Part 4 (1/2)
THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.
A certain school geography book, now out of date, condenses its remarks upon the character of our Gallic cousins into the following pregnant sentence: ”The French are a gay and frivolous nation, fond of dancing and red wine.” The description would so nearly apply to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, that its adoption here as a text to this chapter cannot be said to be extravagant. The unbia.s.sed inquirer into the affairs of ancient Egypt must discover ultimately, and perhaps to his regret, that the dwellers on the Nile were a ”gay and frivolous people,”
festive, light-hearted, and mirthful, ”fond of dancing and red wine,”
and pledged to all that is brilliant in life. There are very many people, naturally, who hold to those views which their forefathers held before them, and picture the Egyptians as a sombre, gloomy people; replete with thoughts of Death and of the more melancholy aspect of religion; burdened with the menacing presence of a mult.i.tude of horrible G.o.ds and demons, whose priests demanded the erection of vast temples for their appeas.e.m.e.nt; having little joy of this life, and much uneasy conjecture about the next; making entertainment in solemn gatherings and ponderous feasts; and holding merriment in holy contempt. Of the five startling cla.s.ses into which the dictionary divides the human temperament, namely, the bilious or choleric, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the melancholic, and the nervous, it is probable that the first, the second, and the fourth would be those a.s.signed to the ancient Egyptians by these people. This view is so entirely false that one will be forgiven if, in the attempt to dissolve it, the gaiety of the race is thrust before the reader with too little extenuation. The sanguine, and perhaps the nervous, are the cla.s.ses of temperament under which the Egyptians must be docketed. It cannot be denied that they were an industrious and even a strenuous people, that they indulged in the most serious thoughts, and attempted to study the most complex problems of life, and that the ceremonial side of their religion occupied a large part of their time. But there is abundant evidence to show that, like their descendents of the present day, they were one of the least gloomy people of the world, and that they took their duties in the most buoyant manner, allowing as much suns.h.i.+ne to radiate through their minds as shone from the cloudless Egyptian skies upon their dazzling country.
It is curiously interesting to notice how general is the present belief in the solemnity of this ancient race's att.i.tude towards existence, and how little their real character is appreciated. Already the reader will be protesting, perhaps, that the application of the geographer's summary of French characteristics to the ancient Egyptians lessens in no wise its ridiculousness, but rather increases it. Let the protest, however, be held back for a while. Even if the Egyptians were not always frivolous, they were always uncommonly gay, and any slight exaggeration will be pardoned in view of the fact that old prejudices have to be violently overturned, and the stigma of melancholy and ponderous sobriety torn from the national name. It would be a matter of little surprise to some good persons if the products of excavation in the Nile Valley consisted largely of antique black kid gloves.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PL. VIII. Two Egyptian boys decked with flowers and a third holding a musical instrument. They are standing against the outside wall of the Dendereh Temple.]
[_Photo by E. Bird._
Like many other nations the ancient Egyptians rendered mortuary service to their ancestors, and solid tomb-chapels had to be constructed in honour of the more important dead. Both for the purpose of preserving the mummy intact, and also in order to keep the ceremonies going for as long a period of time as possible, these chapels were constructed in a most substantial manner, and many of them have withstood successfully the siege of the years. The dwelling-houses, on the other hand, were seldom delivered from father to son; but, as in modern Egypt, each grandee built a palace for himself, designed to last for a lifetime only, and hardly one of these mansions still exists even as a ruin.
Moreover the tombs were constructed in the dry desert or in the solid hillside, whereas the dwelling-houses were situated on the damp earth, where they had little chance of remaining undemolished. And so it is that the main part of our knowledge of the Egyptians is derived from a study of their tombs and mortuary temples. How false would be our estimate of the character of a modern nation were we to glean our information solely from its churchyard inscriptions! We should know absolutely nothing of the frivolous side of the life of those whose bare bones lie beneath the gloomy declaration of their Christian virtues. It will be realised how sincere was the light-heartedness of the Egyptians when it is remembered that almost everything in the following record of their gaieties is derived from a study of the tombs, and of objects found therein.
