Produced by David Widger
AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, Complete
By Georg Ebers
Translated from the German by Eleanor Grove
PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION
Aut prodesse volunt ant delectare poetae, Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae. Horat. De arte poetica v. 333.
It is now four years since this book first appeared before the public,and I feel it my duty not to let a second edition go forth into theworld without a few words of accompaniment. It hardly seems necessary toassure my readers that I have endeavored to earn for the following pagesthe title of a "corrected edition." An author is the father of his book,and what father could see his child preparing to set out on a newand dangerous road, even if it were not for the first time, withoutendeavoring to supply him with every good that it lay in his power tobestow, and to free him from every fault or infirmity on which the worldcould look unfavorably? The assurance therefore that I have repeatedlybestowed the greatest possible care on the correction of my EgyptianPrincess seems to me superfluous, but at the same time I think itadvisable to mention briefly where and in what manner I have foundit necessary to make these emendations. The notes have been revised,altered, and enriched with all those results of antiquarian research(more especially in reference to the language and monuments of ancientEgypt) which have come to our knowledge since the year 1864, and whichmy limited space allowed me to lay before a general public. On thealteration of the text itself I entered with caution, almost withtimidity; for during four years of constant effort as academical tutor,investigator and writer in those severe regions of study which excludethe free exercise of imagination, the poetical side of a man's naturemay forfeit much to the critical; and thus, by attempting to remodel mytale entirely, I might have incurred the danger of removing it from themore genial sphere of literary work to which it properly belongs. I havetherefore contented myself with a careful revision of the style, theomission of lengthy passages which might have diminished the interest ofthe story to general readers, the insertion of a few characteristic orexplanatory additions, and the alteration of the proper names. Theselast I have written not in their Greek, but in their Latin forms, havingbeen assured by more than one fair reader that the names Ibykus andCyrus would have been greeted by them as old acquaintances, whereas the"Ibykos" and "Kyros" of the first edition looked so strange and learned,as to be quite discouraging. Where however the German k has the sameworth as the Roman c I have adopted it in preference. With respectto the Egyptian names and those with which we have become acquaintedthrough the cuneiform inscriptions, I have chosen the forms most adaptedto our German modes of speech, and in the present edition have placedthose few explanations which seemed to me indispensable to the rightunderstanding of the text, at the foot of the page, instead of among theless easily accessible notes at the end.
The fact that displeasure has been excited among men of letters by thisattempt to clothe the hardly-earned results of severer studies in animaginative form is even clearer to me now than when I first sent thisbook before the public. In some points I agree with this judgment, butthat the act is kindly received, when a scholar does not scorn to renderthe results of his investigations accessible to the largest number ofthe educated class, in the form most generally interesting to them, isproved by the rapid sale of the first large edition of this work. Iknow at least of no better means than those I have chosen, by which toinstruct and suggest thought to an extended circle of readers. Those whoread learned books evince in so doing a taste for such studies; but itmay easily chance that the following pages, though taken up only foramusement, may excite a desire for more information, and even gain adisciple for the study of ancient history.
Considering our scanty knowledge of the domestic life of the Greeks andPersians before the Persian war--of Egyptian manners we know more--eventhe most severe scholar could scarcely dispense with the assistanceof his imagination, when attempting to describe private life among thecivilized nations of the sixth century before Christ. He would howeverescape all danger of those anachronisms to which the author of such awork as I have undertaken must be hopelessly liable. With attention andindustry, errors of an external character may be avoided, but if I hadchosen to hold myself free from all consideration of the times in whichI and my readers have come into the world, and the modes of thought atpresent existing among us, and had attempted to depict nothing but thepurely ancient characteristics of the men and their times, I should havebecome unintelligible to many of my readers, uninteresting to all, andhave entirely failed in my original object. My characters will thereforelook like Persians, Egyptians, &c., but in their language, even morethan in their actions, the German narrator will be perceptible, notalways superior to the sentimentality of his day, but a native of theworld in the nineteenth century after the appearance of that heavenlyMaster, whose teaching left so deep an impression on human thought andfeeling.
