's expedition up the river. Its king +was named Pefaui Bast. Its modern name is Ahnâs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, "he hath made himself into a tail-in-the-mouth." [!]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> The precise extent of Piankhy's dominion at this time is uncertain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Hûr, opposite Beni Hasan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> The notion intended to be conveyed is that of a dog at heel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Oxyrhynkhos itself was already in the hands of Tafnekht; the Hermopolite +nome, including Hûr, Nefrus, etc., lay immediately south of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> The pronoun "he" is used much too freely in this inscription: occasionally +it is impossible to decide to whom it refers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Hermopolis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> Libyans, mercenaries or otherwise. The XXIId Dynasty was probably +Libyan, and as will be seen from subsequent notes, Libyan influence was still +strong in the time of Piankhy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> This would seem to be a quotation taken from some address to an earlier +king. Thothmes III., for instance, attributed his successes to Amen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> The great temple of Amen at Karnak.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Our equivalent term would be "sheet-anchor."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> In Ethiopia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The title "chief of the Me" seems to mean "captain of the Libyan +troops." The list contains the names of princes of Lower Egypt only, with +the exception of Nemart of Hermopolis Magna, in Upper Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> The feather was a Libyan badge of rank.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Tafnekht is here given most of his principal titles, including the sacerdotal +ones of high priest of Neith in Sais, and of Ptah in Memphis. With +the rise of Sais, Neith had become the leading deity of Lower Egypt, ranking +even above Ptah. The priests at Gebel Barkal doubtless took a special +pride in the overthrow of the protégé of Neith and Ptah by Piankhy, the worshiper +of Amen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Or "beaten sorely and grievously."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Here should be the numbers of the slain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> "Khmenu," "Unu," "Hare-city," are all names of Hermopolis Magna, the +capital of Nemart's petty kingdom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Evidently a torchlight procession from Karnak to Luxor (Southern Apt).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> The return procession to Karnak.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> The third month of the season of inundation. Of course a year would +then have elapsed, since the date given in the first line of the inscription.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Oxyrhynkhos.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Tehneh(?)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Tafnekht, stripped of his grandeur after his defeat at Heracleopolis, is +reduced to the rank of "Chief of the Me in Sais."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> The first month of the season of inundation, and of the Egyptian year.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Hermopolis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> To be taken of course in a general sense, referring to the majestic and +terrible aspect of the King.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "It has taken a full year," etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Or, "They were sorely and grievously beaten with blows."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the King.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Here there is a lacuna of sixteen short lines in the inscription.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Apparently Piankhy is addressing Nemart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> The meaning is not clear; but there seems to be a reference to the +diminution of the adult population by prolonged wars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <i>Khmenu</i> means eight. Thoth, in late times at any rate, combined the +powers of the eight gods who accompanied him. He was sometimes called +"twice great," sometimes "eight times great" = 2<sup>3</sup>, an arithmetical term +especially indicated by the Greek name [Greek: Hermês Trismhegistos].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> A "jubilee" after a thirty-years' reign; the expression is therefore +equivalent to wishing the King a thirty-years' reign. The soldiers represent +the King as the god Horus come to claim his own land.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Music, dancing, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> An oath.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Karnak.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> The underworld.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> The stars of the northern hemisphere; see Maspero's 'Dawn of Civilization' +p. 94. By Harakhti, the sun is probably meant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> The mouth of the barrier, <i>i. e.</i>, the entrance into the Faiyûm. The name +El Lahûn is derived from Rahent; and the city Per-sekhem-kheper-ra, "The +house of Usorkon I.," must have been at or close to the modern village of +El Lahûn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Set, the god of physical strength.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Athet-taui (Lisht?) was the boundary of Upper and Lower Egypt, and +probably lay in both of them. "The gods who are in this city" of the +next paragraph are doubtless kings of the XIIth Dynasty as presiding +deities of the place, this royal Residence having apparently been founded by +Amenenhat I. Compare p. 5238.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Ra, the first King of Egypt, was fabled to have resided at Heliopolis; +Shu his son and successor at Memphis. The city is called sometimes Anbuhez, +"white wall," sometimes Men-nefer, after the pyramid of Pepy I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> "South of his wall," an epithet of Ptah, god of Memphis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> It is difficult to see what is meant by this. Possibly Tafnekht was proposing +to bribe the Northern chiefs into continuing the war, by giving up his +recently acquired claims as suzerain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Or "very early."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Perhaps "Let us put these things at intervals."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> The boats were floating on a level with the top of the quay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, no single one of the assailants was injured in the slightest degree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Meaning of course "at the boundary between Upper and Lower Egypt."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> By waving the wand of sanctification therein.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> The sacred name of Memphis, supposed to be the origin of the name +[Greek: hAiguptos]—"Egypt."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, to re-establish the order of the temple services, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> A chamber set apart for the sacred toilet; see also below, p. 5290.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Or "very early."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Kheraha was on the site of old Cairo, known to the classical authors as +Babylon. The cave mentioned is not now known.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> On, Heliopolis. Here was a sacred well of water ("The Cool Pool"), +supposed to spring from Nu, the primeval waters in heaven and earth, and +not to be derived from Hapi or the Nile. Tradition relates that it was at +this same well, still pointed out at Matariyeh, that the Blessed Virgin washed +the Child on her arrival in Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> Or "mishaps." This seems to have been a sort of Te Deum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> The Benben was a pyramidal stone, sacred to Ra or representing him. +It was shaped like the top of an obelisk.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> The boats in which the Sun god traversed the heavens during forenoon +and afternoon respectively.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the King.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Or "very early."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Athribis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> The land was divided among kings, nomarchs, and, apparently, Libyan +chiefs entitled to wear a feather. The kings had their viziers; the nomarchs +and chiefs had their subordinate chiefs, etc. "Royal acquaintances" +were persons related to the royal families.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i> the linen was of various degrees of fineness, or as we also say +technically, of various "counts"; meaning that there are so many threads +more or less in any given square of stuff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> An oath.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> First we have two kings, six nomarchs and high Libyan chiefs; after +these, two under-chiefs are mentioned, and then four nomarchs in the first +and second nomes of Lower Egypt, which are separated as having belonged +to Tafnekht's kingdom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> Site unknown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Tafnekht was on an island in the Mediterranean, and therefore heard +the news of the surrender of the Northern princes only after some time had +elapsed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Nubti-Set, the god of valor. Mentu was the god of battle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> "<i>Kedt</i>-weight," really 140 grains.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, "beer-room."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Or "on the second day."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> As symbols of regal power.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Perhaps this means ceremonially unclean.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> The first words are lost. The girdle was probably assumed at about +the age of twelve.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> As a rule, each king seems to have built his pyramid in the desert behind +his principal residence. The latter was often founded by the king, but might +serve for some of his successors, who would then build their pyramids near +his. The pyramid field of Memphis is very ancient, and many of the earlier +kings must have resided there; but curiously enough the name <i>Mennefer</i>, +Memphis, is taken from that of the pyramid of Pepy I., here referred to.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> Perhaps schools of law, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> These quarries, at the modern Turra, have been the source of fine white +limestone down to the present day. They were exactly opposite Memphis in +the eastern hills.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Probably this means the arrangement of a body-guard or performance of +the ritual for the King's amuletic and religious protection.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> "The Asiatics who dwell upon the sand" <i>i. e.</i>, Bedawin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> Elephantine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> The Eastern and Western borders of Lower Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> These names probably mean "the halting-station for the night," and "the +bedchamber of halting-station for the night"; evidently garrisoned posts on +the main desert routes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Arertet, Meza, Aam, Wawat, Kaau, were all in Nubia, and at no great distance +from Egypt. The Meza were afterwards regularly drawn upon for +soldiers and police. The Kaau are more generally called Setu.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the land of the Libyans.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> "Horus Lord of Truth" was the <i>Ka</i> name of King Sneferu [the first king +of the IVth Dynasty, not much less than 4000 B.C.]. Probably this expedition +went toward the Sinaitic peninsula.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Sea-coast, perhaps of the Red Sea.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i> "made the officership making the standard."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Or "for the mistress of the pyramid"; <i>i. e.</i>, for the queen buried in her +husband's pyramid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Elephantine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> The month Epiphi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> The Nile being low.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Apparently the passage of the Nile was blocked for boats at five different +places about the first cataract, and Una had cleared the channel at his +own expense as a free service to the King.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> "Loose," <i>i. e.</i>, take the bird out of the snare to carry home to her mother.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <i>Kha-kau-ra</i>, "Glory of the <i>Kas</i> of the Sun," was the principal name that +Usertesen III., following the custom of the Pharaohs, adopted on his accession +to the throne. "Horus, Divine of Beings," was the separate name for his royal +<i>Ka</i> assumed at the same time. The <i>Ka</i> of a person was his ghostly Double, +before and after death, and to the Egyptian this shadowy constituent of the +whole being had a very distinct existence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, Upper and Lower Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> To the Egyptian the world was inhabited by nine races of men.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Sekhemt, a goddess represented with the head of a lioness, the embodiment +of the devastating power of the Sun and of the wrath of Ra. See p. 5240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> "Pat" seems to be a name for mankind, or perhaps for the inhabitants +of Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> We speak of the "head" as the seat of the intellect; to the Egyptians +it was the "heart."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Ancestor worship being universal in Egypt, the endowments for funerary +services and offerings for the deceased kings must have been very large.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> The "Double Crown" was that of Upper and Lower Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> The Reed and the Hornet were the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt +respectively.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> The "Black Land" is the alluvial of Egypt, the "Red Land" is its sandy +border.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> "Rekhyt," like "Pat," seems to be a designation of the Egyptians. To +"open the throat" of a man is to give him life by enabling him to breathe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> A "good burial" after a "long old age" was a characteristic wish of the +Egyptians.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> The Aten is the name of the visible sun rather than of an abstract Sun +god. It is pictured as a radiant disk, the rays terminating in human hands, +often resting beneficently on the figure of the worshiper, bestowing upon +him symbols of life, or graciously accepting his offerings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> See note, p. 5303. The word occurs in these translations often, but not +with any very definite meaning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> The Nile here stands for the main sources of water: that in heaven giving +rain on the mountains and fields, that in the "deep" or "underworld" +giving rise to springs, wells, and rivers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> "Fairest of the Forms of Ra, the Only One of Ra," is the title which +Akhenaten took when first he ascended the throne, and which he continued +to bear all through his reign, notwithstanding his reform.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Amen was god of Thebes; and under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Thebes +was the capital of the whole country and Egypt was at the height of her +power, Amen took the first place in the national pantheon. He was then +identified with Ra the Sun god, perhaps to make him more acceptable to the +nation at large. Hence a hymn to Amen Ra was practically a hymn to the +supreme Sun god.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> Compare the seven-line stanza in the inscription of Una, above, p. 5298.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Mezau and Punt were on and about the east coast of Africa, in Nubia +and Somaliland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> The supreme god was surrounded by eight other gods, and together they +formed an Ennead, or group of nine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Ptah was the great god of Memphis, the ancient capital of the country.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Or the "Land of the Gods," a name for the lands of the East, and +especially for "Punt."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> <i>I. e.,</i> the kings, who were always reckoned divine, and as ruling by divine +right.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "make holiday."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Title of a priest of Amen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> God of the setting sun.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> An expression of utter bewilderment; <i>lit.</i>, "I know not the estate which +is upon me."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> To these thinkers, thirst (since the presence of water would induce putrefaction +of the body) and suffocation were the chief material sufferings of the +dead.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> From this curious expression it is evident that the Egyptians considered +it necessary that a deity should be visibly represented by statue or animal, in +order that he should receive the offerings presented to him. They never personified +a god of Death, only a god of the Dead.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> The sunshine may be taken for granted in Egypt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Our "on the verge of intoxication" is an almost identical expression, +but without a poetical significance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> A slight correction of the original would give "in captivity" (kidnapped).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> The advantages of the life beyond seem to consist in being like gods +and in full communion with the greatest of them, Ra.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> This closing speech of the soul is barely intelligible.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Or perhaps "my kindred."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Or what is "unprofitable" or "treason."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> This and the two following asseverations seem rather to read: "I have +not caught animals by a bait of their herbage." "I have not trapped birds +by a bait of 'gods' bones.'" "I have not caught fish by a bait of fishes' +bodies."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, "in its moment."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "I am not hot of speech."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> Compare the story of Sanehat (above, p. 5237 <i>seq.</i>) for an indication of the +place which Amenemhat retained for himself in the government of the kingdom +during the joint rule. "He [Usertesen] curbs the nations while his father +remains in his palace, and he [Usertesen] accomplisheth for him what is commanded +him."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> Compare 2 Timothy ii. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> "To exist" often means to have a solid position.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> A proverbial word for nullity, worthlessness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Egypt, the lassoed ox, helpless in the hands of its oppressors, is now +free, but fails to appreciate its good fortune.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> Perhaps this means that Amenemhat lay still but ready to rise instantly +and fight.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> "<i>Me voilà!</i>"—after drawing the picture of his helpless state, surprised +alone in the night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> "<i>I. e.</i>, "be thy counselor."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> A difficult passage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Meaning doubtful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, upon others in consequence of me.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> Elephantine and Natho are often named as the extreme north and +south points of Egypt; compare the Biblical "from Dan even unto Beersheba."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Or perhaps "its centre."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "surpassed the record," or perhaps "reached the boundaries."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> The kings of the XIIth dynasty paid much attention to agriculture and +irrigation. Barley was the representative cereal, Nepra was the Corn goddess. +In the following clause the Nile is represented as a prisoner in the King's +power: or possibly as begging him "<i>for</i> every hollow" to enter and inundate +it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "obedient to his commands," a common figure. The Wawat and +Mezay were in Nubia, the Setiu in the Northeast to Syria.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> The rendering of this section is very doubtful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> Or, "and the seal to its proper place, even as the acclamations in the bark +of Ra ordain for thee." Ra the Sun god was the royal god essentially, and +his approval was doubtless required to establish a claim to the throne. He +was believed to travel through the sky in a boat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "Tell us thy name, thou who dost not answer when spoken to," or +"Let thy name be henceforth 'Mum-when-spoken-to.'"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the proverbs; but possibly this expression may mean "on his death-bed."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, obey them strictly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, they were pleasing to them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Arrived at his destination; <i>i. e.</i>, died.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> =Our "Finis."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> From the last paragraph of the book, we learn that he had reached the +Egyptian limit of long life, viz., 110 years: the figure is doubtless to be taken +in a general sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, the speaker or writer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> The word for successor seems to read, "staff of old age"; but this is +not quite certain. Very likely the son would take over the active work of +the viziership, while his father gave him counsel: this was frequently done +in the sovereignty.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> Or those who are listened to.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, that the ancient rules may be observed by the present generation +of the King's subjects. The first kings of Egypt were supposed to have been +the gods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> This high title occurs also in the Inscription of Una, and frequently in +the Piankhy Stela, where it has been translated "nomarch."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> "The god" is probably here the King. The curious title "father of the +god" is well known; it would seem to represent a person who stood ceremonially +in the relation of father to a god or person. Thus in later times +we have "fathers" of the god Amen, etc. But at this period "the god" +seems to have meant the King, and the "father of the god" may have been +the guardian or tutor of the King. Some may even see in it the expression +of an actual paternal relationship, as the principles of the succession to the +Egyptian throne are not understood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> Rather, green feldspar, which was largely used as an ornament.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Perhaps a professional orator, sophist, or the like.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, when he is at his occupation; in the heat of argument.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Perhaps "bold of heart."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Or, "it shall not hurt thee."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> This is very uncertain. Its morality hardly accords with that of the rest +of the book. Perhaps the youth is recommended to wait, even when he is +called ignorant, until his heart has obtained full command of his knowledge +and can successfully employ it in his argument.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> As we speak of "the education of a gentleman."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> Flatter (?).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> A frequent phrase, but the meaning of it is obscure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, "in a gentlemanly manner"; but the last half of this section is +obscure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> A remarkable word used here in regard to the contest between justice +and injustice; in the next phrase there is a reference to the myth of Osiris +and Set, in which good, in the persons of Osiris and Horus, survives evil in +the person of Set.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> This seems to refer to the profession of brigand and pillager.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> By God's favor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Perhaps a gesture expressing humble acquiescence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, <i>Ka</i> in Egyptian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> As uncertain as groping in the dark.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> Be not sure of the childless man's estate. He can take a second wife and +disappoint you.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> The time appointed to it for its own activity, or as we should say, its +"day."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> Room is made for him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, belly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> Salary in kind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> The second text gives "Let thy face [be shining] when thou makest a +feast. Verily that which cometh out of the store doth not enter [?], but +bread is apportioned; he that is niggardly of face is remorseful; [?] his belly +is empty. He that remembereth a man is kind unto him in the years after +the staff [of power?]." The last expression may mean "after the loss of +authority."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Variant "beseech." The meaning of the section is not certain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> To be in an ambiguous position. (?)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> Or "then all thy ways shall have the lead."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> <i>Ba</i>, in Egyptian: the person who has learned good conduct (the ignorant +cannot) pours benediction upon the soul of him who set the example of it, +when he finds himself profited on earth by the practice thereof.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> The word presupposes education, as often.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> A frequent collocation of words; as for instance, following the mention +of a royal person.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> <i>Amakh.</i> See note to Section 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> The words "a son" seem inserted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Or "is fit only for hard manual labor."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> <i>I. e.</i>, one of the loyal adherents of Horus the son of Osiris in his war +against the evil Set.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> The blessed state of well-earned repose and rewards, both in this world +and in the next, after faithful service.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> This is the reading furnished by the fragments in the British Museum for +an unintelligible passage in the Prisse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> "Them" is difficult to assign to any antecedent definitely; perhaps "without +their advice how to behave and employ the wealth" is meant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> Or "those who are listened to," "instructors."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> This was the ideal length of life in Egypt. The figure must not be taken +too literally.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> See note to Section 41, previous page.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> That is, for the government.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <i>Lit.</i>, doorkeepers—<i>i. e.</i>, of the official cabin.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5345" id="Page_5345">[Pg 5345]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="JOSEPH_VON_EICHENDORFF" id="JOSEPH_VON_EICHENDORFF"></a>JOSEPH VON EICHENDORFF</h2> + +<h4>(1788-1857)</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">he poetry of the Romantic School is the poetry of longing. +It is filled with a spirit of passionate yearning that gives to +it its pathos, and makes each poem seem the expression of +an undefined but ardent wish. The poet's soul is reaching out for +that which no longer is, but which has been and may be again. +Novalis has symbolized this yearning in the quest for the mysterious +"blue flower." Men longed for the glories of the past, and among +the knights and minstrels of mediæval court and castle they sought +for that blue flower whose odor is love. In the bleak unfriendliness +of the foggy Northern clime, the sunny expansive beauty of the +South, where the magnificence of ancient ages still shimmered through +a mellow haze, drew all sensitive hearts to Italy. Goethe felt the +strong attraction, and fled without leave-taking across the Alps, to +recover his genius under Italian skies. He gave to this deep and +universal longing for Italy its classic incarnation in the pathetic +figure of Mignon. In the very year in which Goethe returned from +Rome, Joseph von Eichendorff was born. He was the last and most +ardent of the Romanticists, and all the restless longing of those times +found in him its typical interpreter.</p> + +<p>Eichendorff was born on the family estate at Lubowitz in Silesia, +on March 10th, 1788. He was brought up in the Roman Catholic +faith, to which thereafter so many of his brother poets were converted. +He studied law in Halle, Heidelberg, and Paris. At Heidelberg +he took his degree, and at Heidelberg he came definitely under +the Romantic influence through his association with Arnim, Brentano, +and Görres. In Vienna, where he spent three years, he stood in close +relations with Schlegel. His qualities of mind were essentially South +German, for he was an Austrian by birth. He was on the point of +entering the Austrian service when the famous appeal of February +3d, 1813, from the King of Prussia, roused every German patriot. +Eichendorff enlisted as a volunteer in the Prussian army. Throughout +that thrilling campaign of the wars for freedom he fought in the +cause of the wider Fatherland. He became an officer in the "Lützow +Corps," which Körner has made famous in his verse. Scarcely had +he obtained his dismissal after the first peace of Paris, when the +news of Napoleon's return from Elba summoned him to arms again. +In 1816, however, he began his career, after a brilliant showing +before the examiners, as an officer in the civil service of Prussia. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5346" id="Page_5346">[Pg 5346]</a></span> +Henceforth his life was outwardly uneventful. He married soon after +his appointment. Intellectually he maintained relations with the +finest spirits of his land and time. Having served the State in +various capacities for more than a quarter of a century, he was dismissed +at his own request in 1844, and retired to private life. He +died at Neisse on November 26th, 1857. Heine had died early in the +preceding year. With Eichendorff the last great poet of the Romantic +School passed away.</p> + +<p>It would be fruitless to catalogue the works of Eichendorff that are +no longer read. His first independent effort was published at the end +of the Napoleonic campaign, under the title of 'Ahnung und Gegenwart' +(Presage and Presence). Stories, comedies, tragedies, and excellent +translations from the Spanish followed, until now his works fill +ten volumes; but of these, only his poems and his tale 'Out of the +Life of a Good-for-Nothing' retain their full vitality to-day.</p> + +<p>His poems possess enduring beauty. They are full of that profound +longing for purer days and fairer realms, and of that dreamy +lyric charm, that makes men young again. There is a breath in +them of a vanished time; they sing of a golden age in which all +men were idle and all women pure. The music of his verse has +attracted many composers, from Mendelssohn, his friend, to Robert +Franz in our own day. Eichendorff looked down upon the rhetorical +ideality of Schiller and the symbolic naturalism of Goethe. He +sang of the soul and its homesickness; of its longing for a lost inheritance.</p> + +<p>The delightful 'Life of a Good-for-Nothing' appeared in 1824, and +it remains to-day one of the most popular tales in German literature. +It is the apotheosis of idleness and vagabondism. "In this +little book," says Brandes, "all the old charms of romance are shut +up, as in a cage, to make music for us. There is the odor of the +woods and the song of birds, the longing for travel and the joys of +wandering." The book describes the vagabond life of a child of +genius, idle with a hundred aptitudes, pure with a hundred temptations, +and amid a hundred dangers careless and irresponsible. This +Good-for-Nothing illustrates in his roving life the romantic quest of +the "blue flower." He lives for pure pleasures and the joys of unremunerative +art; his is the infinite longing which never can be +stilled, but only rendered endurable by poetry, by music, and by +moonlight on forest, field, and stream. The book is an exquisite +idyl; it is full of strange adventures and all the romantic machinery +of singular disguises, lofty and secluded castles, and mysterious beauties +who throw flowers from shaded balconies; and yet it is essentially +idyllic, and the beautiful lyrics which are scattered through its pages +create an atmosphere of eternal summer in which we are made to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5347" id="Page_5347">[Pg 5347]</a></span> +forget the work-a-day world where men earn their daily bread and +feel the salutary pressure of duty.</p> + +<p>Eichendorff himself was a faithful public servant, and in the +'Life of a Good-for-Nothing' we have the confession only of what +the author perhaps thought he would have liked to be, rather than +of what he was. He was reverent and pious, and one of the most +evenly balanced minds in all that circle of madcap poets. He has +told us of those early days of the Romantic School and of the deep +thrills which agitated the entire German people when Schelling, +Novalis, the Schlegels, and Tieck began their life work in literature. +And this work was done in the days when the sword of Napoleon +hung suspended over Germany: in days when even the poet who +was to sing the praises of the <i>dolce far nicnte</i> of Good-for-Nothingness +was ready to give three years of his life for the defense of his native +land. So far had literature and life lost sight of each other, and the +men of vigorous action and solid achievement still sang sweetly of +the blue flower and of the pleasures of idleness, leaving behind them +a body of literature which, however unreal, will not lose its power to +soothe and charm.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="GOOD_FOR_NOTHING" id="GOOD_FOR_NOTHING"></a>FROM 'OUT OF THE LIFE OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING'</h3> + +<p>The wheel of my father's mill rushed and roared again right +merrily, the melting snow trickled steadily down from the +roof, the sparrows twittered and bustled about. I sat on +the door-sill and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes; I felt so +comfortable in the warm sunshine. Just then my father came out +of the house. He had worked since daybreak in the mill, and +had his tasseled cap awry upon his head. To me he said:—"You +Good-for-Nothing! There you are sunning yourself again and +stretching and straining your bones tired, and leave me to do all +the work alone. I cannot feed you here any longer. Spring is +at the door; go out into the world and earn your own bread." +"Now," said I, "if I am a Good-for-Nothing, well and good; I +will go out into the world and seek my fortune." And really +I was very well pleased, for it had shortly before occurred to +me too to travel, when I heard the yellow-hammer, who always +sung his note in autumn and winter so plaintively at our window, +now calling again in the beautiful spring so proudly and merrily +from the trees. I went accordingly into the house and got my +violin, which I played quite cleverly, down from the wall; my +father gave me besides a few groschens to take along, and so I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5348" id="Page_5348">[Pg 5348]</a></span> +sauntered out through the long village. It gave me in truth a +secret pleasure when I saw all my old acquaintances and comrades, +right and left, just as yesterday, and day before yesterday, +and always, going out to work, to dig and to plow; while I thus +wandered out into the free world. I called out to the poor people +on all sides proudly and contentedly, Adieu! but nobody paid +very much attention to it. In my soul it seemed to me like an +eternal Sunday. And when I at last came out into the open +fields, I took up my dear violin and played and sang as I walked +along the highway....</p> + +<p>When I presently looked about, a fine traveling carriage came +up quite near to me, that may have been for some time driving +along behind me without my having noticed it, since my heart +was so full of music; for it went along quite slowly, and two +ladies put their heads out of the carriage and listened to me. +The one was particularly beautiful and younger than the other, +but really both of them pleased me. When I now ceased singing, +the elder one had the driver stop and spoke to me kindly: +"Ah, you happy fellow, you know how to sing very pretty songs." +To which I, not at all backward, answered, "If it please your +Excellency, I may have some that are prettier still." Thereupon +she asked me again, "Where then are you wandering so early +in the morning?" Then I was ashamed that I did not know, +myself, and said boldly, "To Vienna." Thereupon both spoke +together in a foreign language that I did not understand. The +younger one shook her head several times, but the other laughed +continuously and finally called out to me, "Spring up behind us: +we are also going to Vienna." Who was happier than I! I made +a bow, and at a jump was on behind the carriage, the coachman +cracked his whip, and we flew along over the glistening road, so +that the wind whistled about my hat.</p> + +<p>Behind me disappeared village, gardens, and church towers; +before appeared new villages, castles, and mountains. Below me +grain fields, copse, and meadows flew in many colors past; above +me were countless larks in the blue air. I was ashamed to +cry aloud, but inwardly I exulted, and stamped and danced +about on the footboard of the carriage, so that I had nearly +lost my violin which I held under my arm. As the sun, however, +rose continually higher, and heavy white noonday clouds +came up round about the horizon, and everything in the air and +on the broad plains became so empty and close and still over +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5349" id="Page_5349">[Pg 5349]</a></span> +the gently waving grain fields,—then for the first time came into +my mind my village, and my father, and our mill, and how it +was so comfortable and cool there by the shady pond, and that +now everything lay so far, far behind me. I felt so strangely, +and as if I must turn back again. I put my violin in between +my coat and waistcoat, sat down full of thought upon the footboard, +and fell asleep.</p> + +<p>When I opened my eyes the carriage stood still under tall +linden-trees, behind which a broad stairway led up between columns +into a splendid castle. On one side, through the trees, I +saw the towers of Vienna. The ladies, it appeared, had long +since got out, and the horses were unharnessed. I was much +frightened when I found myself all at once alone. As I sprang +quickly up into the castle, I heard somebody above laughing out +of the window.</p> + +<p>In this castle it fared strangely with me. In the first place, +as I was looking about in the wide cool hall, some one tapped +me with a stick upon the shoulder. I turned quickly, and there +stood a great gentleman in court dress, a broad scarf of gold +and silk hanging down to his hips, with a silver-topped staff in +his hand, and an extraordinarily long, hooked, princely nose, big +and splendid as a puffed-up turkey, who asked me what I wanted +there. I was quite taken aback, and for fear and astonishment +could not bring forth a sound. Thereupon more servants came +running up and down the stairs, who said nothing at all, but +looked at me from head to foot. Straightway came a lady's-maid +(as I afterward learned she was) right up to me and said +that I was a charming fellow, and her ladyship desired to ask +me whether I would take service here as a gardener. I put my +hand to my waistcoat. My couple of groschens, God knows, +must have sprung out of my pocket in my dancing about in the +carriage, and were gone. I had nothing but my violin-playing, +for which, moreover, the gentleman with the staff, as he said to +me curtly, would not give a farthing. In my anguish of heart +I accordingly said yes to the lady's-maid, my eyes still directed +from one side to the uncomfortable figure which continually, like +the pendulum of a steeple clock, moved up and down the hall, +and just then again came majestically and awfully up out of +the background. Last of all the head gardener finally came, +growled something to himself about rabble and country bumpkins, +and led me to the garden, preaching to me on the way a long +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5350" id="Page_5350">[Pg 5350]</a></span> +sermon—how I should be sober and industrious, should not rove +about in the world, should not devote myself to unprofitable arts +and useless stuff: in that case I might in time be of some +account. There were still more very pretty, well-put, useful +maxims, only since then I have forgotten almost all of them +again. On the whole, I did not really at all rightly know how +everything had come about. I only said yes continually to everything, +for I was like a bird whose wings had been wet. Thus I +was, God be praised, in possession of my daily bread.