CHAPTER XXVI
Not far from the city of Pi-Bast stood the temple of the goddessHator.
In the month Paoni (March-April), on the day of the vernal equinox,about nine in the evening, when the star Sirius inclined toward itssetting, two wayfaring priests and one penitent stopped in thegateway. The penitent, who was barefoot, had ashes on his head, andwas covered with a coarse cloth which concealed his visage.
Though the air was clear, it was impossible to distinguish the facesof those wayfarers. They stood in the shadow of two immense statues ofthe cow-headed divinity which guarded the entrance to the temple andwith kindly eyes protected the province of Habu from pestilence,southern winds, and bad overflows.
When he had rested somewhat, the penitent fell with his face to theearth and prayed long in that position. Then he rose, took a copperknocker, and struck a blow. A deep metallic sound went through all thecourts, reverberated from the thick walls of the temple, and flew overthe wheat-fields, above the mud cottages of earth-tillers, over thesilvery waters of the Nile, where the faint cry of wakened birdsanswered it.
After a long time a murmur was heard inside, and the question,--
"Who rouses us?"
"Rameses, a slave of the divinity," said the penitent.
"For what hast thou come?"
"For the light of wisdom."
"What right hast them to ask for it?"
"I received the inferior consecration, and in great processions withinthe temple I carry a torch."
The gates opened widely. In the centre stood a priest in a white robe;he stretched forth his hand, and said slowly and distinctly,--
"Enter. When thou crossest this threshold, may divine peace dwell inthy soul, and may that be accomplished for which thou imploresthumbly."
When the penitent had fallen at his feet, the priest, making somesigns above his head, whispered,--
"In the name of Him who is, who has been, and who will be, who createdeverything, whose breath fills the visible and the invisible world,and who is life eternal."
When the gate had closed, the priest took Rameses by the hand, and inthe gloom amid the immense columns of the forecourt he led him to thedwelling assigned to him. It was a small cell lighted by a lamp. Onthe stone pavement lay a bundle of dry grass; in a corner stood apitcher of water, and near it was a barley cake.
"I see that here I shall have rest indeed after my occupations withthe nomarchs," said Rameses, joyously.
"Think of eternity," replied the priest; and he withdrew.
This answer struck Rameses disagreeably. Though he was hungry, he didnot wish to eat a cake or drink water. He sat on the grass, andlooking at his feet wounded from the journey, asked himself why he hadcome, why he had put himself voluntarily out of his office.
Seeing the walls of the cell and its poverty, he recalled the years ofhis boyhood passed at a priests' school. How many blows of sticks hehad received there, how many nights he had passed on a stone floor aspunishment! Even then Rameses felt the hatred and fear which he hadfelt before toward that harsh priest who to all his prayers andquestions answered only with, "Think of eternity."
After some months of uproar to drop into such silence, to exchange thecourt of a prince for obscurity and loneliness, and instead of feasts,women, and music, to feel around and above him the weight of walls!"I have gone mad! I have gone mad!" muttered Rameses.
There was a moment when he wished to leave the temple at once; butafterward he thought that they might not open the gate to him. Thesight of his dirty legs, of the ashes falling out of his hair, theroughness of his penitential rags, all this disgusted him. If he hadhad his sword even! But would he, dressed as he was in that place,dare to use it?
He felt an overpowering dread, and that sobered him. He rememberedthat the gods in temples send down fear on men, and that this fearmust be the beginning of wisdom.
"Moreover, I am the viceroy and the heir of the pharaoh," thought he;"who will harm me in this temple?"
He rose and went out of the cell. He found himself in a broad courtsurrounded by columns. The stars were shining brightly; hence he sawat one end of the court an immense pylon, at the other an openentrance to the temple.
He went thither. At the door there was gloom, and somewhere far offflamed a number of lamps, as if in the air and unsupported. Lookingmore attentively, he saw standing closely together between theentrance and the lamps a forest of columns, the tops of which werelost in darkness. At a distance, perhaps two hundred yards from him,he saw indistinctly the gigantic legs of a sitting goddess with herhands resting on her knees, from which the lamplight was reflecteddimly.
All at once he heard a sound from afar. From a side passage a row ofwhite figures pushed forth, moving in couples. This was a nightprocession of priests, who, singing in two choruses, gave homage tothe statue of the goddess: _Chorus I._ "I am He who created heaven andearth and made all things contained in them." _Chorus II._ "I am Hewho created the waters and the great overflow, He who made for thebull his mother whose parent he himself is." _Chorus I._ "I am He whomade heaven and the secrets of its horizon; as to the gods I it waswho placed their souls in them." _Chorus II._ "I am He who when heopens his eyes there is light in the world and when he closes themdarkness is present." _Chorus I._ "The waters of the Nile flow when hecommands." _Chorus II._ "But the gods do not know what his nameis."[9]
[9] Authentic.
