Ahura turns on the point that he has only these two children, and hence,
if they marry the children of the generals, there will be two families
instead of only one to ensure future posterity. The queen, however,
talks the king over on the matter. The cause of Ahura's being troubled
at the feast is not certain, but the king evidently supposes that she
has been pleading to be allowed to marry her beloved brother, and when
taxed with it she only expresses her willingness to give way to his
exogamic views. The brief sentence, "I laughed and the king laughed,"
seems to mean that she pleased and amused her father so that he gave
way, and immediately told the steward to arrange for her marriage as she
desired. I have here abbreviated a few needlessly precise details. We
also learn, by the way, that there was a regular registry of births, in
which Mer-ab was entered.
It appears that the court was considered to be at Memphis, and not at
Thebes. This would not have been so arranged had this been written in
the Ramesside times, but under the Ptolemies Memphis was the seat of the
court--when not at Alexandria. The name of the priest, Nesi-ptah, also
shows another anachronism. Such a name was not usual till some time
after the XIXth Dynasty. Another touch of late times is in the
antiquarian curiosity of Na-nefer-ka-ptah about ancient writings, "He
did nothing on earth but read the writings that are in the catacombs of
the kings, and the tablets of the House of Life." In the XIXth Dynasty
there is no sign of interest in such records, but in the Renascence
ancient things came into fashion, all the old titles were revived, the
old style was copied, and very long genealogies were worked up and
carved in the inscriptions. In such an age many a _dilettante_ rich
young man would amuse himself, as in this tale, with reading inscriptions
and hunting up his family genealogy from the tombstones and the registers.
The firm belief in magic which underlies all this tale might perhaps be
thought to be inappropriate to the enlightenment of Greek times. We have
seen how in the earliest tales magic is a mainspring of the action, and
it is at first sight surprising that its sway should last through so
many thousands of years. But there may well have been a recrudescence of
such beliefs, along with the revival of interest in the earlier history.
The enormous spread and popularity of Gnosticism--the belief in the
efficacy of words and formulas to control spirits and their actions--in
the centuries immediately after this, shows how ingrained magic ideas
were, and how ready to sprout up when the counterbalancing interests of
the old mythology were gone, and their place taken by the intangible
spirituality of Platonism and the early Christian atmosphere.
A most Egyptian turn is given where the priest bargains for a large
payment for his funeral, and to be buried as a rich priest. The
enclosing of the magic roll in a series of boxes has many parallels. In
an Indian tale we read: "Round the tree are tigers and bears and
scorpions and snakes; on the top of the tree is a very fat great snake;
on his head is a little cage; in the cage is a bird; and my soul is in
that bird" ("Golden Bough," ii. 300). In Celtic tales the series-idea
also occurs. The soul of a giant is in an egg, the egg is in a dove, the
dove is in a hare, the hare is in a wolf, and the wolf is in an iron
chest at the bottom of the sea ("Golden Bough," ii. 314). The Tartars
have stories of a golden casket containing the soul, inside a copper or
silver casket ("Golden Bough," ii. 324). And the Arabs tell of a soul
put in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow in a little box, and this
in another small box, and this put into seven other boxes, and these in
seven chests, and the chest in a coffer of marble ("Golden 10
Bough," ii. 318). The notion, therefore, of a series of boxes, one
enclosing another, and the whole guarded by dangerous animals, is well
known as an element in tales. The late date is here shown by the largest
and least precious of the boxes being of iron, which was rarely, if
ever, used in Ramesside times, and was not common till the Greek age.
The magic engineering of Na-nefer-ka-ptah is very curious. The cabin or
air-chamber of men in model, who are let down to work for him, suggests
that Egyptians may have used the principle of a diving-bell or
air-chamber for reaching parts under water. Certainly the device of
raising things by dropping down sand to be put under them is still
practised. An immense sarcophagus at Gizeh was raised from a deep well
by natives who thrust sand under it rammed tight by a stick, and by this
simple kind of hydraulic press raised it a hundred feet to the surface.
In this way the magic men of Na-nefer-ka-ptah raised up the chest when
they had discovered it by means of the sand which he poured over from
the boat.
