The temple where, in the fore-court, Paaker was waiting, and where
the priest had disappeared to call the leech, was called the “House of
Seti”--[It is still standing and known as the temple of Qurnah.]--and
was one of the largest in the City of the Dead. Only that magnificent
building of the time of the deposed royal race of the reigning king’s
grandfather--that temple which had been founded by Thotmes III.,
and whose gate-way Amenophis III. had adorned with immense colossal
statues--[That which stands to the north is the famous musical statue,
or Pillar of Memmon]--exceeded it in the extent of its plan; in every
other respect it held the pre-eminence among the sanctuaries of the
Necropolis. Rameses I. had founded it shortly after he succeeded in
seizing the Egyptian throne; and his yet greater son Seti carried on the
erection, in which the service of the dead for the Manes of the members
of the new royal family was conducted, and the high festivals held in
honor of the Gods of the under-world. Great sums had been expended
for its establishment, for the maintenance of the priesthood of its
sanctuary, and the support of the institutions connected with it. These
were intended to be equal to the great original foundations of priestly
learning at Heliopolis and Memphis; they were regulated on the same
pattern, and with the object of raising the new royal residence of Upper
Egypt, namely Thebes, above the capitals of Lower Egypt in regard to
philosophical distinction.
One of the most important of these foundations was a very celebrated
school of learning.
[Every detail of this description of an Egyptian school is derived
from sources dating from the reign of Rameses II. and his
successor, Merneptah.]
First there was the high-school, in which priests, physicians, judges,
mathematicians, astronomers, grammarians, and other learned men, not
only had the benefit of instruction, but, subsequently, when they had
won admission to the highest ranks of learning, and attained the dignity
of “Scribes,” were maintained at the cost of the king, and enabled to
pursue their philosophical speculations and researches, in freedom
from all care, and in the society of fellow-workers of equal birth and
identical interests.
An extensive library, in which thousands of papyrus-rolls were
preserved, and to which a manufactory of papyrus was attached, was at
the disposal of the learned; and some of them were intrusted with
the education of the younger disciples, who had been prepared in
the elementary school, which was also dependent on the House--or
university--of Seti. The lower school was open to every son of a free
citizen, and was often frequented by several hundred boys, who also
found night-quarters there. The parents were of course required either
to pay for their maintenance, or to send due supplies of provisions for
the keep of their children at school.
In a separate building lived the temple-boarders, a few sons of the
noblest families, who were brought up by the priests at a great expense
to their parents.
Seti I., the founder of this establishment, had had his own sons, not
excepting Rameses, his successor, educated here.
The elementary schools were strictly ruled, and the rod played so
large a part in them, that a pedagogue could record this saying: “The
scholar’s ears are at his back: when he is flogged then he hears.”
Those youths who wished to pass up from the lower to the high-school
had to undergo an examination. The student, when he had passed it,
could choose a master from among the learned of the higher grades,
who undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to whom he remained
attached all his life through, as a client to his patron. He could
obtain the degree of “Scribe” and qualify for public office by a second
examination.
Near to these schools of learning there stood also a school of art, in
which instruction was given to students who desired to devote themselves
to architecture, sculpture, or painting; in these also the learner might
choose his master.
Every teacher in these institutions belonged to the priesthood of the
House of Seti. It consisted of more than eight hundred members, divided
into five classes, and conducted by three so-called Prophets.
The first prophet was the high-priest of the House of Seti, and at the
same time the superior of all the thousands of upper and under servants
of the divinities which belonged to the City of the Dead of Thebes.
The temple of Seti proper was a massive structure of limestone. A row
of Sphinxes led from the Nile to the surrounding wall, and to the
first vast pro-pylon, which formed the entrance to a broad fore-court,
enclosed on the two sides by colonnades, and beyond which stood a second
gate-way. When he had passed through this door, which stood between two
towers, in shape like truncated pyramids, the stranger came to a second
court resembling the first, closed at the farther end by a noble row of
pillars, which formed part of the central temple itself.
The innermost and last was dimly lighted by a few lamps.
Behind the temple of Seti stood large square structures of brick of the
Nile mud, which however had a handsome and decorative effect, as the
humble material of which they were constructed was plastered with
lime, and that again was painted with colored pictures and hieroglyphic
inscriptions.
The internal arrangement of all these houses was the same. In the midst
was an open court, on to which opened the doors of the rooms of the
priests and philosophers. On each side of the court was a shady, covered
colonnade of wood, and in the midst a tank with ornamental plants. In
the upper story were the apartments for the scholars, and instruction
was usually given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats.