</p> + +<p>In the garden, life went on finely. I had every day my warm +food in plenty, and more money than I needed for wine,—only, +alas! I had quite a good deal to do. The temples, too, the +arbors, and the beautiful green walks,—all that would have +pleased me very well, if I had only been able to walk placidly +about and converse rationally, like the ladies and gentlemen who +came there every day. As often as the head gardener was away +and I was alone, I immediately pulled out my short tobacco +pipe, sat down and thought out pretty polite speeches, such as I +would use to entertain the young and beautiful lady who brought +me along with her into the castle, if I were a cavalier and +walked about with her. Or I lay down on my back on sultry +afternoons, when everything was so still that one could hear the +bees buzzing, and watched the clouds as they floated along to +my own village, and the grasses and flowers as they moved +hither and thither, and thought of the lady; and then it often +happened too that the beautiful lady, with her guitar or a book, +really went through the garden at a distance, as gently, as lofty +and gracious, as an angel, so that I did not rightly know whether +I dreamed or was awake....</p> + +<p>Close by the castle garden ran the highway, only separated +from it by a high wall. A very neat little toll-keeper's house +with a red tile roof was built there, and behind it was a little +flower garden, inclosed with a gay-colored picket fence, which, +through a break in the wall of the castle garden, bordered on its +shadiest and most concealed part. The toll-keeper had just died, +who had occupied it all. Early one morning while I still lay in +the soundest sleep, the secretary from the castle came to me and +called me in all haste to the head steward. I dressed myself +quickly and sauntered along behind the airy secretary, who on +the way, now here, now there, broke off a flower and stuck it +on the lapel of his coat, now brandished his cane skillfully in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5351" id="Page_5351">[Pg 5351]</a></span> +air, and talked to the wind all sorts of matters of which I understood +nothing, since my eyes and ears were still full of sleep. +When I entered the office, where it was not yet wholly light, the +steward looked at me from behind a tremendous inkstand and +piles of paper and books and a portly wig, like an owl from her +nest, and began, "What's your name? Where do you come +from? Can you write, read, and cipher?" When I had answered +this affirmatively, he added, "Well, her ladyship designs to offer +you, in consideration of your good behavior and your particular +merits, the vacant toll-keeper's position." I went over quickly +in my mind my previous behavior and manners, and I was +obliged to confess that I found at the end, myself, that the +steward was right. And so I was, then, really toll-keeper, before +I was aware of it.</p> + +<p>I moved now immediately into my new dwelling, and in a +short time was settled. I found a number of things that the +late toll-keeper had left behind, among others a splendid red +dressing-gown with yellow dots, green slippers, a tasseled cap, +and some pipes with long stems. All these things I had wished +for when I was still at home, when I always saw our pastor going +about so comfortably. The whole day (I had nothing further to +do) I sat there on the bench before my house in dressing-gown +and cap, smoking tobacco out of the longest pipe that I had +found among those left by the late toll-keeper, and looked at +the people on the highway as they went to and fro, and drove +and rode about. I only wished all the time that people too +out of my own village, who always said that nothing would come +of me all the days of my life, might come by and see me. The +dressing-gown was very becoming to me, and in point of fact all +of it pleased me very well. So I sat there and thought of all +sorts of things: how the beginning is always hard, how a higher +mode of life is nevertheless very comfortable; and secretly came +to the decision henceforth to give up all traveling about, to save +money, too, like others, and in good time surely to amount to +something in the world. In the mean time, however, with all my +decisions, cares, and business, I by no manner of means forgot +the beautiful lady.</p> + +<p>The potatoes and other vegetables that I found in my little +garden I threw away, and planted it entirely with the choicest +flowers; at which the janitor from the castle, with the big +princely nose, who since I lived here often came to me and had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5352" id="Page_5352">[Pg 5352]</a></span> +become my intimate friend, looked askance and apprehensively at +me, and regarded me as one whom sudden fortune had made +mad. But I did not allow this to disturb me, for not far from +me in the manor garden I heard low voices, among which I +thought to recognize that of my beautiful lady, although on +account of the thick shrubbery I could see nobody. Then I +bound every day a nosegay of the most beautiful flowers that +I had, climbed every evening when it was dark over the wall, +and placed it on a stone table which stood in the middle of an +arbor, and every evening when I brought the new bouquet the +old one was gone from the table....</p> + +<p>I continually felt as I always feel when spring is at hand,—so +restless and glad without knowing why, as if a piece of great +good fortune or something else extraordinary awaited me. The +hateful accounts, in particular, would no longer get on at all; +and when the sunshine through the chestnut-tree before the +window fell green-golden upon the figures, and added them up +so nimbly from "amount brought forward" to "balance," and +then up and down again, very strange thoughts came to me, so +that I often became quite confused and actually could not count +up to three. For the eight appeared always to me like the stout, +tightly laced lady with the broad hat that I knew, and the +unlucky seven was wholly like a guide-post always pointing backward, +or a gallows. The nine however played the greatest +pranks, in that often, before I was aware of it, it stood itself as +a six merrily on its head; while the two looked on so cunningly, +like an interrogation point; as if it would ask:—"What shall be +the outcome of all this in the end, you poor naught? Without +her, this slender one-and-all, you will always be nothing!"</p> + +<p>Sitting outside before the door, too, no longer pleased me. +I took a footstool out with me, in order to make myself more +comfortable, and stretched out my feet upon it, and I mended +an old parasol of the toll-keeper's and held it against the sun +above me, like a Chinese summer-house. But it did not at all +avail. It seemed to me as I sat thus, and smoked and speculated, +that my legs gradually became longer from very weariness, +and my nose grew from idleness, as I looked down on it for +hours at a time. And when many a time before daybreak an +extra post came by, and I stepped half asleep out into the cool +air, and a pretty little face, of which in the dim light only the +sparkling eyes were to be seen, bent with curiosity out of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5353" id="Page_5353">[Pg 5353]</a></span> +carriage and gave me pleasantly a good-morning, and in the village +round about the cocks crew so freshly out over the gently +waving grain fields, and between the morning clouds high in the +heavens already soared a few too early awakened larks, and the +postilion took his post-horn and drove on, and blew and blew—then +I stood for a long time still and looked after the coach, and +it seemed to me as if nothing else would do, except to go along +with them, far, far out into the world.</p> + +<p>The nosegays I always placed, in the mean time, as soon as +the sun went down, on the stone table in the dim arbor. But +that was just it. That was all over now, since that evening; no +one troubled himself about them. As often as I, early in the +morning, looked after them, the flowers still lay there just as +they did the day before, and looked at me in real sorrow with +their wilted hanging heads, and the dew-drops standing on them +as if they wept. That grieved me very much. I bound no more +nosegays. In my garden the weeds might now flourish as they +would, and the flowers I let stand and grow until the wind blew +away the leaves. My heart was just as waste and wild and disordered....</p> + +<p>In these critical times it came to pass that once when I was +lying in the window at home and looking gloomily out into the +empty air, the lady's-maid from the castle came tripping along +the road. When she saw me, she turned quickly toward me and +stood still at the window. "His Lordship returned yesterday +from his journey," said she briskly. "Is it so?" I replied in +astonishment, for for several weeks past I had not concerned +myself about anything, and did not even know that his Lordship +was away. "Then his daughter, the gracious young lady, has +also had, I am sure, a very pleasant time." The lady's-maid +looked at me oddly from top to toe, so that I really was forced +to consider whether I had not said something stupid. "You +don't know anything at all," she finally said, and turned up her +little nose. "Now," she continued, "there is going to be a dance +and masquerade this evening at the castle in his Lordship's +honor. My mistress is also to go in mask, as a flower-girl—do +you quite understand?—as a flower-girl. Now my mistress has +noticed that you have particularly beautiful flowers in your garden." +"That is strange," thought I to myself, "since there are +now scarcely any more flowers to be seen on account of the +weeds." But she continued: "As my mistress needs beautiful +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5354" id="Page_5354">[Pg 5354]</a></span> +flowers for her costume, but quite fresh ones that have just come +out of the flower-bed, you are to bring her some, and wait with +them this evening, when it has grown dark, under the great +pear-tree in the castle garden. She will come and get the +flowers."</p> + +<p>I was quite dumbfounded by this news, and in my rapture +ran from the window out to the lady's-maid.</p> + +<p>"Pah! the nasty dressing-gown!" she cried out when she saw +me all at once out-of-doors in my costume. That vexed me. I +did not wish to be behind her in gallantry, and made a few +pretty motions to catch her and kiss her. But unfortunately the +dressing-gown, which was much too long for me, got tangled up +at the same time under my feet and I fell my whole length on +the ground. When I pulled myself together again the lady's-maid +was far away, and I heard her still laughing in the distance; +so that she had to hold her sides.</p> + +<p>Now, however, I had something to think about and to make +me happy. <i>She</i> still thought of me and of my flowers! I went +into my garden and quickly pulled all the weeds out of the +flower-beds, and threw them high up over my head away into +the glistening air, as if I drew out with the roots every bit of +evil and melancholy. The roses were again like <i>her</i> mouth; the +sky-blue morning-glories like her eyes; the snow-white lily with +its sorrowfully drooping head looked quite like her. I laid them +all carefully in a little basket together.</p> + +<p>It was a still, beautiful evening, with not a cloud in the +heavens. A few stars were already out in the sky; from afar +came the sound of the Danube over the fields; in the tall trees +in the castle garden near me joyfully sang innumerable birds. +Ah, I was so happy!</p> + +<p>When night finally came on, I took my little basket over my +arm and set out on my way to the great garden. In my basket +all lay so bright and pretty together—white, red, blue, and so +fragrant that my heart fairly laughed when I looked in.</p> + +<p>Full of happy thoughts, I went along in the beautiful moonlight +through the quiet paths tidily strewed with sand, over the +little white bridges, under which the swans sat sleeping upon +the water, and past the pretty arbors and summer-houses. I had +soon found the great pear-tree, for it was the same one under +which I had lain on sultry afternoons when I was still a gardener.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5355" id="Page_5355">[Pg 5355]</a></span> +Here it was so lonely and dark. Only a tall aspen continually +whispered with its silver leaves. From the castle sounded +now and then the dance music. At times I heard, too, in the +garden human voices, which often came quite near to me, and +then all at once it was again perfectly still.</p> + +<p>My heart beat fast. A strange feeling of dread came over +me, as if I intended to steal from somebody. I stood for a long +time stock still, leaning against the tree and listened on all sides; +but as nobody came, I could no longer endure it. I hung my +basket on my arm and climbed quickly up into the pear-tree, in +order to breathe again in the open air....</p> + +<p>I now directed my eyes immovably toward the castle, for a +circle of torches below on the steps of the entrance threw a +strange light there, over the sparkling windows and far out into +the garden. It was the servants, who were just then serenading +their young master and mistress. In the midst of them, splendidly +dressed like a minister of state, stood the porter before a +music stand, working hard on his bassoon.</p> + +<p>Just as I had seated myself aright in order to listen to the +beautiful serenade, all at once the doors opened, up on the balcony +of the castle. A tall gentleman, handsome and stately in +his uniform and with many glittering stars on his breast, stepped +out upon the balcony, leading by the hand—the beautiful young +lady in a dress all of white, like a lily in the night or as if the +moon passed across the clear firmament.</p> + +<p>I could not turn my glance from the place, and garden, trees, +and fields vanished from my senses; as she, so wondrously illuminated +by the torches, stood there tall and slender, and now +talked pleasantly with the handsome officer and then nodded +kindly down to the musicians. The people below were beside +themselves with joy, and I too could not restrain myself at last, +and joined in the cheers with all my might.</p> + +<p>As she however soon afterward again disappeared from the +balcony, and below one torch after the other went out and +the music stands were taken away, and the garden now round +about also became dark again and rustled as before,—for the +first time I noticed all this,—then it fell all at once upon my +heart that it was really only the aunt who had sent for me +with the flowers, and that the beautiful lady did not think of +me at all and was long since married, and that I myself was a +great fool.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5356" id="Page_5356">[Pg 5356]</a></span> +All of this plunged me truly into an abyss of reflection. I +wrapped myself up like a hedgehog in the stings of my own +thoughts; from the castle the dance music came more rarely +across, the clouds wandered lonely along over the dark garden. +And so I sat up in the tree, like a night owl, all night long in +the ruins of my happiness.</p> + +<p>The cool morning air waked me finally from my dreamings. +I was fairly astonished when I looked all at once about me. +Music and dance was long over, and in the castle and round +about the castle, on the lawn, and the stone steps, and the columns, +everything looked so still and cool and solemn; only the +fountain before the entrance plashed solitarily along. Here and +there in the twigs near me the birds were already awakening +and shaking their bright feathers; and while they stretched their +little wings they looked with curiosity and astonishment at their +strange bedfellow. The joyous beaming rays of morning sparkled +along over the garden upon my breast.</p> + +<p>Then I straightened myself out up in my tree, and for the +first time for a long while, once more looked fairly out into the +land, and saw how a few ships were already sailing down the +Danube between the vineyards, and how the still empty highways +swung themselves like bridges across the glistening country, +far out over the mountains and valleys.</p> + +<p>I do not know how it came about, but all at once my old +desire to travel seized hold of me again: all the old sadness and +joy and great anticipation. It came into my mind, at the same +time, how the beautiful lady up in the castle was sleeping among +the flowers and under silken coverlets, and an angel was sitting +beside her on the bed in the stillness of the morning.—"No," +I cried out, "I must go away from here, and on and on, as far +as the sky is blue!"</p> + +<p>And at this I took my basket and threw it high into the air, +so that it was very pretty to see how the flowers lay gayly round +about in the twigs and on the greensward below. Then I +climbed down quickly and went through the quiet garden to my +dwelling. Often indeed I stopped still at many a place where I +had once seen her, or where lying in the shade I had thought of +her.</p> + +<p>In and about my house everything still looked just as I had +left it yesterday. The garden was plundered and bare; in my +room inside, the great account-book still lay open; my violin, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5357" id="Page_5357">[Pg 5357]</a></span> +which I had almost wholly forgotten, hung covered with dust on +the wall. A morning beam, however, from the window opposite +fell gleaming across the strings. That struck a true accord +within my heart. "Yes," I said, "do thou come here, thou faithful +instrument! Our kingdom is not of this world!"</p> + +<p>And so I took the violin from the wall, left the account-book, +dressing-gown, slippers, pipes, and parasol lying, and wandered, +as poor as I had come, out of my little house away on the glistening +highway.</p> + +<p>I still often looked back. A strange feeling had taken possession +of me. I was so sad and yet again so thoroughly joyous, +like a bird escaping from its cage. And when I had gone a long +way I took up my violin, out there in the free air, and sang.</p> + +<p>The castle, the garden, and the towers of Vienna had already +disappeared behind me in the fragrance of morning; above me +exulted innumerable larks high in the air. Thus I went between +the green mountains and past cheerful cities and villages down +toward Italy.</p> + +<p class="trans">Translation of William H. Carpenter.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SEPARATION" id="SEPARATION"></a>SEPARATION</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Brown was the heather,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The sky was blue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We sat together<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Where flowers grew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is this the thrilling<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nightingale's beat?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are larks still trilling<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their numbers sweet?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I spend the hours<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Exiled from thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spring has brought flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But none for me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Charles Harvey +Genung.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5358" id="Page_5358">[Pg 5358]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="LORELEI" id="LORELEI"></a>LORELEI</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis very late, 'tis growing cold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone thou ridest through the wold?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The way is long, there's none to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, lovely maid, come follow me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I know men's false and guileful art,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And grief long since has rent my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hear the huntsman's bugle there:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh fly,—thou know'st me not,—beware!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So richly is the steed arrayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So wondrous fair the youthful maid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know thee now—too late to fly!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art the witch, the Lorelei.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou know'st me well,—my lonely shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still frowns in silence on the Rhine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis very late, 'tis growing cold,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou com'st no more from out the wold!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="transc">Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Charles +Harvey Genung.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5359" id="Page_5359">[Pg 5359]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 388px;"> +<a name="ELIOT" id="ELIOT"></a> +<span class="caption">GEORGE ELIOT.</span> +<img src="images/eliot.png" width="388" height="640" alt="GEORGE ELIOT." title="GEORGE ELIOT." /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="GEORGE_ELIOT" id="GEORGE_ELIOT"></a>GEORGE ELIOT</h2> + +<h4>(1819-1880)</h4> + +<h4>BY CHARLES WALDSTEIN</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capt.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" title="T" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">o George Eliot will always have to be assigned a prominent place in +the history of the literature of the nineteenth century as a foremost +novelist, poet, and social philosopher.</p> + +<p>Mary Ann, or, as she subsequently spelt her Christian name, Marian, +Evans was born at South Farm, a mile from Griff, in the parish of +Calton in Warwickshire, on November 22d, 1819. Her father, the +prototype of Adam Bede, was Robert Evans, of Welsh origin; who started +life as a carpenter, but soon became a land agent in Warwickshire. +This position implies great responsibilities, and demands thorough +business capacities as well as firmness and trustworthiness of +character, in his relations to his employers as well as his +subordinates. He was intrusted with the management of the extensive +estates of five great noblemen and land-owners in the county of +Warwickshire. He was thus a man of considerable importance and power +in the country, and would hold a social position ranking with the +highest professional classes of the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>This position of her father gave her the opportunity of gaining +considerable insight into the lives and characters of English people +of every class in the country, and from its neutral height between the +great landlord and the farmer, down to the farm laborer, she could +command the horizon line of all these lives, realize their habits, +their aspirations and sufferings, and command its extent as well as +its limitations. The country, the fields, the garden about Griff +House, where her childhood was spent, as well as the village with its +inhabitants,—with whom, through her mother as well as her father, she +came in contact,—all stimulated her loving and sympathetic +observation and formed that background of experience in the youthful +mind, out of which subsequently rose, with strong spontaneity and +truthful precision of design, the characters and scenes of her novels. +They will ever remain the classical expositions of English provincial +life in literature. The upright strength and pertinacity of her +characters, as well as the insight into practical life and the life of +men, were no doubt derived from her father, and from the intimate +intercourse with him for so many years of the most important formative +period of her life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5360" id="Page_5360">[Pg 5360]</a></span> +Her mother was a housewife of the old-fashioned type, whose health was +always poor, and who died when Marian was about fifteen years of age. +She is supposed to be portrayed in Mrs. Hackit in 'Amos Barton.' She +seems to have been a woman with ready wit, a somewhat sharp tongue, an +undemonstrative but tender-hearted nature. In many respects she seems +also to have been the model for that masterpiece of character-drawing, +Mrs. Poyser. Though Marian had two sisters, her brother Isaac Evans +was her playmate. The youthful relation between brother and sister was +very much like that of Tom Tulliver and Maggie in 'The Mill on the +Floss,'—no doubt the most autobiographical of her novels, as regards +at least the drawing of Maggie's character.</p> + +<p>Marian was at first sent to a school at the neighboring Nuneaton; and +at a very early age she taught at Sunday school,—which may have +instilled a magisterial bias into her mind from the very outset. At +the age of twelve she proceeded to a school at Coventry, kept by the +Misses Franklin, which enjoyed considerable reputation in the +neighborhood. She remained in this school for three years; beyond +elementary school duties she devoted much time to English composition, +French and German. Her life was then rather solitary, moved by strong +inner religious convictions, upon which she dwelt with passionate +fervor. Her religious views were at first simply those of the Church +of England, then those of the Low Church, and then became +"anti-supernatural." The second phase was no doubt strongly influenced +by her aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Evans, the "Derbyshire Methodist," the +prototype of Dinah Morris in 'Adam Bede.' The earnest, almost +lugubrious conception of life which she formed in these times, and +which subsequent years and experiences only intensified, no doubt gave +the keynote to her whole temperament and genius. It produced in her +that supreme development of the idea of duty and compassion for human +suffering which elevates the tone of her writing with a lofty +conception of life, enables her to penetrate into the feelings and +aspirations of all classes, and while it widened the range of her +sympathy, never did so at the cost of genuineness or intensity of +feeling. At the same time this serious keynote, though it was not +opposed to humor,—the growth of which it even favored,—led to some +limitations in the harmonious development of her artistic nature; +notably in that it counteracted the sense for the playful and joyous +side of life. The eternal conflict between Hellenism and Hebraism, +between the vine-wreath and the crown of thorns, was not reconciled by +her, but led to the suppression or defeat of Hellenism. The true, the +joyous spirit of Hellenism, with its ideals of beauty and happiness in +life, never really possessed her soul. In her own words she has put +this eternal dualism:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5361" id="Page_5361">[Pg 5361]</a></span></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"For evermore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With grander resurrection than was feigned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Attila's fierce Huns, the soul of Greece<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conquers the bulk of Persia. The maimed form<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of calmly joyous beauty, marble-limbed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet breathing with the thought that shaped its limbs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looks mild reproach from out its opened grave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At creeds of terror; and the vine-wreathed god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fronts the pierced Image with the crown of thorns."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Only in the tragic manifestation of the Greek mind, above all in +an Æschylus, did she find true resonance to the passionate beats of +her God-loving and world-renouncing heart. Yet more and more, as +her mind grew and severed itself from the traditional beliefs of her +childhood,—with which however she ever remained in deepest sympathy,—did +this love of God and renunciation of the world mean the +love of man and the tolerance of weakness, the pity with suffering +and the active effort to help to rectify and to improve. The one +element in Hellenism which she adopted and clung to, and which as +a supporting wall she added to the whole structure of her more +Hebraistic beliefs and ideals, was the worship of Sanity. This worship +only intensified the tolerance of the unsound, the pity for the +diseased and distorted and miserable. And though she never became +a professed Positivist, it was no doubt the response which Comte's +philosophy gave to these cravings that made his views ultimately +most congenial to her.</p> + +<p>The true and independent development of her mind began when +after the death of her mother she took charge of Griff House for her +father; but especially when in 1841 her father retired from his active +duties, and settled at Foleshill near Coventry. It was here, while +taking lessons in Latin and Greek from Mr. Sheepshanks, and also +devoting herself to music, that she formed the friendship with Mr. +and Mrs. Charles Bray of Coventry and their kinsman Mr. Charles +C. Hennell, the Unitarian philosopher and writer. These people, +deeply interested in philosophy and literature, and important contributors +to the philosophico-religious literature of the day, responded +fully to the mental needs of George Eliot. Out of this intellectual +affinity grew a friendship which lasted through life. They also introduced +her to the philosophical and critical literature of Germany, +and it was through them that she began in 1843 her first literary +task, the translation of David Strauss's 'Life of Jesus,' which had +been begun by Miss Brabant, who became Mrs. Charles Hennell. +The task of translating Strauss's great work, which occupied three +years of her life, was followed by work of the same nature, which, +though not as taxing as the life of Christ, must still have called upon +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5362" id="Page_5362">[Pg 5362]</a></span> +thought and perseverance to a high degree: it was 'The Essence of +Christianity,' by the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. These +works, which stand on the border line between philosophy and religion, +led her by a natural development into the domain of pure philosophy; +so that the next more extensive task which she undertook, +but to our knowledge never completed, was a translation of Spinoza's +'Ethics.'</p> + +<p>She was now fairly, at the age of twenty-seven, launched in her +literary career; though as yet it was on the side of science and +religion and not of art. The essays which belong to the following +period, together with her editorial occupation, again formed a transition +from the more scientific character of her writing to the domain +of pure literature. And though these works belong to the field of +criticism, it was criticism as applied to pure literature, fiction, and +biography, and thus brought her inherently ponderous and theoretical +mind, by natural stages, from analysis and speculation to the more +imaginative sphere of synthesis and creation. This early theoretical +and scientific direction of her occupation and thought may have produced +that fault in her later writing with which she has often been +reproached,—it may have made her style and diction clumsy and +pedantic. On the other hand, it was a most excellent training for +the future writer of even fiction. For it exercised the mind in gaining +full mastery over thought; in recognizing and defining the nicest +and most delicate shadings of meaning and of expression; in insisting +upon their logical sequence, and thus impressing upon the author the +rudiments of exposition and composition; in extending and enriching +the domain of knowledge and fact; and finally, in producing and +training the force of <i>intellectual</i> sympathy, which sharpens as well as +intensifies insight into life and character, and gives to the mind that +pliancy which directs the feeling heart to beat in sympathy with all +forms of experiences, desires, and passions,—however far the lives +and personalities may be removed from the author who constructs or +describes them.</p> + +<p>In 1849 the death of her father threw her into a state of deepest +depression. It was then that her kind friends the Brays took her for +a tour on the Continent, to Italy and Switzerland. She remained at +Geneva in the family of the artist D'Albert for eight months, where +she no doubt found congenial local associations; for the shores of the +Lake of Geneva, haunted by the spirits of Calvin, Rousseau, Voltaire, +Madame de Staël, Gibbon, Byron, and Shelley, seem bound up with +world-stirring thought as no other place in Europe. Upon her return +to England she made her home with the Brays at Rosehill for about +a year, and then accepted the offer of Dr. John Chapman to become +sub-editor of the Westminster Review and to make her home in his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5363" id="Page_5363">[Pg 5363]</a></span> +family. She here entered a circle of the most prominent literary +men and women of the day, and among these she became an intimate +friend of Herbert Spencer, John Oxenford, James and Harriet +Martineau, George Henry Lewes, and others. Emerson she had met +before at Rosehill. Besides her arduous sub-editorial work, she contributed +several remarkable papers to the Review. Among these are: +'Carlyle's Life of Sterling' and 'Margaret Fuller' in 1852; 'Women +in France: Madame de Tablé,' 1854; 'Evangelical Teaching: Dr. +Cumming,' 1855; 'German Wit: Heinrich Heine,' 'Silly Novels by +Lady Novelists,' 'The Natural History of German Life,' 1856; 'Worldliness +and Otherworldliness: the Poetry of Young' in 1857.</p> + +<p>It was in 1854 that occurred the great event in her life; she joined +George Henry Lewes as his wife, though the latter's wife was still alive. +Lewes was separated from his first wife, though circumstances made +it impossible for him to get a divorce. From that moment George +Eliot remained the most faithful and devoted wife to Lewes and +mother to his children, until his death in 1878. She united her life +with that of Lewes after due and full deliberation, and with a thorough +weighing of consequences and duties. But that she felt the +deepest regret in that her complete union was not in accordance with +the established laws of the society in which she lived, is evident +from all her letters and writings; and though it need not have led +to her marriage with her late husband Mr. Cross, the opportunity +afforded of showing her respect to the established rules of matrimonial +life must certainly have made it easier for her to form a new +alliance, after the death of her first husband.</p> + +<p>With Lewes she went to Germany, living for some time at Berlin +and Weimar, while he was writing his 'Life of Goethe' and she was +working at her translation of Spinoza's 'Ethics' and was contributing +some articles on German literature. Upon their return they settled +in London, finally in the Priory, North Bank, in the northwest of the +metropolis, which was for many years a <i>salon</i> of the London literary +world. The Sunday afternoons of this remarkable couple united all +the talent and genius, residents or foreign visitors. One might meet +in one and the same afternoon Charles Darwin, Robert Browning, +Tennyson, Richard Wagner, Joachim the violinist, Huxley, Clifford, +Du Maurier, and Turgénieff. Lewes, the most brilliant and versatile +conversationalist of his day, gave life and freedom to these meetings; +but the intellectual and moral centre always remained George Eliot, +with her soft, sweet voice, her clear intonation, her friendly and +encouraging smile, lighting up as by a contrast the earnestness of +her serious and large features, which resembled those of Savonarola, +whose character she has drawn in such strong lines in 'Romola.' +But the quality of searching sympathy and benignant humor, so +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5364" id="Page_5364">[Pg 5364]</a></span> +remarkable in her writings, gave the warmth of kindness and cordiality +to these formidably intellectual meetings. The present writer remembers +with grateful piety how, when he was a very young man +struggling to put a crude thought into presentable form before these +giants of thought and letters, she would divine his meaning even in +its embryonic uncouthness of expression, and would give it back to +him and to them in a perfect and faultless garb; so that in admiring +and worshiping the woman, he would be pleased with his own +thoughts and would think well of himself. It is this sympathetic and +unselfish helpfulness of great and noble minds, which gives confidence +and increases the self-esteem of all who come in contact with them. +No wonder that one often saw and heard of a great number of people, +young girls or young men, who by letter or in person sought +help and spiritual guidance from her, and went away strengthened by +her sympathy and advice.</p> + +<p>Her first attempt at fiction was made when in her thirty-seventh +year, in September 1856. The account of this is best shown in her +own words here given among the extracts from her writings. Her +first story was a short one, called 'The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. +Amos Barton.' This was followed by 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story' and +'Janet's Repentance,' and soon there was that remarkable volume +called 'Scenes of Clerical Life.' Lewes and she and the world all +realized that she was a true novelist, and from that moment she +directed all her energies to the production of those works which will +ever live, in spite of all changes of fashions and modes of story-telling, +classical specimens of English fiction. In rapid succession +now followed 'Adam Bede' in 1858; 'The Mill on the Floss' in 1860; +'Silas Marner' in 1861; 'Romola' in 1863; 'Felix Holt, the Radical,' +in 1866; the poem 'The Spanish Gypsy' in 1868; 'Jubal and Other +Poems' in 1870; 'Middlemarch' in 1872; 'Daniel Deronda' in 1876; +and her last work, 'The Impressions of Theophrastus Such,' which +was not published till after the death of Lewes, which occurred in +1878. She married Mr. Cross in May, 1880. She died on December +22d, 1880.</p> + +<p>To lead to the fuller understanding of George Eliot's works, it was +necessary to sketch in broad outlines the growth of her life and personality. +As a writer she was not only a novelist but also a poet, +and above all a social philosopher. Her ethical bias is so strong, +moreover, that one cannot understand her as a novelist or a poet +unless one has grasped her social philosophy and the all-pervading +and ever-present influence it has upon her mind and writing.</p> + +<p>In her delineation of character and depiction of scenes, especially +those of rural and domestic life, truthful rendering is to her the +supreme duty; and one need but open the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5365" id="Page_5365">[Pg 5365]</a></span> +'Adam Bede,' 'The Mill on the Floss,' 'Silas Marner,' and 'Middlemarch,' +on any page, to realize the fullness of truth with which she +has painted. At the time of their appearance, not only were the persons +and the environment identified with the originals she had in her +mind, but as lasting types they tallied exactly with people and local +life known to each English reader. This truthful rendering was also +conceived by her as a primary duty of the novelist. We would refer +the reader to what, in an essay, she says of the English peasant in +fiction, and would recall her own words in the same essay:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A picture of human life, such as a great artist can give, surprises even +the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, +<i>which may be called the raw material of sentiment</i>.... Art is +the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending +our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. All +the more sacred is the task of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life +of the people. Falsification here is far more pernicious than in the more +artificial aspects of life."</p></div> + +<p>Another interesting passage is one containing an estimate of Dickens, +in which she considers the Oliver Twists, Joes, and Nancys +terrible and pathetic pictures of London life:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"And if Dickens had been able to give us their psychological character, +their conception of life, and their emotions, with the same truth as their +idiom and manners, his books would be <i>the greatest contribution to art +ever made to the awakening of social sympathies</i>."</p></div> + +<p>George Eliot might thus be classified as one of the greatest if not +the greatest realist of the analytical or psychological order. But this +would, to our mind, be a one-sided and incomplete estimate of the +chief character in her writing and genius. Truthful rendering of life +and character may have been one of the chief motives to composition, +and a fundamental requisite to the art of her fiction; but it +remained a means to a further end—the ultimate end—of her writing, +as it no doubt was the fundamental stimulus to her imagination +and design. And this end and motive make her an idealist and not +a realist in fiction. The direction in which this idealism goes we +have indicated in the lines we have italicized in the passages we +quote from her, and is to be found in the ethical motive below and +beyond all her thought and composition, the predominance of the +social philosophy in her fiction and poetry, to which we have already +referred.</p> + +<p>We will dismiss the coarse and caricatured distinction between +realism and idealism, in which the one is supposed to render truthfully +<i>whatever is</i>, without any principle of selection or composition; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5366" id="Page_5366">[Pg 5366]</a></span>while the other starts with preconceived notions of the <i>ought to be</i>, +be it from the point of view of formal beauty or spiritual harmony, +and proves the facts that are. Art, and the novel above all,—which +deals with life at once so clear and familiar to us, and so perplexingly +manifold and varied as constantly to elude choice and design,—can neither +forego truth nor unity of design.</p> + +<p>But in the novelist's attitude towards human life there are two +distinct points of view from which a new classification of novelists +might be made: the position given to ethics, the moral laws in the +presentation of life. The laws of human conduct are so essential to +the relation of man to man, that the fundamental question as to +what position ethics holds in our narrative cannot be ignored. The +novelist must have decided whether he is going to consider its +claims in the primary structure of his novel, and in the creation and +development of characters, or not. Is he going to prepare the +groundwork of artistic labor with a view to ethical design, or pure +artistic design? It may be said that the best work requires both. +But still, in so far as the one is heeded more than the other, will +the writer be an idealist or a realist in this sense.