The voices, indistinct at first, grew stronger, so that each word wasaudible, and when the procession disappeared the words scattered amongthe columns, growing ever fainter. At last every sound ceased.
"And still those people," thought Rameses, "not only eat, drink, andgather wealth--they really perform religious services even in thenight-time; though, how is that to affect the statue?"
The prince had seen more than once the statues of boundary divinitiesbespattered with mud by the inhabitants of another province, or shotat from bows or slings by mercenary soldiers. "If gods are notoffended by insult, they must also care little for prayers andprocessions. Besides, who has seen gods?" said the prince to himself.
The immensity of the temple, its countless columns, the lamps burningin front of the statue,--all this attracted Rameses. He wished to lookaround in that mysterious immensity, and he went forward. Then itseemed to him that some hand from behind touched his head tenderly. Helooked around. No one was there; so he went farther.
This time the two hands of some person seized him by the head, and athird, a great hand, rested on his shoulder.
"Who is here?" cried the prince; and he rushed in among the columns.But he stumbled and almost fell: some one caught him by the feet.Again terror mastered Rameses more than in the cell. He fleddistracted, knocking against columns which seemed to bar the way tohim, and darkness closed around the man on all sides.
"Oh, save, holy goddess, save me!" whispered he.
At this moment he stopped: some yards in front of him was the greatdoor of a temple through which the starry sky was visible. He turnedhis head. Amid the forest of gigantic columns lamps were burning, andthe gleam of them was reflected faintly from the bronze knees of theholy Hator.
The prince returned to his cell, crushed and excited; his heartthrobbed like that of a bird caught in a net. For the first time inmany years he fell with his face to the earth and prayed ardently forfavor and forgiveness.
"Thou wilt be heard," answered a sweet voice above him.
Rameses raised his head quickly, but there was no one in the cell:the door was closed, the walls were thick. He prayed on therefore moreardently, and fell asleep in that position, with his face on thestones and his arms extended.
When he woke next morning, he was another man: he had experienced themight of the gods, and favor had been promised.
From that time through a long series of days he gave himself todevotional exercises with faith and alacrity. In his cell he spentlong hours over prayers, he had his head shaven, and put on priestlygarments, and four times in twenty-four hours
he took part in a chorusof the youngest priests.
His past life, taken up with amusements, roused in him aversion, andthe disbelief which he had acquired amid foreigners and dissoluteyouth filled him with dread in that interval. And if that day thechoice had been given him to take either the throne or the priestlyoffice, he would have hesitated.
A certain day the great prophet of the temple summoned the prince, andreminded him that he had not entered for prayers exclusively, but tolearn wisdom. The prophet praised his devotion, declared that he waspurified then from worldly foulness, and commanded him to becomeacquainted with the schools connected with that temple.
Rather through obedience than curiosity, the prince went directly fromhim to the interior court, where the department of reading and writingwas situated.
That was a great hall, lighted through an opening in the roof. On matssome tens of naked pupils were seated holding wax tablets in theirhands. One wall was of smooth alabaster; before it stood a teacher whowrote characters with chalks of various colors.
When the prince entered, the pupils, almost all of the same age thathe was, fell on their faces. The teacher bowed, and stopped his actuallabor to explain to the youths the great meaning of knowledge.
"My beloved," said he, "a man who has no heart for wisdom must occupyhimself with handwork and torment his eyesight. But he who understandsthe worth of knowledge and forms himself accordingly may gain allkinds of power and every court office. Remember this.[10]
[10] Authentic.
"Look at the wretched fate of men unacquainted with writing. A smithis black and grimy, his hands are full of lumps, and he toils nightand day all his lifetime. The quarryman pulls his arms out to satisfyhis stomach. The mason while forming a capital in lotus shape ishurled off by wind from the scaffold. A weaver has bent knees, a makerof weapons is ever travelling: barely does he come to his house in theevening when he must leave it. The fingers of a wall painter smelldisagreeably, and his time passes in trimming up trifles. The courierwhen taking farewell of his family must leave a will, for he may haveto meet wild beasts or Asiatics.
"I have shown you the lot of men of various labors, for I wish you tolove writing, which is your mother, and now I will present to you itsbeauties. It is not an empty word on earth, it is the most importantof all occupations. He who makes use of writing is respected fromchildhood; he accomplishes every great mission. But he who takes nopart in it lives on in wretchedness. School sciences are as difficultas mountains, but one day of them lasts through eternity. So learnquickly and you will love them. The scribe has a princely position;his pen and his book win him wealth and acceptance."
After a sounding discourse on the dignity of knowledge, a discoursewhich Egyptian pupils had heard without change for three millenniums,the master took chalk and on the alabaster wall began to write thealphabet. Each letter was expressed through a number of hieroglyphs,or a number of demotic characters. The picture of an eye, a bird, or apanther signified _A_, a sheep or a pot _B_, a man standing or a boat_K_, a serpent _R_, a man sitting or a star _S_. The abundance ofsigns expressing each sound made the art of reading or writingextremely laborious.