The most imposing was the house of the chief prophets; it was
distinguished by its waving standards and stood about a hundred paces
behind the temple of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear
lake--the sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it while
fulfilling their office, while the splendid houses which they lived in
with their wives and children, lay on the other side of the river, in
Thebes proper.
The untimely visit to the temple could not remain unobserved by the
colony of sages. Just as ants when a hand breaks in on their dwelling,
hurry restlessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had agitated,
not the school-boys only, but the teachers and the priests. They
collected in groups near the outer walls, asking questions and hazarding
guesses. A messenger from the king had arrived--the princess Bent-Anat
had been attacked by the Kolchytes--and a wag among the school-boys who
had got out, declared that Paaker, the king’s pioneer, had been brought
into the temple by force to be made to learn to write better. As the
subject of the joke had formerly been a pupil of the House of Seti, and
many delectable stories of his errors in penmanship still survived in
the memory of the later generation of scholars, this information was
received with joyful applause; and it seemed to have a glimmer of
probability, in spite of the apparent contradiction that Paaker filled
one of the highest offices near the king, when a grave young priest
declared that he had seen the pioneer in the forecourt of the temple.
The lively discussion, the laughter and shouting of the boys at such an
unwonted hour, was not unobserved by the chief priest.
This remarkable prelate, Ameni the son of Nebket, a scion of an old
and noble family, was far more than merely the independent head of
the temple-brotherhood, among whom he was prominent for his power and
wisdom; for all the priesthood in the length and breadth of the land
acknowledged his supremacy, asked his advice in difficult cases, and
never resisted the decisions in spiritual matters which emanated from
the House of Seti--that is to say, from Ameni. He was the embodiment
of the priestly idea; and if at times he made heavy--nay
extraordinary--demands on individual fraternities, they were submitted
to, for it was known by experience that the indirect roads which he
ordered them to follow all converged on one goal, namely the exaltation
of the power and dignity of the hierarchy. The king appreciated this
remarkable man, and had long endeavored to attach him to the court, as
keeper of the royal seal; but Ameni was not to be induced to give up
his apparently modest position; for he contemned all outward show
and ostentatious titles; he ventured sometimes to oppose a decided
resistance to the measures of the Pharaoh,
[Pharaoh is the Hebrew form of the Egyptian Peraa--or Phrah. “The
great house,” “sublime house,” or “high gate” is the literal
meaning.]
and was not minded to give up his unlimited control of the priests for
the sake of a limited dominion over what seemed to him petty external
concerns, in the service of a king who was only too independent and hard
to influence.
He regularly arranged his mode and habits of life in an exceptional way.
Eight days out of ten he remained in the temple entrusted to his charge;
two he devoted to his family, who lived on the other bank of the Nile;
but he let no one, not even those nearest to him, know what portion of
the ten days he gave up to recreation. He required only four hours of
sleep. This he usually took in a dark room which no sound could reach,
and in the middle of the day; never at night, when the coolness and
quiet seemed to add to his powers of work, and when from time to time he
could give himself up to the study of the starry heavens.
All the ceremonials that his position required of him, the cleansing,
purification, shaving, and fasting he fulfilled with painful exactitude,
and the outer bespoke the inner man.
Ameni was entering on his fiftieth year; his figure was tall, and had
escaped altogether the stoutness to which at that age the Oriental is
liable. The shape of his smoothly-shaven head was symmetrical and of a
long oval; his forehead was neither broad nor high, but his profile was
unusually delicate, and his face striking; his lips were thin and dry,
and his large and piercing eyes, though neither fiery nor brilliant, and
usually cast down to the ground under his thick eyebrows, were raised
with a full, clear, dispassionate gaze when it was necessary to see and
to examine.
The poet of the House of Seti, the young Pentaur, who knew these eyes,
had celebrated them in song, and had likened them to a well-disciplined
army which the general allows to rest before and after the battle, so
that they may march in full strength to victory in the fight.
The refined deliberateness of his nature had in it much that was royal
as well as priestly; it was partly intrinsic and born with him, partly
the result of his own mental self-control. He had many enemies, but
calumny seldom dared to attack the high character of Amemi.
The high-priest looked up in astonishment, as the disturbance in the
court of the temple broke in on his studies.
The room in which he was sitting was spacious and cool; the lower part
of the walls was lined with earthenware tiles, the upper half plastered
and painted. But little was visible of the masterpieces of the artists
of the establishment, for almost everywhere they were concealed by
wooden closets and shelves, in which were papyrus-rolls and wax-tablets.