The Persians and Greeks, being by descent related to ourselves,present fewer difficulties in this respect than the Egyptians, whosedwelling-place on the fruitful islands won by the Nile from the Desert,completely isolated them from the rest of the world.
To Professor Lepsius, who suggested to me that a tale confined entirelyto Egypt and the Egyptians might become wearisome, I owe many thanks;and following his hint, have so arranged the materials supplied byHerodotus as to introduce my reader first into a Greek circle. Here hewill feel in a measure at home, and indeed will entirely sympathize withthem on one important point, viz.: in their ideas on the Beautiful andon Art. Through this Hellenic portico he reaches Egypt, from thencepasses on to Persia and returns finally to the Nile. It has been mydesire that the three nations should attract him equally, and I havetherefore not centred the entire interest of the plot in one hero, buthave endeavored to exhibit each nation in its individual character, bymeans of a fitting representative. The Egyptian Princess has givenher name to the book, only because the weal and woe of all my othercharacters were decided by her fate, and she must therefore be regardedas the central point of the whole.
In describing Amasis I have followed the excellent description ofHerodotus, which has been confirmed by a picture discovered on anancient monument. Herodotus has been my guide too in the leadingfeatures of Cambyses' character; indeed as he was born only forty orfifty years after the events related, his history forms the basis of myromance.
"Father of history" though he be, I have not followed him blindly, but,especially in the development of my characters, have chosen those pathswhich the principles of psychology have enabled me to lay down formyself, and have never omitted consulting those hieroglyphic andcuneiform inscriptions which have been already deciphered. In most casesthese confirm the statements of Herodotus.
I have caused Bartja's murder to take place after the conquest of Egypt,because I cannot agree with the usually received translation of theBehistun inscription. This reads as follows: "One named Cambujiya, sonof Curu, of our family, was king here formerly and had a brother namedBartiya, of the same father and the same mother as Cambujiya. ThereuponCambujiya killed that Bartiya." In a book intended for general readers,it would not be well to enter into a discussion as to niceties oflanguage, but even the uninitiated will see that the word "thereupon"has no sense in this connection. In every other point the inscriptionagrees with Herodotus' narrative, and I believe it possible to bring itinto agreement with that of Darius on this last as well; but reserve myproofs for another time and place.
It has not been ascertained from whence Herodotus has taken the nameSmerdis which he gives to Bartja and Gaumata. The latter occurs again,though in a mutilated form, in Justin
.
My reasons for making Phanes an Athenian will be found in Note 90. Vol.I. This coercion of an authenticated fact might have been avoided in thefirst edition, but could not now be altered without important changes inthe entire text. The means I have adopted in my endeavor to make Nitetisas young as possible need a more serious apology; as, notwithstandingHerodotus' account of the mildness of Amasis' rule, it is improbablethat King Hophra should have been alive twenty years after his fall.Even this however is not impossible, for it can be proved that hisdescendants were not persecuted by Amasis.
On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certainPsamtik, a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year ofAmasis' reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.
Lastly let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference toRhodopis. That she must have been a remarkable woman is evident from thepassage in Herodotus quoted in Notes 10, and 14, Vol. I., and from theaccounts given by many other writers. Her name, "the rosy-cheeked one,"tells us that she was beautiful, and her amiability and charm of mannerare expressly praised by Herodotus. How richly she was endowed withgifts and graces may be gathered too from the manner in which traditionand fairy lore have endeavored to render her name immortal. By many sheis said to have built the most beautiful of the Pyramids, the Pyramid ofMycerinus or Menkera. One tale related of her and reported by Strabo andAElian probably gave rise to our oldest and most beautiful fairy tale,Cinderella; another is near akin to the Loreley legend. An eagle,according to AElian--the wind, in Strabo's tale,--bore away Rhodopis'slippers while she was bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet ofthe king, when seated on his throne of justice in the open market.The little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until he haddiscovered their owner and made her his queen.
The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked womancould be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una expyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad throughher exceeding loveliness.
Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse:
"Fair Rhodope, as story tells-- The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells 'Mid sunless gold and jewels hid, The lady of the Pyramid."
Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis musthave been no ordinary woman. Some scholars would place her on a levelwith the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by JuliusAfricanus, Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying thevictorious Neith) has been found on the monuments, applied to a queenof the sixth dynasty. This is a bold conjecture; it adds however to theimportance of our heroine; and without doubt many traditions referringto the one have been transferred to the other, and vice versa.Herodotus lived so short a time after Rhodopis, and tells so many exactparticulars of her private life that it is impossible she should havebeen a mere creation of fiction. The letter of Darius, given at theend of Vol. II., is intended to identify the Greek Rhodopis with themythical builder of the Pyramid. I would also mention here that sheis called Doricha by Sappho. This may have been her name before shereceived the title of the "rosy-cheeked one."
I must apologize for the torrent of verse that appears in thelove-scenes between Sappho and Bartja; it is also incumbent upon me tosay a few words about the love-scenes themselves, which I have alteredvery slightly in the new edition, though they have been more severelycriticised than any other portion of the work.
First I will confess that the lines describing the happy love of ahandsome young couple to whom I had myself become warmly attached,flowed from my pen involuntarily, even against my will (I intended towrite a novel in prose) in the quiet night, by the eternal Nile, amongthe palms and roses. The first love-scene has a story of its own to me.I wrote it in half an hour, almost unconsciously. It may be read in mybook that the Persians always reflected in the morning, when sober, uponthe resolutions formed the night before, while drunk. When I examined inthe sunshine what had come into existence by lamplight, I grew doubtfulof its merits, and was on the point of destroying the love-scenesaltogether, when my dear friend Julius Hammer, the author of "Schauin Dich, und Schau um Dich," too early summoned to the other world bydeath, stayed my hand. Their form was also approved by others, and Itell myself that the 'poetical' expression of love is very similar inall lands and ages, while lovers' conversations and modes of intercoursevary according to time and place. Besides, I have to deal with one ofthose by no means rare cases, where poetry can approach nearer the truththan prudent, watchful prose. Many of my honored critics have censuredthese scenes; others, among whom are some whose opinion I speciallyvalue, have lavished the kindest praise upon them. Among these gentlemenI will mention A. Stahr, C. V. Holtei, M. Hartmann, E. Hoefer, W.Wolfsohn, C. Leemans, Professor Veth of Amsterdam, etc. Yet I will notconceal the fact that some, whose opinion has great weight, have asked:"Did the ancients know anything of love, in our sense of the word?Is not romantic love, as we know it, a result of Christianity?" Thefollowing sentence, which stands at the head of the preface to my firstedition, will prove that I had not ignored this question when I began mytask.
"It has often been remarked that in Cicero's letters and those of Pliny the younger there are unmistakable indications of sympathy with the more sentimental feeling of modern days. I find in them tones of deep tenderness only, such as have arisen and will arise from sad and aching hearts in every land and every age."
A. v. HUMBOLDT. Cosmos II. P. 19.
This opinion of our great scholar is one with which I cheerfullycoincide and would refer my readers to the fact that love-stories werewritten before the Christian era: the Amor and Psyche of Apuleius forinstance. Indeed love in all its forms was familiar to the ancients.Where can we find a more beautiful expression of ardent passion thanglows in Sappho's songs? or of patient faithful constancy than inHomer's Penelope? Could there be a more beautiful picture of the unionof two loving hearts, even beyond the grave, than Xenophon has preservedfor us in his account of Panthea and Abradatas? or the story of Sabinusthe Gaul and his wife, told in the history of Vespasian? Is thereanywhere a sweeter legend than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds, wholove one another so tenderly that when the male becomes enfeebled byage, his mate carries him on her outspread wings whithersoever he will;and the gods, desiring to reward such faithful love, cause the sun toshine more kindly, and still the winds and waves on the "Halcyon days"during which these birds are building their nest and brooding over theiryoung? There can surely have been no lack of romantic love in days whena used-up man of the world, like Antony, could desire in his will thatwherever he died his body might be laid by the side of his belovedCleopatra: nor of the chivalry of love when Berenice's beautiful hairwas placed as a constellation in the heavens. Neither can we believethat devotion in the cause of love could be wanting when a wholenation was ready to wage a fierce and obstinate war for the sake of onebeautiful woman. The Greeks had an insult to revenge, but the Trojansfought for the possession of Helen. Even the old men of Ilium were ready"to suffer long for such a woman." And finally is not the whole questionanswered in Theocritus' unparalleled poem, "the Sorceress?" We see thepoor love-lorn girl and her old woman-servant, Thestylis, cowering overthe fire above which the bird supposed to possess the power of bringingback the faithless Delphis is sitting in his wheel. Simoetha has learntmany spells and charms from an Assyrian, and she tries them all. Thedistant roar of the waves, the stroke rising from the fire, the dogshowling in the street, the tortured fluttering bird, the old woman, thebroken-hearted girl and her awful spells, all join in forming a nightscene the effect of which is heightened by the calm cold moonshine.The old woman leaves the girl, who at once ceases to weave her spells,allows her pent-up tears to have their way, and looking up to Selene themoon, the lovers' silent confidante, pours out her whole story: how whenshe first saw the beautiful Delphis her heart had glowed with love, shehad seen nothing more of the train of youths who followed him, "and,"(thus sadly the poet make
s her speak)
"how I gained my home I knew not; some strange fever wasted me. Ten days and nights I lay upon my bed. O tell me, mistress Moon, whence came my love!"
