Page 97.—“_We can see those stars._”—“On voyoit en plein jour par ces
ouvertures les étoiles, et même quelques planètes en leur plus grande
latitude septentrionale; et les prêtres avoient bientôt profité de ce
phénomène pour observer à diverses heures la passage des étoiles.”
_Séthos._—_Strabo_ mentions certain caves or pits, constructed for the
purpose of astronomical observations, which lay in the Zelopolitan
prefecture, beyond Heliopolis.
Page 98.—“_A plantain._”—This tree was dedicated to the Genii of the
Shades, from its being an emblem of repose and cooling airs. “Cui imminet
musæ folium, quod ab Iside infera geniisque ei addictis manu geri solitum,
umbram requiemque et auras frigidas subindigitare videtur.” _Zoega._
Page 107.—“_He spoke of the preexistence of the soul_,” _&c._—For a full
account of the doctrines which are here represented as having been taught
to the initiated in the Egyptian mysteries, the reader may consult
_Dupuis_, _Pritchard’s Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology_, &c. &c. “L’on
découvroit l’origine de l’ame, sa chute sur la terre, à travers les
sphères et les élémens, et son retour au lieu de sa origine ... c’étoit
ici la partie la plus métaphysique, et que ne pourroit guère entendre le
commun des Initiés, mais dont on lui donnoit le spectacle par des figures
et des spectres allégoriques.” _Dupuis._
Page 108.—“_Those fields of radiance._”—See _Beausobre_, liv. 3. c. 4. for
the “terre bienheureuse et lumineuse” which the Manicheans supposed God to
inhabit. Plato, too, speaks (in Phæd.) of a “pure land lying in the pure
sky (_την γην καθαραν εν καθαρω κεισθαι ουρανω_), the abode of divinity,
of innocence, and of life.”
Page 110.—“_Tracing it from the first moment of earthward desire._”—In the
original construction of this work, there was an episode introduced here,
(which I have since published in another form,) illustrating the doctrine
of the fall of the soul by the Oriental fable of the Loves of the Angels.
Page 111.—“_Restoring her lost wings._”—_Damascius_ in his Life of
Isidorus, says, “Ex antiquissimis Philosophis Pythagoram et Platonem
Isidorus ut Deos coluit, et _eorum animas alatas esse_ dixit quas in locum
supercœlestem inque campum veritatis et pratum elevatas, divinis putavit
ideis pasci.” _Apud Phot. Bibliothec._
Page 112.—“_A pale, moonlike meteor._”—_Apuleius_, in describing the
miraculous appearances exhibited in the mysteries, says, “Nocte mediâ vidi
solem candido coruscantem lumine.” _Metamorphos._ lib. 11.
Page 113.—“_So entirely did the illusion of the scene_,” _&c._—In tracing
the early connection of spectacles with the ceremonies of religion,
Voltaire says, “Il y a bien plus; les véritables grandes tragédies, les
representations imposantes et terribles, étoient les mystères sacrés,
qu’on célébroit dans les plus vastes temples du monde, en présence des
seuls Initiés; c’étoit là que les habits, les décorations, les machines
étoient propres au sujet; et le sujet étoit la vie présente et la vie
future.” _Des divers changemens arrivés à l’art tragique._
To these scenic representations in the Egyptian mysteries, there is
evidently an allusion in the vision of Ezekiel, where the spirit shows him
the abominations which the Israelites learned in Egypt:—“Then said he unto
me, ‘Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel
do in the dark, every man in _the chambers of his imagery_.’” Chap. 8.
Page 118.—“_The seven tables of stone._”—“Bernard, Comte de la Marche
Trévisane, instruit par la lecture des livres anciens, dit qu’ Hermes
trouva sept tables dans la vallée d’Hebron, sur lesquelles étoient gravés
les principes des arts liberaux.” _Fables Egyptiennes._ See _Jablonski de
stelis Herm._
Page 119.—“_Beside the goat of Mendes._”—For an account of the animal
worship of the Egyptians, see _De Pauw_, tom. 2.
Ib.—“_The Isiac serpents._”—“On auguroit bien des serpens Isiaques,
lorsqu’ils goutoient l’offrande et se trainoient lentement autour de
l’autel.” _De Pauw._
Page 121.—“_Hence the festivals and hymns_,” _&c._—For an account of the
various festivals at the different periods of the sun’s progress, in the
spring, and in the autumn, see _Dupuis_ and _Pritchard_.
Ib.—“_The mysteries of the night._”—v. _Athenag. Leg. pro Christ._ p. 133.
Page 125.—“_A peal like that of thunder._”—See, for some curious remarks
on the mode of imitating thunder and lightning in the ancient mysteries,
_De Pauw_, tom. 1. p. 323. The machine with which these effects were
produced on the stage was called a ceraunoscope.
Page 131.—“_Windings, capriciously intricate._”—In addition to the
accounts which the ancients have left us of the prodigious excavations in
all parts of Egypt,—the fifteen hundred chambers under the Labyrinth—the
subterranean stables of the Thebaïd, containing a thousand horses—the
crypts of Upper Egypt passing under the bed of the Nile, &c. &c.—the
stories and traditions current among the Arabs still preserve the memory
of those wonderful substructions. “Un Arabe,” says Paul Lucas, “qui étoit
avec nous, m’assura qu’étant entré autrefois dans le Labyrinthe, il avoit
marché dans les chambres souterraines jusqu’en un lieu où il y avoit une
grande place environnée de plusieurs niches qui ressembloit à de petites
boutiques, d’où l’on entroit dans d’autres allées et dans des chambres,
sans pouvoir en trouver la fin.” In speaking, too, of the arcades along
the Nile, near Cosseir, “Ils me dirent même que ces souterrains étoient si
profondes qu’il y en avoient qui alloient à trois journées de là, et
qu’ils conduisoient dans un pays où l’on voyoit de beaux jardins, qu’on y
trouvoit de belles maisons,” &c. &c.