</p> + +<p>The idealist will focus his view of the characters, their experiences +and sufferings and surroundings, from a view of moral fitness +and design; the realist will find the design and composition, the harmony +which all art needs, in the characters, in the scenes, in the +life itself, and the inner organic relation of the parts to the whole. +The one leads to the best idealism, the other to the best realism. +The one produces a George Eliot, the other a Guy de Maupassant. +This realist ignores the general fitness of things, the moral law, and +says:—"This character is interesting in itself, this situation is amusing, +curious, striking, or terrible,—they are worth depicting, without +any question as to their relation to social or moral ideals." Guy de +Maupassant takes characters and situations and depicts them with +consummate art; he never troubles himself about general moral fitness, +—we never know what his moral and social ideals are, nor +whether he has any at all. Jane Austen is interested in her characters, +in the tone and range of ideas of the period and the society in +which she lives, the types of life, and she draws them with consummate +art; but though we are left in no doubt in her case as to the +good and the bad, and though the good generally prevails and the bad +is defeated, these are not subordinated to a clear conception of an +ideal social order, without which the characters and the story could +not have been conceived and developed—as is always the case with +George Eliot. Gwendolen Harleth, Felix Holt, Maggie, Dorothea, +Lydgate, the life and surroundings of these figures, all bear a fixed +relation to the social ideals of the author; and it is in this relation +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5367" id="Page_5367">[Pg 5367]</a></span>that she conceives and develops them. Nay, it is for the purpose +of illustrating and fixing this that she creates them at all. Strange +as it may sound, in so far Jane Austen might be called a realist and +be classed with Guy de Maupassant; while George Sand, with whom +she has so much similarity of spirit, is by contrast an idealist. It is +a difference in the initial methods of dealing with life in fiction.</p> + +<p>It is not enough for George Eliot to present an interesting character, +to follow up its fate and growth, to force the reader into sympathy, +to make him hope for success or fear failure; nor even to +show the struggle with the surroundings, to depict interesting and +complex situations and centres. Her writings always depend upon a +primary postulate, and to this postulate all characters, scenes, and +situations are ultimately subordinated. This postulate is: The ideal +social order as a whole, the establishment of sane and sound social +relations in humanity, the development and progress of human society +towards such an ideal of general human life. All characters and situations, +all scenes of life, whether clerical or provincial, whether of +the present or of the past (and this may here be a grave fault), are +developed and viewed by her in their relation to this general standard +of ideal society; how far they fit into this general harmony, and +failing this, how far they can in her stories be made to fit more fully; +or they are left to a more tragic end which emphasizes the facts +of their unfitness. Herein lies her distinctive character as a novelist, +a point in which her delineation differs from most of the other great +novelists—from a Balzac and a Flaubert, a George Sand, a Thackeray, +and a Dickens, a Turgénieff and an <i>early</i> Tolstoy. I do not mean to +say that these novelists had not a social ideal at the foundation of +their constructive imagination; but it did not play that essential part +in their conception and working out of characters and plots, it was +not ever present in their minds while they were describing characters, +feelings, incidents, and situations, as it appears to have been +with George Eliot. Her philosophical and ethical bias thus manifests +itself, in that there was an idea of general social fitness and happiness +modifying and directing her representation of individual life and +character.</p> + +<p>To understand this social ideal of a rational and essentially sane +world, we must conceive her as an expression of the spirit of the age +out of which she grew. And she will thus hold a place not only as a +novelist, but as a pregnant and significant exponent of the thought of +the third quarter of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>The time in which her mind was formed is marked on the side of social +ethics, in that a broad and powerful humanitarian wave spread over +English life and thought. Negatively it manifested itself in that it +was a period of storm and stress toward the birth of +tolerance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5368" id="Page_5368">[Pg 5368]</a></span>—tolerance with all forms of belief and even unbelief. In +the English Church itself, it was the period of clear accentuations of +shades of belief that differed to a very marked degree from one +another. The Church of Rome was brought nearer to the Anglican +believer, and was robbed of its Apocalyptic horrors by a Newman and a +Manning; a definite political act was the Irish Church Act. But an +especial feature of this tolerance was the social recognition of +agnosticism, in its scientific aspect through a Darwin, and in its +more ethical aspect through a Mill, a Herbert Spencer, and a Matthew +Arnold; while divines of the English Church itself, like Stanley, +Maurice, Kingsley, and Jowett, bridged over the gaps between dogmatism +and agnosticism. The repeal of the Test Act (according to which the +signing of the Thirty-nine Articles was a condition for obtaining a +scholarship or fellowship) abolished all disqualifications from +freethinkers at the great universities. Quakers and Jews had before +been admitted to Parliament, and now took prominent and leading +places.</p> + +<p>But more positively, the philosophy of Auguste Comte with its English +exponents, especially Mill, impressed the religious feeling of +humanitarianism. There had been a wave of this before, a wave the +commotion of which was felt even in our days. It was the +humanitarianism of Rousseau, under which George Sand stood. But this +differs in a marked manner from that of our friend. With Rousseau it +was <i>deductive</i>, based upon the inalienable rights of man, of the +individual,—a deductive sociology. In our times it was essentially +guided by the prevailing spirit and methods of thought of Charles +Darwin, Mill, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Clifford, and Matthew Arnold, +with the regenerated and refined sense of truth which they have given +to the world. It has thus led to an <i>inductive</i> sociology and +inductive humanitarianism, freed from all romantic character and +admixture, essentially sober and sane, though none the less passionate +and deep-seated. The last wave of Rousseauesque feeling filtered +through German sources to us in Carlyle and Ruskin. But this mode of +thought was foreign to George Eliot. She disliked all forms of +exaggeration.</p> + +<p>She has always clear in her mind the sane and sober ideals of a +society based upon the truthful observation and recognition of its +wants and needs. The claims of truth, the claims of charity and +unselfishness, are supreme. To this ideal the individual must +subordinate himself if he wishes to be happy and noble, beloved and +honored; must have "that recognition of something to be lived for +beyond the mere satisfaction of self, which is to the moral life what +the addition of a central ganglion is to animal life."</p> + +<p>Pure applied psychology and knowledge of the <i>coeur humain</i>, which +have actuated so many great novelists,—the careful and studied +development of an individual life and character as such within its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5369" id="Page_5369">[Pg 5369]</a></span>surroundings,—were not enough to absorb the desires of George +Eliot's efforts in fiction; still less mere striking incidents, and +the engrossing consequences and sequences as they push on in the plot +of a story; but the <i>coeur humain</i> and incidents in life are viewed in +their relation to society as a whole, to social ideals. She is thus an +idealistic and an ethical novelist.</p> + +<p>Even in her poetry this bias manifests itself; and here, from an +artistic point of view, the effect is often more disturbing than in +her novels. For in poetry the purely artistic, emotional, and lyrical +aspect is more important and essential; and any general and impersonal +ideal counteracts the reality of the characters, the mood, and the +passion. Thus in her longest and greatest poem, 'The Spanish Gypsy,' +the feelings and expressions put into the mouth of Fedalma and Zarca +are the nineteenth-century thoughts and feelings of a George Eliot, +and lose their immediate truthfulness and convincing power from being +thus expressed by fictitious persons; while the personalities +themselves, their thoughts and feelings, do not strike one with a +sense of reality, because they express views which sound anachronistic +and have not their proper local coloring. In spite of some beautiful +shorter poems, passages, and lines, she fails when criticized as a +lyrical poetess; nor will her poems stand faultless when judged from +the epic point of view. But if there be any justification (which we +hold there is) for didactic poetry,—poetry which calls in artistic +emotion to impress truths and moral laws,—then she will always hold a +prominent place in this sphere. 'Stradivarius' and the 'Positivist +Hymn' will, together with Matthew Arnold's 'Self-Dependence,' rank +among the finest types of didactic poems of our age.</p> + +<p>Though at times her ethical bias has obtruded itself out of place, and +may have counteracted her certainty of touch in drawing lifelike +character (as for instance in the construction of Daniel Deronda's +personality), it has, on the whole, not prevented her from giving full +play to her marvelous power of clear and deep insight into life and of +sensuous description.</p> + +<p>In studying life she had learned observation in the scientific +inductive school, and had thus acquired, with minuteness of +perception, the clear-sighted and unprejudiced intellectual justice of +vision which enabled her to appreciate fully and to grasp the inner +core of all the characters, motives, and passions which her command +over her thoughts and language and her docile pen enabled her to fix +in so masterly a manner. But these faculties would not have been +enough to lead to her creation of human types, had she not possessed +to that intense and exalted degree the power of feeling which gave the +initial stimulus to her penetration of the human heart and its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5370" id="Page_5370">[Pg 5370]</a></span>motives and passions, and which her intellectual control converted +into all-encompassing and all-pervading sympathy. She was, after all, +what Elizabeth Browning expressed in the pregnant phrase—"a +large-brained woman and a large-hearted man."</p> + +<p>Nay, this sympathy was so intense and leading a feature of her genius +that it again serves to establish a distinct general classification of +novelists. Like great actors, great writers of fiction may be +classified, according to their mode of rendering the life they study, +as subjective and objective interpreters. The former are +intellectually so wide and emotionally so responsive, that their great +souls and minds grasp and assimilate, absorb for the time being, all +the different natures which they portray; they thrill with them—they +become them. The objective artists possess more the painter's and +sculptor's attitude of mind; they eliminate self completely during the +period of observation, and enter, through the fullness and delicacy of +their perceptions, into the lives and characters they depict. For the +time they see only the object of their study, and reproduce it with +clear and dispassionate touch. This is the case with Balzac, +Turgénieff, Thackeray, and Dickens. The objective method is the safest +and least likely to produce faults in drawing which make the +characters at times inconsistent and fall out of their parts; but the +subjective method may at times attain depth of insight, and fullness +of passion and veracity, which lies hidden from the dispassionate +draughtsmen and impersonators. The Brontés had this subjective +penetration to the highest degree; but they had not, on the other +hand, the inductive and scientific training of George Eliot, which +sobered down and made more objective, as it made more humorous, the +sympathetic impersonations in her stories. Above all, the purely +emotional subjectivity of George Eliot was counteracted by the passion +for the general ethical and the social ideal which we have already +considered as playing so essential a part in her mind. Upon this we +must take our stand in order to appreciate her leading method of +composition, which can be traced, we venture to believe, through all +her novels.</p> + +<p>Starting with a well-defined ideal of social fitness for this world, +the harmony in life towards which all action, effort, and +individuality must tend, the problem which each novel sets itself to +solve is the reconciliation of the conflict arising out of the +unfitness of the leading characters (the "hero" or "heroine," as we +may call them) as measured by this ideal—the want of harmony between +their characters, aspirations, and ambitions, their views of life, and +on the other hand the surroundings in which they live. The Greek +tragedians, Shakespeare, and all great dramatists, have ever dealt +with this central struggle between man and society. But they started +with this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5371" id="Page_5371">[Pg 5371]</a></span>fact, and had merely the artistic aim of evoking sympathy +and pity in the audience because of this tragic struggle, the powerful +and perfect representation of which became the final aim of their +artistic endeavor. With George Eliot the process of adaptation, the +resolution of the discord, and if not the establishment of harmony, +then the clear and impressive indication of the best way to its +establishment, is the real motive and end of her writing. There is in +her no great tragic fatalism, which makes the art of the Greek +dramatist so deeply and overwhelmingly tragic. Each one of her leading +characters is at fault, when viewed in the light of the healthy social +ideal. In the exposition of the character the fault will be shown up +strongly; the hero will either be developed into greater social +perfection, or the tragic end will impress upon the reader the disease +and its remedy, the bane and its antidote.</p> + +<p>The social failings and shortcomings which stand in the way of this +harmony are grouped by her into two leading faults of a general +nature: the discord between the individual and selfish and the general +and altruistic; between thoughtless social materialism and conformity, +and questioning originality and spiritual revolt; between +conventionality and originality; between common-sense and prophetic +far-sightedness; between the Philistine and the artistic, the humdrum +worker and the world-reformer, the materialist and the dreamer. The +one looks down before him on the ground and ignores the heights beyond +and the clear sky above, and in his heavy-footed advance shoves the +sky-gazer aside and walks over him when he has fallen; the other gazes +at the heights and the stars, and spurns the clod and soil, tripping +over them,—nay, slipping in the mud. They each ignore one another and +the world in which each lives, or they despise each other and their +respective goals and aims.</p> + +<p>Now, in all her novels this problem is repeated and a solution is +attempted. Over and over again she presents this situation as the +central point in the composition of her novels, in different layers of +society, in most varied characters. And the understanding of this is +the key to the understanding of George Eliot's works. She either +brings it out in presenting two central figures as the contrasts which +represent either faulty extreme, or one figure as opposed to the +surroundings, or both these means are used to impress the central +fact.</p> + +<p>We shall take one pregnant instance to illustrate this: 'Daniel +Deronda' has been estimated and criticized chiefly as a novel in which +the Jewish question has been discussed by her in a dramatic manner. +That it deals powerfully with this question is no doubt true; but the +Jewish question is but a side issue—no doubt appealing to her deep +sympathies and sense of justice; but it is not the central motive to +the story nor the artistic keystone of the novel as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5372" id="Page_5372">[Pg 5372]</a></span>constructed. The +central figure in that story is Gwendolen Harleth (who ought properly +to have given her name to the novel). The contrasting figure at the +other extreme is Mordecai the Jew, and Daniel is the intermediary +figure (almost figure-head) between these two extremes. The +personality which, I am sure, set her sympathetic intellect and +imagination throbbing into artistic creation was Gwendolen. As an +ordinary though beautiful young lady of English society (in her rank +what Hetty Sorrel and Rosamond Vincy are in theirs), she is the +clod-born, materialistic, and hopelessly selfish representative of the +unsocial member of a society in which ideas and ideals are unknown, +and in which blind impulse, feebly directed by prejudice and +tradition, petty vanity and greed, at most personal ambition, are the +motives to action, and produce the discord and misery which surround +even those who live in affluence. Her beauty, her position in her +family, her whole education, have kept from her every higher ideal, +all semblance of an ideal, and all altruism and feeling for or with +her fellow-men. Her world in the opening of the story is the most +contracted world of a small self, with a pervading passion out of all +proportion to its extent, in which the desires whirl round and round +this little circle in hideous compression. Now the fundamental problem +of the story is: How can this little, selfish, and materialistic +nature, which only realizes the things before its desiring eyes and +grasping touch, be made large, unselfish, and idealistic, so that it +reaches out beyond and above the world of self into the regions of +great ideas, in which the individual is completely submerged; and that +through this wholesome straining of the heart and of sympathetic +power, through this realization and love of the ideal, it may learn to +love and pity, and think for and in, mankind and all men and women? +And this process of artistic development of character is sensuously +and convincingly represented in this novel. The reader enters +sympathetically into the little soul of that beautiful girl at the +very beginning of the story, and in her he passes through all the +phases, until without any forced hiatus he sees before him at the end +the purified and enlarged Gwendolen, who has learnt her ennobling +lesson in the great school of suffering. It is perhaps the greatest +achievement in her art.</p> + +<p>The more definite question is: How can such a girl realize the great +world of ideas? The answer is: It must come through the heart, through +the emotions and not the intellect,—the intellect will be widened and +matured after her personality has been thrilled. She must fall in love +with a man who is the impersonation of an idea, whose whole existence +centres round a great desire far removed from the petty world of self +in which she has lived,—nay, opposed to it, in direct contrast to it.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5373" id="Page_5373">[Pg 5373]</a></span></p> + +<p>This impersonation is presented in Daniel Deronda; and the fault in +the book is that George Eliot's theoretical bias has been too strong +for her, and in her eagerness to make him the bearer of an idea to the +central figure of the story she has sacrificed the realistic drawing +of Daniel, who is an impersonation at the cost of flesh and blood. +Given the fact that Daniel must in his personality represent some +unselfish idea, the question was: What actual idea, great in extent +and enough to fill a man's mind and soul, should be chosen? The +difficulty here arose, that if George Eliot had chosen some purely +imaginary topic it would have lacked reality, and would have moved +neither Gwendolen nor the reader into sympathy. If on the other hand +she had taken some stirring question of the day, the question as such +would have engrossed the interest and attention of the reader, and +would no longer have been subordinated to the chief artistic purpose +it has in the story. As it is, to many, the Jewish question as treated +and suggested in the novel has itself engrossed the attention of +readers, and has diverted their minds from the main artistic gist of +the story. But to the ordinary English reader the subject of Jewish +social life and aspirations was sufficiently remote. Nay, so narrow +are the sympathies and the intellectual horizon of many cultivated +Englishmen, that though they can be interested in the lives of gipsies +and farm laborers, they cannot "screw up an interest in those Jews."</p> + +<p>To Daniel however it was a real, stirring, and great idea to which he +wished to devote his life. Now, in order that Gwendolen should +<i>realize</i> in herself such a great impersonal idea, she had to fall in +love with the man whose life they filled, and through her heart and +her love for him it would reach her mind and raise her thoughts. +Daniel, again, the man she loves, is contrasted with the narrow and +selfish man, the hardened and crystallized type of another social +world, consuming itself in its own self-love.</p> + +<p>All Gwendolen's experiences directly or indirectly tend to bring about +this development of her soul. A striking scene in this sense is her +interview with Klesmer, the genuine and thorough musician devoted to +his art and work. And when she comes out of the final soul's tragedy +we feel that the woman has stood the test of fire, and has realized +the greatness and overwhelming vastness of the spiritual world. G. H. +Lewes, to whom the writer communicated this conception of 'Daniel +Deronda' assured him that he had grasped the central idea which George +Eliot had in her mind, and the actual history in the story's +construction.</p> + +<p>Gwendolen's counterpart (and there are many in George Eliot's books) +is Dorothea in 'Middlemarch.' She starts with great and extraordinary +ideas, and must, through life and suffering, realize the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5374" id="Page_5374">[Pg 5374]</a></span>moral +justification of the simple and commonplace in life. The contrasting +types illustrating this central point can be found in every work: +Dorothea and Rosamond on the one side,—original, spiritual, striving +as commonplace selfishness,—and Dorothea and Ladislaw as heavy, +serious, intellectual morality, and light, playful, artistic freedom, +on the other; Lydgate with his great reformatory ideas, slowly +enfeebled and annihilated in his Samson-like vigor by the pretty, +selfish, shallow-souled Rosamond of provincial worldliness. Gwendolen +is also contrasted with Mirah. In 'Adam Bede,' again, Dinah and Hetty +present the same contrasts as do Tito Melema and Romola, Esther and +Felix Holt. Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom, the spirit of revolt +in Maggie and the hard conventionality of respectability in her +brother Tom, are strongly marked types of this kind. Maggie's conflict +with her narrow and commonplace surroundings and their conventional +respectability are typified in the Mill. It is a wonderful touch of +artistic suggestion that she and her brother are finally submerged in +the Mill, carried away by the flood. This novel reflects more +thoroughly the spirit of Greek tragedy than any other work of modern +fiction. The Mill, and the part it plays in the life of the Tulliver +family and in Maggie's sorrows, are like great Fate in the Greek +tragedy. It is an embodiment of the hard and unrelenting tyranny of +the powers that are. Even in 'Silas Marner,' the most artistic and +least doctrinaire of her novels, the moral process of remedying +Silas's social unfitness and misanthropy is the central idea. Space +will not allow us to give further illustrations of this idea in her +novels; but enough has been said to enable the reader to test it and +follow it up for himself.</p> + +<p>The two most striking qualities in George Eliot as a writer are her +humor and her sympathy. They are realty connected with one another. +The power of intellectual observation, when coupled with the power of +feeling sympathy, produces humor; the purely intellectual or objective +cast of mind produces wit; while the purely subjective habit of mind +is unable to produce either.</p> + +<p>But with all her wide range of sympathy, upon which we have been +dwelling, its limitations can still be discerned. The careful observer +will recognize that the subjective attitude of the woman cannot wholly +be hidden from view. The chief women into whom she projects herself +are after all those that are nearest to herself, and she cannot help +treating them as favorites and bestowing the greater attention upon +them: Daniel only exists as a creation to develop Gwendolen; nay, +Savonarola is really constructed for Romola's spiritual development, +Casaubon for Dorothea, and so on. A still more marked and important +limitation in her sympathies, arising out of her ethical bias, is her +pronounced dislike to all morbid art, all that is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5375" id="Page_5375">[Pg 5375]</a></span>fantastic. The +poetry of Byron, the music of Chopin, all forms of morbid sentiment, +are so repulsive to her nature that she cannot treat them with +tolerance or even with humor. Remarks on Esther in 'Felix Holt' bear +this out. Probably this is an autobiographical touch, and having freed +herself from these morbid tendencies in her youth, she could never +look back upon them with tolerance.</p> + +<p>Her seriousness and ethical bias may at times also have impaired her +style. Her extensive studies in science and philosophy often make her +ponderous in thought and in expression. The fondness with which she +takes her similes from science is often confusing to the reader who is +unfamiliar with the facts and thoughts that are used as illustrations. +She never quite overcame the temptation to insert what was new and +striking to herself; so that her science and philosophy never reached +that mature stage of mental assimilation in which they manifest +themselves merely in the general fullness of thought, without ever +asserting themselves as science or as philosophy. Still, no writer of +fiction has ever introduced reflections and episodes <i>in propria +persona</i> which are so striking and well worth reading in themselves. +When her imitators attempt this they fail signally, and one need but +compare such passages with those of George Eliot to realize her +greatness as a writer and as a thinker.</p> + +<p>To sum up the estimate of George Eliot as a novelist, we would say +that she is the greatest representative of the analytical and +psychological school, fixing with truth and sensuousness the types of +English provincial life; with a final purpose, which she achieved, of +illustrating by them the ideals of social ethics for the wider life of +humanity.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 460px;"> +<img src="images/sign325.png" width="460" height="150" alt="Charles Waldstein" title="Charles Waldstein" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="RESCUE" id="RESCUE"></a>THE FINAL RESCUE</h3> + +<h4>From 'The Mill on the Floss'</h4> + +<p>At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden +cold about her knees and feet; it was water flowing under +her. She started up; the stream was flowing under the +door that led into the passage. She was not bewildered for an +instant; she knew it was the flood!</p> + +<p>The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last +twelve hours seemed to have left a great calm in her; without +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5376" id="Page_5376">[Pg 5376]</a></span> +screaming, she hurried with the candle up-stairs to Bob Jakin's +bedroom. The door was ajar; she went in and shook him by the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house! let us see if we +can make the boats safe."</p> + +<p>She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her +baby, burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to +see if the waters were rising fast. There was a step down into +the room at the door leading from the staircase; she saw that +the water was already on a level with the step. While she was +looking, something came with a tremendous crash against the +window and sent the leaded panes and the old wooden framework +inwards in shivers, the water pouring in after it.</p> + +<p>"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the +boats!"</p> + +<p>And without a moment's shudder of fear she plunged through +the water, which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering +light of the candle she had left on the stairs she mounted +on to the window-sill and crept into the boat, which was left +with the prow lodging and protruding through the window. Bob +was not long after her, hurrying without shoes or stockings, but +with the lantern in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Why, they're both here,—both the boats," said Bob, as he +got into the one where Maggie was. "It's wonderful this fastening +isn't broke too, as well as the mooring."</p> + +<p>In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening +it, and mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger +Maggie incurred. We are not apt to fear for the fearless when +we are companions in their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed +in possible expedients for the safety of the helpless in-doors. +The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked him, and had +taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague impression of her +as one who would help to protect, not need to be protected. +She too had got possession of an oar and had pushed off, so as +to release the boat from the overhanging window frame.</p> + +<p>"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in +at the chambers before long,—th' house is so low. I've more +mind to get Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, +if I could, and trusten to the water,—for th' old house is none +so safe. And if I let go the boat—but <i>you</i>!" he exclaimed, +suddenly lifting the light of his lantern on Maggie, as she +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5377" id="Page_5377">[Pg 5377]</a></span> +stood in the rain with the oar in her hand and her black hair +streaming.</p> + +<p>Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept +along the line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to +the wide water with a force that carried them far past the +meeting current of the river.</p> + +<p>In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, +but that she had suddenly passed away from that life which she +had been dreading; it was the transition of death without its +agony,—and she was alone in the darkness with God.</p> + +<p>The whole thing had been so rapid, so dream-like, that the +threads of ordinary association were broken; she sank down on +the seat clutching the oar mechanically, and for a long while had +no distinct conception of her position. The first thing that +waked her to fuller consciousness was the cessation of the rain, +and a perception that the darkness was divided by the faintest +light, which parted the overhanging gloom from the immeasurable +watery level below. She was driven out upon the flood,—that +awful visitation of God which her father used to talk of, +which had made the nightmare of her childish dreams. And +with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old home, +and Tom, and her mother,—they had all listened together.</p> + +<p>"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried +out, in the dim loneliness.</p> + +<p>What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had +once nearly destroyed it. They might be in danger, in distress,—her +mother and her brother, alone there, beyond reach of +help! Her whole soul was strained now on that thought; and +she saw the long-loved faces looking for help into the darkness, +and finding none.</p> + +<p>She was floating in smooth water now,—perhaps far on the +over-flooded fields. There was no sense of present danger to +check the outgoing of her mind to the old home; and she strained +her eyes against the curtain of gloom that she might seize the +first sight of her whereabouts,—that she might catch some faint +suggestion of the spot towards which all her anxieties tended.</p> + +<p>Oh, how welcome the widening of that dismal watery level, +the gradual uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining +blackness of objects above the glassy dark! Yes, she must +be out on the fields; those were the tops of hedgerow trees. +Which way did the river lie? Looking behind her, she saw the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5378" id="Page_5378">[Pg 5378]</a></span> +lines of black trees; looking before her, there were none; then +the river lay before her. She seized an oar and began to paddle +the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope; the dawning +seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and she +could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a +mound where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and +rowed by turns in the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung +round her, and her streaming hair was dashed about by the +wind, but she was hardly conscious of any bodily sensations,—except +a sensation of strength, inspired by mighty emotion. +Along with the sense of danger and possible rescue for those +long-remembered beings at the old home, there was an undefined +sense of reconcilement with her brother: what quarrel, what +harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence +of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life +is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal +needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love +towards her brother that swept away all the later impressions of +hard, cruel offense and misunderstanding, and left only the deep, +underlying, unshakable memories of early union.</p> + +<p>But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and +near to her Maggie could discern the current of the river. The +dark mass must be—yes, it was—St. Ogg's. Ah, now she +knew which way to look for the first glimpse of the well-known +trees—the gray willows, the now yellowing chestnuts—and above +them the old roof! But there was no color, no shape yet; all +was faint and dim. More and more strongly the energies seemed +to come and put themselves forth, as if her life were a stored-up +force that was being spent in this hour, unneeded for any +future.</p> + +<p>She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she +would never be able to pass the Ripple and approach the house: +this was the thought that occurred to her, as she imagined with +more and more vividness the state of things round the old home. +But then she might be carried very far down, and be unable to +guide her boat out of the current again. For the first time distinct +ideas of danger began to press upon her; but there was no +choice of courses, no room for hesitation, and she floated into the +current. Swiftly she went now, without effort; more and more +clearly in the lessening distance and the growing light she began +to discern the objects that she knew must be the well-known +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5379" id="Page_5379">[Pg 5379]</a></span> +trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing muddy current +that must be the strangely altered Ripple.</p> + +<p>Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash +against her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. +What were those masses?</p> + +<p>For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony +of dread. She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being +floated along, more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. +But the horror was transient; it passed away before the oncoming +warehouses of St. Ogg's. She had passed the mouth of the +Ripple, then; <i>now</i>, she must use all her skill and power to manage +the boat and get it if possible out of the current. She could +see now that the bridge was broken down; she could see the +masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery field. But no +boats were to be seen moving on the river,—such as had been +laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.</p> + +<p>With new resolution Maggie seized her oar, and stood up +again to paddle; but the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness +of the river, and she was carried along beyond the bridge. She +could hear shouts from the windows overlooking the river, as if +the people there were calling to her. It was not till she had +passed on nearly to Tofton that she could get the boat clear of +the current. Then with one yearning look towards her uncle +Deane's house that lay farther down the river, she took to both +her oars and rowed with all her might across the watery fields, +back towards the Mill. Color was beginning to awake now, and +as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the tints +of the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right; and +the home chestnuts,—oh, how deep they lay in the water,—deeper +than the trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill—where +was it? Those heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,—what +had they meant? But it was not the house,—the +house stood firm; drowned up to the first story, but still firm;—or +was it broken in at the end towards the Mill?</p> + +<p>With panting joy that she was there at last,—joy that overcame +all distress,—Maggie neared the front of the house. At +first she heard no sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat +was on a level with the up-stairs window. She called out in a +loud piercing voice:—</p> + +<p>"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is +Maggie!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5380" id="Page_5380">[Pg 5380]</a></span></p> + +<p>Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she +heard Tom's voice:—</p> + +<p>"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?"</p> + +<p>"It is I, Tom,—Maggie. Where is mother?"</p> + +<p>"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. +I'll come down to the lower window."</p> + +<p>"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, +as he opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. +Get in quickly. Is there no one else?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat, "I fear the man is +drowned; he was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part +of the Mill fell with the crash of trees and stones against it; +I've shouted again and again, and there has been no answer. +Give me the oars, Maggie."</p> + +<p>It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the +wide water,—he face to face with Maggie,—that the full meaning +of what had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with +so overpowering a force,—it was such a new revelation to his +spirit of the depths in life that had lain beyond his vision, which +he had fancied so keen and clear,—that he was unable to ask a +question. They sat mutely gazing at each other,—Maggie with +eyes of intense life looking out from a weary, beaten face; Tom +pale, with a certain awe and humiliation. Thought was busy +though the lips were silent; and though he could ask no question, +he guessed a story of almost miraculous, Divinely protected +effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes, and +the lips found a word they could utter,—the old childish "Magsie!"</p> + +<p>Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that +mysterious, wondrous happiness that is one with pain.</p> + +<p>As soon as she could speak, she said:—"We will go to Lucy, +Tom; we'll go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the +rest."</p> + +<p>Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed +from poor Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the +river again, and soon they would be at Tofton.</p> + +<p>"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. +"Perhaps they have got Lucy there."</p> + +<p>Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried towards +them by the river. Some wooden machinery had just given way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5381" id="Page_5381">[Pg 5381]</a></span> +on one of the wharves, and huge fragments were being floated +along. The sun was rising now, and the wide area of watery +desolation was spread out in dreadful clearness around them; +in dreadful clearness floated onward the hurrying, threatening +masses. A large company in a boat that was working its way +along under the Tofton houses observed their danger, and shouted, +"Get out of the current!"</p> + +<p>But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before +him, saw death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging +together in fatal fellowship, made one wide mass across the +stream.</p> + +<p>"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, +loosing the oars and clasping her.</p> + +<p>The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, +and the huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.</p> + +<p>But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on +the golden water.</p> + +<p>The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down +in an embrace never to be parted; living through again in one +supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little +hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Nature repairs her ravages,—repairs them with her sunshine, +and with human labor. The desolation wrought by that flood +had left little visible trace on the face of the earth, five years +after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in +thick clusters among the distant hedgerows; the wharves and +warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with echoes of eager +voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.</p> + +<p>And every man and woman mentioned in this history was +still living, except those whose end we know.</p> + +<p>Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees +are not rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is +a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the +hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past +rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no +thorough repair.</p> + +<p>Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote church-yard—where +the brick grave that held a father whom we know, was found +with the stone laid prostrate upon it after the flood—had recovered +all its grassy order and decent quiet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5382" id="Page_5382">[Pg 5382]</a></span></p> + +<p>Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon +after the flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; +and it was visited at different moments by two men who both +felt that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever +buried there.</p> + +<p>One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside +him; but that was years after.</p> + +<p>The other was always solitary. His great companionship was +among the trees of the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed +still to hover, like a revisiting spirit.</p> + +<p>The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and +below the names it was written:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In their death they were not divided."