Page 26.
"That third pyramid of hers."
THROUGHOUT the dialogues, it must be observed that "Sibyl" is
addressed (when in play) as having once been the Cumaean Sibyl;
and "Egypt" as having been Queen Nitocris,--the Cinderella and
"the greatest heroine and beauty" of Egyptian story. The Egyptians
called her "Neith the Victorious" (Nitocris), and the Greeks "Face
of the Rose" (Rhodope). Chaucer's beautiful conception of
Cleopatra in the "Legend of Good Women," is much more founded on
the traditions of her than on those of Cleopatra; and, especially
in its close, modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death
of Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a
part of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfillment of
the earthly destiny of Beauty: "She cast herself into a chamber
full of ashes."
I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have
either built, or increased to double its former size, the third
pyramid of Gizeh: and the passage following in the text refers to
an imaginary endeavor, by the Old Lecturer and the children
together, to make out the description of that pyramid in the 167th
page of the second volume of Bunsen's "Egypt's Place in Universal
History"--ideal endeavor,--which ideally terminates as the Old
Lecturer's real endeavors to the same end always have terminated.
There are, however, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210
of the same volume: but the "Early Egyptian History for the
Young," by the author of "Sidney Gray," contains, in a pleasant
form, as much information as young readers will usually need.