There is some picturesqueness in this tale, though it has not the charm
of the earlier compositions. The scene of Ahura sitting for three days
and nights, during the combat, watching by the side of the river, where
she "had not drunk or eaten anything, and had done nothing on earth but
sat like one who is gone to the grave," is a touching detail.
The light on the education of women is curious. Ahura can read the roll,
but she cannot write. We are so accustomed to regard reading and writing
as all one subject that the distinction is rare; but with a writing
comprising so many hundred signs as the Egyptian, the art of writing or
draw-Ing all the forms, and knowing which to use, is far more complex
than that of reading. There are now ten students who can read an
inscription for one who could compose it correctly. Here a woman of the
highest rank is supposed to be able to read, but not to write; that is
reserved for the skill of "a good writer, and a very learned one."
The writing of spells and then washing the ink off and drinking it is a
familiar idea in the East. Modern Egyptian bowls have charms engraved on
them to be imparted to the drink, and ancient Babylonian bowls are
inscribed with the like purpose.
An insight into the powers of the gods is here given us. The Egyptian
did not attribute to them omniscience. Thoth only discovered what
Na-nefer-ka-ptah had done as they were sailing away, some days after the
seizure of the book. And even Ra is informed by the complaint of Thoth.
If Ra were the physical sun it would be obvious that he would see all
that was being done on earth; it would rather be he who would inform
Thoth. The conception of the gods must therefore have been not
pantheistic or materialist, but solely as spiritual powers who needed to
obtain information, and who only could act through intermediaries.
Further, nothing can be done without the consent of Ra; Thoth is
powerless over men, and can only ask Ra, as a sort of universal
magistrate, to take notice of the offence. Neither god acts directly,
but by means of a power or angel, who takes the commission to work on
men. How far this police-court conception of the gods is due to Greek or
foreign influence can hardly be estimated yet. It certainly does not
seem in accord with the earlier appeals to Ra, and direct action of Ra,
in "Anpu and Bata."
The power of spells is limited, as we have just seen the abilities of
the gods were limited. The most powerful of spells, the magic book of
Thoth himself, cannot restore life to a person just drowned. All that
Na-nefer-ka-ptah can do with the spell is to cause the body to float
and to speak, but it remains so truly dead that it is buried as if no
spell had been used. Now it was recognised that the _ka_ could move
about and speak to living persons, as Ahura does to Setna. Hence all
that the spells do is not to alter the course of nature, but only to put
the person into touch and communication with the ever-present
supernatural, to enable him to know what the birds, the fishes, and the
beasts all said, and to see the unseen.
Modern conceptions of the spiritual are so bound up with the sense of
omnipresence and omniscience that we are apt to read those ideas into
the gods and the magic of the ancients. Here we have to deal with gods
who have to obtain information, and who order powers to act for them,
with spells which extend the senses to the unseen, but which do not
affect natural results and changes.
The inexorable fate in this tale which brings one after another of the
family to die in the same spot is not due to Greek influence, though it
seems akin to that. In the irrepressible transmigrations of Bata, and
the successive risks of the Doomed Prince, the same ideas are seen
working in the Egyptian mind. The remorse of Na-nefer-ka-ptah is a
stronger touch of conscience and of shame than is seen in early times.
There is an unexplained point in the action as to how Na-nefer-ka-ptah,
with the book upon him, comes up from the water, after he is drowned,
into the cabin of the royal boat. The narrator had a difficulty to
account for the recovery of the body without the use of the magic book,
and so that stage is left unnoticed. The successive stages of embalming
and mourning are detailed. The sixteen days in the Good House is
probably the period of treatment of the body, the time up to the
thirty-fifth day that of wrapping and decoration of the mummy
cartonnage, and then the thirty-five days more of lying in state until
the burial.
We now reach the third act, of Setna's struggle to get the magic roll.
Here the strange episode comes in of the rival magicians gambling; it
recalls the old tale of Rampsinitus descending into Hades and playing at
dice with Ceres, and the frequent presence of draught-boards in the
tombs, shows how much the _ka_ was supposed to relish such pleasures.