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="WORTHIES" id="WORTHIES"></a>THE VILLAGE WORTHIES</h3> + +<h4>From 'Silas Marner'</h4> + +<p>The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when +Silas approached the door of the Rainbow, had as usual +been slow and intermittent when the company first assembled. +The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an +air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits +and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were +depending on the first man who winked; while the beer-drinkers, +chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids +down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their +draughts of beer were a funeral duty attended with embarrassing +sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral +disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences +as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke +silence by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher:—</p> + +<p>"Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, +Bob?"</p> + +<p>The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed +to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat, +and replied, "And they wouldn't be fur wrong, John."</p> + +<p>After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely +as before.</p> + +<p>"Was it a red Durham?" said the farrier, taking up the +thread of discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5383" id="Page_5383">[Pg 5383]</a></span></p> + +<p>The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at +the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of +answering.</p> + +<p>"Red it was," said the butcher, in his good-humored husky +treble,—"and a Durham it was."</p> + +<p>"Then you needn't tell <i>me</i> who you bought it of," said the +farrier, looking round with some triumph: "I know who it is has +got the red Durhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white +star on her brow, I'll bet a penny?" The farrier leaned forward +with his hands on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes +twinkled knowingly.</p> + +<p>"Well, yes—she might," said the butcher, slowly, considering +that he was giving a decided affirmative. "I don't say +contrairy."</p> + +<p>"I knew that very well," said the farrier, throwing himself +backward again, and speaking defiantly; "if <i>I</i> don't know Mr. +Lammeter's cows, I should like to know who does—that's all. +And as for the cow you've bought, bargain or no bargain, I've +been at the drenching of her—contradick me who will."</p> + +<p>The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher's conversational +spirit was roused a little.</p> + +<p>"I'm not for contradicking no man," he said; "I'm for peace +and quietness. Some are for cutting long ribs—I'm for cutting +'em short myself; but <i>I</i> don't quarrel with 'em. All I say is, it's +a lovely carkiss—and anybody as was reasonable, it 'ud bring +tears into their eyes to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's the cow as I drenched, whatever it is," pursued the +farrier, angrily; "and it was Mr. Lammeter's cow, else you told +a lie when you said it was a red Durham."</p> + +<p>"I tell no lies," said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness +as before; "and I contradick none—not if a man was to +swear himself black; he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. +All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss. And what I say I'll +stick to; but I'll quarrel wi' no man."</p> + +<p>"No," said the farrier with bitter sarcasm, looking at the +company generally; "and p'raps you aren't pig-headed; and p'raps +you didn't say the cow was a red Durham; and p'raps you didn't +say she'd got a star on her brow—stick to that, now you're +at it."</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said the landlord, "let the cow alone. The +truth lies atween you; you're both right and both wrong, as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5384" id="Page_5384">[Pg 5384]</a></span> +allays say. And as for the cow's being Mr. Lammeter's, I say +nothing to that; but this I say, as the Rainbow's the Rainbow. +And for the matter o' that, if the talk is to be o' the Lammeters, +<i>you</i> know the most upo' that head, eh, Mr. Macey? You remember +when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into these parts, and +took the Warrens?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Macey, tailor and parish clerk, the latter of which functions +rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured +young man who sat opposite him, held his white head +on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, +slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly in answer +to the landlord's appeal, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid +by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been +to school at Tarley; they've learned pernouncing; that's come up +since my day."</p> + +<p>"If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said the deputy clerk, +with an air of anxious propriety, "I'm nowise a man to speak out +of my place. As the psalm says:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'I know what's right; nor only so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But also practice what I know.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Well, then, I wish you'd keep hold o' the tune when it's set +for you; if you're for practicing I wish you'd prac<i>tice</i> that," said a +large jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his weekday +capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as +he spoke, at two of the company who were known officially as +"the bassoon" and "the key bugle," in the confidence that he was +expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe.</p> + +<p>Mr. Tookey the deputy clerk, who shared the unpopularity +common to deputies, turned very red, but replied with careful +moderation:—"Mr. Winthrop, if you'll bring me any proof as I'm +in the wrong, I'm not the man to say I won't alter. But there's +people set up their own ears for a standard, and expect the +whole choir to follow 'em. There may be two opinions, I hope."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with +this attack on youthful presumption; "you're right there, Tookey: +there's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, +and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd +be two 'pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear +itself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5385" id="Page_5385">[Pg 5385]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Macey," said poor Tookey, serious amidst the +general laughter, "I undertook to partially fill up the office of +parish clerk by Mr. Crackenthorp's desire, whenever your infirmities +should make you unfitting; and it's one of the rights +thereof to sing in the choir—else why have you done the same +yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two folks," said +Ben Winthrop. "The old gentleman's got a gift. Why, the +Squire used to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him sing +the 'Red Rovier'; didn't he, Mr. Macey? It's a nat'ral gift. +There's my little lad Aaron, he's got a gift—he can sing a tune +off straight, like a throstle. But as for you, Master Tookey, +you'd better stick to your 'Amens': your voice is well enough +when you keep it up in your nose. It's your inside as isn't +right made for music: it's no better nor a hollow stalk."</p> + +<p>This kind of unflinching frankness was the most piquant +form of joke to the company at the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop's +insult was felt by everybody to have capped Mr. Macey's +epigram.</p> + +<p>"I see what it is plain enough," said Mr. Tookey, unable to +keep cool any longer. "There's a consperacy to turn me out o' +the choir, as I shouldn't share the Christmas money—that's +where it is. But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I'll not be +put upon by no man."</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, Tookey," said Ben Winthrop. "We'll pay you +your share to keep out of it—that's what we'll do. There's +things folks 'ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin."</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said the landlord, who felt that paying people +for their absence was a principle dangerous to society; "a joke's +a joke. We're all good friends here, I hope. We must give and +take. You're both right and you're both wrong, as I say. I +agree wi' Mr. Macey here, as there's two opinions; and if mine +was asked, I should say they're both right. Tookey's right and +Winthrop's right, and they've only got to split the difference +and make themselves even."</p> + +<p>The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt +at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, +and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and +likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, +having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire, for +Tookey's defeat and for the preservation of the peace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5386" id="Page_5386">[Pg 5386]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To be sure," he said, following up the landlord's conciliatory +view, "we're fond of our old clerk; it's nat'ral, and him used +to be such a singer, and got a brother as is known for the first +fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it's a pity but what Solomon +lived in our village, and could give us a tune when he liked, eh, +Mr. Macey? I'd keep him in liver and lights for nothing—that +I would."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, in the height of complacency; +"our family's been known for musicianers as far back as anybody +can tell. But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon +every time he comes round; there's no voices like what there +used to be, and there's nobody remembers what we remember, if +it ain't the old crows."</p> + +<p>"Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father came +into these parts, don't you, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.</p> + +<p>"I should think I did," said the old man, who had now gone +through that complimentary process necessary to bring him up +to the point of narration; "and a fine old gentleman he was—as +fine and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. He came from +a bit north'ard, so far as I could ever make out. But there's +nobody rightly knows about those parts; only it couldn't be far +north'ard, nor much different from this country, for he brought a +fine breed o' sheep with him, so there must be pastures there, and +everything reasonable. We heard tell as he'd sold his own land +to come and take the Warrens, and that seemed odd for a man as +had land of his own, to come and rent a farm in a strange place. +But they said it was along of his wife's dying; though there's +reasons in things as nobody knows on—that's pretty much what +I've made out; though some folks are so wise that they'll find +you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason's +winking at 'em in the corner, and they niver see't. Howsomever, +it was soon seen as we'd got a new parish'ner as know'd +the rights and customs o' things, and kep a good house, and was +well looked on by everybody. And the young man—that's the +Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he'd niver a sister—soon begun to +court Miss Osgood, that's the sister o' the Mr. Osgood as now is, +and a fine handsome lass she was—eh, you can't think—they +pretend this young lass is like her, but that's the way wi' people +as don't know what come before 'em. <i>I</i> should know, for I helped +the old rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped him marry +'em."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5387" id="Page_5387">[Pg 5387]</a></span></p> + +<p>Here Mr. Macey paused; he always gave his narrative in installments, +expecting to be questioned according to precedent.</p> + +<p>"Ay, and a partic'lar thing happened, didn't it, Mr. Macey, +so as you were likely to remember that marriage?" said the +landlord, in a congratulatory tone.</p> + +<p>"I should think there did—a <i>very</i> partic'lar thing," said Mr. +Macey, nodding sideways. "For Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, +I was fond on him, though he'd got a bit confused in +his head, what wi' age and wi' taking a drop o' summat warm +when the service come of a cold morning; and young Mr. +Lammeter he'd have no way but he must be married in Janiwary, +which, to be sure, 's a unreasonable time to be married in, +for it isn't like a christening or a burying, as you can't help; +and so Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him; +but when he come to put the questions, he put 'em by the rule +o' contrairy like, and he says, 'Wilt thou have this man to thy +wedded wife?' says he, and then he says, 'Wilt thou have this +woman to thy wedded husband?' says he. But the partic'larest +thing of all is, as nobody took any notice on it but me, and +they answered straight off 'Yes,' like as if it had been me saying +'Amen' i' the right place, without listening to what went before."</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i> knew what was going on well enough, didn't you, +Mr. Macey? You were live enough, eh?" said the butcher.</p> + +<p>"Lor bless you!" said Mr. Macey, pausing, and smiling in +pity at the impotence of his hearers' imagination,—"why, I was +all of a tremble: it was as if I'd been a coat pulled by the two +tails, like; for I couldn't stop the parson, I couldn't take upon +me to do that; and yet I said to myself, I says, 'Suppose they +shouldn't be fast married, 'cause the words are contrairy?' and +my head went working like a mill, for I was allays uncommon +for turning things over and seeing all round 'em; and I says to +myself, 'Is't the meanin' or the words as makes folks fast i' +wedlock?' For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom +meant right. But then when I come to think on it, +meanin' goes but a little way i' most things, for you may mean +to stick things together and your glue may be bad, and then +where are you? And so I says to mysen, 'It isn't the meanin', +it's the glue.' And I was worreted as if I'd got three bells to +pull at once, when we got into the vestry, and they begun to +sign their names. But where's the use o' talking?—you can't +think what goes on in a 'cute man's inside."</p> + +<p>"But you held in for all that, didn't you, Mr. Macey?" said +the landlord.</p> + +<p>"Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen, wi' Mr. Drumlow, +and then I out wi' everything, but respectful, as I allays did. +And he made light on it, and he says:—'Pooh, pooh, Macey, +make yourself easy,' he says, 'it's neither the meaning nor the +words—it's the register does it—that's the glue.' So you see +he settled it easy; for parsons and doctors know everything by +heart, like, so as they aren't worreted wi' thinking what's the +rights and wrongs o' things, as I'n been many and many's the +time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right, on'y +poor Mrs. Lammeter—that's Miss Osgood as was—died afore +the lasses were growed up; but for prosperity and everything +respectable, there's no family more looked on."</p> + +<p>Every one of Mr. Macey's audience had heard this story many +times, but it was listened to as if it had been a favorite tune, +and at certain points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily +suspended, that the listeners might give their whole minds to +the expected words. But there was more to come; and Mr. +Snell, the landlord, duly put the leading question:—</p> + +<p>"Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn't they +say, when he come into these parts?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," said Mr. Macey; "but I dare say it's as much as +this Mr. Lammeter's done to keep it whole.... Why, they're +stables four times as big as Squire Cass's, for he thought o' +nothing but hosses and hunting, Cliff didn't—a Lunnon tailor, +some folks said, as had gone mad wi' cheating. For he couldn't +ride, Lor bless you! they said he'd got no more grip o' the hoss +than if his legs had been cross-sticks: my grandfather heared old +Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But ride he would, +as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he'd a son, a lad o' +sixteen; and nothing would his father have him do but he must +ride and ride—though the lad was frightened, they said. And it +was a common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out +o' the lad, and make a gentleman on him—not but what I'm a +tailor myself, but in respect as God made me such, I'm proud on +it, for 'Macey, tailor,' 's been wrote up over our door since afore +the Queen's heads went out on the shillings. But Cliff, he was +ashamed o' being called a tailor, and he was sore vexed as his +riding was laughed at, and nobody o' the gentlefolks here about +could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got sickly and died,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5389" id="Page_5389">[Pg 5389]</a></span> +and the father didn't live long after him, for he got queerer nor +ever, and they said he used to go out i' the dead o' the night, +wi' a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o' lights +burning, for he got as he couldn't sleep; and there he'd stand, +cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was +a mercy as the stables didn't get burnt down wi' the poor dumb +creaturs in 'em. But at last he died raving, and they found as +he'd left all his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, +and that's how the Warrens come to be Charity Land; though +as for the stables, Mr. Lammeter never uses 'em—they're out o' +all charicter—Lor bless you! if you was to set the doors a-banging +in 'em, it 'ud sound like thunder half o'er the parish."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks +see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay; go that way of a dark night, that's all," said Mr. +Macey, winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you +like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping +o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling too, if +it's tow'rt daybreak. 'Cliff's Holiday' has been the name of it +ever sin' I were a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the +holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That's what my +father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there's +folks nowadays know what happened afore they were born better +nor they know their own business."</p> + +<p>"What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?" said the landlord, +turning to the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his +cue: "here's a nut for <i>you</i> to crack."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was +proud of his position.</p> + +<p>"Say? I say what a man <i>should</i> say as doesn't shut his +eyes to look at a finger-post. I say as I'm ready to wager any +man ten pound, if he'll stand out wi' me any dry night in the +pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights +nor hear noises, if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's +what I say, and I've said it many a time; but there's nobody +'ull ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as they make so +sure of."</p> + +<p>"Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is," said Ben Winthrop. +"You might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the +rheumatise if he stood up to 's neck in the pool of a frosty +night. It 'ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as he'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5390" id="Page_5390">[Pg 5390]</a></span> +catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff's Holiday aren't +a-going to ventur near it for a matter o' ten pound."</p> + +<p>"If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it," said Mr. +Macey, with a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, "he's +no call to lay any bet; let him go and stan' by himself—there's +nobody 'ull hinder him; and then he can let the parish'ners +know if they're wrong."</p> + +<p>"Thank you! I'm obliged to you," said the farrier, with a +snort of scorn. "If folks are fools, it's no business o' mine. <i>I</i> +don't want to make out the truth about ghos'es; I know it +a'ready. But I'm not against a bet—everything fair and open. +Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff's Holiday, +and I'll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I'd as +lief do it as I'd fill this pipe."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but who's to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? +That's no fair bet," said the butcher.</p> + +<p>"No fair bet?" replied Mr. Dowlas angrily. "I should like +to hear any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come +now, Master Lundy, I should like to hear you say it."</p> + +<p>"Very like you would," said the butcher. "But it's no +business o' mine. You're none o' my bargains, and I aren't +a-going to try and 'bate your price. If anybody'll bid for you +at your own vallying, let him. I'm for peace and quietness, I +am."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what every yapping cur is, when you hold a +stick up at him," said the farrier. "But I'm afraid o' neither +man nor ghost, and I'm ready to lay a fair bet—I aren't a turntail +cur."</p> + +<p>"Ay, but there's this in it, Dowlas," said the landlord, speaking +in a tone of much candor and tolerance. "There's folks, i' +my opinion, they can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as +a pike-staff before 'em. And there's reason i' that. For there's +my wife, now, can't smell, not if she'd the strongest o' cheese +under her nose. I never seed a ghost myself; but then I says +to myself, 'Very like I haven't got the smell for 'em.' I mean, +putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrariways. And so I'm +for holding with both sides; for as I say, the truth lies between +'em. And if Dowlas was to go and stand, and say he'd never +seen a wink o' Cliff's Holiday all the night through, I'd back +him; and if anybody said as Cliff's Holiday was certain sure for +all that, I'd back <i>him</i> too. For the smell's what I go by."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5391" id="Page_5391">[Pg 5391]</a></span></p> + +<p>The landlord's analogical argument was not well received by +the farrier—a man intensely opposed to compromise.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut," he said setting down his glass with refreshed irritation; +"what's the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost +give a man a black eye? That's what I should like to know. If +ghos'es want me to believe in 'em, let 'em leave off skulking i' +the dark and i' lone places—let 'em come where there's company +and candles."</p> + +<p>"As if ghos'es 'ud want to be believed in by anybody so +ignorant!" said Mr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier's crass +imcompetence to apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="HALL_FARM" id="HALL_FARM"></a>THE HALL FARM</h3> + +<h4>From 'Adam Bede'</h4> + +<p>Evidently that gate is never opened; for the long grass and +the great hemlocks grow close against it; and if it were +opened, it is so rusty that the force necessary to turn to +on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stone-built +pillars, to the detriment of the two stone lionesses which +grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability above a coat of arms +surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy enough, by +the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the brick +wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close +to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, +and all but the very corners of the grassy inclosure.</p> + +<p>It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale +powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, +so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship +with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three +gables, the windows, and the door-place. But the windows are +patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the +gate—it is never opened: how it would groan and grate against +the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy, handsome +door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a +sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey who had just seen his +master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.</p> + +<p>But at present one might fancy the house in the early stage +of a chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5392" id="Page_5392">[Pg 5392]</a></span> +row of walnut-trees on the right hand of the inclosure would +fall and rot among the grass; if it were not that we heard the +booming bark of dogs echoing from great buildings at the back. +And now the half-weaned calves that have been sheltering themselves +in a gorse-built hovel against the left-hand wall come out +and set up a silly answer to that terrible bark, doubtless supposing +that it has reference to buckets of milk.</p> + +<p>Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; +for imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, +but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. +Put your face to one of the glass panes in the right-hand window: +what do you see? A large open fireplace, with rusty dogs +in it, and a bare boarded floor; at the far end, fleeces of wool +stacked up; in the middle of the floor, some empty corn-bags. +That is the furniture of the dining-room. And what through the +left-hand window? Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel, +and an old box wide open, and stuffed full of colored +rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, +which so far as mutilation is concerned bears a strong resemblance +to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total +loss of its nose. Near it there is a little chair, and the butt-end +of a boy's leather long-lashed whip.</p> + +<p>The history of the house is plain now. It was once the residence +of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling +down to mere spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial +name of Donnithorne. It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall +Farm. Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, +and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent +and grass-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and resonant, +the life at the Hall has changed its focus, and no longer +radiates from the parlor, but from the kitchen and the farm-yard.</p> + +<p>Plenty of life there! though this is the drowsiest time of the +year, just before hay harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the +day too, for it is close upon three by the sun, and it is half-past +three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock. But there is +always a stronger sense of life when the sun is brilliant after +rain; and now he is pouring down his beams, and making +sparkles among the wet straw, and lighting up every patch of +vivid green moss on the red tiles of the cow-shed, and turning +even the muddy water that is hurrying along the channel to the +drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are seizing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5393" id="Page_5393">[Pg 5393]</a></span> +the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as +possible. There is quite a concert of noises: the great bull-dog, +chained against the stables, is thrown into furious exasperation +by the unwary approach of a cock too near the mouth of his +kennel, and sends forth a thundering bark, which is answered by +two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted +hens, scratching with their chicks among the straw, set +up a sympathetic croaking as the discomfited cock joins them; +a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled +as to the tail, throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends +the calves are bleating from the home croft; and under all, a +fine ear discerns the continuous hum of human voices.</p> + +<p>For the great barn doors are thrown wide open, and men are +busy there mending the harness under the superintendence of +Mr. Goby the "whittaw," otherwise saddler, who entertains them +with the latest Treddleston gossip. It is certainly rather an +unfortunate day that Alick the shepherd has chosen for having +the whittaws, since the morning turned out so wet; and Mrs. +Poyser has spoken her mind pretty strongly as to the dirt which +the extra number of men's shoes brought into the house at dinner-time. +Indeed, she has not yet recovered her equanimity on +the subject, though it is now nearly three hours since dinner +and the house floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as everything +else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance +of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, +and put your finger on the high mantel shelf on which +the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; +for at this time of year of course every one goes to bed +while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline +of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. +Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case and an oak table +have got to such a polish by the hand: genuine "elbow polish," +as Mrs. Poyser called it, for she thanked God she never had any +of your varnished rubbish in her house. Hetty Sorrel often took +the opportunity, when her aunt's back was turned, of looking +at the pleasing reflection of herself in those polished surfaces, for +the oak table was usually turned up like a screen, and was more +for ornament than for use; and she could see herself sometimes +in the great round pewter dishes that were ranged on the shelves +above the long deal dinner-table, or in the hobs of the grate, +which always shone like jasper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5394" id="Page_5394">[Pg 5394]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everything was looking at its brightest at this moment, for +the sun shone right on the pewter dishes, and from their reflecting +surfaces pleasant jets of light were thrown on mellow oak and +bright brass;—and on a still pleasanter object than these; for +some of the rays fell on Dinah's finely molded cheek, and lit +up her pale-red hair to auburn, as she bent over the heavy +household linen which she was mending for her aunt. No scene +could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who was ironing +a few things that still remained from the Monday's wash, had +not been making a frequent clinking with her iron, and moving +to and fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen +glance of her blue-gray eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where +Hetty was making up the butter, and from the dairy to the +back kitchen, where Nancy was taking the pies out of the oven. +Do not suppose however that Mrs. Poyser was elderly or +shrewish in her appearance; she was a good-looking woman, not +more than eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion and sandy hair, +well-shapen, light-footed; the most conspicuous article in her +attire was an ample checkered linen apron, which almost covered +her skirt; and nothing could be plainer or less noticeable than +her cap and gown, for there was no weakness of which she was +less tolerant than feminine vanity, and the preference of ornament +to utility. The family likeness between her and her niece +Dinah Morris, with the contrast between her keenness and +Dinah's seraphic gentleness of expression, might have served a +painter as an excellent suggestion for a Martha and Mary. Their +eyes were just of the same color, but a striking test of the +difference in their operation was seen in the demeanor of Trip, +the black-and-tan terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily +exposed himself to the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser's +glance. Her tongue was not less keen than her eye, and whenever +a damsel came within earshot, seemed to take up an unfinished +lecture, as a barrel organ takes up a tune, precisely at the +point where it had left off.</p> + +<p>The fact that it was churning day was another reason why it +was inconvenient to have the whittaws, and why, consequently, +Mrs. Poyser should scold Molly the housemaid with unusual +severity. To all appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner +work in an exemplary manner, had "cleaned herself" +with great dispatch, and now came to ask submissively if she +should sit down to her spinning till milking-time. But this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5395" id="Page_5395">[Pg 5395]</a></span> +blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a secret +indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth +and held up to Molly's view with cutting eloquence.</p> + +<p>"Spinning, indeed! It isn't spinning as you'd be at, I'll be +bound, and let you have your own way. I never knew your +equals for gallowsness. To think of a gell o' your age wanting +to go and sit with half-a-dozen men! I'd ha' been ashamed to +let the words pass over my lips if I'd been you. And you, as +have been here ever since last Michaelmas, and I hired you +at Treddles'on stattits, without a bit o' character—as I say, you +might be grateful to be hired in that way to a respectable place; +and you knew no more o' what belongs to work when you come +here than the mawkin i' the field. As poor a two-fisted thing as +ever I saw, you know you was. Who taught you to scrub a +floor, I should like to know? Why, you'd leave the dirt in +heaps i' the corners—anybody 'ud think you'd never been brought +up among Christians. And as for spinning, why you've wasted as +much as your wage i' the flax you've spoiled learning to spin. +And you've a right to feel that, and not to go about as gaping +and as thoughtless as if you was beholding to nobody. Comb +the wool for the whittaws, indeed! That's what you'd like to +be doing, is it? That's the way with you—that's the road you'd +all like to go, headlongs to ruin. You're never easy till you've +got some sweetheart as is as big a fool as yourself: you think +you'll be finely off when you're married, I dare say, and have +got a three-legged stool to sit on, and never a blanket to cover +you, and a bit o' oat-cake for your dinner, as three children are +a-snatching at."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I donna want t' go wi' the whittaws," said Molly, +whimpering, and quite overcome by this Dantean picture of her +future; "on'y we allays used to comb the wool for 'n at Mester +Ottley's, an' so I just asked ye. I donna want to set eyes on +the whittaws again; I wish I may never stir if I do."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ottley's, indeed! It's fine talking o' what you did at +Mr. Ottley's. Your missis there might like her floors dirted wi' +whittaws for what I know. There's no knowing what people +<i>wonna</i> like—such ways as I've heard of! I never had a gell +come into my house as seemed to know what cleaning was; I +think people live like pigs, for my part. And as to that Betty +as was dairymaid at Trent's before she come to me, she'd ha' left +the cheeses without turning from week's end to week's end; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5396" id="Page_5396">[Pg 5396]</a></span> +the dairy thralls, I might ha' wrote my name on 'em, when I +come down-stairs after my illness, as the doctor said it was inflammation—it +was a mercy I got well of it. And to think o' +your knowing no better, Molly, and been here a-going i' nine +months, and not for want o' talking to, neither;—and what are +you stanning there for, like a jack as is run down, instead o' +getting your wheel out? You're a rare un for sitting down to +your work a little while after it's time to put by."</p> + +<p>"Munny, my iron's twite told; pease put it down to warm."</p> + +<p>The small chirruping voice that uttered this request came from +a little sunny-haired girl between three and four, who, seated on +a high chair at the end of the ironing-table, was arduously +clutching the handle of a miniature iron with her tiny fat fist, +and ironing rags with an assiduity that required her to put her +little red tongue out as far as anatomy would allow.</p> + +<p>"Cold, is it, my darling? Bless your sweet face!" said Mrs. +Poyser, who was remarkable for the facility with which she could +relapse from her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of +friendly converse. "Never mind! Mother's done her ironing +now. She's going to put the ironing things away."</p> + +<p>"Munny, I tould 'ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see +de whittawd."</p> + +<p>"No, no, no; Totty 'ud get her feet wet," said Mrs. Poyser, +carrying away her iron. "Run into the dairy and see Cousin +Hetty make the butter."</p> + +<p>"I tould 'ike a bit of pum-take," rejoined Totty, who seemed +to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time +taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her +fingers into a bowl of starch and drag it down so as to empty +the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing-sheet.</p> + +<p>"Did ever anybody see the like?" screamed Mrs. Poyser, running +towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue +stream. "The child's allays i' mischief if your back's turned a +minute. What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell?"</p> + +<p>Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, +and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of +waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck +which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white sucking +pig.</p> + +<p>The starch having been wiped up by Molly's help, and the +ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5397" id="Page_5397">[Pg 5397]</a></span> +which always lay ready at hand and was the work she liked best, +because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and +fro. But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she +looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her gray worsted +stocking.</p> + +<p>"You look th' image o' your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you +sit a-sewing. I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and +I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her +work after she'd done the house up; only it was a little cottage, +father's was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i' one +corner as fast as you clean it in another; but for all that I could +fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker +than yours, and she was stouter and broader i' the shoulders. +Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer +ways, but your mother and her never could agree. Ah! your +mother little thought as she'd have a daughter just cut out after +the very pattern o' Judith, and leave her an orphan too, for Judith +to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when <i>she</i> was in the +grave-yard at Stoniton. I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear +a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. +And she was just the same from the first o' my remembering +her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took +to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different, and wore a +different sort o' cap; but she'd never in her life spent a penny +on herself more than keeping herself decent."</p> + +<p>"She was a blessed woman," said Dinah: "God had given her +a loving, self-forgetting nature, and he perfected it by grace. +And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I've often +heard her talk of you in the same sort of way. When she had +that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say, +'You'll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I'm taken +from you; for she has a kind heart;' and I'm sure I've found +it so."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do anything +for you, I think; you're like the birds o' th' air, and live +nobody knows how. I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a +mother's sister, if you'd come and live i' this country, where +there's some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks +don't live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel +bank. And then you might get married to some decent man, +and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5398" id="Page_5398">[Pg 5398]</a></span> +that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt +Judith ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a +poor wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny +beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very +like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all +they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do +for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though +she's his own niece. And there's linen in the house as I could +well spare you, for I've got lots o' sheeting, and table-clothing, +and toweling, as isn't made up. There's a piece o' sheeting I +could give you as that squinting Kitty spun—she was a rare girl +to spin, for all she squinted and the children couldn't abide her; +and you know the spinning's going on constant, and there's new +linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where's the +use o' talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like +any other woman in her senses, i'stead o' wearing yourself out +with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you +get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and all the things +you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into a bundle no +bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you've got notions +i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism and +the Prayer-book."</p> + +<p>"But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt," said Dinah.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter," Mrs. Poyser rejoined +rather sharply; "else why shouldn't them as know best +what's in the Bible—the parsons and people as have got +nothing to do but learn it—do the same as you do? But for +the matter o' that, if everybody was to do like you, the world +must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without +house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was +allays talking as we must despise the things o' the world, as you +say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock, and the +corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go. Everybody +'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends, and everybody 'ud be +running after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bringing +up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It +stands to sense as that can't be the right religion."</p> + +<p>"Nay, dear Aunt, you never heard me say that all people +are called to forsake their work and their families. It's quite +right the land should be plowed and sowed, and the precious +corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5399" id="Page_5399">[Pg 5399]</a></span> +people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them; so +that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not +unmindful of the soul's wants while they are caring for the body. +We can all be servants of God wherever our lot is cast, but he +gives us different sorts of work, according as he fits us for it and +calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in trying to +do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help running +if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the +house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the +dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn't rest +without running to help her and comfort her."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, +"I know it 'ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for +hours. You'd make me the same answer, at th' end. I might as +well talk to the running brook, and tell it to stan' still."