See also in _M. Quatremere’s Memoires sur l’Egypte_, tom. 1. p. 142., an
account of a subterranean reservoir, said to have been discovered at Kaïs,
and of the expedition undertaken by a party of persons, in a long narrow
boat, for the purpose of exploring it. “Leur voyage avoit été de six
jours, dont les quatre premiers furent employés à pénétrer les bords; les
deux autres à revenir au lieu d’où ils étoient partis: Pendant tout cet
intervalle ils ne purent atteindre l’extrémité du bassin. L’émir Ala‐
eddin‐Tamboga, gouverneur de Behnesa, écrivit ces détails au sultan, qui
en fut extrêmement surpris.”
Page 136.—“_A small island in the centre of Lake Mœris._”—The position
here given to Lake Mœris, in making it the immediate boundary of the city
of Memphis to the south, corresponds exactly with the site assigned to it
by Maillet:—“Memphis avoit encore à son midi un vaste reservoir, par où
tout ce qui peut servir à la commodité et à l’agrément de la vie lui étoit
voituré abondamment de toutes les parties de l’Egypte. Ce lac qui la
terminoit de ce côté‐là,” &c. &c. Tom. 2. p. 7.
Ib.—“_Ruins rising blackly above the wave._”—“On voit sur la rive
orientale des antiquités qui sont presque entièrement sous les eaux.”
_Belzoni._
Page 137.—“_Its thundering portals._”—“Quorundam autem domorum (in
Labyrintho) talis est situs, ut adaperientibus foris tonitru intus
terribile existat.” _Pliny._
Page 138.—“_Leaves that serve as cups._”—_Strabo._ According to the French
translator of Strabo, it was the fruit of the _faba Ægyptiaca_, not the
leaf, that was used for this purpose. “Le _κιβωριον_,” he says, “devoit
s’entendre de la capsule ou fruit de cette plante, dont les Egyptiens se
servoient comme d’un vase, imaginant que l’eau du Nil y devenoit
delicieuse.”
Page 142.—“_The fish of these waters_,” _&c._—_Ælian_, lib. 6. 32.
Ib.—“_Pleasure boats or yachts._”—Called Thalamages, from the pavilion on
the deck. v. _Strabo_.
Page 144.—“_Covered with beds of those pale, sweet roses._”—As April is
the season for gathering these roses (See _Malte‐brun’s Economical
Calendar_), the Epicurean could not, of course, mean to say that he saw
them actually in flower.
Page 146.—“_The lizards upon the bank._”—“L’or et l’azur brillent en
bandes longitudinales sur leur corps entier, et leur queue est du plus
beau bleu celeste.” _Sonnini._
Page 147.—“_The canal through which we now sailed._”—“Un canal,” says
_Maillet_, “très profond et très large y voituroit les eaux du Nil.”
Page 150.—“_For a draught of whose flood_,” _&c._—“Anciennement on portoit
les eaux du Nil jusqu’au des contrées fort éloignées, et surtout chez les
princesses du sang des Ptolomées, mariées dans des families étrangères.”
_De Pauw._
Page 154.—“_Bearing each the name of its owner._”—“Le nom du maître y
étoit écrit, pendant la nuit en lettres de feu.” _Maillet._
Page 155.—“_Cups of that frail crystal_”—called Alassontes. For their
brittleness _Martial_ is an authority:—
Tolle, puer, calices, tepidique toreumata Nili,
Et mihi securâ pocula trade manu.
Ib.—“_Bracelets of the black beans of Abyssinia._”—The bean of the
Glycyne, which is so beautiful as to be strung into necklaces and
bracelets, is generally known by the name of the black bean of Abyssinia.
_Niebhur._
Ib.—“_Sweet lotus‐wood flute._”—See _M. Villoteau on the musical
instruments of the Egyptians_.
Page 156.—“_Shine like the brow of Mount Atlas at night._”—_Solinus_
speaks of the snowy summit of Mount Atlas glittering with flames at night.
In the account of the Periplus of Hanno, as well as in that of Eudoxus, we
read that as those navigators were coasting this part of Africa, torrents
of light were seen to fall on the sea.
Page 158.—“_The tears of Isis._”—“Per lacrymas, vero, Isidis intelligo
effluvia quædam Lunæ, quibus tantam vim videntur tribuisse Ægypti.”
_Jablonski._—He is of opinion that the superstition of the _Nucta_, or
miraculous drop, is of a relic of the veneration paid to the dews, as the
tears of Isis.
Page 158.—“_The rustling of the acacias_,” _&c._—_Travels of Captain
Mangles._
Ib.—“_Supposed to rest in the valley of the moon._”—_Plutarch._ _Dupuis_,
tom. 10. The Manicheans held the same belief. See _Beausobre_, p. 565.
Page 160.—“_Sothis, the fair star of the waters._”—_ὑδραγωγον_ is the
epithet applied to this star by _Plutarch_, _de Isid._
Ib.—“_Was its birth‐star._”—_Ἡ Σωθεως ανατολη γενεσεως καταρχουσα της εις
τον κοσμον_. _Porphyr. de Antro Nymph._
Page 168.—“_Golden Mountains._”—v. _Wilford on Egypt and the Nile_,
Asiatic Researches.
Ib.—“_Sweet‐smelling wood._”—“’A l’époque de la crue le Nil Vert charie
les planches d’un bois qui a une odeur semblable à celle de l’encens.”
_Quatremere._