A large table, a couch covered with a panther’s skin, a footstool in
front of it, and on it a crescent-shaped support for the head, made of
ivory,
[A support of crescent form on which the Egyptians rested their
heads. Many specimens were found in the catacombs, and similar
objects are still used in Nubia]
several seats, a stand with beakers and jugs, and another with flasks of
all sizes, saucers, and boxes, composed the furniture of the room,
which was lighted by three lamps, shaped like birds and filled with kiki
oil.--[Castor oil, which was used in the lamps.]
Ameni wore a fine pleated robe of snow-white linen, which reached to his
ankles, round his hips was a scarf adorned with fringes, which in front
formed an apron, with broad, stiffened ends which fell to his knees; a
wide belt of white and silver brocade confined the drapery of his robe.
Round his throat and far down on his bare breast hung a necklace more
than a span deep, composed of pearls and agates, and his upper arm was
covered with broad gold bracelets. He rose from the ebony seat with
lion’s feet, on which he sat, and beckoned to a servant who squatted by
one of the walls of the sitting-room. He rose and without any word
of command from his master, he silently and carefully placed on the
high-priest’s bare head a long and thick curled wig,
[Egyptians belonging to the higher classes wore wigs on their shaven
heads. Several are preserved in museums.]
and threw a leopard-skin, with its head and claws overlaid with
gold-leaf, over his shoulders. A second servant held a metal mirror
before Ameni, in which he cast a look as he settled the panther-skin and
head-gear.
A third servant was handing him the crosier, the insignia of his dignity
as a prelate, when a priest entered and announced the scribe Pentaur.
Ameni nodded, and the young priest who had talked with the princess
Bent-Anat at the temple-gate came into the room.
Pentaur knelt and kissed the hand of the prelate, who gave him his
blessing, and in a clear sweet voice, and rather formal and unfamiliar
language--as if he were reading rather than speaking, said:
“Rise, my son; your visit will save me a walk at this untimely hour,
since you can inform me of what disturbs the disciples in our temple.
Speak.”
“Little of consequence has occurred, holy father,” replied Pentaur. “Nor
would I have disturbed thee at this hour, but that a quite unnecessary
tumult has been raised by the youths; and that the princess Bent-Anat
appeared in person to request the aid of a physician. The unusual hour
and the retinue that followed her--”
“Is the daughter of Pharaoh sick?” asked the prelate.
“No, father. She is well--even to wantonness, since--wishing to
prove the swiftness of her horses--she ran over the daughter of the
paraschites Pinem. Noble-hearted as she is, she herself carried the
sorely-wounded girl to her house.”
“She entered the dwelling of the unclean.”
“Thou hast said.”
“And she now asks to be purified?”
“I thought I might venture to absolve her, father, for the purest
humanity led her to the act, which was no doubt a breach of discipline,
but--”
“But,” asked the high-priest in a grave voice and he raised his eyes
which he had hitherto on the ground.
“But,” said the young priest, and now his eyes fell, “which can surely
be no crime. When Ra--[The Egyptian Sun-god.]--in his golden bark sails
across the heavens, his light falls as freely and as bountifully on the
hut of the despised poor as on the Palace of the Pharaohs; and shall the
tender human heart withhold its pure light--which is benevolence--from
the wretched, only because they are base?”
“It is the poet Pentaur that speaks,” said the prelate, “and not the
priest to whom the privilege was given to be initiated into the highest
grade of the sages, and whom I call my brother and my equal. I have no
advantage over you, young man, but perishable learning, which the past
has won for you as much as for me--nothing but certain perceptions and
experiences that offer nothing new, to the world, but teach us, indeed,
that it is our part to maintain all that is ancient in living efficacy
and practice. That which you promised a few weeks since, I many years
ago vowed to the Gods; to guard knowledge as the exclusive possession
of the initiated. Like fire, it serves those who know its uses to the
noblest ends, but in the hands of children--and the people, the mob,
can never ripen into manhood--it is a destroying brand, raging and
unextinguishable, devouring all around it, and destroying all that has
been built and beautified by the past. And how can we remain the Sages
and continue to develop and absorb all learning within the shelter
of our temples, not only without endangering the weak, but for their
benefit? You know and have sworn to act after that knowledge. To bind
the crowd to the faith and the institutions of the fathers is your
duty--is the duty of every priest. Times have changed, my son; under the
old kings the fire, of which I spoke figuratively to you--the poet--was
enclosed in brazen walls which the people passed stupidly by. Now I see
breaches in the old fortifications; the eyes of the uninitiated have
been sharpened, and one tells the other what he fancies he has spied,
though half-blinded, through the glowing rifts.”