</p> + +<p>The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now +for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was +going on in the yard, the gray worsted stocking making a steady +progress in her hands all the while. But she had not been +standing there more than five minutes before she came in again, +and said to Dinah in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone:—</p> + +<p>"If there isn't Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming +into the yard! I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your +preaching on the Green, Dinah; it's you must answer 'em, for +I'm dumb. I've said enough a'ready about your bringing such +disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I wouldn't ha' minded if +you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece—folks must put up wi' their +own kin, as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own flesh +and blood. But to think of a niece o' mine being cause o' my +husband's being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no +fortin but my savins—"</p> + +<p>"Nay, dear Aunt Rachel," said Dinah gently, "you've no +cause for such fears. I've strong assurance that no evil will +happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything +I've done. I didn't preach without direction."</p> + +<p>"Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction," +said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. +"When there's a bigger maggot than usial in your head you call +it 'direction'; and then nothing can stir you—you look like the +statty o' the outside o' Treddles'on church, a-starin' and a-smilin' +whether it's fair weather or foul. I hanna common patience with +you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5400" id="Page_5400">[Pg 5400]</a></span></p> + +<p>By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and +had got down from their horses: it was plain they meant to +come in. Mrs. Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curtseying +low, and trembling between anger with Dinah and anxiety +to conduct herself with perfect propriety on the occasion. +For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a whispering +awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when +they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human +shape.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?" +said Mr. Irwine with his stately cordiality. "Our feet are quite +dry; we shall not soil your beautiful floor."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, don't mention it," said Mrs. Poyser. "Will you and +the captain please to walk into the parlor?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain, looking +eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something +it could not find. "I delight in your kitchen. I think it +is the most charming room I know. I should like every farmer's +wife to come and look at it for a pattern."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat," said +Mrs. Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain's +evident good-humor, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, +who she saw was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.</p> + +<p>"Poyser is not at home, is he?" said Captain Donnithorne, +seating himself where he could see along the short passage to +the open dairy door.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, he isn't; he's gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the +factor, about the wool. But there's father i' the barn, sir, if +he'd be of any use."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you; I'll just look at the whelps and leave a +message about them with your shepherd. I must come another +day and see your husband; I want to have a consultation with +him about horses. Do you know when he's likely to be at +liberty?"</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it's o' Treddles'on +market-day—that's of a Friday, you know. For if he's anywhere +on the farm we can send for him in a minute. If we'd +got rid of the Scantlands we should have no outlying fields; and +I should be glad of it, for if ever anything happens he's sure to +be gone to the Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if +they've a chance; and it's an unnat'ral thing to have one bit o' +your farm in one county and all the rest in another."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5401" id="Page_5401">[Pg 5401]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce's +farm, especially as he wants dairy land and you've got plenty. I +think yours is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do +you know, Mrs. Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I +should be tempted to turn you out, and do up this fine old +house, and turn farmer myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, "you wouldn't +like it at all. As for farming, it's putting money into your +pocket wi' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As +fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks, and just getting +a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along. +Not as you'd be like a poor man as wants to get his bread: you +could afford to lose as much money as you liked i' farming; but +it's poor fun losing money, I should think, though I understan' +it's what the great folks i' London play at more than anything. +For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey's eldest son had +lost thousands upo' thousands to the Prince o' Wales, and they +say my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him. But +you know more about that than I do, sir. But as for farming, +sir, I canna think as you'd like it; and this house—the +draughts in it are enough to cut you through, and it's my opinion +the floors up-stairs are very rotten, and the rats i' the cellar are +beyond anything."</p> + +<p>"Why, that's a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should +be doing you a service to turn you out of such a place. But +there's no chance of that. I'm not likely to settle for the next +twenty years, till I'm a stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather +would never consent to part with such good tenants as +you."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, if he thinks so well o' Mr. Poyser for a tenant, I +wish you could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates +for the Five Closes, for my husband's been asking and asking till +he's tired; and to think o' what he's done for the farm; and's +never had a penny allowed him, be the times bad or good. And +as I've said to my husband often and often, I'm sure if the captain +had anything to do with it, it wouldn't be so. Not as I +wish to speak disrespectful o' them as have got the power i' +their hands, but it's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear sometimes, +to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, +and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as +the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5402" id="Page_5402">[Pg 5402]</a></span> +wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf—and after all, at th' +end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had +got the smell of it for your pains."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed +along without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. +The confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition +was a motive force that overcame all resistance.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were +to speak about the gates, Mrs. Poyser," said the captain; "though +I assure you there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a +word for than your husband. I know his farm is in better order +than any other within ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen," +he added, smiling, "I don't believe there's one in the kingdom +to beat it. By-the-by, I've never seen your dairy: I must see +your dairy, Mrs. Poyser."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the +middle o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, +and I'm quite ashamed." This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and +believing that the captain was really interested in her milkpans, +and would adjust his opinion of her to the appearance of +her dairy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order. Take me in," said +the captain, leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="POYSER" id="POYSER"></a>MRS. POYSER "HAS HER SAY OUT"</h3> + +<h4>From 'Adam Bede'</h4> + +<p>Something unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old Squire's +visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs. Poyser had during +the last twelvemonth recited many imaginary speeches, meaning even +more than met the ear, which she was quite determined to make to him +the next time he appeared within the gates of the Hall Farm, the +speeches had always remained imaginary.</p> + +<p>"Good-day, Mrs. Poyser," said the old Squire, peering at her with his +short-sighted eyes—a mode of looking at her which, as Mrs. Poyser +observed, "allays aggravated her: it was as if you was a insect, and +he was going to dab his finger-nail on you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5403" id="Page_5403">[Pg 5403]</a></span></p> + +<p>However, she said, "Your servant, sir," and curtsied with an air of +perfect deference as she advanced towards him; she was not the woman +to misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the face of the +Catechism, without severe provocation.</p> + +<p>"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; he's only i' the rick-yard. I'll send for him in a minute, +if you'll please to get down and step in."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; I will do so. I want to consult him about a little matter; +but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not more. I must have +your opinion too."</p> + +<p>"Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in," said Mrs. Poyser as they +entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low in answer to +Hetty's curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pinafore stained with +gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against the clock, and peeping +round furtively.</p> + +<p>"What a fine old kitchen this is!" said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round +admiringly. He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiseled, +polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous. "And you keep +it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser. I like these premises, do you +know, beyond any on the estate."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, since you're fond of 'em, I should be glad if you'd let a +bit o' repairs be done to 'em, for the boarding's i' that state as +we're like to be eaten up wi' rats and mice; and the cellar, you may +stan' up to your knees i' water in 't, if you like to go down; but +perhaps you'd rather believe my words. Won't you please to sit down, +sir?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet; I must see your dairy. I have not seen it for years, and I +hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter," said the Squire, +looking politely unconscious that there could be any question on which +he and Mrs. Poyser might happen to disagree. "I think I see the door +open there: you must not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your +cream and butter. I don't expect that Mrs. Satchell's cream and butter +will bear comparison with yours."</p> + +<p>"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. It's seldom I see other folks' butter, +though there's some on it as one's no need to see—the smell's +enough."</p> + +<p>"Ah, now this I like," said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round at the damp +temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door. "I'm sure I should +like my breakfast better if I knew the butter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5404" id="Page_5404">[Pg 5404]</a></span> and cream came from +this dairy. Thank you, that really is a pleasant sight. Unfortunately, +my slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of damp; I'll sit +down in your comfortable kitchen. Ah, Poyser, how do you do? In the +midst of business, I see, as usual. I've been looking at your wife's +beautiful dairy: the best manager in the parish, is she not?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waistcoat, with +a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion of "pitching." As +he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the small, wiry, cool old +gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by the side of a withered +crab.</p> + +<p>"Will you please to take this chair, sir?" he said, lifting his +father's arm-chair forward a little; "you'll find it easy."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs," said the old gentleman, +seating himself on a small chair near the door. "Do you know, Mrs. +Poyser—sit down, pray, both of you—I've been far from contented, for +some time, with Mrs. Satchell's dairy management. I think she has not +a good method, as you have."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that," said Mrs. Poyser, in a hard +voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting, and looking icily out of +the window, as she continued to stand opposite the Squire. Poyser +might sit down if he liked, she thought: <i>she</i> wasn't going to sit +down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. +Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down in his +three-cornered chair.</p> + +<p>"And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to let the +Chase Farm to a respectable tenant. I'm tired of having a farm on my +own hands—nothing is made the best of in such cases, as you know. A +satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I think you and I, Poyser, +and your excellent wife here, can enter into a little arrangement in +consequence, which will be to our mutual advantage."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of imagination as +to the nature of the arrangement.</p> + +<p>"If I'm called upon to speak, sir," said Mrs. Poyser, after glancing +at her husband with pity at his softness, "you know better than me; +but I don't see what the Chase Farm is t' us—we've cumber enough wi' +our own farm. Not but what I'm glad to hear o' anybody respectable +coming into the parish: there's some as ha' been brought in as hasn't +been looked on i' that character."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5405" id="Page_5405">[Pg 5405]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbor, I assure you: +such a one as you will feel glad to have accommodated by the little +plan I'm going to mention; especially as I hope you will find it as +much to your own advantage as his."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, if it's anything t' our advantage, it'll be the first +offer o' the sort I've heared on. It's them as take advantage that get +advantage i' this world, <i>I</i> think: folks have to wait long enough +afore it's brought to 'em."</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Poyser," said the Squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser's theory +of worldly prosperity, "there is too much dairy land, and too little +plow land, on the Chase Farm, to suit Thurle's purpose—indeed, he +will only take the farm on condition of some change in it: his wife, +it appears, is not a clever dairywoman like yours. Now, the plan I'm +thinking of is to effect a little exchange. If you were to have the +Hollow Pastures, you might increase your dairy, which must be so +profitable under your wife's management; and I should request you, +Mrs. Poyser, to supply my house with milk, cream, and butter, at the +market prices. On the other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have +the Lower and Upper Ridges, which really, with our wet seasons would +be a good riddance for you. There is much less risk in dairy land than +corn land."</p> + +<p>Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, his head +on one side, and his mouth screwed up—apparently absorbed in making +the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent with perfect accuracy +the ribs of a ship. He was much too acute a man not to see through the +whole business, and to foresee perfectly what would be his wife's view +of the subject; but he disliked giving unpleasant answers: unless it +was on a point of farming practice, he would rather give up than have +a quarrel, any day; and after all, it mattered more to his wife than +to him. So, after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said +mildly, "What dost say?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold severity +during his silence, but now she turned away her head with a toss, +looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and spearing her +knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly between her +clasped hands.</p> + +<p>"Say? Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up any o' your +corn land afore your lease is up, which it won't be for a year come +next Michaelmas, but I'll not consent to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5406" id="Page_5406">[Pg 5406]</a></span> more dairy work into my +hands, either for love or money; and there's nayther love nor money +here, as I can see, on'y other folks' love o' theirselves, and the +money as is to go into other folks' pockets. I know there's them as is +born t' own the land, and them as is born to sweat on 't"—here Mrs. +Poyser paused to gasp a little—"and I know it's christened folks' +duty to submit to their betters as fur as flesh and blood 'ull bear +it; but I'll not make a martyr o' myself, and wear myself to skin and +bone, and worret myself as if I was a churn wi' butter a-coming in 't, +for no landlord in England, not if he was King George himself."</p> + +<p>"No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not," said the Squire, still +confident in his own powers of persuasion; "you must not overwork +yourself; but don't you think your work will rather be lessened than +increased in this way? There is so much milk required at the Abbey, +that you will have little increase of cheese and butter making from +the addition to your dairy; and I believe selling the milk is the most +profitable way of disposing of dairy produce, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opinion on a +question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was not in this +case a purely abstract question.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head +half-way towards her husband, and looking at the +vacant arm-chair—"I dare say it's true for men as sit i' th' +chimney-corner and make believe as everything's cut wi' ins an' outs +to fit int' everything else. If you could make a pudding wi' thinking +o' the batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. How do I know whether +the milk 'ull be wanted constant? What's to make me sure as the house +won't be put o' board wage afore we're many months older, and then I +may have to lie awake o' nights wi' twenty gallons o' milk on my +mind—and Dingall 'ull take no more butter, let alone paying for it; +and we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the butcher on our +knees to buy 'em, and lose half of 'em wi' the measles. And there's +the fetching and carrying, as 'ud be welly half a day's work for a man +an' hoss—<i>that's</i> to be took out o' the profits, I reckon? But +there's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away +the water."</p> + +<p>"That difficulty—about the fetching and carrying—you will not have, +Mrs. Poyser," said the Squire, who thought that this entrance into +particulars indicated a distant inclination to com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5407" id="Page_5407">[Pg 5407]</a></span>promise on Mrs. +Poyser's part—"Bethell will do that regularly with the cart and +pony."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I've never been used t' having +gentlefolks' servants coming about my back places, a-making love to +both the gells at once, and keeping 'em with their hands on their hips +listening to all manner o' gossip when they should be down on their +knees a-scouring. If we're to go to ruin, it shanna be wi' having our +back kitchen turned into a public."</p> + +<p>"Well, Poyser," said the Squire, shifting his tactics, and looking as +if he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from the proceedings +and left the room, "you can turn the Hollows into feeding land. I can +easily make another arrangement about supplying my house. And I shall +not forget your readiness to accommodate your landlord as well as a +neighbor. I know you will be glad to have your lease renewed for three +years when the present one expires; otherwise, I dare say, Thurle, who +is a man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as +they could be worked so well together. But I don't want to part with +an old tenant like you."</p> + +<p>To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have been enough +to complete Mrs. Poyser's exasperation, even without the final threat. +Her husband, really alarmed at the possibility of their leaving the +old place where he had been bred and born—for he believed the old +Squire had small spite enough for anything—was beginning a mild +remonstrance explanatory of the inconvenience he should find in having +to buy and sell more stock, with—</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I think as it's rather hard—" when Mrs. Poyser burst in +with the desperate determination to have her say out this once, though +it were to rain notices to quit, and the only shelter were the +workhouse.</p> + +<p>"Then, sir, if I may speak—as, for all I'm a woman, and there's folks +as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an' look on while the men +sign her soul away, I've a right to speak, for I make one quarter o' +the rent, and save another quarter—I say, if Mr. Thurle's so ready to +take farms under you, it's a pity but what he should take this, and +see if he likes to live in a house wi' all the plagues o' Egypt in +'t—wi' the cellar full o' water, and frogs and toads hoppin' up the +steps by dozens—and the floors rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing +every bit o' cheese, and runnin' over our heads as we lie i' bed till +we expect <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5408" id="Page_5408">[Pg 5408]</a></span>'em to eat us up alive—as it's a mercy they hanna eat the +children long ago. I should like to see if there's another tenant +besides Poyser as 'ud put up wi' never having a bit o' repairs done +till a place tumbles down—and not then, on'y wi' begging and praying, +and having to pay half—and being strung up wi' the rent as it's much +if he gets enough out o' the land to pay, for all he's put his own +money into the ground beforehand. See if you'll get a stranger to lead +such a life here as that: a maggot must be born i' the rotten cheese +to like it, I reckon. You may run away from my words, sir," continued +Mrs. Poyser, following the old Squire beyond the door—for after the +first moments of stunned surprise he had got up, and waving his hand +towards her with a smile, had walked out towards his pony. But it was +impossible for him to get away immediately, for John was walking the +pony up and down the yard, and was some distance from the causeway +when his master beckoned—</p> + +<p>"You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go spinnin' +underhand ways o' doing us a mischief, for you've got Old Harry to +your friend, though nobody else is; but I tell you for once as we're +not dumb creatures to be abused and made money on by them as ha' got +the lash i' their hands, for want o' knowing how t' undo the tackle. +An' if I'm th' only one as speaks my mind, there's plenty o' the same +way o' thinking i' this parish and the next to 't, for your name 's no +better than a brimstone match in everybody's nose—if it isna +two-three old folks as you think o' saving your soul by giving 'em a +bit o' flannel and a drop o' porridge. An' you may be right i' +thinking it'll take but little to save your soul, for it'll be the +smallest savin' y' iver made, wi' all your scrapin'."</p> + +<p>There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a wagoner may be a +formidable audience, and as the Squire rode away on his black pony, +even the gift of short-sightedness did not prevent him from being +aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far from him. +Perhaps he suspected that sour old John was grinning behind him—which +was also the fact. Meanwhile the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, +Alick's sheep-dog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the +pony's heels, carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an +impressive quartet.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Poyser, however, had no sooner seen the pony moved off than she +turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5409" id="Page_5409">[Pg 5409]</a></span> which drove them +into the back kitchen, and unspearing her knitting, began to knit +again with her usual rapidity, as she re-entered the house.</p> + +<p>"Thee'st done it now," said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and uneasy, +but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's outbreak.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know I've done it," said Mrs. Poyser; "but I've had my say +out, and I shall be th' easier for 't all my life. There's no pleasure +i' living if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your +mind out by the sly like a leaky barrel. I shan't repent saying what I +think, if I live to be as old as th' old Squire; and there's little +likelihoods—for it seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' +only folks as aren't wanted i' th' other world."</p> + +<p>"But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Michaelmas +twelvemonth," said Mr. Poyser, "and going into a strange parish, where +thee know'st nobody. It'll be hard upon us both, and upo' father +too.'"</p> + +<p>"Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may happen +between this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain may be master +afore then, for what we know," said Mrs. Poyser, inclined to take an +unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment which had been brought +about by her own merit, and not by other people's fault.</p> + +<p>"<i>I'm</i> none for worreting," said Mr. Poyser, rising from his +three-cornered chair, and walking slowly towards the door; "but I +should be loath to leave th' old place, and the parish where I was +bred and born, and father afore me. We should leave our roots behind +us, I doubt, and niver thrive again."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PRISONERS" id="PRISONERS"></a>THE PRISONERS</h3> + +<h4>From 'Romola'</h4> + +<p>In 1493 the rumor spread and became louder and louder that +Charles the Eighth of France was about to cross the Alps +with a mighty army; and the Italian populations, accustomed, +since Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman empire, to +look for an arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his +coming as a means of avenging their wrongs and redressing their +grievances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5410" id="Page_5410">[Pg 5410]</a></span></p> + +<p>And in that rumor Savonarola had heard the assurance that +his prophecy was being verified. What was it that filled the ears +of the prophets of old but the distant tread of foreign armies, +coming to do the work of justice? He no longer looked vaguely +to the horizon for the coming storm: he pointed to the rising +cloud. The French army was that new deluge which was to purify +the earth from iniquity; the French King, Charles VIII, was +the instrument elected by God as Cyrus had been of old, and all +men who desired good rather than evil were to rejoice in his +coming. For the scourge would fall destructively on the impenitent +alone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above all—Florence +beloved of God, since to its ear the warning voice had been +specially sent—repent and turn from its ways like Nineveh of +old, and the storm cloud would roll over it and leave only refreshing +rain-drops.</p> + +<p>Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the new +Cyrus had already been three months in Italy, and was not far +from the gates of Florence, his presence was expected there with +mixed feelings, in which fear and distrust certainly predominated. +At present it was not understood that he had redressed any +grievances; and the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him +for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de' +Medici had given up to him without securing any honorable terms +in return; he had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of +Pisa, which had been encouraged by his presence to throw off +the Florentine yoke; and "orators," even with a prophet at their +head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would +settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence. +Still, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating +Piero de' Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious +surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit +of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire.</p> + +<p>The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely +those of a city resigned to submission. Behind the bright drapery +and banners symbolical of joy, there were preparations of +another sort made with common accord by government and +people. Well hidden within walls there were hired soldiers of +the Republic, hastily called in from the surrounding districts; +there were old arms duly furbished, and sharp tools and heavy +cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up on short notice; +there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5411" id="Page_5411">[Pg 5411]</a></span> +occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail +from the upper windows. Above all, there were people very +strongly in the humor for fighting any personage who might be +supposed to have designs of hectoring over them, they having +lately tasted that new pleasure with much relish. This humor +was not diminished by the sight of occasional parties of Frenchmen, +coming beforehand to choose their quarters, with a hawk, +perhaps, on their left wrist, and metaphorically speaking, a piece +of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors withal; especially +as creditable historians imply that many sons of France +were at that time characterized by something approaching to a +swagger, which must have whetted the Florentine appetite for a +little stone-throwing.</p> + +<p>And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the +17th of November, 1494.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The sky was gray, but that made little difference in the +Piazza del Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of +blue drapery, and its constellations of yellow lilies and coats of +arms. The sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of +the Baptistery, but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the +Duomo, for the marble was being trodden by numerous feet that +were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of the Advent sermons, +and the very same reasons which had flushed the streets +with holiday color were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo +could least of all be dispensed with.</p> + +<p>But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the +steps. People of high and low degree were moving to and fro +with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them; groups +of talkers were thickly scattered, some willing to be late for the +sermon, and others content not to hear it at all.</p> + +<p>The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was +not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an +opening holiday. Some were in close and eager discussion; others +were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman, and yet +from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new +passer-by. At the corner looking towards the Via de' Cerrettani—just +where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased, and +the gray morning fell on the sombre stone houses—there was a +remarkable cluster of the working people, most of them bearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5412" id="Page_5412">[Pg 5412]</a></span> +on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labor, and +almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which +might serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the gray +light of the street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, +they made all the more striking the transition from the brightness +of the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Ser +Cioni, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. His biting +words could get only a contemptuous reception two years and +a half before in the Mercato; but now he spoke with the more +complacent humor of a man whose party is uppermost, and who +is conscious of some influence with the people.</p> + +<p>"Never talk to me," he was saying in his incisive voice, +"never talk to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry; +they might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as +in our streets; and peasants have destroyed the finest armies of +our condottieri in time past, when they had once got them +between steep precipices. I tell you, Florentines need be afraid +of no army in their own streets."</p> + +<p>"That's true, Ser Cioni," said a man whose arms and hands +were discolored by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains, +and who had a small hatchet stuck in his belt; "and those French +cavaliers who came in squaring themselves in their smart doublets +the other day, saw a sample of the dinner we could serve +up for them. I was carrying my cloth in Ognissanti, when I +saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round as if they thought +the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of loadings +for them, and eyeing us Florentines, like top-knotted cocks as +they are, as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to +strut. 'Yes, my fine <i>Galli</i>,' says I, 'stick out your stomachs; +I've got a meat-axe in my belt that will go inside you all the +easier;' when presently the old cow lowed,<a name="FNanchor_A_315" id="FNanchor_A_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_315" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> and I knew something +had happened—no matter what. So I threw my cloth in +at the first doorway, and took hold of my meat-axe and ran +after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova. And, 'What +is it, Guccio?' said I, when he came up with me. 'I think it's +the Medici coming back,' said Guccio. <i>Bembè!</i> I expected so! +And up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked behind +and saw themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarm +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5413" id="Page_5413">[Pg 5413]</a></span> +of our <i>Ciompi</i>,<a name="FNanchor_A_316" id="FNanchor_A_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_316" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> and one of them with a big scythe he had in his +hand mowed off one of the fine cavaliers' feathers:—it's true! +And the lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them. +However, Piero de' Medici wasn't come after all; and it was a +pity; for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away +with again."</p> + +<p>"Well spoken, Oddo," said a young butcher, with his knife +at his belt; "and it's my belief Piero will be a good while before +he wants to come back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted +chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza. He's a +coward, else he might have made a better stand when he'd got +his horsemen. But we'll swallow no Medici any more, whatever +else the French king wants to make us swallow."</p> + +<p>"But I like not those French cannon they talk of," said Goro, +none the less fat for two years' additional grievances. "San +Giovanni defend us! If Messer Domeneddio means so well by +us as your Frate says he does, Ser Cioni, why shouldn't he have +sent the French another way to Naples?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, Goro," said the dyer; "that's a question worth putting. +Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why, +they might have gone to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni?—or +if they'd gone to Arezzo—we wouldn't have minded their going +to Arezzo."</p> + +<p>"Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence," Ser +Cioni began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, "Look +there!" which burst from several voices at once, while the faces +were all turned to a party who were advancing along the Via +de' Cerretani.</p> + +<p>"It's Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen +who are in his house," said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this +interruption. "He pretends to look well satisfied—that deep +Tornabuoni—but he's a Medicean in his heart; mind that."</p> + +<p>The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was not only +the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and the splendid +costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately displayed white linen +and gorgeous embroidery; there were two other Florentines of high +birth, in handsome dresses donned for the coming procession, and on +the left hand of the Frenchman was a figure that was not to be +eclipsed by any amount of intention or brocade—a figure we have often +seen before. He wore nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but +the black was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was +to walk in procession as Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema had +become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the French +guests, from his familiarity with Southern Italy and his readiness in +the French tongue, which he had spoken in his early youth; and he had +paid more than one visit to the French camp at Signa. The lustre of +good fortune was upon him; he was smiling, listening, and explaining, +with his usual graceful unpretentious ease, and only a very keen eye +bent on studying him could have marked a certain amount of change in +him which was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months. +It was that change which comes from the final departure of moral +youthfulness—from the distinct self-conscious adoption of a part in +life. The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the eyes as +pellucid; but something was gone—something as indefinable as the +changes in the morning twilight.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning ceremonial before +riding back to Signa, and now he was going to have a final survey of +the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal procession was to pause for +religious purposes. The distinguished party attracted the notice of +all eyes as it entered the Piazza, but the gaze was not entirely +cordial and admiring; there were remarks not altogether allusive and +mysterious to the Frenchman's hoof-shaped shoes—delicate flattery of +royal superfluity in toes; and there was no care that certain +snarlings at "Mediceans" should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo +Tornabuoni possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is +demanded in a man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural +disposition to overcome ill-will by good-humor, had the unimpassioned +feeling of the alien towards names and details that move the deepest +passions of the native.</p> + +<p>Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the Duomo, the +party paused. The festoons and devices placed over the central doorway +excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beckoned to Piero di Cosimo, who, +as was usual with him at this hour, was lounging in front of Nello's +shop. There was soon an animated discussion, and it became highly +amusing from the Frenchman's astonishment at Piero's odd pungency of +statement, which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers +became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5415" id="Page_5415">[Pg 5415]</a></span> curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling, +half-humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of the +joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a delightful +moment for Tito, for he was the only one of the party who could have +made so amusing an interpreter, and without any disposition to +triumphant self-gratulation he reveled in the sense that he was an +object of liking—he basked in approving glances. The rainbow light +fell about the laughing group, and the grave church-goers had all +disappeared within the walls. It seemed as if the Piazza had been +decorated for a real Florentine holiday.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile in the gray light of the unadorned streets there were +on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and whose humor was +far from merry. Here too the French dress and hoofed shoes were +conspicuous, but they were being pressed upon by a large and larger +number of non-admiring Florentines. In the van of the crowd were three +men in scanty clothing; each had his hands bound together by a cord, +and a rope was fastened round his neck and body in such a way that he +who held the extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious +movement by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes were +French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes from the +knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stimulated their +prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and to every Florentine +they had encountered had held out their bound hands and said in +piteous tones:—</p> + +<p>"For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards +our ransom! We are Tuscans; we were made prisoners in Lunigiana."</p> + +<p>But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the strokes of +the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect from his two fellow +prisoners. They were young and hardy, and in the scant clothing which +the avarice of their captors had left them, looked like vulgar, sturdy +mendicants. But he had passed the boundary of old age, and could +hardly be less than four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown +long in neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his +baldness, were nearly white. His thick-set figure was still firm and +upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in spite of +age—an expression that was partly carried out in the dark eyes and +strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5416" id="Page_5416">[Pg 5416]</a></span> isolated intensity of +color in the midst of his yellow, bloodless, deep-wrinkled face with +its lank gray hairs. And yet there was something fitful in the eyes +which contradicted the occasional flash of energy; after looking round +with quick fierceness at windows and faces, they fell again with a +lost and wandering look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his +hands resolutely down. He would not beg.</p> + +<p>This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with growing +exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing quietly along +had at once given money—some in half-automatic response to an appeal +in the name of God, others in that unquestioning awe of the French +soldiery which had been created by the reports of their cruel warfare, +and on which the French themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity +in their acts of insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther +into the heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, +and the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of men +and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently +intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers +themselves began to dislike their position, for with a strong +inclination to use their weapons, they were checked by the necessity +for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners, and they were now +hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a hostelry.