"Then" (she continues) when Delphis at last crossed her threshold:
"I Became all cold like snow, and from my brow Brake the damp dewdrops: utterance I had none, Not e'en such utterance as a babe may make That babbles to its mother in its dreams; But all my fair frame stiffened into wax,-- O tell me mistress Moon, whence came my love!"
Whence came her love? thence, whence it comes to us now. The love of thecreature to its Creator, of man to God, is the grand and yet graciousgift of Christianity. Christ's command to love our neighbor calledinto existence not only the conception of philanthropy, but of humanityitself, an idea unknown to the heathen world, where love had been atwidest limited to their native town and country. The love of man andwife has without doubt been purified and transfigured by Christianity;still it is possible that a Greek may have loved as tenderly andlongingly as a Christian. The more ardent glow of passion at leastcannot be denied to the ancients. And did not their love find ventin the same expressions as our own? Who does not know the charmingroundelay:
"Drink the glad wine with me, With me spend youth's gay hours; Or a sighing lover be, Or crown thy brow with flowers. When I am merry and mad, Merry and mad be you; When I am sober and sad, Be sad and sober too!"--written however by no poet of modern days, but by Praxilla, in thefifth century before Christ. Who would guess either that Moore's littlesong was modelled on one written even earlier than the date of ourstory?
"As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid In love-sick languor hung her head. Unknowing where her fingers stray'd, She weeping turned away and said,' Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain,
I cannot weave as once I wove; So wilder'd is my heart and brain With thinking of that youth I love.'"
If my space allowed I could add much more on this subject, but willpermit myself only one remark in conclusion. Lovers delighted in naturethen as now; the moon was their chosen confidante, and I know of nomodern poem in which the mysterious charm of a summer night and themagic beauty which lies on flowers, trees and fountains in those silenthours when the world is asleep, is more exquisitely described than inthe following verses, also by Sappho, at the reading of which we seemforced to breathe more slowly, "kuhl bis an's Herz hinan."
"Planets, that around the beauteous moon Attendant wait, cast into shade Their ineffectual lustres, soon As she, in full-orb'd majesty array'd, Her silver radiance pours Upon this world of ours."
and:--
"Thro' orchard plots with fragrance crown'd, The clear cold fountain murm'ring flows; And forest leaves, with rustling sound, Invite to soft repose."
The foregoing remarks seemed to me due to those who consider a love suchas that of Sappho and Bartja to have been impossible among the ancients.Unquestionably it was much rarer then than in these days: indeed Iconfess to having sketched my pair of lovers in somewhat bright colors.But may I not be allowed, at least once, to claim the poet's freedom?
How seldom I have availed myself of this freedom will be evident fromthe notes included in each volume. They seemed to me necessary, partlyin order to explain the names and illustrate the circumstances mentionedin the text, and partly to vindicate the writer in the eyes of thelearned. I trust they may not prove discouraging to any, as the textwill be found easily readable without reference to the explanations.
Jena, November 23, 1868. GEORG EBERS, DR.