Light-heartedness is the key-note of the ancient philosophy of the country, and in this a.s.sertion the reader will, in most cases, find cause for surprise. The Greek travellers in Egypt, who returned to their native land impressed with the wonderful mysticism of the Egyptians, committed their amazement to paper, and so led off that feeling of awed reverence which is felt for the philosophy of Pharaoh's subjects. But in their case there was the presence of the priests and wise men eloquently to baffle them into the state of respect, and there were a thousand unwritten arguments, comments, articles of faith, and controverted points of doctrine heard from the mouths of the believers, to surprise them into a reverential att.i.tude. But we of the present day have left to us only the more outward and visible remains of the Egyptians. There are only the fundamental doctrines to work on, the more penetrating notes of the harmony to listen to. Thus the outline of the philosophy is able to be studied without any complication, and we have no whirligig of priestly talk to confuse it. Examined in this way, working only from cold stones and dry papyri, we are confronted with the old ”Eat, drink, and be merry,” which is at once the happiest and most dangerous philosophy conceived by man. It is to be noticed that this way of looking at life is to be found in Egypt from the earliest times down to the period of the Greek occupation of the country, and, in fact, until the present day. That is to say, it was a philosophy inborn in the Egyptian,--a part of his nature.
Imhotep, the famous philosopher of Dynasty III., about B.C. 3000, said to his disciples: ”Behold the dwellings of the dead. Their walls fall down, their place is no more; they are as though they had never existed”; and he drew from this the lesson that man is soon done with and forgotten, and that therefore his life should be as happy as possible. To Imhotep must be attributed the earliest known exhortation to man to resign himself to his candle-end of a life, and to the inevitable snuffing-out to come, and to be merry while yet he may. There is a poem, dating from about B.C. 2000, from which the following is taken:--
”Walk after thy heart's desire so long as thou livest.
Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen, anoint thyself with the true marvels of G.o.d.... Let not thy heart concern itself, until there cometh to thee that great day of lamentation. Yet he who is at rest can hear not thy complaint, and he who lies in the tomb can understand not thy weeping. Therefore, with smiling face, let thy days be happy, and rest not therein. For no man carrieth his goods away with him; ”O, no man returneth again who is gone thither.”
Again, we have the same sentiments expressed in a tomb of about B.C.
1350, belonging to a certain Neferhotep, a priest of Amen. It is quoted on page 235, and here we need only note the ending:
”Come, songs and music are before thee. Set behind thee all cares; think only upon gladness, until that day cometh whereon thou shalt go down to the land which loveth silence.”
A Ptolemaic inscription quoted more fully towards the end of this chapter reads: ”Follow thy desire by night and by day. Put not care within thy heart.”
The ancient Egyptian peasants, like their modern descendants, were fatalists, and a happy carelessness seems to have softened the strenuousness of their daily tasks. The peasants of the present day in Egypt so lack the initiative to develop the scope of their industries that their life cannot be said to be strenuous. In whatever work they undertake, however, they show a wonderful degree of cheerfulness, and a fine disregard for misfortune. Their forefathers, similarly, went through their labours with a song upon their lips. In the tombs at Sakkara, dating from the Old Empire, there are scenes representing flocks of goats treading in the seed on the newly-sown ground, and the inscriptions give the song which the goat-herds sing:--
”The goat-herd is in the water with the fishes,-- He speaks with the _nar_-fish, he talks with the pike; From the west is your goat-herd; your goat-herd is from the west.”
The meaning of the words is not known, of course, but the song seems to have been a popular one. A more comprehensible ditty is that sung to the oxen by their driver, which dates from the New Empire:--
”Thresh out for yourselves, ye oxen, thresh out for yourselves.
Thresh out the straw for your food, and the grain for your masters.
Do not rest yourselves, for it is cool to-day.”
Some of the love-songs have been preserved from destruction, and these throw much light upon the subject of the Egyptian temperament. A number of songs, supposed to have been sung by a girl to her lover, form themselves into a collection ent.i.tled ”The beautiful and gladsome songs of thy sister, whom thy heart loves, as she walks in the fields.” The girl is supposed to belong to the peasant cla.s.s, and most of the verses are sung whilst she is at her daily occupation of snaring wild duck in the marshes. One must imagine the songs warbled without any particular refrain, just as in the case of the modern Egyptians, who pour out their ancient tales of love and adventure in a series of bird-like cadences, full-throated, and often wonderfully melodious. A peculiar sweetness and tenderness will be noticed in the following examples, and though they suffer in translation, their airy lightness and refinement is to be distinguished. One characteristic song, addressed by the girl to her lover, runs--
”Caught by the worm, the wild duck cries, But in the love-light of thine eyes I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies The bird into the air.
What will my angry mother say?
With basket full I come each day, But now thy love hath led me stray, And I have set no snare.”
Again, in a somewhat similar strain, she sings--
”The wild duck scatter far, and now Again they light upon the bough And cry unto their kind; Anon they gather on the mere-- But yet unharmed I leave them there, For love hath filled my mind.”