</p> + +<p>"French dogs!" "Bullock-feet!" "Snatch their pikes from them!" "Cut +the cords and make them run for their prisoners. They'll run as fast +as geese—don't you see they're web-footed?" These were the cries +which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers, and probably +threats. But every one seemed disposed to give invitations of this +spirited kind rather than to act upon them.</p> + +<p>"Santiddio! here's a sight!" said the dyer, as soon as he had divined +the meaning of the advancing tumult; "and the fools do nothing but +hoot. Come along!" he added, snatching his axe from his belt, and +running to join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest of +his companions except Goro, who hastily retreated up a narrow passage.</p> + +<p>The sight of the dyer, running forward with blood-red arms and axe +uplifted, and with his cluster of rough companions behind him, had a +stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that he did anything else than +pass beyond the soldiers and thrust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5417" id="Page_5417">[Pg 5417]</a></span> himself well among his +fellow-citizens, flourishing his axe; but he served as a stirring +symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon. +And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as +rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame; it was an act of the +conjurer's impish lad Lollo, who was dancing and jeering in front of +the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no +great compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an +excellent knife which was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to +him from the first that to jump forward, cut a rope, and leap back +again before the soldier who held it could use his weapon, would be an +amusing and dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the people +began to hoot and jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that his moment +was come: he was close to the eldest prisoner; in an instant he had +cut the cord.</p> + +<p>"Run, old one!" he piped in the prisoner's ear, as soon as the cord +was in two; and himself set the example of running as if he were +helped along with wings, like a scared fowl.</p> + +<p>The prisoner's sensations were not too slow for him to seize the +opportunity; the idea of escape had been continually present with him, +and he had gathered fresh hope from the temper of the crowd. He ran at +once; but his speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the +Florentines had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor. +He ran on into the Piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp of feet +behind him, for the other two prisoners had been released, and the +soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such +tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, +but not very resolutely attacked, by the people. One of the two +younger prisoners turned up the Borgo di San Lorenzo, and thus made a +partial diversion of the hubbub; but the main struggle was still +towards the Piazza, where all eyes were turned on it with alarmed +curiosity. The cause could not be precisely guessed, for the French +dress was screened by the impending crowd.</p> + +<p>"An escape of prisoners," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, as he and his party +turned round just against the steps of the Duomo, and saw a prisoner +rushing by them. "The people are not content with having emptied the +Bargello the other day. If there is no other authority in sight they +must fall on the <i>sbirri</i> and secure freedom to thieves. Ah! there is +a French soldier; that is more serious."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5418" id="Page_5418">[Pg 5418]</a></span></p> + +<p>The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north side of the +Piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken the other direction. +That object was the eldest prisoner, who had wheeled round the +Baptistery and was running towards the Duomo, determined to take +refuge in that sanctuary rather than trust to his speed. But in +mounting the steps, his foot received a shock; he was precipitated +towards the group of signori, whose backs were turned to him, and was +only able to recover his balance as he clutched one of them by the +arm.</p> + +<p>It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned his head, and saw +the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own.</p> + +<p>The two men looked at each other, silent as death: Baldassarre, with +dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled worn hands on the +velvet-clad arm; Tito, with cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated +by terror. It seemed a long while to them—it was but a moment.</p> + +<p>The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of Piero di Cosimo, who +stood close by him and was the only person that could see his face.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha! I know what a ghost should be now."</p> + +<p>"This is another escaped prisoner," said Lorenzo Tornabuoni. "Who is +he, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Some madman, surely</i>," said Tito.</p> + +<p>He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: there are moments +when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and +wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one +instant does the work of premeditation.</p> + +<p>The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, and it seemed to +Tito, when he had spoken, that some magical poison had darted from +Baldassarre's eyes, and that he felt it rushing through his viens. But +the next instant the grasp on his arm had relaxed, and Baldassarre had +disappeared within the church.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h4>FOOTNOTES</h4> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_315" id="Footnote_A_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_315"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> "<i>La vacca muglia</i>" was the phrase for the sounding of the great bell +in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_316" id="Footnote_A_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_316"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> The poorer artisans connected with the wool +trade—wool-beaters, carders, washers, etc.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5414" id="Page_5414">[Pg 5414]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5419" id="Page_5419">[Pg 5419]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHOIR" id="CHOIR"></a>"OH, MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE"</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, may I join the choir invisible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of those immortal dead who live again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In minds made better by their presence; live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In pulses stirred to generosity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For miserable aims that end with self,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with their mild persistence urge man's search<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To vaster issues.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">So to live is heaven:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make undying music in the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathing as beauteous order, that controls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With growing sway the growing life of man.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So we inherit that sweet purity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For which we struggled, failed, and agonized,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With widening retrospect that bred despair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A vicious parent shaming still its child,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poor anxious penitence,—is quick dissolved;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Die in the large and charitable air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all our rarer, better, truer self,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sobbed religiously in yearning song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That watched to ease the burthen of the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laboriously tracing what must be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what may yet be better—saw within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A worthier image for the sanctuary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shaped it forth before the multitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divinely human, raising worship so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To higher reverence more mixed with love—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That better self shall live till human Time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unread for ever.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">This is life to come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which martyred men have made more glorious<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For us who strive to follow. May I reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That purest heaven; be to other souls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cup of strength in some great agony;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enkindle generous ardor; feed pure love;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beget the smiles that have no cruelty—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5420" id="Page_5420">[Pg 5420]</a></span><span class="i0">Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in diffusion even more intense.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So shall I join the choir invisible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose music is the gladness of the world.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5421" id="Page_5421">[Pg 5421]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 452px;"> +<a name="EMERSON" id="EMERSON"></a> +<span class="caption">R. W. EMERSON.</span> +<img src="images/emerson.png" width="452" height="640" alt="R. W. EMERSON." title="R. W. EMERSON." /> +</div> + +<h2><a name="RALPH_WALDO_EMERSON" id="RALPH_WALDO_EMERSON"></a>RALPH WALDO EMERSON</h2> + +<h4>(1803-1882)</h4> + +<h4>BY RICHARD GARNETT</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;"> +<img src="images/capn.png" width="80" height="80" alt="N" title="N" /> +</div><p class="dropcap">oteworthy also," says Carlyle, "and serviceable for the progress +of this same Individual, wilt thou find his subdivision +into Generations."</p> + +<p>It is indeed the fact that the course of human history admits of +being marked off into periods, which, from their average duration and +the impulse communicated to them by those who enter upon adolescence +along with them, may be fitly denominated generations, especially +when their opening and closing are signalized by great events +which serve as historical landmarks. No such event, indeed, short of +the Day of Judgment or a universal deluge, can serve as an absolute +line of demarcation; nothing can be more certain than that history +and human life are a perpetual Becoming; and that, although the +progress of development is frequently so startling and unforeseen as +to evoke the poet's exclamation,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"New endless growth surrounds on every side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as we deemed not earth could ever bear."—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>this growth is but development after all. The association of +historical periods with stages in the mental development of man is +nevertheless too convenient to be surrendered; the vision is cleared +and the grasp strengthened by the perception of a well-defined era in +American history, commencing with the election of Andrew Jackson to +the Presidency in 1828 and closing with the death of Abraham Lincoln +in 1865,—a period exactly corresponding with one in English history +measured from the death of Lord Liverpool, the typical representative +of a bygone political era in the prime of other years, and that of +Lord Palmerston, another such representative, in the latter. The epoch +thus bounded almost precisely corresponds to the productive period of +the two great men who, more than any contemporaries, have stood in the +conscious attitude of teachers of their age. With such men as Tennyson +and Browning, vast as their influence has been, the primary impulse +has not been didactic, but artistic; Herbert Spencer, George Eliot, +Matthew Arnold, and others, have been chiefly operative upon the +succeeding generation; Mill and the elder Newman rather address +special classes than the people at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5422" id="Page_5422">[Pg 5422]</a></span>large; and Ruskin and Kingsley +would have willingly admitted that however eloquent the expression of +their teaching, its originality mainly consisted in the application of +Carlyle's ideas to subjects beyond Carlyle's range. Carlyle and +Emerson, therefore, stand forth like Goethe and Schiller as the +Dioscuri of their period; the two men to whom beyond others its better +minds looked for guidance, and who had the largest share in forming +the minds from which the succeeding generation was to take its +complexion. Faults and errors they had; but on the whole it may be +said that nations have rarely been more fortunate in their instructors +than the two great English-speaking peoples during the age of Carlyle +and Emerson. Of Carlyle this is not the place to speak further; but +writing on Emerson, it will be necessary to exhibit what we conceive +to have been the special value of his teaching; and to attempt some +description of the man himself, in indication of the high place +claimed for him.</p> + +<p>It has been said of some great man of marked originality that he was +the sole voice among many echoes. This cannot be said of Emerson; his +age was by no means deficient in original voices. But his may be said +with truth to have been the chief verbal utterance in an age of +authorship. It is a trite remark, that many of the men of thought +whose ideas have most influenced the world have shown little +inclination for literary composition. The president of a London +freethinking club in Goldsmith's time supposed himself to be in +possession of the works of Socrates, no less than of those of "Tully +and Cicero," but no other trace of their existence has come to light. +Had Emerson lived in any age but his own, it is doubtful whether, any +more than Socrates, he would have figured as an author. "I write," he +tells Carlyle, "with very little system, and as far as regards +composition, with most fragmentary result—paragraphs +incomprehensible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." We +also hear of his going forth into the woods to hunt a thought as a boy +might hunt a butterfly, except that the thought had flown with him +from home, and that his business was not so much to capture it as to +materialize it and make it tangible. This peculiarity serves to +classify Emerson among the ancient sages, men like Socrates and +Buddha, whose instructions were not merely oral but unmethodical and +unsystematic; who spoke as the casual emergency of the day dictated, +and left their observations to be collected by their disciples. An +excellent plan in so far as it accomplishes the endowment of the +sage's word with his own individuality; exceptionable when a doubt +arises whether the utterance belongs to the master or the disciple, +and in the case of diametrically opposite versions, whether Socrates +has been represented more truly by the prose of Xenophon or the poetry +of Plato. We may be thankful that the spirit of Emerson's age, and the +exigencies of his own affairs, irresistibly impelled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5423" id="Page_5423">[Pg 5423]</a></span>him to write: +nevertheless the fact remains that with him Man Thinking is not so +much Man Writing as Man Speaking, and that although the omnipotent +machinery of the modern social system caught him too, and forced him +into line with the rest, we have in him a nearer approach to the +voice, apart from the disturbing and modifying habits of literary +composition, than in any other eminent modern thinker. This annuls one +of the most weighty criticisms upon Emerson, so long as he is regarded +merely as an author,—his want of continuity, and consequent want of +logic. Had he attempted to establish a philosophical system, this +would have been fatal. But such an undertaking is of all things +furthest from his thoughts. He does not seek to demonstrate, he +announces. Ideas have come to him which, as viewed by the inward +light, appear important and profitable. He brings these forward to be +tested by the light of other men. He does not seek to connect these +ideas together, except in so far as their common physiognomy bespeaks +their common parentage. Nor does he seek to fortify them by reasoning, +or subject them to any test save the faculty by which the unprejudiced +soul discerns good from evil. If his jewel will scratch glass, it is +sufficiently evinced a diamond.</p> + +<p>It follows that although Emerson did not write most frequently or best +in verse, he is, as regards the general constitution of his intellect, +rather to be classed with poets than with philosophers. Poetry cannot +indeed dispense with the accurate observation of nature and mankind, +but poetic genius essentially depends on intuition and inspiration. +There is no gulf between the philosopher and the poet; some of the +greatest of poets have also been among the most powerful of reasoners; +but their claim to poetical rank would not have been impaired if their +ratiocination had been ever so illogical. Similarly, a great thinker +may have no more taste for poetry than was vouchsafed to Darwin or the +elder Mill, without any impeachment of his power of intellect. The two +spheres of action are fundamentally distinct, though the very highest +geniuses, such as Shakespeare and Goethe, have sometimes almost +succeeded in making them appear as one. To determine to which of them +a man actually belongs, we must look beyond the externalities of +literary form, and inquire whether he obtains his ideas by intuition, +or by observation and reflection. No mind will be either entirely +intuitive or entirely reflective, but there will usually be a decided +inclination to one or other of the processes; and in the comparatively +few cases in which thoughts and feelings seem to come to it +unconsciously, as leaves to a tree, we may consider that we have a +poet, though perhaps not a writer of poetry. If indeed the man writes +at all, he will very probably write prose, but this prose will be +impregnated with poetic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5424" id="Page_5424">[Pg 5424]</a></span>quality. From this point of view we are able +to set Emerson much higher than if we regarded him simply as a +teacher. He is greater as the American Wordsworth than as the American +Carlyle. We shall understand his position best by comparing him with +other men of genius who are poets too, but not pre-eminently so. In +beauty of language and power of imagination, John Henry Newman and +James Martineau, though they have written little in verse, yield to +few poets. But throughout all their writings the didactic impulse is +plainly the preponderating one, their poetry merely auxiliary and +ornamental; hence they are not reckoned among poets. With Emerson the +case is reversed: the revealer is first in him, the reasoner second; +oral speech is his most congenial form of expression, and he submits +to appear in print because the circumstances of his age render print +the most effectual medium for the dissemination of his thought. It +will be observed that whenever possible he resorts to the medium of +oration or lecture; it may be further remarked that his essays, often +originally delivered as lectures, are very like his discourses, and +his discourses very like his essays. In neither, so far as regards the +literary form of the entire composition, distinguished from the force +and felicity of individual sentences, can he be considered as a +classic model. The essay need not be too severely logical, yet a just +conception of its nature requires a more harmonious proportion and +more symmetrical construction, as well as a more consistent and +intelligent direction towards a single definite end, than we usually +find in Emerson. The orator is less easy to criticize than the +essayist, for oratory involves an element of personal magnetism which +resists all critical analysis. Hence posterity frequently reverses (or +rather seems to reverse, for the decision upon a speech mutilated of +voice and action cannot be really conclusive) the verdicts of +contemporaries upon oratory. "What will our descendants think of the +Parliamentary oratory of our age?" asked a contemporary of Burke's, +"when they are told that in his own time this man was accounted +neither the first, nor the second, nor even the third speaker?" +Transferred to the tribunal of the library, Burke's oratory bears away +the palm from Pitt and Fox and Sheridan; yet, unless we had heard the +living voices of them all, it would be unsafe for us to challenge the +contemporary verdict. We cannot say, with the lover in Goethe, that +the word printed appears dull and soulless, but it certainly wants +much which conduced to the efficacy of the word spoken:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ach wie traurig sieht in Lettern,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Schwarz auf weiss, das Lied mich an,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Das aus deinem Mund vergöttern,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Das ein Herz zerreissen kann!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5425" id="Page_5425">[Pg 5425]</a></span> +Emerson's orations are no less delightful and profitable reading +than his essays, so long as they can be treated as his essays were +intended to be treated when they came into print; that is, read +deliberately, with travelings backward when needed, and frequent +pauses of thought. But if we consider them as discourses to be listened +to, we shall find some difficulty in reconciling their popularity +and influence with their apparent disconnectedness, and some reason +to apprehend that, occasional flashes of epigram excepted, they must +speedily have passed from the minds of the hearers. The apparent +defect was probably remedied in delivery by the magnetic power of +the speaker; not that sort of power which "wields at will the fierce +democracy," but that which convinces the hearer that he is listening +to a message from a region not as yet accessible to himself. The +impassioned orator usually provokes the suspicion that he is speaking +from a brief. Not so Emerson: above all other speakers he inspires +the confidence that he declares a thing to be, not because he wishes, +but because he perceives it to be so. His quiet, unpretending, but +perfectly unembarrassed manner, as of a man with a message which +he simply delivers and goes away, must have greatly aided to supply +the absence of vigorous reasoning and skillful oratorical construction. +We could not expect a spirit commissioned to teach us to condescend +to such methods; and Emerson's discourse, whether in oration or +essay, though by no means deficient in human feeling nor of the +"blessed Glendoveer" order, frequently does sound like that of a +being from another sphere, simply because he derived his ideas +from a higher world; as must always be the case with the man of +spiritual, not of course with the man of practical genius. It matters +nothing whether this is really so, or whether what wears the +aspect of imparted revelation is but a fortifying of the natural eye, +qualifying it to look a little deeper than neighboring eyes into things +around. In either case the person so endowed stands a degree nearer +to the essential truth of things than his fellows; and the consciousness +of the fact, transpiring through his personality, gives him a +weight which might otherwise seem inexplicable. Nothing can be +more surprising than the deference with which the learned and intelligent +contemporaries of the humble and obscure Spinoza resort to +his judgment before he has so much as written a book.</p> + +<p>This estimate of Emerson as an American Wordsworth, one who +like Wordsworth not merely enforced but practically demonstrated +the proposition that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One impulse from a vernal wood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">May teach you more of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of moral evil and of good,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than all the sages can,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5426" id="Page_5426">[Pg 5426]</a></span> +is controverted by many who can see in him nothing but a polisher +and stringer of epigrammatic sayings. It is impossible to argue with +any who cannot recognize the deep vitality of 'Nature,' of the two +series of Essays first published, and of most of the early orations and +discourses; but it may be conceded that Emerson's fountain of inspiration +was no more perennial than Wordsworth's, and that in his latter +years his gift of epigrammatic statement enabled him to avoid both +the Scylla and the Charybdis of men of genius whose fount of +inspiration has run low. In some such cases, such as Wordsworth's, +the author simply goes on producing, with less and less geniality at +every successive effort. In others, such as Browning's, he escapes +inanity by violent exaggeration of his characteristic mannerisms. +Neither of these remarks applies to Emerson: he does not, in ceasing +to be original, become insipid, nor can it be said that he is any more +mannered at the last than at the first. This is a clear proof that his +peculiarity of speech is not mannerism but manner; that consequently +he is not an artificial writer, and that, since the treatment of his +themes as he has chosen to treat them admits of no compromise +between nature and rhetoric, he has the especial distinction of simplicity +where simplicity is difficult and rare. That such is the case +will appear from an examination of his earlier and more truly prophetic +writings.</p> + +<p>Of these, the first in importance as in time is the tract 'Nature,' +commenced in 1833, rewritten, completed, and published in 1836. +Of all Emerson's writings this is the most individual, and the most +adapted for a general introduction to his ideas. These ideas are +not in fact peculiar to him; and yet the little book is one of the +most original ever written, and one of those most likely to effect an +intellectual revolution in the mind capable of apprehending it. The +reason is mainly the intense vitality of the manner, and the translation +of abstract arguments into concrete shapes of witchery and +beauty. It contains scarcely a sentence that is not beautiful,—not +with the cold beauty of art, but with the radiance and warmth of feeling. +Its dominant note is rapture, like the joy of one who has found +an enchanted realm, or who has convinced himself that old stories +deemed too beautiful to be true are true indeed. Yet it is exempt +from extravagance, the splendor of the language is chastened by +taste, and the gladness and significance of the author's announcements +would justify an even more ardent enthusiasm. They may be +briefly summed up as the statements that Nature is not mechanical, +but vital; that the Universe is not dead, but alive; that God is not +remote, but omnipresent. There was of course no novelty in these +assertions, nor can Emerson bring them by a hair's-breadth nearer +demonstration than they had always been. He simply re-states them +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5427" id="Page_5427">[Pg 5427]</a></span>in a manner entirely his own, and with a charm not perhaps surpassing +that with which others had previously invested them, but +peculiar and dissimilar. Everything really Emersonian in Emerson's +teaching may be said to spring out of this little book: so copious, +however, were the corollaries deducible from principles apparently +so simple, that the flowers veiled the tree; and precious as the tract +is, as the first and purest draught of the new wine, it is not the most +practically efficient of his works, and might probably have passed +unperceived if it had not been reinforced by a number of auxiliary +compositions, some produced under circumstances which could not +fail to provoke wide discussion and consequent notoriety. The principles +unfolded in 'Nature' might probably have passed with civil +acquiescence if Emerson had been content with the mere statement; +but he insisted on carrying them logically out, and this could not be +done without unsettling every school of thought at the time prevalent +in America. The Divine omnipresence, for example, was admitted in +words by all except materialists and anti-theists; but if, as Emerson +maintained, this involved the conception of the Universe as a Divine +incarnation, this in its turn involved an optimistic view of the universal +scheme totally inconsistent with the Calvinism still dominant +in American theology. If all existence was a Divine emanation, no +part of it could be more sacred than another part,—which at once +abolished the mystic significance of religious ceremonies so dear to the +Episcopalians; while the immediate contact of the Universe with the +Deity was no less incompatible with the miraculous interferences on +which Unitarianism reposed its faith. Such were some of the most +important negative results of Emerson's doctrines; in their positive +aspect, by asserting the identity of natural and spiritual laws, they +invested the former with the reverence hitherto accorded only to the +latter, and restored to a mechanical and prosaic society the piety +with which men in the infancy of history had defied the forces of +Nature. Substantially, except for the absence of any definite relation +to literary art, Emerson's mission was very similar to Wordsworth's; +but by natural temperament and actual situation he wanted the +thousand links which bound Wordsworth to the past, and eventually +made the sometime innovator the patron of a return towards the +Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>Emerson had no wish to regress, and, almost alone among thinkers who +have reached an advanced age, betrays no symptom of reaction +throughout the whole of his career. The reason may be, that his +scrupulous fairness and frank conceptions to the Conservative cast of +thought had left him nothing to retract or atone for. He seems to have +started on his journey through life with his Conservatism and +Liberalism ready made up, taking with him just as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5428" id="Page_5428">[Pg 5428]</a></span>much of either as +he wanted. This is especially manifest in the discourse 'The +Conservative' (1841), in which he deliberately weighs conservative +against progressive tendencies, impersonates each in an imaginary +interlocutor, and endeavors to display their respective justification +and shortcomings. Nothing can be more rigidly equitable or more +thoroughly sane than his estimate; and as the issues between +conservatism and reform have broadened and deepened, time has only +added to its value. It is a perfect manual for thoughtful citizens, +desirous of understanding the questions that underlie party issues, +and is especially to be commended to young and generous minds, liable +to misguidance in proportion to their generosity.</p> + +<p>This celebrated discourse is one of a group including one still more +celebrated, the address to the graduating class of Divinity College, +Cambridge, published as 'The Christian Teacher' (1838). This, says Mr. +Cabot, seems to have been struck off at a heat, which perhaps accounts +for its nearer approach than any of his other addresses to the +standard of what is usually recognized as eloquence. Eloquent in a +sense Emerson usually was, but here is something which could transport +a fit audience with enthusiasm. It also possessed the power of +awakening the keenest antagonism; but censure has long since died +away, and nothing that Emerson wrote has been more thoroughly adopted +into the creed of those with whom external observances and material +symbols find no place. Equally epoch-making in a different way was the +oration on 'Man Thinking, or the American Scholar' (1837), entitled by +Dr. Holmes "our intellectual Declaration of Independence," and of +which Mr. Lowell says: "We were socially and intellectually moored to +English thought, till Emerson cut the cable and gave us a chance at +the dangers and glories of blue water." In these three great +discourses, and in a less measure in 'The Transcendentalist' and 'Man +the Reformer' (both in 1841), America may boast of possessing works of +the first class, which could have been produced in no other country, +and which—even though, in Emerson's own phrase, wider circles should +come to be drawn around them—will remain permanent landmarks in +intellectual history.</p> + +<p>These discourses may be regarded as Emerson's public proclamations of +his opinions; but he is probably more generally known and more +intimately beloved by the two unobtrusive volumes of Essays, +originally prefaced for England by Carlyle. Most of these, indeed, +were originally delivered as lectures, but to small audiences, and +with little challenge to public attention. It may be doubted whether +they would have succeeded as lectures but for the personal magnetism +of the speaker; but their very defects aid them with the reader, who, +once fascinated by their beauty of phrase and depth of spiritual +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5429" id="Page_5429">[Pg 5429]</a></span>insight, imbibes their spirit all the more fully for his ceaseless +effort to mend their deficient logic with his own. Like Love in +Dante's sonnet, Emerson enters into and blends with the reader, and +his influence will often be found most potent where it is least +acknowledged. Each of the twenty may be regarded as a fuller working +out of some subject merely hinted at in 'Nature,'—statues, as it +were, for niches left vacant in the original edifice. The most +important and pregnant with thought are 'History,' where the same +claim is preferred for history as for the material world, that it is +not dead but alive; 'Self-Reliance,' a most vigorous assertion of a +truth which Emerson was apt to carry to extremes,—the majesty of the +individual soul; 'Compensation,' an exposition of the universe as the +incarnation of unerring truth and absolute justice; 'Love,' full of +beauty and rapture, yet almost chilling to the young by its assertion +of what is nevertheless true, that even Love in its human semblance +only subserves ulterior ends; 'Circles,' the demonstration that this +circumstance is no way peculiar to Love, that there can be nothing +ultimate, final, or unrelated to ulterior purpose,—nothing around +which, in Emersonian phrase, you cannot draw a circle; 'The +Over-Soul,' a prose hymn dedicated to an absolutely spiritual +religion; 'The Poet,' a celebration of Poetry as coextensive with +Imagination, and in the highest sense with Reason also; 'Experience' +and 'Character,' valuable essays, but evincing that the poetical +impulse was becoming spent, and that Emerson's mind was more and more +tending to questions of conduct. The least satisfactory of the essays +is that on 'Art,' where he is only great on the negative side, Art's +inevitable limitations. The æsthetical faculty, which contemplates +Beauty under the restraints of Form, was evidently weak in him.</p> + +<p>'Representative Men,' Emerson's next work of importance (1845), shows +that his parachute was descending; but he makes a highly successful +compromise by taking up original ideas as reflected in the actions and +thoughts of great typical men, one remove only from originality of +exposition on his own part. The treatment is necessarily so partial as +to exercise a distorting influence on his representation of the men +themselves. Napoleon, for example, may have been from a certain point +of view the hero of the middle class, as Emerson chooses to consider +him; but he was much besides, which cannot even be hinted at in a +short lecture. The representation of such a hero, nevertheless, +whether the character precisely fitted Napoleon or not, is highly +spirited and suggestive; and the same may be said of the other +lectures. That on Shakespeare is the least satisfying, the consummate +art which is half Shakespeare's greatness making little appeal to +Emerson. He appears also at variance with himself when he speaks of +Shakespeare's existence as "obscure and profane," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5430" id="Page_5430">[Pg 5430]</a></span>such a healthy, +homely, unambitious life being precisely what he elsewhere extols as a +model. The first lecture of the series, 'Uses of Great Men,' would +seem to have whispered the message more vociferously repeated by Walt +Whitman.</p> + +<p>Emerson was yet to write two books of worth, not illumed with "the +light that never was on sea or land," but valuable complements to his +more characteristic work, and important to mankind as an indisputable +proof that a teacher need not be distrusted in ordinary things because +he is a mystic and a poet. 'The Conduct of Life' (1851), far inferior +to his earlier writings in inspiration, is yet one of the most popular +and widely influential of his works because condescending more nearly +to the needs and intelligence of the average reader. It is not less +truly Emersonian, less fully impregnated with his unique genius; but +the themes discussed are less interesting, and the glory and the +beauty of the diction are much subdued. Without it, we should have +been in danger of regarding Emerson too exclusively as a +transcendental seer, and ignoring the solid ground of good sense and +practical sagacity from which the waving forests of his imagery drew +their nutriment. It greatly promoted his fame and influence by coming +into the hands of successive generations of readers who naturally +inquired for his last book, found the author, with surprise, so much +nearer their own intellectual position than they had been led to +expect, and gradually extended the indorsement which they could not +avoid according to the book, to the author himself. When the Reason +and the Understanding have agreed to legitimate the pretensions of a +speculative thinker, these may be considered stable. Emerson +insensibly took rank with the other American institutions; it seemed +natural to all, that without the retractation or modification of a +syllable on his part, Harvard should in 1866 confer her highest honors +upon him whose address to her Divinity School had aroused such fierce +opposition in 1838. Emerson's views, being pure intuitions, rarely +admitted of alteration in essence, though supplement or limitation +might sometimes be found advisable. The Civil War, for instance, could +not but convince him that in his zeal for the independence of the +individual he had dangerously impaired the necessary authority of +government. His attitude throughout this great contest was the ideal +of self-sacrificing patriotism: in truth, it might be said of him, as +of so few men of genius, that you could not find a situation for him, +public or private, whose obligations he was not certain to fulfill. He +had previously given proof of his insight into another nation by his +'English Traits,' mainly founded upon the visit he had paid to England +in 1847-48: a book to be read with equal pleasure and profit by the +nation of which and by the nation for which it was written; while its +insight, sanity, and kindliness justify <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5431" id="Page_5431">[Pg 5431]</a></span>what has been said on +occasion of another of Emerson's writings: "The ideologist judges the +man of action more shrewdly and justly than the man of action judges +the ideologist." This was the secret of Napoleon's bitter animosity to +"ideologists": he felt instinctively that the man of ideas could see +into him and through him, and recognize and declare his place in the +scheme of the universe as an astronomer might a planet's. He would +have wished to be an incalculable, original, elemental force; and it +vexed him to feel that he was something whose course could be mapped +and whose constitution defined by a mere mortal like a Coleridge or a +De Staël, who could treat him like the incarnate Thought he was, and +show him, as Emerson showed the banker, "that he also was a phantom +walking and working amid phantoms, and that he need only ask a +question or two beyond his daily questions to find his solid universe +proving dim and impalpable before his sense."</p> + +<p>The later writings of Emerson, though exhibiting few or no traces of +mental decay, are in general repetitions or at least confirmations of +what had once been announcements and discoveries. This can scarcely be +otherwise when the mind's productions are derived from its own stuff +and substance. Emerson's contemporary Longfellow could renovate and +indeed augment his poetical power by resort in his old age to Italy; +but change of environment brings no reinforcement of energy to the +speculative thinker. Events however may come to his aid; and when +Emerson was called before the people by a momentous incident like the +death of President Lincoln, he rose fully to the height of the +occasion. His last verses, also, are among his best. We have spoken of +him as primarily and above all things a poet; but his claim to that +great distinction is to be sought rather in the poetical spirit which +informs all his really inspired writings, than in the comparatively +restricted region of rhyme and metre. It might have been otherwise. +Many of his detached passages are the very best things in verse yet +written in America: but though a maker, he is not a fashioner. The +artistic instinct is deficient in him; he is seldom capable of +combining his thoughts into a harmonious whole. No one's expression is +better when he aims at conveying a single thought with gnomic +terseness, as in the mottoes to his essays; few are more obscure when +he attempts continuous composition. Sometimes, as in the admirable +stanzas on the Bunker Hill dedication, the subject has enforced the +due clearness and compression of thought; sometimes, as in the +glorious lines beginning "Not from a vain or shallow thought," he is +guided unerringly by a divine rapture; in one instance at least, 'The +Rhodora,' where he is writing of beauty, the instinct of beauty has +given his lines the symmetry as well as the sparkle of the diamond. +Could he have always written <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5432" id="Page_5432">[Pg 5432]</a></span>like this, he would have been supreme +among American poets in metre; as it is, comparison seems unfair both +to him and to them.</p> + +<p>What we have to learn from Emerson is chiefly the Divine immanence in +the world, with all its corollaries; no discovery of his, but +re-stated by him in the fashion most suitable to his age, and with a +cogency and attractiveness rivaled by no contemporary. If we tried to +sum up his message in a phrase, we might perhaps find this in Keats's +famous 'Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty'; only, while Keats was +evidently more concerned for Beauty than for Truth, Emerson held an +impartial balance. These are with him the tests of each other: +whatever is really true is also beautiful, whatever is really +beautiful is also true. Hence his especial value to a world whose more +refined spirits are continually setting up types of æsthetic beauty +which must needs be delusive, as discordant with beauty contemplated +under the aspect of morality; while the mass never think of bringing +social and political arrangements to the no less infallible test of +conformity to an ideally beautiful standard. Hence the seeming +idealist is of all men the most practical; and Emerson's gospel of +beauty should be especially precious to a country like his own, where +circumstances must for so long tell in favor of the more material +phases of civilization. Even more important is that aspect of his +teaching which deals with the unalterableness of spiritual laws, the +impossibility of evading Truth and Fact in the long run, or of +wronging any one without at the same time wronging oneself. Happy +would it be for the United States if Emerson's essay on 'Compensation' +in particular could be impressed upon the conscience, where there is +any, of every political leader; and interwoven with the very texture +of the mind of every one who has a vote to cast at the polls!