Rameses was wearied by mere listening, during which the only reliefwas when the teacher commanded some pupil to draw, or to name someletter, and beat him with a cane when he failed in his effort.
Taking farewell of the teacher and the pupils, the prince from theschool of scribes passed to the school of surveyors. There they taughtyouth to draw plans of fields which were for the most partrectangular, also to take the elevation of land by means of two lathsand a square. In this department also they explained the art ofwriting numbers no less involved in hieroglyphic or demoticcharacters. But pure arithmetical problems formed a higher course, andwere solved by means of bullets.
Rameses had enough of this, and only after some days would he visitthe school of medicine.
This was also a hospital, or rather great garden containing amultitude of fragrant plants and trees. Patients passed whole days inthe open air and in sunlight, on beds where strips of stretched canvastook the place of mattresses.
The greatest activity reigned when the prince entered. Some patientswere bathing in a pond of running water; attendants were rubbing oneman with fragrant ointments, and burning perfumes before another.There were some whom they had put to sleep by looking at them and bystretching out their bodies; one patient was groaning while they weresetting his sprained ankle.
To a certain woman who was grievously sick the priest was giving somemixture from a goblet, while uttering an enchantment which had powerin connection with this remedy,--
"Go, cure, go, drive that out of my heart, out of my members."[11]
[11] Authentic.
Then the prince in company with a great leech went to the pharmacy,where one of the priests was preparing cures from plants, honey, oliveoil, from the skins of serpents and lizards, from the bones and fat ofbeasts. When Rameses questioned him, the man did not take his eyesfrom the work. He looked continually, and ground the materials,uttering a prayer as he did so,--
"Thou hast cured Isis, thou hast cured Isis, thou hast cured Horus--OIsis, great enchantress, make me well, free me from all evil, fromharmful red things, from fever of the god, from fever of thegoddess[12]--
[12] Authentic.
"O Shauagat, eenagate, synie! Erukate! Kauaruchagate! Paparaukapaparaka paparura."
"What is he saying?" asked the prince.
"A secret," answered the leech, putting his finger on his lips.
When they came out to an empty court, Rameses said to the greatleech,--
"Tell me, holy father, what is the art of curing, and what are itsmethods. For I have heard that sickness is an evil spirit whichsettles in a man and torments him, because it is hungry, until itreceives the food that it wishes. And that one evil spirit or sicknessfeeds on honey, another on olive oil, and a third on the excreta ofanimals. A leech, therefore, should know first what spirit has settledin the sick man, and then what kind of nourishment is required by thatspirit, so that it should not torture the patient."
The priest thought awhile and then answered,--
"What sickness is and in what way it falls on the human body, I cannottell, O Rameses. But to thee I will explain, for thou hast beenpurified, how we govern ourselves in giving medicine.
"Suppose a given man to be sick in the liver. We priests know that theliver is under the star Peneter-Deva,[13] that the cure must depend onthat star.
[13] Planet Venus.
"But here the sages are divided into two schools. Some assert that itis necessary to give the man who is sick in his liver things overwhich Peneter-Deva has influence, therefore copper, lapis lazuli,extract of flowers, above all verbena and valerian, finally, variousparts of the body of the turtle-dove and the goat. Other leechesconsider that when the liver is diseased it is necessary to cure itwith just the opposite remedies, and the opponent of Peneter-Devabeing Sebek,[14] to give quicksilver, emerald, and agate, hazel-woodand coltsfoot, also parts of the body of a toad and an owl rubbed intopowder.
[14] Planet Mercury.
"But this is not all, for it is necessary to think of the day, themonth, and the hour of the day, for each of these spaces of time areunder the influence of a star which must support or weaken the actionof the medicine. Besides, it is needful to remember what star and whatsign of the Zodiac rules the sick person. Only when the leechconsiders all these can he prescribe an infallible remedy."
"And do ye help all sick people in the temple?"
The priest shook his head.
"No. The mind of man, which should take in all these details of whichI have spoken, makes mistakes very easily. And what is worse, enviousspirits, the geniuses of other temples, jealous of their fame,frequently hinder the leech and destroy the effect of his medicines.The result, therefore, may be that one patient will return to perfecthealth, another simply grows better, while a third remains withoutchange, though there happen some w
ho become still sicker, or evendie-- This is as the gods will!"
The prince listened with attention, but confessed in soul that he didnot understand greatly. All at once he recalled the object of hisvisit to the temple, and inquired of the great leech unexpectedly,--
"Ye were to show me, holy father, the secret of the treasure of thepharaoh. Was it those things which we have seen?"
"By no means. We know nothing of state affairs. But when the greatseer comes, the holy priest Pentuer, he will remove from thy eyes thecurtain."
Rameses took leave of the leech with increased curiosity as to whatthey were to show him.
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