A slight emotion had given energy to the tones of the speaker, and while
he held the poet spell-bound with his piercing glance he continued:
“We curse and expel any one of the initiated who enlarges these
breaches; we punish even the friend who idly neglects to repair and
close them with beaten brass!”
“My father!” cried Pentaur, raising his head in astonishment while the
blood mounted to his cheeks. The high-priest went up to him and laid
both hands on his shoulders.
They were of equal height and of equally symmetrical build; even the
outline of their features was similar. Nevertheless no one would have
taken them to be even distantly related; their countenances were so
infinitely unlike in expression.
On the face of one were stamped a strong will and the power of firmly
guiding his life and commanding himself; on the other, an amiable desire
to overlook the faults and defects of the world, and to contemplate life
as it painted itself in the transfiguring magic-mirror of his poet’s
soul. Frankness and enjoyment spoke in his sparkling eye, but the subtle
smile on his lips when he was engaged in a discussion, or when his soul
was stirred, betrayed that Pentaur, far from childlike carelessness, had
fought many a severe mental battle, and had tasted the dark waters of
doubt.
At this moment mingled feelings were struggling in his soul. He felt as
if he must withstand the speaker; and yet the powerful presence of the
other exercised so strong an influence over his mind, long trained to
submission, that he was silent, and a pious thrill passed through him
when Ameni’s hands were laid on his shoulders.
“I blame you,” said the high-priest, while he firmly held the young man,
“nay, to my sorrow I must chastise you; and yet,” he said, stepping back
and taking his right hand, “I rejoice in the necessity, for I love you
and honor you, as one whom the Unnameable has blessed with high gifts
and destined to great things. Man leaves a weed to grow unheeded or
roots it up but you are a noble tree, and I am like the gardener who
has forgotten to provide it with a prop, and who is now thankful to
have detected a bend that reminds him of his neglect. You look at me
enquiringly, and I can see in your eyes that I seem to you a severe
judge. Of what are you accused? You have suffered an institution of
the past to be set aside. It does not matter--so the short-sighted and
heedless think; but I say to you, you have doubly transgressed, because
the wrong-doer was the king’s daughter, whom all look up to, great and
small, and whose actions may serve as an example to the people. On whom
then must a breach of the ancient institutions lie with the darkest
stain if not on the highest in rank? In a few days it will be said the
paraschites are men even as we are, and the old law to avoid them as
unclean is folly. And will the reflections of the people, think you, end
there, when it is so easy for them to say that he who errs in one point
may as well fail in all? In questions of faith, my son, nothing is
insignificant. If we open one tower to the enemy he is master of the
whole fortress. In these unsettled times our sacred lore is like a
chariot on the declivity of a precipice, and under the wheels thereof a
stone. A child takes away the stone, and the chariot rolls down into the
abyss and is dashed to pieces. Imagine the princess to be that child,
and the stone a loaf that she would fain give to feed a beggar. Would
you then give it to her if your father and your mother and all that is
dear and precious to you were in the chariot? Answer not! the princess
will visit the paraschites again to-morrow. You must await her in the
man’s hut, and there inform her that she has transgressed and must crave
to be purified by us. For this time you are excused from any further
punishment.
“Heaven has bestowed on you a gifted soul. Strive for that which is
wanting to you--the strength to subdue, to crush for One--and you know
that One--all things else--even the misguiding voice of your heart, the
treacherous voice of your judgment.--But stay! send leeches to the house
of the paraschites, and desire them to treat the injured girl as though
she were the queen herself. Who knows where the man dwells?”
“The princess,” replied Pentaur, “has left Paaker, the king’s pioneer,
behind in the temple to conduct the leeches to the house of Pinem.”
The grave high-priest smiled and said. “Paaker! to attend the daughter
of a paraschites.”
Pentaur half beseechingly and half in fun raised his eyes which he had
kept cast down. “And Pentaur,” he murmured, “the gardener’s son! who is
to refuse absolution to the king’s daughter!”
“Pentaur, the minister of the Gods--Pentaur, the priest--has not to do
with the daughter of the king, but with the transgressor of the sacred
institutions,” replied Ameni gravely. “Let Paaker know I wish to speak
with him.”
The poet bowed low and quitted the room, the high priest muttered to
himself: “He is not yet what he should be, and speech is of no effect
with him.”
For a while he was silent, walking to and fro in meditation; then he
said half aloud, “And the boy is destined to great things. What gifts of
the Gods doth he lack? He has the faculty of learning--of thinking--of
feeling--of winning all hearts, even mine. He keeps himself undefiled
and separate--” suddenly the prelate paused and struck his hand on the
back of a chair that stood by him. “I have it; he has not yet felt the
fire of ambition. We will light it for his profit and our own.”