</p> + +<p>The special adaptation of Emerson's teaching to the needs of America +is, nevertheless, far from the greatest obligation under which he has +laid his countrymen. His greatest service is to have embodied a +specially American type of thought and feeling. It is the test of real +greatness in a nation to be individual, to produce something in the +world of intellect peculiar to itself and indefeasibly its own. Such +intellectual growths were indeed to be found in America before +Emerson's time, but they were not of the highest class. Franklin was a +great sage, but his wisdom was worldly wisdom. Emerson gives us, in +his own phrase, morality on fire with emotion,—the only morality +which in the long run will really influence the heart of man. Man is +after all too noble a being to be permanently actuated by enlightened +selfishness; and when we compare Emerson with even so truly eminent a +character as Franklin, we see, as he saw when he compared Carlyle with +Johnson, how great a stride <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5433" id="Page_5433">[Pg 5433]</a></span>forward his country had taken in the mean +time. But he could do for America what Carlyle could not do for Great +Britain, for it was done already: he could and did create a type of +wisdom especially national, as distinctive of the West as Buddha's of +the East.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/sign385.png" width="400" height="120" alt="Richard Garnett" title="Richard Garnett" /> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="transc">All the following citations from Emerson's works are reprinted by special +arrangement with, and the kind permission of, Mr. Emerson's family, +and Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers, Boston, Mass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="TIMES" id="TIMES"></a>THE TIMES</h3> + +<h4>From the Lecture on 'The Times,' 1841</h4> + +<p>But the subject of the Times is not an abstract question. We talk of +the world, but we mean a few men and women. If you speak of the age, +you mean your own platoon of people, as Dante and Milton painted in +colossal their platoons, and called them Heaven and Hell. In our idea +of progress we do not go out of this personal picture. We do not think +the sky will be bluer, or honey sweeter, or our climate more +temperate, but only that our relation to our fellows will be simpler +and happier. What is the reason to be given for this extreme +attraction which <i>persons</i> have for us, but that they are the Age? +They are the results of the Past; they are the heralds of the Future. +They indicate—these witty, suffering, blushing, intimidating figures +of the only race in which there are individuals or changes—how far on +the Fate has gone, and what it drives at. As trees make scenery, and +constitute the hospitality of the landscape, so persons are the world +to persons.... These are the pungent instructors who thrill the heart +of each of us, and make all other teaching formal and cold. How I +follow them with aching heart, with pining desire! I count myself +nothing before them. I would die for them with joy. They can do what +they will with me. How they lash us with those tongues! How they make +the tears start, make us blush and turn pale, and lap us in Elysium to +soothing dreams and castles in the air! By tones of triumph, of dear +love, by threats, by pride that freezes, these have the skill to make +the world look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5434" id="Page_5434">[Pg 5434]</a></span> bleak and inhospitable, or seem the nest of tenderness +and joy. I do not wonder at the miracles which poetry attributes to +the music of Orpheus, when I remember what I have experienced from the +varied notes of the human voice. They are an incalculable energy which +countervails all other forces in nature, because they are the channel +of supernatural powers. There is no interest or institution so poor +and withered but if a new strong man could be born into it he would +immediately redeem and replace it. A personal ascendency,—that is the +only fact much worth considering. I remember, some years ago, somebody +shocked a circle of friends of order here in Boston, who supposed that +our people were identified with their religious denominations, by +declaring that an eloquent man—let him be of what sect soever—would +be ordained at once in one of our metropolitan churches. To be sure he +would; and not only in ours but in any church, mosque, or temple on +the planet: but he must be eloquent, able to supplant our method and +classification by the superior beauty of his own. Every fact we have +was brought here by some person; and there is none that will not +change and pass away before a person whose nature is broader than the +person whom the fact in question represents. And so I find the Age +walking about in happy and hopeful natures, in strong eyes and +pleasant thoughts, and think I read it nearer and truer so than in the +statute-book, or in the investments of capital, which rather celebrate +with mournful music the obsequies of the last age. In the brain of a +fanatic; in the wild hope of a mountain boy, called by city boys very +ignorant, because they do not know what his hope has certainly +apprised him shall be; in the love-glance of a girl; in the +hair-splitting conscientiousness of some eccentric person who has +found some new scruple to embarrass himself and his neighbors +withal,—is to be found that which shall constitute the times to come, +more than in the now organized and accredited oracles. For whatever is +affirmative and now advancing contains it. I think that only is real +which men love and rejoice in; not what they tolerate, but what they +choose; what they embrace and avow, and not the things which chill, +benumb, and terrify them.</p> + +<p>And so why not draw for these times a portrait gallery? Let us paint +the painters. Whilst the daguerreotypist, with camera-obscura and +silver plate, begins now to traverse the land, let us set up our +camera also, and let the sun paint the people. Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5435" id="Page_5435">[Pg 5435]</a></span> us paint the +agitator, and the man of the old school, and the member of Congress, +and the college professor, the formidable editor, the priest, and +reformer, the contemplative girl, and the fair aspirant for fashion +and opportunities, the woman of the world who has tried and knows—let +us examine how well she knows. Could we indicate the indicators, +indicate those who most accurately represent every good and evil +tendency of the general mind, in the just order which they take on +this canvas of time, so that all witnesses should recognize a +spiritual law, as each well-known form flitted for a moment across the +wall, we should have a series of sketches which would report to the +next ages the color and quality of ours.</p> + +<p>Certainly I think if this were done there would be much to admire as +well as to condemn; souls of as lofty a port as any in Greek or Roman +fame might appear; men of great heart, of strong hand, and of +persuasive speech; subtle thinkers, and men of wide sympathy, and an +apprehension which looks over all history and everywhere recognizes +its own. To be sure, there will be fragments and hints of men, more +than enough; bloated promises, which end in nothing or little. And +then, truly great men, but with some defect in their composition which +neutralizes their whole force. Here is a Damascus blade, such as you +may search through nature in vain to parallel, laid up on the shelf in +some village to rust and ruin. And how many seem not quite available +for that idea which they represent! Now and then comes a bolder +spirit, I should rather say, a more surrendered soul, more informed +and led by God, which is much in advance of the rest, quite beyond +their sympathy, but predicts what shall soon be the general fullness; +as when we stand by the sea-shore, whilst the tide is coming in, a +wave comes up the beach far higher than any foregoing one, and +recedes; and for a long while none comes up to that mark; but after +some time the whole sea is there and beyond it.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FRIENDSHIP" id="FRIENDSHIP"></a>FRIENDSHIP</h3> + +<p>Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each so +well tempered and so happily adapted, and withal so circumstanced (for +even in that particular, a poet says, love demands that the parties be +altogether paired), that its satisfaction can very seldom be assured. +It cannot subsist in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5436" id="Page_5436">[Pg 5436]</a></span> perfection, say some of those who are +learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more than two. I am +not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have never known so +high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination more with a +circle of godlike men and women variously related to each other, and +between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of +<i>one to one</i> peremptory for conversation, which is the practice and +consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. The best mix +as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and cheering +discourse at several times with two several men, but let all three of +you come together and you shall not have one new and hearty word. Two +may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a +conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company +there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes +place when you leave them alone. In good company the individuals merge +their egotism into a social soul exactly coextensive with the several +consciousnesses there present....</p> + +<p>Unrelated men give little joy to each other, will never suspect the +latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great talent for +conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some individuals. +Conversation is an evanescent relation,—no more. A man is reputed to +have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his +cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much reason as +they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade. In the sun +it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought he will +regain his tongue.</p> + +<p>Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness +that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the +other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that +my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I +am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease +an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is +that the <i>not mine</i> is <i>mine</i>. I hate, where I looked for a manly +furtherance or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of +concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his +echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do +without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There +must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance +of two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5437" id="Page_5437">[Pg 5437]</a></span> large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, +before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these +disparities unites them.</p> + +<p>He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that +greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to +intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. +Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the +births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We +talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence +is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he +has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor if you must +needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits +room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's +buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the +holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as +property, and to such a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of +the noblest benefit.</p> + +<p>Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why should +we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? Why +insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his +house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by +him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this +touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, +a sincerity, a glance from him, I want; but not news, nor pottage. I +can get politics and chat and neighborly conveniences from cheaper +companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is +profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the +horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us +not vilify, but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, +that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on +reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; +wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Let him +be to thee forever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly +revered, and not a trivial conveniency to be soon outgrown and cast +aside. The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be +seen if the eye is too near. To my friend I write a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5438" id="Page_5438">[Pg 5438]</a></span> letter and from +him I receive a letter. That seems to you a little. It suffices me. It +is a spiritual gift, worthy of him to give and of me to receive. It +profanes nobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as +it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier +existence than all the annals of heroism have yet made good....</p> + +<p>The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy +to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. +Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope +cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of +the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which +can love us and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that +the period of nonage, of follies, of blunders and of shame, is passed +in solitude, and when we are finished men we shall grasp heroic hands +in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see, not to +strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship +can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances +which no god attends. By persisting in your path, though you forfeit +the little you gain the great.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="NATURE" id="NATURE"></a>NATURE</h3> + +<p>There are days which occur in this climate, at almost any season of +the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection; when the air, the +heavenly bodies, and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature would +indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the planet, +nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest latitudes, and +we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when everything that +has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle that lie on the +ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These halcyons may be +looked for with a little more assurance in that pure October weather +which we distinguish by the name of the Indian Summer. The day, +immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm wide fields. +To have lived through all its sunny hours seems longevity enough. The +solitary places do not seem quite lonely. At the gates of the forest, +the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates +of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off +his back with the first step he takes into these precincts. Here is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5439" id="Page_5439">[Pg 5439]</a></span> +sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our +heroes. Here we find nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every +other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. We +have crept out of our close and crowded houses into the night and +morning, and we see what majestic beauties daily wrap us in their +bosom. How willingly we would escape the barriers which render them +comparatively impotent, escape the sophistication and second thought, +and suffer nature to intrance us. The tempered light of the woods is +like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently +reported spells of these places creep on us. The stems of pines, +hemlocks, and oaks almost gleam like iron on the excited eye. The +incommunicable trees begin to persuade us to live with them, and quit +our life of solemn trifles. Here no history, or church, or state, is +interpolated on the divine sky and the immortal year. How easily we +might walk onward into the opening landscape, absorbed by new pictures +and by thoughts fast succeeding each other, until by degrees the +recollection of home was crowded out of the mind, all memory +obliterated by the tyranny of the present, and we were led in triumph +by nature.</p> + +<p>These enchantments are medicinal; they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes and hands and feet. It is firm water; it is cold flame: what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out +daily and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much +scope, just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of +natural influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her +dearest and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. +There is the bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood fire to +which the chilled traveler rushes for safety,—and there is the +sublime moral of autumn and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our +living as parasites from her roots and grains; and we receive glances +from the heavenly bodies, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5440" id="Page_5440">[Pg 5440]</a></span> call us to solitude, and foretell the +remotest future. The blue zenith is the point in which romance and +reality meet. I think if we should be rapt away into all that we dream +of heaven, and should converse with Gabriel and Uriel, the upper sky +would be all that would remain of our furniture.</p> + +<p>It seems as if the day was not wholly profane, in which we have given +heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still air, +preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet over +a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye field; the +mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innummerable florets whiten +and ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers in +glassy lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which converts +all trees to wind-harps; the crackling and spurting of hemlock in the +flames, or of pine logs, which yield glory to the walls and faces in +the sitting-room,—these are the music and pictures of the most +ancient religion. My house stands in low land, with limited outlook, +and on the skirt of the village. But I go with my friend to the shore +of our little river, and with one stroke of the paddle I leave the +village politics and personalities,—yes, and the world of villages +and personalities,—behind, and pass into a delicate realm of sunset +and moonlight, too bright almost for spotted man to enter without +novitiate and probation. We penetrate bodily this incredible beauty; +we dip our hands in this painted element; our eyes are bathed in these +lights and forms. A holiday, a villeggiatura, a royal revel, the +proudest, most heart-rejoicing festival that valor and beauty, power +and taste, ever decked and enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. +These sunset clouds, these delicately emerging stars, with their +private and ineffable glances, signify it and proffer it. I am taught +the poorness of our invention, the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art +and luxury have early learned that they must work as enchantment and +sequel to this original beauty. I am over-instructed for my return. +Henceforth I shall be hard to please. I cannot go back to toys. I am +grown expensive and sophisticated. I can no longer live without +elegance; but a countryman shall be my master of revels. He who knows +the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the +waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these +enchantments, is the rich and royal man. Only as far as the masters of +the world have called in nature to their aid, can they reach the +height of magnificence.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5441" id="Page_5441">[Pg 5441]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="COMPENSATION" id="COMPENSATION"></a>COMPENSATION</h3> + +<p>A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his +will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every +word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball +thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or +rather, it is a harpoon thrown at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a +coil of cord in the boat; and if the harpoon is not good, or not well +thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain or to sink the +boat.</p> + +<p>You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke. The exclusive in +fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, +in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does +not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to +shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer +as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your +own. The senses would make things of all persons; of women, of +children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb "I will get it from his +purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy.</p> + +<p>All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are +speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple +relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We +meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix,—with +perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there +is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for +me that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks +from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek +mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.</p> + +<p>All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. +Fear is an instructor of great sagacity, and the herald of all +revolutions. One thing he teaches,—that there is rottenness where he +appears. He is a carrion crow; and though you see not well what he +hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws +are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded +and mowed and gibbered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5442" id="Page_5442">[Pg 5442]</a></span> over government and property. That obscene +bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised.</p> + +<p>Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly +follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of +cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates, the awe of prosperity, the +instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks of +a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the +balance of justice through the heart and mind of man.</p> + +<p>Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay +scot and lot as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a +small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained +anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he +gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's +wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant +acknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other; +that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor, and every new transaction +alters according to its nature their relation to each other. He may +soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to +have ridden in his neighbor's coach, and that "the highest price he +can pay for a thing is to ask for it."</p> + +<p>A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that +it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just +demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for +first or last you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may +stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a +postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you +will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the +end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base—and +that is the one base thing in the universe—to receive favors and +render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those +from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive +must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, +to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It will +fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly in some sort.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5443" id="Page_5443">[Pg 5443]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="LOVE" id="LOVE"></a>LOVE</h3> + +<p>Here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that influence which +is thus potent over the human youth. Beauty, whose revelation to man +we now celebrate, welcome as the sun wherever it pleases to shine, +which pleases everybody with it and with themselves, seems sufficient +to itself. The lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and +solitary. Like a tree in flower, so much soft, budding, informing +loveliness is society for itself; and she teaches his eye why Beauty +was pictured with Loves and Graces attending her steps. Her existence +makes the world rich. Though she extrudes all other persons from his +attention as cheap and unworthy, she indemnifies him by carrying out +her own being into somewhat impersonal, large mundane, so that the +maiden stands to him for a representative of all select things and +virtues. For that reason the lover never sees personal resemblances in +his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a +likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her +blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and +diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.</p> + +<p>The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who can analyze +the nameless charm which glances from one and another face and form? +We are touched with emotions of tenderness and complacency, but we +cannot find whereat this dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. +It is destroyed for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to +organization. Nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love +known and described in society; but as it seems to me, to a quite +other and unattainable sphere, to relations of transcendent delicacy +and sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and foreshow. We cannot +approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline dove's-neck lustres, +hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent +things, which all have this rainbow character, defying all attempts at +appropriation and use. What else did Jean Paul Richter signify when he +said to music, "Away! away! thou speakest to me of things which in all +my endless life I have not found and shall not find." The same fluency +may be observed in every work of the plastic arts. The statue is then +beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing +out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5444" id="Page_5444">[Pg 5444]</a></span> criticism and can no longer be defined by compass and +measuring wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it and to +say what it is in the act of doing. The god or hero of the sculptor is +always represented in a transition <i>from</i> that which is representable +to the senses, <i>to</i> that which is not. Then first it ceases to be a +stone. The same remark holds of painting. And of poetry the success is +not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and +fires us with new endeavors after the unattainable. Concerning it +Landor inquires "whether it is not to be referred to some purer state +of sensation and existence."</p> + +<p>In like manner personal beauty is then first charming and itself when +it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an +end; when it suggests gleams and visions and not earthly +satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when +he cannot feel his right to it, though he were Cæsar; he cannot feel +more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.</p> + +<p>Hence arose the saying, "If I love you, what is that to you?" We say +so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above +it. It is not you, but your radiance. It is that which you know not in +yourself and can never know.</p> + +<p>This agrees well with that high philosophy of Beauty which the ancient +writers delighted in; for they said that the soul of man, embodied +here on earth, went roaming up and down in quest of that other world +of its own out of which it came into this, but was soon stupefied by +the light of the natural sun, and unable to see any other objects than +those of this world, which are but shadows of real things. Therefore +the Deity sends the glory of youth before the soul, that it may avail +itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of the +celestial good and fair; and the man beholding such a person in the +female sex runs to her and finds the highest joy in contemplating the +form, movement, and intelligence of this person, because it suggests +to him the presence of that which indeed is within the beauty, and the +cause of the beauty.</p> + +<p>If however, from too much conversing with material objects, the soul +was gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the body, it reaped +nothing but sorrow; body being unable to fulfill the promise which +beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these visions and +suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul passes through +the body and falls to admire strokes of character,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5445" id="Page_5445">[Pg 5445]</a></span> and the lovers +contemplate one another in their discourses and their actions, then +they pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more inflame their +love of it, and by this love extinguishing the base affection, as the +sun puts out fire by shining on the hearth, they become pure and +hallowed. By conversation with that which is in itself excellent, +magnanimous, lowly, and just, the lover comes to a warmer love of +these nobilities and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he passes +from loving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the one +beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the society of +all true and pure souls. In the particular society of his mate he +attains a clearer sight of any spot, any taint which her beauty has +contracted from this world, and is able to point it out; and this with +mutual joy that they are now able without offense to indicate +blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give to each all help and +comfort in curing the same. And beholding in many souls the traits of +the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine +from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends +to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by +steps on this ladder of created souls.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CIRCLES" id="CIRCLES"></a>CIRCLES</h3> + +<p>The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; +and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It +is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine +described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere +and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the +copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already +deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every +human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action +admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth +that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in +nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another +dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens....</p> + +<p>There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. +Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe, seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5446" id="Page_5446">[Pg 5446]</a></span> by God, is a +transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and +holds it fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws +after it this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise into +another idea; they will disappear. The Greek sculpture is all melted +away as if it had been statues of ice; here and there a solitary +figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of snow left +in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the genius +that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek letters last a +little longer, but are already passing under the same sentence and +tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation of new thought +opens for all that is old. The new continents are built out of the +ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the decomposition of +the foregoing. New arts destroy the old. See the investment of capital +in aqueducts, made useless by hydraulics; fortifications by gunpowder; +roads and canals by railways; sails by steam; steam by electricity.</p> + +<p>You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many +ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which +builds is better than that which is built. The hand that built can +topple it down much faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the +invisible thought which wrought through it; and thus ever behind the +coarse effect is a fine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself +the effect of a finer cause. Everything looks permanent until its +secret is known. A rich estate appears to women and children a firm +and lasting fact; to a merchant, one easily created out of any +materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, +seem a fixture like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a +large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. Nature +looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the +rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so +immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? +Permanence is a word of degrees. Everything is medial. Moons are no +more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls.</p> + +<p>The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he +look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all +his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new +idea which commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving +circle, which from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides +outwards to new and larger circles, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5447" id="Page_5447">[Pg 5447]</a></span> that without end. The extent +to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, +depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. For it is the +inert effort of each thought, having formed itself into a circular +wave of circumstance,—as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a +local usage, a religious rite,—to heap itself on that ridge and to +solidify and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it +bursts over that boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on +the great deep, which also runs up into a high wave, with attempt +again to stop and to bind. But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in +its first and narrowest pulses it already tends outward with a vast +force and to immense and innumerable expansions.</p> + +<p>Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series,—every general +law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to +disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no +circumference to us. The man finishes his story,—how good! how final! +how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo! on the +other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we +had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our +first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be +escaped, will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle +that seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example +of a bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a +power to upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of +the nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet +depicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a +suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next +age.</p> + +<p>Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder; the steps are actions, +the new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and +judged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by +the new; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always +hated by the old, and to those dwelling in the old, comes like an +abyss of skepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye +and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles +before the revelation of the new hour.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5448" id="Page_5448">[Pg 5448]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="SELFRELIANCE" id="SELFRELIANCE"></a>SELF-RELIANCE</h3> + + +<p>Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the +place the Divine providence has found for you, the society of your +contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done +so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, +betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated +at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all +their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind +the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing +on Chaos and the Dark.</p> + +<p>What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and +behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel +mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed +the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their +mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in +their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all +conform to it: so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the +adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty +and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it +enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will +stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he +cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room the voice is +sufficiently clear and emphatic! It seems he knows how to speak to his +contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us +seniors very unnecessary.</p> + +<p>The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as +much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy +attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in +the play-house: independent, irresponsible, looking out from his +corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences +them on their merits, in the swift summary way of boys, as good, bad, +interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never +about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is, as it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5449" id="Page_5449">[Pg 5449]</a></span> +were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has +once acted or spoken with éclat he is a committed person, watched by +the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now +enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could +pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and +having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, +unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He +would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be +not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men +and put them in fear.</p> + +<p>These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint +and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in +conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is +a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better +securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty +and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. +Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, +but names and customs.</p> + +<p>Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather +immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must +explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity +of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the +suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I +was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me +with the dear old doctrines of the Church. On my saying, "What have I +to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from +within?" my friend suggested, "But these impulses may be from below, +not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if +I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can +be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very +readily transferable to that or this: the only right is what is after +my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry +himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were +titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we +capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead +institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and +sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and +speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5450" id="Page_5450">[Pg 5450]</a></span> +philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this +bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from +Barbadoes, why should I not say to him:—"Go love thy infant; love thy +wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never +varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible +tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite +at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is +handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some +edge to it, else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached, +as the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when that pules and +whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius +calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, <i>Whim</i>. I +hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the +day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I +exclude company. