THE LUCKY DOORKEEPER
The villa of my sister!—
Her gates (are) in the midst of the domain—
(So oft as) its portals open,
(So oft as) the bolt is withdrawn,
Then is my sister angry:
O were I but set as the gatekeeper!
I should cause her to chide me;
(Then) I should hear her voice in anger,
A child in fear before her!
THE UNSUCCESSFUL BIRD-CATCHER
The voice of the wild goose crieth,
(For) she hath taken her bait;
(But) thy love restraineth me,
I cannot free her (from the snare);
(So) must I take (home) my net.
What (shall I say) to my mother,
To whom (I am wont) to come daily
Laden with wild fowl?
I lay not my snare to-day
(For) thy love hath taken hold upon me.
The most ardent interest that has been manifested in the Egyptian records had its origin in the desire to find evidence corroborative of the Hebrew accounts of the Egyptian captivity of the Jewish people.* The Egyptian word-treasury being at last unlocked, it was hoped that much new light would be thrown on Hebrew history. But the hope proved illusive. After ardent researches of hosts of fervid seekers for half a century, scarcely a word of reference to the Hebrews has been found among the Egyptian records.
* The only inscription relating directly to the Israelites
will be found described in Chapter VII.
If depicted at all, the Hebrew captives are simply grouped with other subordinate peoples, not even considered worthy of the dignity of names. Nor is this strange when one reflects on the subordinate position which the Hebrews held in the ancient world. In historical as in other matter, much depends upon the point of view, and a series of events that seemed all-important from the Hebrew standpoint might very well be thought too insignificant for record from the point of view of a great nation like the Egyptians. But the all-powerful pen wrought a conquest for the Hebrews in succeeding generations that their swords never achieved, and, thanks to their literature, succeeding generations have cast historical perspective to the winds in viewing them. Indeed, such are the strange mutations of time that, had any scribe of ancient Egypt seen fit to scrawl a dozen words about the despised Israelite captives, and had this monument been preserved, it would have outweighed in value, in the opinion of nineteenth-century Europe, all the historical records of Thûtmosis, Ramses, and their kin that have come down to us. But seemingly no scribe ever thought it worth his while to make such an effort.
It has just been noted that the hieroglyphic inscriptions are by no means restricted to sacred subjects. Nevertheless, the most widely known book of the Egyptians was, as might be expected, one associated with the funeral rites that played so large a part in the thoughts of the dwellers by the Nile. This is the document known as “The Chapters of the Coming-Forth by Day,” or, as it is more commonly interpreted, “The Book of the Dead.” It is a veritable book in scope, inasmuch as the closely written papyrus roll on which it is enscrolled measures sometimes seventy feet in length. It is virtually the Bible of the Egyptians, and, as in the case of the sacred books of other nations, its exact origin is obscure. The earliest known copy is to be found, not on a papyrus roll, but upon the walls of the chamber of the pyramid at Saqqâra near Cairo. The discovery of this particular recension of “The Book of the Dead” was made by Lepsius. Its date is 3333 B.C. No one supposes, however, that this date marks the time of the origin of “The Book of the Dead.” On the contrary, it is held by competent authority that the earliest chapters, essentially unmodified, had been in existence at least a thousand years before this, and quite possibly for a much longer time. Numerous copies of this work in whole or in part have been preserved either on the walls of temples, on papyrus rolls, or upon the cases of mummies. These copies are of various epochs, from the fourth millennium B.C., as just mentioned, to the late Roman period, about the fourth century A.D.
Throughout this period of about four thousand years the essential character of the book remained unchanged. It is true that no two copies that have been preserved are exactly identical in all their parts. There are various omissions and repetitions that seem to indicate that the book was not written by any one person or in any one epoch, but that it was originally a set of traditions quite possibly handed down for a long period by word of mouth before being put into writing. In this regard, as in many others, this sacred book of the Egyptians is closely comparable to the sacred books of other nations. It differs, however, in one important regard from these others in that it was never authoritatively pronounced upon and crystallised into a fixed, unalterable shape. From first to last, apparently, the individual scribe was at liberty to omit such portions as he chose, and even to modify somewhat the exact form of expression in making a copy of the sacred book. Even in this regard, however, the anomaly is not so great as might at first sight appear, for it must be recalled that even the sacred books of the Hebrews were not given final and authoritative shape until a period almost exactly coeval with that in which the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” ceased to be used at all.
A peculiar feature of “The Book of the Dead,” and one that gives it still greater interest, is the fact that from an early day it was the custom to illustrate it with graphic pictures in colour. In fact, taken as a whole, “The Book of the Dead” gives a very fair delineation of the progress of Egyptian art from the fourth millennium B.C. to its climax in the eighteenth dynasty, and throughout the period of its decline; and this applies not merely to the pictures proper, but to the forms of the hieroglyphic letters themselves, for it requires but the most cursory inspection to show that these give opportunity for no small artistic skill.
As to the ideas preserved in “The Book of the Dead,” it is sufficient here to note that they deal largely with the condition of the human being after death, implying in the most explicit way a firm and unwavering belief in the immortality of the soul. The Egyptian believed most fully that by his works a man would be known and judged after death. His religion was essentially a religion of deeds, and the code of morals, according to which these deeds were adjudged, has been said by Doctor Budge, the famous translator of “The Book of the Dead,” to be “the grandest and most comprehensive of those now known to have existed among the nations of antiquity.”