I have only one wish that reader and reviewer can grant: namely, a fair field and no favour for certain ‘advanced views’ of Egyptology. It is my conviction that this study, still in its infancy, will greatly modify almost all our preconceived views of archæological history.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
Trieste: November 20, 1883.
INTRODUCTION.
The history of the Sword is the history of humanity. The ‘White Arm’ means something more than the ‘oldest, the most universal, the most varied of weapons, the only one which has lived through all time.’
He, she, or it—for the gender of the Sword varies—has been worshipped with priestly sacrifices as a present god. Hebrew revelation represents the sharp and two-edged Sword going out of the mouth of the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. We read of a ‘Sword of God, a holy Sword,’ the ‘Sword of the Lord and of Gideon’; and ‘I came not to send peace but a Sword,’ meaning the warfare and martyrdom of man.
On a lower plane the Sword became the invention and the favourite arm of the gods and the demi-gods: a gift of magic, one of the treasures sent down from Heaven, which made Mulciber (‘Malik Kabír,’ the great king) divine, and Voelunder, Quida, Galant, or Wayland Smith a hero. It was consecrated to the deities, and was stored in the Temple and in the Church. It was the ‘key of heaven and hell’: the saying is, ‘If there were no Sword, there would be no law of Mohammed’; and the Moslem brave’s highest title was ‘Sayf Ullah’—Sword of Allah.
Uniformly and persistently personal, the Sword became no longer an abstraction but a Personage, endowed with human as well as superhuman qualities. He was a sentient being who spoke, and sang, and joyed, and grieved. Identified with his wearer he was an object of affection, and was pompously named as a well-beloved son and heir. To surrender the Sword was submission; to break the Sword was degradation. To kiss the Sword was, and in places still is, the highest form of oath and homage.
Lay on our royal Sword your banished hands