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, +of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they <i>my</i> +poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the +dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me +and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by +all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to +prison if need be: but your miscellaneous popular charities; the +education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the +vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots, and the thousandfold +relief societies;—though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and +give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by-and-by I shall have +the manhood to withhold....</p> + +<p>What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may +serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is +the harder because you will always find those who think they know what +is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live +after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our +own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with +perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5451" id="Page_5451">[Pg 5451]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="HISTORY" id="HISTORY"></a>HISTORY</h3> + +<p>Civil and natural history, the history of art and of literature, must +be explained from individual history, or must remain words, There is +nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest us; +kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron shoe,—the roots of all things +are in man. Santa Croce and the Dome of St. Peter's are lame copies +after a divine model. Strassburg Cathedral is a material counterpart +of the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. The true poem is the poet's mind; +the true ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we lay him open, +we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his +work; as every spine and tint in the sea-shell pre-exists in the +secreting organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry and of chivalry is +in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all +the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.</p> + +<p>The trivial experience of every day is always verifying some old +prediction to us, and converting into things the words and signs which +we had heard and seen without heed. A lady with whom I was riding in +the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her <i>to wait</i>, +as if the genii who inhabited them suspended their deeds until the +wayfarer had passed onward; a thought which poetry has celebrated in +the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human +feet. The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at +midnight, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light +and of the world. I remember one summer day in the fields, my +companion pointed out to me a broad cloud, which might extend a +quarter of a mile parallel to the horizon, quite accurately in the +form of a cherub as painted over churches,—a round block in the +centre, which it was easy to animate with eyes and mouth, supported on +either side by wide-stretched symmetrical wings. What appears once in +the atmosphere may appear often, and it was undoubtedly the archetype +of that familiar ornament. I have seen in the sky a chain of summer +lightning which at once showed to me that the Greeks drew from nature +when they painted the thunderbolt in the hand of Jove. I have seen a +snowdrift along the sides of the stone wall, which obviously gave the +idea of the common architectural scroll to abut a tower.</p> + +<p>By surrounding ourselves with the original circumstances we invent +anew the orders and the ornaments of architecture, as we +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5452" id="Page_5452">[Pg 5452]</a></span> +see how each people merely decorated its primitive abodes. The Doric temple +preserves the semblance of the wooden cabin in which the Dorian dwelt. +The Chinese pagoda is plainly a Tartar tent. The Indian and Egyptian +temples still betray the mounds and subterranean houses of their +forefathers. "The custom of making houses and tombs in the living +rock," says Heeren in his 'Researches on the Ethiopians,' "determined +very naturally the principal character of the Nubian Egyptian +architecture to the colossal form which it assumed. In these caverns +already prepared by nature, the eye was accustomed to dwell on huge +shapes and masses, so that when art came to the assistance of nature +it could not move on a small scale without degrading itself. What +would statues of the usual size, or neat porches and wings, have been, +associated with those gigantic halls before which only Colossi could +sit as watchmen or lean on the pillars of the interior?"</p> + +<p>The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the +forest trees, with all their boughs, to a festal or solemn arcade; as +the bands about the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that +tied them. No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods without +being struck with the architectural appearance of the grove, +especially in winter, when the barrenness of all other trees shows the +low arch of the Saxons. In the woods, in a winter afternoon one will +see as readily the origin of the stained-glass window, with which the +Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen +through the bare and crossing branches of the forest. Nor can any +lover of nature enter the old piles of Oxford and the English +cathedrals without feeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the +builder, and that his chisel, his saw and plane still reproduced its +ferns, its spikes of flowers, its locust, elm, oak, pine, fir, and +spruce.</p> + +<p>The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone, subdued by the +insatiable demand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms +into an eternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish as well +as the aerial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty.</p> + +<p>In like manner all public facts are to be individualized, all private +facts are to be generalized. Then at once History becomes fluid and +true, and Biography deep and sublime.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5453" id="Page_5453">[Pg 5453]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="EACHALL" id="EACHALL"></a>EACH AND ALL</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of thee from the hill-top looking down;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heifer that lows in the upland farm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sexton tolling his bell at noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deems not that great Napoleon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stops his horse, and lists with delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor knowest thou what argument<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All are needed by each one;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing is fair or good alone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Singing at dawn on the alder bough;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I brought him home, in his nest, at even;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He sings the song, but it cheers not now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I did not bring home the river and sky;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sang to my ear,—they sang to my eye.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The delicate shells lay on the shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bubbles of the latest wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the bellowing of the savage sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Greeted their safe escape to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wiped away the weeds and foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fetched my sea-born treasures home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the poor unsightly, noisome things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had left their beauty on the shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lover watched his graceful maid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor knew her beauty's best attire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was woven still by the snow-white choir.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last she came to his hermitage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gay enchantment was undone—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gentle wife, but fairy none.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then I said, "I covet truth:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I leave it behind with the games of youth:"—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As I spoke, beneath my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5454" id="Page_5454">[Pg 5454]</a></span><span class="i0">Running over the club-moss burrs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I inhaled the violet's breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around me stood the oaks and firs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over me soared the eternal sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of light and of deity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again I saw, again I heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rolling river, the morning bird;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beauty through my senses stole;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I yielded myself to the perfect whole.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="RHODORA" id="RHODORA"></a>THE RHODORA</h3> + +<h4>ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To please the desert and the sluggish brook.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The purple petals, fallen in the pool,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Made the black water with their beauty gay;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And court the flower that cheapens his array.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why<br /></span> +<span class="i1">This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I never thought to ask, I never knew;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But in my simple ignorance suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5455" id="Page_5455">[Pg 5455]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="HUMBLEBEE" id="HUMBLEBEE"></a>THE HUMBLE-BEE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Burly, dozing humble-bee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where thou art is clime for me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let them sail for Porto Rique.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-off heats through seas to seek;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will follow thee alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou animated torrid zone!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Let me chase thy waving lines;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Singing over shrubs and vines.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Insect lover of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy of thy dominion!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sailor of the atmosphere;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swimmer through the waves of air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Voyager of light and noon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Epicurean of June;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wait, I prithee, till I come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within earshot of thy hum,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All without is martyrdom.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the south wind, in May days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a net of shining haze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silvers the horizon wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with softness touching all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tints the human countenance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a color of romance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And infusing subtle heats,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turns the sod to violets,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou in sunny solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rover of the underwoods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The green silence dost displace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With thy mellow, breezy bass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hot midsummer's petted crone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet to me, thy drowsy tone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tells of countless sunny hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long days, and solid banks of flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gulfs of sweetness without bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Indian wildernesses found;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5456" id="Page_5456">[Pg 5456]</a></span><span class="i0">Aught unsavory or unclean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath my insect never seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But violets and bilberry bells,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maple-sap and daffodels,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grass with green flag half-mast high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Succory to match the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Columbine with horn of honey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scented fern, and agrimony,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And brier-roses, dwelt among;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All beside was unknown waste,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All was picture as he passed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wiser far than human seer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yellow-breeched philosopher!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeing only what is fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sipping only what is sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou dost mock at fate and care,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the fierce northwestern blast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cools sea and land so far and fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou already slumberest deep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woe and want thou canst outsleep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Want and woe, which torture us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy sleep makes ridiculous.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PROBLEM" id="PROBLEM"></a>THE PROBLEM</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I like a church; I like a cowl;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I love a prophet of the soul;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on my heart monastic aisles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet not for all his faith can see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would I that cowlèd churchman be.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why should the vest on him allure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which I could not on me endure?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not from a vain or shallow thought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His awful Jove young Phidias brought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never from lips of cunning fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thrilling Delphic oracle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out from the heart of nature rolled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The burdens of the Bible old;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The litanies of nations came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the volcano's tongue of flame,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5457" id="Page_5457">[Pg 5457]</a></span><span class="i0">Up from the burning core below,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The canticles of love and woe:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hand that rounded Peter's dome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And groined the aisles of Christian Rome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought in a sad sincerity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself from God he could not free;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He builded better than he knew;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The conscious stone to beauty grew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Know'st thou what wove yon wood-bird's nest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Painting with morn each annual cell?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or how the sacred pine-tree adds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To her old leaves new myriads?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such and so grew these holy piles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the best gem upon her zone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Morning opes with haste her lids<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To gaze upon the Pyramids;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As on its friends, with kindred eye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For out of thought's interior sphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These wonders rose to upper air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Nature gladly gave them place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adopted them into her race,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And granted them an equal date<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Andes and with Ararat.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">These temples grew as grows the grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Art might obey, but not surpass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The passive Master lent his hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the vast soul that o'er him planned;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the same power that reared the shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever the fiery Pentecost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Girds with one flame the countless host,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trances the heart through chanting choirs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through the priest the mind inspires.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The word unto the prophet spoken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was writ on tables yet unbroken;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The word by seers or sibyls told,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5458" id="Page_5458">[Pg 5458]</a></span><span class="i0">Still floats upon the morning wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still whispers to the willing mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One accent of the Holy Ghost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heedless world hath never lost.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know what say the Fathers wise,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Book itself before me lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he who blent both in his line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The younger Golden Lips or mines,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His words are music in my ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see his cowlèd portrait dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, for all his faith could see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would not the good bishop be.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="DAYS" id="DAYS"></a>DAYS</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And marching single in an endless file,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To each they offer gifts after his will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgot my morning wishes, hastily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned and departed silent. I, too late,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the solemn fillet saw the scorn.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5459" id="Page_5459">[Pg 5459]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="MUSKETAQUID" id="MUSKETAQUID"></a>MUSKETAQUID</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Because I was content with these poor fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And found a home in haunts which others scorned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And granted me the freedom of their state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in their secret senate have prevailed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made moon and planets parties to their bond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through my rock-like, solitary wont<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the Spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Visits the valley;—break away the clouds,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And planted world, and full executor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their imperfect functions.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But these young scholars who invade our hills—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And traveling often in the cut he makes—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all their botany is Latin names.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The old men studied magic in the flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And human fortunes in astronomy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And an omnipotence in chemistry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Preferring things to names; for these were men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were unitarians of the united world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strangers to the plant and to the mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The injured elements say, "Not in us;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And night and day, ocean and continent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire, plant, and mineral say, "Not in us;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And haughtily return us stare for stare.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For we invade them impiously for gain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We devastate them unreligiously,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only what to our griping toil is due;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the sweet affluence of love and song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rich results of the divine consents<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5460" id="Page_5460">[Pg 5460]</a></span><span class="i0">Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pirates of the universe, shut out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Daily to a more thin and outward rind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blue-coated,—flying before from tree to tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Courageous sing a delicate overture<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lead the tardy concert of the year.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Onward and nearer rides the sun of May;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wide around, the marriage of the plants<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hollow and lake, hillside and pine arcade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beneath low hills, in the broad interval<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through which at will our Indian rivulet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose pipe and arrow oft the plow unburies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here in pine houses built of new-fallen trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Traveler, to thee perchance a tedious road,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or it may be, a picture; to these men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The landscape is an armory of powers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, one by one, they know to draw and use;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, like the chemist mid his loaded jars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Draw from each stratum its adapted use<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They turn the frost upon their chemic heap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They fight the elements with elements<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(That one would say, meadow and forest walked,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Transmuted in these men to rule their like),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And by the order in the field disclose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The order regnant in the yeoman's brain.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5461" id="Page_5461">[Pg 5461]</a></span><span class="i0">What these strong masters wrote at large in miles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I followed in small copy in my acre;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For there's no rood has not a star above it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cordial quality of pear or plum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ascends as gladly in a single tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in broad orchards resonant with bees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every atom poises for itself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for the whole. The gentle deities<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The innumerable tenements of beauty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The miracle of generative force,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-reaching concords of astronomy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better, the linkèd purpose of the whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And—chiefest prize—found I true liberty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The polite found me impolite; the great<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would mortify me, but in vain; for still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am a willow of the wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Salve my worst wounds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the winter night's extinguished mood?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Canst thou shine now, then darkle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And being latent, feel thyself no less?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, when the all-worshiped moon attracts the eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet envies none, none are unenviable."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5462" id="Page_5462">[Pg 5462]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="THRENODY" id="THRENODY"></a>FROM THE 'THRENODY'</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The South-wind brings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life, sunshine and desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on every mount and meadow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathes aromatic fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But over the dead he has no power,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And looking over the hills, I mourn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The darling who shall not return....<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O child of paradise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boy who made dear his father's home,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In whose deep eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men read the welfare of the times to come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am too much bereft.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world dishonored thou hast left.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O truth's and Nature's costly lie!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O trusted broken prophecy!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O richest fortune sourly crossed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Born for the future, to the future lost!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The deep Heart answered, "Weepest thou?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worthier cause for passion wild<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I had not taken the child.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And deemest thou as those who pore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With agèd eyes, short way before,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of matter, and thy darling lost?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taught he not thee—the man of eld,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose eyes within his eyes beheld<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven's numerous hierarchy span<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mystic gulf from God to man?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be alone wilt thou begin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When worlds of lovers hem thee in?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-morrow, when the masks shall fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That dizen Nature's carnival,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pure shall see by their own will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which overflowing Love shall fill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis not within the force of fate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fate-conjoined to separate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thou, my votary, weepest thou?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I gave thee sight—where is it now?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I taught thy heart beyond the reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ritual, Bible, or of speech;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5463" id="Page_5463">[Pg 5463]</a></span><span class="i0">Wrote in thy mind's transparent table,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As far as the incommunicable;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taught thee each private sign to raise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lit by the supersolar blaze.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past utterance, and past belief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And past the blasphemy of grief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mysteries of Nature's heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though no Muse can these impart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all is clear from east to west.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I came to thee as to a friend;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dearest, to thee I did not send<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tutors, but a joyful eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Innocence that matched the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lovely locks, a form of wonder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughter rich as woodland thunder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou might'st entertain apart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The richest flowering of all art:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, as the great all-loving Day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through smallest chambers takes its way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou might'st break thy daily bread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With prophet, savior, and head;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou might'st cherish for thine own<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The richest of sweet Mary's Son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thoughtest thou such guest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would in thy hall take up his rest?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would rushing life forget her laws,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fate's glowing revolution pause?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High omens ask diviner guess;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to be conned to tediousness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And know my higher gifts unbind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The zone that girds the incarnate mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the scanty shores are full<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With thought's perilous, whirling pool;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When frail Nature can no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then the Spirit strikes the hour:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My servant Death, with solving rite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pours finite into infinite.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose streams through Nature circling go?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nail the wild star to its track<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the half climbed zodiac?<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5464" id="Page_5464">[Pg 5464]</a></span><span class="i0">Light is light which radiates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blood is blood which circulates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life is life which generates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And many-seeming life is one,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wilt thou transfix and make it none?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its onward force too starkly pent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In figure, bone, and lineament?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Talker!—the unreplying Fate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor see the genius of the whole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ascendant in the private soul?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beckon it when to go and come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-announced its hour of doom?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair the soul's recess and shrine,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Magic-built to last a season;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Masterpiece of love benign,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fairer that expansive reason<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose omen 'tis, and sign.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Verdict which accumulates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From lengthening scroll of human fates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Voice of earth to earth returned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prayers of saints that inly burned,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saying, <i>What is excellent,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>As God lives, is permanent;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Heart's love will meet thee again.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up to his style, and manners of the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not of adamant and gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Built he heaven stark and cold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, but a nest of bending reeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flowering grass and scented weeds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or like a traveler's fleeing tent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or bow above the tempest bent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Built of tears and sacred flames,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And virtue reaching to its aims;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Built of furtherance and pursuing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not of spent deeds, but of doing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silent rushes the swift Lord<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through ruined systems still restored,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plants with worlds the wilderness;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5465" id="Page_5465">[Pg 5465]</a></span><span class="i0">Waters with tears of ancient sorrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">House and tenant go to ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lost in God, in Godhead found."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONCORDHYMN" id="CONCORDHYMN"></a>CONCORD HYMN</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836</span></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By the rude bridge that arched the flood,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here once the embattled farmers stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And fired the shot heard round the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The foe long since in silence slept;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And time the ruined bridge has swept<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On this green bank, by this soft stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">We set to-day a votive stone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That memory may their deed redeem,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When, like our sires, our sons are gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Spirit, that made those heroes dare<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To die, and leave their children free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bid Time and Nature gently spare<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The shaft we raise to them and thee.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ODE" id="ODE"></a>ODE</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Sung in the Town Hall, Concord, July 4, 1857</span></h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O tenderly the haughty day<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fills his blue urn with fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One morn is in the mighty heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And one in our desire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The cannon booms from town to town,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Our pulses beat not less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy-bells chime their tidings down,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which children's voices bless.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For He that flung the broad blue fold<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O'er mantling land and sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One third part of the sky unrolled<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For the banner of the free.<br /></span> +</div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5466" id="Page_5466">[Pg 5466]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The men are ripe of Saxon kind<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To build an equal state,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To take the statue from the mind<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And make of duty fate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">United States! the ages plead,—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Present and Past in under-song,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go put your creed into your deed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor speak with double tongue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For sea and land don't understand,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor skies without a frown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See rights for which the one hand fights<br /></span> +<span class="i1">By the other cloven down.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be just at home; then write your scroll<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of honor o'er the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bid the broad Atlantic roll,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A ferry of the free.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And henceforth there shall be no chain,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Save underneath the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wires shall murmur through the main<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sweet songs of liberty.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The conscious stars accord above,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The waters wild below,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And under, through the cable wove,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Her fiery errands go.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For He that worketh high and wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor pauses in his plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will take the sun out of the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ere freedom out of man.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="transc">All the above citations from Emerson's works are reprinted by permission of +his family, and of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers, Boston, +Mass., as stated on a previous page.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<a name="CONCORD_MONUMENT" id="CONCORD_MONUMENT"></a> +<span class="caption"><i>CONCORD MONUMENT.</i></span> +<p class="center">Marking the Battle Field of April 19, 1775.<br /> +From a Photograph.</p> +<img src="images/concord.png" width="440" height="640" alt="CONCORD MONUMENT." title="CONCORD MONUMENT." /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>1. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest +paragraph break. Also the footnotes have been moved to the end of the +chapter in which they are referred.</p> + +<p>2. The illustrations "Gothic Bible of Ulfilas" and "Egyptian Hieroglyphic +Writing" mentioned in "Full-Page Illustrations" list are missing.</p> + +<p>3. The original text includes Greek characters. For this HTML version +these letters have been replaced with transliterations.</p> + +<p>4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies +in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been +retained.</p> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Library of the World's Best +Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 13, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE, VOL 13 *** + +***** This file should be named 34408-h.htm or 34408-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/4/0/34408/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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