The regular Egyptian game-board had three rows of ten squares, or thirty
in all. Such are found from the XIIth Dynasty down to Greek times; but
this form has now entirely disappeared, and the _man-galah_ of two rows
of six holes, or the _tab_ of four rows of nine holes, have taken its
place. Both of these are side games, where different sides belong to
opposite players. The commoner _siga_ is a square game, five rows of
five, or seven rows of seven holes, and has no personal sides. The
ancient game was played with two, or perhaps three, different kinds of
men, and the squares were counted from one end along the outer edge; but
what the rules were, or how a game of fifty-two points was managed, has
not yet been explained.
The strange scene of Setna being sunk into the ground portion by
portion, as he loses successive games, is parallel to a mysterious story
among the dervishes in Palestine. They tell how the three holy shekhs of
the Dervish orders, Bedawi, Erfa'i, and Desuki, went in succession to
Baghdad to ask for a jar of water of Paradise from the Derwisha Bint
Bari, who seems to be a sky-genius, controlling the meteors. The last
applicant, Desuki, was refused like the others; so he said, "Earth!
swallow her," and the earth swallowed her to her knees; still she gave
not the water, so he commanded the earth, and she was swallowed to her
waist; a third time she refused, and she was swallowed to her breasts;
she then asked him to marry her, which he would not; a fourth time she
refused the water and was swallowed to her neck. She then ordered a
servant to bring the water ("Palestine Exploration Statement, 1894," p.
32). The resemblance is most remarkable in two tales two thousand years
apart; and the incident of Bint Bari asking the dervish to marry her has
its connection with this tale. Had the dervish done so he
would--according to Eastern beliefs--have lost his magic power over her,
just as Setna loses his magic power by his alliance with Tabubua, to
which he is tempted by Na-nefer-ka-ptah, in order to subdue him. The
talisman here is a means of subduing magic powers, and is of more force
than that of Thoth, as Ptah is greater than he.
The fourth act recounts the overcoming of the power of Setna by
Na-nefer-ka-ptah, who causes Tabubua to lead to the loss of his superior
magic, and thus to subdue him to the magic of his rival. Ankhtaui, here
named as the place of Tabubua, was a quarter of Memphis, which is also
named as the place of the wife of Uba-aner in the first tale.
The fifth act describes the victory of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and his
requiring Setna to reunite the family in his tomb at Memphis. The
contrast between Ahura's pious ascription to Ptah, and her husband's
chuckle at seeing his magic successful, is remarkable. Setna at once
takes the position of an inferior by addressing praises to
Na-nefer-ka-ptah: after which the tomb became bright as it was before he
took away the magic roll. Setna then having made restitution, is
required to give some compensation as well.
The search for the tomb of Ahura and Mer-ab is a most tantalising
passage. The great cemetery of Koptos is the scene, and the search
occupies three days and nights in the catacombs and on the steles.
Further, the tomb was at the south corner of the town of Pehemato, as
Maspero doubtfully reads it. Yet this cemetery is now quite unknown, and
in spite of all the searching of the native dealers, and the examination
which I have made on the desert of both sides of the Nile, it is a
mystery where the cemetery can be. The statement that the tomb was at
the south corner of a town pretty well excludes it from the desert,
which runs north and south there. And it seems as if it might have been
in some raised land in the plain, like the spur or shoal on which the
town of Koptos was built. If so it would have been covered by the ten to
twenty feet rise of the Nile deposits since the time of its former use.
The appearance of the ancient to guide Setna gives some idea of the time
that elapsed between then and the death of Ahura. The ancient, who must
be allowed to represent two or three generations, says that his
great-grandfather knew of the burial, which would take it back to five
or six generations. This would place the death of Ahura about 150 years
before the latter part of the reign of Ramessu II., say 1225 B.C.: thus,
being taken back to about 1375 B.C., would make her belong to the
generation after Amenhotep III., agreeing well with Mer-neb-ptah, being
a corruption of the name of that king. No argument could be founded on
so slight a basis; but at least there is no contradiction in the slight
indications which we can glean.
The fear of Setna is that this apparition may have come to bring him
into trouble by leading him to attack some property in this town; and
Setna is particularly said to have restored the ground as it was before,
after removing the bodies.
The colophon at the end is unhappily rather illegible. But the
thirty-fifth year precludes its belonging to the reign of any Ptolemy,
except the IInd or the VIIIth; and by the writing Maspero attributes it
to the earlier of these reigns.